Age of the Federation....

[Nerroth]

In terms of how advanced ENT was supposed to be relative to TOS, I might note that In a Mirror, Darkly shows a more advanced NX-class hull type to that seen in the "Prime" timeline (due to the Terran Empire's pilfering of Vulcan technology) - and how even then, it was not nearly enough to prevent a wayward Constitution-class ship from tearing one to pieces in fairly short order, after having scythed its way through Tholian and rebel opposition beforehand.

-----

On the topic of how TOS itself represents the UFP, I find it interesting to see how it, and the Star Fleet Technical Manual, can be interpreted in different ways through different subsequent works - not least over in the Star Fleet Universe.

Spoiler

In the SFU, the on-screen material permitted for use in that setting is treated as a "tri-video dramatization" of events sourced from the "U.S. Air Force data tapes" (the same ones used as a conceit in the Star Fleet Technical Manual itself).

The default SFU "Y-calendar" sets First Contact between Earth and Vulcan in Y1. But there is no clear consensus on what "old Earth calendar" year this is supposed to match. The "Valkenburg Chronology" arbitrarily sets this event in 2400 AD; the "Amin-Audeh Chronology" sets it in 2063 AD; while the default Y-calendar assumes that the precise "old Earth calendar" date cannot be known.

In any case, this timeline has the "five-year mission" occur roughly between Y154 and Y159; the prior incident at Talos IV happened in Y142.

While the earliest iteration of the UFP was formed in Y4, the United Star Fleet was not established until Y71. Even then, it took a new iteration of warp drive technology in Y79 before the process of consolidation really got underway. The first "saucer-and-nacelle" hulls in the Federation were purpose-built for Star Fleet, and were more advanced than their Terran, Andorian, or other "single-planet" predecessors. (The SFU has its own Earth ship designs, but the NX-01 is not among them.) And just as importantly, they used a set of common components which every member planet could assemble and support equally. (A few Vulcan technologies had to wait until the Y120s, and the onset of the next leap in starship design, before Star Fleet could fully incorporate them.)

The various planetary fleets which had served prior to Star Fleet's formation were gradually phased out on paper, but each major world kept a few squadrons "to facilitate training". In Y112, these were formalized as the National Guards; these forces tended to use "hand-me-downs" from the prior generation of Star Fleet hull types. When the first Constitution-class ships entered service, a number of the Republic-class cruisers they superseded were refitted and passed over to the National Guards; who in turn phased out the old "planetary" ships they had held on to beforehand.

In the SFU, UESPA is the exploration arm of UEDOR, the United Earth Defense Organization (or "Earth National Guard"); Star Fleet ships are occasionally "loaned" out to UESPA and to equivalent agencies, for research missions of particular interest to institutions based on a given member world.

Star Fleet itself wears many hats; while the Second Fleet has the most specialized survey ships and the most exploration-oriented focus, each of the numbered fleets performs a wide range of duties within their respective operating areas. Third Fleet patrols the Klingon Border, Sixth Fleet covers the Romulan border, etc.

There is also a separate Federation Police force, which acts as a "deep space coast guard" (and has its own ships separate from those in Star Fleet).

My point here is not to go too far off into a tangent over the SFU, but rather to note how the material presented in TOS (in full or in part) can be, and has been, used to help map out the evolution of the United Federation of Planets in different directions to how later Franchise works (and Franchise-derived novels) have done.

 

[Ithekro]

Also we have seen several of those 1970s and 1980s takes on what the Federation was applied by various authors later on, when an older influence comes forward in the writing. Or when the 1970s and early 80s fans started working on Star Trek professionally.

 

[johnnybear]

Bakula looks likes Winkler? Never noticed that.

According to her it's the same man and who am I to argue?
JB

 

[johnnybear]

In what way? They brought back the TOS division colors. They featured two TOS races prominently. Other TOS races were featured and mentioned as well. Christopher mentioned all the TOS nods in the ship's design. Other TOS nods were incorporated into the art direction and prop design.
I've never done a complete rewatch of Enterprise since the show ended, just an episode here and there. Most of this was quite noticable on my first watch.

Maybe if they had of done that sixties approach it might have resonated a little more?
JB

 

[Christopher]

According to her it's the same man and who am I to argue?
JB

Err, someone who has access to Wikipedia and IMDb?

 

[J.T.B.]

Sure, but if someone today did a Marvel comic that were a prequel to, say, Fantastic Four #1, it would be drawn in a modern, highly detailed, digitally colored style rather than the simpler drawing style and cruder printing used in the '60s. Of course it evolved forward because it is made later in the real world. It makes no sense to expect the makers of something modern to lower their standards to those used half a century ago just because the work of fiction they're creating is set earlier.

I don't disagree, I used the word "expectations" but that was related to viewer conceptions, not to predicting how the actual production would be handled. Still, above it was said that the ENT hero ship was required to be based on the Akira model, a choice that is not related to technical standards. To me, running light details and lettering type don't counteract such un-TOS-like details as the "hood scoop," bulkier swept nacelle struts, glowing non-dish-shaped "dish," etc.

Which is not to say I think those decisions were "wrong," they just don't work for me personally. As it happened, neither did the whole show, so it doesn't really matter much to me.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, I definitely would've preferred an NX-01 that looked more like the Daedalus class (or had actually been that class). Berman and Braga's insistence on an Akira-like design was strange, but I'm grateful that Doug Drexler and the other designers were able to sneak through as many period-appropriate details and TOS nods as they did. And regardless of the exterior ship design, I think the interior design was magnificent, the best set and technology design the franchise has ever had.

(For what it's worth, though, I think the Akira is a hideous ship and I don't understand its appeal at all, but the NX-class is a much more aesthetically pleasing, far better-proportioned take on the same basic structure. It's like the difference between a racehorse and a hippopotamus.)

 

[johnnybear]

Err, someone who has access to Wikipedia and IMDb?

Well she has access to it as well and she's still convinced! I asked her about Bakula's height and she says he's wearing platform shoes!
JB

 

[Christopher]

That's incredibly weird. Winkler and Bakula don't look or sound anything alike. Winkler is nearly a decade older. And Bakula was acting on Broadway while Winkler was starring in Happy Days; Bakula didn't have his first TV role until two years after Happy Days ended.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Maybe if they had of done that sixties approach it might have resonated a little more?
JB

If they wanted the show to come off as campy and cheap that might have worked. Doing something retro is very tricky especially for a show like Star Trek that is supposed to look forward. Even in TMP they abandoned all but the most basic elements to make a film that looked "current" and not a 60s throwback.

 

[Christopher]

If they wanted the show to come off as campy and cheap that might have worked. Doing something retro is very tricky especially for a show like Star Trek that is supposed to look forward. Even in TMP they abandoned all but the most basic elements to make a film that looked "current" and not a 60s throwback.

Exactly. Roddenberry didn't want the show to look dated or retro. He wanted it to look futuristic, but there were budgetary and technological limitations on his ability to achieve that. TMP was his attempt to make the universe look more like he felt it should've looked all along. (That's why his TMP novelization advanced the conceit that TOS had been an inaccurate dramatization of Kirk's "real" adventures and that TMP was a more authentic dramatization made in consultation with Admiral Kirk.)

 

[Silvercrest]

According to her it's the same man and who am I to argue?
JB

You're her husband! It's your job to argue!

 

[johnnybear]

You're her husband! It's your job to argue!

But would I dare to? Nah it's easier to agree to be honest and I somewhat agree with her these days anyway!
JB

 

[The Old Mixer]

Show her this:

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[Longinus]

Oh, I definitely would've preferred an NX-01 that looked more like the Daedalus class (or had actually been that class).

Hell no! I'd have preferred NX to look slightly more primitive, but Daedalus is completely unusable. The thing has a bottle as a secondary hull and the whole design is just hideous. A hero ship in a TV show needs to look good.

 

[Timo]

...OTOH, the Daedalus would have been perfectly all right as ENT's designated damsel-in-distress starship, filling the Oberth niche!

Plus, the Daedalus looks shamelessly good in certain Romulan War computer games, as a contingency vessel akin to the Flower corvettes of WWII.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Hell no! I'd have preferred NX to look slightly more primitive, but Daedalus is completely unusable. The thing has a bottle as a secondary hull and the whole design is just hideous. A hero ship in a TV show needs to look good.

It wouldn't have had to look exactly like the Daedalus miniature used as set dressing. After all, that model was never meant to be examined closely. If they'd used it as a hero ship, then naturally they would've refined the design. New designers aren't compelled to use older designs slavishly -- just look at all the different Klingon or Andorian makeups over the decades. One can stay true to the general concept of a design while reworking its details extensively.

On Ex Astris Scientia's page about the Daedalus, there's a conjectural redesign by M. Christopher Freeman, which uses the basic shape of the established model combined with details consistent with the NX class, on the theory that maybe the model on Sisko's desk was just a rough approximation of the real thing. I think it's a great improvement both aesthetically and functionally, and I tend to imagine that the upgraded Daedalus-class ships in use in my Rise of the Federation novels look a lot like that drawing.

 

[Longinus]

On Ex Astris Scientia's page about the Daedalus, there's a conjectural redesign by M. Christopher Freeman, which uses the basic shape of the established model combined with details consistent with the NX class, on the theory that maybe the model on Sisko's desk was just a rough approximation of the real thing.

Great redesign, but it still shows that the basic shape is just ungainly. Certainly too ugly as a hero ship. That could have made a great 'damsel' ship as Timo suggested, though.

 

[Timo]

After all, that model was never meant to be examined closely.

And even if it was, we could argue it was something Jake Sisko put together out of stuff lying around in his room - a decent likeness but not one that would have been striving to be accurate in the first place even in-universe.

There's grace to how these things fly and fight in ST:Legacy. Say,

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A lesser modification than Freeman's, perhaps even something we could argue to be a refit in the TOS vs. TMP tradition, or even TOS pilots vs. TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Honestly, I think NX-01's shape is more ungainly. I like its details, but it's basically a Constitution-class shape without a secondary hull, and I've always found that to be out of proportion. The nacelles go upward from the center plane, but there's nothing going downward to balance them visually. So it feels like there's a piece missing. And the ship is just too flat overall. I suspect Doug Drexler may have felt the same, which was why he did his conjectural NX-refit design with a secondary hull (a design I've incorporated into my novels as the Columbia class).

Again, though, even if they had used the Daedalus class, the designers would've been under no obligation to use the shape of that model in Sisko's office. After all, that model was never canonically referred to as a Daedalus-class ship. That class was mentioned by name only in TNG: "Power Play," and the name was never explicitly tied to that model onscreen, only in the Chronology and Encyclopedia, which were never binding on canon. (Recall that the first edition of the Chronology put Cochrane's first warp flight two years earlier than First Contact did and portrayed a different ship design than the Phoenix.) So they could've gone with a design for the Daedalus class that used the basic spherical-hull concept (based on one of Jefferies's early Enterprise designs) but altered its details and proportions considerably.

Or, heck, they could've still called it the NX class but used a sphere-hull design that would presumably be the forerunner of the Daedalus. That might've made more sense, given that the Essex from "Power Play" dated from the 2160s, more than a decade after ENT. (Although the ENT novels before mine established the Daedalus class as an older one predating the NX class, for some reason.)