Hi folks,
I've been wondering if Cardassian shipwrights are getting a bad rap. The literature online implies that the Galor class are nothing particularly special, being considered inferior in combat capability to an Ambassador in the early years and never really wowing anyone, even during the latter seasons of DS9 where the biggest change appeared to be a different colour light bulb behind the big glowy thing at the front. The Keldor (check spelling) were basically a Galor with a luggage rack and, apparently, an increase in firepower, but still got bounced in large numbers and, along with their more numerous Galor half-siblings, usually played the role of big dramatic burning space wreck that signalled the beginning of a really big space battle. Real cannon fodder. Once the Cardassian ships were all destroyed the Feds, Romulans and Klingons got down to business destroying Dominion ships.
But hang on. I vividly recall the first time I saw a Cardy ship. First thing I thought was "hey look, someone else agrees with Starfleet about ship design!"
Why should I think this? Because the Cardassian's build ships with a primary and secondary hull and on the face of it, appear to divide command and engineering functions between the hulls in the same way that the Feds do. So we have a small, rounded command hull up top projecting well forwards of a large engineering hull below, which contains what must be a deflector (even if phasers sometimes come out of it - but I'll come to that later), and the warp drives (of which we only see the extreme ends - the glowing bits - as they're embedded in the hull).
There's a difference in size, yes. That just means that most of the Cardassians have their living quarters in the engineering hull instead. But if you look, you notice still more similarities. The impulse engines at the rear of the command hull, for instance.
It's also got a really big belly underneath, behind the deflector-like thing. I imagine that the rear aspect of this big square underside has hangar doors in it, which makes it more analogous to the traditional Starfleet layout as made famous by the Constitution class, with a large hangar located behind the deflector, at the aft end of the secondary hull.
Now, a further correlation. Cardassians appear to have thought of at least one technological innovation that the Feds came up with in the heat of the moment. We've seen the Enterprise fire a hastily cobbled together superweapon through it's deflector at a Borg cube. We constantly see Cardassian ships firing a phaser-like weapon through their deflector-like feature at the front. I imagine this is done because the Cardassians use their deflector to mount a really powerful forward firing weapon of some kind.
Clearly the Cardassian's are quite pleased with this layout. They even use the hull silhouette as a logo, a fact I found easy to explain with reference to Star Trek: Enterprise in which crewmembers wear mission patches depicting the outline of the ship type on which they serve.
So, do we disregard Cardassian design without justification? Or do we just think that shiny mustard yellow is a crap colour for anything that isn't a giant flying pyramid for a space faring Eqyptian god?
Cheers,
I've been wondering if Cardassian shipwrights are getting a bad rap. The literature online implies that the Galor class are nothing particularly special, being considered inferior in combat capability to an Ambassador in the early years and never really wowing anyone, even during the latter seasons of DS9 where the biggest change appeared to be a different colour light bulb behind the big glowy thing at the front. The Keldor (check spelling) were basically a Galor with a luggage rack and, apparently, an increase in firepower, but still got bounced in large numbers and, along with their more numerous Galor half-siblings, usually played the role of big dramatic burning space wreck that signalled the beginning of a really big space battle. Real cannon fodder. Once the Cardassian ships were all destroyed the Feds, Romulans and Klingons got down to business destroying Dominion ships.
But hang on. I vividly recall the first time I saw a Cardy ship. First thing I thought was "hey look, someone else agrees with Starfleet about ship design!"
Why should I think this? Because the Cardassian's build ships with a primary and secondary hull and on the face of it, appear to divide command and engineering functions between the hulls in the same way that the Feds do. So we have a small, rounded command hull up top projecting well forwards of a large engineering hull below, which contains what must be a deflector (even if phasers sometimes come out of it - but I'll come to that later), and the warp drives (of which we only see the extreme ends - the glowing bits - as they're embedded in the hull).
There's a difference in size, yes. That just means that most of the Cardassians have their living quarters in the engineering hull instead. But if you look, you notice still more similarities. The impulse engines at the rear of the command hull, for instance.
It's also got a really big belly underneath, behind the deflector-like thing. I imagine that the rear aspect of this big square underside has hangar doors in it, which makes it more analogous to the traditional Starfleet layout as made famous by the Constitution class, with a large hangar located behind the deflector, at the aft end of the secondary hull.
Now, a further correlation. Cardassians appear to have thought of at least one technological innovation that the Feds came up with in the heat of the moment. We've seen the Enterprise fire a hastily cobbled together superweapon through it's deflector at a Borg cube. We constantly see Cardassian ships firing a phaser-like weapon through their deflector-like feature at the front. I imagine this is done because the Cardassians use their deflector to mount a really powerful forward firing weapon of some kind.
Clearly the Cardassian's are quite pleased with this layout. They even use the hull silhouette as a logo, a fact I found easy to explain with reference to Star Trek: Enterprise in which crewmembers wear mission patches depicting the outline of the ship type on which they serve.
So, do we disregard Cardassian design without justification? Or do we just think that shiny mustard yellow is a crap colour for anything that isn't a giant flying pyramid for a space faring Eqyptian god?
Cheers,
