Class Development: Galaxy + Nebula + What Else?
- Thread starter DEWLine
- Start date
There are just as many design cues that link them to the Galaxy style, though. The wide-oval saucer of the Akira, the square lifeboats on the Saber, the blue-gray hull on the Saber and Steamrunner, and the big, round Bussard collectors on all four of them.
And those cues are fine. It's the cues from the more advanced designs like the Sovereign and the Nova which don't compute.
Also, if one notices, each generation of design families generally had a number of recurring layouts
Type A: The Standard "Hero" design. Saucer, neck, secondary hull and upward nacelle pylons.
I.E. Constitution, Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, Sovereign.
Type B: More compact in length, usually with downward engine pylons, a compressed secondary hull/no-neck, with optional attachment toward rear.
I.E. Miranda, Centaur, Nebula, Luna
Then, there are less common/beta-canon variants like the three-nacelle dreadnoughts, the four-nacelle variants, the odd Saucer-neck-single warp nacelle designs, among others.
Type A: The Standard "Hero" design. Saucer, neck, secondary hull and upward nacelle pylons.
I.E. Constitution, Excelsior, Ambassador, Galaxy, Sovereign.
Type B: More compact in length, usually with downward engine pylons, a compressed secondary hull/no-neck, with optional attachment toward rear.
I.E. Miranda, Centaur, Nebula, Luna
Then, there are less common/beta-canon variants like the three-nacelle dreadnoughts, the four-nacelle variants, the odd Saucer-neck-single warp nacelle designs, among others.
Chiming in to add the California-class to the mix. We'll hopefully see an NCC number at some point, and see if it can adhere to a chronological scheme or not...
Mark
Mark
If you're looking for a Galaxy spin-off design and you've got some spare saucer section just laying about, there's always this design: https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/USS-Khai-Tam-Technical-Orientation-Manual.php
...Even if we get something in the 90000 range for the Cerritos, we can then argue the poor thing is a tail-end product from a long and undistinguished line of California class vessels of 2362 origin or so. Would be fitting, too.
But the writers probably want to make the ship not just insignificant but old, too, and the way to do that is with registries. Always has been, right from NCC-1371, our very first plot-induced registry number. So I'm expecting a 60000 range rego, really. Or perhaps 50000.
Timo Saloniemi
...Okay, so NCC-75567 it is. And her interiors look more TNG than TNG Movies, down to the hologrid and the isolinear rod racks.
The shuttle is interestingly part-retro: TNG style field grids to the TOS style roundish nacelles, bolted to the angular body that has TNG-shaped windows (and Blast Shields!). Could be a predecessor to the things seen in TNG, really. But the TMP air tram makes a pseudo-cameo in the trailer (she now has an aft ramp), and there's a TOS shuttle with a wide windshield there, plus a possible homage to the Argo to boot, with a bow ramp. Looking forward to lots of recognizable techno-bits!
But yeah, we have a purebred addition to the Galaxy family here. With Nebula style slit impulse engines under the saucer lid.
Timo Saloniemi
The shuttle is interestingly part-retro: TNG style field grids to the TOS style roundish nacelles, bolted to the angular body that has TNG-shaped windows (and Blast Shields!). Could be a predecessor to the things seen in TNG, really. But the TMP air tram makes a pseudo-cameo in the trailer (she now has an aft ramp), and there's a TOS shuttle with a wide windshield there, plus a possible homage to the Argo to boot, with a bow ramp. Looking forward to lots of recognizable techno-bits!
But yeah, we have a purebred addition to the Galaxy family here. With Nebula style slit impulse engines under the saucer lid.
Timo Saloniemi
Why do I get the feeling that the USS Cerritos is the Cerrito's Auto Square hack job of a StarShip where they slap together whatever parts they could find to make it work?
To me, the Cerritos seems like it was designed intentionally to not look very "kewl" but something befitting a ship meant for unglamorous and often thankless work. It has elements of a TNG-era Starfleet ship, but if the Enterprise was a hero ship, the Cerritos is the Waterboy.
Where's the shuttlebay? We get a pretty good all-around look from the flyby shots and there are no doors. In the MSD, the location first indicated seems to be ahead of the bridge, while the actual Lower Decks are at the lower aft saucer, with Type 8 shuttle and Argo buggy symbols above them. And then there's the shuttle launch scene where the craft appears to emerge from below the saucer bow.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I'm thinking they are the little doors in the darker gray extended areas in the back of the saucer, on either side of the impulse engines.
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Those would work very nicely, yes!
The lower pod poses more of a problem than in any comparable vessel so far. The only way there physically is through some rather intensely glowing parts of the nacelles, and there's definitely somebody at home there, with the lights on. Perhaps that's where our heroes get demoted when their initial service decks are found too elevated for their skills?
Timo Saloniemi
The lower pod poses more of a problem than in any comparable vessel so far. The only way there physically is through some rather intensely glowing parts of the nacelles, and there's definitely somebody at home there, with the lights on. Perhaps that's where our heroes get demoted when their initial service decks are found too elevated for their skills?
Timo Saloniemi
Well, presumably one can get to the Enterprise-D's nacelle tube control room at the back of the nacelle, and its location is literally surrounded by the blue glowey bits... So while some acrobatics with the turbolifts are in order, (un?)fortunately we have precedent with "Discovery" that there're are ways for a lift to accomplish the feat without anyone inside knowing the difference.
Mark
Mark
There is probably some small inhabitable space down there for a maintenance crew, but I'm thinking that 99% of that module is automated photon torpedo storage, launch operations and sensor packages.
I've read where many people have been complaining that this ship suffers from Oberthitis when it comes to traversal down to that pod, but the California class is much bigger than the Oberth (at least 2/3 Galaxy size, I expect), and those pylons are definitely thick enough to house multiple dedicated turbolift shafts (never mind inter-ship beaming). The relative gravity source would be in the floor of the lift module, so there would never be any awareness on the part of the crew about spacial orientation while on their way up or down. So, yes, aside from the inherent danger about being stuck firmly within a strong TNG-era warp field, crewpersons could easily be living down there.
Talk about the ultimate suck job, though...
I've read where many people have been complaining that this ship suffers from Oberthitis when it comes to traversal down to that pod, but the California class is much bigger than the Oberth (at least 2/3 Galaxy size, I expect), and those pylons are definitely thick enough to house multiple dedicated turbolift shafts (never mind inter-ship beaming). The relative gravity source would be in the floor of the lift module, so there would never be any awareness on the part of the crew about spacial orientation while on their way up or down. So, yes, aside from the inherent danger about being stuck firmly within a strong TNG-era warp field, crewpersons could easily be living down there.
Talk about the ultimate suck job, though...
Yes, this is a huge ship. Larger than a Galaxy, it seems, by the deck count and all (the MSD and the exterior seem an excellent match). Even if there's no secondary hull.
Do we see torpedo tubes on that pod, though? We have classic TNG phaser strips in fairly logical places, and classic red-glowing impulse engines in TNG ("firing aft") rather than TNG Movie ("firing up") positions. Should these go with TNG-style prominent torpedo barrels? Or with a nondescript dark ovoid aft, and teeny weeny bits hidden by the deflector glare forward?
Timo Saloniemi
Do we see torpedo tubes on that pod, though? We have classic TNG phaser strips in fairly logical places, and classic red-glowing impulse engines in TNG ("firing aft") rather than TNG Movie ("firing up") positions. Should these go with TNG-style prominent torpedo barrels? Or with a nondescript dark ovoid aft, and teeny weeny bits hidden by the deflector glare forward?
Timo Saloniemi
I was looking for tubes but the pod always seems to be in shadow and it’s quite difficult to make out details. Hopefully we’ll see more in the next week or so, but at least we won’t have to wait very long for the real deal to start on Aug 6.
There is probably some small inhabitable space down there for a maintenance crew, but I'm thinking that 99% of that module is automated photon torpedo storage, launch operations and sensor packages.
I've read where many people have been complaining that this ship suffers from Oberthitis when it comes to traversal down to that pod, but the California class is much bigger than the Oberth (at least 2/3 Galaxy size, I expect), and those pylons are definitely thick enough to house multiple dedicated turbolift shafts (never mind inter-ship beaming). The relative gravity source would be in the floor of the lift module, so there would never be any awareness on the part of the crew about spacial orientation while on their way up or down. So, yes, aside from the inherent danger about being stuck firmly within a strong TNG-era warp field, crewpersons could easily be living down there.
Talk about the ultimate suck job, though...
It would have been funny if the schtick was that the Lower Decks crew were located at the literal bottom of the ship (i.e. that engineering pod) and that the running gag was that they had to climb a million stairs to get to the saucer section, but that's obviously not the intent. A missed opportunity, IMHO.
