Daedelus class sphere and disk

[publiusr]

Clunky might be good for a ship of the week when you want something looking vulnerable.

A way to sell the tragedy of the M-5 exercise might have been for one of the four other ships to be a Daedalus on one last outing…or for it to be the Woden.

“It’s just an exercise, Enterprise will be pulling her punches…it’ll be fine.”

The clunky look makes it more helpless.

 

[scotpens]

I don’t know if the 2010 Discovery was the same size as the original. I seem to recall the original being quite large.

IIRC, two Discovery models were used in the original film. The one used for the famous long tracking shot was over 50 feet long, while the smaller one was about 9 feet.

 

[Warped9]

To my eyes this just looks goofy. And it looks like a basic concept that hasn’t been fleshed out yet. The support pylons attached to the neck also look wrong as well as attaching too far forward on the nacelles.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Some of Jefferies concepts -which unfortunately I can't post a picture of- have three flattened and curved nacelle-like outriggers attached to a cylindrical hull, and although I don't recall whether he ever combined this with a spherical primary hull, it always seemed to me that such a combination would make a pretty cool looking ship, with each element complimenting the other.

 

[C.E. Evans]

To me, the Daedalus-class was never meant to look cool but utilitarian. It was supposed to look simple and less refined than the TOS Enterprise, IMO, but you could see where it might have been an early precursor to the Constitution-class. I would like to think that after the Romulan Wars, the Daedalus-class might have been favored over the NX-class because it was quicker & easier to build and could be produced in fairly large numbers for a then fledgling Federation.

 

[Warped9]

I think it’s worth remembering Jefferies was trying to design a hero ship for Roddenberry’s series. To that end he was exploring different ideas to lead him to something that would fit the bill. Obviously the discarded spherical design, among others, didn’t cut it.

Later Jefferies and others would design other ships to be depicted onscreen and in each case they sought something that was cool or beautiful in its own right.

I don’t acknowledge ENT as the same continuity as TOS, but regardless its creators wanted a hero ship that was good looking onscreen. It’s no surprise they rejected anything looking like Jefferies discarded spherical concept likely largely because it doesn’t look good.

I’m reasonably assured if Jefferies had been tasked with designing a precursor decades to centuries old to the Enterprise he would have made sure it looked good. He wouldn’t have taken a rough sketched idea and called it a day. The Botany Bay is evidence of that as he evidently put a fair bit of thought into something that would be seen only briefly in an episode.

And if Jefferies had opted to reuse his spherical concept I’m pretty sure he’d have found a way to make it look good in its own right rather than look like a half baked idea.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Photo of USS Discovery model from 2010: The Year We Make Contact at MPOP in Seattle.

 

[publiusr]

Some of Jefferies concepts -which unfortunately I can't post a picture of- have three flattened and curved nacelle-like outriggers attached to a cylinder

These here?
https://forgottentrek.com/the-original-series/designing-the-first-enterprise/

I could see a variation as a tanker…think “Seawise Giant.”

The Malon ships from Voyager looked quite solid:
https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/shipcollection/malon-export-views.jpg

….I wonder…
https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/man-from-atlantis-cetacean-submarine

Multiple spheres change a spindly design (great for a ship in trouble, storytelling wise) into a bully.

Malon vessels to me looked second only to Borg cubes in terms of durability….something Weyland-Yutani would send to Saturn’s moon Titan to drain its seas of methane and high-test….or a certain neutronic fuel carrier?

Something like that would be the only Earthship I could accept as being larger than TOS Enterprise

 

[aridas sofia]

To my eyes this just looks goofy. And it looks like a basic concept that hasn’t been fleshed out yet. The support pylons attached to the neck also look wrong as well as attaching too far forward on the nacelles.

Just my 2¢ worth, but I disagree with you on the particulars. I think this design looks spartan and utilitarian. It does not however, look 100 years primitive from an engineering point of view. We get three (sort of) data points from Jefferies with which to build a purist, Jefferies-esque, starship timeline, and those are the DY-100, the ringship XCV-330, and this. To be fair, he shows this with plain, cylindrical nacelles. It’s only when you try to go from two big rings on the first Enterprise (XCV) to two nacelles on 1701 that you run into a visual problem. There’s no clear “glider to propeller to jet” that I believe would be how Jefferies would have gone had HE fleshed this Daedalus idea out more. Say, for “Balance of Terror”, “Piece of the Action” or “Return of the Archons”. The sphere is great for this purpose - it really communicates primitiveness and utility - but it’s the nacelles that need work to look even more primitive and closer to their ringship ancestors.

And - hint - to better balance the visual weight of the sphere up front.

 

[TIN_MAN]

These here?
https://forgottentrek.com/the-original-series/designing-the-first-enterprise/

No, none of those. The ones I'm thinking of can be found at Trekcore, but I can't seem to get onto that website at the moment, it seems to be down. None of the other sites I can find seem to show the concepts I have in mind.

Edit to add; the concept in the upper right corner of the lower group of concepts in the link below is the one I'm thinking of, but I suggest replacing the saucer with a sphere for a more balanced design.
http://fsd.trekships.org/art/images/de-5.gif

 

[aridas sofia]

No, none of those. The ones I'm thinking of can be found at Trekcore, but I can't seem to get onto that website at the moment, it seems to be down. None of the other sites I can find seem to show the concepts I have in mind.

Edit to add; the concept in the upper right corner of the lower group of concepts in the link below is the one I'm thinking of, but I suggest replacing the saucer with a sphere for a more balanced design.
http://fsd.trekships.org/art/images/de-5.gif

I love that design. Years ago I drew a Romulan War-era Centaurian starship based on that sketch, changing the main hull somewhat.

 

[Shawnster]

Perhaps Jefferies got some initial inspiration from this 1953 cover art