Dimensions for Discovery...

[TJ Sinclair]

Do we know the size of the Discovery and the Shenzhou? I've been trying for a couple of days to find anything online, and the only thing I've turned up is a reference to the next issue of Eaglemoss' Discovery starships collection magazine which apparently puts the ship at over 700 meters, roughly on par with the official size of the Kelvin timeline Enterprise, and bigger than the Enterprise-E.

That seems...more than a bit excessive to me. If that's accurate, I'd hate to think of the size of the Sarcophagus.

 

[The Librarian]

The Eaglemoss lengths are correct. They're drawn directly from the original models and are the same ones used for other materials like STO. Keep in mind that much of that length is from the nacelles, and that the main hulls are also very thin. In volume, Discovery is bigger than the Constitution class, but only marginally larger than Excelsior.

 

[TJ Sinclair]

That is...disconcerting.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Do we know the size of the Discovery and the Shenzhou? I've been trying for a couple of days to find anything online, and the only thing I've turned up is a reference to the next issue of Eaglemoss' Discovery starships collection magazine which apparently puts the ship at over 700 meters, roughly on par with the official size of the Kelvin timeline Enterprise, and bigger than the Enterprise-E.

That seems...more than a bit excessive to me. If that's accurate, I'd hate to think of the size of the Sarcophagus.

The Eaglemoss sizes are accurate, and are being used in Star Trek Online.

I'm pretty sure their baseline for the Discovery size is the ancient fandom Arial-class shuttlecarrier, which was also based on the Planet of the Titans Enterprise study model. Here's a comparison of it's size and that of USS Discovery, the biggest difference is in Discovery's crazily long nacelles:

And yes, the Klingon ships are enourmous. The destroyer is at least twice the length of the 423m Shenzhou, and the Ship of the Dead is in the same league as the 5-mile-long Narada from ST'09.

 

[TJ Sinclair]

And yes, the Klingon ships are enourmous. The destroyer is at least twice the length of the 423m Shenzhou, and the Ship of the Dead is in the same league as the 5-mile-long Narada from ST'09.

I really wish modern producers weren't so enamored with the "Star Wars" scale of things...

In any case, I'll take it as it is. Not in love with it, but oh well.

It always felt like -- and I realize this is just an impression, and not "canon" -- that part of what made the Constitution-class vessels so imposing and scary back in TOS was their size. They were big, powerful ships, and while yes, I know that size and power aren't necessarily correlative, it's just the impression that TOS gave that the sheer size and scale of the Enterprise was what led to people saying things like "you don't know what your'e dealing with, that's a starship!"

To see ships that much bigger than the Connies a decade before TOS just feels off, whether or not it's "plausible."

Heck, later, when everyone saw Excelsior for the first time, they were awed by her...partially because she was enormous, and virtually dwarfed the Enterprise.

Please understand... I'm not saying Discovery is wrong. But there are moments where it feels wrong, in these kinds of respects.

 

[Ronald Held]

Could be larger ships then Connies,but with different mission goals?

 

[Timo]

This just ties in to the eternal debate of whether Kirk actually was special, back in the days of TOS. And whether his ship had anything at all to do with it.

There aren't actual examples in TOS of the size of Kirk's ship mattering to anybody. It doesn't impress, it doesn't embarrass. Kirk's ride being a "starship" is significant, but you do know what they call the one who graduates last in his Academy class?

DSC now goes explicit on Kirk/Pike riding a smallish ship. And it has already gone explicit on Pike being a great hero captain. We don't know if Pike earned that rep aboard NCC-1701 or perhaps an earlier, even smaller command. But we have no reason to think Pike downgraded from a larger ship, so the connection between hero credentials and ship size is either lost here, or made explicit as actually tying great heroes to small ships.

(...Except for the single other skipper on that list whose hero background we are aware of, Archer, who did fly the biggest and baddest ship of the day. But he never managed to impress anybody with the size of his ride, either.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

It always felt like -- and I realize this is just an impression, and not "canon" -- that part of what made the Constitution-class vessels so imposing and scary back in TOS was their size. They were big, powerful ships, and while yes, I know that size and power aren't necessarily correlative, it's just the impression that TOS gave that the sheer size and scale of the Enterprise was what led to people saying things like "you don't know what your'e dealing with, that's a starship!"

To see ships that much bigger than the Connies a decade before TOS just feels off, whether or not it's "plausible."

Heck, later, when everyone saw Excelsior for the first time, they were awed by her...partially because she was enormous, and virtually dwarfed the Enterprise.

Please understand... I'm not saying Discovery is wrong. But there are moments where it feels wrong, in these kinds of respects.

That was the intent of the TOS producers that the Enterprise be "the largest and most modern vessel in the Starfleet Service":

 

[Ronald Held]

This just ties in to the eternal debate of whether Kirk actually was special, back in the days of TOS. And whether his ship had anything at all to do with it.

There aren't actual examples in TOS of the size of Kirk's ship mattering to anybody. It doesn't impress, it doesn't embarrass. Kirk's ride being a "starship" is significant, but you do know what they call the one who graduates last in his Academy class?

DSC now goes explicit on Kirk/Pike riding a smallish ship. And it has already gone explicit on Pike being a great hero captain. We don't know if Pike earned that rep aboard NCC-1701 or perhaps an earlier, even smaller command. But we have no reason to think Pike downgraded from a larger ship, so the connection between hero credentials and ship size is either lost here, or made explicit as actually tying great heroes to small ships.

(...Except for the single other skipper on that list whose hero background we are aware of, Archer, who did fly the biggest and baddest ship of the day. But he never managed to impress anybody with the size of his ride, either.)

Timo Saloniemi

did I miss that Pike was a great hero is the last episode?

 

[The Librarian]

He was listed as one of Starfleet's most decorated captains in another episode, and the Constitution class in general and the Enterprise in particular were called out as the most prestigious postings in the fleet.

 

[Timo]

To be more accurate:

- Pike was considered part of a very short (and alphabetical) list of "decorated captains" back in "Choose Your Pain", alongside April, Archer, Decker and Georgiou.
- Of those, only Archer is directly associated with a single starship of known size; all the others could have been decorated for their captaincy of some other vessel than the one traditionally mentioned in connection with their name.
- The Constitution class was only mentioned twice in DSC before the season finale: Burnham considered it a smart career move for somebody aspiring to command, and mentioned it offhand as the class identity of the Defiant (a fact confirmed by an onscreen graphic).
- No prestige was associated with the class in either case, only the utility of such in career ascension.
- In the season finale, three people react to Pike's name: the comms officer, Burnham and Sarek. The first doesn't even know Pike flies the Enterprise, or at least Burnham feels it her duty to point out this fact to him and everybody else. And she and Sarek probably react to the fact that Spock is now nearby rather than to Pike's identity or reputation.

In the other spinoffs, only the E-D has ever been specified as a prestigious posting. And only the Romulans ever attached any specific fame to the name Enterprise in TOS or TAS, or to the name Kirk in TAS. Of course, both Kirk and his ship became popular in the TOS movie era, but nobody hinted at it being prestigious to join Kirk's crew or to serve on the Enterprise in that era. To the contrary, the ship was a has-been, a training-dedicated vessel that came to an end before the issue of serving aboard her arose for any character.

In contrast, the idea that Pike might be a legendary hero is in keeping with "The Menagerie" where his medical condition is the gossip of the entire fleet. Of course, the TOS episode did not make the actual claim that Pike would be famous, but this meshes well with the DSC revelation. We simply now learn that Pike's legend began before 2256, rather than perhaps beign born shortly before the TOS episode.

Timo Saloniemi