I was all for the design when it came out in the original promo. I like the polished design though I would change the following: Constitution-like saucer shape. Slap some paint on that bad boy. Cylindrical shorter nacelles. Make it smaller. Replace the window with a proper viewscreen. No spore drive and spinny bits.
^ This show seems to have some kind of personal vendetta against round nacelles, opting for angular Sovereign-class ones instead. Sad!
The bridge sphere not wholly connecting to the saucer and long nacelles could be homages to these design elements from early Enterprise concepts by Matt Jefferies. bridge module http://ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/wp-content/uploads/2005/07/Jefferies-saucer-Enterprise2.png The nacelles (upper right corner): https://slightlywarped.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/808140e9955acc42a40b797ab3b22d40.jpg
The Ent-D is literally iconic? No. The original NCC-1701 is the only ST hero ship that could plausibly claim icon status ("a widely known symbol"), but even that is debatable. The original is on exhibit in the Smithsonian, so it arguably is iconic. The Ent-D? Not so much. By the way, popular recognition of the Ent-D will derive from the recognizability of the original.
Probably so when a Constitution-class comes out of warp, it will be instantly noticeably different from everything else in the fleet. The truly special ships that everyone wants to serve on.
Oh man, the D is ICONIC for me as a 90tys kid who grow up with TNG, i like the original really (REFITS ARE STILL BETTER ) and she is the Bluprint for every other Starfleed-Ship but you can´t say something like that, you hurt my feelings But i know what you mean. trump is exhibited in madame tussauds... and he´s def. not iconic.
John Eaves implied they have a specific reason why none of the ships so far have round nacelles. Also none of the nacelles we've seen bare any resemblance to the sovereign's.
The fun thing about the nacelles so far is that every single one of them has that triumvirate of domes in front: smallLARGEsmall. It's as if Starfleet for the 1000-1400 registry range for a rare once was able to scrape together enough funds to standardize, either from the get-go or then in the form of a fleetwide commonalizing refit. Perhaps those rust buckets of Constitution class (low 1000 range) never quite deserved inclusion in this refit, and the second batch was built to maximum commonality with the old-timers so that the outdated set of spares would see at least some use? Timo Saloniemi
He said he was ordered specifically to not use round nacelles, whether that means the writers have a good reason for that, or just a producer with an arbitrary aesthetic preference is up for debate.
The Gagarin's are boxy, nothing like those classes. They look like the Prometheus' The Shenzhou's are flat with no visible Bussard collector's like the Miranda and Connie-Refit.
Discounting the rotating saucer, which I can't find a reason for, this Discovery bears an uncanny resemblance to a ship design from the Star Trek manual titled 'USS Enterprise Officer's Manual', printed in 1980. Both have saucers, both have the triangular engineering section and both have engine nacelles tho Discovery's design has them extend much further aft. Also, the design in the manual labled that design as 'obsolete', stardate 7412.1. I'm certainly not saying both designs are one and the same; just an uncanny resemblence. Perhaps someone on CBS staff used this manual design as inspiration.
I would bet my wee bairns that @Ithekro is dead on, here. They're saving up for when the Enterprise or one of her sisters inevitably makes a cameo, just like in "Trials and Tribble-ations" (DS9) and "In A Mirror, Darkly" (ENT).
It is known that is exactly were they started with the design of USS Discovery. That design was meant for Star Trek: Planet of the Titans, a motion picture concept from the 1970s prior to the start of production on Star Trek: Phase II, which lead into the actual Motion Picture in the late 70s. That design was to be the USS Enterprise in the new series. That was eventually dropped and the Phase II Enterprise was started, and later finished as the Refit Enterprise in TMP. The study model for Planet of the Titans was used in Star Trek III and in TNG a few times as a background ship. Star Trek: Discovery brought the design back and modified it a couple of times before getting to what is in the show now. The added rotating parts are suppose to be something related to the Spore Drive. Either to allow it to be stable in motion, to compensate for the rapid rotation, or to bleed off excessive energy or spores in the jumps.
I'm sure someone else must have already raised this idea, though I haven't noticed it: I wonder if we can/should think that the teaser version of the ship was the original configuration of the Crossfield class, from which Glenn and Discovery were refitted? Discovery is suggested to be "brand new" and "designed around" the spore drive, but this could be in the same sense that the NCC-1701 in TMP was "an almost totally new Enterprise" built around "redesigned" engines that hadn't yet been tested. And that might explain why Glenn and Discovery are/were the only ships of their kind, despite neither being the class ship Crossfield. In other words, the revamp of the ship that took place out-of-universe also took place in-universe. Thoughts? -MMoM