Discovery Size Argument™ thread

[USS Triumphant]

I hope they use the Planet of the Titans design for 1701, only scale her as though her entire crew was the size of Giant Spock from TAS.

 

[Kemaiku]

Or, most likely there was a USS Crossfield decades ago looking like the one we saw in last years teaser. A batch were ordered, or maybe only 5. They were cancelled with the Crossfield did not meet expectations but the NCC's were allocated and never used.

Stamets was working on the Spore Drive for 12 years. Someone knew, Starfleet was helping him research it, when the war broke out and they needed it to Work Now, they built the Glenn and Discovery in 6 months in a desparate attempt to make the drive work. That part we know from the last few episodes.

Discovery 1031 and Glenn 1030 could have been sitting on a list for 50 years untouched until someone made a new design from the old Crossfield, and they built the new variation for the war effort.

 

[Gonzo]

Or, most likely there was a USS Crossfield decades ago looking like the one we saw in last years teaser. A batch were ordered, or maybe only 5. They were cancelled with the Crossfield did not meet expectations but the NCC's were allocated and never used.

Stamets was working on the Spore Drive for 12 years. Someone knew, Starfleet was helping him research it, when the war broke out and they needed it to Work Now, they built the Glenn and Discovery in 6 months in a desparate attempt to make the drive work. That part we know from the last few episodes.

Discovery 1031 and Glenn 1030 could have been sitting on a list for 50 years untouched until someone made a new design from the old Crossfield, and they built the new variation for the war effort.

That's a credible answer although the class would have required extensive redesign before construction to accommodate all the unusual requirements of the experiment.

It is also the sort of thing Section 31 would be all over.

 

[Nate]

Or, most likely there was a USS Crossfield decades ago looking like the one we saw in last years teaser. A batch were ordered, or maybe only 5. They were cancelled with the Crossfield did not meet expectations but the NCC's were allocated and never used.

Stamets was working on the Spore Drive for 12 years. Someone knew, Starfleet was helping him research it, when the war broke out and they needed it to Work Now, they built the Glenn and Discovery in 6 months in a desparate attempt to make the drive work. That part we know from the last few episodes.

Discovery 1031 and Glenn 1030 could have been sitting on a list for 50 years untouched until someone made a new design from the old Crossfield, and they built the new variation for the war effort.

I like this theory, it could also explain issues like Constellation 1017. 1017 could have been cancelled or suspended and then amended to be a Constitution. 1030/1031 could have been allocated years ago but just now built.

I know there are plenty of real life examples of US Battleships & Aircraft Carriers that were given names & hull numbers but never completed for various reasons. Not sure if any were paused & modified or finished later.

 

[shapeshifter]

As @Kemaiku says above they are fresh builds but the ship names and registries could be from older ships that are gone now, either as a homage to them or to keep the new Crossfield class ships under the radar.

But then where are the bloody A's, B's or C's?

 

[Gonzo]

But then where are the bloody A's, B's or C's?

Adding letters would be suspicious and is only needed for ships of renown, the Discovery is supposed to be a secret.

Whereas the Enterprise is the flagship at least later on and as such it pays to make sure everyone knows that.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Makes me wonder if the producers might end up saying "fuck it" and using the Kelvinverse version of the Connie anyway. That would be HIGHLY amusing.

Why not? They’ve pretty much said “fuck it” about everything else in this series so I don’t think one more will change anything. Even if it is the venerable TOS Enterprise.

 

[Timo]

That's a credible answer although the class would have required extensive redesign before construction to accommodate all the unusual requirements of the experiment.

What requirements are there, though? You don't need a spore farm (the Glenn had none). You apparently need a bit of plumbing to spray spores onto a navigator (but oddly the Discovery had that before Stamets knew they needed a navigator). You may or may not need spinning surfaces on your saucer.

"Extensive redesign" might mean just bolting on a different primary hull. Perhaps the Crossfields from 1020 through 1029 looked like the original art, perhaps they looked like the current ship but simply with a solid saucer. Perhaps they already had the spinners, for bleeding off energies from other types of scientific experiment.

Most of the redesigning would be ongoing anyway, as neither Stamets nor Straal had any real idea of what they were doing originally. But what they did would qualify their ships as rather unique, prototypes both (and independent, individual prototypes at that), even if barely a gamma-weld on the outer hull differed from the Crossfield stock.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

Stamets was threatening to take it all back on leaving Starfleet, which suggests that all the Spore drive parts can be removed and there will still be a functional starship.

 

[The Librarian]

Volumetrically, at 700 Discovery isn't a whole lot larger than the TOS Connie. I'd guess 20 to 30% at most. It's probably in a similar "weight class" as the original would have been, despite the larger mass and longer profile.

The thing is, Burnham is saying to Tilly that applying to a transfer to a Constitution class would be a step in the right direction towards the Command Path, which implies that the Connie would be a much larger and/or more prestigious assignment than a ship like Discovery. For whatever reason, the Enterprise has a much higher profile than the Discovery, so that MIGHT imply a larger and more powerful vessel.

Makes me wonder if the producers might end up saying "fuck it" and using the Kelvinverse version of the Connie anyway. That would be HIGHLY amusing.

Bigger does not me more prestigious, and vice versa. Constitutions may be prestigious because they get assigned to high risk, high reward missions (when not cruising around doing medical checkups) like the famous five-year exploration assignments. In turn they get those because they're large enough to carry out a full range of missions, but small enough that losing a bunch of them is not going to dramatically impact Starfleet's ability to function. There may be ships that are much larger but aren't able to fill that role. There could be survey ships that are huge but slow, and spend all their time sitting around one planet for months at a time, or dreadnoughts that lack a full range of scientific equipment.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Bigger does not me more prestigious, and vice versa. Constitutions may be prestigious because they get assigned to high risk, high reward missions (when not cruising around doing medical checkups) like the famous five-year exploration assignments. In turn they get those because they're large enough to carry out a full range of missions, but small enough that losing a bunch of them is not going to dramatically impact Starfleet's ability to function. There may be ships that are much larger but aren't able to fill that role. There could be survey ships that are huge but slow, and spend all their time sitting around one planet for months at a time, or dreadnoughts that lack a full range of scientific equipment.

Thing is, Discovery is said to be able to perform 300 science missions simultaneously, which is a "Starfleet record." The Constitutions probably aren't up to this record, but that's because they're general purpose vessels and not strictly "science ships." That, plus the larger crew complement from the TOS version, means they must have SOMETHING on Discovery in terms of power and/or mission capability.

 

[Tuskin38]

Constitution is used for exploration, while the Discovery/Crossfield-Class was designed for local space science, that is how I see it.

 

[Tuskin38]

Have we actually seen the discovery’s saucer through the viewscreen in any shots?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Have we actually seen the discovery’s saucer through the viewscreen in any shots?

In the latest episode, in fact.

 

[Timo]

Good planning there - the window-viewscreen is positioned advantageously high so that it takes unusual top-down angles to bring the saucer into view.

What's funny about the Discovery design is the supersized warp nacelles. We never hear that speed would be one of the design attributes of this class. Why are her engines like that? For a science ship that doesn't need to be superfast, wouldn't one of the obvious design choices or tradeoffs be "not a single extra meter or kilogram into warp engines"? I find it very difficult to see longer equaling cheaper.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

I wonder if the Constitutions change their status post-war. Gain a larger crew for missions like Kirk's with 400+ as oppose to whatever Pike was doing with 200+ people.

I wonder if they redesigned her warp drives to compensate if the Spore Drive drops them someplace and than fails. They would need a fast get away, but not a sustained high speed.

 

[Tuskin38]

In the latest episode, in fact.

Hm, I missed that.

 

[publiusr]

The Discovery saucer reminds me a bit of MJ's very early Enterprise--look at the domes

 

[Gonzo]

The Discovery saucer reminds me a bit of MJ's very early Enterprise--look at the domes

Absolutely and I like the size comparison as well it looks about right.

Would be nice to have a definitive answer on the size, would be easier to map everything out as we have seen many parts of the ship already.

 

[UssGlenn]

Discovery 1031 and Glenn 1030 could have been sitting on a list for 50 years untouched until someone made a new design from the old Crossfield, and they built the new variation for the war effort.

I like the idea of the registry numbers being reserved, but I don't think the names should be attached, otherwise you could accidentally retire retire some really good starship names. Discovery and Glenn both being good examples.