First Look - The Destiny

[Kpnuts]

In other words, whichever designer who worked on them didn't do a very good job.

Nope. It means you didn't like what they designed, end of story. I mean, it looks like all you like are ships with smooth surfaces or something. That's cool, but to say only ships with smooth surfaces are the results of good design work is ridiculous.

No, I'm not at all saying that only ships with smooth surfaces are well designed. How did you get that from what I said?

I'm saying the Ancient ship has no design. It is simply the result of 10 seconds of thought from the designer, let's make a long tube like ship, add some boxes and greebles everywhere and we're done. Horrible.

But hey if you like lots of random boxes because they make the ship 'look complicated', then that's your preference.

My point was that for the Ancients, the ONCE impressive mysterious incredibly powerful race who built the Stargate system... having their ships looks like garbage transports is a little big of a letdown.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Yeah... There is no overall design philosophy for the Ancient technology seen on the show.

There is no visual clue that the same civilization created Atlantis (the city and spacecraft, futuristic and smooth), the Ancient ships (aurora?, crude and rectangular), the puddle jumpers, the stargates themselves even.

Just zero design lineage. It just is what the designer thought looked cool at the time.

 

[PG15]

It's funny that you'd say that, because if you take a very close look at some of the Destiny stuff, you can see a clear sign of Ori designs. I thought that was pretty cool.

In other words, whichever designer who worked on them didn't do a very good job.

Nope. It means you didn't like what they designed, end of story. I mean, it looks like all you like are ships with smooth surfaces or something. That's cool, but to say only ships with smooth surfaces are the results of good design work is ridiculous.

No, I'm not at all saying that only ships with smooth surfaces are well designed. How did you get that from what I said?

Pardon me, I think I overgeneralized. I concede this point.

As to where I could've gotten it; well, you don't like Aurora because of it being a tube with bumps all over it, while you like the Kelvin because of "beautiful clean lines". It kind of gave me a sense that you prefer smoothness over bumpyness.

I'm saying the Ancient ship has no design. It is simply the result of 10 seconds of thought from the designer, let's make a long tube like ship, add some boxes and greebles everywhere and we're done. Horrible.

My point was that for the Ancients, the ONCE impressive mysterious incredibly powerful race who built the Stargate system... having their ships looks like garbage transports is a little big of a letdown.

IMHO, that's because it's a warship. It should be boxy so there aren't stray bits that can be easily blown off (like the Enterprise).

It's kind of like a tank.

The Lantian branch of the Ancients were never that impressive anyway; they were more like the leftovers, the very few who managed to survive the Plague. The height of Ancient civilization occured before that.

 

[DWF]

Yeah... There is no overall design philosophy for the Ancient technology seen on the show.

There is no visual clue that the same civilization created Atlantis (the city and spacecraft, futuristic and smooth), the Ancient ships (aurora?, crude and rectangular), the puddle jumpers, the stargates themselves even.

Just zero design lineage. It just is what the designer thought looked cool at the time.

Well there are hundreds of thousands of years and even millions of years between the various Ancients ships we've seen over the years. And they've relied more and more on their stargates for travel so I don't think building starships was all that important after the creation of the stargates.

 

[Kpnuts]

It's funny that you'd say that, because if you take a very close look at some of the Destiny stuff, you can see a clear sign of Ori designs. I thought that was pretty cool.

Nope. It means you didn't like what they designed, end of story. I mean, it looks like all you like are ships with smooth surfaces or something. That's cool, but to say only ships with smooth surfaces are the results of good design work is ridiculous.

No, I'm not at all saying that only ships with smooth surfaces are well designed. How did you get that from what I said?

Pardon me, I think I overgeneralized. I concede this point.

As to where I could've gotten it; well, you don't like Aurora because of it being a tube with bumps all over it, while you like the Kelvin because of "beautiful clean lines". It kind of gave me a sense that you prefer smoothness over bumpyness.

I'm saying the Ancient ship has no design. It is simply the result of 10 seconds of thought from the designer, let's make a long tube like ship, add some boxes and greebles everywhere and we're done. Horrible.

My point was that for the Ancients, the ONCE impressive mysterious incredibly powerful race who built the Stargate system... having their ships looks like garbage transports is a little big of a letdown.

IMHO, that's because it's a warship. It should be boxy so there aren't stray bits that can be easily blown off (like the Enterprise).

It's kind of like a tank.

The Lantian branch of the Ancients were never that impressive anyway; they were more like the leftovers, the very few who managed to survive the Plague. The height of Ancient civilization occured before that.

Ok we're obviously not going to agree. In my opinion, the art director or whoever was put in charge of coming up with the starships of the gate builders, the most powerful beings in the galaxy... pretty much made the most dull, boring, uninspired piece of garbage imaginable.

Yes the fans (like yourself) can come up with reasons and explain why a ship like that makes sense, but that would be an in-universe explanation. The ships are fugly. Destiny will be the same. Big grey blocks of metal. Thankfully a little more design seems to have gone into that ship at least. The artist clearly likes doing predictable, samey designs because the same applies to Earth ships, grey ugly blocks of metal slapped together, however I concede that this at least makes a big of sense given they're of Earth origin and our first spaceships.

And for the record, I don't love the Kelvin because of it's "beautiful clean lines". I love the Kelvin because I (and I believe most fans of TrekXI) think it's a gorgeous design, and looks fantastic on the big screen.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Yeah... There is no overall design philosophy for the Ancient technology seen on the show.

There is no visual clue that the same civilization created Atlantis (the city and spacecraft, futuristic and smooth), the Ancient ships (aurora?, crude and rectangular), the puddle jumpers, the stargates themselves even.

Just zero design lineage. It just is what the designer thought looked cool at the time.

Well there are hundreds of thousands of years and even millions of years between the various Ancients ships we've seen over the years. And they've relied more and more on their stargates for travel so I don't think building starships was all that important after the creation of the stargates.

Yeah but that is IMO just bogus fanon explanations. You see, you can use that to explain away anything. We could hypothetically see a new ancient ship that just is a neon-green ball that glows in the dark - and people would still say "hundreds of thousands of years and even millions of years between the various Ancients ships"... Yeah you can say that but that still doesn't change that a neon green ball that glows in the dark would be a crappy ship design!!!

Would it hurt them to have at least *one* similarity? Because if people had been shown the 'Aurora' class ship before being told what it was, at least 95% would have said that it must be a new Earth ship class.

There is absolutely *nothing* about it that says 'i'm an advanced ship created by people so far in advance of Earth technology'. Nothing. And that is just bad design, period.

 

[DWF]

Yeah... There is no overall design philosophy for the Ancient technology seen on the show.

There is no visual clue that the same civilization created Atlantis (the city and spacecraft, futuristic and smooth), the Ancient ships (aurora?, crude and rectangular), the puddle jumpers, the stargates themselves even.

Just zero design lineage. It just is what the designer thought looked cool at the time.

Well there are hundreds of thousands of years and even millions of years between the various Ancients ships we've seen over the years. And they've relied more and more on their stargates for travel so I don't think building starships was all that important after the creation of the stargates.

Yeah but that is IMO just bogus fanon explanations. You see, you can use that to explain away anything. We could hypothetically see a new ancient ship that just is a neon-green ball that glows in the dark - and people would still say "hundreds of thousands of years and even millions of years between the various Ancients ships"... Yeah you can say that but that still doesn't change that a neon green ball that glows in the dark would be a crappy ship design!!!

Would it hurt them to have at least *one* similarity? Because if people had been shown the 'Aurora' class ship before being told what it was, at least 95% would have said that it must be a new Earth ship class.

There is absolutely *nothing* about it that says 'i'm an advanced ship created by people so far in advance of Earth technology'. Nothing. And that is just bad design, period.

So how many similarities are there between a lunar lander and the space shuttle?

 

[bigdaddy]

I can't believe I'm defending DWF... I feel sick...

Anyways, look at the Wrights' brothers plane, and then look at what we fly now. That's 106 years and are very very different. Now just think of that for 50 million years ago, or when this ship is from, and you can see the range.

That said, the writers really screwed up the Ancients in every way. Instead of begin like gods that want to stay out of our way, they are assholes who will screw with us just to get their way and no one cares. Plus the ships, all of them, look like crap.

 

[Hyperspace05]

So how many similarities are there between a lunar lander and the space shuttle?

The US flag sticker? Nah your point is taken... I just think they failed miserably at setting an 'ancient design aesthetic' in the show. The ships could have belonged to anyone.

 

[Kpnuts]

OMG, DWF makes a valid, good point! Impressive

 

[flux_29]

Cool.

 

[starburst]

I just think they failed miserably at setting an 'ancient design aesthetic' in the show. The ships could have belonged to anyone.

I think that was part of the point though, after all even with their major technological power they were essentially the same as us, a few thousand years down the line we could have been building ships just like theirs.

I quite like the Ancient ships and find the internal design of the Destiny interesting, still feels Ancient but more steampunk and raw. The outside Im not so sure about but not really seen enough of it to comment.

I hated the design of the Aurora as it looked like a 10 thousand year old mess (which was the point really), but when they introduced the Orion I loved the look of the ship design.

The look of the Asgard ships from Lost Tribe do look very Human though, which was pretty much how I imagined an early Human/Ancient hybrid to look.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Moreover, the various examples of Ancient technology were built over the course of several MILLION years. In that time, the Ancients could have developed hundreds of aesthetic designs, and gone BACK to them several times too.

Mark

 

[Gaddiko]

Same old, same old. Horrible box-like design that's totally non-memorable with lots of small boxes and turrets on the hull. The exact same thing we've been getting for years zzzzzzzzzzzzzz - and yes, it looks Cardassian.

This is predictably dull rubbish that was first shown in the horribly designed "cylinder with lots of boxes and panels" Ancient ships from Atlantis.

well if you listen to the history that is given in Stargate Atlantis, they were losing the war with the Wraith, their ships were getting destroyed left and right and the Wraith were rapidly approaching Atlantis. Seeing less of a need for form as for function then the Lantians could have said screw it to fancy designs like the Enterprise and made them more function, which would be easier and cheaper to produce.

 

[aelius]

Wow, talk about thread necromancy.
But couldn't you have waited 5 days so it would be exactly a year since the last post?

 

[Brent]

I think the ship design they really screwed up on most was Atlantis and their city ships, I like their earlier concept designs much better, it made the cities feel bigger and more advanced, here is one early rendering:

http://www.mondolithic.com/?p=600

There is another concept pic out there somewhere I'm trying to find that makes it seem like it is more fantastical, almost like the Nox's floating city... I'm trying to find that pic

Here it is!!! I found the early design concept for Atlantis, before the rendering above was done which set the design for the city ship (still better than what ended up being on the air) but here is the original concept

http://crpp0001.uqtr.ca/w4/campagne/images/StarGate/Atlantis_sketch_01.jpg

Imagine that on a larger scale, IMO that would have been very alien

 

[bullethead]

Here it is!!! I found the early design concept for Atlantis, before the rendering above was done which set the design for the city ship (still better than what ended up being on the air) but here is the original concept

http://crpp0001.uqtr.ca/w4/campagne/images/StarGate/Atlantis_sketch_01.jpg

Imagine that on a larger scale, IMO that would have been very alien

To be honest, that design is way too compact to have any visual appeal. Everything starts blurring together and there isn't much that stands out, which explains why they abandoned that concept in favor of the one with piers. It certainly would've been alien, but not distinctive enough for it to be the setting of a TV show... plus there's the issue that from that angle, it looks like a weird cruise ship.

 

[Brent]

Well yes, it was just a concept, but if it had been scaled up, I think it would have worked, imagine that building design in the star pattern we saw on screen

At any rate, even the original rendering looks way better than what we ended up with, just seems so much bigger, which is how I always imagined it should be

http://www.mondolithic.com/?p=600