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First View of SOTL 2011 NX-01 Refit Diagram

So, is it the NX-01 herself?

That is, did this refit take place in an alternate universe, or perhaps before he events of "These Are the Voyages" (where we don't see any exterior shots of the ship)? Or was the decision to retire NX-01 reversed after "TAtV"? Or are we simply seeing a refit done on one or more NX class vessels that weren't the Enterprise?

I guess the answer should be in three parts:

1) In the artists' opinion
2) In your opinion
3) As regards possible current or future ENT projects (that is, mainly novels)

Timo Saloniemi
 
The conceit is that it's the "fifth season refit", so TATV would not have been the season 4 (and series) final episode. Besides, TATV was a holo-novel. obviously the author got a few details wrong.;)
 
The conceit is that it's the "fifth season refit", so TATV would not have been the season 4 (and series) final episode.
Click to expand...

This would not necessarily follow. "Living Witness" was the last episode of VOY chronologically, even though followed by plenty of 24th century episodes. It's perfectly possible to speculate that the fifth season would have been given clearance after the fourth had already been capped by "TAtV", and that would create no conceptual problems as such. We'd just know that in one possible timeline, certain of our heroes lived to see 2160 (if we didn't guess that already anyway) - a pretty standard element in Trek shows, and one that traditionally does not limit the writers in any way.

I wonder... would the refit have carried some dramatic value in addition to the juggling of the aesthetics? Could this have been worked into the show concept somehow, such as the refit being superior or inferior to the original, technologically or otherwise? Doing it just for the looks doesn't seem worth the effort, but it would have been an interesting Trek first. I mean, upgrading the ship worked for our TOS heroes when they hit the silver screen, but that was a bit different a concept.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Personally, story wise I think the refit should have occurred as a result of having to go into the expanse in season 3. Considering they were going to need extended away time from friendly space.
 
There wouldn't have been time to do much when the ship was sent to seek out the Xindi and sort out all this blowing-up-Earth business. Perhaps the Columbia could have been altered in mid-build this way, to make her a better successor for the Enterprise once that first ship (in all likelihood) failed to return from the Expanse. But that, too, was a project Earth probably had to hurry. Which was a good thing considering how many S4 plots were solved by using two fast starships.

Bolting that new hull on doesn't look like a quick operation, even if the basic preexisting structures of the ship aren't altered much. Supposedly, key elements of the power and propulsion system are relocated; that must call for internal reworking to some degree.

If S5 did feature the ship in this guise, I trust the writers would have come up with an excuse to have an even longer inter-season break than usual. Say, the first three episodes being an arc that only covers a few days of action, thus providing an extra month or almost two at the beginning of the season for the refit.

Timo Saloniemi
 
^I totally don't understand your last paragraph!?! Why would you need to do this for something episodic like Enterprise? What do the pacing of the episodes have to do with making time for the refit? They could just as easily do a monologue with montage and cover the entire refit in 2 minutes.

"We've just spent 5 months in spacedock on a major refit to the Enterprise...."
 
Yeah, they can do that - and they do sometimes open a season by saying "Our heroes are back, after having done something else for three months". That's how the Dominion War got started, for example: they declared it, then went on a hiatus for three months both real-universe and in-universe.

But if they say that as long as five months have passed, then the rest of the episodes either have to be squeezed tighter together fictionally, or then allowed to overlap like Doctor Who were writing and directing. After all, the writers do like to think that one season equals one year, and an episode in a midseason slot may quite well contain references to this being half a year before the season's end or after its beginning. The writers (or proofreaders, really) have to be extra careful with those things if the season is anomalious (say, having started five months late in-universe). Not just because they'd be anal-retentively accurate about their fiction (many are!), but because the writers, and especially the rewriters and proofreaders, have it easiest when they can equate their fiction with the true season. Episodes that span half a year are annoying, because they do have repercussions - and Trek hasn't really been that episodic since TOS ended.

(Even TOS didn't ever really do the easy mistake of squeezing five three-month episodes into a year or a season. But the makers of the later shows obviously cared even more. Doing the chronology right was an interactive process, with even the writers of paraphernalia books like, well, the Chronology giving input.)

Timo Saloniemi
 
Doug explained in one of his blog posts (I can't remember which or I would link to it) that the refit was a basically a way for Starfleet to test new engine cores. They would slide them into the back of the secondary hull and could be ejected the same way in an emergency. The original core and engine room would still be intact and could be used to propel the ship if the experimental core failed.

The only thing that would need to be relocated is the launch bay since the "neck" would attach across the original one. Doug suggested that they could launch shuttle pods from the "back porch" area of the saucer. I suggested that the launch bay could be slid out (like engineering) and be easily moved to the new secondary hull.

But I agree that the amount of work needed to accomplish the refit could not have been done before the Xindi mission. It would take several months just to get the new section properly attached and wired into the ship's systems, and only if the new section was built before hand and slapped on in space dock. Really the only thing they had time to do is add the new Photonic torpedo launch system to the Armory and that probably took two weeks at the most. (I like to think the photonic system the Enterprise received was the one meant for Columbia and they just dropped it in.)
 
I am really looking forward to the new SOTL 2011 calendar. It is great to see that the XCV-330 Enterprise will be represented in there and I hope that there will be plenty of tech data on the refit NX-01.
 
The XCV-330 and NX refit are part of a tech centerfold in the calendar.

"A SOTL bonus next year will be a tech manual style centerfold featuring a couple of the more unusual additions: the NX-01 refit, and Matt Jefferies revolutionary ringship, the XCV-330. Above is the rough blocking out of the page with spaceholder text. The final image will be fully rendered with tech by Mike Okuda. Mark Rademaker is doing an awesome job fleshing out Matt’s novel design, and we can’t wait to get a look at the final."

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/2011-sotl-technofold-sneak-peek/
 
Doug explained in one of his blog posts (I can't remember which or I would link to it) that the refit was a basically a way for Starfleet to test new engine cores. They would slide them into the back of the secondary hull and could be ejected the same way in an emergency. The original core and engine room would still be intact and could be used to propel the ship if the experimental core failed.
Click to expand...

That appeared to be one of the original design ideas, too: there was/is a feature at the back of the saucer through which the original core would also slide out, to be replaced by a more advanced model (the ship probably remained experimental, or at least in constant development, throughout her career). Or perhaps to be replaced when the old one wore out, since early tech might not be all that durable...

Perhaps the reactors outgrew the ship as technology moved forward? A new, bigger slot would be needed, coupled to some other new features more or less directly relating to propulsion, such as a better deflector.

Some of Doug's original NX-01 stuff can be found at ex-astris-scientia.org . A great read; NX-01 was probably the most carefully thought out piece of Trek hardware since ST:TMP...

Really the only thing they had time to do is add the new Photonic torpedo launch system to the Armory and that probably took two weeks at the most. (I like to think the photonic system the Enterprise received was the one meant for Columbia and they just dropped it in.)
Click to expand...

It might also have been something Archer left on the pier in "Broken Bow" even though his ship already carried all the attachment points and power sockets and dataways needed for it. Unless we assume that "Sleeping Dogs" is proof positive that nobody in Starfleet had even thought about photon torpedoes before 2151.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I like explanation in "Collision Course" for the apparent backwards slide in technology between ENT and "The Cage", that the Romulan War forced Earth to put aside development of the more exotic weaponry, like phase weapons and photonic torpedoes, in favor of the more easily mass produced goodies like lasers and nukes, and it wasn't until the 2240's that Starfleet R&D started dusting off the old phase pistols and photonic torpedoes and seeing what they could do with them.
 
Captain Robert April said:
I like explanation in "Collision Course" for the apparent backwards slide in technology between ENT and "The Cage", that the Romulan War forced Earth to put aside development of the more exotic weaponry, like phase weapons and photonic torpedoes, in favor of the more easily mass produced goodies like lasers and nukes, and it wasn't until the 2240's that Starfleet R&D started dusting off the old phase pistols and photonic torpedoes and seeing what they could do with them.
Click to expand...


I always wonder if - during the Enterprise/Romulan War era - if antimatter was still somewhat expensive and difficult to produce...

So for the war, rather than having a few ships equipped with a lot of anti-matter weapons - they used all the anti-matter they could make to power a FLEET of ships loaded down with cheap and dirty, but *effective*, atomic weapons.

Just my speculation.
 
Timo said:
That appeared to be one of the original design ideas, too: there was/is a feature at the back of the saucer through which the original core would also slide out, to be replaced by a more advanced model (the ship probably remained experimental, or at least in constant development, throughout her career). Or perhaps to be replaced when the old one wore out, since early tech might not be all that durable...
Click to expand...

Actually you are correct. That middle section of the back porch pulls out and the launch bay can be dropped down so the entire reactor room can be pulled out and replaced. (I even included that feature in my deck plans.) However, the core is to deep inside the saucer to make it easily accessible. I would assume the new hull would fix that design issue.
 
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