How would you re-imagine the NX-01 Enterprise?

[JNG]

I would totally have been OK with the "warp delta" in the role NX-01 eventually played, although I'd have preferred a bit more height on the nacelles for clearance between them.

No offense to anyone is intended when I say that too many of the concepts pictured in the thread are decked out like TOS ships. It's okay to prefer that look overall, but NX-01 resembling it too closely (e.g., same hull coloration, identical dish up front...anything like that) would have been more disappointing than what we did get. I was not the biggest fan of NX-01, but at least the bare-metal look of the hull seemed to credibly hail from a different era while remaining stylish enough for "network" television. As several have pointed out, it worked on Conestoga (though I didn't care for the asymmetricality), and the rest of the early Earth Starfleet seems to have gone over somewhat better with the fans than the NX class.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I would totally have been OK with the "warp delta" in the role NX-01 eventually played, although I'd have preferred a bit more height on the nacelles for clearance between them.

No offense to anyone is intended when I say that too many of the concepts pictured in the thread are decked out like TOS ships. It's okay to prefer that look overall, but NX-01 resembling it too closely (e.g., same hull coloration, identical dish up front...anything like that) would have been more disappointing than what we did get. I was not the biggest fan of NX-01, but at least the bare-metal look of the hull seemed to credibly hail from a different era while remaining stylish enough for "network" television. As several have pointed out, it worked on Conestoga (though I didn't care for the asymmetricality), and the rest of the early Earth Starfleet seems to have gone over somewhat better with the fans than the NX class.

I myself rather liked the copper coloration of the NX-01 (looked primitive and a change from grey, the most seasoned of starship hull colors).
The rest of it... not so primitive. It's like an iron-clad F-22.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

You know, I was thinking...

The nacelles in both the NX-01 and my concepts which I posted already are too high up relative to the ship's centerline. The nacelles shouldn't be any higher than the bridge dome.

The TOS Enterprise is like this...

 

[EmperorKalan]

Kal-L said:

Psion said:
Agreed, Irishman. Which brings me back to the idea that this design WAS the NX-01 before someone told the art department to come up with something more familiar.

We need to ask Okuda or Sternbach if can answer that question for us.

I thought Sternbach didn't work on Enterprise ? On the basis, as I recall, that B&B wanted a fresh look, something different

Ironically, something like Sternbach's Messier class from the old Spaceflight Chronology would have been far more "fresh".

 

[hellsgate]

One word: CONESTOGA.

 

[Venardhi]

I found this on one of my old storage drives, dunno where it came from but it is the closest anyone has gotten to my image of what the early starfleet ships 'should have been'. 80% this and 20% conestoga and you'd pretty much have my "dream NX-01."

I might even take a crack at a 3d version if I ever figure out how not to give up halfway through a model.

Anyone know who this Arne guy is?

 

[Gepard]

^Wow, that looks really sweet.

 

[Praetor]

Agreed. What 80% from that and what 20% from Conestoga?

 

[Venardhi]

Mostly just the detailing. I like the smooth hull look, but there could be perhaps smooth hull on the major areas with more exposed areas showing more of the ENT aesthetic on the Conestoga. I like the coppery touches, and the weird deflector/sensors or whatever it is on the front. I'd also probably go with a more obvious 'rocket'-looking impulse engine. Possibly switch out the saucer shape for something more rectangular, but I'd have to see it to know for sure.

 

[c0rnedfr0g]

^^ give it one less nacelle and its golden

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Venardhi,

I am actually quite familiar with that drawing. And while it does have a certain appeal about it, the thing I don't like about is the twin-boom design; the nav-deflector set-up even though more compact isn't quite as slick looking from below as the NX, or Akira Classes.

I have actually considered a number of ideas which involved basically a flattened NCC-1701 with the nav-deflector buried in the lower saucer, and always kept running into similar problems. Running the nav-deflector straight through the saucer section from the rear (a'la the USS Bonaventure) wasn't really to my liking -- at least not for a design like the NX-Class.

This is actually one of the reasons why when I posted message #195 on this thread (the one where I have all the pictures of the various ships and explained what parts of each ship I wanted, and what changes I wanted to make) I wanted to put either an ovalized deflector (wide and short) or a few small circular deflectors side by side on the lower-saucer (although I had proposed ideas in which a deflector dish would be in the saucer rim) -- it would retain largely the same lower-saucer contours.

Regarding a coppery finish, I'm undecided on that one. While it does make the ship look older and less sophisticated, the Daedalus-Class which was a similar design was battleship gray just like the Constitution-Class (which was 80 years more advanced than the Daedalus)


CuttingEdge100

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Venardhi,
Regarding a coppery finish, I'm undecided on that one. While it does make the ship look older and less sophisticated, the Daedalus-Class which was a similar design was battleship gray just like the Constitution-Class (which was 80 years more advanced than the Daedalus)

But the Daedalus was shown merely as a model on Sisko's desk... we're free to take liberties with the design as long as it doesn't deviate terribly in terms of shape (He may have built it as a kid and done an innacurate paint job, for example. I myself painted a B-17 a sporty red when I was a wee lad.)

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Hanukkah Jitty,

True enough, however it is not a logical leap to assume it was painted that color, as other Federation Ships (The Constitution-Class) *were* painted that color.


CuttingEdge100

 

[Shawnster]

See, now that's what I would have done. I would have made the NX-01 very, very similar to the Daedalus design.

That or a cross between Daedalus and the TMP concept Forbin's using as an avatar (as much as I dislike that design).

 

[Captain X]

I wouldn't have it have such a close resembalance to TOS era ships, personally.

 

[Jamie C]

What I would do with the ship would reimagine the show some as well. I sort of see Earth as the teenager of space at that point, sort of wanting to go around and get into trouble. Earth is tired of going around at warp 2 or 3 seeing the things they already know about from the Vulcan database, they want to go to places no one has ever been before. Vulcan I think has a very systematic approach to space exploration, and has spent their hundreds of years in space gaining a full understanding of their local star systems, but haven't branched out all that far. Consequently Vulcan ships are only capable of warp 3 or 4.

So whatever the Earth space agency is at this point gets together and decides to push the envelope as far as they can. They initiate something like a less top-secret Manhattan Project to build the fastest ship in known space. The Enterprise Project becomes shorthand among Vulcans for how utterly illogical humans can be. But more in an amused way, if Vulcans could be amused. The project is plagued by breakdowns and failures, and ends up going five years over schedule (from 10 to 15 years). But does finally produce a working ship, one faster than anything the Vulcans have, and that might be capable of warp 5.

The ship overall is sort of nuts-and-bolts, guts-on-the-outside. I think the most straightforward way to design something to be lower-tech is to make the machinery bigger. So large warp nacelles and impulse engines. The warp reactor is sort of like a particle accelerator that goes all the way around the outer edge of the saucer, and meets in the middle at a room-sized reaction chamber. The warp nacelles are basically just the warp coils held together by a structural skeleton, allowing the coils to be completely exposed to space for maximum speed. My instinct is to say no Bussard Collectors, but they might be necessary to make it look "Star Trek".

The light effect would be a medium-intensity blue glow from inside the warp coils that sort of pokes out of all the spaces in between components. Of course, with the warp coils exposed the ship is extraordinarily fragile, so Vulcan agrees to loan Earth a shield generator and provide an officer to run it. In exchange Earth agrees not to equip the Enterprise with any offensive weaponry. All they have is a cutting laser, and if they had to they could probably throw together an antimatter bomb/torpedo out of a probe and some kind of antimatter transport container.

As for hull detail, no aztek pattern but there would be visible seams in the hull paneling. Since the shield grid is a late edition it's not integrated, and is a raised detail (and laid out in a more eccentric pattern) with various supplemental greeblies. The navigational deflector I'm not sure about, but I think it should be a substantial piece on the leading edge of the ship. I don't think I'd have a dish, maybe something more like the knob shape on the front of the Daedalus Class secondary hull. While I'm thinking about it, there would be transporters, but they only work transporter pad to transporter pad. The crew's sidearm would be a beam-based taser with no kill setting. Anyway. Maybe I should try and draw it.

 

[Wingsley]

Please do.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

You know what I just thought?

A good re-imagination of the Enterprise NX-01 would be to have it have four warp nacelles...

That would explain the tremendous speed...


CuttingEdge100