If You Could Re-Imagine the Klingon BoP

[CuttingEdge100]

I'm wondering if you could re-imagine the Klingon Bird-of-Prey's design (which can include the exterior and/or interior design) and details to virtually any degree that you want (or no change at all) how would you go about it?


CuttingEdge100

 

[JNG]

It's such a great design. I'd lose the Rom touches, since that story connection was dropped, but what a home run otherwise.

 

[MarianLH]

#1) Get rid of the gimmicky moving wing--fix them slightly downward to be consistent with the D7?
#2) Add warp engines somewhere, maybe to the wingtips
#3) Replace the head with a more Klingon-looking shape
#4) If possible, cram a small shuttlepod into a fantail pod bay


Marian

 

[B.J.]

The KBoP exterior as originally shown I wouldn't change. But I would definitely want a replacement for the larger versions shown in the TNG era. As for how different that would look, I have no idea right now.

For the interior, it would be nice to have some consistency between all the versions of the bridge that were shown. Especially the ones that were supposed to be the same ship!

 

[EmperorKalan]

The KBoP exterior as originally shown I wouldn't change. But I would definitely want a replacement for the larger versions shown in the TNG era. As for how different that would look, I have no idea right now.

The Dominion Wars computer game had a Klingon class called the K'vort'Cha, which was clearly based on the BoPs, but was designed to look like a larger ship, not just an upscale of the same model. Have a look.

http://www.simonsays.com/dominionwars_site/Special_Page_Kvortcha_Concept.htm
More in the ship profiles (can't give you a direct to the class, though. It's the "class-3" Klingon ship)
http://www.simonsays.com/dominionwars_site/Frameset.htm

 

[Wingsley]

The Klingon BoP is such a mixed bag. Some aspects of it are so colorful and intriguing, they are irresistible. Other aspects are way too derivative of STAR WARS (Millennium Falcon comes to mind) and therefore clearly don't belong in the STAR TREK Universe.

I love the notion of a high-speed, combat-ready, mini-starship that can land on a planet. The Klingon scout is sized just right. Some of its lines are really great.

But they should not have called it a "Bird of Prey". That confuses it with the TOS Romulan starship. That was a mistake. They could've called it a B-9 Scout or a V-7 Corvette or some exotic Klingon name. Let's call it the Scout here.

The Scout should've had more clearly defined engines, both for warp and for impulse. It should've been a more logically designed as a starship, with the parts having enough room to house "a dozen officers and men" and all the necessities, including engine room, transporter, cargo hold and weapons. I don't have a problem with the overall shape, which has obvious ties to the large cruiser-type Klingon ships. I do think Paramount overdid the surface detail of the ship, uglifying it and making it waaaaaay too STAR WARS-like. The color of the hull plating does not look like the K'T'inga cruisers.

I don't have a problem with the wings moving in theory, but when they are in their "down" position they don't look right at all. I liked the somewhat upswept position used by the K'Vort-class battlecruiser derivative in "Yesterday's Enterprise" for a "flight posture", and I liked the wings-up-high when the "Bounty" landed on Vulcan.

Thw wingtip-guns are okay, but the wing assembly should have been a clearly defined engine assembly. Each wing should've been more like the TMP Vulcan warpsled. (I'm not saying exactly the same design, but some of the ideas could've been derived there.)

The interiors shown in TMP3 were more believable that the later "rustbucket" versions. This Scout is a compact starship, meant for secret missions. It has weapons, high speed and cloaking device. I doubt the Klingons would deploy rustbuckets for 007-style espionage missions. I agree that the Klingons should be given an alien aesthetic, but TMP1, TMP3 and TMP6 were significantly different than all the rest. These Scouts should be the Klingons' highest of their high tech, and the Federation should be glad Kirk got his hands on one.

One aspect of this ship that was consistently bungled: it's a Scout and an espionage ship. Why isn't it cramped like a 20th-century Earth submarine?

 

[HRHTheKING]

Make the neck thicker.

 

[judexavier]

Well, this isn't a BOP, but it was a rough attempt/guess to imagine a klingon contemporary ship to that old dead-end "conjecture" enterprise I worked on before the pics were released.
I still laugh when I look at this, the BSG ribs and the front that was essentially copied from an old street lamp fixture.
So, in keeping with the thread, I might have worked up a BOP with this style.
(some of the line work was in the crap stage here, so certain shapes are misleading, like that funky area with the wing edge and the underbody)

Enjoy.

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg178/judexavier/Klingon350-75p.jpg

 

[Wingsley]

Ooooooo.

Looks scary. Like "Alien" became a starship or something...

 

[CuttingEdge100]

-Remove the red underside (it ain't a Romulan vessel) and use the same coloring as the D-7 or K'Tinga
-Get rid of all that obscene surface detail. Less surface detail can look more advanced and clean-cut
-The wing-fold mechanism can be achieved using much cleaner lines and the basic hull contours
-I'd want the wings to stay right where they are when in maneuver and battle conditions (the guns are almost on the centerline -- lowering them moves the guns further away from the centerline -- you want the guns to be easily aimable -- although truthfully it wouldn't matter with computerized targeting sites -- but it's not common sense) and to raise up a little bit only when landing on a planet's surface.
-I'd want the ship to have warp nacelles on the pylons, not sure of the exact shape though -- but I think it should have such a set-up.
-In addition to getting rid of a lot of surface-clutter and detail, I'd want to turn that structure on the "head" that looks like a mouth-piece and instead turn it into a chine like structure (like how the Enterprise-D's chine comes out of the hull) that protrudes from the "head
-I'd want to turn the huge torpedo tube into a nav-deflector with a torpedo tube in the middle.
-Regarding the impulse engine's size I'd prefer to flatten it a bit (same width, but flatter).

I also would have called the vessel a "Klingon Scout". Not a Bird of Prey -- Romulans have Birds of Prey; the Klingons did not until TSFS


CuttingEdge100

 

[Rÿcher]

story was that the BoP was a stolen Romulan vessel, hence the red underside.

 

[USS Mariner]

Well, this isn't a BOP, but it was a rough attempt/guess to imagine a klingon contemporary ship to that old dead-end "conjecture" enterprise I worked on before the pics were released.
I still laugh when I look at this, the BSG ribs and the front that was essentially copied from an old street lamp fixture.
So, in keeping with the thread, I might have worked up a BOP with this style.
(some of the line work was in the crap stage here, so certain shapes are misleading, like that funky area with the wing edge and the underbody)

Enjoy.

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg178/judexavier/Klingon350-75p.jpg

Whacked out, but I admire the direction.

 

[Unicron]

I prefer how FASA handled the design in their RPG, with no less than five different models that only retained a similar hull appearance, but different internal hardware. The design did originate as a scout class vessel with the Romulans and was about 80 meters long. They traded some hulls to the Klingons as part of the alliance, which were refitted with Klingon weapons. This design, the K-22, is the FASA version of the B'Rel. Since the books were published before TNG, their class names differ from the ones developed later for that show.

The Klingons were impressed with the design, so they built several larger versions (cruiser and frigate) based on the ideas incorporated into the class, even though they had no permission from the Romulans to do this sort of reverse engineering. The L-42 frigate is the FASA equivalent of the K'vort, and is one of the largest variants even though it's still less than 200 meters long.

When the Romulans got wind of what the Klingons were doing, they angrily copied the L-42 and built several large frigate type vessels to station on their own borders. Aside from differences in weaponry and equipment, both types are largely identical.

This acknowledges the original idea for the design to be Romulan, and at least has a set range for how large the ship is supposed to be. Even the largest ones are still medium at best.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

While I'd love to hear further opinions on how people would have re-imagine the BoP if they had the ability to, I'm wondering what people's opinions are in terms of re-imagining "BoP-like" ships, such as...

The I.K.S. Pagh (A 230 meter scaled-up BoP-like ship in an episode of ST:TNG)

The K'Vort-Class (A scaled-up BoP-like ship in excess of 350 meters shown in "Yesterday's Enterprise")

The D'Tai-Class (A massively scaled up BoP-like ship on the order of 700 meters long which appeared in an episode of TNG)


CuttingEdge100

 

[Wingsley]

K'vort:

Makes the gun-tips on the wings into funky-looking nacelles (Icy_Penguigo did a great job on a Klingon X-Technology cruiser a while back). Make the hull color like the TMP K'T'inga and tone down some of that ultra-busy surface detail, too.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

My idea for the K'Vort would be more or less based on a scaled-up (The K'Vort is ~350+ meters in length, the K'Tinga is 232.64 meters*) K'Tinga with the wings swept forward and the "wing-root" shape altered a little bit (the part of the secondary hull where the neck connects into) to look better with forward swept wings (the forward area of the wing-root wouldn't be as far outboard as on the D-7, and the rear area would either be the same or slightly further outboard; the forward section would still be a bit further outboard than the rear area) and a modified hammerhead and bridge dome which would have cleaner lines.

I think using a more shapely nacelle design somewhat like this design would be a good idea **

Though not exactly -- just more clean-cut and elegant.


CuttingEdge100

* - Officially the D-7M K'Tinga is 214 meters long. However I noticed that some images which compared the D-7 and D-7M showed them to be the same size (sans nacelles) and the D-7 is 228.3 meters. I essentially scaled the two images to each other sans nacelles, then added the extra nacelle length from the D-7M. The length amounted to around 232.64 meters.

** - Image from my imageshack.us account; image by Furyofaseraph

 

[Wingsley]

Oooooo.

That's a cool Federation starship there! Where do we see more?

 

[AJBryant]

I *love* that ship.

Enterprise-F anyone?

 

[hellsgate]

My idea for the K'Vort would be more or less based on a scaled-up (The K'Vort is ~350+ meters in length, the K'Tinga is 232.64 meters*) K'Tinga with the wings swept forward and the "wing-root" shape altered a little bit (the part of the secondary hull where the neck connects into) to look better with forward swept wings (the forward area of the wing-root wouldn't be as far outboard as on the D-7, and the rear area would either be the same or slightly further outboard; the forward section would still be a bit further outboard than the rear area) and a modified hammerhead and bridge dome which would have cleaner lines.

I think using a more shapely nacelle design somewhat like this design would be a good idea **

Though not exactly -- just more clean-cut and elegant.


CuttingEdge100

* - Officially the D-7M K'Tinga is 214 meters long. However I noticed that some images which compared the D-7 and D-7M showed them to be the same size (sans nacelles) and the D-7 is 228.3 meters. I essentially scaled the two images to each other sans nacelles, then added the extra nacelle length from the D-7M. The length amounted to around 232.64 meters.

** - Image from my imageshack.us account; image by Furyofaseraph

OOoooooo....I love that one!!! MORE VIEWS, PLEASE!!! I want to use that image / ship-class in a future fic, ok?

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

My idea for the K'Vort would be more or less based on a scaled-up (The K'Vort is ~350+ meters in length, the K'Tinga is 232.64 meters*) K'Tinga with the wings swept forward and the "wing-root" shape altered a little bit (the part of the secondary hull where the neck connects into) to look better with forward swept wings (the forward area of the wing-root wouldn't be as far outboard as on the D-7, and the rear area would either be the same or slightly further outboard; the forward section would still be a bit further outboard than the rear area) and a modified hammerhead and bridge dome which would have cleaner lines.

I think using a more shapely nacelle design somewhat like this design would be a good idea **

The cleaner look would certainly mesh with what Rick Sternbach was thinking for the Vor'cha, that Starfleet design elements had worked their way into Klingon designs. I'd ditch the spherical portion under the hammerhead though, since the modern Klingon designs we saw lacked them. Though Klingon ships should always have a degree of clunkiness to them... even though the D-7 and TOS Ent were similarly detailed, the Enterprise was a graceful swan, while the D-7 was this angry... manta ray... thing.

Cool ship BTW.