Long-necked Klingon cruisers... but why?

[Mr_Closet]

Hi folks, if no one recognises me, that's fine! I haven't been here for a while (last time I was, everything was black) and when I was here, I wasn't here for very long...

Well, anyway. Having been on the wagon for a while I feel the need for some indulgent speculation. As Bertrand Russel said, there is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

And so, the burning treknology topic that is keeping me awake at night is... the long neck of the Klingon cruiser! Specifically, the D7/K'Tinga types, although it may well apply to the scaled up BOPs and the Klingon ships in ENT, as well.

Way back when I first saw ST:TMP I recall thinking that the neck must be a linear accelerator for the torpedoes that the three ships were spitting at V'Ger. I liked that explanation at the time. Warships tend to be designed around their propulsion and weapons first, and everything else second. But what about the stern tube? Well, I imagined the ammunition was stored more or less were the neck meets the hull, leaving some room for a stern facing linear accelerator that could still be fed from the same torpedo magazine. And I still like this explanation, except that so much else in Trek undermines it!

Same thing happens to my second theory from the around the same time: that the Klingons accommodated their warp core horizontally, rather than vertically, and it was contained in the ship's "neck" just as it was on the Enterprise, whose "neck" was vertical. But having looked, no diagrams show anything other than a corridor. Damn. I liked that one, too.

Putting that those two aside, I'm aware of several alternative explanations that have cropped up over the years. One is that the forward section is healthy officer country while the back is irradiated by the engines and suitable only for the lower caste nerks of Klingon society, who are expendable. Another explanation hinges on the apparent presence of impulse engines on the forward section, suggesting that the neck separates functions so that in the event of a catastrophic hit, at least one part can still function, either taking control of what's left to carry on the fight, or just as a lifeboat.

Further possibilities include theories about warp field geometry requiring a certain disposition of the ship's mass (isn't there a quote from one of the TV series in which someone suggests that a certain ship is 'too heavy' to go at high warp?). If it's the case that to do high warp efficiently, you not only need to be physically light weight (relative to some other metric, like engine output, perhaps) but to encompass as much volume as possible at the same time, then this certainly explains the Romulan D'Deridex, the splayed out configuration of most Starfleet ships, the ENT era Vulcan ships, and the long tail on Cardassian ships.

I suggested this might be required for sustaining high warp because then it explains why most civilian ships are squat and dumpy - no requirement for speed, thus other design considerations take over, like space for bulk cargo and accommodations. It also sheds light on the engineering problems faced by the Defiant when she first arrived at DS9 and O'Brian found himself working overtime to fix it.

And that's about it. Can't think of much else. Anyone got any thoughts?

Cheers

 

[Bagofmostlywatr]

I thought it was because it looks cool personally

 

[Mr_Closet]

Did I miss that one out?

Nevertheless, you raise a valid point: I'm now trying to think of real world examples of design features designed more to intimidate than to perform any useful function, but the only ones I can come up with go back into ancient history with dragons on Viking longships, for example (although I'm not sure if that was intimidation... might have been a good luck charm).

I suppose the ram bows on early dreadnought battleships could be considered more for showing off than as a serious proposition. The concept of the 'all big gun' battleship meant the enemy would always be thousands of yards away, unlike the assumption in the latter 19th Century when ranges were still short and hull to hull contact was theoretically possible.

So, long necked Klingon cruiser = "I can see your house from here."

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I've thought alot about this lately and did some analysis. My conclusion was basically this:

Klingon warships are small.

Now that's a vague generalization of the larger concept, but consider the Klingon bird of prey, a ship that typically runs with a crew of 20 to 30 (sometimes less), runs in the neighborhood of 150 meters in length, and is in some ways the Klingon equivalent of Starfleet's Miranda class starships; it is, essentially, a frigate.

The Klingon D7/K'tinga is supposed to be equivalent to the Constitution class in terms of speed and power, but in terms of overall volume it's actually a very tiny spacecraft; less than two-thirds the volume of the Constitution, the majority of which is a combination of engineering spaces and a pair of surprisingly thick nacelle pylons; the ship probably has about 30% of the Constitution's habitable volume, with the majority of the rest devoted to power generation, fuel, ammunition and defense systems.

Kang quotes a crew complement of about 400 in "Day of the Dove" but we only see his small command staff on the surface. A century later, we see a K'tinga-class starship roaming around in Federation space with its crew having just emerged from cryogenic stasis. This suggests to me that even the K'Tingas are designed to operate with an ordinarily small crew -- 20 to 30, just like the bird of prey -- with an engineering section packed with sleeper tubes for a contingent of troops that normally aren't needed except for boarding actions and planetary landings.

In tat case, the main difference between a cruiser and a bird of prey is the latter is big enough to carry a couple platoons of frozen troops, while also having better shielding and maybe a slightly more powerful warp drive. The armaments on a K'tinga are actually nothing special.

But then, this is probably what makes the K'tinga equivalent to the Constitution class: being a "cruiser," it is designed to take a highly valuable payload to a specific location and get a particular job done. On Starfleet cruisers, that payload is scientists, laboratories and their varied equipment. On Klingon ships, that payload is shock troopers. The difference in size -- and indeed, the skinny neck and overall sleek profile of their cruisers -- is that Klingons don't need to be CONSCIOUS between deployments, and the flight crew that runs the ship doesn't need (or want) to be anywhere near the drive core during flight operations.

 

[Wingsley]

@Crazy Eddie : Where did you get your figures from?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I always have The Final Reflection's radioactive-engines-crewed-by-slaves rationale in my head, even though we've never ever seen anything to support it in canon Trek.

 

[feek61]

I also have always thought the back portion of the ship was a radioactive wasteland crewed by slaves. I can't remember where I read that but it was long ago.

 

[Mr_Closet]

...

The Klingon D7/K'tinga is supposed to be equivalent to the Constitution class in terms of speed and power, but in terms of overall volume it's actually a very tiny spacecraft; less than two-thirds the volume of the Constitution, the majority of which is a combination of engineering spaces and a pair of surprisingly thick nacelle pylons; the ship probably has about 30% of the Constitution's habitable volume, with the majority of the rest devoted to power generation, fuel, ammunition and defense systems.

...

In tat case, the main difference between a cruiser and a bird of prey is the latter is big enough to carry a couple platoons of frozen troops, while also having better shielding and maybe a slightly more powerful warp drive. The armaments on a K'tinga are actually nothing special.

But then, this is probably what makes the K'tinga equivalent to the Constitution class: being a "cruiser," it is designed to take a highly valuable payload to a specific location and get a particular job done. On Starfleet cruisers, that payload is scientists, laboratories and their varied equipment. On Klingon ships, that payload is shock troopers. The difference in size -- and indeed, the skinny neck and overall sleek profile of their cruisers -- is that Klingons don't need to be CONSCIOUS between deployments, and the flight crew that runs the ship doesn't need (or want) to be anywhere near the drive core during flight operations.

Interesting idea that explains several things.

For instance, the "surprisingly thick nacelle pylons" are probably bulk cargo/material/stasis pod storage spaces. This suggested Klingon practice of using warships for military transport explains the design differences compared to Starfleet vessels, with their practice of using warships for exploration which necessitates a bigger accommodation section on their ships to bunk all the scientists, away team specialists and their exploration gear, plus labs and whatnot. They also need a bulkier "neck" to increase the volume for additional, non-military survey and sensing equipment. If the Klingons carry extra equipment, it's in storage and not intended to be used in-flight, so it gets tightly packed into the nacelle pylons in crates.

Starfleet doctrine is the big multi-mission warship that combines war fighting, scientific survey, military transport... the whole nine yards in one big, voluminous hull. But because of warp field treknobabble and the dangers of high energy powerplants, you can't just build a huge blob with engines - you've got to spread things out a bit and provide a certain safety margin between the living spaces and the working spaces. Thus, we get a ship shaped like a plucked chicken which has swallowed a dish plate.

Klingon doctrine, by comparison, is that of the small, single-role warship capable of carrying an Embarked Military Force (to use modern military parlance) and the military supplies/material to support it. A warship that can operate as an auxiliary supply ship. Thus, the D7/K'tinga was born, evolved from a BOP which has been given requisite endurance and payload capacity, which is achieved by giving it a fat bottom and inflating the forward hull to provide extra bunk space and a more supplies to see the crew through a longer voyage.

But even so, why should the neck get longer in proportion to the rest of the ship? It's still longer than a BOPs neck would be if scaled up to the same size.

 

[Christopher]

Putting that those two aside, I'm aware of several alternative explanations that have cropped up over the years. One is that the forward section is healthy officer country while the back is irradiated by the engines and suitable only for the lower caste nerks of Klingon society, who are expendable.

Something like this was probably the intent. Consider the Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey, another ship design that has a long neck separating its forward crew module from its engines, for the purpose of radiation protection. I gather that Matt Jefferies put the Enterprise nacelles out on long pylons for much the same reason, figuring that they'd give off radiation that would require them to be a fair distance from the populated portions of the ship (although having the nacelle caps so close to the saucer doesn't quite work with that idea, unless the radiation is somehow emitted only to the sides and rear).

The problem is that later Trek designers have ignored this idea and frequently designed ships with the engines right next to populated sections -- and warp cores smack in the middle of the engine rooms, which is a good TV/movie set design but an insanely bad engineering-safety design. So there isn't a clear way to justify the long-necked D7 design within the assumptions of later Trek productions.

Although maybe it's a matter of sensor profiles. From a distance, the biggest part of the ship would be the easiest one to target (like aiming for a person's chest vs. trying to shoot a gun out of their hand, say), so keeping the command compartment out on a long rod well away from the biggest part would improve its chances of surviving a hit that wrecks the rear section. Although that doesn't fit so well with modern ideas of Klingon honor and their fetish for dying gloriously in battle. But let's face it, that kind of eagerness for death isn't really a sound strategy for victory, so maybe it's more talk than actual policy. (Cloaking devices are even harder to reconcile with TNG-era ideas of Klingon honor.)

 

[Mr_Closet]

I'm reminded of another Worf quote, this one from that DS9 episode in which he advises against lingering in a debri field to search for survivors in case cloaked BOPs are nearby. O'Brian remarks that such an ambush doesn't seem honourable, to which Worf replies that there is nothing more honourable than victory. So, yes, I agree that most of it is probably smack talk. For instance, they seem remarkably keen to avail themselves of Federation medical facilities rather than just manfully (Klingonfully?) put up with a limb hanging off and report for duty as normal.

Separation for tactical reasons is another interesting idea: if we assume that the engineering section is giving off lots of radiation (when not cloaked) than it's the most likely part to attract a radiation-guided warhead, or to show up on targeting systems. Plus, it's the biggest bit of the ship and, as others have said, if you get the choice you tend to shoot for the centre of mass, not the fancy headshots. So if all the crew are in an otherwise radioactively 'dark' command pod separated by a couple of hundred metres of distance, you can punch holes in the engine room or irradiate it with particle beams all day, but the crew remain alive to command the ship in a counter attack, repair it, direct robots to repair it, or worst case, simply to survive (never forget why another Imperial force, the Japanese Navy, lost it's ability to fight long before the bombs were finally dropped - they simply ran out of qualified pilots because their operating doctrine didn't place a premium on their survival).

Perhaps the Klingons have learned this lesson... or perhaps there's yet another reason why cruiser crews are valuable. I've often wondered if the Klingon Defence Forces are composed of a core of professionals whose numbers are boosted in war time by levies taken up from the various Houses. Thus, the full time, contracted, volunteer professionals pilot the cruisers while the rest of the fleet is mostly in BOPs, and they are crewed by part-time reservists/militia who are called up by the Chancellor/Emperor in time of need, but the rest of the time stay home polishing the family silver and having arguments about who is more honourable.

This sort of dove-tails with the idea that the neck separates the officers from the lower caste nerks... except that the lower caste nerks are on another ship, entirely!

 

[JWPlatt]

Unless the model designer had specific intention, all in-world theories to rationalize the real-world "cool" factor seem a bit silly to me. I would sooner speculate on the thoughts of the real-world designer than discuss make-believe reasons.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

One thing comes to mind:

But because of warp field treknobabble and the dangers of high energy powerplants, you can't just build a huge blob with engines

Sure you can. Most of the Kazon starship designs are EXACTLY this, and the description somewhat applies to the Cardassian Galor class as well. Defiant, also, is essentially a tiny saucer with a couple of nacelles bolted directly to the side of the hull. So "safety" probably isn't really the issue.

But then I think of a towed sonar array in modern warships:

The whole point of which is to isolate the ship's main sensors from the noise of its own engines, increasing their detection capabilities. You can't really stick a sensor array at the end of a cable on a spaceship (well, you COULD, but the results would be hilarious) so Starfleet isolates its passive sensors by placing them as far as possible from the warp nacelles. Certainly this would explain the placement of the navigational deflector: it needs to be close enough to the warp core to draw power directly from it, but far enough away from the engines that the emissions from the nacelles won't obscure its detection capabilities. The sublight sensors -- based on EM and particle emissions -- are on the saucer section for the same reason: far enough from the engines to avoid interference, AND optimally located for the maximum possible field of view.

Klingon warships have similar features in their forward modules, directly above and behind the bridge; this is probably their main sensor array. The long neck keeps both the command module (with its communication arrays and transmitters) and the main sensors isolated from the nacelles by the longest possible distance. Their torpedo launcher is also mounted in the command module, but if you imagine that this system also doubles as a navigational sensor/deflector (it pretty much HAS to) then it too is placed at the maximum possible distance from the warp nacelles.

This kind of suggests that the K'tinga might also serve an additional tertiary mission role as a reconnaissance ship; I like to think that the torpedo tube is as large as it is because the Klingons can load all kinds of equipment into that launcher OTHER than torpedoes, in particular things like deflectors, telescopes, long-range sensors, heavy phasers, or other mission-specific equipment. Stick a giant radiotelescope in the torpedo tube and it becomes a telescope mount; stick a phaser in the tube and hook it up to the power grid and it becomes the main battery. This gives the K'tinga a certain degree of "multimission" capability like the Constitution class, but streamlined and sharpened by Klingon military efficiency.

 

[Christopher]

Unless the model designer had specific intention, all in-world theories to rationalize the real-world "cool" factor seem a bit silly to me. I would sooner speculate on the thoughts of the real-world designer than discuss make-believe reasons.

Which is why I believe it was meant to be about radiation, based both on the Enterprise nacelle rationale and the design of the Discovery from around the same time. There was a lot of speculation in the '50s and '60s about nuclear-powered spacecraft, which were generally taken for granted as the way we'd get to other planets or stars. The idea of a long boom between engines and habitat section was put forth in a number of spacecraft design proposals in the 1950s, so both Jefferies and 2001's designers would've probably been aware of them.

Now, granted, we know from Jefferies's own words that he was motivated primarily by the aesthetics, the desire to create a shape that was instantly recognizable as alien and that suggested a predatory animal like a manta ray or bird of prey. (Personally, the D7s reminds me of a dragon.) And it is, let's face it, a totally gorgeous design, right up there with the Enterprise as one of the best starship designs in Trek history. But he would've been aware of real-world design proposals that would give him a rationale for the shape he chose.

 

[YJAGG]

Wasn't the d7 a propsed enterprise design. The only one to really sneer this Matt Jefferies Anyway if the crew is so small the long neck might be so let to look bigger, like an animal puffing up to look bigger. I imagine in the JJverse it would be lined with guns like the tall ships of the 1600s to broadside an enemy

 

[Christopher]

Wasn't the d7 a propsed enterprise design.

Not according to the Memory Alpha page I linked to. The design wasn't finalized until November 20, 1967. Jefferies seems to have drawn on some ideas from his earlier Enterprise design process in his preliminary sketches for the Klingon cruiser, but that's as far as it goes.

Anyway if the crew is so small the long neck might be so let to look bigger, like an animal puffing up to look bigger.

Sci-fi movies and shows have conditioned us to expect spaceships to be right up next to each other and be able to see each other's details clearly in high-def, but that's a fantasy. It's what we expect from our everyday Earthbound experience. Space is far, far vaster, and realistically, ships would be more likely to see each other as mere points of light or blurry, telescopically amplified blobs. Hence my proposal about the largest section being the one most likely to be targeted. From a realistic outer-space distance, the rear section would be the brightest and most resolvable part of the ship, while the command pod would be a finer detail that would be harder to resolve in a blurry image.

 

[YJAGG]

Not according to the Memory Alpha page I linked to. The design wasn't finalized until November 20, 1967. Jefferies seems to have drawn on some ideas from his earlier Enterprise design process in his preliminary sketches for the Klingon cruiser, but that's as far as it goes.



Sci-fi movies and shows have conditioned us to expect spaceships to be right up next to each other and be able to see each other's details clearly in high-def, but that's a fantasy. It's what we expect from our everyday Earthbound experience. Space is far, far vaster, and realistically, ships would be more likely to see each other as mere points of light or blurry, telescopically amplified blobs. Hence my proposal about the largest section being the one most likely to be targeted. From a realistic outer-space distance, the rear section would be the brightest and most resolvable part of the ship, while the command pod would be a finer detail that would be harder to resolve in a blurry image.

But it is all fantasy at the time this was made a real spaceship was around the size of a mini van, maybe the designers just expected things to get more roomy and comfortable.

 

[Christopher]

But it is all fantasy at the time this was made a real spaceship was around the size of a mini van, maybe the designers just expected things to get more roomy and comfortable.

Reasoned extrapolation into future possibilities is not fantasy. Fantasy means things that are unrealistic or impossible. There's nothing unrealistic about the idea that spaceships could get larger in the future -- as proven by the fact that the Space Shuttle was larger than an Apollo capsule. But it is unrealistic to treat deep space as if it were as closely packed together as the surface of the Earth, to treat spaceship interactions as if they would be identical to 18th-century schooners on the sea or trucks passing on the highway. Understanding that space is immensely larger than Earth is simply a matter of using one's brain.

 

[Timo]

There could be dozens of cool things incorporated into the thin-neck structure after the Klingons first decided this was an advantageous form: the location of a separation line would be chosen to match the already established long-neck structure, etc.

Why choose a long neck? Well, if you want to minimize target area for a given volume, you have to decide between a) absolute minimum cross section area for volume and b) smallest possible target to aim at, which are very different things. The answer to the former is a sphere, and nobody in Trek builds spheres (unless one's immune to weapons to begin with), because presenting the minimum cross section as one single round shoot-at-me-plate makes things maximally easy for the enemy at close ranges. And apparently close ranges matter a lot in Trek fighting.

The answer to the latter is thin structures, for minimal profiles from select angles. Saucers minimize forward and side profile, but spindles, Vulcan or Klingon or Cardassian style, minimize top and down profiles as well. It's just too bad that warp nacelles, warp rings, warp cheeks or whatever have to extend to the sides in order to erect the warp field, meaning one needs pylons and can just as well pack stuff in the pylons, even if one loses some spindliness in the process.

You won't build a neck if it's just dead weight between your bow and stern; instead, you pack your important stuff in the form of a neck to make it difficult for the enemy to hit it. Oh, his hit rate will still be 100% as always, but the effect is probably seen in his rate of fire - that is, his computers will spend that many more seconds locking onto you to get the usual 100% accurate hit. And if you are a spinning spindle, the enemy will have to do more recalculating than if you were a dull little sphere.

After all that is out of the way, you can customize culturally. A Klingon leads from the front, so the command chair goes to the very tip of the spindle. A Cardassian builds a big citadel instead and huddles there. A Vulcan just distributes everything logically, leaving stupider species wondering where the bridge might be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr_Closet]

Mr_Closet said: ↑

But because of warp field treknobabble and the dangers of high energy powerplants, you can't just build a huge blob with engines

Crazy Eddie said:
Sure you can. Most of the Kazon starship designs are EXACTLY this, and the description somewhat applies to the Cardassian Galor class as well. Defiant, also, is essentially a tiny saucer with a couple of nacelles bolted directly to the side of the hull. So "safety" probably isn't really the issue.

I mentioned the Defiant in the original post, but not in the context of safety so much as the difficulty of achieving high warp in a compact vessel, then observed that most civilian vessels (which are not typically attributed high warp capabilities) are compact or voluminous as dictated by their function, such as cargo hauling, thus presumably sacrificing speed and efficiency.

Also, the Kazon ships, while powerful weapons platforms, were never treated as very high performance in any other area. The impression I had was that they compensated for sophistication with a lot of Brunellian engineering - build it really big and heavy to make sure it works, but don't expect it to deliver Formula One levels of performance. Thus, Voyager routinely ran rings around them until the Kazon were able to manoeuvre Voyager into an ambush involving three of their ships (which probably had to pre-positioned ahead of time, given Voyager's speed advantage), or use subterfuge to otherwise negate Voyagers multiple advantages over their own (inherited) technology.

Building on that, we know that the Defiant gave more than a nod to Brunellian engineering principles because of the headaches O'Brian had in getting the power grid to not self-destruct every time he switched it on. What was it? Galaxy class generators? And in a ship a fraction of the size.

But then I think of a towed sonar array in modern warships:

The whole point of which is to isolate the ship's main sensors from the noise of its own engines, increasing their detection capabilities.

I like this.

I like to think that the torpedo tube is as large as it is because the Klingons can load all kinds of equipment into that launcher OTHER than torpedoes, in particular things like deflectors, telescopes, long-range sensors, heavy phasers, or other mission-specific equipment. Stick a giant radiotelescope in the torpedo tube and it becomes a telescope mount; stick a phaser in the tube and hook it up to the power grid and it becomes the main battery. This gives the K'tinga a certain degree of "multimission" capability like the Constitution class, but streamlined and sharpened by Klingon military efficiency.

I like this, too. I had many similar thoughts looking at the BOP from the movie era. There were often little features like a ring of lights around the opening, and the opening often looked more complicated than a simple door or recess, as though there might be other equipment in there in addition to a hole for a torpedo to exit through.

I also used to think about the use of the deflector on Starfleet ships to propel torpedoes. I rationalised the location of the torpedo tubes on the Enterprise in this way: the torpedo would exit the launcher and then be picked up by the deflector and given an extra push for additional velocity and effective range. Today's equivalent would be the cold launch systems employed on many naval VLS systems: the Royal Navy is developing the CAMM system in which the missile is catapulted vertically out of the silo by a ram, and when it gains enough altitude it fires its disposable booster to gain the altitude it needs to manoeuvre on to target. Disposable booster = deflector array boost, at the end of which the torpedo starts to home in using onboard propulsion, just like CAMM.

 

[Mr_Closet]

You won't build a neck if it's just dead weight between your bow and stern; instead, you pack your important stuff in the form of a neck to make it difficult for the enemy to hit it. Oh, his hit rate will still be 100% as always, but the effect is probably seen in his rate of fire - that is, his computers will spend that many more seconds locking onto you to get the usual 100% accurate hit. And if you are a spinning spindle, the enemy will have to do more recalculating than if you were a dull little sphere.

After all that is out of the way, you can customize culturally. A Klingon leads from the front, so the command chair goes to the very tip of the spindle. A Cardassian builds a big citadel instead and huddles there. A Vulcan just distributes everything logically, leaving stupider species wondering where the bridge might be.

Interesting thought. The neck is a very tall server stack! Even with powerful targeting computers, there are variables such as electronic countermeasures, stealth features, evasion tactics. Thus, statistical distribution means that a certain percentage of shots will fall to one side or the other, rather than being aligned down the centre of your target, so it could, in the end, prove more survivable. At progressively acute angles of attack, the neck quickly shortens into a mere stub from the other ship's perspective. And, of course, in a head-on engagement (every good Klingon's preference) the 'neck of important things' is completely hidden from enemy fire!

Here's another thought: I looked at Memory Alpha and came across this...

I think it was the proximity of the Constitution diagram that made me wonder about the curvature on the forward edge of the D7 engineering hull. Consider that dish-shaped curve, then look at the apparently corresponding curve of the front of the bridge structure at the other end of the neck. Would these two curves form part of the circumference of the same circle?

Perhaps the D7 was built with an upgrade in mind. Image that you dropped a big saucer on top of the neck, one that fitted the curvature of the engineering hull. You'd have a huge increase in volume, by comparison to the original, and still retain a very low profile in general. But what would you do with this volume? Mobile command and control for a deployed fleet? Kronos 1? A deep space explorer with all the same survey sensors, extra accommodation and onboard laboratories that Starfleet ships tend to have? A colony ship? The latter would fit quite well with the previously discussed idea that Klingons use warships as transports. A colony ship could benefit from the security and survivability that using a warship as your basic design might provide. Then, if the saucer was detachable and could be landed to form the colony, you'd get to keep your ship for security patrols nearby, or to return to the Empire for additional supplies. Seeding colonies is always high on the agenda of any empire, and keeping what you colonise is just as important, so it wouldn't help if you had to dismantle your only security asset to build your new homes.

Anyone know if anyone has done any renders of this idea?