Miranda Class Navigational Deflector

[RichMerk]

It's a pet peeve of mine. Modern Star Trek has fallen into such a deep rut that starship design has inviolable requirements like warp nacelle placement and nav deflectors. TOS designs did not have these requirements. I know I am way out on my own limb, but my own ship designs only have nav deflectors if it suits the design aesthetic.

 

[C.E. Evans]

We're talking about the Franz Joseph dreadnaught right - with the three in the front and one in back? I have a feeling the extra dishes are from before they were "deflector" dishes specifically. I think that they were thought of as sensors or communications arrays in the early days of Star Trek, and were only included for the same reason the flying saucers that are the primary hulls were included - for looking futuristic and "spacey". Anyone know when they first decided they were "deflector dishes"?

My earliest recollection is from the old AMT/ERTL Enterprise model kit booklets. I know the term definitely precedes TNG at the very least. But yeah, I do recall the dish originally being described as a "sensor beam emitter" or the "main sensor array."

 

[The Wormhole]

I like to think that the Miranda, Constellation, Grissom, etc push particles out of the way with some long shield or warp field configuration. Same for a lot of the alien ships also without deflectors.

The Oberth class (Grissom) has a deflector dish. That area right at the front of the secondary hull.

 

[Arpy]

I don't think thats a deflector any more than the Miranda greebles.

I like the deflectors. They, the nacelles, the phaser strips, etc....they all add a pseudo-scientific realism to what could otherwise be totally arbitrary and senseless designs...ones that could be cool, but that would lack verisimilitude and wouldn't be as intimate.

That aliens often don't have them simply tells me that they're alien and have naturally taken different routes. Maybe the Miranda is a Federation testbed for trying it the alien's way. Ultimately, they stuck with what they had for various reasons.

 

[The Wormhole]

Eh, IMO since the front portion of the Oberth's secondary hull has that indentation that's enough for me to say it's a deflector. It's in the same general area as deflectors on other ships, and really, what else could it be?