Miranda-class starships

[Unicron]

I'll admit, I do think the Miranda looks a bit better in the final version, with ventral nacelles instead of the original dorsal sketch. The sketch isn't bad either, by any means, it's just that something about the final configuration seems a little more aesthetically pleasing to me.

 

[Timo]

The contrast of Khan's ship to Kirk's is certainly more pronounced when the former has her nacelles low down. Which IMHO is a very good thing. Had the two ships been designed with clearly dissimilar components (as the original idea of Khan flying a TOS-style ship had it) to create the all-important visual distinctiveness, the viewer might think that one or the other would be superior. When the two feature the exact same sizes and shapes, and only the configuration is flipped in what looks like meaningless manner to create the visual distinction, then the outcome of the battles is more clearly decided on the wits of the commanders...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

There are, of course, the Coventry and Surya classes from Ships of the Star Fleet. Both are Miranda-like pre-Reliant designs. But totally non-canon.

http://www.inpayne.com/models/coventry.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/illusive1.html

Looks like there are logical design-lineage elements in both of these designs. Both are interesting, though both seem flawed to me.

So, you say the Illusive is a "Surya" design by Aridas? Interesting. I like the "Cage" / "Where No Man..." elements. Most of all, I like the smoothness of the main hull that gives the best TOS feel to it. I have to agree that the "elbowed" nacelle wings seem a bit odd, though. Some people like to trash the dish-on-a-stick concept, too. I could live with it, but your Coventry offers another possibility...

Where the nacelle wingy thingies seem to come up through the Coventry's upper hull, why not continue with short, finlike winglets with small, smooth egglike pods on the upper tips of each one? The front of each pod could serve as a platform for mounting a small deflector dish. Each of these stereo pods could also house an aft torpedo bank. This would fit in with the Mirnada design lineage well and still keep the simpler, smoother TOS look.

Certainly an option. But my goal was to build that particular model as close as possible to Todd Geunther's drawings in Ships of the Star Fleet.

 

[BolianAuthor]

Some Nebula class registry #'s are earlier than Galaxy class ones.

That doesn't necessarily mean they appeared first, but planned first.

IIRC, the Nebula-Class ships were indeed around prior to the Galaxy-Class, and the Galaxy-Class project used key elements of the Nebula's design, such as saucer section, bridge, and secondary hull elements. Most Nebula-Class registries through the TNG TV series are in the 64XXX-range, which would suggest that they probably entered service near the middle to end of the Cardassian War.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Then again, we have Starfleet's newest design prototype, the USS Prometheus, with the hull registry of NX-59650 plastered across her bow.

I think hull registries could be assigned to different ships at different times during their construction--either before, during, or after--which could result in a small number of ships entering service with hull registries out of sequence, IMO...

 

[Dukhat]

Then again, we have Starfleet's newest design prototype, the USS Prometheus, with the hull registry of NX-59650 plastered across her bow.

I think hull registries could be assigned to different ships at different times during their construction--either before, during, or after--which could result in a small number of ships entering service with hull registries out of sequence, IMO...

I'm pretty sure Michael Okuda stated that the registry was a mistake by the VFX people, and that it should have been what was on the dedication plaque. However, although the hull registry was seen clearly and the dedication plaque was seen not at all, it's subject to interpretation.

 

[Timo]

The higher, 74000-range registry was also used somewhat visibly on the computer screens of the ship, though.

It's a bit similar to having a Miranda class starship in "Night Terrors" painted with USS Brittain on the hull in one brief filler shot, but referred to as USS Brattain on all the computer screens in several longer shots. Which one is it? (The ship need not be named after Walter H. Brattain, even though this obviously was the writers' or modelmakers' intention; there could be a guy, gal or location named Brittain in the Trek universe instead.)

Should we speculate that pennant-painting robots in the late 24th century had a bug in their programming?

There's another example of such a bug, again of Miranda (or derived) class: the Bozeman of "Cause and Effect" fame had NCC-1941 on top of her saucer, well visible in one shot, but NCC-1841 on the bottom, well visible if one freeze-frames the collision scene but not visible in normal viewing mode. Fans of Guenther's Ships of the Star Fleet would prefer to keep NCC-1941 reserved for a certain Knox class vessel, while NCC-1841 would nicely fall in one of Guenther's lacunae, and be in line with the registry of the Lantree (NCC-1837) in representing some batch of Miranda-style ships that Guenther didn't list - perhaps the very Miranda subclass itself, the one whose name was grandfathered into representing all the other variants at some point because it was the oldest variant (with the lowest registries).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

Then again, we have Starfleet's newest design prototype, the USS Prometheus, with the hull registry of NX-59650 plastered across her bow.

I think hull registries could be assigned to different ships at different times during their construction--either before, during, or after--which could result in a small number of ships entering service with hull registries out of sequence, IMO...

I'm pretty sure Michael Okuda stated that the registry was a mistake by the VFX people, and that it should have been what was on the dedication plaque. However, although the hull registry was seen clearly and the dedication plaque was seen not at all, it's subject to interpretation.

Mistake or not, going that way we can then probably imagine hull registries to be anything we want them to be, no matter what's actually displayed.

I'm changing the Constellation's hull registry to NCC-1710...

 

[Timo]

But that's the registry of the Kongo! I'm changing it back right now.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

Understanding of the arcana of registry numbers allocation is too hard for me.

 

[Forbin]

Nonsense! Why, it's so easy a 5-year-old could figure it out!

Unfortunately I don't know any 5-year-olds.

 

[starburst]

Ive always thought of both the Miranda and Nebula classes being test beds for new technology, like the original plan for the Miranda class was to build a smaller vehicle to test equipment which was to go into the Constitution redevelopment and the layout of the Class proved itself so it went into production.

 

[Timo]

Then again, both Miranda and Nebula seem to appear on screen in greater numbers than their high-nacelled sister designs. It's as if the low-nacellers were the production model and the high-nacellers the prototype. Or, more satisfactorily perhaps, the high-nacellers were the special deluxe edition.

If anything, NCC-1701 in ST:TMP might have been our testbed, as her new engines were the subject of much anxiety in the movie. Then again, all warp engines may be quirky and unreliable as individuals before properly calibrated; the technology seen in ST:TMP might have been a decade old for all we know, as we saw no other Starfleet vessels in that movie.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MyClone]

My first exposure to Treknology came from the Franz Joseph manual, and I always assumed that many of those "tug" ships were converted into "Avengers" and "Mirandas" perhaps in response to some percived threat (other than the Klingon and Romulans).

Starfleet needed a new class of ship so they took the tugs and rebuilt them as cruisers... Weapons and increased shielding in external pods. The aft-ends were built up considerably to give them extended range and capabilities.

I like this idea. It neatly explains why the Reliant has a primary hull which looks exactly like the Enterprise's; this would make little sense if the Reliant wasn't a conversion. It's always bugged me that the Reliant saucer seems to have hull details that make no sense given the aft hull (like the landing leg ports).

Thanks,
--MyClone

 

[Wingsley]

Then again, both Miranda and Nebula seem to appear on screen in greater numbers than their high-nacelled sister designs. It's as if the low-nacellers were the production model and the high-nacellers the prototype. Or, more satisfactorily perhaps, the high-nacellers were the special deluxe edition.

If anything, NCC-1701 in ST:TMP might have been our testbed, as her new engines were the subject of much anxiety in the movie. Then again, all warp engines may be quirky and unreliable as individuals before properly calibrated; the technology seen in ST:TMP might have been a decade old for all we know, as we saw no other Starfleet vessels in that movie.

Timo Saloniemi

There's an interesting possibility here, depending on how Starfleet is organized.

If we assume, say, that Kirk's "heavy cruiser" Enterprise is really a "battleship" (Roddenberry's novelization of TMP, page 115, IIRC) or perhaps a "dreadnought" for sake of argument, and Reliant/Miranda is maybe a "light cruiser" or "frigate", and if we assume that starships are typically assigned to certain sectors of space (maybe their flotilla command is the nearest Starbase), then maybe each fleet (or wing) is organized around a structure of ships in various classes, like say, for every Connie "heavy cruiser" there are two Spitfire "medium cruisers" and/or three Miranda "light cruisers", and another ten Oberth class ships, etc. This would comprise a typical fleet command under a local commodore at the starbase. (Like Mendez) This could also blend in nicely with the mention of different flotillas in DS9 ("the Third Fleet", etc.).

 

[SpyOne]

Then again, we have Starfleet's newest design prototype, the USS Prometheus, with the hull registry of NX-59650 plastered across her bow.

I'm pretty sure Michael Okuda stated that the registry was a mistake by the VFX people, and that it should have been what was on the dedication plaque.

Mistake or not, going that way we can then probably imagine hull registries to be anything we want them to be, no matter what's actually displayed.

Well, in the case of the Prometheus the discrepancy is easily explained by disinformation: Starfleet intentionally painted the wrong number on the hull to help disguise the prototype ship. we can even suppose that there is an older class of ship that superficially resembles the Prometheus.

I'm with you on the Constellation, though.