Remember the prototype Starship Prometheus in VOY's "Message in a Bottle"? Well, a recent discussion thread in the TrekBBS Trek Tech forum prompted me to dig up some old artwork drawn years earlier that makes VOY's "multi-vector assault mode" starship concept look lame by comparison. I decided to share this artwork with all of you.
In the summer of 1989, long before I even dreamed of having an internet connection, I started a correspondence-by-snail-mail-and-phone with Michael Alexander of Solaris Designs in California. Mike and I would swap letters and phone calls about STAR TREK, art, science, computers, politics, and just about everything else under the sun. A few months after we started out dialogue, we both saw TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise" air for the first time. This episode, which I harshly criticized at the time ("I'm supposed to be dead..." Really?
) became a favorite can to kick around. The discussion of the ill-fated Enterprise-C drifted to what a "tomorrow's Enterprise" might look like.
There's where Prometheus came into the picture... sort of...
Within a few months, I draw up a vague concept for what I called the Enterprise-H, dubbed a Massena-class starship. Like the Promotheus seen on VOYAGER years later, this was a very advanced starship, capable of separating into three warp-capable sub-ships when needed. Here's my original, admittedly lame pencil artwork:
Lame and cheesey, eh?
Well, Mike worked his magic with it, and came up with this...
His signature at the bottom corner clearly indicates his drawing was made the 27th of July, 1990, almost 20 years ago. Seems like yesterday.
As I mentioned in the Trek Tech thread, The one issue I have with Prometheus is that not all three "ships" are equal. The "top" third seems pretty weak-looking, like some kind of escape ship. If you wanted a serious three-ships-in-one design, all three "ships" would have to be pretty much the same in terms of capacities, engines, weapons, etc. As it stands, 1+1+1 does not equal three with Prometheus. It looks more like 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/3.
Prometheus made me laugh. Years before VOY's "Message in a Bottle", I came up with Massena. As you can see above, Massena looked like a highly evolved Galaxy-class vessel. The stardrive section was very similar to the TNG Galaxy, but the saucer was very different. it was somewhat bulkier, and it split into two hemispheres, upper and lower. Each hemisphere-hull had built-in full-size warp nacelles, kinda like a cross between a Galaxy and a Defiant in terms of shape. The design was meant to be a successor to the Galaxy-class, like a "Galaxy II", where the three sets of warp engines that could alternately fire when rigged for sustained high-warp flight to maintain a higher top speed for a much longer period of time. Each "third" of a ship could operate independently for long periods of time, either exploring or for combat or other missions. So, you would really have three starships in one. Kinda makes poor Prometheus look lame.
The ribbing along the front of the two "saucers" are not windows. They are a combination energy array, like a cross between a navigational deflector and a phaser bank.
Much as I love my Massena concept, and believe it to be superior to Prometheus, I will be the first to admit it looks awkward and needs some serious work. My thought is that the saucer should split more evenly, so that the "upper" and "lower" hemispheres are more evenly divided. The warp nacelles for the upper hemisphere could be shifted down so they would be directly above the lower hemisphere; instead of being located on the outer rim of the saucer they could be move inboard a bit. I would also like to see the "aft hull" below reshaped to be more strongly reminiscent of the old Galaxy-class.
I guess the reason I posted this here is that it's been years since I corresponded with Mike. The end of the Cold War disrupted his aerospace work and changed his whole life. I have not been able to contact him for quite a while. Mike and I used to use each other for sounding boards all the time. So when the correspondence stopped, the drawings just sat there and gathered dust. Helluva shame.
Now, I'm sharing these images here today because Mike and I used to spread this stuff around in snail-mail rings, back when "high tech" meant word processing, laser printers and photocopiers. I was wondering if anyone here would want to tinker with the Massena and bring her into the internet age. If anyone wants to try, please, by all means have at it!
In the summer of 1989, long before I even dreamed of having an internet connection, I started a correspondence-by-snail-mail-and-phone with Michael Alexander of Solaris Designs in California. Mike and I would swap letters and phone calls about STAR TREK, art, science, computers, politics, and just about everything else under the sun. A few months after we started out dialogue, we both saw TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise" air for the first time. This episode, which I harshly criticized at the time ("I'm supposed to be dead..." Really?
) became a favorite can to kick around. The discussion of the ill-fated Enterprise-C drifted to what a "tomorrow's Enterprise" might look like.There's where Prometheus came into the picture... sort of...
Within a few months, I draw up a vague concept for what I called the Enterprise-H, dubbed a Massena-class starship. Like the Promotheus seen on VOYAGER years later, this was a very advanced starship, capable of separating into three warp-capable sub-ships when needed. Here's my original, admittedly lame pencil artwork:
Lame and cheesey, eh?
Well, Mike worked his magic with it, and came up with this...
His signature at the bottom corner clearly indicates his drawing was made the 27th of July, 1990, almost 20 years ago. Seems like yesterday.
As I mentioned in the Trek Tech thread, The one issue I have with Prometheus is that not all three "ships" are equal. The "top" third seems pretty weak-looking, like some kind of escape ship. If you wanted a serious three-ships-in-one design, all three "ships" would have to be pretty much the same in terms of capacities, engines, weapons, etc. As it stands, 1+1+1 does not equal three with Prometheus. It looks more like 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/3.
Prometheus made me laugh. Years before VOY's "Message in a Bottle", I came up with Massena. As you can see above, Massena looked like a highly evolved Galaxy-class vessel. The stardrive section was very similar to the TNG Galaxy, but the saucer was very different. it was somewhat bulkier, and it split into two hemispheres, upper and lower. Each hemisphere-hull had built-in full-size warp nacelles, kinda like a cross between a Galaxy and a Defiant in terms of shape. The design was meant to be a successor to the Galaxy-class, like a "Galaxy II", where the three sets of warp engines that could alternately fire when rigged for sustained high-warp flight to maintain a higher top speed for a much longer period of time. Each "third" of a ship could operate independently for long periods of time, either exploring or for combat or other missions. So, you would really have three starships in one. Kinda makes poor Prometheus look lame.
The ribbing along the front of the two "saucers" are not windows. They are a combination energy array, like a cross between a navigational deflector and a phaser bank.
Much as I love my Massena concept, and believe it to be superior to Prometheus, I will be the first to admit it looks awkward and needs some serious work. My thought is that the saucer should split more evenly, so that the "upper" and "lower" hemispheres are more evenly divided. The warp nacelles for the upper hemisphere could be shifted down so they would be directly above the lower hemisphere; instead of being located on the outer rim of the saucer they could be move inboard a bit. I would also like to see the "aft hull" below reshaped to be more strongly reminiscent of the old Galaxy-class.
I guess the reason I posted this here is that it's been years since I corresponded with Mike. The end of the Cold War disrupted his aerospace work and changed his whole life. I have not been able to contact him for quite a while. Mike and I used to use each other for sounding boards all the time. So when the correspondence stopped, the drawings just sat there and gathered dust. Helluva shame.
Now, I'm sharing these images here today because Mike and I used to spread this stuff around in snail-mail rings, back when "high tech" meant word processing, laser printers and photocopiers. I was wondering if anyone here would want to tinker with the Massena and bring her into the internet age. If anyone wants to try, please, by all means have at it!
