Nebula Bonchune vs Sutherland variants

[CharlieZardoz]

Why should we think that when we are seeing things for the first time, they are brand new?

This has never been true of Trek, really. In TOS, Kirk operated legacy hardware. In the movies, he operated hardware that was beyond legacy and well into the decomposing phase. Picard had a ship that was new but not particularly novel. Sisko relied on scraps from programs decades past.

Timo Saloniemi

You're not wrong about that. Trek always introduced new stories, tech, ships week to week. It wasn't like Babylon 5 where Straczynski had the whole 10,000 year plot nailed down years in advance (er mostly). Most of the stories in Trek were written on the spot and then looked at to make sure they didn't conflict with establish lore. Even DS9 didn't really know where there were headed with the Dominion War until the end (and a great end too). So regarding the FC ships yeah I guess the point you are making is that once they were introduced we were to believe that they've been there all along and maybe they were as there is nothing contradicting that statement. They look more advanced than say the New Orleans class but that could be due to the style of the artist rather than design. Dukat I did read recently one of your posts which said the registries of the FC classes were made by ILM not Okuda which might be why they have the lower numbers that they maybe should. Honestly I don't know one way or the other, if someone could prove to me they were newer ships I'd believe it, if someone could prove they were contemporaries of the New Orleans, Freedom, Nebula classes I can believe that too.

But the entry on the list in Stone's office does say "1864." "1664" was just a product of someone squinting at a low-definition freeze-frame of the scene and extrapolating the best they could at the time.

I got ya, that's... weird but it proves my point. Noone who wrote those numbers back then thought to themselves "hey that's the Reliant" but unless we ignore that number entirely it does make for good argument that the Miranda had a TOS contemporary which I've always found to be an attractive notion.

 

[Dukhat]

No one who wrote those numbers back then thought to themselves "hey that's the Reliant" but unless we ignore that number entirely it does make for good argument that the Miranda had a TOS contemporary which I've always found to be an attractive notion.

Actually, I'm of the opinion that if the Reliant existed as far back as TOS's "Court Martial," it looked exactly like how it looked in TWOK, and that it wasn't refit from an older design. The Constitution class at the time of TOS was already an older design, so it would be logical to assume that any ships with registries of 18XX would be of the newer TMP style; we just never saw any of them on screen. Remember, chronologically TMP took place only two years after TOS ended.

 

[yenny]

No one who wrote those numbers back then thought to themselves "hey that's the Reliant" but unless we ignore that number entirely it does make for good argument that the Miranda had a TOS contemporary which I've always found to be an attractive notion.

Actually, I'm of the opinion that if the Reliant existed as far back as TOS's "Court Martial," it looked exactly like how it looked in TWOK, and that it wasn't refit from an older design. The Constitution class at the time of TOS was already an older design, so it would be logical to assume that any ships with registries of 18XX would be of the newer TMP style; we just never saw any of them on screen. Remember, chronologically TMP took place only two years after TOS ended.

USS. Endeavour NCC-1895, USS. Reliant NCC-1864. Which will mean the episode Court Martial taking place 7 years before TMP.

 

[Dukhat]

USS. Endeavour NCC-1895, USS. Reliant NCC-1864. Which will mean the episode Court Martial taking place 7 years before TMP.

Court Martial = 2266
TMP = 2271

That's 5 years, not 7.

And I'm not sure what the Endeavour has to do with that.

 

[CharlieZardoz]

The idea of the Miranda class as being TMP era designs from the get go makes sense as well. Since we've seen ships like the Nebula class and New Orleans coming out before the Galaxy it is quite possible that the aging Constitutions were upgraded to Miranda tech after the first bunch were launched and proved successful. I am of the belief that the Constitution class is quite possibly older than has been established (if we take the Eagle as being a Connie which was also never proven). Regarding the Endeavour it was never fully established what class that ship was though if you want to use the Operation Retrieval docs as a reference then it points more toward being a Connie. What I wouldn't give for an updated omnipedia with all this missing info added into it by Okuda and co. There were plenty of starships mentioned in TNG that never got full class/registry info added into the omnipedia (for example Picard serving on a USS Reliant, the other Saratoga mentioned in DS9, the other USS Constellation, the USS Liberator or the ships mentioned in Eye of the Beholder assuming they were real) and it's quite possible they could be added to the trek canon as FC ships since I imagine that's what Okuda did the first time when he made ships like the Thomas Paine and Renegade into New Orleans class ships even though nothing was ever mentioned onscreen and the design itself hadn't to my knowledge existed yet. And regarding your thoughts Timo I also agree in considering noncanon ideas to plug holes in canon knowledge. I don't claim to have the right answers just having fun speculating. Maybe in that way not having answers to all these questions is a good thing as it means we are free to infer the possibilities.


Regarding my original question that started this topic I probably should have asked if anyone on here has ever built the warp models Nebula class conversion kit (the old one with the saucer) WM-1 and if so was the saucer the same shape as an Ertl galaxy saucer (minus windows) or was it a completely different shape of it's own. I can't tell just by looking at the image below and while I plan on buying one they've gotten hard to come by.

http://www.starship-models.com/artikel/vlhgross/22113.jpg

 

[yenny]

USS. Endeavour NCC-1895, USS. Reliant NCC-1864. Which will mean the episode Court Martial taking place 7 years before TMP.

Court Martial = 2266
TMP = 2271

That's 5 years, not 7.

And I'm not sure what the Endeavour has to do with that.

Ok, you're right on Court Martial. I was thinking it had took place in 2264. My mistake.

The Endeavour is listed in the Star Trek Encyclopedia as a Connie, and her registry number NCC-1895 is suppose to be on Commodore Stone starship repair progress wall chart.

 

[CharlieZardoz]

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/starbase11-wallchart.jpg

I don't see it on here, Endeavour was on Operation Retrieve in Undiscovered Country

http://www.neutralzone.de/database/Federation/Display/Operation_Retrieve_Starfleet_Assets.jpg

What I see on the chart is as follows according to Greg Jein's list

1709-Lexington
either 1831 or 1631-Intrepid (maybe 1831 is the Miranda lol)
1703-Hood
1672-Exeter
1864- Reliant or 1664-Excalibur
1697-Essex
1701-the USS Bill Shatner hehe
1718-supposedly the old Excelsior according to the Greg Jein list
1685-originally the Eagle before it was changed in ST VI
1700-supposedly the Constitutiton but could be anything

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Case_of_Jonathan_Doe_Starship

 

[Cpt. Kyle Amasov]

There is also the possibility that the Steamrunner, Saber, Norway, and Akira class were around since circa the Cardassian War, and the ships that we see have been upgraded or refitted, complete with newer lifepods.

While that is certainly a possibility, I find it highly unlikely that the Sector 001 battle consisted primarily of four types of ship classes that coincidentally were all refitted from previous older designs. And really, the Saber and Akira classes don't look too far off from other ships in their registry range (except for their ugly angular nacelles). And the Norway wasn't even a completely finished mesh when it was used for the scene. The only really problematic ship is the Steamrunner, with its low 5XXXX registry and weird design.

Looking at Eaves' sketches, the guy clearly had no clue about NCC numbering. Still, the way things are those numbers on the FC ships do make some sense. We just don't know the reason behind them being lower that current numbers. And whoever came up with them at the time never commented on it.

Intrepid has square hatches, round pods. Defiant has round pods, too. E-E and those ships have the 'molar tooth' pods. TNGTM indicated that the E-D pods, while sharing the same square hatches as Intrepid, are actually cubic, IIRC. I don't see how we can arrive at any conculsion on when the ships were built based on the look of the escape pods (or hatches).

BTW, I always had Prometheus (VOY) as a member of another, unnamed ship class from the 59xxx-range, hence the hull number, but extensive refits like the MVAM justified the prototype-status. So Prometheus NCC-59xxx is refitted and becomes the prototype vessel of her own class, therefore getting the NX-staus and higher number (74xxx? I'm doing this from memory). Since that project was classified, they didn't change the hull number.

Wasn't this a thread about Nebula?

 

[Tim Walker]

I have to wonder if designs such as the Akira and Sovereign classes were a response to older conflicts, such as with Cardassia, Tzenkethi, etc.

Think of the Akira as a Miranda on steroids. The Sovereign class appears to be of the same lineage as the Constitution, Ambassador, etc. classes.

Perhaps construction was halted by the peace treaty with Cardassia. Eventually resumed with encounter with the Borg. But being large ships it took considerable time to finish them.

 

[Dukhat]

Looking at Eaves' sketches, the guy clearly had no clue about NCC numbering. Still, the way things are those numbers on the FC ships do make some sense. We just don't know the reason behind them being lower that current numbers. And whoever came up with them at the time never commented on it.

Actually, the four FC ships were designed by Alex Jaeger, not John Eaves. Eaves only designed the Enterprise-E (although it's true that Eaves's NCC numbering on his design sketches are just random numbers that make no sense.)

BTW, I always had Prometheus (VOY) as a member of another, unnamed ship class from the 59xxx-range, hence the hull number, but extensive refits like the MVAM justified the prototype-status. So Prometheus NCC-59xxx is refitted and becomes the prototype vessel of her own class, therefore getting the NX-status and higher number (74xxx? I'm doing this from memory). Since that project was classified, they didn't change the hull number.

The Prometheus's registry was supposed to be NX-74913 (as depicted on the ship's dedication plaque), and Okuda admitted that the 5XXXX reg was a mistake. Still, that's what was shown clearly on screen, so it's possible that even new ships could have a 5XXXX registry (which was certainly true for the Tsiolkovsky thanks to yet another numbering mistake.)

It's a shame that mistakes end up being canon

I have to wonder if designs such as the Akira and Sovereign classes were a response to older conflicts, such as with Cardassia, Tzenkethi, etc.

The Akira, maybe. The Sovereign? No. It was designed after the Cardassian war Ended.

 

[Tim Walker]

. a lot of those study models and sketchings could be decent shoe-ins for some of the conjectural classes, like Probert's Ambassador for the Renaissance class, Excelsior study for the Hokule'a or the Intrepid study model for something like the Bradbury or Sequoia types. It's fun to speculate where some of these designs could have homes though as you say there's no real evidence but a there is some logic to it all.

ASDB had some cool designs for some of these classes. I particularly liked their version of the Hokule 'a.

However, Zardoz has some good points. A few of the conjectural classes may have been cobbled together from components of well established classes. The Niagara might be an example, like an Ambassador with a third nacelle. The Excelsior seems to have been particularly fertile in terms of spin off designs...scroll down.

 

[Timo]

The Sovereign? No. It was designed after the Cardassian war Ended.

Or then long before. After all, she does seem to have plenty of design features in common with pre-Galaxy ships:

- more or less triangular lifepods, such as with those 50000-registered Steamrunners
- short phaser strips, rather than the saucer-spanning ones found on Galaxy style ships
- fantail shapes and patterns common with the old Excelsior
- "clamshell" shuttlebay doors in the style of the old Constitutions and Excelsiors and Ambassadors
- plenty of terracing and angularity that either disappears or gets filed smooth in the Galaxy family of ships (with the low-registry Akira still retaining some angularity)
- large, angled impulse nozzles or radiators or whatnot, more Steamrunner than Galaxy fare

Only the warp nacelles appear modern. Or at least common with the Nova and the Prometheus - but the former is not claimed to be modern, and the latter was seen with a 59000 range registry...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tim Walker]

Regarding the Prometheus, I find it hard to believe it was designed from scratch to fight the Borg or the Dominion. It was too complicated. I suspect that the Prometheus was conceived as a purely experimental endeavor. Perhaps it was partly constructed when the Enterprise D first encountered the Borg. Star Fleet would have tried to put weapons on every available hull, even an experimental craft. (I suspect that this was also the case for the Norway).

 

[Tim Walker]

Came across a web site...that mentioned an ongoing project to design-in computers-a battle cruiser. When the Sovereign was actually built, it was, for a capital ship, a rushed job.

 

[137th Gebirg]

. a lot of those study models and sketchings could be decent shoe-ins for some of the conjectural classes, like Probert's Ambassador for the Renaissance class, Excelsior study for the Hokule'a or the Intrepid study model for something like the Bradbury or Sequoia types. It's fun to speculate where some of these designs could have homes though as you say there's no real evidence but a there is some logic to it all.

ASDB had some cool designs for some of these classes. I particularly liked their version of the Hokule 'a.

However, Zardoz has some good points. A few of the conjectural classes may have been cobbled together from components of well established classes. The Niagara might be an example, like an Ambassador with a third nacelle. The Excelsior seems to have been particularly fertile in terms of spin off designs...scroll down.

ASDB's designs are pretty nice. Their Merced class is certainly better looking than that God-awful deformed thing in the DS9 tech manual, and arguably more "mainstream"-looking than Dan Curry's odd little kitbash of the USS Trieste, which was supposedly a member of the unseen class.

 

[Dukhat]

Their Merced class is certainly better looking than that God-awful deformed thing in the DS9 tech manual,...

That's not from the DS9 Tech Manual. It's from a long-defunct Last Unicorn Games RPG, which was never even close to being any kind of canon source for starship information

...and arguably more "mainstream"-looking than Dan Curry's odd little kitbash of the USS Trieste, which was supposedly a member of the unseen class.

I don't think that model was really meant to represent the Merced class, just like I don't think any of the other kitbashes were meant to represent a specific class of ship mentioned in the Encyclopedia. They were just hastily slapped together models meant to be seen in the far background and not really taken seriously.

 

[Tim Walker]

I stand corrected....

Came across a comment that the admiralty was intrigued by the Prometheus concept. A gee whiz reaction to MVAM. (there's a saying-the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys).

 

[Ithekro]

Do USS Millennium and USS Falcon always run together?

 

[Tomalak]

Re: I stand corrected....

Came across a comment that the admiralty was intrigued by the Prometheus concept. A gee whiz reaction to MVAM. (there's a saying-the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys).

The thing that struck me was "Production halted per President Norah Satie's executive order".

Who the hell voted for Star Trek's Joe McCarthy?