Here's the story: During the principal design phase for The Next Generation, the senior illustrator was Andrew Probert, who designed the Enterprise-D. When creating the well-known set of relief-style Enterprise evolutionary ships for
the famous wall in the 1701-D observation lounge, it was Probert who decided that the 1701-B should be an Excelsior class vessel. That left only one ship, the 1701-C, to have to imagine, so he worked out a very serious design that blended elements of the Excelsior and his own Galaxy class.
Probert had also created a
simple painting for a ship that could be seen from a distance, perhaps not having to be made into a full shooting model -- an older ship that borrowed the ideas he built into the observation room model. This essentially became the "Ambassador."
The first time the Enterprise-C was realized for a model was for the third season episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" (the show I've always considered TNG's true "pilot episode"). By that time, Probert's seat as senior illustrator was being filled by Rick Sternbach (who would later design Voyager). While the TNG production crew did take extra time on "Yesterday's" since it was not your ordinary episode, they still couldn't take a whole month, so Sternbach was tasked with creating a viable vessel that fulfilled the basic principles of Probert's original design while still being relatively easy to build as a model. Thus the primary hull was made perfectly circular; the engine nacelles were extruded from simple rounded rectangles; and
the pylons were L-shaped instead of wings. I've always liked Sternbach's 1701-C, not necessarily as a refinement but as a vessel representative of trying to do bigger things while staying conservative and true to principle. Sternbach's C fits the motif of an Enterprise, and I won't change that opinion now.
However. . .
Along comes Andrew Probert back into the picture to complete the job he never got the opportunity to do with the show. Mind you, Probert was never bound by Sternbach's constraints -- he had all the time in the world, he didn't have to adhere to a budget, and he didn't need to be concerned with how much trouble his design might present to a model maker with a vacuum-forming machine.
So he took his time and he skipped no detail, but Probert's result (as realized fully in
Tobias Richter's 3D model) is a stunningly beautiful, blow-me-out-of-the-water work of art. I say this as someone who is in the minority who never particularly embraced the Enterprise-D -- in fact, as someone who reviewed the ship, the day of TNG's premiere, as having traded the original 1701's trademark pride for a slump-shouldered slouch. Okay, so I've warmed up since then (some would say I've
grown up a little, maybe, perhaps). The Probert Ambassador (officially not a "1701-C") has all the graceful, continuing, holistic lines of the Galaxy integrated with all the visual trademarks of the ships that came before, including the angular and pragmatic Excelsior.
And from many angles, this Ambassador is truly breathtaking, especially that calendar shot at the top of this thread -- if ever a Trek ship were as captivating as the greatest swimsuit model ever to adorn the month of June,
this is the one. There's a single, gentle "U" shape for the engine supports that runs all the way through the center line of the secondary hull, suggesting rather than several individual components bolted and duct-taped together, a holistic and all-encompassing design into which everything blends. The primary hull has the same cheeky expression as the Galaxy, but as a perfect circle like the elder Enterprises. And rather than the body of a whale, the secondary hull on Probert's Ambassador is like a really cool surfboard -- you can imagine it skimming through space rather than plowing through it.
Personally, I wish this had been the Enterprise-D. I wish Probert had the opportunity to make one more pass, to take the sketches he was working with for the Galaxy class and work them backwards just a few steps, re-integrating the good visual elements of the earlier designs (one of which was his own treatment of Jefferies' Constitution refit, which for me remains The Greatest Ship in Star Trek). If this had been the ship on-screen in 1987, I could have reveled in the breathtaking new directions for the design (moving
away from modularization, rather than toward it as Sternbach's 1701-C suggests) while finding honorary touches of what we've already come to know and love -- the blue "spininess" of the nacelle body and the ribbed neck from Excelsior, the prominent, single registry number on the lower hull and the port side atrium from the TMP Enterprise.
If you've ever tried to draw a human face from memory, both from the front and the profile like a police mugshot, you'll no doubt have discovered how easy it is to unintentionally make an expression look sad or depressed or puzzled or even distrusting. It doesn't take much to ruin an expression. Well, the Enterprise has always been as much a character in Star Trek as any of its actors. There is a certain expression that befits the Enterprise no matter who -- or, in this case, what -- is playing the role. For me, Enterprise-D has a sadness, a depression that I can't get around. It sulks, looking down from you, downtrodden and befuddled like a gape-mouthed child that has lost his way in the subway. It feels like it's melted in the hot sun, like the Statue of Liberty in "Planet of the Apes."
From a draftsman's standpoint, Probert's Ambassador is not all that different from the 1701-D. The differences are, for the most part, subtleties. And yet in terms of raw expression, it's as different as Danny Kaye from Broderick Crawford. It's proud, glorious, happy just to have a job. It feels younger.
All that said, I don't think I would replace Sternbach's 1701-C from "Yesterday's Enterprise" with Probert's Ambassador. First of all, I would hate to have to build such a beautiful model and then torch it as though the Romulans ate it for lunch. But what's more, the 1701-C that emerged from the time tunnel in the show looked sad, beaten up, bewildered -- and it
needed to, because that represented the character of the ship that was necessary for this particular show. I'm not sure you could make Probert's Ambassador look beaten up, downtrodden, and defeated if you bent the back end to one side 90 degrees. This is such a great ship that, even in defeat, it would be hard to feel sorry for it because it looks ready for whatever's next.
I do love studying two great designers' very different approaches to one basic concept, with two separate and uniquely valuable outcomes, like two architects competing for the same building.
DF "Capt. Picard, May I Suggest Sending the Enterprise-D Back Through the Wormhole and leaving this Enterprise-C Here to Fight the Klingons?" Scott
