Hi Bill! Hang in there, friend. The world is with you. I will be blogging next Sunday (3/27), work permitting, so I will get images together, and examine the issues more closely. The bottom line is that you absolutely cannot judge the size of the Defiant by watching the shows. It's crystal clear that great liberties were taken in the comp bay regularly. So forget that. Judging scale by what you see on DS9 during the age of physical models is nutty. Boris... in the titles VFX put guys in spacesuits working on a docking arm. How big would you say they are? Yep, they're gigantic. Some history - No one really knew how big the ship was in the beginning, and there was controversy while it was being built. The producers waffled about it, and it was impossible to get a straight answer. Really an issue for me because I had to assemble the MSD. The problem - The physical model does not have anything on it with a human scale in order to avoid contradicting whatever would be decided later. A single airlock and docking port would have answered the burning question. It was designed to be ambiguous. Until we saw the Chaffee leave the Defiant there was nothing concrete, aside from the MSD, to go by. I drew up the Chaffee so that it would work with the MSD, because unlike the VFX shots of the Defiant, the MSD never changed it's scale. The Chaffee and the MSD are the key because they are clear and consistent. The solution - Would be to adjust the size of the bay door, and not mess with the Chaffee, or the length of the CG Defiant. Gary stated what he thought the size of the ship was, as you noted earlier, but he and the other VFX supervisors took great liberties with it during the run of the show. It ended up being more of a suggestion. I was the only one who had to deal with it in concrete terms because I had to create the MSD and run the gauntlet with Ira.
Thanks, Doug Drexler, for your help. It is greatly appreciated. I sent a message about the length and a link here to Bernd at EAS, along with the official word (with link to the relevant drex files page) on the Wells cless, for which he still has the wrong length. By the way, the Strategic Designs Nova deck plans, in all their glory, are back up at Cygnus. Get 'em while the getting's good. Nova deck plans: http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/sd-uss-nova-nx-72228.php
Only deck 1 of the Defiant comes up large if you click on it. None did for the last couple of weeks. The rest might later. It doesn't hurt to check periodically. My new Defiant deck plans are now at Cygnus, though, for what it's worth. Unlike the DS ones, mine don't show the furniture. At least the colors are nice. And they're blown up larger there than on my Web site.
Hi, I can definately agree with Doug Drexler about how much a ship's design/scale can change based on the, lets say "indecision" of producers and directors on an episode by episode basis. I've recently worked on a show (not Trek) where the scale and design of the spaceship were still being changed and discussed *after* an episode was delivered showing the ship in all it's glory with people standing right beside it. It unfortunately happens more than people realize. Then the fans are left trying to figure out which episode is more valid than another, and what to ignore and include when creating blueprints or their own 3d models or whatever. You end up having to follow the productions orders and cheat as little as you can. But anyway, I know this is a thread about Nova deck plans, but since the SD Defiant and it's front and rear views became part of the discussion, I'll throw this in. When I was partnered with SD on the deck plans that are displayed on Cygnus, I was given preliminary versions to "proofread" but ended up having to redraw entire or large portions of external and internal areas to match the physical/CG models and what was seen onscreen. For the Defiant, I was given this: http://www.timpalgut.com/defiant_front_aft_before.jpg More than just certain details being missing, various proportions and shapes were just plain wrong and seemed to be copied from the Fact Files blueprints (particularly the deck 1 area and the warhead), with no regard to any proper source material such as photos of the physical model or episode screencaps. I redrew those views to result in this: http://www.timpalgut.com/defiant_front_aft_after.jpg Still probably not 100% accurate, but an example of how hard it is to create acceptable results. Tim
Fascinating. I'm doing an extensive redraw of the ship using photos and the SD ship as template on this site for the Star Trek Game Bridge Commander. http://www.bc-central.com/forums/index.php/topic,8350.msg169102.html#new You-would-not-believe....the odd shapes I'm getting on the Defiant Studio Model that I suspect no one realized were there. I welcome your insight because as the thread is named...I intend to produce the Precise Defiant Plans.
Cool, I checked your link out. The bottom isn't a flat plane? See, I learn something new every day. You're right in that there's odd shapes everywhere. Check your PM.
Just an update, I've redrawn and fixed much of the exterior again. They're much much more accurate to the studio model. More than just colours, a lot of details and overall external accuracy has been improved. Now I'm going to improve the internal layout. http://www.timpalgut.com/Defiant_views.jpg
Going back to the topic, I have these deck plans by John D. Lees. They are deck by deck plans (top down views). I can't remember where I found them and I have searched the web but have not found them. Has anyone heard of this John D. Lees? They are nice pictures of the Nova class. I am not sure they are accurate because they show holodecks on deck 4 but the MSDs that I have do not show them.
Yep, I have those too. They say "Interiors by John D. Lees copyright 2002" on them. Didn't they say explicitly in the show that the Nova didn't have holodecks?
The Nebula Class had interchangeable mission pods (as perhaps the Mirandas too). I have read someplace that ships can have their Bridges replaced as one whole section. It doesn't seem impossible that the Equinox was just one of those ships that wasn't outfitted with holodecks. Unless it was stated elsewhere that ALL Nova class ships didn't get them.
To be sure, nothing in the episode "Equinox" establishes that the individual ship, let alone the ship type, would lack holodecks. All we ever learn is that the crew uses those synaptic stimulators the Ponea gave them, and that Gilmore describes them as "poor man's holodeck". For all we know, the ship had six holodecks, Starfleet considering them essential life support gear - but the Delta Quadrant robbed them of all, through malfunctions, shortages and battle damage. Or we could even say that the ship still retains a functional holodeck, but the "poor man's" versions are vastly preferable to it because they allow the whole crew to run customized programs simultaneously. Timo Saloniemi
Could also be a power issue. Tho Voyager seemed to be running holodecks all the time while on emergency food rationing...
Or, more accurately, she seemed to be on emergency food rationing while running all systems at normal power levels. Seems the food rationing system was there mainly for the morale, not out of any sort of technological necessity. A sort of "we're hanging on, in great peril but hanging on, and we'll never give up despite hardship" thing so that the folks don't forget they are on a mission to go home, that they don't realize they're actually doing just fine simply by cruising around and not getting markedly closer to home. The ship appears to have been fully repaired as soon as they cleared Kazon country. Enough friendly, technologically advanced ports of call after that, it seems. But the food rations remain till the very end. Holodecks never seemed to be particularly power-hungry, to be sure, not in VOY, DS9 or TNG. The inability to cross-connect their power systems with the rest of the ship was shrugged off as irrelevant by Janeway in "Parallax", while the power from the life support of two decks was considered crucial enough to be rerouted; apparently, then, keeping the holodecks running takes markedly less power than providing lighting, heating and ventilation for two decks! Timo Saloniemi
I have two sets of John's plans, which I used with his permission for my sim. I also have one or two other full deck plans of that class from other sources. I've been collecting deck plans from all over the net for years, so I have a lot of them.