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NX Class: Can we take the Daedalus class serious now?

Commodore_Rook

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
With the slick looking, more advanced NX class Warp 5 cruiser, can we really take the Warp 7 Daedlus class ship serious now? Obviously, created WAY before the NX and an early version/forebare of the Constitution class. It is so out dated looking, and fragile, that to shoehorn it in between the sleek NX and the classic Connie, is a bit hard to swallow. Yet it is cannon and is an established class.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Daedalus_class
 
With the slick looking, more advanced NX class Warp 5 cruiser, can we really take the Warp 7 Daedlus class ship serious now? Obviously, created WAY before the NX and an early version/forebare of the Constitution class. It is so out dated looking, and fragile, that to shoehorn it in between the sleek NX and the classic Connie, is a bit hard to swallow. Yet it is cannon and is an established class.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Daedalus_class

Yes, definitely, as the Excelsior class is a strange configuration after the majestic looking Constitution/Constitution-refit class, then so does the Daedalus logically belong as an experiment too like Excelsior for her time.
 
The name "Daedalus class" is a matter of record, courtesy of TNG's "Power Play", but the appearance has always been speculative. Even that desk model in Sisko's office isn't necessarily definitive, since it could just as easily be just a conceptual design that never went into production. And, let's be honest, there's a reason why that design was rejected back in the day, it's ugly!

I prefer to think that the Daedalus class was a more refined version of Drexler's NX refit. Same basic shape and size, but advanced enough to qualify as a new class.
 
I figured it would act more as a frigate, with the massive spherical forward section a smattering of cargo bays. But I did envision that design as the "warp 7" ship alluded to in TATV.

I do consider the design more or less teh canon... interesting that the Olympic stands in as a homage to the "conjecture" of the Daedalus class. Wow.... Star Trek canon is a headache. But I really like the D-class design.

From Memory Alpha regarding the ENT novels: "The NX ships were deemed too expensive and taking too long to build, shipyard personnel stated they could churn out three new Daedalus hulls in the same time it would take to build one NX vessel."
 
In canon, we only have that single Daedalus from "Power Play". But even in semicanon, the ships that get (rather arbitrarily) assigned a Daedalus identity seem to serve in the classic "damsel in distress" role that in TNG is met by the Oberth class. That is, they get bested by villains and aliens that Kirk only manages to defeat because his starship isn't immediately destroyed by the threat of the week.

The Daedalus as depicted in semicanon, the sphere-and-cylinder affair, could easily do the part of Oberth in the 22nd century. Being ugly, fragile and primitive would actually be a big bonus there.

Note that we don't yet know the full timeline on this class. We know it was withdrawn from use by 2196, but was that when all the 68 surviving and still potent ships were retired in favor of a modern successor - or was that when the last of the class ceased to allow tourists aboard for the museum cruises because the century-old hull was leaking too badly? Canon is silent on the issue; most novels nowadays assume the Daedalus class preceded the Enterprise class (or NX class, or whatever) by at least a decade, and remained in use and production throughout ENT.

Personally, I side with the novels in the Daedalus being an early Earth vessel from the 2140s, and looking much like Sisko's tabletop model, but never being a first-rate vessel, and instead filling the secondary, off-frontlines, science and supply vessel role from the very start. But the single canon bit, the "Power Play" thing, might instead point towards a much larger frontier explorer that was still pretty hot in the 2190s.

Timo Saloniemi
 
the ships design doesn't have to please the eye, graceful lines make little sense because there is no drag in space. borg ships are perfect, cubes and spheres. daedalus certainly has more volume in proportion to its surface than the pretty nx, insofar an improvement.
 
OTOH, why skimp on surface area? If the idea is to avoid enemy fire, low side profile would seem the better idea; the thin Vulcan needles would be well protected from most directions, and the Earth saucers could always turn to place their edge towards the enemy, too. A sphere would not allow for that.

Real-world issues such as thermal regulation would probably not affect these high-tech spacecraft much.

Timo Saloniemi
 
The aborted Romulan war film, Star Trek: The Beginning (set 2159) was going to feature the USS Spartan, a Daedalus-class warp 8 ship that gets stolen from drydock around Saturn.

Daedalus-class ships also appear during the Romulan War in the videogame Star Trek: Legacy. They've been given an NX-style makeover and look quite cool.

The novels Daedalus and Daedalus' Children feature a prototype CID-drive ship called Daedalus, launched 14 years prior to Enterprise NX-01. The novels keep the details of the ship vague (probably so they could say "it a different Daedalus!" if the TV show had introduced it's own Daedalus ships with a conflicting backstory), but it's probable that after the CID drive failed, the class was built with standard warp drives.
 
..it's probable that after the CID drive failed, the class was built with standard warp drives.

It's even possible that when the CID drive failed, the class was left unbuilt (save for those hulls that had already been completed or half-completed) - but when the need for a ship in that size category arose, the already finished design was resurrected and put to immediate production.

That way, we'd have the CID testbed herself, then a couple of early vessels that get a mention in the ENT novels, then the surge of newbuilds for the Romulan War, and then the big Starfleet: Year One planning session on how to actually finalize the design for operational use after the war, after the mad building rush of half-baked filler ships was over.

Timo Saloniemi
 
With the slick looking, more advanced NX class Warp 5 cruiser, can we really take the Warp 7 Daedlus class ship serious now? Obviously, created WAY before the NX and an early version/forebare of the Constitution class. It is so out dated looking, and fragile, that to shoehorn it in between the sleek NX and the classic Connie, is a bit hard to swallow. Yet it is cannon and is an established class.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Daedalus_class

Yes, definitely, as the Excelsior class is a strange configuration after the majestic looking Constitution/Constitution-refit class, then so does the Daedalus logically belong as an experiment too like Excelsior for her time.

What are you talking about?
Excelsior is the same EXACT configuration as Constitution.
Constitution II is the advanced stream line of Constitution I and Excelsior is the advanced stream line of of the Constitution II.

Both Constitution II and Excelsior use the same Line-to-circle-arc design. It's the reason both ships appear to be from the same time period. So taste not withstanding on whether you like the Excelsior or not...it clearly the same look and style as Reliant, Constitution and Oberth.
 
I'd say it's just the same color.

(And has two nacelles and a couple of hulls, but that's true of the Daedalus as well.)

The neck structure is quite different from that of Kirk's old ships (cf. the Daedalus tube-neck), the flat top of the secondary hull is an utter novelty (cf. the Daedalusstraight cylinder), and the nacelles are of an all-new design with never before seen features (in which they echo the major difference between TOS and TMP nacelles, and call attention to the fact that the TOS and Daedalus nacelles appear more or less identical, at least in comparison).

We could create "family resemblance" between basically any two Trek starship designs ever seen simply by decorating both in the same hull and pennant colors - the designs themselves are that diverse and lacking in family looks otherwise. Hull paint is the only reason the Grissom can be accepted as an Excelsior era starship...

Timo Saloniemi
 
With the slick looking, more advanced NX class Warp 5 cruiser, can we really take the Warp 7 Daedlus class ship serious now? Obviously, created WAY before the NX and an early version/forebare of the Constitution class. It is so out dated looking, and fragile, that to shoehorn it in between the sleek NX and the classic Connie, is a bit hard to swallow. Yet it is cannon and is an established class.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Daedalus_class

Yes, the Daedalus class is canon, but the Greg Jein design of the sphere and cylinder hulls is NOT canonically identified as the Daedalus class.
 
It's just as well. The design is too...filmsy...like the NX o1 but it's always looked out date even with TOS.
 
These days, I tend to think of the Daedalus-class as a science vessel, perhaps the 22nd-Century version of the Nova-class.

But I also think that after ENT, Starfleet shipbuilding policies swerved towards using basic, standardized hull components that could be used for multiple starship classes. The Daedalus-class may have been a result. Even the Constitution-class may have benefited from this policy a century later, IMO...
 
I like the novel's idea that the Daedalus Class was an older, pre-NX hull design that was called back into service and refitted with upgraded technology...hence the hull arrangement which looks more primitive than the NX Class - and the details of the ship which look like something just pre-TOS era...

(Really, trying to fix the NX Class, the Daedalus Class, the Kelvin-style ships we saw in "Star Trek" and the TOS-style ships all into a consistent technological evolution is just a *nightmare*...)
 
Daedalus-class ships also appear during the Romulan War in the videogame Star Trek: Legacy. They've been given an NX-style makeover and look quite cool.

^That design actually looks closer to the Kelvin (to me) than it does to the NX Class...but I *like* that actually...it's a pretty cool makeover!
 
I like the novel's idea that the Daedalus Class was an older, pre-NX hull design that was called back into service and refitted with upgraded technology...hence the hull arrangement which looks more primitive than the NX Class - and the details of the ship which look like something just pre-TOS era...

That is probabaly the best explaination of why it was in service, that and the fact they could crank out 3 to 1 NX classes. Still, the designer was on something when he came up with the design! lol (NOT Matt Jeffries, the fictional designer of the ship)
 
Daedalus is one of my favorite classes.... partly maybe due to it's rarity/conjectural design. Maybe we'll see it officially canonized one day... if prime universe Trek ever returns to the small screen.
 
(Really, trying to fix the NX Class, the Daedalus Class, the Kelvin-style ships we saw in "Star Trek" and the TOS-style ships all into a consistent technological evolution is just a *nightmare*...)

Hmh? Three out of those four seem related enough: all have saucer hulls and standoff nacelles, and there's even a trend away from complex angular things towards a simplistic and smooth finish, a trend that could be considered rather "realistic".

The poor Daedalus is the odd ship out - but nobody ever actually said it should fit in. It's not considered a "missing link" in any lineage. It's just a ship design that happens to be out there, just like Oberth exists outside the apparent lineage of the Enterprises.

It'd be fun to learn what difference it makes to have a saucer instead of a sphere or some other arbitrary shape. Is the saucer an advantage that Earth discovered after dabbling with the Daedalus? Or it is just one competing model out of several, and Daedalus represents a successful parallel school of thought (which will eventually give us the Olympic, too)?

Timo Saloniemi
 
The novels Daedalus and Daedalus' Children feature a prototype CID-drive ship called Daedalus, launched 14 years prior to Enterprise NX-01. The novels keep the details of the ship vague (probably so they could say "it a different Daedalus!" if the TV show had introduced it's own Daedalus ships with a conflicting backstory), but it's probable that after the CID drive failed, the class was built with standard warp drives.

What's 'CID' drive? I've never heard of such a thing and Google is throwing up blanks...
 
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