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

[Timo]

Dave Stern cooked it up for his ENT novels Daedalus and Daedalus' Children. I don't know how much he thought about integrating it into the Trek continuity, but it fits in many ways:

Stern says an ion cascade mechanism is a promising power generation tech that fails spectacularly in a human test in the 2140s - but the Suliban managed to get it working, and their ships are propelled by it. Stern's inventor calls the system "cascade ion drive", or CID for short (and seems to have a thing for the heroic character El Cid, too). Henry Archer's antimatter system wins out when CID flops.

VOY tells us that polaric ions are a promising energy source that fails spectacularly on an alien planet in "Time and Again". There's also a polaric ion test ban in the Alpha Quadrant.

Scotty in "Spock's Brain" says that a well-working ion drive in a starship is something the Feds could learn a thing or two from. Said drive seems to move the starship at warp speeds.

And the Class F shuttle in "The Menagerie" features ion engine power...

So, perhaps CID is part and parcel of Star Trek, but the Feds only know how to use it in small scale, such as in propelling shuttlecraft? That would also explain those cases when warp-capable shuttles behave as if they didn't have antimatter warp cores aboard.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

(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*...)

Some of those could simply represent 'technological dead-ends'.

 

[drazzz52923849]

I think that the Daedalus looks cool.

 

[USS Excelsior]

Maybe Daedalus class are those triangular shaped ENT ships.

 

[Timo]

...Even those wouldn't very well match the data from "Power Play", which establishes 229 crew. I mean, one could easily fit that many inside the hull, but probably one wouldn't fit anything else in there in that case. The sphere-and-cylinder ship at least is of unknown size, and by that virtue could accommodate the full "Power Play" crew as long as we choose the right scale for her.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Skywalker]

I like to imagine that the Daedalus had two separate hulls because it was built around a new warp engine that was too large to be installed into existing NX frames, so they built a new hull around it, making almost the entire secondary hull the Daedalus' engineering section, and then came up with the sphere design for the primary hull to house the bridge, sickbay, galley, armory, crew quarters, science labs, etc. Meaning it basically pioneered the primary hull/secondary hull concept later utilized by the Federation Starfleet.

 

[Johnnymuffintop]

I enjoyed ENT, as well as the NX-01 (actually preferring it to the Akira) and think that the Daedalus need a chance to shine. Sure, she needs a bit of a make-over before we can take her seriously, but then again that's true about most TOS designs.

I took the liberty to do a bit of design on the subject, though, keep in mind, I attempted to make it fit into STXI, but the overall reworked design, in my opinion, works.

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2...e_ship_preview_by_johnnymuffintop-d33yc6c.png

She's got a prototype phaser turret on her "chin", with four broadside torpedo launchers on her engineering hull (the retractable doors located at the bottom open to reveal the launchers.)
She's capable of warp 7.5 at maximum warp, she's reliant, quick, cheap and easy to build.


[Nice art, Johnnymuffintop. But the size is too unwieldy for those on dialup or mobile. Please limit images to 640p wide. Thanks. --HR]

 

[Skywalker]

Very nice, Johnny. I like it.

I also really like the Daedalus designed by Aethernaut a couple years back. I saved copies of his work for posterity, since this sort of stuff has a tendency to disappear over time. It has a nice, Enterprisey look to it, I think:



Click the link for a bigger image.

 

[Johnnymuffintop]

I LOVED Aethernaut's Deadalus, I too saved it when I saw it. One of the best I've ever seen.

 

[USS Excelsior]

And in Power Play it was said that the ship flew into the atmosphere of the moon, so they took the whole ship in.

 

[Saquist]

I enjoyed ENT, as well as the NX-01 (actually preferring it to the Akira) and think that the Daedalus need a chance to shine. Sure, she needs a bit of a make-over before we can take her seriously, but then again that's true about most TOS designs.

I took the liberty to do a bit of design on the subject, though, keep in mind, I attempted to make it fit into STXI, but the overall reworked design, in my opinion, works.

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2...e_ship_preview_by_johnnymuffintop-d33yc6c.png

She's got a prototype phaser turret on her "chin", with four broadside torpedo launchers on her engineering hull (the retractable doors located at the bottom open to reveal the launchers.)
She's capable of warp 7.5 at maximum warp, she's reliant, quick, cheap and easy to build.

JJverse designs are typically...crappy but I like this verision of Daedalus...very nice. (from that angle)

 

[ALF]

And the Enterprise episode titled "Daedalus" actually has nothing to do with the ship design, but a boring transporter-accident story! (facepalm)

I dig your variant, Johnnymuffintop.

 

[Commodore_Rook]

And the Enterprise episode titled "Daedalus" actually has nothing to do with the ship design, but a boring transporter-accident story! (facepalm)

I dig your variant, Johnnymuffintop.

Yeah, when that episode first came out, I had figured it was going to be about the prototype for that class of ships. Wasted title....

 

[RandyS]

I took the Chronology as gospel, and assumed the writers and producers did too (silly me) since the novel writers did, and when ENTERPRISE was first announced in early 2001, I thought this was what the show would show us.

I was disappointed.

There's aso this business about it being a warp 7 starship. How can that be? TOS, 115 years later says the Enterprise, and her sister ships can only do warp 6. How can an older ship do warp 7? Yes, I know, nobody cares about continuity, but it's still annoying.

 

[Timo]

The TOS ship can do warp ten when pressed, and warp 14.1 when really pressed.

The idea of a warp seven ship at the end of ENT would probably be for a ship with a top speed of warp seven. Her cruise speed might still be well below warp six, which was the supposed TOS cruise speed (or the speed that didn't yet make Scotty whine louder than his engines). Archer's ship could do warp five or so, but probably could only cruise at warp three or so for extended periods of time...

(Of course, there's nothing in ENT "These Are the Voyages" to suggest that Starfleet actually succeeded in building those warp seven ships after that episode...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Skywalker]

Enterprise's max speed was warp 5.2, with a cruising speed of warp 4.5.

 

[Infern0]

In the Star Trek Legacy game, the Daedalus ships are freighters i belive and you have to protect them with the NX-01, so i think they are meant to be older and worse than NX class

 

[F. King Daniel]

I took the Chronology as gospel, and assumed the writers and producers did too (silly me) since the novel writers did, and when ENTERPRISE was first announced in early 2001, I thought this was what the show would show us.

I was disappointed.

Well, the intro to the Star Trek Chronology did say...

We do not, however, want this to intimidate our writer friends or inhibit the imaginations of fans who may have differing interpretations of the Star Trek timeline. As such, we encourage both fans and writers to take this material with a grain of salt and enjoy it in the spirit it was intended, as a fun way to explore the Star Trek universe.

 

[BillJ]

In the Star Trek Legacy game, the Daedalus ships are freighters i belive and you have to protect them with the NX-01, so i think they are meant to be older and worse than NX class

Not worse. But designed with a different purpose in mind.

 

[RandyS]

I took the Chronology as gospel, and assumed the writers and producers did too (silly me) since the novel writers did, and when ENTERPRISE was first announced in early 2001, I thought this was what the show would show us.

I was disappointed.

Well, the intro to the Star Trek Chronology did say...

We do not, however, want this to intimidate our writer friends or inhibit the imaginations of fans who may have differing interpretations of the Star Trek timeline. As such, we encourage both fans and writers to take this material with a grain of salt and enjoy it in the spirit it was intended, as a fun way to explore the Star Trek universe.

I remember reading that. The only reason I started taking the chronology seriously though, was because right afterwards, I started to notice references from it showing up in the novels and, having no knowledge of how these things work (at the time, anyway) , assumed that the book was adopted as canon by ALL the writers.