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

[Boris Skrbic]

Ok, let's not argue creativity any longer, because that is where the "I don't like it and therefore it must be revised if I'm allowed to create Star Trek for Paramount" argument can work, while I prefer the analytical playing field of "I don't like it but that is what's onscreen and in official sources." As for the initial question:

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

The answer to this remains, "There is nothing about it which disrupts the existing canon." If one is allowed to be creative, the discussion can obviously go into any number of directions.

 

[Timo]

Let's not lose sight of the fact that the original "question" contains the false implication that the design of the Daedalus is established.

All we know is that the design of a starship with the registry NCC-176 and the name Horizon is established. We can place that design anywhere and anywhen we like, and give it any class identity we want. As said, Trek has plenty of room for ugly designs, so that shouldn't be a problem; but if it's "too ugly for post-ENT", then it can become pre-ENT at the snap of a synapse, and be long gone by the time "It's Been a Long Road" first hits the airwaves.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Analytically, we must take the Encyclopedia seriously since its speculation is likely to end up onscreen (Constitution registries being a recent example, in TOS-R). Creatively, you can come up with all kinds of alternate theories.

 

[Timo]

Only if Okuda himself again gets to do those onscreen things, though...

Very little from the Encyclopedia has ended up on screen in the long run, even though massive amounts of factoids have been quoted by the Trek novelists.

What we might expect of the Daedalus as per precedent would be a visual reinterpretation, much like Cochrane's test ship was reinterpreted for ST:FC. Something that definitely tips a hat to the cylinder and sphere, but at the same time comes from a whole new school of aesthetics.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

With the NX refit, the pattern is set, saucer, lower hull, nacelles.

Kiss the tennis ball and beer can buh-bye.

 

[Skywalker]

The NX refit is just as official as is the Daedalus design; which is to say, it isn't official at all.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Being the most recent, however, and being conjured up by the same guy they're most likely to turn to should anyone pick up that particular baton, it's the odds on favorite.

 

[Skywalker]

I think it's pretty safe to say that neither design will ever make it to the screen, at this point.

 

[Timo]

Not all that safe when the current cash cow in Trek, contrary to everybody's expectations but in accordance with their wet dreams, is big-budget-movie-retro-with-nods-to-fans...

With the NX refit, the pattern is set, saucer, lower hull, nacelles.

For Enterprises, yes. (Although only in fanfic, because the NX-refit is not "real").

This has no bearing on other starships, just like the Jeffries design never stopped Starfleet from having the Huron or the Antares or the Jenolan, or the Grissom or the Voyager or the Defiant.

ENT sets a number of "precedents" for starship designs to come: the aerodynamic delta with nacelles, the same without, the "arctic" skidoo, the ECS tractor-trailer, and of course the nonhuman contributions to the UFP Starfleet. If anything, the Starfleet design family should be more diverse than in ENT, not less so, during the early years of the organization under UFP rule.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Skywalker]

Not all that safe when the current cash cow in Trek, contrary to everybody's expectations but in accordance with their wet dreams, is big-budget-movie-retro-with-nods-to-fans...

Eh, I suppose, though I still think on-screen Trek, whether it be TV or otherwise, is going to follow ST09's design philosophy at least a little bit for the foreseeable future. Until it, too, loses its luster, anyway.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Analytically, we must take the Encyclopedia seriously since its speculation is likely to end up onscreen (Constitution registries being a recent example, in TOS-R). Creatively, you can come up with all kinds of alternate theories.

I don't think it should be taken any more seriously by fans than it is by writers - those same writers who moved First Contact by a few years, ignored the Daedalus when making their 22nd century prequel series and changed Chekov's age to fit him on the bridge crew in STXI.

The Daedalus may inspire a future ship design (as it already did with the USS Pasteur), but it may resemble the Daedalus no more so than the USS Kelvin resembled the Destroyer/Scout of Franz Joseph's old Technical Manual.

TOS-R has used old numbers from the Encyclopedia, but it also used ships from the "non canon" animated series and even Vanguard Station from the novel series of the same name. They're in there as nods to die-hard fans, not proof of an old book's infallibility.

 

[Avon]

why would you want to take the daedalus class seriously?

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Nobody said the Encyclopedia is infallible, only that it should be taken seriously unless contradicted by the canon. Not even the canon is infallible in that regard, and we still take it seriously. Again, I am not thinking creatively here, only analytically. In that case, "I don't like it" is not a valid argument for dismissing this design.

 

[Timo]

Why not? That's the only criterion the people in charge of showing/not showing the design will be using, after all.

And until such a showing takes place, the design is in a Heisenbergian limbo where we are the ultimate masters of its existential status. Again, the only criterion we will be using is "I like it"/"I don't like it". There's nothing further to it, analytically speaking.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Ok, I don't like the Enterprise-C. Therefore, it actually looks like Probert's Ambassador. All of our existing footage has been faked and the wall display has always been correct.

Analytically speaking, there is this little thing called Occam's Razor.

 

[Timo]

Ok, I don't like the Enterprise-C. Therefore, it actually looks like Probert's Ambassador. All of our existing footage has been faked and the wall display has always been correct.

That's not very "analytical" of you, now is it? You're ignoring evidence there. Which might be interesting in a sort of analogy'ish way if only there existed evidence on the sphere-and-can ship. The whole point, though, is that none exists. There's just this tabletop model sitting on a tabletop, with no strings attached.

Analytically speaking, there is this little thing called Occam's Razor.

It doesn't apply to fiction, though. The only "analytical" argument one can make about the existence or other qualities of the wholly fictional sphere-and-can ship is "my dick is bigger than yours".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boris Skrbic]

The evidence exists in the Encyclopedia, and we have already covered why it must be taken into account unless contradicted by the canon. OR does apply to fiction unless we want to be creative, but then it must be called unlicensed fiction as opposed to pure analysis based on the available evidence.

 

[Timo]

Big words, but basically meaningless. There's no particular reason to believe that the Encyclopedia information on the Daedalus class would have to manifest in the "real", onscreen Star Trek universe, considering that a) all of it is made up for that book and does not preexist or postexist elsewhere at the moment and b) other such information has a very poor track record of manifesting. There's nothing "analytical" or "pure" or otherwise high-falutin' about the fact that Okuda's Constitution records appear on screen but his Phoenix or his Klingon backstory fails to do so. It's just "shit happens" type randomness, chiefly dictated by the only relevant argument on such things: "Me like" or "Me dislike".

In other words, you're entitled to your opinion. Calling it "analytical" is giving it three syllables too many, tho.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boris Skrbic]

You can substitute "Encyclopedia" with "canon Star Trek" and get pretty much the same track record. There is nothing really binding about the existing canon either if one wants to be creative, as we have seen many times. The only difference is, we can ignore previous information from the Encyclopedia a bit more easily, but the situation is the same.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Didn't Doug Drexler say on his blog that they wanted the NX-01 to look like the Daedalus, but he were told to base the design on the Akira instead? Why should fans give any weight to a design in a reference book that the makers of the show themselves have rejected? We saw other 22nd century Starfleet ships and they didn't look like the Daedalus. They had plenty of oppertunity to show it off if they wanted to - but they didn't. We nearly saw one in Star Trek The Beginning with the USS Spartan - but that's as close as we got in canon. It didn't happen.

I'm happy to go with the story from the two Daedalus novels, and pretend the Daedalus class ships were "just off camera", like the Remans were before Nemesis, the huge Kelvin-style ships during TOS, the bumpy Klingons were in TOS and all the STXI aliens were in every other Star Trek.