Oberth class

[Bill Morris]

Actually, without local gravity generators the pylons wouldn't be a zero-G environment, since there would be the influence of the artificial gravity in the pod. An open-air metal cage with gravity generators in the floor and riding along a rail could provide reasonably comfortable transport through a somewhat thin plyon while allowing a view of the status of conduits, etc. in the pylon and even access to ladders leading to things within the pylon in need of repair.

In GEN we saw Kirk in a similar environment within the neck of the 1701-B, and in ENT we saw a nacelle catwalk.

 

[Kaziarl]

Actually, without local gravity generators the pylons wouldn't be a zero-G environment, since there would be the influence of the artificial gravity in the pod. An open-air metal cage with gravity generators in the floor and riding along a rail could provide reasonably comfortable transport through a somewhat thin plyon while allowing a view of the status of conduits, etc. in the pylon and even access to ladders leading to things within the pylon in need of repair.

In GEN we saw Kirk in a similar environment within the neck of the 1701-B, and in ENT we saw a nacelle catwalk.

I think I like this one. It does make some sense.

We've seen tight spaces on starships before, as you mentioned (How many times did kirk have to go up and down in that space to get to access the deflector controls?). Thank you all for your comments, it's been very thought provoking.

 

[Reverend]

Reverend,

Did your work reach a conclusion on the possible crew capacity of an Oberth-class vessel?

I tend to think of these as even more mission-specific ships than larger ships like the Miranda and the Connie. So if there are X number of patrol-assigned Oberths in operation with a "standard" crew of (for sake of argument) 100 officers and crew, there may be other mission-specific-outfitted Oberths deployed on various tasks with one having a total of 25 people, another having 125, and another having 75.

What are your thoughts?

If I came up with any kind of figure I honestly don't remember. Realistically though, the crew compliment of an Oberth is going to vary quite wildly depending on individual mission profiles, what time period we're talking about and who's operating it at the time. Remember that Oberths were operated by non-Starfleet organisations within the Federation (possibly using decommissioned or refurbished hardware) which would probably have a higher degree of automation to support a civilian crew while even within Starfleet itself, technology advanced quite a bit from when I'm proposing it was launched (late 22ndC) to the late 24thC so the platform would have been updated numerous times, with a corresponding change in even the baseline crew compliments.

If I had to put numbers to it then I'd say it could be anything from 15 civvies to 175 double bunked Starfleet personnel. It all depends.

 

[Timo]

We do have canon evidence of crews as small as seven, and as large as 80. Googling for "USS Thagard" should provide you with an idea of how 80 could be rather easily packed aboard while still leaving room for meaningful gear (although I think the gear aboard the Thagard is a bit excessive).

On the registry number issue, I'd like to think that Starfleet when founded in the 2160s slapped registries from 1 to about 400 on its existing ships (which at the time didn't necessarily include support types - those got TAS-style, letter-prefixed registries instead). Those lasted for a while, and the 500 and 600 ranges only came to use on the dawn of the 23rd century. At that point, Starfleet decided it wanted to identify combatants by their registry numbers, and created a (rather half-baked) system where cruisers got 1000 or above (explaining the fandom Horizon class and other such stuff), destroyers and similar small types got 500 and beyond (like we see in FJ's manual), and in-between light cruisers and whatnot got 700 range registries (again explaining some fandom stuff). Such a system was of course doomed to become hopelessly confused, and about halfway through the century, Starfleet simply forgot about it and started filling the gaps.

The 600 range registries of early Oberths could well mean those ships were filling gaps left in the creation of older ship types, in this case large scouts such as the Hermes series. They need not be quite as old as the registry "suggests" - because the "suggestion" only works in the scarce material of canonically known registries. Fandom registries are not chronological for the 23rd century, and believing in those actually makes it easier to imagine backstories for some canon ships...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Reverend]

I don't think going out of your way to reconcile fandom regs is really worth the effort. There's no need for registry number acrobatics since the Oberth works just fine as a late 22nd Century Vulcan design.

 

[Timo]

You mean early to mid-23rd, surely? After all, NCC-O514 wasn't ancient in 2233 yet - ships of that general design were still in frontline use as of 2258...

Timo Saloiemi

 

[SPCTRE]

Here's a model I built of the torpedo-pod version as put out by Starcrafts:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/starcrafts_asmodeus.html

Wow. That is a rather good looking model you built

It does make sense for the bottom piece to be an automated, interchangeable part because those pylons don't look practical enough to use as a turbolift conduit, IMHO.

Why thank you, sir! I wish it was bigger, it's only 2 3/4" long.

Wow, I love that configuration. Great job!

 

[Reverend]

You mean early to mid-23rd, surely? After all, NCC-O514 wasn't ancient in 2233 yet - ships of that general design were still in frontline use as of 2258...

Timo Saloiemi

What the hell was NCC-O514? Does ring a bell. Thou on the off chance you're talking about that ship a the start of the new film, I don't think there was any indication as to how new or old that ship was. Even so, having the preceding 'O' (or '0') could indicate some alternate reg system.

I don't get why some insist starships can't possibly be still in use after just a few decades. It's not as if technological development and deployment continues at a consistent pace, on the contrary it's usually fits and starts with periods of years or decades where things tend the plateau until the next significant breakthrough is made. Even so, ships can be refitted without too much bother so a reg alone isn't much of an indicator of sophistication, just how old the spaceframe might be.

Part of the reason I like to think of the Oberth as an essentially Vulcan ship is precisely because it's been consistently in service over such a long period of time. Remember that Vulcans live for what? Two to three centuries? It stands to reason that they'd build ships to last longer and be easily adapted to unforeseen advancements and new technology. It's precisely why I postulated the essentially modular nature of the design.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Yes, 0514 is the Kelvin.

 

[Timo]

...Which carries the same sort of engine that equips frontline combatants in 2258. Granted that we see some TMP style engines in the 2370s - but not all Starfleet ships in that decade carry the TMP style, whereas all Starfleet ships save one carried the NCC-O514 style in 2258. I'd thus really hate to think of the Kelvin as antiquated.

I've got nothing against an Oberth remaining in service for a century or two. Such ships wouldn't be part of the military rat race or anything like that, after all. What I find a bit unlikely is that Starfleet would expend registries up to 600 in the final 1/3 of the 22nd century (even if counting in all the ships that entered the 'Fleet in one big crunch in 2161), then only expend a thousand more in the first 3/4 of the 23rd century. I'd be happier with them expending only about 300-400 during the 22nd, allowing the rate of expenditure to increase a bit as time passed and the UFP grew.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Reverend]

Don't forget that the Earth had just fought a war right before Starfleet was formed (a process we still know little about) so they were likely to have ended up with a much bigger fleet than the one they started with-even given the inevitable attrition from the conflict-and if we assume that the Earth, Vulcan and Andorian fleets made up the bulk of early Starfleet then a combined total of less than 600 military ships pre-2180s is actually a little on the conservative side.

As for the Kelvin...there's so much that's technologically inconsistent with what had already been established you can slant it any way you like. There's no reason that I can think of why she couldn't be an older ship. Perhaps she'd just got refitted or perhaps the similarities are just cosmetic and there's a big difference "under the bonnet." Plus, like I said, the '0' could mean it was under a different reg system as no other three digit NCC regs look like that.

 

[Nate]

Don't forget that the Earth had just fought a war right before Starfleet was formed (a process we still know little about) so they were likely to have ended up with a much bigger fleet than the one they started with-even given the inevitable attrition from the conflict-and if we assume that the Earth, Vulcan and Andorian fleets made up the bulk of early Starfleet then a combined total of less than 600 military ships pre-2180s is actually a little on the conservative side.

I think you're right allowing for the Earth, etc fleets to form the bulk of early Starfleet, it also helps with the long time span with relatively low NCC numbers. There's no reason to think that all ships were retroactively given NCC numbers, the early Starfleet could be made up of a mix of the different fleets that are gradually replaced by new construction as they age, are lost, etc.

 

[Magellan]

I don't think we should assume the Oberths are old because of their NCC numbers. Its pretty commonly accepted that the numbers just dont add up to really be sequential.

Also it does sorta boggle the mind that the Oberth could be constructed between circa 2200 and 2350. Thats a long time. Plenty of instance show that classes don't serve all that much longer than real naval ships with the exception of the movie ships carried over to TNG(due to a lack of new designs) the Constitution is retired well before the 100 year mark, as is the Soyuz, Ambassadors are pretty rare by the 2370's and Riker had to save the Ent-D from retirement before she was even 40 in All Good Things.

 

[Reverend]

As I said, it may be a LONG time for humans, but for a Vulcan it's about half a lifetime. As for the argument that the reg don't stack chronologically, without getting into a lecture on how serial numbers are usually assigned (I used to work as a storeman at an electronics firm) you can't deny that the numbers are much higher than they are in the 24th century than they were in the 23rd and the handful of 22nd century numbers we know of are all in the triple digits.
Sure they may not all line up in exact chronological order but there in a very strong trend and as I mentioned already, there's plenty of reasons why some numbers might seem a little off at first glance.

 

[C.E. Evans]

There's always the possibility of some older ships being upgraded into newer designs, IMO, particularly if their previous design was similar. The USS Grissom may have started off as a precursor to the Oberth-class.

Who knows, perhaps the USS Constellation began as another older design and was modified into a Constitution-class later?

 

[Timo]

This sounds like something you'd do to your big capital ships, yeah. Many a nation in the 1930s upgraded its WWI-style battleships to WWII standards while building new ships of that latter standard - and the end results bore significant external and aesthetical similarities even though the purpose of the upgrade was strictly utilitarian. I could easily see 2200s-vintage frontline starships being upgraded to 2240s standards when Kirk's ship was being built, and ending up looking more or less the same (while keeping the old registries).

Dedicating such attention to lesser ships like the Oberths does not intuitively convince me the same way, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

There are always possibilities, and to be fair, the Oberth-class was a frontline ship in its own right, despite its size. While generally deployed as scientific research vessels, they probably could be utilized as forward scout ships as well, IMO. We know that they could also serve as cannon fodder--sorry, I mean combatants--in the defense of the Federation (Oberths were seen fighting the Borg at both Wolf 359 and Sector 001)...

 

[Santaman]

I always believed the Oberth to be the Antanov AN-2 of Starfleet, very old design, very simple, reliable no fuzz ships without complicated bells and whistles, it flies, it can carry stuff around and it won't cost much resources and for its job it doesn't matter much if its 100 years old or 200.

 

[Dukhat]

Here's an essay I finally finished writing up about the Oberth class appearances in TNG. Enjoy, and feel free to let me know if I've made any errors:

http://www.box.net/shared/ieybdtycyn

 

[Magellan]

Here's an essay I finally finished writing up about the Oberth class appearances in TNG. Enjoy, and feel free to let me know if I've made any errors:

http://www.box.net/shared/ieybdtycyn

Nice write up, i really enjoyed it. Have you done any others?
It would be nice if they could do a TNG-R. Im all about maintaining the original material as the real version but an alternate TNG replacing all the unnecessary Oberths would be nice, maybe even tone down the Mirandas and Excelsiors as well(although DS9 really overused those more) Maybe a Miranda-ish vessel with Ambassador style nacelles would work well for a small, workhorse ship of the 24th century.

Edit: I agree that the NCC numbers could be chronological, and sometimes I like to pretend that the whacky ones were because a ship was decommissioned, and then later refit and recommissioned with a new NCC number.