PIC S3 Ships & Tech

[Space Socialist]

Agreed. Here at the library the twitter links above just send me to the log-in page---dirty sods...I hope they're not going photobucket on us.

Already have. As of last week, Twitter no longer allow you to look at directly linked tweets if you don't have a Twitter account. So as I've closed my Twitter account a few months ago and refuse to use the service as it is now, I can't see the links that @Mark_Nguyen has posted.

 

[publiusr]

One more reason I cheer for SLS.
https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/reference_guide.html

At least MSFC doesn’t mess with your internet browsing…

Starship who?

 

[Enterprise1701]

What are the thoughts here on how Star Trek: Picard approached making a 25th century update to the Excelsior class versus how Star Trek Online approached it?

For my part, I admire the black exterior panelling which several STO ship employ, though I understand not everyone likes that visual style. Perhaps the STO Repulse looks too much like a downscaled Odyssey with the ovoid saucer, but the canonical Excelsior II just doesn't feel to me like it advances the previous design in any direction.

 

[Janewaysson]

What are the thoughts here on how Star Trek: Picard approached making a 25th century update to the Excelsior class versus how Star Trek Online approached it?

For my part, I admire the black exterior panelling which several STO ship employ, though I understand not everyone likes that visual style. Perhaps the STO Repulse looks too much like a downscaled Odyssey with the ovoid saucer, but the canonical Excelsior II just doesn't feel to me like it advances the previous design in any direction.

One of the few things Picard got right imo (although all the tiny windows make it seem like its huge)

 

[Ithekro]

One wonders if they Excelsior IIs have looked like that since launch, or if this is a massive post-Dominion War refit of the remaining Excelsior-class starships along with new builds (like with the Constitution II-class being refits like Enterprise and probably new builds between that and the launch of the Enterprise-A.

 

[Markonian]

What are the thoughts here on how Star Trek: Picard approached making a 25th century update to the Excelsior class versus how Star Trek Online approached it?

For my part, I admire the black exterior panelling which several STO ship employ, though I understand not everyone likes that visual style. Perhaps the STO Repulse looks too much like a downscaled Odyssey with the ovoid saucer, but the canonical Excelsior II just doesn't feel to me like it advances the previous design in any direction.

I wish I could mix-and-match all Excelsior variants - including Excelsior II and Obena - to make the perfect 25th century version. I like the idea of the Resolute but it is one of the few Starfleet designs I haven't fallen in love with.

 

[David cgc]

Wait a minute, why is the Enterprise-B variant called the "Sao Paulo" in STO? That's not either of the ships we saw with those bits.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Wait a minute, why is the Enterprise-B variant called the "Sao Paulo" in STO? That's not either of the ships we saw with those bits.

I assume that is a biff by the article writer. Commenters on Reddit assume as much.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11483583
https://old.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/uknq04/was_the_excelsior_class_refit_meant_to_be_called/

 

[Macintosh]

Excelsior-II wins. It is the perfect blend of the original Excelsior look with the post-TNG Sovereign-style aesthetic, and my favourite original ship design from the PIC series. I'd have been a LOT happier if they went with an Excelsior-II instead of a Constitution-III for a new-but-retro Enterprise...

I've never been a fan of a lot of STO's original designs. The Resolute has a similar issue to the Odyssey-class in that its side view looks like an affronted duck, and the Repulse is an abomination.

 

[Dukhat]

One wonders if they Excelsior IIs have looked like that since launch, or if this is a massive post-Dominion War refit of the remaining Excelsior-class starships along with new builds (like with the Constitution II-class being refits like Enterprise and probably new builds between that and the launch of the Enterprise-A.

That would certainly explain why their registry numbers are so low when all the other new ships’ registries are pretty much chronological to when they were built. It wouldn’t explain the existence of the USS Excelsior NCC-21445, but that was a barely legible listing on a background Okudagram, so it can be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[Macintosh]

That would certainly explain why their registry numbers are so low when all the other new ships’ registries are pretty much chronological to when they were built. It wouldn’t explain the existence of the USS Excelsior NCC-21445, but that was a barely legible listing on a background Okudagram, so it can be taken with a grain of salt.

We don't even know what class NCC-21445 was. Even Memory Beta haven't got a listing for that. Presumably this was also the same Excelsior mentioned in TNG: "Interface" as searching for the USS Hera, but it still didn't appear on screen.

 

[Enterprise1701]

For a laugh, I would like it if NCC-21145 were something besides Excelsior class as a parallel to how the PIC team spiritually disrespected the Intrepid class by replacing NCC-74600 with the Duderstadt-class NCC-79520 after a service history of only ~30 years.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

That bit bugged me. IMO as long as a ship class is active, they should keep the name of that class out of the "available names" hat. What we saw in Picard loosely implies the Intrepid-class of ship is no longer in service, which makes little sense given how long we've seen other ship classes around in the TNG era.

Even if Starfleet has ample reason for fleet renewal after the Dominon War and the loss of Utopia Planitia, axing the Intrepid-class when we see Akiras and Novae still around doesn't sit well, especially given the pedigree of Voyager and its survival for an extended period away. I can buy that they still HAVE Intrepids around and simply none were assigned to the Frontier Day fleet, and that they aren't building them anymore after over thirty years since the class' introduction; but to take the Intrepid's name and slap it on some other metal seems the wrong thing to do.

[That is, unless Starfleet has an unspoken penchant for using the same name on multiple ships at the same time, since it's a BIG fleet that spans a LOT of territory. Recently we had the USS Enterprise carrier, the USTS Enterprise maritime training ship, and HMS Enterprise survey ship all plying the same waters at the same time, albeit for different services; and during WWII we had a USN carrier and RN light cruiser called Enterprise.]

As for the Excelsior's missing lineage, IMO once NCC-2000 had finished her long years of service and headed to the museum, some other Excelsior class ship requested and got the name, while maintaining her original NCC-21145 hull number (especially since at the time, Starfleet seemed less flagrant with tossing suffixes around). Then the class itself was retired - or entirely possible that some of the NCC-4xxxx hulls, being the allegedly newer ones we saw in the TNG era, got refit into the Excelsior II class using the same alchemy that gave us the TMP Enterprise from the bones of the TOS version. The same process would be repeated with the name, and the Excelsior NCC-42037 we see in PIC is born.

Mark

 

[jackoverfull]

Not sure what the fuzz is about the Intrepid…Isn’t it possible that in these 30 years the old Intrepid was destroyed and the name was given to a new ship?

 

[Dukhat]

Not sure what the fuzz is about the Intrepid…Isn’t it possible that in these 30 years the old Intrepid was destroyed and the name was given to a new ship?

Because you usually don't name a new ship after another ship's class if that class is still in service. There are an infinite number of names a ship can have. It makes things unnecessarily confusing.

 

[Markonian]

Yeah, making the Intrepid a Dud was odd.
In STO, the Intrepid NCC-74600, Intrepid-A and Intrepid-B are all Intrepid class starships and in service alongside each other. Perhaps the Dud is just the fourth contemporary Intrepid.

 

[jackoverfull]

Because you usually don't name a new ship after another ship's class if that class is still in service. There are an infinite number of names a ship can have. It makes things unnecessarily confusing.

uhm, why would that be confusing? It’s usually clear if you are referring to a ship or to it’s class…in fact it’s not that often that they specify a class in dialog at all!

Moreover, I think we only saw Voyager and Bellerophon Intrepids, we don’t know how many were produced. Perhaps the class wasn’t successful and only a few ships were made.

 

[Dukhat]

uhm, why would that be confusing? It’s usually clear if you are referring to a ship or to it’s class…in fact it’s not that often that they specify a class in dialog at all!

That's great that you don't feel confused. Despite that, as I said, that's usually not done.

Moreover, I think we only saw Voyager and Bellerophon Intrepids, we don’t know how many were produced. Perhaps the class wasn’t successful and only a few ships were made.

Maybe, but I doubt it.

 

[David cgc]

It just occurred to me that we have our own version of "Lumpers and Splitters," people who think what we see in Star Trek is universally representative versus it being a baseline that could be expanded. Like, if we only ever see two Intrepids, that suggests there were few of them built, or that the mid-to-late 24th century fleet was made entirely of Excelsiors and Mirandas, with Ambassadors being few and far between, Nebulas rare, and Constitutions completely out of service (and Oberths going from common to vanishing overnight), versus recognizing that there were production limitations on what we saw, and while the kinds of ships shouldn't be discounted, they shouldn't necessarily be regarded as a comprehensive survey, either.

Just need to think of a catchy pair of names.

 

[jackoverfull]

That’s not at all what I wrote. I wrote that there is no evidence of many Intrepids being built and that can be used as justification for the current lack of them in the 25th century fleet (same goes for ambassadors, btw), but I know very well that there are production and artistic reasons for this and that things can change, like for example happened recently with Sovereigns.