Picard Season 2 Stargazer Deflector Crystals

[ngc7293]

Impulse Deflector crystals were a thing in the TOS movies and therefore before before Next Gen.
The Original StarGazer that Picard had had the same thing on it.
When I bought Picard Series and started to watch season two, I see the new StarGazer. It's supposed to be this advanced ship with Borg technology that Seven hates. Yet in one shot in the first episode you can clearly see that it has two of these Impulse Deflector Crystals.
From pictures of other ships the Crystal implies this is where the Warp Core is at. Does this Ship have two Warp Cores? Are these just call outs to the old ship? Or are they just junk to add to the ship and they really don't do anything. (Here I read in the TNG manual that 4 nacelles are an experiment gone wrong and the flag ship of the second season has 4 nacelles intentionally)

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Design trends and elements come and go. Four nacelles work for some designs and some mission profiles, and not for others. Same for impulse deflection crystals. Some ships have visible navigational deflectors, some don't. Ad nauseum.

Granted, the latest era of Trek production mixes things up quite a bit, compared to the TNG era when there were really two or three people who kept all the tech stuff in check for four series across eighteen years. Here, each different show has their own people, interpreting what came before in different ways - and in the case of Picard, they're liberally taking stuff from other elements of the franchise more because they like the look over what was written down in a book, once, that most fans never read.

All this to say is that especially in the last 7-8 years, technological canon has been tossed into a blender and liberally sprinkled over 6+ shows with little care to keep things consistent. It makes for a headache for those of us trying to figure it out, but MAN does it look pretty.

Mark

 

[C.E. Evans]

To kind of echo the above, some ships have impulse deflection crystals simply because someone in a show's art department thought they just looked cool more than any real technical reason for them. In that regard, they are purely decorative. Fans can are free to speculate and come up with their own in-universe rationale for why some ships have them and others don't, but there really isn't any hard rule about them, IMO.

 

[Ithekro]

The flagship USS Europa at the Battle of the Binary Stars in Star Trek Discovery had four nacelles. Actually, a number of starships in the mid-23rd century had four nacelles it seems. Cardenas-class, Nimitz-class, Radiant-class and later Constellation-class. I don't think there has been a canon reason why these starships have four nacelles. Though now that the Constellation-class is not the only starship designed this way, it can be guessed that it wasn't a failed experiment to have four nacelles. The best guesses have been for redundancy in long range missions.

 

[Tuskin38]

They’re warp field governors according to Doug Drexler, not deflection crystals

They’re labelled as such on the diagrams Doug made that were released by Dave Blass on social media.

And yes, the Stargazer does have two warp cores, but they’re not under the the field governors, they’re behind the bridge

 

[ngc7293]

I can live with the 4 nacelle thing as long as fans don't do "Four makes it fast"
The little domes served a purpose in the TOS movie era and now they repurpose them. That makes them "Greebles" in my eye. I love the techno-babble, but are there any other ships of this time with the Goverors on them. I'm just getting into Season three and seeing some of this class ship. The Titan refit (which must be its own thread) doesn't have anything of the kind. It has similar nacelles so it's been setup for the century. It would have the tech. But I didn't see those governors. I suppose it doesn't matter. They went for Rule of Cool instead. It does look nice I just don't like certain things.

 

[Ithekro]

I imagine that around the end of the 24th century, Starfleet was going retro for late-23rd century starships as a Public Relations move after all the Wars, the Borg, Romulas and such. They wanted to give a better impression to the Public than the anti-Borg and Dominion Wars era fleets gave off. So they styled starships to give a era of heroism I suppose. The era of Kirk, Sulu, Spock, and Saavik.

 

[blssdwlf]

Picard S3's USS Titan has the deflection crystal domes moved to the underside of the saucer. Having two didn't seem to make any difference on the performance, IMHO.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I can live with the 4 nacelle thing as long as fans don't do "Four makes it fast"

I like to think that it has more to do with power distribution and efficiency more than anything else. If we go with the idea that not all starship designs are created equal, then some ships may achieve a total systems balance with four nacelles while others can do fine with two nacelles and others still with just one, IMO. It's just what works best for a particular design.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The Warp Governer might be just the extra amount of Warp Field emission/management needed w/o going for another Warp Nacelle which would add alot of power requirements to the design.

 

[Ithekro]

Might be just so they can jump to warp 9.9 easily with the newer ships. Perhaps Starfleet has not yet redesigned the warp systems to integrate the necessary warp governing equipment into the nacelles or other features that don't require such a large piece of exposed hull equipment.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Might be just so they can jump to warp 9.9 easily with the newer ships. Perhaps Starfleet has not yet redesigned the warp systems to integrate the necessary warp governing equipment into the nacelles or other features that don't require such a large piece of exposed hull equipment.

Or it could be what allows 25th century StarShips to maintain Warp 9.99 consistently for a long time and a super high cruise speed indefinitely, as long as fuel permits.

 

[Ithekro]

Warp 9.99, save for refueling, would have cut Voyager's trip home by a lot. They obviously were not cruising at Warp 9.975 the majority of the time.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Warp 9.99, save for refueling, would have cut Voyager's trip home by a lot. They obviously were not cruising at Warp 9.975 the majority of the time.

But those speeds were post Voyager's return by many years.

- Voyager's Unscheduled 70,000 ly journey from the Delta Quadrant to home -
- Based on the on-screen estimates of 75 year journey has a average cruise speed of Warp 8 assuming unlimited fuel
- Warp 8 would take 68.36 years if non-stop with unlimited fuel, but given stops, repairs, exploration, etc. They probably rounded up to 75 years
- That means I can guess that Warp 8 was their cruise speed assuming unlimited fuel (A VERY Unrealistic Scenario, you'll always need to search for fuel)
- Galaxy Class initial Average Cruise speed was Warp 6, but later on became Warp 7

 

[C.E. Evans]

Ships in the 24th-Century seemed to regularly cruise around Warp 6 or so, with their maximum warp reserved for quick emergency dashes. Any lengthy flights at maximum warp apparently causes damage to a ship's engines, as was the case with the Enterprise-D in "The Chase."

 

[Unicron]

Also the first Romulan warbird in "Tin Man," which was in such a rush they did serious damage to the engines (to the point where the dialogue suggests it would be difficult to get home reasonably, at best), and the amount of power they dumped in also bled through the cloak in small intervals.

 

[publiusr]

Four nacelle ships are probably best to investigate the Delta Triangle..it took a Connie and D-7 both to escape.

 

[Tuskin38]

but are there any other ships of this time with the Goverors on them. I'm just getting into Season three and seeing some of this class ship. The Titan refit (which must be its own thread) doesn't have anything of the kind.

The Titan does on the bottom of the saucer

And the Duderstadt has one between the pylons

 

[137th Gebirg]

They’re warp field governors according to Doug Drexler, not deflection crystals

If true, then that would make it even older tech than TMP-era deflection crystals - like NX-era where, according to Drexler, the little blue crystal on that central pod in the back was also called exactly that (a "symmetrical warp field governor" to be precise).


Seems like an "oops" to me.

 

[David cgc]

I think Drexler just likes the look of the domes, and also likes being able to put them in places where they don't have to be attached to an impulse engine and at the top of a vertical warp core.