Current Trek creators being mindful of canon? Doubtful I'd say.
Post War Ship Building
- Thread starter Tim Walker
- Start date
I'll admit to be interested to see how the Federation and Starfleet are post-War. I would imagine there would be more ship building and innovation. Possibly larger ships since they don't have to be churned out so quickly.
One technological development to note-it became practical to build a middling sized starship that can land on and take off from a planet. An example is Voyager ("The 37s").
I think that the Norway class is likely another example. I wondered about this because the design looks aerodynamic. Actually, the configuration reminds me of the C-119 "flying box car", the cargo plane featured in The Flight of the Phoenix.
A middling sized freighter that can land on and take off from a planet. And having some armament for self defense. Which would explain why the only glimpse we got of it was in First Contact-out of desperation Star Fleet threw everything it had at the Borg Cube.
I believe that the Norway is one class of support vessel that would see production post war.
I think that the Norway class is likely another example. I wondered about this because the design looks aerodynamic. Actually, the configuration reminds me of the C-119 "flying box car", the cargo plane featured in The Flight of the Phoenix.
A middling sized freighter that can land on and take off from a planet. And having some armament for self defense. Which would explain why the only glimpse we got of it was in First Contact-out of desperation Star Fleet threw everything it had at the Borg Cube.
I believe that the Norway is one class of support vessel that would see production post war.
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It does seem a bit daft to me though to have a ship land on a planet whilst carrying those hugely heavy and useless warp coils. And which it then has to haul back into space, fighting gravity all the way*.
The landfall saucer / spaceborne stardrive split seems much more sensible.
* one could conjecture that they are used to create a sub-warp subspace field to lower the mass but that seems a really Bad Idea close to solid matter
The landfall saucer / spaceborne stardrive split seems much more sensible.
* one could conjecture that they are used to create a sub-warp subspace field to lower the mass but that seems a really Bad Idea close to solid matter
Fireball XL5 had a similar arrangement. The nose cone-Fireball Jr.-could separate from the main ship and serve as a shuttle or scout.
In a Trek context I would have one larger craft for away missions, plus several smaller craft similar to the TOS shuttlecraft.
In a Trek context I would have one larger craft for away missions, plus several smaller craft similar to the TOS shuttlecraft.
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May make sense for smaller ships depending on utilization, but with transporters and shuttles, doubt it makes sense to land very often.
Cargo makes more sense to move in space, most populated planets are going to have a station or waypoint to handle traffic and cargo, so only landing for pickups you can’t transport or in backwoods places when you have delicate cargo.
Outside of massive repairs when a starbase isn’t available, when does it make more sense to land than to beam down? Just technobabble about why the transporters don’t work this episode?
These are BIG ships, even the small ones. Only very small ships/large shuttles make more sense to land. Runabouts, or think of something like Firefly (although they didn’t have option of transporters)
Cargo makes more sense to move in space, most populated planets are going to have a station or waypoint to handle traffic and cargo, so only landing for pickups you can’t transport or in backwoods places when you have delicate cargo.
Outside of massive repairs when a starbase isn’t available, when does it make more sense to land than to beam down? Just technobabble about why the transporters don’t work this episode?
These are BIG ships, even the small ones. Only very small ships/large shuttles make more sense to land. Runabouts, or think of something like Firefly (although they didn’t have option of transporters)
Outside the 'love you and leave you' stories we see in the episodes I think there are scenarios where landing is more efficient.
Planetary research, shore leave, disaster relief. Occasions when mass beaming would otherwise be required or be unsustainable.
Personally I'd prefer that beaming be restricted to only being possible between pads, but that's canonically impossible now.
Planetary research, shore leave, disaster relief. Occasions when mass beaming would otherwise be required or be unsustainable.
Personally I'd prefer that beaming be restricted to only being possible between pads, but that's canonically impossible now.
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...Perhaps this is why the Norway appears to have sliding nacelles? For spitting them out in orbit in preparation for landing?
My favorite alternate approach to Norway is LSD.
The USN TLA, I mean - Landing Ship Dock. Twin booms aft of the main hull for housing landing craft in between. And sliding of heavy warp nacelles as a close analogy to the pumping of water for "trimming" the ship for delivery of said landing craft. Perhaps with nine immense landing barges stacked between the booms, the nacelles need to move forward to preserve center of gravity, while deploying a craft is compensated for by moving the nacelles one notch aft (there are nine notches evident in the form of those circles atop the nacelles - connectors for the plasma flow?).
Such ships would see little use outside the Dominion War, but one might well find some gathering around Earth in preparation for said war at the time of ST:FC. Perhaps the entire engineering solution is outdated and all ships of this ilk are expended in the war, with no follow-ons ever built? Or perhaps the war losses will result in the building of more ships of this very ilk, the losses being associated with the ships having been so darn useful in the war.
Timo Saloniemi
Four onscreen appearances AFAIK:
- As an actual ship in ST:FC, after which the CGI was corrupted
- As physical wall art in the fake Starfleet Academy bar in VOY "In The Flesh"
- As graphics copied from the Encyclopedia for Seven's browsing in VOY "The Voyager Conspiracy"
- As graphics copied from the Encyclopedia for the Operation Return briefing in DS9 "Favor the Bold"
Might be it would be trivial to reuse Norway today. Might be there will never be a reason to do so.
Timo Saloniemi
- As an actual ship in ST:FC, after which the CGI was corrupted
- As physical wall art in the fake Starfleet Academy bar in VOY "In The Flesh"
- As graphics copied from the Encyclopedia for Seven's browsing in VOY "The Voyager Conspiracy"
- As graphics copied from the Encyclopedia for the Operation Return briefing in DS9 "Favor the Bold"
Might be it would be trivial to reuse Norway today. Might be there will never be a reason to do so.
Timo Saloniemi
Conceivably, yes. As a stop gap until more traditional vessels can be built.A new wave of ships for the Frankenstein Fleet built from the remnants of ships lost during the war
Kludge craft. Fast to build, but with sub par performance.
I doubt that these ships would be staffed by the best and the brightest. Actually, with crews more like that of the Orion.
I can imagine one such vessel being assigned to a little known department in the basement of Star Fleet Headquarters. The department that investigates Star Fleet's X-Files.
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