Prometheus Class Question

[Saquist]

No life pods on the ventral stardrive

What do we count as lifepods?

Alpha section seems to have 14 fairly obvious yellowish structures, the largest number among the sections:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/stmagazine/prometheus-alpha.jpg

Beta, or dorsal drone, is the one where we don't see these structures. There are ten smaller yellow trapezoids beneath the phaser strips, though. These could be docking clamps, but there are no counterparts in the Alpha underside, so they're more likely to be pods:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/stmagazine/prometheus-beta.jpg

Gamma, or ventral drone, again has Alpha-style pods, eight on the fat part of the hull:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/stmagazine/prometheus-gamma.jpg

Sounds rather fair, considering that Beta also has the fewest portholes and carries the shuttlebay.

Timo Saloniemi

You've found another error I can't believe got past me.
The yellow boxes you refer to on the Dorsal Star Drive Nose are supposed to be docking latches. But there are no similar coinciding features (at all) on the ventral side of the saucer. (good grief)

The life pods are the sort of diamond shaped features on the primary hull.

 

[Timo]

...Or then the boxes are lifepods, and the docking latches between Alpha and Beta do not exist - instead, the entire surfaces that come in touch act as one gigantic non-mechanical latch. Two problems solved!

OTOH, the walls of the cavity in Alpha underside are near-vertical anyway at the edges, so it wouldn't be possible to see the latches there.

Also note that the ventral images have some "transparency" to them: the topside bridge superstructure is shown on the ventral side, overlaid on the actual ventral features. Let's not have that oddity confusing our analysis of the ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saquist]

...Or then the boxes are lifepods, and the docking latches between Alpha and Beta do not exist - instead, the entire surfaces that come in touch act as one gigantic non-mechanical latch. Two problems solved!

Latches on one side and no latches between beta and Delta section? Purposely done. ....
I don't want to add design intent on a project that didn't use it much in the first place.

OTOH, the walls of the cavity in Alpha underside are near-vertical anyway at the edges, so it wouldn't be possible to see the latches there.

No, there is a clear gradient on the dorsal side of Beta. Even if they were...these are snaps of the 3D model not an imperfect 2D reproduction. If they were there we'd still see the narrow profile of the openings.

Also note that the ventral images have some "transparency" to them: the topside bridge superstructure is shown on the ventral side, overlaid on the actual ventral features. Let's not have that oddity confusing our analysis of the ship.

Timo Saloniemi

Good Grief. I see what you're seeing. Instead of mirroring the impression from the Dorsal Beta side...it's mimicking it's on top side bridge structure!!

I just did a composite of the Alpha Ventral and the Beta Dorsal and the shapes don't even fit together at all. In fact back at the impulse engines the alpha side show perpendicular lines on the sides where the bravo section shows a an angle flowing with the rest of it's nose!!! The arrow head on the beta is a completely different angle to Alpha's ventral side!

What a hot mess!

 

[jpch]

Prometheus is a deep space tactical cruiser,stated on screen,ofc it has aft top launchers we just dident see much of the ship. it has a sickbay,hologenarators and plenty of rooms its crew would be about 200 or 250,the ship we saw on voy was a prototype...thats why it had a crew of 4 its being tested.

 

[Timo]

"Tactical cruiser" is meaningless gobbledigook, and thankfully this terminology was never used in the episode.

Instead, the ship was identified as an "experimental prototype designed for deep-space tactical assignments". Whether she's a cruiser, a frigate, a galleass
or a frammistat, we don't know.

There's no real reason to believe the ship has aft-firing torpedo launchers. Kirk's movie ship didn't, after all.

the ship we saw on voy was a prototype...thats why it had a crew of 4 its being tested.

Yes. As far as the ship's EMH knew, Starfleet had trained just four people to operate the top secret prototype ship - the four killed by the Romulans here. But the point is, those four people (or their Romulan substitutes) could operate the ship all the way through a demanding "multi-vectoring" space combat engagement; the ship was designed to be operated by four people. Whether she would also take onboard hundreds of passengers is a separate issue, and we can only speculate whether some of those passengers would actually serve a useful role during a typical "deep space tactical assignment".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[bullethead]

Yes. As far as the ship's EMH knew, Starfleet had trained just four people to operate the top secret prototype ship - the four killed by the Romulans here. But the point is, those four people (or their Romulan substitutes) could operate the ship all the way through a demanding "multi-vectoring" space combat engagement; the ship was designed to be operated by four people.

I don't think it was specifically designed to be operated by four people, but it's just that Starfleet's computer tech is so advanced that they can do so easily. We see a handful of people operating ships throughout the TNG era, so it's not something unique in the time period.

 

[Deks]

Well, the EMH onboard the Prometheus said that only 4 people in SF KNOW how to operate the ship.
It's possible that this could also be interpreted in a way that SF designed the Prometheus class so it could also be operated by only 4 people.
Extremely high/advanced levels of automation and self-repair systems (which exist on SF ships in the first place) would require only minimal crew after all.
There's no need to pack the ship with people.

For a ship that has 15 decks but is marginally bigger than the Intrepid class, I would surmise that each section of the Prometheus could run with nothing more than just 2 person... although the bigger section might entail 2 such individuals if 4 are able to operate the thing.

But let's leave room for some leeway... deep space tactical assignments might require a larger clew compliment... though I wouldn't necessarily go above say... 45 people (15 per each section).

The Prometheus was an experimental prototype as shown in 'message in a bottle', so that can also explain the low number of trained SF individuals... however, what puzzles me is WHY would SF train only 4 people in the entire SF to be able to run the thing?
I mean... we know it's highly advanced and powerful (probably a downsized Sovereign class), but even if you send it on a shakedown cruise, why not supply it with say 10 or 20 people?

Then again, it was made during the Dominion War, so it's possible that they wanted to keep a close lid on it, but still 10 people as opposed to 4 is not that big of a deal.

Oh well.

 

[Timo]

I would surmise that each section of the Prometheus could run with nothing more than just 2 person...

...Although the point of the design in the episode is that two of the sections can run through a combat engagement with zero personnel, even when inexperienced intruders are telling them to do so.

We can argue that this would be an exceptional situation, yes. But if we argue that it is not, then the idea of training just four people makes better sense. Perhaps the triple ship can be successfully operated by a single trained person (plus any number of untrained "assistants"), so four is actually already quadruply redundant?

Timo Saloniemi