Reimagined: Yeager Class and Voyager's Premise

[Cyke101]

Doug Drexler's excellent blog had an entry on the near-universally-despised Yeager class. I'm a sucker for backstage info:

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/deep-space-deep-background-uss-yeager/

Then I came across this idea by a poster named Boris:

I say “Caretaker” should’ve ended like this: Voyager saucer-separates, the secondary hull rams the array because there are no more torpedoes left, and then Voyager’s saucer has to merge with the Maquis raider into this design for the next seven years.

I was wondering what people here would think of the story possibilities from such an idea. Of course, the raider would have to be scaled up in order to match Voyager's saucer, but I agree with Drex: it's a pretty neat idea.

Since the raider would have to be scaled up, would that mean a larger Maquis contingent? Would that mean more "forced" cooperation between the two crews? Would that heighten tension (and maybe increase chemistry) between Janeway and Chakotay? What would this forced frankenstein union do to the overall Voyager story?

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

Wow, that is probably the best idea for a re-made Voyager I've ever heard.

Is that a fan idea or was it canned by the execs. before the show started? They could have made an episode based on the idea, maybe a mini-story arc, a mirror episode.

 

[Cyke101]

Wow, that is probably the best idea for a re-made Voyager I've ever heard.

Is that a fan idea or was it canned by the execs. before the show started? They could have made an episode based on the idea, maybe a mini-story arc, a mirror episode.

The idea was conceived by the poster named "Boris," who as far as I know, is simply a fan (there are a lot of behind the scenes Trek folks and colleagues who post on Drexler's site). This idea was more than likely made with the benefit of hindsight and reflection, as the Yeager model itself wasn't built until well after the start of Voyager and that people now have an idea of what they would add to the show (I know Godben and Anwar both have "revised Voyager" threads here, for instance).

 

[Guy Gardener]

Wow. That's just a horribly blunt metaphor.

Patronizinig even.

"If we can mesh our ships together and they can work well as a single unit, then can't our two crews not try to do any less?"

It's trying to hard boardering on literary masturbation.

 

[Anwar]

Vandread did the same thing, the ship crewed entirely by men fused with the all-women ship and they called it the "Nirvana".

That's right, Man fused with Woman = Heaven!

 

[Anwar]

Vandread did the same thing, the ship crewed entirely by men fused with the all-women ship and they called it the "Nirvana".

That's right, Man fused with Woman = Heaven!

 

[Cyke101]

Wow. That's just a horribly blunt metaphor.

Patronizinig even.

"If we can mesh our ships together and they can work well as a single unit, then can't our two crews not try to do any less?"

It's trying to hard boardering on literary masturbation.

Could it be any worse than an episode about a ship named Defiant being manned by rebels who are Defiant starring in an episode called Defiant?

And hey, I liked that episode.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

I thinking some was drinking Jagermeister when they made that ship.

They made that but didn't use the Ambassador class for DS9 battles?

 

[Guy Gardener]

In all honestly, the episode Defiant should have been called "Skippy".

 

[nx1701g]

They made that but didn't use the Ambassador class for DS9 battles?

I recall reading somewhere that the model for the Ambassador class had been damaged or something along those lines.

I know that in the Dominion Wars scenes (the big battles) it wasn't included because there wasn't a CGI Model of it.

 

[Cyke101]

In all honestly, the episode Defiant should have been called "Skippy".

And then everytime the ship escapes his grasp, Dukat can angrily slam his fist on the table and yell out "DAMN SKIPPY!"

 

[Guy Gardener]

No silly, because the show was about Will Riker's evil twin.

Yeager Class, meakes me thing Chuck Class, which should make me think about vomiting, but it also sounds like some one pulling a tardy, which sounds like giving a simpleton a handjob, but really Chuck Class is really Charles Class who is a man that sounds like he should be dating Miss Manners.

 

[nx1701g]

Something I just realized:

The Yeager Class and the USS Yeager (Saber Class) were active at the same time.

 

[Plecostomus]

Something I just realized:

The Yeager Class and the USS Yeager (Saber Class) were active at the same time.

One is Yeager and one is Jager.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Ugly ship, but I kind of like the fusing together idea.

I'm not really convinced that they would have had the resources to pull something like that off with no support though. It isn't as simple as just clicking a couple of legos together.

 

[AthanisTree]

Lost you prized Engineering Hull to a Money-moneh FX shot?

Gotten your hands on an uglier-than-his-mother-on-a-Hen-night raider hull?

Need to fuse the two?

Then look no further than Neelix's Patent Leola-Root Superglue!

It takes ten seconds and will last seven series!

(Note: Side-effects include Vulcan-Talaxian hybridisation, molding of human Captains to coffee mugs, molding of useless Ensigns to Ops Consoles and Holographic Doctors to Opera CD's.)


Erk :P

 

[tenmei]

Not sure I like this idea - always thought VOY could have been interesting if they'd gone with a Defiant Class (and shared the sets with DS9 which would have meant better quality sets for that show) vessel.

 

[Anwar]

Nah, Paramount is pretty adamant about each series having a unique vessel. That's why we never saw the movie version of the Constitution outside the TOS movies, or why we never saw a Sovereign in the shows.

 

[Cyke101]

Nah, Paramount is pretty adamant about each series having a unique vessel. That's why we never saw the movie version of the Constitution outside the TOS movies, or why we never saw a Sovereign in the shows.

Agreed and besides, having a Defiant class on such a long term show severely cramps story-telling purposes. One of the reasons why the Defiant could work so well as a storytelling device is because so many stage resources could be devoted to something wide like DS9 itself (the Promenade is just so much more dynamic than the Defiant's bridge, for instance). 7 years of stories on a cramped and tiny ship like that would wear really thin.

For Voyager, you'd need a larger ship just to show certain stories (Astrometrics, a true Mess Hall, Hydroponics, and other sets that I doubt a Defiant could have). It's true for TNG, BSG, and Andromeda, as well, I think.

 

[tenmei]

And I think you could have just as many - if not more - stories about the crew having to deal with the cramped quarters of such a ship, the close quarters for so long especially with the Maquis would have proved to be a powder keg.

Imagine Janeway reclaiming a cargo bay to turn it into a hydroponics bay - even a ship the size of the Defiant must have a cargo bay - at the expense of cargo space, forcing the surviving Starfleet crew to bunk up with members of the Maquis (instead of seemingly giving everyone their own rooms) which would be conducive to the Kim/Paris friendship and put an interesting spin on the inclusion of Neelix and Kes, who would have either had to bunk with other crew (Tuvok with Neelix would have been interesting, Kes presumably with either Samantha Wildman or B'Elanna). Voyager actually already having a kitchen always felt like a bit of a cop-out in retrospect, imagine them having to find the space to build a kitchen - and we'd have had, with the lack of the holodecks, more desperation for the crew to get shoreleave (imagine an episode like The 37's, for example, running with a Defiant type vessel - would it be more likely for the crew to choose to settle and even more miraculous and dramatic for the story when nobody chooses to leave).