I'm reading SATR for the first time right now (been on a John Harriman kick lately) and am curious if there's been any artwork created depicting the USS Universe, NX-2999, the hyperwarp prototype ship from the novel. It sounded to me like the author was describing something akin to a Galaxy-class ship. As an aside, there was a bit of the novel that spent some time describing Harriman's face and on a whim I Googled as many pics of Ruck as Harriman as I could find... and a couple of curiosity click-throughs later, I had accidentally spoiled the end of the book for myself!
Dale, I know of no art depicting the Universe, though I certainly have a vision in my own mind of what it looks like (which I of course hope translated to the printed page).
Dude. The "Tomed Incident." WOW. I sat up straight, went back, and read it again. Never saw it coming, even though the clues were there. Freaked me right out. Nicely done.
I thought this bit was hilarious: Spoiler: novel Vokar has just woken up inside a torpedo casing (having been traded back to Romulus as a POW) and Hiren is there. Hiren just keeps beating the shit out of Vokar and repeating "Get up, Sublieutenant!" over and over.
Well, I described it in Serpents...I don't have the description handy off the top of my head, but I believe it's pretty detailed.
I have a feeling the description in the book might be more detailed, but I did find the description on Memory Beta
All right, all right, make me do all the work (though I appreciate your efforts, JD). Here's the relevant passage.
Aside from the references to the "wide beam" and "spread port and starboard," it sounds kind of like the Sovereign class. I'm confused by those references, since the saucer is described as "narrow" with its longer axis running front-to-back. How is the ship both narrow and wide at the same time?
The "thin struts" are probably rather long, and the engine nacelles themselves are broad, too... If the hulls aren't large in comparison with the length of the struts, we get the "narrow and wide" effect, then. Doodling a bit, it becomes clear that the struts must be really long in relation, though, to create that effect... Unless the nacelles are as large as the primary hull. Which they may well be, considering that this was supposedly just a propulsion testbed. Timo Saloniemi
Yeah, I don't get it either. And what do you mean by shallow depth? Is that referring to the length or the height of the ship?
^Well, "shallow depth" usually suggests a vertical measure, unless you're talking about something sticking out from a wall, and he does say "compressed top to bottom."
I envisioned the struts and nacelles as fairly sizable, yes. As for the "narrow and wide effect," as you put it, the ellipses making up the two hulls are narrow--that is to say, their major axes are much longer than their minor axes. The hulls are also flat, with no connecting neck between them. The aft portions of the nacelles also flair significantly.
I thought about pulling out the book myself, but I figured MB was quicker, and that it's description was probably good enough to get the basic look across.