Ships of the Line 2019

[JD]

It's a shame they felt the need to do that. It's look was part of its charm I thought, and all the other Star Trek shows made sure that it looked correct when they went back to that time.

You can get away with reusing 50 year old designs as a one time reference or homage, but there is no way a modern big budget, prestige streaming series is going to use those designs on a weekly bais.

Franklin isn’t a Prime ship, no matter what people say.

Why can't it be a Prime ship? I don't think we really know enough about exactly what was going in Starfleet in the Enterprise era to say for sure whether or not the Franklin could exist in the Prime universe. We did see at least a couple classes besides the NXs so we at least know they at least had more than just them.

 

[Christopher]

Why can't it be a Prime ship? I don't think we really know enough about exactly what was going in Starfleet in the Enterprise era to say for sure whether or not the Franklin could exist in the Prime universe. We did see at least a couple classes besides the NXs so we at least know they at least had more than just them.

Given that the entirety of Star Trek: Enterprise was a retcon (TNG and DS9 both said Kirk's ship was the first starship Enterprise, as did every visible Enterprise dedication plaque from A to E), it's so strange to me to hear people accepting that ENT happened in Prime yet be unwilling to accept that the Franklin existed there as well.

It's the usual double standard -- people accept what's been around long enough to adjust to, but reject what's new and unfamiliar. Over time, the older discrepancies just get glossed over in our minds as we rationalize them away, so the newer discrepancies seem greater even when they're actually smaller. When ENT was new, lots of fans refused to accept its retcons to prior continuity. Now, many fans accept it but resist any new retcons to what it established.

 

[Tuskin38]

Some people rationalize it as the NX-01 not being a Federation Starfleet ship

But that falls apart because some of the displays include the test shuttle, the aircraft carrier(s) and some times the XCV-330

 

[Christopher]

Some people rationalize it as the NX-01 not being a Federation Starfleet ship

But that falls apart because some of the displays include the test shuttle, the aircraft carrier(s) and some times the XCV-330

The Enterprise dedication plaques all say "Nth starship to bear the name," so that rules out seagoing ships and smaller spacecraft like the shuttle and (presumably) the ringship prototype.

And, yes, the only feasible retcon for NX-01 is to pretend it's because it's Earth Starfleet instead of UFP, but the point remains, it is a retcon. A new Trek production contradicted what its predecessors had done, and yet we found a way to handwave away the inconsistency, just like we've been doing with all the inconsistencies for half a century. So if we can accept NX-01, it should be easier to accept the Franklin.

 

[Damian]

I actually don't understand the issue with the Franklin. To me it appears that it could easily be a ship from the NX-01's time. Certainly from outside it does. Even the inside, except for the window on the bridge instead of a viewscreen.

What is it with that anyway. I mean, use common sense. Would you want a huge window on the bridge instead of a viewscreen. It doesn't seem very practical to me (esp. since the viewscreen was always used for more than just 'looking out').

I know, it's silly. But it bugs the Hell out of me.

 

[The Wormhole]

What is it with that anyway. I mean, use common sense. Would you want a huge window on the bridge instead of a viewscreen. It doesn't seem very practical to me (esp. since the viewscreen was always used for more than just 'looking out').

The sudden omnipresence of windshields on the bridge as opposed to view screens is perplexing. Hell, I remember back when First Contact turned the Enterprise's view screen into a blank wall at the front of the bridge that displayed holographic images whenever something had to be "on screen" actually caused so many people to shit bricks over there was actually a studio mandate to go back to a traditional view screen in Insurrection. Then Trek XI replaces the view screen with a windshield, and suddenly the entire franchise follows suit.

On Disco the windshields are especially silly given how much readings, information, and various data are overlaid onto the window, an actual screen at the front of the bridge should be the far more practical option. It gets especially silly when bridge systems go down and the window becomes filled with static and snow.

 

[Damian]

The sudden omnipresence of windshields on the bridge as opposed to view screens is perplexing. Hell, I remember back when First Contact turned the Enterprise's view screen into a blank wall at the front of the bridge that displayed holographic images whenever something had to be "on screen" actually caused so many people to shit bricks over there was actually a studio mandate to go back to a traditional view screen in Insurrection. Then Trek XI replaces the view screen with a windshield, and suddenly the entire franchise follows suit.

On Disco the windshields are especially silly given how much readings, information, and various data are overlaid onto the window, an actual screen at the front of the bridge should be the far more practical option. It gets especially silly when bridge systems go down and the window becomes filled with static and snow.

That was my thing. It just doesn't seem practical. I mean, what if you want an aft view. You'd be overlaying an aft view over a window facing forward. Plus my whole thing about the ship being at warp. I know some will cite 10-forward on the Enterprise-D or the mess hall on Voyager. But let's be honest the warp effect in those shows with the streaking stars (my personal favorite warp effect BTW) is a lot less likely to elicit motion sickness. The tunneling effect in the Abramsverse movies would probably make me want to vomit, and I'm not usually prone to motion sickness (Beyond altered the effect a bit, but I think it would still be an issue with a window). And the forward "window" was not small. It was huge. It'd be hard to ignore.

 

[JD]

I haven't seen any interviews that addressed the window thing, so I don't know for sure, but if I had to the guess I would say they are using that now because it feels more futuristic that what is basically a giant TV or computer screen.

 

[David cgc]

I haven't seen any interviews that addressed the window thing, so I don't know for sure, but if I had to the guess I would say they are using that now because it feels more futuristic that what is basically a giant TV or computer screen.

IIRC, Orci or Kurtzman said they went with it to justify putting the bridge on top of the saucer.

Personally, if I had to pick between the big window and the blank wall of FC, the window wins, every time. Especially in those post TOS-bridges that were all forward-facing as if there was some sort of audience looking in from that direction who wanted to see everyone's faces all the time. Blanking out the screen entirely in FC means that most of the time, everyone in the crew is oriented towards a plain wall. It's vaguely demoralizing, like being put in the corner.

 

[tomswift2002]

With the window, I remember that in Justice Picard had to send LaForge to another part of the ship to look out a window in order to use his visor to "see" the orbiting ship and see if he could pick up anything on the different spectrums that LaForge could see. .

But even in Generations you could see the blank wall behind the viewscreen after the saucer crashed.

But we also saw the TOS screen switched off in Where No Man Has Gone Before when it had that weird black/white effect. And DS9 the Ops screen was clearly just a frame hung from the ceiling that activated when needed (talk about holocommunications).

 

[Tallguy]

I gotta say, I love the windows. We always saw them with that "It's going to look so dated" hologram kinda looking thing when it's being used as a view screen (like talking to Nero). I'd like to see a solid projection that covered the window when it needed to.

But otherwise, yeah. The forward screen and the bridge dome are really transparent. Huzzah!

That's how I'd do it, anyway...

 

[Christopher]

I haven't seen any interviews that addressed the window thing, so I don't know for sure, but if I had to the guess I would say they are using that now because it feels more futuristic that what is basically a giant TV or computer screen.

Partly, I guess. It's the same principle as the rather silly trope of everybody in the future using transparent display screens or smartphones, which would be a terrible idea in practice (especially if there's a bright light behind it) but is popular in sci-fi because it looks different and advanced -- and because it allows shot compositions that include both the image and the character's reaction to it in the same shot.

In this case, the analogy is that it allows exterior shots of the bridge, like that first pull-in to the Shenzhou bridge in DSC's premiere -- sort of an inversion of the very first shot of "The Cage," the pull-in through the bridge dome. Also, it's showoffy because you've always got CGI space shots showing through the front instead of just a big TV screen on a wall.

As it happens, 25-30 ago when I was imagining a starship bridge for my original fiction (which was more imitative of Trek at the time than it is now), I thought it would be cool and futuristic to have a front window that images could be projected onto, pretty much just like what we're seeing now in the movies and DSC. So in a way, that's kinda cool to see it realized. But now I think it's pretty silly. In a starship, practically nothing is ever going to be close enough to see with the naked eye unless you're in orbit or docking with a ship or station. And the stars would be washed out by the interior lighting anyway, unless they were really close and bright, in which case it'd be better not to be looking directly at them. Plus there's all the radiation in space.

 

[Tim Thomason]

It was always a mistake to have the bridge located on top of the saucer, as Star Trek Nemesis showed us, and the window just draws attention to that. There's nothing inherently wrong with the window itself, since we can just assume they project whatever onto it.

 

[Christopher]

There's nothing inherently wrong with the window itself, since we can just assume they project whatever onto it.

If the ship's facing directly toward a nearby star or an antimatter explosion, I'd say there's something pretty wrong with blinding and irradiating the entire bridge crew. Sure, the window's probably built to opacify itself in a case like that, but why take the chance? Most of the rest of the time, there will be nothing to see out the window anyway except the hull of the ship. And a technology that can project holograms in midair is surely able to create a screen image so lifelike that it might as well be a window.

 

[Damian]

The window just didn't seem practical too me. A view screen seems more functional and practical to me because you could do more with it. Sure you can project images on a window, but then you'd have to go to the trouble of making it opaque or you'd have double images (and I thought in Star Trek(2009) it just didn't look good, they did improve it in STID thankfully).

But why would you make something that had to do all that when you could just, you know, install a viewscreen, which would do all that without all the additions. You could put it in a huge view screen (a la Enterprise D) if big was your thing.

Also, if I'm not mistaken I believe the viewscreens of the future were holographic (3-d) so they weren't static 2-d displays.

Now as far as designing the bridge at the top of the ship in a vulnerable location, yeah I can't really argue too much with that. I remember in Enterprise "Twilight" the Xindi used that against the crew, blowing up the bridge pretty easily--granted that's an alternate timeline, but probably not the best place to have all your most critical command officers at.

 

[The Wormhole]

IIRC, Orci or Kurtzman said they went with it to justify putting the bridge on top of the saucer.

Kind of ironic then the Shenzhou's bridge isn't at the top of the saucer and does have a window.

 

[Christopher]

Kind of ironic then the Shenzhou's bridge isn't at the top of the saucer and does have a window.

But it's still on the outside of the saucer, which is the point. The question is why you'd put the bridge on the outer surface of a ship instead of deeper inside where it would be safer from enemy fire. The top and the bottom are both outer surfaces.

 

[Damian]

I guess it's good they don't use money in the future or all the families of bridge officers who died when the bridge was attacked would sue Jeffries. 'Mr. Jeffries knowingly designed the starship with the bridge in the most exposed area of the ship without regard to the safety of the bridge officers. He should have known that being an area where the command crew would be assembled would make it vulnerable to enemy attack and he was negligent in placing the bridge on the top of the ship.' It'd be all over the FNS, there'd be a huge scandal, the Federation committee that oversees Starfleet would want a full investigation, further starship construction would be halted, the Klingons and Romulans would attack while construction was halted. It'd be a mess.

 

[Markonian]

That's nothing. Look up what the D-7 looks like in Disco and then you'll really see why people are screaming alternate universe.

According to the Eaglemoss poster seen in Germany, it’s called Sech class.
To wit, Lorca’s shuttle identifies the tractor beam signature as that of a D7-class ship. Maybe it’s like a Renault with Rolls Royce motor?

 

[Markonian]

Also, are we sure this is a genuine SOTL calendar? Because I don’t see any image of the Enterprise in Earth’s clouds with a 1969 US aircraft.