Spoilers ST Lower Decks - Starships and Technology Season Two Discussion

[Mark_Nguyen]

Season Two is upon us! Let's focus the ships & tech discussion (for the Technology subforum, anyway) into this thread. SPOILERS will abound on this thread for anything in Season One and up to the airdate of the most recent episode of the new season.

Season One Thread Here

Things I'm looking forward to:

- More on the Titan! We saw the bridge (which used pieces of the Cerritos bridge) and Boimler's quarters (which are recycled from those used by Mariner when she was punished / promoted last time. Will we see more? Will they be redresses of other Cerritos sets?

- Starbase shenanigans! At least one clip shows a smaller mushroom design. We rarely get a look into what these things are like on the inside, with at best one room looking out into the interior of a mushroom. Might we see what a Starfleet base Ops room looks like, once and for all?

- Perhaps some rationalization for the uniforms, in dialogue. We see the later TNG uniforms are still in use on the Titan and the Quito (albeit in flashback), but will someone say "Hey, the Titan's a frontline explorer - I dream of slipping into those colorful greys someday!" for the benefit of us fans?

- We've seen older ships from TOS et al in the first season, and the trend is continuing here. I don't see a problem with these showing up so far. We have DC-3s and B-52s that have been flying around for decades, and if an older ship still works, why not, in the Fleet or in Surplus?

Season One was a pleasant surprise for us longtime tech nerds, and I think the showrunner is to credit for a lot of this. May ti continue for at least two more seasons, starting in August 2021!

Mark

 

[Dukhat]

There's a Miranda class starship U.S.S. MacDuff NCC-1877, but we don't know the context of the scene. Is it a flashback to an earlier time period, or is it in service in 2380? The nacelles have the blue/red glow like late 24th century ships, so it's possibly contemporary, but who knows.

There's also the aforementioned starbase based on Masao's design for the Vanguard station in the novels and later used in TOS-R as Starbase 6. We see two 22nd century Kumari class Andorian ships, two Daedalus class ships, a Maquis raider, and two ships with Centaur type saucers but with large rear impulse engines and nacelles & pylons reminiscent of the newer Parliament class. Perhaps this station is a museum of some kind.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Going by the recent clip of Mariner and Boimler joyriding though a “promenade” a la Blues Brothers, it at least has a gift shop with action figures of famous deceased officers. A museum is an interesting idea, but I’d like to think for now that it’s a straightforward starbase. Big’un, but not so big as to have interior space as the classic mushroom seem several times last season.

In the earlier trailer we see the Titan fighting some sort of small craft while heading to a wormhole or anomaly of some kind. Pakleds perhaps, but I’m still wondering what the oddly specific multi legged pod seem inside the Pakled shop hangar was, from 1x10…

Mark

 

[Deks]

There's a Miranda class starship U.S.S. MacDuff NCC-1877, but we don't know the context of the scene. Is it a flashback to an earlier time period, or is it in service in 2380? The nacelles have the blue/red glow like late 24th century ships, so it's possibly contemporary, but who knows.

Judging by the registry, its likely it was made in the 23rd century and just survived this long. The nacelles are likely an upgrade. Remember the USS Lakota getting massive upgrades before the Dominion War?
This would pretty much be the same treatment for the Miranda class ships. In fairness, we DID see Miranda class ships having blue glowing nacelles in the 24th century... they just didn't have the red glow (indicating bussard collectors)... so the red glow might be an extra upgrade which was added to the class after the War.

There's also the aforementioned starbase based on Masao's design for the Vanguard station in the novels and later used in TOS-R as Starbase 6. We see two 22nd century Kumari class Andorian ships, two Daedalus class ships, a Maquis raider, and two ships with Centaur type saucers but with large rear impulse engines and nacelles & pylons reminiscent of the newer Parliament class. Perhaps this station is a museum of some kind.

Could be, but I doubt it. Dedicating an entire massive orbital habitat to a museum seems a bit... wasteful.
I actually like the design of this starbase. Has elements of Starbase One (mushroom design) but more... 24th century style perhaps.

Its possible that Starfleet made this class of starbase in the 24th century and used the mushroom one as a starting point... or they used a pre-existing mushroom starbase and upgraded it from the inside out (similar to how the 32nd century upgraded the Disco - implying that Starfleet still uses older classes of ships in that era, but were of course changed design wise to a good extent over the centuries in order to make them conform to whatever era they were serving in).

 

[Dukhat]

Since the station is based on a TOS-R design, perhaps the station itself is actually from the TOS era and was refit into something more modern (i.e. Spacedock from STIII). That would explain why it might be a museum.

 

[Tuskin38]

https://twitter.com/MikeMcMahanTM/status/1425275424670576642

Plopping those numbers into photoshop

 

[WildKazoo]

Wow, that's quite a bit bigger than I thought it would be. But really does match up with what we've seen of the ship.

 

[Tuskin38]

 

[Timo]

Also, the windows don't really deceive... Pretty much everything is a close match to the Galaxy, including the traditionally odd rim window rows. And the California saucertop is a tad flatter than the Galaxy one, so the greater spacing between window (skylight!) rows is understandable, being akin to that close to the center of the Galaxy saucer.

The MSD would have us think that the California warp engines are smaller than the Galaxy ones, despite the bigger nacelles. I wonder what alternative nacelles we could bolt onto this design for "different era/batch" variety...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Still plenty of room inside those nacelles for a turbolift! Just add in some Disco-era funhouse tracks and you’re golden. IMO the nacelles look suitably early 24th century in design and could be an example of “if it ain’t broke”, having only internal upgrades over several decades of construction like the Excelsiors apparently enjoyed.

Thing is, at 500+ meters long, she’s bigger than the USS Titan’s originally intended size…

Mark

 

[Timo]

...Yet, without the integrated secondary hull, quite a bit smaller in volume. Although the saucer may offer more useable deck area than the Luna spoon hull.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[NCC-73515]

Then the decks are 60% taller than on the D.

Last year, based on keeping the deck height the same, my estimate was 336 m.

 

[WildKazoo]

Perhaps technological improvements with the Galaxy-class provided for less space being needed between decks?

Or we just assume that the MSD is incorrect as they always tend to be.

 

[Tuskin38]

I think the windows might be smaller on the Season 2 model. At least the ones next to the escape pods. They're roughly the the same 'height' as the escape pods now, like on the Galaxy-Class

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

What a fun premiere! Lots of tech easter eggs and tidbits. As usual, we'll try to stick to the TECH of the episode and not just point out easter eggs, even thought they do tend to be intertwined. :P

- The workout / therapy session at the top of the episode gets a big pass because it's a holodeck sim, but wouldn't it be awesome if it were actually based on something real? Mariner has shown she has a knack for quickly repurposing existing programs, so maybe she swiped a mission report from something that happened in the Dominion War to use.

- Almost all the tech and ships seen in the sequence match the late DS9 era, except I guess the Cardassian uniforms, which are a bit more liberal an adaptation of the live action versions to be real.

- Ships seen include:

- Miranda-class USS Macduff
- Hideki-class Cardassian scout/fighter/whatever
- Jem'Hadar attack ship
- Maquis ship / Starfleet fighter
- Bajoran ship from later DS9
- ENT-era Klingon D5
- Klingon Bird of Prey without its neck or forward pod
- Some form of Romulan ship that looks a lot like a FASA design or two
- Danube-class runabout (with dorsal pod!)
- LOTS of Delta Flyers!

There's also a curious wedge-shaped ship, a ring-shaped design with three outboard pods, and possibly one or two others.

- Compared to the relatively lazy copy-paste job we had in the finale fleet of "Picard", this was a great piece of work, though I completely acknowledge the very different circumstances from the other show. Still, one of the D5 instances is curiously also missing its forward pod, and ALL of the Maquis / Starfleet fighters I saw seems to have a crumpled portside wing.

- The Macduff's bridge is basically identical to the configuration seen on the USS Reliant from TWOK (but not the Saratoga from TVH). The NCC reg also lines up with a ship of that era. Her phasers however have the TNG style visual and sound effects, but they correctly are seen being fired one from each ball turret. COULD this be representative of a Dominion War era ship?

- The newly-repaired Cerritos has gained a new bank of escape pods on her upper aft saucer as well as atop the bridge deck, which are the more recent hexagonal shaped hatches. They strangely don't match the existing square shaped hatches she already has. The whole mismatch is actually quite apt for the show - but to be fair they could also be something completely different.

- At the end of the previous season, while under repair we saw that both the bridge AND ventral centre sections were popped out. The ventral section has now gained a new, more prominent bulge whereas before it was less featured. Perhaps this is where the torpedoes now fire from? Or maybe she now HAS a torpedo launcher?

- The saucer rim shuttlebays now glow blue even when closed. However, the maybe-shuttlebay on the secondary hull isn't glowing.

- Other lighting changes abound, one of which brings out the alternating green and red lights along the saucer rim. This is actually uncool for me, because on modern day aircraft those are used to distinguish direction of travel at night (portside running light is red, starboard is green). Starfleet in general doesn't do this, but it's still jarring to anyone who knows what the lights are meant to be used for. Still, this season some of these lights are always on, while others now blink, at least in the opening credits.

- We actually see the (implied) window of the Lower Deckers' hallway quarters from the outside, firmly establishing where it is between the impulse drives.

- The big module we saw the crew unloading stuff from in "Second Contact" is back, again being used as a container for stuff being delivered to a newly-contacted species. We also see the subspace antenna thingy and shuttles, making this seem like a fairly standard operation. Maybe the Cerritos is carrying a bunch of these pre-packed modules with all the gadgets and trinkets to be left on the planet of the week?

- The assorted numbers on the "Unclaimed Subspace Channel Directory" list are random grouping of numbers and groups of numbers. There's no apparent standard here. What's keeping Randall Park's character from just making one of his own or adding a number to one he does like?

- The Cerritos is established as NOT being a "capital ship", which may be the first time the term has been used in Star Trek. Today we generally call carriers, battleships and nuclear missile subs "capital ships" as they are any navy's "most important", but destroyers, frigates cruisers and other ships for lesser combat or support roles are not. In Trek extended fandom a capital ship is often used to describe many of those ship types as well, so it'd be interesting to discuss the implication here.

- The gang has retrieved the venerable shuttle Sequoia from last year! There are no nacelles again, and this time they seem to not have any stacked up against the bulkheads like last year; but someone seems to be actively working on it. The reapair bay looks a little different here, and seems to have gained both the "lights moving back and forth" prop from Trek and a million other things, and a version of the "bendy straw" lighting fixtures from Discovery.

- There are no fewer than three new medical carrying devices this week.

- I think the Cerritos gets into her first battle in earnest with this episode. She was shown firing all of one time last year, no? Here she fires multiple times at the Big Giant Head, and has torpedoes to fire. Now to confirm where those come from!

- This is the second battle in a row that Riker orders the Titan to red alert AFTER the shooting starts. Perhaps both battles were unexpected combat situations, but one could argue that his version of shipboard yellow alert keep his ride mostly combat ready, I guess?

Mark

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

I agree with Mariner, her type of "Work-Out" where you escape captivity and battle Holographic badguys sounds like my type of "Work-Out".

Her phasers however have the TNG style visual and sound effects, but they correctly are seen being fired one from each ball turret. COULD this be representative of a Dominion War era ship?

I would assume so, but I think a fundamental design flaw of that era of Ball Turret arrangements is the standard 90° equi-angular distribution of the ball turrets and the expected 4x clusters of Ball Turrets on a circular saucer.

If you have a circular saucer, I think a triangular cluster of 3x Ball Turrets and a equi-angular distribution of 72° with the pointy lone Ball Turret that makes the Triangular cluster face upwards and pointing towards the orthogonal normal of the saucer shape / middle point.

This would allow better coverage by having multiple ball turrets be able to have overlapping angles of firing arcs and be able to handle more targets simultaneously while putting on more energy onto a target.

- The Cerritos is established as NOT being a "capital ship", which may be the first time the term has been used in Star Trek. Today we generally call carriers, battleships and nuclear missile subs "capital ships" as they are any navy's "most important", but destroyers, frigates cruisers and other ships for lesser combat or support roles are not. In Trek extended fandom a capital ship is often used to describe many of those ship types as well, so it'd be interesting to discuss the implication here.

I wonder what metrics are used to qualify a vessel as a "Capital Ship".
Size, Power, Technological features, etc?

- There are no fewer than three new medical carrying devices this week.

So many new ways to inject somebody with chemicals from a distance.

Am I the only one sensing the sexual tension between Tendi & Rutherford?

 

[Tuskin38]

Some form of Romulan ship that looks a lot like a FASA design or two

It appears to be based off the Snipe Class from Starfleet Command 1, except the wings are angled down instead of up.
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Snipe_class
https://i.imgur.com/BVM9imt.png

Hideki-class Cardassian scout/fighter/whatever

It's a bit different. Like more so than any other design that has appeared on the show.

The ventral section has now gained a new, more prominent bulge whereas before it was less featured. Perhaps this is where the torpedoes now fire from? Or maybe she now HAS a torpedo launcher?

I think it's a window, it's glowing white like all the others.

I think the torpedo launches are in those fins or whatever sticking up from the top of the saucer, they have more detail now.

However, the maybe-shuttlebay on the secondary hull isn't glowing.

It's missing completely, there's nothing in the spot it's just a bare wall. All the windows are missing from the pod as well. This is the same in all the trailers/clips that show that part of the ship.
So, no idea if it's intentional or not.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The season two trailer has a first: A canon cutaway of the classic movie Enterprise, from the Wrath of Khan holodeck simulation. With a weird intermix chamber in a totally different arrangement from decades of lore:

 

[Timo]

Is that an intermix chamber? There would seem to be a TNG style straight vertical warp core suitably aft of the Probert-intended "vertical intermix shaft" location, slightly forward of the lower vertical part of that highlighted whatnot... Or then no amount of squinting will do any good here.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[matthunter]

Am I the only one sensing the sexual tension between Tendi & Rutherford?

Umm, no? The only one who isn't is Rutherford.

There are races in the Delta Quadrant who are picking it up on sens-oars. And they haven't even progressed beyond telescopes.