Clumpsbip and kitbash ship are synonyms?
Spoilers ST Lower Decks - Starships and Technology Season Two Discussion
- Thread starter Mark_Nguyen
- Start date
A little slimmer
They only "Look Slimmer" because of the change from Live Action to 2D CGI.
And the fact that the Obena Class is a "Fatter" Excelsior type.
Thoughts on the Archimedes, because, well, it's an Excelsior-inspired design, and that means it's kin to the BEST STARSHIP EVER MADE:
- I'm sure someone has already figured out the potential size of the Archimedes based on the Sovereign nacelle length? I know they're not EXACTLY the same, but IMO it's close enough to suggest that for the first time in a WHILE there's the potential for multiple classes of ship to use the same nacelle design.
- The oversized Starfleet logo certainly ain't the one her Captain and crew wears on their uniforms. Could this mean the Archimedes dates from the early TNG era?
- The bridge is definitely a version of the standard Excelsior bridge design seen in ST6, VOY "Flashback" and as part of a family of bridge designs that use the same studio set. The latter includes such "newer" designs in this era as the Prometheus and Nova, so it's not like it's LITERALLY the Excelsior's bridge refined. There are assorted details in this set that suggest someone was looking at Tadeo D'oria's work on the Excelsior class bridges, especially THIS ONE. Look at the ribbed lights on the Conn/Ops stations.
[Takes a 30-minute break to admire Tadeo's work. Again.]
- The Archimedes looks to be using the same shuttles as everyone else, but they aren't using Sovereign nacelles on theirs.
- Does it look like they'll try to re-attach her starboard nacelle at the end? I suppose it didn't take any direct damage, but where's the line between trying to put it back in place in-situ and towing the whole thing back to a starbase to do all the work there? Someone had to get the Cerritos back to base last year.
Mark
- I'm sure someone has already figured out the potential size of the Archimedes based on the Sovereign nacelle length? I know they're not EXACTLY the same, but IMO it's close enough to suggest that for the first time in a WHILE there's the potential for multiple classes of ship to use the same nacelle design.
- The oversized Starfleet logo certainly ain't the one her Captain and crew wears on their uniforms. Could this mean the Archimedes dates from the early TNG era?
- The bridge is definitely a version of the standard Excelsior bridge design seen in ST6, VOY "Flashback" and as part of a family of bridge designs that use the same studio set. The latter includes such "newer" designs in this era as the Prometheus and Nova, so it's not like it's LITERALLY the Excelsior's bridge refined. There are assorted details in this set that suggest someone was looking at Tadeo D'oria's work on the Excelsior class bridges, especially THIS ONE. Look at the ribbed lights on the Conn/Ops stations.
[Takes a 30-minute break to admire Tadeo's work. Again.]
- The Archimedes looks to be using the same shuttles as everyone else, but they aren't using Sovereign nacelles on theirs.
- Does it look like they'll try to re-attach her starboard nacelle at the end? I suppose it didn't take any direct damage, but where's the line between trying to put it back in place in-situ and towing the whole thing back to a starbase to do all the work there? Someone had to get the Cerritos back to base last year.
Mark
There's a direct comparison over in the starship thread on the Lower Decks board. The Archimedes would be about equal in size or slightly smaller than the Sovvie based on the nacelles. Though since the comparison is based on a smallish top view diagram seen in the background on a bridge monitor, the margin for error is pretty large. Another way of determining the size of the Archimedes is looking at the decks in the saucer rim (3 vs 2 on the Excelsior). If we assume the overall proportions of the ships are equal, this would imply a scale factor of 1.5x, meaning we'd arrive at an length of 1.5 x 467 = 700m for the Archimedes.
I'm still not sold on the idea of Starfleet building brand new starships based on century-old designs, especially seeing how many different newer designs they already employ, but it was good to see something familiar. (And for that matter, yay for seeing an Oberth and a Nova, too.)
Nice to see other ships besides the far away LD designs.
Hope for more akira, sabre, steamrunner, nova, Prometheus, and others..
Hope for more akira, sabre, steamrunner, nova, Prometheus, and others..
The Akira has technically made an appearance in this finale, as a bookshelf model. Interesting paint choices on it, BTW.
The Oberth showing up is particularly interesting, as this marks the longest time we've seen a Starfleet ship class in active service in the whole franchise; from some point before 2285 to 2381. While we know from other Oberths' reg numbers that they were likely made in several batches like the Excelsiors and Mirandas, and this could be one from a more recent production run, it was generally assumed that they'd been retired by 2370 or so, as the previous chronological appearance of the ship model would be in the premiere episode of DS9, not counting a stock footage appearance or two in TNG's final two seasons.
(The USS Pegasus was not in active service in "Pegasus". And no, I'm not counting the Miranda from Mariner's holocardio program from this season as an even longer service run.)
Mark
PS EDIT - The USS Cochrane, which had delivered Dax and Bashir to DS9 in the premiere and previously Admiral Satie to the Enterprise, was on the list of ships having suffered casualties on the big DS9 graphic seen occasionally during the Dominion War and by 2376.
The Oberth showing up is particularly interesting, as this marks the longest time we've seen a Starfleet ship class in active service in the whole franchise; from some point before 2285 to 2381. While we know from other Oberths' reg numbers that they were likely made in several batches like the Excelsiors and Mirandas, and this could be one from a more recent production run, it was generally assumed that they'd been retired by 2370 or so, as the previous chronological appearance of the ship model would be in the premiere episode of DS9, not counting a stock footage appearance or two in TNG's final two seasons.
(The USS Pegasus was not in active service in "Pegasus". And no, I'm not counting the Miranda from Mariner's holocardio program from this season as an even longer service run.)
Mark
PS EDIT - The USS Cochrane, which had delivered Dax and Bashir to DS9 in the premiere and previously Admiral Satie to the Enterprise, was on the list of ships having suffered casualties on the big DS9 graphic seen occasionally during the Dominion War and by 2376.
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Twin-jets are boring…but they have a sweet spot. For Transwarp…they designed the most warp dynamic ship they could…so that was the most slippery design. It wasn’t just Scotty’s sabotage that led to Transwarp not being achieved, but modest improvements. So they expand on the design.
Ent-D went another way…and that stuck around. The Sovereign was a new Refit…and this the new Excelsior. Styles come and go. When Transwarp is achieved, you will see yet another example perhaps…
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To me it seemed like the Archimedes was just another Excelsior class ship which was in service since the 23rd century, just heavily upgraded (for the post Dominion War era), and not a brand new build.
Starfleet is likely to keep upgrading ships that survive in service for a LONG period of time to keep them up with the times - even the superstructure will be 'refreshed' at some point in those upgrade cycles.
Because the Sovereign class is more or less SF's 'peak' during those times in starship design, they probably figured that they can overhaul the Excelsior by giving it a more oval saucer section (which would add more internal volume and could have been made by harvesting the saucer/conveting it into energy and then making the oval design from that raw material using replicators - effectively materializing it in place - or they just harvested the saucer and used modern methods to give it an oval shape without expending any more resources) along with Sovereign style nacelles, deflector dish and pylons.
We also don't know what kind of properties SF hulls have. An article from a few years back posited they are made of programmable quantum metamaterials... which to me would indicate they should have the ability to reshape themselves when subjected to specific conditions (in a drydock or spacedock for example this would be useful to just stretch or contract the hull and ship in general).
Though to be fair, with Replicators, SF can just use a whole bunch of networked industrial grade replicators for use of massive pattern buffers, so they could lock on the saucer, dematerialize it, then use that energy to reshape it into an oval saucer and beam it back into place.
I mean, you can go with that if you REALLY want, but the showrunner has explicitly said it's a new class based on the Excelsior design, not a refit.
...And they are sort of perpetuating the "Excelsior family" of ships in LDS, with a couple of apparent modernizations of good old USS Centaur from DS9 seen docked to SB 25.
Quite possibly the saucer with the positive slope to the rim holds some advantages over Galaxy style lenses, and appears both in the Sovereign saucer and a range of smaller ones, the latter perpetuating the art deco lines and all. We might well see more ships of that ilk, alongside the Californias and Parliaments and other more Galaxy-ish designs. Perhaps a revival of some further DS9 kitbashes?
However, the Archimedes is the only ship of that sort with a modern registry so far...
Timo Saloniemi
Quite possibly the saucer with the positive slope to the rim holds some advantages over Galaxy style lenses, and appears both in the Sovereign saucer and a range of smaller ones, the latter perpetuating the art deco lines and all. We might well see more ships of that ilk, alongside the Californias and Parliaments and other more Galaxy-ish designs. Perhaps a revival of some further DS9 kitbashes?
However, the Archimedes is the only ship of that sort with a modern registry so far...
Timo Saloniemi
That's weird.
Not exactly seeing the showrunner's point.
The Archimedes really does look like a 23rd century Excelsior with tacked on Sovereign class features (aka, Starfleet could have achieved the same result by taking existing Excelsiors in service and 'doing them up' in that fashion by harvesting their pylons, nacelles, saucer and deflector dish, converting them into energy and just replicating Sovereign style ones in place).
It seems a bit pointless to make a new class based on a century old one next to 24th century designs such as the Galaxy, Intrepid, Defiant and Sovereign class ships (not to mention Steamrunner, Akira and Saber classes).
In-universe, I'd like to know of a reason why SF would go down that route (unless its a throwback to the Excelsior Transwarp experiment from 100 years ago and the design may be more 'compatible' with the technologies VOY brought back perhaps - though that seems like a stretch).
The Excelsior was used for a long time in Starfleet. Developing a new class would make sense given the versatility of the platform, while adding more features that eventually exceeded the original class. Also, classes in Starfleet seem to vary, given that we have the Miranda and Soyuz.
In my 26th Century Head Canon, my Updated Excelsior Class got modified into a "Logistics" StarShip and is designed to help distribute supplies to all the numerous StarFleet StarBases & Vessels as needed.
In-universe, it may just be that Starfleet now has the resources and tech to make a ship that LOOKS like an old "classic" but with all the capability of a modern ship, and folks have nostalgia.
We do the same thing right now:
https://www.eaglegb.com/9/jaguar-e-type-special-editions/eagle-speedster
We do the same thing right now:
https://www.eaglegb.com/9/jaguar-e-type-special-editions/eagle-speedster
In universe one would imagine that would be a rather trivial thing.
Exactly.
Both were designed and built in the same era though... they weren't a century apart.
As I said, I don't see a particular advantage or use in making a brand new class of ship that has underlying base of the Excelsior class with Sovereign class features.
It would have been more prudent to just convert existing Exelsiors in service to that variation and say that its a 100 year upgrade cycle for that class so they can continue being in active use and on par with modern ships.
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