Spoilers ST Lower Decks - Starships & Technology Season 4 Discussion

[137th Gebirg]

Here's a comparison between the original sketch and the final version, as seen in the SOL Calendar from 2011 (Jesus, has it been that long ago?), by Probert himself. Puts it in some serious perspective with the "little" D'deridex's hovering along side:

 

[Markonian]

I like to think that the Romulan vertibird is a generic design expressed in separate, differently sized classes - the huge warbird like the IRW Tomalak's Fist, and the small one like Vrek's starship from Lower Decks.

And I really hope we can have an Eaglemoss-style model of such a design.

 

[137th Gebirg]

It was on the books as being planned before "the Great Fall", but I don't ever recall seeing prototypes, or if they ever even started that project.

 

[Markonian]

It was on the books as being planned before "the Great Fall", but I don't ever recall seeing prototypes, or if they ever even started that project.

If nothing else, I'll probably get myself a 3D printer in the 30s and see if I can make decent models of comparable size.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Would love to see photos of it if/when that comes to fruition.

 

[Tuskin38]

Are they running out of ideas or something?

The PIC Neo-Connie/Titan/Sangri La thing has been mentioned, but that's not the only one. There's also the whole Buckner/Centaur (DS9/PRO) thing and Connie-vs-Sombra (SNW) business as well, following this trend. I guess they're taking a page from the multi-scaled BOP for these things now. No longer is it chalked up to a simple difficulty for the post-production crew maintaining scale during the final compositing process, but a fully codified canonical phenomenon as it applies to in-universe starship design.

Starship looking too small?

Kinda silly, IMO, but it is what it is...

The difference here, is the Saberunner does have other differences outside of scale. Just compare it to any pictures of the FC/DS9 CG model, the phaser arrays, windows, and escape pods are in different places. Windows also appear to be larger which lends to the smaller size.

So it was actually modified to be smaller, unlike the Connie-3 where they didn't change the scale of any of the windows or hatches to compensate for the larger size.

and I'm glad later episodes of TNG didn't follow it.

Eh? They did.

Size is just weird.. The romulan ship looked TINY, its suppose to be Ginormous!

The design wasn't canon until now, so they can make it any size they want.

I'm glad they made it small, not every Romulan ship needs to be gigantic.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

The design wasn't canon until now, so they can make it any size they want.

I'm glad they made it small, not every Romulan ship needs to be gigantic.

I like it small, we already have the "MASSIVE" D'Deridex.

Offer the Romulans a smaller ship for once

 

[Unicron]

Eh? They did.

Not really. The first time we see the warbird in "The Neutral Zone", it's literally huge compared to the Galaxy, which by Starfleet measures is already a huge ship. It's practically twice the scale:

But then in almost every other episode where the Romulans appeared and we have exterior shots of both designs, the warbird models are much more in scale with the Galaxy (and more sensibly, as this means they're also more in scale with the Klingon Vor'Cha and not hugely oversized compared to it).

Tomalak's warbird from "The Enemy" which was recycled from the SFX for "Contagion."

The warbird from the opening of "The Defector," possibly Tomalak's again.

Toreth's warbird from "Face of the Enemy"

The second warbird in "Tin Man"

The Enterprise retreating from the Romulans in "Data's Day" with this interesting perspective being Mendak's warbird.

There were some shots in TNG, like the twin warbirds in "Data's Day" and a similar shot of Tomalak's vessels in "The Defector" that do show how the warbird is definitely a massive ship. But they're not nearly as large as how the model was initially shown in "The Neutral Zone." And I don't really buy the argument that the warbird from that episode was just shown at a strange perspective to look so huge, personally.

"Data's Day"

"The Defector"

The second Romulan in "Tin Man" from an angle. If you watch the sequence where the first warbird attacks the Enterprise and passes over it, the scale there is pretty consistent as well. They're both of a similar size.

 

[Tosk]

In regards to the smaller vertical Romulan ship, I thought it was a nice touch that instead of simply being shrunk, the front section got swapped out for one that (arguably) combines elements with the Romulan shuttle from In the Pale Moonlight. Smooshed together for a ship that's smaller the the first, bigger than the second.

 

[Markonian]

In regards to the smaller vertical Romulan ship, I thought it was a nice touch that instead of simply being shrunk, the front section got swapped out for one that (arguably) combines elements with the Romulan shuttle from In the Pale Moonlight. Smooshed together for a ship that's smaller the the first, bigger than the second.

Looking at the expanded universe, Star Trek: Armada II has the Kestrel-class assault ship (troop transport), which is the Romulan shuttle writ large.
Btw, STO calls the that shuttle the Kestrel-class runabout. Perhaps the new vertibird can count as a Kestrel variant, too.

I really like its “Cylon helmet” saucer section.


EDIT: I’ve studied my Romulan shuttle, Romulan warbird and Romulan warbird XL models from Eaglemoss. It might be possibly to Frankenstein the shuttle into Vrek’s starship by sacrificing two regular warbirds but it would require metal cutting. A bit too risky for me.

 

[Tuskin38]

Going back to Sabrerunner. Here, side by side.
Look how much bigger the Windows and RCS thrusters are relatively speaking, because it's a smaller ship.

Also Fabio's upgraded model for the heck of it

 

[Markonian]

Okay, I'm convinced.
But can "Sabrerunner" really be the official, in-universe name for the class? I'm not a native Anglo - would "saber runner" be a term that can make sense?

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

Okay, I'm convinced.
But can "Sabrerunner" really be the official, in-universe name for the class? I'm not a native Anglo - would "saber runner" be a term that can make sense?

I think the spelling on the Twitter post was intentional.

The Saber class is already a thing that exists
The SabreRunner class was probably spelled the British way because the late Fabio Passaro was of British Nationality.
So they made this class to honor him.

 

[David cgc]

But can "Sabrerunner" really be the official, in-universe name for the class? I'm not a native Anglo - would "saber runner" be a term that can make sense?

Probably not. I don't expect we'll be getting a "proper" name for the class anytime soon, though.

 

[Macintosh]

But can "Sabrerunner" really be the official, in-universe name for the class? I'm not a native Anglo - would "saber runner" be a term that can make sense?

Steamrunner isn't a term that makes sense either, really. It was supposed to be Streamrunner, after a song by the California alt rock band Fold Zandura, and was labelled as such in early concept art, but it got misspelled at some point and it stuck.

Sabrerunner sounds like a perfectly fine name me. Vaguely martial undertones, implies something fast and tough. And maybe it's an honourary Andorian rank or something from Denobulan mythology or whatever rather than something someone made up.

Besides, etymology can be weird even more the most seemingly robust terms. The Galaxy-class is named after milk.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

The Galaxy-class is named after milk

You're going to have to explain the etymology of why the "Galaxy-class" is named after milk.

I'm completely lost on how that came to be.

 

[Tuskin38]

Okay, I'm convinced.
But can "Sabrerunner" really be the official, in-universe name for the class? I'm not a native Anglo - would "saber runner" be a term that can make sense?

Probably not. I don't expect we'll be getting a "proper" name for the class anytime soon, though.

Brad Winters has said it's the Sabrerunner in-universe.

 

[blssdwlf]

You're going to have to explain the etymology of why the "Galaxy-class" is named after milk.

I'm completely lost on how that came to be.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-history-of-galaxy

from M-W:
The idea of milk is in fact present in both Milky Way and galaxy: the ultimate root of the English word galaxy is Greek gála, meaning "milk."

 

[Tuskin38]

We live in the Milky Way Milky

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-history-of-galaxy

from M-W:
The idea of milk is in fact present in both Milky Way and galaxy: the ultimate root of the English word galaxy is Greek gála, meaning "milk."

IC, I thought classes were going by size of Stellar Objects:

Nova-class (Exploded Star)
Titan-class (Moon Based Planetoid)
Nebula-class (Size of a Stellar Nebula)
Galaxy-class (Size of a Galaxy)
Universe-class (Size of a Universe)