Spoilers ST Lower Decks - Starships & Technology Season 4 Discussion

[Unicron]

Well, my point was more that they don’t have to worry about budgetary concerns when making animated ship designs, so they don’t have to constantly use old designs. It just shows a lack of creativity.

One reason I've always enjoyed Real Ghostbusters is that the animated format allowed a lot more freedom than what would have been possible with real-life SFX and budgets of the time, and the animators greatly enjoyed that freedom. They came up with some pretty cool and impressive stuff over the course of five seasons. I also think they often did a nice job of blending the cartooniness of the format with the darker and more creepy aspects that provides the franchise with the right balance.

 

[Dukhat]

One reason I've always enjoyed Real Ghostbusters is that the animated format allowed a lot more freedom than what would have been possible with real-life SFX and budgets of the time, and the animators greatly enjoyed that freedom. They came up with some pretty cool and impressive stuff over the course of five seasons. I also think they often did a nice job of blending the cartooniness of the format with the darker and more creepy aspects that provides the franchise with the right balance.

I loved The Real Ghostbusters. And it serves to prove my point. Remember the ghost containment room? It was freaking huge in the cartoon, unlike the dinky version from the film.

 

[Macintosh]

I loved The Real Ghostbusters. And it serves to prove my point. Remember the ghost containment room? It was freaking huge in the cartoon, unlike the dinky version from the film.

The novelisation gives a lot of background detail and explains that the red box on the wall we see in the film is the entrance to the containment unit only, with the main storage facility in a much larger space behind the concrete blocks that make up the cellar wall. This is hinted at in the film by individual blocks starting to push themselves free of the wall when the power is shut down.

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We might assume that one of the reasons the cellar is so much bigger after the Gozer incident is that a lot of this space was originally given over to the first containment unit and "walled in". And also, you know... boom.

 

[137th Gebirg]

There's already a SteamRunner class in existence.

Ummm... Yes... I know.

They wanted to make a properly shrunken version, ergo the SabreRunner class.

Exactly my point. Why bother? Just use the original Steamrunner. Why did it absolutely need to be a different size?

 

[Unicron]

Yeah, the episode "Citizen Ghost" specifically picks up immediately after the movie and has the team rebuilding the firehouse, which was heavily damaged in the ghost explosion. Egon specifically comments that he wants the new containment system to be bigger and stronger, for obvious reasons.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Exactly my point. Why bother? Just use the original Steamrunner. Why did it absolutely need to be a different size?

Mike McMahon wanted to highlight smaller ships that don't get as much screen time.

Ergo the vast variety of ships that we saw that were on the smaller size?

Everything this season seemed to be smaller than the TOS Connie in size for the enemy ships.

 

[Dukhat]

Mike McMahon wanted to highlight smaller ships that don't get as much screen time.

Ergo the vast variety of ships that we saw that were on the smaller size?

Everything this season seemed to be smaller than the TOS Connie in size for the enemy ships.

And the Saber or the Defiant class wasn’t small enough? They had to take a large ship and shrink it down?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

And the Saber or the Defiant class wasn’t small enough? They had to take a large ship and shrink it down?

Defiant class was a "Hero Ship", it got plenty of screen time.
So that discounted it from showing up.

Out of all the "Non-Hero Ships", the Saber Class is pretty famous out of the First Contact ships.

So that didn't need highlighting.

The Steam Runner is relatively obscure and not popular enough that it was the right ship, wrong size.

Given the Bird of Prey Paradox where they scaled one design Up/Dn in size officially, there's no logical reason why StarFleet couldn't do the same thing to one of their ships, ergo the SabreRunner.

They wanted a SteamRunner class, but sized down to Saber Class sizes.

And they wanted to honor their recently lost colleague, so a semi-original design will have to do.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

We COULD in practice see something that will bridge us to the Prodigy visual motif, which is itself on the way to what we see in Picard. The show HAS given us new looks at Starbases and other ships like the Obena and Parliament classes, to say nothing of all the cool new alien and Federation-adjacent designs we've seen. I feel the show is pretty rich and using existing TNG-era motifs deliberately, since it's very much a valentine to Star Trek from 1966-2005 and especially from 1987-2001.

Mark

 

[fireproof78]

Given the Bird of Prey Paradox where they scaled one design Up/Dn in size officially, there's no logical reason why StarFleet couldn't do the same thing to one of their ships, ergo the SabreRunner.

They wanted a SteamRunner class, but sized down to Saber Class sizes.

And they wanted to honor their recently lost colleague, so a semi-original design will have to do.

And it does the job very well.

 

[Dukhat]

Defiant class was a "Hero Ship", it got plenty of screen time.
So that discounted it from showing up.

And yet they used one for a Section 31 ship that 'rescued' Boimler's transporter clone.

Out of all the "Non-Hero Ships", the Saber Class is pretty famous out of the First Contact ships.

So that didn't need highlighting.

I beg to differ. The 'famous' FC ship was the Akira, because everyone had (and still has, apparently) a huge hardon for that design. So much so that they were going to use it for the NX-01 in ENT until Drexler convinced the higher-ups to let him tweak the design to what we eventually got. The Saber, Steamrunner and Norway were just low-poly far background ships.

The Steam Runner is relatively obscure and not popular enough that it was the right ship, wrong size.

Except that totally ignores the point @137th Gebirg was making. Why did it need to be smaller at all? Why not just use a Steamrunner? It's not like the Steamrunner is a huge ship anyway; it's not like it's as big as a Galaxy or a Sovereign. Was there anything at all plot-wise which necessitated the ship being half the size of the original design? And if so, again, why not use the Saber if they wanted a small ship?

Given the Bird of Prey Paradox where they scaled one design Up/Dn in size officially, there's no logical reason why StarFleet couldn't do the same thing to one of their ships, ergo the SabreRunner.

They wanted a SteamRunner class, but sized down to Saber Class sizes.

And they wanted to honor their recently lost colleague, so a semi-original design will have to do.

Tribute aside, what they did was show a ship that looked 90% like a Steamrunner, with some very minimal tweaks, and called it a different class, instead of just making an original design, or just making it 100% a Steamrunner. It's not a bad thing. But that's what they did. Being an apologist about it just because the same thing was done with the BoP way back in the TNG '90's (because of budgetary and time reasons) isn't a good enough justification for why they're doing it now, especially with the animated format where they can make literally any new design they want with no budget or time limitations.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

And yet they used one for a Section 31 ship that 'rescued' Boimler's transporter clone.

That was a one-off cameo scene.

I beg to differ. The 'famous' FC ship was the Akira, because everyone had (and still has, apparently) a huge hardon for that design. So much so that they were going to use it for the NX-01 in ENT until Drexler convinced the higher-ups to let him tweak the design to what we eventually got. The Saber, Steamrunner and Norway were just low-poly far background ships.

I concur, the "Akira-class" is beloved out of the various Non (Defiant / Sovereign) class ships that showed up in ST:FC "Battle of Sector 001".
But out of the other 3 background ships, the Saber class ended up being more famous compared to the Norway Class or SteamRunner class.

Except that totally ignores the point @137th Gebirg was making. Why did it need to be smaller at all? Why not just use a Steamrunner? It's not like the Steamrunner is a huge ship anyway; it's not like it's as big as a Galaxy or a Sovereign. Was there anything at all plot-wise which necessitated the ship being half the size of the original design? And if so, again, why not use the Saber if they wanted a small ship?

They didn't want to feature the Saber class, it's famous enough relative to the Norway or SteamRunner class.

As for size, according to Eaglemoss, the SteamRunner is 356 meters in length.
That puts it in similar ballpark length category to ToS Connie which is 288.6 meters in length.
The SteamRunner would be "Too Big" compared to the collection of ships they wanted to feature, which was MUCH smaller.
The SabreRunner is in the ~190 meter length.

Tribute aside, what they did was show a ship that looked 90% like a Steamrunner, with some very minimal tweaks, and called it a different class, instead of just making an original design, or just making it 100% a Steamrunner. It's not a bad thing. But that's what they did. Being an apologist about it just because the same thing was done with the BoP way back in the TNG '90's (because of budgetary and time reasons) isn't a good enough justification for why they're doing it now, especially with the animated format where they can make literally any new design they want with no budget or time limitations.

You got your original ship design with Locarno's ship.

That's a pretty unique ship in itself.

Also, the Vertical Shrunken D'Deridex is a nice tribute to Andrew Probert's original concept art.

 

[Dukhat]

That was a one-off cameo scene.

So? If it could be used for that scene, it could be used in this episode.

But out of the other 3 background ships, the Saber class ended up being more famous compared to the Norway Class or SteamRunner class.

Famous how?

They didn't want to feature the Saber class, it's famous enough relative to the Norway or SteamRunner class.

See above.

As for size, according to Eaglemoss, the SteamRunner is 356 meters in length.
That puts it in similar ballpark length category to ToS Connie which is 288.6 meters in length.
The SteamRunner would be "Too Big" compared to the collection of ships they wanted to feature, which was MUCH smaller.
The SabreRunner is in the ~190 meter length.

The Saber is 223 meters. The Defiant is 120 meters (except when it isn't.) Either ship would have worked better if they wanted a 'small' ship.

You got your original ship design with Locarno's ship.

That's a pretty unique ship in itself.

Which has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

 

[Macintosh]

I beg to differ. The 'famous' FC ship was the Akira, because everyone had (and still has, apparently) a huge hardon for that design. So much so that they were going to use it for the NX-01 in ENT until Drexler convinced the higher-ups to let him tweak the design to what we eventually got. The Saber, Steamrunner and Norway were just low-poly far background ships.

In fact the Sabre, Steamrunner, and Norway were such throwaway background ships that the Norway model got lost completely, and the Steamrunner's textures corrupted and that ended up becoming "canonised" into its design because the errors were partly ported across to more detailed rebuilds.

The Saber is 223 meters. The Defiant is 120 meters (except when it isn't.) Either ship would have worked better if they wanted a 'small' ship.

Fun thing about the Sabre... it's a small class certainly, but because it's got that fat wedge-shaped central section its volume is quite high for its length. In fact its volume is very slightly higher than Constitution refit (239,000m³ vs 235,000m³). Which might explain the absurd number of lifeboat hatches.

Time for a new controversial opinion – the Defiant should have been a (modified?) Sabre-class. The Sabre seems to have a similar design philosophy to the Defiant but implements it properly, without any of this "we don't know where the impulse engines are" and "the ship wasn't designed at a specific size" nonsense.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Time for a new controversial opinion – the Defiant should have been a (modified?) Sabre-class. The Sabre seems to have a similar design philosophy to the Defiant but implements it properly, without any of this "we don't know where the impulse engines are" and "the ship wasn't designed at a specific size" nonsense.

Nah, I'm currently fine with the Defiant & Saber classes being rival contemporary designs.

So? If it could be used for that scene, it could be used in this episode.

It could have, but the staff didn't want to show case it for this season.

Famous how?

See above.

How detailed it's shots were for each time they appeared on screen in the background, how much focus each of those background ships received, how many close-up shots we got for how little time we got to see them, how well received from the fans for each class after their existence and the full details got revealed.

The Saber is 223 meters. The Defiant is 120 meters (except when it isn't.) Either ship would have worked better if they wanted a 'small' ship.

The Defiant Class Length size is officially quoted at 170.68 meters, especially from Eagle Moss.
Even in Ex Astris Scientia's article on the Defiant class scaling issues, the original 3D mesh is scaled for the Defiant to be 170.7 meters in length.

According to a post in the newsgroup alt.tv.star-trek.ds9 by DS9 Visual Effects Supervisor David Stipes, the scale of the Defiant CG mesh was 560 feet (170.7m). This is also the origin of the figures given in the DS9 Technical Manual.

I believe Doug Drexler drew the MSD to be out of scale with the mesh and only cared for set design scale, ergo the inconsistency and your quote of 120 meters.
I trust the original 3D CG mesh design to be the more definitive figure in size along with Official Eagle Moss statements on it's length.

Which has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

You were complaining about how the studios wasn't using their resources to create a "Original Ship" design.
Yet Nick Locarno's ship is very much unique.

You're just not happy that they made a ship design you didn't find "Original Enough" by shrinking the Steam Runner class into Saber Class proportions and calling it the SabreRunner class

 

[matthunter]

Well, my point was more that they don’t have to worry about budgetary concerns when making animated ship designs

You have to pay the artist. Probably close to the same as it costs to create a new CGI model these days - we aren't talking about the cost of a physical model, but it's not cheap either way.

Old model? You pay residuals. Cheap. And instantly recognisable. And won't have fans clamouring for a whole fucking essay on the capabilities and history of the new ship on Memory Alpha.

 

[Dukhat]

It could have, but the staff didn't want to show case it for this season.

Obviously. That doesn’t change the fact that they still could have used it if they wanted to, if they wanted a small ship.

How detailed it's shots were for each time they appeared on screen in the background, how much focus each of those background ships received, how many close-up shots we got for how little time we got to see them, how well received from the fans for each class after their existence and the full details got revealed.

Everything you list applies to every ship Star Trek has ever had. There’s nothing that distinguishes the Saber class specifically. Outside of the Uber-ship-fans like myself that make up about 10% of the fandom, the casual Star Trek watcher doesn’t give a crap about the ships.

Every time we’ve seen a Saber class ship, it was in the far background. That hardly makes it ‘famous.’

You were complaining about how the studios wasn't using their resources to create a "Original Ship" design.
Yet Nick Locarno's ship is very much unique.

Exactly my point. If they could make a new design for Locarno’s ship, they could make a new design for the Passaro.

You're just not happy that they made a ship design you didn't find "Original Enough" by shrinking the Steam Runner class into Saber Class proportions and calling it the SabreRunner class

Well, yeah, I thought that was obvious.

You have to pay the artist. Probably close to the same as it costs to create a new CGI model these days - we aren't talking about the cost of a physical model, but it's not cheap either way.

Old model? You pay residuals. Cheap. And instantly recognisable. And won't have fans clamouring for a whole fucking essay on the capabilities and history of the new ship on Memory Alpha.

Huh? That’s not how it works at all. CBS/Paramount owns these ship designs, not the artists who created them. The LDS animators get paid the same amount of money whether they draw a new ship or an old ship.

 

[fireproof78]

You have to pay the artist. Probably close to the same as it costs to create a new CGI model these days - we aren't talking about the cost of a physical model, but it's not cheap either way.

It costs time and talent either way. So it's not cheaper now to make a ship, render it and rig it for VFX work. It still takes time and effort.

You're just not happy that they made a ship design you didn't find "Original Enough" by shrinking the Steam Runner class into Saber Class proportions and calling it the SabreRunner class

Which is funny to me because the Soyuz and the Miranda class are two different "classes" (according to Star Trek, yet have very minor differences. So, smaller ship of an existing design would be same rules to me.

Also, I find the Sabrerunner to be a great ship. It doesn't upend different things or change things too much. It has Starfleet using known space frame and scaling it down based upon need. That's logical ship designing.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Which is funny to me because the Soyuz and the Miranda class are two different "classes" (according to Star Trek, yet have very minor differences. So, smaller ship of an existing design would be same rules to me.

Variants of the same base class can co-exist =D

Also, I find the SabreRunner to be a great ship. It doesn't upend different things or change things too much. It has Starfleet using known space frame and scaling it down based upon need. That's logical ship designing.

I'm with you, I like it.

Obviously. That doesn’t change the fact that they still could have used it if they wanted to, if they wanted a small ship.

True, but they didn't want to, they had a objective, show lesser known "Non-Hero" ships.
The Defiant class is considered a "Hero Ship", it's a MC Ship of a entire series. So it got excluded because it didn't fit the episode objective.

Everything you list applies to every ship Star Trek has ever had. There’s nothing that distinguishes the Saber class specifically. Outside of the Uber-ship-fans like myself that make up about 10% of the fandom, the casual Star Trek watcher doesn’t give a crap about the ships.

I guess I'm part of that 10%, and even I recognize the Saber class more Often than the Norway/SteamRunner classes.
Short of mentioning them explicitly, I forget that those two exist half the time.

Every time we’ve seen a Saber class ship, it was in the far background. That hardly makes it ‘famous.’

Ships get famous in more ways than what's seen on screen, there's the entire extended universe and outside of what's normal Alpha Canon media.

Exactly my point. If they could make a new design for Locarno’s ship, they could make a new design for the Passaro.

Go tweet Mike McMahon and ask him why he didn't use a new ship design instead of the shrunken down SteamRunner?

Well, yeah, I thought that was obvious.

And we're happy that it exists, so ::SHRUGS::

 

[drt]

Why did it absolutely need to be a different size?

My assumption is they wanted a small ship so it wouldn’t be completely unreasonable that Mariner was flying it by herself, yet it still needed to be large/powerful enough to hold its own against the other Nova fleet ships (so a shuttle or runabout was probably too small).