Spoilers ST Prodigy - StarShips & Technology Season 1 Discussion

The shuttle sort of makes me think of the modern counterpart to Lieutenant Ro's Maquis craft, the smaller version of Val Jean. The thick angular fins at the rear, the presence of stub wings and flared-out hull sides, the relatively long and spacious interior volume... A compact little independent courier rather than a starship auxiliary?

Asymmetric rear lights were a thing in the TOS shuttle already!

The Runaway having (or making use of, i.e. turning on) an enclosed cabin is a big improvement over the Argo and its LDS relatives. The forward prongs make fairly little sense - for obstacle-crossing, they'd have to be articulated somehow, as long wheelbase without good ground clearance between axles is merely a recipe for getting stuck. So I'd expect the forward wheels to swing down, but the aft ones to follow suit, lifting the middle pair, when uneven terrain is encountered. And the shorter legs on the aft wheels would become a problem, then.

The Protostar scaling above makes sense and pleases the eye. Basically, a sleeker Nova, then. Heh, stellar opposites there, one old and indeed dying despite the name, the other still a glint in the gas cloud's eye.

Timo Saloniemi

 

LOL! It's definitely one of the scarier ships I've seen in ages. OTOH, REV could be something like NCC - a registry type.

Thanks! That helps me a lot.

I admit to going "oooh!" at the RunAway and the shuttlecraft. I also *really* like the new tricorder. The overall design aesthetic on this show is my jam.

 

Wouldn't have mattered. The ship hit the glacier at full impulse (which honestly should have been portrayed as FAR faster than what we saw)... inertial dampers were also offline... so, the crew couldn't have survived... but landing the ship also didn't make sense.

 

I like most of the designs, but each design as a nit-pick or flaw that irks me.

"The RunAway", why the eff is the single rear tail-light off-center?
Why isn't it centered? Why not two tail-lights, similar to the front?

The Shuttle looks really nice, kinda like a stretch limo.

The Tricorder is a weird shape, even weirder than before, that assymetry is bugging me.

The Type-1 Phaser looks so "Fisher Price" looking, and it's WAY too big, unless that's by design?

 

Reminds me of a mobile phone from about 12 years ago... I remember I had an Xperia MP3 phone (unless that was from even further back in time) whose screen section could slide up revealing a keyboard underneath.
This design of this tricorder is similar in that it can slide outwards... but I don't see any obvious pouches for the tricorder... unless I missed those.

Could be a different Type 1 phaser specially for a training crew... though, its also possible the design was revised to make it easier to carry unlike the original type 1 perhaps?

 

It looks worse then even the old "Dust Buster" Type-1.

The only real improvement is the multi-touch screen, even then, it should have a tactile trigger button IMO or a tradittional trigger with trigger guard on the under side.

 

Humor - it is a difficult concept...

 

After re-calculating the USS ProtoStar's LxWxH dimensions based off of Kate Mulgrew's height.

I noticed that it's Length x Width is nearly identical to the TOS Connie, but much shorter / stout.

Lack of a neck does that.

But there's no way that the design came to those dimensions by accident with John Eaves at the helm of the initial design.

 

I sometimes have issues recognizing what's humorous so I take things literally and cover them with what was established.

Starsahips with necks seem to be less presented or less emphasized by Starfleet in late 24th century.
There seems to be a use for them still considering that Starfleet decided to construct the Obena class which is heavily based off of Excelsior class but with taken design cues from the Sovereign class (in all honesty, it just makes far more sense to me that SF would take pre-existing Excelsior class ships still in service, harvest sections of the ship that need a structural alteration and just replicate from that old recycled matter/energy new sections which were added to the design as a part of full blown 24th century upgrade - as oppposed to making a completely new ship class based off the Excelsiors - especially in the face of better designed ships which have a more late 24th century look/feel to them).

To be fair, the neck CAN be a bit of a structural oddity/weakness (depending on how you look at it).
Voyager and Nova classes don't have necks. In fact, neither do the Akira, Steamrunner, Sabre, Defiant, or Sovereign class ships.

The Galaxy class has a neck... but seems to be far less featured as a design we see in late 24th century - which is odd. I'd expect the Galaxy to outlive the Excelsiors if anything.

 

My issue with the TOS connie has been with the thin necks.

I like THICC stout necks for my StarShips & I cannot lie!

Update #1:


Update #2:

 

It's interesting how from the back the tricorder is transparent but from the front it is opaque. I kept waiting to see an augmented reality view through the tricorder but never got one.

As fun as the car is, I guess I will always be against wheels in Star Trek. I hope the pod in the center of the car ends up being a shuttlepod.

 

The Type-1 Phaser looks alot like the current day Taser C2 (at least in shape).

I thought it was funny (bad) that the security lockout could be overridden by a just a few key presses. Was the password like, 1-2-3-4?

 

I'm glad someone is. I never had a problem with them, but after all the anger about the Argo, it makes me feel weird that no one is stomping their foot about Starfleet ATVs in LDS and PRO.

 

I don't have an issue with wheels, it's not always practical to spend more energy to make a vehicle hover via anti-grav when you can just roll a wheel to move your vehicle for cheap and for longer.

There's a time & place for 'Anti-Grav Hover Craft' AKA "Surface Skimmers", but that's more long range transport than local area exploration.

 

I haven’t had time to write up my usual observations this week, but one thing that really stood out was that Janeway was solid this week. She was sitting in a chair and it turned along with her. Previously she was seen standing on the deck (and drinking coffee!) when the gravity was off, and wasn’t affected when everyone else was squashed into their seats under heavy acceleration.

I guess she controls her solidified nature internally. The Voyager EMH had to fiddle with controls to be unslappable on at least one occasion…

Mark

 

This depends on whether antigravity is expensive. Given how it fails to fail even when starships "lose all power", it might be that there is no inherent, constant energy expenditure in maintaining it; energy might only be spent in "adjusting the setting", after which the gravitational and perhaps inertial mass of an object remains at that setting forever and then some. Rollers might then require more power not just for moving, but for staying still, their suspensions and tyre pressurization systems consuming more than the zero the antigravs putatively require.

That said, wheels are fun. But if cross-country-capable, they are also bulky: the Runaway would benefit from not having them for that reason alone already.

...A powered chair? Their fancy bulk might not be for nothing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I'm not watching these videos often, because I'd much rather discuss with you guys over listening to other nerds talk. Still glad you're posting them!

One thing about the Runaway, it's brand new and/or replicated, and yet inside and out it's fairly weathered. Scratches and scuffs are everywhere. Was is replicated that way? Or is its metal really, really pliable and subject to constant polishing when not in use, to keep it looking good? I mean, the Protostar bridge has already had nultiple action scenes and it's still pristine...

Also, Pog can be heard saying "is that leather?". I'm fairly sure that it was an improvisation on the part of the actor, but it could be the first real utterance of the word in this era. Would it matter that much? Or is it because most chairs in TNG et.al. were notably all fabric, and not even pleather? Was Pog worried about chafing on his first away mission?

And the shuttle last week plus the Runaway are numbered 06 and 07 respectively. What would this signify? Are there at least 01-05 more designs in the buffer? Is this like Thunderbirds?

Mark

 

Number on the shuttle indicating the number of shuttles thus far "manufactured" by that replicator?