Star Ship Polaris

[aridas sofia]

I've been working with Dennis of late, on a design for the hero ship for an independent movie he has scripted, and that is currently in "pre, pre-production". Over the last year we discussed many possible approaches, tried out some, and then left the ship design process so that he could complete the script and we could get a better idea of just what was going to be needed. About a month ago, I began to further develop several sketches I'd drawn, that seemed to reflect the design direction we were preferring.

What I'll post here is the result. It is really just a new beginning, as my illustrations are meant to be a jumping-off point for Dennis as he undertakes modelbuilding. I nevertheless wanted to post this work for comment, as a way to introduce some of you to what we are doing, and as a basis for discussions.

The design was to harken back to classic flying saucers and the C-57 from Forbidden Planet. Shades of Trek were welcome. Despite its former life as an independent explorer pressed into military service, I wanted to blend submarine features with the saucer. I also wanted to give it a "no nonsense," functional style. Finally, classic science fiction rocketships were on my mind.

As thoughts of Klaatu danced in my head, I worked to give the sketches some functional sense. Thus, the rocketship orientation for the decks, and the organization of everything around the propulsion systems I envisioned. Here are the results -- the exteriors and a cross section. I'll try to post more detailed images of the cross section later, and I'm sure Dennis will want to share some of his model work.

These images are large, so I'll post them as links:

SIDE VIEW

AFT VIEW

TOP VIEW

TOP DETAIL

CROSS SECTION

 

[Mysterion]

Interesting!

Like the deck orientation and the way the logo is simple and suggests the galaxy.

 

[Kaiser]

Cool Ship

It reminds of the Ship from Galaxy Quest

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I saw the title of this and thought, "Someone's turned Dennis into a ship!" In any case, I'm a big fan of Aridas' work and this is no exception. Awesome cool!

 

[aridas sofia]

Cool Ship

It reminds of the Ship from Galaxy Quest

Funny you say that. The way it's evolving, it might resemble Protector even more before it's through.

Here are the first ten decks:

DECK ONE (Forward Engineering) and PROW (Bussard scoops, matter storage and forward hypergravity)

DECK TWO (Forward Weapons)

QUARTERS (One Forward)

QUARTERS (Two Forward)

QUARTERS (Three Forward)

NAVIGATION

OPERATIONS ONE (CIC)

OPERATIONS TWO (Bridge)

QUARTERS (Senior Officers' Quarters One)

QUARTERS (Senior Officers' Quarters Two)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The CG work I'm doing on the ship right now is in the nature of study modeling - just trying out different variations in three dimensions, mainly as concerns the saucer area - the core of the ship, the "rocket," is really solidly defined functionally in aridas' design drawings. So I'm loathe to hijack this thread to any real degree with renderings that are sort of noodlings on my part.

In fact, I'm probably not the person best-suited to build or detail the mesh of this ship for finaly rendering - we'll probably be looking for someone with real skillz.

My favorite thing about the concepts behind this design is the up-down orientation of the compartment layouts along the axis of travel, instead of like a big space-going boat.

 

[Harry]

Random questions/remarks:

* So, as a retrofuturistic hero ship, am I correct in assuming this vehicle can land on a planet? Hmm.. that would mean it lands on its tail (which looks strangely cool.. I am imagining a space port with a bunch of these 'discs' in various sizes towering majestically, as 50s spacerockets tended to do).

* In case it doesn't land, does it carry any auxilliary craft?

* You mentioned both Forbidden Planet and The Day The Earth Stood Still, so the inevitable question is... are there going to be robots? :P

* I take it the disc itself is mainly propulsion? Antigravity? Puttkamer/Alcubierre-warp?

 

[USS Mariner]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Excuse me.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Random questions/remarks:

* So, as a retrofuturistic hero ship, am I correct in assuming this vehicle can land on a planet? Hmm.. that would mean it lands on its tail (which looks strangely cool.. I am imagining a space port with a bunch of these 'discs' in various sizes towering majestically, as 50s spacerockets tended to do).

* In case it doesn't land, does it carry any auxilliary craft?

* You mentioned both Forbidden Planet and The Day The Earth Stood Still, so the inevitable question is... are there going to be robots? :P

* I take it the disc itself is mainly propulsion? Antigravity? Puttkamer/Alcubierre-warp?

aridas can better answer the propulsion theory than I can.

Polaris can't land - it carries at least two landing boats of some size and probably a number of small utility craft. aridas has designed a really cool landing boat, which hopefully he'll also post.

There's no hangar deck or landing bay as such - the auxiliary craft are secured behind hatches on the saucer, with corridor access from within the vessel directly into the boat hatchways. No pressurizing/depressurizing of large interior spaces involved.

Also, at this time, no military defense forcefields or teleporters and a real paucity of ray-gun-like armament. Missiles and rocks are in fashion.

 

[aridas sofia]

The thing about style and function is that it needs to serve the master of dramatic necessity, so in large part the things this ship does and the way it looks and behaves will be determined by the needs of the story being told. It does carry a pair of landers, sort of Apollo-esque in shape but vastly more capable. As for robots, we haven't discussed them so I can't say whether they might end up aboard or not. You know I love robotic stevedores.

My concept of the propulsion is that it is some form of space warp, balancing antigravity and hypergravity. It likely uses its antigravity as its primary means of sublight, realspace propulsion, but it also has huge thrusters for the conventional rocket burn. I like to think of the ship as releasing its warp "tether" outside a star system, maneuvering within a certain proximity of the main star using its antigravity drive, and then going to conventional thrust well outside the steep drop off of the star's gravity well. The fact that the ship has this layered propulsion system probably made it a valuable asset to be pressed into service during wartime -- the thrusters might prove to be a valuable tactical asset, while the antigravity is a powerful weapon in its own right.

The disk is mostly propulsion -- the two landers dock there, and there might be some storage, but in my mind the area is uninhabitable when the antigravity rings are active.

Here is a look at the lander. The top pic is the concept, with the Mars-lander legs. The bottom is a later revision, a bit more squished and saucer-esque.

http://home.comcast.net/~aridas/lander1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~aridas/lander-detail.jpg

I like the "landing on the tail" idea, BTW. But I'm not sure how practical it would be, (but with antigravity, who cares?). It would look cool, and I can see it being part of a 1930s, Deco-esque painting. :thumbsup:

 

[Vektor]

Cool. Sorta reminds me of a "hard" science fiction concept I came up with myself a few years ago, except mine ruled out FTL propulsion as well as artificial gravity, energy shields and most other technologies that we're not likely to have in the next couple of hundred years, if ever. I also used the stacked deck arrangement for my hero ship, which relied on more or less continuous accelleration/decelleration to produce gravity.

I look forward to watching this as it develops.

 

[Raider]

...a mind catching design...

 

[Jimini]

UWC 1138 - nice tip-of-the-hat to George Lucas :thumbsup:

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This is a little study modeling based on aridas design. I'll link it rather than post it in-line just so as not to stretch the page:

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g196/dennisbailey/polaris_group.jpg

 

[Forbin]

Very nice, very different and original!

Aridas, the sawtooth on the top view kinda looks like the ship turns very low-res as you go aft!

 

[aridas sofia]

As you can see, we are in the process of refining the exterior of the ship. We like the rationale for the design, and the interior logic, but we're trying to get from here...

to here...

In that light, Dennis has been modeling, we have been discussing, and I have put together a few ideas for which I'd like input. I'm trying to refine the basic shapes in the color illustrations above, to lend the model some of the "magic" the finished Enterprise model, with its aerodynamic and ship curves, has. This is basic blocking out of shapes and masses, which means I think there would probably be more blending than what I'm showing here in this rough illustration.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The name "Polaris," FTW, tracks back to childhood antecedents in The Space Explorers and Tom Corbett (never saw the series as a child, that I can remember, but I owned the first volume in the series of books that Grossett and Dunlap spun off from it).

There are about a thousand other referents for the name as well, I'm sure, but those two are where I got it from.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Okay, this is ticklin' my retro fanboy bone.

 

[Venardhi]

My one problem is that it is very flat. . . I couldn't say what to change off hand, but it doesn't feel like a 'hero' ship.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This seemed like a good idea, but mebbe not...or maybe it needs more work: