Star Trek: Starships Model/Magazine Subscription

(Started writing this post on Monday, but didn't finish until today)
So, my order arrived today. I got the Reliant concept, the Promellian battle cruiser, the Sheliak ship, the Emmette, the Tamarian cruiser, and the... Tamarian cruiser??? Even got a duplicate magazine. No idea what I'm gonna do with this, but whatever.

The Promellian battle cruiser, as some of you may know, is one of only two physical models during the Berman era that were not designed in-house (the other being the Pasteur), and it shows. It really looks like a ship from one of those cheesy 80's sci-fi films, with no obvious Trek features (deflector or nacelles) and a lot of wear on the gray. It's also a very flat ship. I can't imagine it having much room. An interesting look though.

The Sheliak ship is an obvious recycle of the Merchantman. I knew this, but I was struck how much smaller the model is from the Merchantman model, presumably because the mandible-like pontunes sticking out the front really lengthen the ship and force a much smaller scale. I would've preferred something that looked a bit more alien, but I guess they had to make do with what they had.

Seeing the Emmette makes me wish that the "Enterprise" opening credits had shown more of the ship than the back. Other than what I saw on-screen (which does look good), I can't really say how accurate it is. Interesting ship, though. I wonder when, exactly, it was supposed to be in service.

The Tamarian ship is one of those designs I've seen recycled for use by so many different aliens of the week, that I don't really associate it with anyone, at this point. I already had the Micro Machine model (which they listed as the "Klaestron ship"). I do like holding up to light to see the red plastic in the nacelles glow.

Finally, the Reliant concept. As with all the concepts we've gotten at this point (Excelsior, Enterprise-C, Voyager), I think the design we ultimately got looks better, but this one is still pretty interesting. It's even got a couple of advantages over the original Reliant model. The aztecing looks wonderful, as does the red stenciling around the name and numbers, which the original Reliant and Saratoga don't have, but the Lantree, Antares, and Bozeman do. Maybe it's where they're placed, but the nacelle struts on this one look longer to me, even when I flip it over and compare it to the original.

It also occurred to me that this could potentially be the last Starfleet ship in the set that I end up buying. I've got pretty much all of them from the numbered set, apart from the Excelsior concepts, and some of the Wolf 359 and Dominion War kitbashes, simply because I didn't like the designs. I don't have the Aeon or Relativity, but I'm not sure they really count. I do have a couple of the standard-sized specials (Bonaventure, Enterprise-F, Enterprise-C concept, Voyager concept, "The Cage" Enterprise, "Phase II" Enterprise, and the Connie Defiant), but I think I got all the Feds I was really excited for. I might consider getting the Yorktown or the Defiant concept at some point, and if they ever make Columbia NX-02, I'd be interested in that, but nothing on the horizon, really.

 

It is (Night of the Creeps)

 

On the Facebook fan group somebody posted
That the reason is not doing
Lorian’s generation ship Enterprise
Because it’s considered ‘battle damaged’ and Eaglemoss won’t do battle-damaged.

Is that accurate?
I would have thought that it counts as heavily modified ship, not battle-damaged.

episode link: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wik...5cUcUVH00M8dbAbk9UbHo-78-qrmfmGRJOJkH4Nx9DX8w

 

Damaged but also heavily modded. They did Borgified Voyager, so they should do this.

 

I actually like the concept better, but in TWOK the film's design was probably the right choice. I find having the nacelles up makes the ship look fast and sleek, while having them down, more utilitarian - so the nacelles down design fits Reliant mundane mission.

It's interesting to ponder, however, if they had gone with the concept, would that have influenced a Starfleet design language where the majority of ships in future productions would have been nacelles up?

 

Well, I mean, the Akira has nacelles down, and it looks pretty sleek. So does the Dauntless, even though it's not technically Starfleet.

Conversely, the Antares from "Charlie X" has them up and it's quite utilitarian.

 

Nacelles down made it Klingon like—antagonizing.

I had the Eagle play set. Sold away at a yard sale. Sigh

 

The PIC collection will include at least five different Romulan ships: The Snakehead, Bomber, vintage BoP, and Flagship we already knew about... and a "Warbird". So this one is presumably included, and only one more ship remains unknown.

 

Press release on upcoming models of the Universe collection:
https://twitter.com/gaghyogi49/status/1374818928417980418/photo/1
- image posted by Jörg Hillebrand (@gaghyogi49)

We learn the names USS Currie for the quad-nacelle ship (32nd century).
Wikipedia lists a gaggle of people and a bunch of items for the name Currie, so I don't know who or what it's named for. In the non-canon ST: Legacy game, there was an Earthship Currie NX-16.

And USS Dresselhaus for the... double-forked(?) ship, presumably after the 20th-21st century nanotechnology scientist Mildred Dresselhaus. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Dresselhaus )

USS Tikhov confirmed as coming.

An unseen model is the USS Excalibur. Speculation posits that the neoConstitution-class USS Reliant NCC-1864-M is really the USS Excalibur NCC-1664-M.

Image of the identified 32nd century ship classes (sans Tikhov): https://twitter.com/gaghyogi49/status/1374802599631851534/photo/1

 

Could be a typo of 'Curie'

 

what a difference. Decided to splurge thanks to my Biden Bucks and get the last 2 Enterprises I want, the B and C.

Ordered from Amazon on Wednesday afternoon and got them today. They were packaged 10 times better than EM and in a much sturdier box.

man, the E-C is a lot bigger than I was expecting.

 

It all comes down to the length-to-width ratio of the box. The closer a ship matches that, the larger they can scale it.

That's why the C and the Oberth are scaled larger, while long, thin ships like the B, Excelsior, and Fortunate are scaled smaller.

 

I get that. Just kinda threw me how big it is.

 

Well, looks like some good has come from that extra Tamarian ship I got. I took it over to my nearby store, hoping the owner would take it off my hands in exchange for a discount on a ship I didn't have. Instead he offered me a straight up trade, which I happily accepted. (While I was there, I noticed, he had a copy of the SS Emmette. Wish I'd known that before ordering it).

Not a lot left in terms of interesting ships that I don't already have, so I went with the the Federation Tug. Clearly, it's a kitbash. Certainly nothing graceful or aesthetic about what was clearly meant to be a background ship (though I like to remind people that the only real life craft designed only to fly in space, the Apollo Lunar Module, wasn't graceful or aesthetic-looking either). The arms kind of remind of those "bot" utility drones that they had flying around the station on "Babylon 5". I'm not even sure which direction it's supposed to be oriented in. You'd expect the arms to be in front, but the screen shot from "A Time to Stand" shows it in the other direction. You can actually connect it to the stand either way, but the arms make it very hard to take off if you have them at the back, so I think I'll keep them in front.

 

Covid took out two stores, Kingdom Comics and Excelsior...I can’t find these ships anywhere

 

EM should make real spacecraft models as well!

 

They did a build your own... um... solar system clock rotaty... thing, a couple of years ago. It has a fancy scientific name that eludes me. I don't think it did too well, as the advertising for it came and went pretty quickly, unlike the other things they sell and continuously send spam emails about to their existing customers. They do seem to try different things other than SF/F models, but I'm not sure they see the ROI on the development and distribution of those things like they do on their usual wheelhouse projects.

Edit: Found it. It's called an "Orrery". I guess it still is being sold, and you can also get the whole thing fully assembled for over $500 USD.

Now, if they come up with a working model for the Antikythera mechanism, I may consider it!

 

I considered getting the orrery, but I decided not to as I did not want to start a project only to be unable to complete it as it loses support from its supplier. $536+shipping is very steep for an orrery.

About the mechanism, the last I read was that we have about 1/3rd of the original device. The other 2/3rds is lost to us.

 

Gone for good or closed temporarily?

 

The alternate Nacelle variant of the Inquiry is called 'USS Toussaint' by Eaglemoss. Dunno if they made up that name or if it came from CBS
https://twitter.com/3SwordStyle83/status/1377995893530574853