That was a fan-made design I first saw in an issue of Starlog back in 1989 or 1990. I think the designer's idea was to get away from the "kitbash" look of other fan-made TOS ships.
Starship design history in light of Discovery
- Thread starter INACTIVEUSS Einstein
- Start date
I remember that design too. From what I recall, it was in response to the reuse of the original TMP Enterprise as the Enterprise-A.
The pylons reminds me of Kelvin universe Enterprise.
I first remember that from STARLOG...they had a running bit on what the post STIII Enterprise might look like.
Pimenta had an angular version, one looked like a Cavorite sphere type deal with nacelles.
Another sci-fi mag did a contest, but I never got those later issues
I did get a bit of Solaris class vibes off of them as well. This design grew on me over time. Would love to see it on screen on day. I'll settle for a passing design cue.
Solaris Class XIII Cruiser – FASA Star Trek® Starship Tactical Combat Simulator (fasaststcs.com)
Solaris Class XIII Cruiser – FASA Star Trek® Starship Tactical Combat Simulator (fasaststcs.com)
I’m pretty sure those blueprints came out after STIV, since nobody knew the next Enterprise would have an “A” suffix until after that film.
I was trying to track this post down again because...am I the only one who thought the "mid-ring"(?) has/had four decks, not three?
Oh, yes, definitely: one below the spokes level and two above. We get zoom-ins onto the top windows in the newer episodes still, including one with Burnham and Saru that establishes that the corridor-set-terminating, full-height one is one of em.
I wonder if the art in the book is going to be related to onscreen graphics as such. We now have the detailed turbolift route maps inside the lift set, say: what's their relationship to this "art dept memo" type thing exactly?
Timo Saloniemi
I wonder if the art in the book is going to be related to onscreen graphics as such. We now have the detailed turbolift route maps inside the lift set, say: what's their relationship to this "art dept memo" type thing exactly?
Timo Saloniemi
That always bugged me how their TurboLift was depicted like a roller coaster with so much empty space.
Now we see a diagram of the TurboLift network, and it looks reasonable.
The roller coaster section is in the cutaway as the "systems hub", although I'm certain the version shown on screen was far wider.
The version on screen looked massive. Like as if there was a huge void in the middle of the ship
Which sort of makes sense in the best-of-all-worlds interpretation of the ship:
- The low registry establishes her as an old design, now surplus to requirement.
- The impressive size reveals the original mission for the design (my pick is "shuttlecarrier", as per some old fan interpretations of the McQuarrie designs, but "transport" or "factory ship" or "hospital ship" etc. are also available).
- Come Burnham's War, Starfleet dusts off its surplus ships and turns some into flying laboratories for research on miracle weapons; ships with lots of internal volume are handy in this respect, especially the big ones with dual warp cores of which only one is needed for flying if speed isn't an issue, so a couple of Crossfields get chosen.
- To keep her from being hopelessly antiquated, Starfleet bolts on semi-modern warp nacelles. It also installs spinners on the primary hull for bleeding off the energies (and other qualities subject to conservation laws) generated by the doodads of the cackling mad scientists.
- The vast interior is then fitted with the assorted modular facilities (often of weird dimensions) the various venues of research require, with corridors and turborails erected willy-nilly between them.
- Of the old volume, only the very aftmost tip of the shuttle facilities is retained, its floor nicely polished now that it becomes the sole shuttlebay. It also gets swamped with logistics when the original routes get blocked by the silly labs. But its archaic fighter deployment system on the lower deck sees use eventually, surprisingly enough.
- Once the spore drive pans out as a war winner (not least because that's how Lorca spins it), the other experiments are expelled, along with the respective researchers and the S31 guards who kept the research projects carefully sequestered; there's now a lot of empty space inside the ship again.
Timo Saloniemi
- The low registry establishes her as an old design, now surplus to requirement.
- The impressive size reveals the original mission for the design (my pick is "shuttlecarrier", as per some old fan interpretations of the McQuarrie designs, but "transport" or "factory ship" or "hospital ship" etc. are also available).
- Come Burnham's War, Starfleet dusts off its surplus ships and turns some into flying laboratories for research on miracle weapons; ships with lots of internal volume are handy in this respect, especially the big ones with dual warp cores of which only one is needed for flying if speed isn't an issue, so a couple of Crossfields get chosen.
- To keep her from being hopelessly antiquated, Starfleet bolts on semi-modern warp nacelles. It also installs spinners on the primary hull for bleeding off the energies (and other qualities subject to conservation laws) generated by the doodads of the cackling mad scientists.
- The vast interior is then fitted with the assorted modular facilities (often of weird dimensions) the various venues of research require, with corridors and turborails erected willy-nilly between them.
- Of the old volume, only the very aftmost tip of the shuttle facilities is retained, its floor nicely polished now that it becomes the sole shuttlebay. It also gets swamped with logistics when the original routes get blocked by the silly labs. But its archaic fighter deployment system on the lower deck sees use eventually, surprisingly enough.
- Once the spore drive pans out as a war winner (not least because that's how Lorca spins it), the other experiments are expelled, along with the respective researchers and the S31 guards who kept the research projects carefully sequestered; there's now a lot of empty space inside the ship again.
Timo Saloniemi
I just ignore the visuals. They're idiotic and make no sense whatsoever so it's best just to view those scenes as DSC's version of "Deck 78."
Having since bought my own copy of this book, I would say that we are indebted to William Budge for releasing this for public reference.Guys, The Art of Star Trek Discovery has a partial map of the ship and inludes the FUNHOUSE! Which is offically called the "systems hub". No way is that as big as it appears on screen, but they tried.
(and two TOS-style warp cores!)
The only true canon is the one that says Bull Shannon went to live on Jupiter with aliens. 