Starship design history in light of Discovery

I think we're finding with DISCOVERY, that all the 'well known' names of the alien ships are actually StarFleet Classifications and have very little to do with what each individual race calls them.
Such as two different Klingon ships being called a D7.
And I'm OK with that cause it gives us an 'out' in cases where the Trek productions make confusing continuity decisions.

 

The US certainly had it's own names for Soviet aircraft, so I could see that. There were still unsubstantiated rumors of a Klingon/Romulan alliance in the late TOS era re: the "D7". That was definitely the same ship.

 

In terms of onscreen Trek, the Hur'q never had anybody under their putative thumbs, least of all Klingons. They just stole the Sword of Kahless and fled.

Might of course be they did enslave the Klingons for millennia first, and the Klingons just don't discuss it with outsiders.

Again in terms of onscreen Trek, the Romulans never had ships named Bird of Prey. In "United", they had an unseen design called Warbird, the propulsion system of which was used as the basis for the drone that masqueraded as assorted adversary vessels, but that's pretty much it.

Warbird was the actual ship designation shared by Romulans and Klingons. The former had feather patterns to their distinctly un-birdlike ships, while the latter flew ships that had wings, necks and heads. The Orions did that, too; it seems pretty natural to make flying things in the image of flying beasts, I guess.

The menagerie of Klingon ships we saw in S1 might have featured its share of non-warships: many of the more esoteric designs only appear in the Battle of Binaries, which wasn't a preplanned engagement but started as an impromptu meeting of closest ships from a number of important Houses. Not necessarily all 24 of them, mind you, as only half a dozen Klingons actually contact T'Kumva; perhaps there were only as many Houses as there were distinct designs, perhaps even fewer.

The likely warships would be the scythe-winged, skull-headed Birds of Prey, which appear in virtually every engagement (perhaps as mere auxiliaries to the big ships), and the distinctive Qugh destroyers which are the first to respond at the Binaries and pose the biggest threat to Lorca, plus the two-nacelled, winged ships that look like melted K'Tingas and are seen threatening Earth. The rest might be "civilian" ships (for the Klingon value of the word), perhaps even generic alien ones (explaining how Mudd's ride is based on one).

Timo Saloniemi

 

Someone mentioned this earlier. It almost looks like the tugs could have underside dishes, but it's really hard to tell because of the focus.

 

It is cool that we're getting our first canonical onscreen warp tugs.

 

I just hope we see them again this season, in focus, and won’t have to wait for the Eaglemoss renders

 

Given the apparent upscaling of the Enterprise, what we are seeing is basically the exact FJ Ptolemy, just with the previous generation of warp nacelles...

Timo Saloniemi

 

We saw tugs in DS9's "A Time To Stand"...

 

If they are meant to be Ptolemy Tugs, the fact that they are so blurry is probably on purpose since CBS apparently doesn't want to make a monetary deal with the Franz Joseph Estate to use any of the original Tech Manual.

Which in my opinion is a GD shame.

 

Were those tugs or just other starships using their tractor beams to tow damaged vessels?

 

It was definitely a tug. Linky

 

The Eaglemoss model of the Tug from DS9:

 

A clear advance over 23rd century tug technology. Those tugs were nearly the size of a Constitution-class starship. These are much smaller and compact and can apparently do the same job.

 

If they're made using the Discovery aesthetic, I'd imagine they're be different enough not to be considered the same design.

 

I'm thinking that after the "Federation Seal" incident in the first season, CBS probably isn't willing to go anywhere near there again.

 

Well, the Enterprise's Specs seen on Stamets computer screen are taken 1:1 from the Tech Manual.

So it might just happen again.

 

Task Force Games and Zocchi were both capable of paying the FJ estate for making Star Fleet Battles minis that exactly resembled the Federation, Saladin & Ptolemy classes, not to mention the "heavy cruiser" aka: Constitution class. How or why is CBS against paying for a few instances?

 

After watching "Brother" I am firmly convinced that the tugs towing the Enterprise were indeed Ptolemy-class ships.

 

glad you liked that, Rahul. For context, I only did it for humor. It wasn't an attempt to bash Discovery's innards. I'm pretty sure the entire thing was for fun either way.

 

I’m guessing the difference is that they’d be dealing with CBS directly. It sounds like there is bad blood between the two.