The console shapes and screens match up to those on the Discovery bridge and off to the right of where the Captain sits. Basically where Airiam's station was.
After what happened on Utopia Planitia, I think Starfleet decided the smartest thing to was to start xeroxing starships. Why build something when you can push a button and replicate it? I'd say this is a joke, but I kind of think not really. I could actually see Starfleet doing this in 2399.
Everyone in the galaxy is still putting their ships shoulder to soldier like Napoleonic soldiers though. I get that it's for screen shots but... come on people.. it's called SPACE not Lack-of-Space I thought the ships looked fine. It didn't bother me that they were apparently all the same class. That they got assembled so hastily and arrived that quickly implies they were already some sort of rapid reaction force, something Starfleet (She's the only ship in the quadrant, bones!.. I told them we were just a ship full of cadets but we're the only ship around, Spock) has been badly needing for a long time. Rogue Borg cube enters your space, Zhang-He and a couple hundred fellow ships are already crewed and ready.
I have little complaint with the looks of the ships. As for appearances, though... The Romulan fighting ships are apparently only marginally larger than Narek's scout, if you discount the wings: the hull proper is very narrow but also very short, much of it consisting of twin booms that hold the empennage. Basically the same effective size as the good old Klingon Birds of Prey - the smallest ones. The Romulan shuttlebuses, first seen at the end of "Remembrance", have a similar wingspan but more substantial hulls. Despite the backstage references to these as "warbirds", I doubt they outgun the flimsier winged ships. Again, these are smaller than any Starfleet fighting starship we have ever seen, say, the Miranda or the Defiant. The Romulan command ship is a Defiant, or perhaps a Miranda in that the engine and gun and shield and sensor and life support stuff packed inside the Defiant outer hull can here be spread out into the wings and whatnot. Essentially, she's the mother hen to a gaggle of fightercraft. Even though the Starfleet ships are only of Intrepid size, they thus still seem like more egregious overkill than would have been dramatically necessary... Just send fifteen of those. Or ten. It's not their overwhelming military potential that makes Oh turn away - it's the fact that the Synth threat was thwarted for now that makes a fight unnecessary. A fleet of just a dozen ships would look significantly better here. Timo Saloniemi
Michael Chabon confirmed on Instagram, it was the Discovery bridge redressed and Frakes filmed that part while in Toronto direcring Disco S3 episodes.
Well, yes. It suck. But maybe, in universe explanation is because "Utopia Planetary Shipyard" in Mars has been destroyed for more than 14 years, and they still burning. So Federation lost their capability to build a pretty ships, like in DS9 Berman era. Ships like Galaxy Class become very important, and rare, because they can't build it anymore. Not, without Utopia Planetary Shipyard.
You can literally make Orbital Shipyards anywhere, it's the Personnel talent / supply chain / testing crew that is hard to recover from. It takes time to train personnel, develop supply chains that are reliable. Even if StarFleet Manufacturing of StarShips was mostly automated like Automobiles, testing, fixing imperfections, crewing all take a long ass time. We saw in ST:ENT episode "Dead Stop" that once you have largely automated repairs / manufacturing, that it can be done incredibly quickly. Repairs done literally in 34.2 hours what would've taken StarFleet at home months on end.
The smallish ships seen in Riker's fleet could simply be lean and mean, with nothing at all sacrificed by going small. Big and bloated might also be antiquated and worthless. What the replicated fleet does especially well, though, is undermine Riker's boast that his ship is the most advanced in the multiverse. I mean, yeah, all the dozens of ships there might be that, putting no lie to Riker's words, but it sure sounds funny that he makes the claim when we can't even tell which ship he is aboard! Okay, so three types there: one with the nacelles that have oval aft ends and smallish side windows for the warp glow, and are always tilted at the same angle - and two with the more angular nacelle type, the only difference being that some have their nacelles canted and others level. As far as I can tell, the hulls are perfectly identical across all three types... Or two, with one featuring tilting nacelles and the other perhaps not? I wonder which engine type is the original and which is the hottest new refit, giving unparalleled speed, comfort and control for the ultimate flying experience? Timo Saloniemi
its been 14 years, and only 1 shipyard was kaboomed.. Earth station Mckinley, San Fransico docks, not to mention any other planet.. were not attacked. Now I'm guessing Utopia Planetia was the main R&D place, but again.. its been over a decade.
...Memory Alpha seems to wish to claim that the ships we saw were of the Curiosity class, the same as the Ibn Majid. How's that? Is there a tweet or other statement, or an obscure Ready Room graphic, to suggest this? The silhouette seen on Rios' treasure chest is completely dissimilar, with different pylons and proportions and primary hull shape. But perhaps there was a, umm, ah, refit? Timo Saloniemi
No confirmation either way yet, they look similar in size to some of the STO mid size Battle Cruisers but they could just be placeholders and we will never see them again. They don't match the outline we saw of Rios former ship from what I have seen, will be watching the episode later on. Plus they seem to be pure warships and we know the Ibn Majid was an explorer of some kind but we don't know how large.
One of the Na’khul ships. The aliens from the opening of ENT Season 4. https://sto.gamepedia.com/Na'kuhl_Tadaari_Raider
It was stated in an Instagram story by Chabon that the Zheng He was a Curiosity class ship, and that there were four classes of Starfleet ships represented in the fleet.
No surprise Eaves' latest Federation starship is an ugly mess. Why change the habit of a lifetime. And the way it was just copied 200 times The Miranda, Constiution, Nebula, Constellation, Excelsior.... feel like a lifetime ago. Please for the love of god hire a new ship designer. 100% this.
I can see SF using something that looks like a super Stargate that just shits out an assembly line of those ships somewhat more orderly than this:
Is the Ibn Majid then supposed to be something else now? Was it always a misunderstanding that she would have been of Curiosity class? Timo Saloniemi