Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[Tim Thomason]

No, no, next season is going to center around a murder mystery on Deep Space 9, which, of course, has the entire main cast of that series still mulling about the station. Seven will be framed for the murder of Grand Nagus Rom, and it's up to Picard, Rios, and Bashir to prove her innocent (Spoiler alert: it was actually the spirit of Dukat possessing Jurati).

 

[Dukhat]

No, no, next season is going to center around a murder mystery on Deep Space 9, which, of course, has the entire main cast of that series still mulling about the station. Seven will be framed for the murder of Grand Nagus Rom, and it's up to Picard, Rios, and Bashir to prove her innocent (Spoiler alert: it was actually the spirit of Dukat possessing Jurati).

Star Trek: Clue

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

For what it's worth, Chabon said he thought there were four different designs in the armada.

He was drunk when he said that. Two different ships and a man seeing double, so.....there ya go.

 

[ITDUDE]

For what it's worth, Chabon said he thought there were four different designs in the armada.

It ain’t worth much. He also said Riker’s ship is same ship as Rios ship ten years ago. Chabon is not a ship guy, I wouldn’t take anything he said seriously.

 

[Dukhat]

He was drunk when he said that. Two different ships and a man seeing double, so.....there ya go.

Not to mention that the ibn Majid's silhouette looks nothing like those ships. Is that his idea of a separate class?

 

[Ronald Held]

People do not need Windows on starships. Maybe viewscreens.

 

[Dukhat]

People do not need Windows on starships.

Nope, no Windows. Just Linux.

 

[Ronald Held]

Nope, no Windows. Just Linux.

I suppose I deserved that. Viewscreens are as good or better than windows, and more structurely secure.

 

[Spock Must Diet!]

I'm all ready for Star Trek: Hero Ship set in the 25th century! But they need to really work on ship design.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I suppose I deserved that. Viewscreens are as good or better than windows, and more structurely secure.

But then we have to justify the ridiculous position of the bridge. We know it can't stand any kind of hit (Nemesis, Year of Hell, Battle of the Binary Stars etc) so unless it's a lookout with an awesome view, why is it on top?

 

[Ronald Held]

The usual symbolic reason.
Many posts argue the bridge would be no safer in the interior.
I think windows are less structurally sound then Hull playing.

 

[Count]

Let's be honest, most the desire to see different classes of ships comes from us being fans, not because of any feasible in-universe explanations. Riker says he's on the toughest and faster ship Starfleet has built and he has a "fleet of them behind me" which would be obvious that they knew they were going into a battle situation, so it would make sense to send 200+ of these same ships.

No, not really, the desire to _not_ reuse old series ships is purely marketing. They want to be able to sell new products/toys/models based on the new designs. Eventually an existing design plateaus out.

For fans, it's more common sense. the USS Nimitz was commissioned in 1975 and is in active service today. Ships don't get phased out instantly like a uniform, they last for a long as their design specs were for. Excelsiors and Mirandas lasted 80 years. the Galaxy was supposed to last 100 years. the K'tinga lasted 120 years.

In real world scale, ships and objects of that size do not regularly get replaced on a whim, they get phased out over time. It ruins suspension of disbelief when it goes against reality in such an obvious way.

 

[Sci]

I wish we had seen more ship designs than the Curiosity class, but it's also really not that big of a deal or an important detail. It's not implausible that the fleet might all be the same ship class, especially if the Curiosity class is faster than other ships and they needed a fleet to arrive ASAP.

If we really must go with an explanation, I'm fine with a combination of "they're the fastest ships out there and time was of the essence" and "there's less variety of ship designs left as a result of the Dominion War and the Utopia Planita Attack."

 

[fireproof78]

wish we had seen more ship designs than the Curiosity class, but it's also really not that big of a deal or an important detail. I

Definitely. As much as I love starships it was not as relevant to the story.

 

[137th Gebirg]

No, they didn’t. They are Curiosity class ships, and very different from the Prometheus class. Mainly that they don’t have four nacelles.

Six.

 

[Imaus]

The usual symbolic reason.
Many posts argue the bridge would be no safer in the interior.
I think windows are less structurally sound then Hull playing.

It depends. Dominion weapons, and maybe even Federation weapons, are potent enough to cut a ship in half if they're really, really angry that day. In that case you can stick the bridge anywhere, as long as it's the same material as most of the hull, because against someone with lesser weapons, you'll be fine. Against a peer or superior, you're screwed anyways.

Also apparently the computer core is in most of the center of saucers, and the battle bridge is more suited for that internal position if you're really concerned about it.

 

[The Librarian]

I've love for him to explain exactly what differences there are, other than the two different nacelle types, that makes them four distinct classes instead of one class with different engines.

Chances are the plan was to have four distinct classes during the planning and writing phase, but with the apparent VFX crunch that was exacerbated by current events, they had to drastically limit what they did.

 

[Sci]

Chances are the plan was to have four distinct classes during the planning and writing phase, but with the apparent VFX crunch that was exacerbated by current events, they had to drastically limit what they did.

That makes sense. I absolutely can't hold it against them if they were operating on a crunch due to the coronavirus.

 

[cooleddie74]

If that was a coronavirus crunch effects job then it looks just fine.

 

[fireproof78]

It depends. Dominion weapons, and maybe even Federation weapons, are potent enough to cut a ship in half if they're really, really angry that day. In that case you can stick the bridge anywhere, as long as it's the same material as most of the hull, because against someone with lesser weapons, you'll be fine. Against a peer or superior, you're screwed anyways.

Also apparently the computer core is in most of the center of saucers, and the battle bridge is more suited for that internal position if you're really concerned about it.

I'm just going to leave this here: