Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[Reverend]

This is all make-believe, remember? If they wanted the saucer intact off the planet, they’d find some science-fictiony way to do it.

Oh sure if someone really wanted to tell that story they could make up some BS handwavey excuse to make it a thing...but why bother? Most of the ship is gone. Kerblewy. Vaporised. A former starship, now a cloud of atoms. And it's the half that had all the things that make it a STARship in the first place. What's left over isn't good for anything...except maybe as an impulse speed barge...or a really morbid orbiting hotel. What would be the point of dragging *half" a wreck anywhere? One may as well try and salvage whatever's left of the original Enterprise from the rubble of Genesis and call it a ship...

 

[fireproof78]

or a really morbid orbiting hotel

Well, consistent with what the ENT-D looks like

 

[Dukhat]

Oh sure if someone really wanted to tell that story they could make up some BS handwavey excuse to make it a thing...but why bother? Most of the ship is gone. Kerblewy. Vaporised. A former starship, now a cloud of atoms. And it's the half that had all the things that make it a STARship in the first place. What's left over isn't good for anything...except maybe as an impulse speed barge...or a really morbid orbiting hotel. What would be the point of dragging *half" a wreck anywhere? One may as well try and salvage whatever's left of the original Enterprise from the rubble of Genesis and call it a ship...

Well, as I mentioned before, if Picard wanted to visit the remains of his old ship in the Starfleet Museum to relive the ‘good old days,’ then that would be a possibility. But yeah, we’re probably not going to see it ever again.

 

[Markonian]

Picard literally said in the closing scene of ST:G that the ship "cannot be salvaged"; and not surprising given the damage it probably took on impact. Also remember that those things aren't meant to be able to support their own weight without an active SIF, much less inside a gravity well. It wouldn't have remained structurally sound for long, much less stayed in one piece if they tried to raise it.

So removing it intact is off the table, which leaves cutting it up and removing it a piece at a time. Most of the components that were salvaged probably went into the Galaxys that were rushed into production during the Dominion War. Nothing left for the fleet museum but the odd artefact. At most they might have kept the bridge module intact.

This is the Ships of the Line 2018 calendar image of the saucer's dismantling: https://ufplanets.com/showthread.php?70649-Ships-of-the-Line-August-2018

 

[Dukhat]

Nice image, although it isn’t canon.

 

[BillJ]

I just don't see the reasoning to pull the saucer half way across the galaxy, when you can break it down to its base materials and make it easier for transport.

 

[Reverend]

Well, as I mentioned before, if Picard wanted to visit the remains of his old ship in the Starfleet Museum to relive the ‘good old days,’ then that would be a possibility. But yeah, we’re probably not going to see it ever again.

Well as I said they could have removed the bridge module...or you know, there's these things called "holodecks".

This is the Ships of the Line 2018 calendar image of the saucer's dismantling: https://ufplanets.com/showthread.php?70649-Ships-of-the-Line-August-2018

And hey look, they're removing the bridge module!

 

[Datasbeard]

This is the Ships of the Line 2018 calendar image of the saucer's dismantling: https://ufplanets.com/showthread.php?70649-Ships-of-the-Line-August-2018

This is a cool image. It represents the realism of tech that TNG largely portrayed. I think in JJ Trek or on Discovery, they would have just pushed a button and the thing would have dismantled itself, with all pieces flying on their own into neat stacks in the orbiting ships’ shuttle bays. This modern aesthetic is so incongruous. On the one hand, there’s all this stuff—technology that seems almost like magic by comparison with everything we’ve seen before. On the other hand, though, for some reason the replicators need to have a beam of light, and look more like present-day 3D printers.
Shrug.

 

[DaveyNY]

This is a cool image. It represents the realism of tech that TNG largely portrayed. I think in JJ Trek or on Discovery, they would have just pushed a button and the thing would have dismantled itself, with all pieces flying on their own into neat stacks in the orbiting ships’ shuttle bays. This modern aesthetic is so incongruous. On the one hand, there’s all this stuff—technology that seems almost like magic by comparison with everything we’ve seen before. On the other hand, though, for some reason the replicators need to have a beam of light, and look more like present-day 3D printers.
Shrug.

Inexpensive Home Replicator Version.
(Mr. 3D-Rep)

Uses 3D Printing tech to create the containers and replication to create the liquid/food stuffs.
Uses less energy that way?
(and the containers are edible)

 

[MvRojo]

This is a cool image. It represents the realism of tech that TNG largely portrayed. I think in JJ Trek or on Discovery, they would have just pushed a button and the thing would have dismantled itself, with all pieces flying on their own into neat stacks in the orbiting ships’ shuttle bays. This modern aesthetic is so incongruous. On the one hand, there’s all this stuff—technology that seems almost like magic by comparison with everything we’ve seen before. On the other hand, though, for some reason the replicators need to have a beam of light, and look more like present-day 3D printers.
Shrug.

We literally see the Enterprise-A being constructed at the end of Star Trek Beyond, complete with various worker bees and machinery moving pieces into place.

 

[Datasbeard]

We literally see the Enterprise-A being constructed at the end of Star Trek Beyond, complete with various worker bees and machinery moving pieces into place.

We also have transwarp beaming, warping across gigantic distances in minutes, and lots of other stuff that doesn’t make a lot of sense, given what we’ve seen before. That’s why I say: incongruous. But yes, Discovery is far worse in this respect than the Kelvin movies.

 

[DaveyNY]

We literally see the Enterprise-A being constructed at the end of Star Trek Beyond, complete with various worker bees and machinery moving pieces into place.

They could have made that scene 20 minutes long, behind the end credits and I still would have sat there watching it.

 

[Datasbeard]

Inexpensive Home Replicator Version.
(Mr. 3D-Rep)

Uses 3D Printing tech to create the containers and replication to create the liquid/food stuffs.
Uses less energy that way?
(and the containers are edible)

That would actually be lovely. Make a point of showing the less advanced replicator in Picard’s home but not aboard a starship, if and when we see one. Similarly, go nuts and use Discovery-era shuttles for school buses and taxis. But show some post-Nemesis looking shuttles around Starfleet headquarters.

I get the desire to make Picard cohere with Discovery in terms of canon and aesthetic. But there’s a smarter way to do that. I’m not holding my breath for the replicators, but remain very hopeful in terms of ships (including, eventually, shuttles).

{All of the above written as someone who loved STP ep 1 last week.}

 

[Demosthenes]

A closer look at the Shuttle (completely new design, I think) from Utopia Planitia and below that a clearer image of the tug profile.

 

[Timo]

No "slight reworking" there, then. Are my eyes deceiving me, or does the shuttle actually have a doorway to the side? It's been a long time (alternate timelines notwithstanding) without those. This is very close to one of the suggested shuttles for the 2009 movie, btw.

The hull of the tug has ENT vibes from the non-compound-curved central block atop which the bridge sits. Eaves did a couple of ship suggestions like that for ENT "The Expanse". But it's a perfect 24th century design, with the engines and the angles and the engines and... Hmm. Determining the scale from the blurred portholes isn't trivial. But these might not be all that big.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Borg Queen]

The tugs look Soveriegn Enteprise E-ish and the shuttles look Argo-ish. Very Argo-ish except more Discoveryesque.

 

[NCC-73515]

The tugs look Soveriegn Enteprise E-ish and the shuttles look Argo-ish. Very Argo-ish except more Discoveryesque.

I hope we'll see more Sovereignesque odysseyish titanian ships... XD

 

[Borg Queen]

The tugs are actually a reworking/moderation of a Discovery design?
These ships looking more TNG era is a pleasant surpise. Even 25% different is way close enough.

 

[Timo]

Whoops, while the shuttle is similar to the 2009 movie sketches, it's actually 1:1 the McCall thing Eaves did as a calendar painting, and labeled an attack fighter or a military transport in his various sketches. It even has a "weather radar" or "FLIR pod" thing at starboard bow, to evoke ideas of current military helicopters. The earliest sketches, which already have all this detail, are dated 2007, and no doubt were meant for the Abrams movie. The design was seen in the calendars of 2011 and 2015. Works in any arbitrary Trek era, I guess, as it lacks warp nacelles and has integrated glowing bits instead.

And no, the tugs aren't reworked DSC designs. Both these and the DSC ships are reworked from the Franz Joseph original in the old Star Fleet Tech Manual, sharing the general configuration but nothing else at all. Which is to the credit of Eaves, who does a lot of self-plagiarism otherwise, for obvious reasons.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Borg Queen]

Oh yeah, the Titan. Maybe on a shelf behind Riker and Troi's in their house?
Or one of their kids playing with it?