Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[Dukhat]

Yep - and it's establishing their take - that the Federation uses ships for a LONG time

Except I don’t think that was their intent at all. I think their intent was to just use whatever they had on hand without a second thought about the designs or the time period they came from, because they’re not really interested in focusing on that. It’s just VFX production assets to be utilized when the scene calls
for a background ship.

Now if we actually see lots of brand-new late 24th century Starfleet vessels in Picard, I’ll retract my statement.

 

[Noname Given]

Except I don’t think that was their intent at all. I think their intent was to just use whatever they had on hand without a second thought about the designs or the time period they came from, because they’re not really interested in focusing on that. It’s just VFX production assets to be utilized when the scene calls
for a background ship.

Now if we actually see lots of brand-new late 24th century Starfleet vessels in Picard, I’ll retract my statement.

I think they're put as much thought into this as they have everything else. Especially when they touted this short as a prequel/lead in to STP. I think many a TNG fans' rationalization that it isn't how they would have composed that shot WRT the ships shown is just wishful thinking. CBS hasn't been skimping OR rushing anything WRT these various new projects from day one. Hell they allowed the STD team an extra 18 months. I'll also say again that a good number of the team working behind the scenes on STP are the same folks working (or they were formerly working) on STD.

But as you said: We'll all see when the actual series (STP) starts streaming.

 

[NCC-73515]

Don't know if this is funny or makes sense, I scribbled it last night when I couldn't sleep

Amazing!

Brilliant. But you flubbed the comm badge. So NON CANON!!!
.

The commbadge is correct

 

[Lord Garth]

Mirror Universe Lord Garth interests me.

He's a staunch defender of Rick Berman, loves Enterprise, and hates "STD" with the burning passion of 1,000 suns. Plus he's a hell of a lot better at Photoshop than I am.

 

[Nerys Myk]

He's a staunch defender of Rick Berman, loves Enterprise, and hates "STD" with the burning passion of 1,000 suns. Plus he's a hell of a lot better at Photoshop than I am.

But evil none the less

 

[Paul755]

The Excelsior-class probably spent a time as the top of the line Starfleet ship. But the Connies continued on in support roles well into the 24th century. They simply had to, at least until there was a viable fleet of Excelsiors.

thing is, there is just no way to know how many Connies were still around by then. If the Enterprise was going to be decommissioned after WOK, one has to assume that most if not all of the class was slated for a similar fate.

But it is muddied by the fact the E-A exists as a Connie and not an Excelsior or other type.

Considering the lifespan of the Miranda’s, they probably picked up the slack due to the retirement of the Connies until they could crank out enough Excelsiors.

 

[cooleddie74]

The Enterprise-B was probably the Federation flagship for about 20 years so the Excelsiors likely sat at the top of the fleet until the 2320s when the first Ambassador-class starships came out of drydock.

 

[BillJ]

If the Enterprise was going to be decommissioned after WOK, one has to assume that most if not all of the class was slated for a similar fate.

Why? The Enterprise was a testbed for new tech and was serving as a training ship. Why would you be training cadets on an "Enterprise class" simulator if there weren't going to be in service.

Considering the lifespan of the Miranda’s, they probably picked up the slack due to the retirement of the Connies until they could crank out enough Excelsiors.

One heck of an assumption with no proof. We actually have no proof the entire class was pulled. We do have proof that, at least, one was in service by the time of "The Best of Both Worlds".

We simply have no proof that Starfleet ever "retires" entire classes.

 

[fireproof78]

one has to assume that most if not all of the class was slated for a similar fate.

No, I don't. That's a terrible assumption. The Admiral only talks about the Enterprise being "20 years old" (already an odd thing, given what we see in TNG). So, given how many ships were damaged during TOS they would need to be replaced. So, likely, there were even newer Constitutions being built, including the A.

Honestly, Starfleet's attitude towards retiring the Enterprise is extremely strange.

 

[BillJ]

Honestly, Starfleet's attitude towards retiring the Enterprise is extremely strange.

Probably the same thing that got the "A", structural damage from battle. Cheaper to scrap it than to fix it. Plus, she had already been relegated to training duty.

 

[fireproof78]

Probably the same thing that got the "A", structural damage from battle. Cheaper to scrap it than to fix it. Plus, she had already been relegated to training duty.

That's a good point. But, to your point, I don't see them decommissioning their entire class.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

The Admiral only talks about the Enterprise being "20 years old" (already an odd thing, given what we see in TNG).

I always assumed Morrow meant that the Enterprise was 20 year out of date. What he said really makes no sense, even in real world.

 

[Dukhat]

I always assumed Morrow meant that the Enterprise was 20 year out of date. What he said really makes no sense, even in real world.

That’s how I take the line too, especially since the Enterprise was twice that old at the time. The whole scene just reeks of ‘this new ship and her soon to be constructed class mates will be making your ship and all her class mates obsolete.’ Especially since by TWOK, the Enterprise had been relegated to a cadet training vessel, and by TUC the Enterprise-A was decommissioned out of the blue with no reason whatsoever.

As for seeing the class again in BoBW: we see a wrecked saucer of an unknown configuration (the saucer from STIII) and a part of a secondary hull in two different shots, implying the components are not connected to each other. So we are free to conjecture that those parts don’t even belong to the Constitution class, but to some other class that happens to use those parts in a different configuration. Now if we saw an entire intact Constitution class ship in BoBW, that would be different. But we didn’t. So there’s really no canon use of the Constitution class after TUC.

 

[Captain Crow]

Here you go

Continuity: ... Still, with tons of highly detailed free meshes of authentic 24th century ships floating around, is there an excuse for using exclusively Discovery ships?

I'm guessing this person has never read the README file that comes with one of those before.

Those free models usually have a stipulation to be used for non-commercial work only.

Also most of them were probably made in a different 3D package from what this production team is using so they'd have to waste time they didn't have converting, fixing, remapping, and relighting them.

 

[dantini]

Maybe he's talking about the official models - they are "floating around" between the past CG artists, Eaglemoss and their modelers, and CBS, and I don't think Pixomondo would have to pay a lot to use them. Many of them have already been used for several different shows and licensed publications, so I doubt there are complicated license issues to sort out.
And converting the existing models from Lightwave to Maya probably would be about as hard as converting the Discovery models from Maya to Lightwave - which Eaglemoss seem to do all the time.

If they're doing a brand new 24th century show but have no era-appropriate models ready at this point, something went very wrong.

 

[Noname Given]

No, I don't. That's a terrible assumption. The Admiral only talks about the Enterprise being "20 years old" (already an odd thing, given what we see in TNG). So, given how many ships were damaged during TOS they would need to be replaced. So, likely, there were even newer Constitutions being built, including the A.

Honestly, Starfleet's attitude towards retiring the Enterprise is extremely strange.

There are probably plenty of Constitution classes still existing in the 24th century. They just were never involved in anything we saw on TNG DS9 or VOY.

Everyone knows the reason why we never saw a Constitution class in the TNG 24th century Berman era of Star Trek - The producers were worried that if the audience saw one they would expect Kirk or Spock to show up.

It's the same reason they never showed a Sovereign class ship in any of the 24th century era showTrek TV shows although we know the existed. The producers were equally worried audiences would expect Picard to be in the episode.

 

[Captain Shaw]

Do we know if any other constitution ships beside the Enterprise and the York aka the enterprise town got the refit?
Because maybe after all the work that it took to upgrade them, they decided not to bother with the rest and started to phase them out.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Yorktown being a Constitution class isn't even canon.

 

[Captain Crow]

Maybe he's talking about the official models - they are "floating around" between the past CG artists, Eaglemoss and their modelers, and CBS, and I don't think Pixomondo would have to pay a lot to use them.

Doubt it since they said "free meshes".

When someone says "free meshes floating around" like this person did they quite clearly mean ones downloaded from the internet.

And converting the existing models from Lightwave to Maya probably would be about as hard as converting the Discovery models from Maya to Lightwave - which Eaglemoss seem to do all the time.

Thing is it still takes time to do. Time which they didn't have to spare.

If they're doing a brand new 24th century show but have no era-appropriate models ready at this point, something went very wrong.

It could be this was made very early into Picard's production. The ships for the show might not have been finished yet so they just used what they had available.

 

[Dukhat]

Do we know if any other constitution ships beside the Enterprise and the York aka the enterprise town got the refit?
Because maybe after all the work that it took to upgrade them, they decided not to bother with the rest and started to phase them out.

We only know that the original Enterprise was refit. We don’t know if the Enterprise-A was a refit or if it was a new build.