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Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

The Kelvin timeline ships, on the other hand, are both more believable precursors to the TOS time period, and their designs are pretty consistent with each other.

The ship without warp engines is a believable precursor to ships WITH warp engines.
 
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I've grown to love those odd looking little ships. When I first saw the DS9 kitbash ships I thought they were butt-ugly, now the Yeager-Class especially is one of my favorites among those ships.
Same goes for the Magee-Class. Seeing the first sketch of it I was like "yeah, what hell is that with two warp engines merged into the saucer", now it's one my favorites of the Disco Fed ships.
 
Who remembers when they used Steamrunner-class ships from First Contact as 22nd century ships in "Storm Front" part 2? Or the Dauntless NX-01-A, which wasn't even a real Starfleet ship, in "Azati Prime"?
 
Who remembers when they used Steamrunner-class ships from First Contact as 22nd century ships in "Storm Front" part 2? Or the Dauntless NX-01-A, which wasn't even a real Starfleet ship, in "Azati Prime"?

I remember that. However, the Steamrunners were so tiny and so far in the background that one would only have known they were Steamrunners if someone told them. As for the Dauntless, I remember it flying past the camera so fast that again, unless you had good starship mojo you wouldn’t know it was the Dauntless unless you freeze-framed the shot on your VHS tape ;)
 
That's why I copied VHS tapes to my computer. Also, I'm highly amused that there is the claims that low quality models would suffice for "Children of Mars" when there is the ability to pause things much more easily ;)
 
My ideal ship design committee for PIC: Eaves, Sternbach, Drexler, Marrone...and there's at least one more I'm trying to recall. Together.
 
Or the Dauntless NX-01-A, which wasn't even a real Starfleet ship, in "Azati Prime"?

I actually liked that. I guess Starfleet must have liked the design and eventually built a very similar ship some time in the 25th century.

TAlso, I'm highly amused that there is the claims that low quality models would suffice for "Children of Mars" when there is the ability to pause things much more easily ;)

It's better to use lower-quality models that only stand out if you freeze the frame than to use models that are so anachronistic that they're immediately obvious. But I don't think the models that were uprezzed or rebuilt for Eaglemoss are low quality anyway.
 
Because of the complete randomness to the designs, some of the DSC ships look like they fit in the time period (the Engle class is very reminiscent of the NX-01), some look like they’d fit in better post-TUC (the Crossfield and Hoover classes come to mind) and some look like they wouldn’t have stood out too much as part of the Sector 001 fleet in ST:FC (the Cardenas class).

We have to mind, though, that a "time period" is a broad thing in Trek. If Excelsiors and even Mirandas are fine in the 2360s, despite this not being their "native" period, then the "post-TUC" ships might indeed be just that, only they happened to get introduced some time prior to the 2250s when significantly older ships like, say, the Engle were also serving.

Moderate that with the idea that Starfleet bolted the newest new in nacelle tech to all the ships in active service in 2250s or so, regardless of their age. And probably did the same again around the 2280s, although by the 24th century they had already largely given up on that.

The Kelvin timeline ships, on the other hand, are both more believable precursors to the TOS time period, and their designs are pretty consistent with each other.

Or then we can interpret that as the Kelvin ships being as old as Kirk's/Pike's, and thus far more removed from the TOS era than any of the DSC stuff. That is, Kirk's ship class wasn't native to the TOS era - this we have every reason to believe anyway, from backstage musings about "a ship with some history", to these later developments. Just assume that the class is as old as NCC-1017 while the ship herself also dates back to the 2240s but represents a late batch.

Enough rationalizing, though - the upside of this all is that we get a shitload of ship designs. The more, the merrier, and the better to describe several centuries' worth of shipbuilding.

I remember that. However, the Steamrunners were so tiny and so far in the background that one would only have known they were Steamrunners if someone told them.

Also, if we didn't have a 22nd century Steamrunner, we'd have to invent one. Starfleet loves to recycle general configurations, such as the nacelles-down single-huller, and the Steamrunner with its massive engines is a wonderful candidate for an archaic configuration.

I'm convinced Starfleet had ships that were almost identical to the ST:FC design (even if with coppery, riveted finish and round nacelles), these preceding the Intrepid style by having even clumsier engines combined with an even more disfigured saucer. The lineage then leads straight to the Enterprise style...

As for the Dauntless, I remember it flying past the camera so fast that again, unless you had good starship mojo you wouldn’t know it was the Dauntless unless you freeze-framed the shot on your VHS tape ;)

I'm as ready to squint as any starship spotter, but with this one I'd love to assume the ship was for real. Perhaps Arturis stole the design from the future? The Borg might actually have been to the Battle of Azati Prime and returned to tell the story...

Of course, some eccentric ship enthusiast might have donated his or her private pseudo-replica yacht to the desperate battle, along with the three flying kitchen sinks, Captain Proton's rocket and the warp-engined Millennium Falcon.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Enough rationalizing, though - the upside of this all is that we get a shitload of ship designs. The more, the merrier, and the better to describe several centuries' worth of shipbuilding.
Exactly my thoughts. Starfleet is a big organization and the more variety in design is appropriate, in my mind. They are going to need a lot of ships.
 
Starfleet, Romulan, Borg, Federation-civilian (as many members as possible), non-Federation civilian...
 
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How many of those shuttles were built across the decades, anyway? Betting this was a cross-over product between governmental and civilian usages.
 
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