The Ambassador-class was basically a hybrid of the Excelsior- and the Galaxy-class to show a midpoint in Federation flagship evolution from the 2280s to the 2360s. Looking similar is, you know, how both nature and ship construction work.
Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard
- Thread starter pst
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It isn't canon. Yes it uses notes from the writers of the show, but the writers are not beholden to that.
Same thing happened with the Discovery tie ins. Some of them were based off notes from the writers room, but, Season 2 ended up contradicting quite a bit of them.
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I wasn’t speaking from a real world point of view, but rather a production point of view. Why wasn’t the Sovereign class shown in DS9 or VOY? Because the producers at the time thought the audience would be confused and think it was the Enterprise. While that’s rather an extreme (and somewhat insulting) decision, I can sort of see a grain of logic in the idea. For FC, Alex Jaeger was told to design his Sector 001 starships in such a way that none of them would look remotely like the Enterprise-E so that, again, the audience wouldn’t be confused as to which ship they were seeing in that battle (an important aspect at the time because no one had seen the Enterprise-E before that movie.)
To me (and let me be clear that this is just my opinion), there’s not enough of a general difference between the Enterprise-E and the STO Enterprise-F design-wise. The aesthetics are different, but it’s still similar enough that a casual viewer might not see the difference from afar or if the ship is moving fast. I would like to see something altogether different in shape for the STP F if they decide to show it. Something new and original. This is 2399 after all. It’s been almost 30 years since the Sovereign class Enterprise-E was built. It’s time for a change.
The Magee-class starship would have been perfect for 2399 had it not already existed prior to TOS in the DSC Starfleet. It's basically a bigger, more saucer-shaped version of the Defiant from DS9.
Actually, out of all the DSC ships, I think the Cardenas class would have fit right in with the Sector 001 fleet in FC.
That class does have a very FC feel to it. Just give it TNG Era surface detailing and nacelle colors.
I was thinking that the older ship models seen in Children of Mars could be ships only used for the rescue armada because they were old and no longer in use. They would be easily available and likely somewhat retrofitted if used for training missions by Starfleet Academy.
Picard does mention "mothballed" ships in the new episode in the scenes set in 2385. The Magee-class would almost certainly be mothballed and in a reserve fleet or in an orbital graveyard somewhere by this point in history.
But Picard only mentions mothballed ships as a backup plan after Utopia Planitia and the rescue fleet was attacked and destroyed, implying that they weren't part of the original plan. So that doesn't explain why the Magees and Zimmermans were there in CoM. Again, I think they were just meant to represent generic late 24th century ships because production on the Short Trek was rushed, not that they were actually meant to represent those 150-year-old classes.
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I hope so. At some point reusing old ships just becomes ridiculous.
....Of course, whatever those DSC ships in "Children" were, they weren't shown to be under construction.
Operational? They had internal lighting on. Mothballed? The warp bits did not glow. But these things were cradled inside a box dock, which presumably could have been used for something better than nannying a bunch of relics. Although I'd be happier orbiting Mars if I knew all the antiquities were boxed away somewhere rather than floating on my path without modern transponders and with all the navigational beacons burned out.
Timo Saloniemi
Operational? They had internal lighting on. Mothballed? The warp bits did not glow. But these things were cradled inside a box dock, which presumably could have been used for something better than nannying a bunch of relics. Although I'd be happier orbiting Mars if I knew all the antiquities were boxed away somewhere rather than floating on my path without modern transponders and with all the navigational beacons burned out.
Timo Saloniemi
They may have been there to be scrapped and repurposed. Then, prior to that happening, there was a need to use them again.
I am still struggling with the reticence of using old ships.
I am still struggling with the reticence of using old ships.
We don't even know if Picard ever left Earth during the Romulan rescue mission. When Laris is bringing up people who could help him, it is all Enterprise name drops, none of the names are of people who might have served with him afterward.
It should make sense within the context of the story. Their placement in "Children of Mars" makes less sense now that we know they weren't even considering using older ships until after the attack on Utopia Planitia.
Here in the north of England, you find railway sidings with stuff just dumped there. If you go past Crewe, you'll see locomotives and carriages which literally haven't moved in thirty years, slowly rotting away. I guess parts of Utopia Planetia are a bit like that.
I like the new main ship.
If being able to use older ships is an option that means they have to be available in some capacity. The ones at the shipyards may be for civilian or commerce use, not necessarily Starfleet or meant for the rescue fleet.
Or, like people are so fond of telling me, I should just suspend my disbelief with what I actually see on screen and accept that things are the same even though they look different. So I’m not actually seeing Magees and Zimmermans, I’m seeing new late 24th century ships that coincidentally look exactly like Magees and Zimmermans.
30 years isn't partically old for a ship in startrek.
It’s not about the age of the ship in-universe. It’s about the VFX crew of a fictional show IRL coming up with new designs.
