Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[Gonzo]

That's true; at this time we have zero indication of the age of these ships. But the implication (i.e. there's a fleet of 218 of them all the same design, the fact that nobody mentions that they're old, etc.) is that they are brand-new. I think that if the Romulans just cobbled together whatever resources they had to assemble a fleet, that all the ships would be different, and different ages (just like the Federation fleets in DS9.) I have a feeling that if a specific ship was meant to be old, then that will be revealed in dialogue. I would also think that if there's a fleet of 218 completely identical warbirds, that they were probably constructed at the same time, and for the express purpose of being part of this fleet.

Yeah, probably built in secret over time so as not to attract too much attention.

All the smaller ships look identical, even for the Romulans that is very unusual, not even the Klingons who tend to stick with what works would be able to field a fleet of 200 ships that are so uniform in size and design especially at the smaller end of the scale.

 

[Dukhat]

What I would like to know is, when are we going to see this scene?:

https://static3.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/romulan-warbirds.jpg

It's from the very first trailer, and we now know that those ships are the Tal Shiar warbirds. But why are they all flying toward Mars, why isn't Mars on fire (if this scene is supposed to take place in 2399), and what is a fleet of warbirds even doing flying around the Solar System? Obviously there's only one episode left, so we're either going to see it next week, or they decided to delete this scene for some reason.

 

[F. King Daniel]

What I would like to know is, when are we going to see this scene?:

https://static3.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/romulan-warbirds.jpg

It's from the very first trailer, and we now know that those ships are the Tal Shiar warbirds. But why are they all flying toward Mars, why isn't Mars on fire (if this scene is supposed to take place in 2399), and what is a fleet of warbirds even doing flying around the Solar System? Obviously there's only one episode left, so we're either going to see it next week, or they decided to delete this scene for some reason.

I suspect it was an early placeholder where they used Mars because they didn't yet have the Synth planet digital asset.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

What I would like to know is, when are we going to see this scene?:

https://static3.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/romulan-warbirds.jpg

It's from the very first trailer, and we now know that those ships are the Tal Shiar warbirds. But why are they all flying toward Mars, why isn't Mars on fire (if this scene is supposed to take place in 2399), and what is a fleet of warbirds even doing flying around the Solar System? Obviously there's only one episode left, so we're either going to see it next week, or they decided to delete this scene for some reason.

The Synth planet has two red moons. That might be one of them?

 

[Tuskin38]

Bad kitbash IMO.

It doesn't use any existing kit parts though, it's not a kitbash.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It doesn't use any existing kit parts though, it's not a kitbash.

The shoving of 1701ish elements on to it makes it look like a kitbash.

 

[Dukhat]

A ‘kitbash’ is when parts of different models are thrown together to create a new model. In the case of the NX-01, the secondary hull didn’t come from an existing other ship. Yes, the whole design is meant to invoke the TOS Enterprise, but it’s most definitely not a kitbash.

 

[Nerys Myk]

A ‘kitbash’ is when parts of different models are thrown together to create a new model. In the case of the NX-01, the secondary hull didn’t come from an existing other ship. Yes, the whole design is meant to invoke the TOS Enterprise, but it’s most definitely not a kitbash.

Again, I'm not saying it's a kitbash it just looks like one because it tries to invoke too much of the 1701.

 

[F. King Daniel]

IIRC, the new deflector dish is the one from the Defiant model made for IaMD with no changes, so it's kind of a kitbash on a technicality.

 

[Timo]

Obviously there's only one episode left, so we're either going to see it next week, or they decided to delete this scene for some reason.

Perhaps those ships were originally intended to be Synth ones. Or perhaps Mars was intended to be devastated by Romulans after a Synth opened the gates. A fairly minimal change in the details of plot or art would then result in the shot getting scrapped or its assets repurposed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[valkyrie013]

I kind of wish there was the odd D'deridex class or Valdore class in that mix of Romulan ships... and AGAIN with the window bridges!!

And still despise the warp effect..

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

I kind of wish there was the odd D'deridex class or Valdore class in that mix of Romulan ships... and AGAIN with the window bridges!!

And still despise the warp effect..

Are those windows made of transparent aluminium ?

 

[Dukhat]

Perhaps those ships were originally intended to be Synth ones.

Maybe. The first trailer did show the kite ships attacking Mars along with that scene though, so I'm not sure. What's interesting is that in the first trailer the kite ships did not have the Starfleet logo on them. So I'm wondering if the kite ships were supposed to belong to someone else initially and then changed later.

Or perhaps Mars was intended to be devastated by Romulans after a Synth opened the gates.

But that would defeat the purpose of the Romulans (and Oh specifically) instigating the attack. The Romulans seemed to want to keep their involvement a secret.

 

[Timo]

Good point. Not so minor a plot adjustment, then - assuming everybody recognized the attackers as Romulans, even in these new ships. The culture is well known for hiding its identity in space warfare...

In any case, the Mars model there is gorgeous. Odd that it would be used as a placeholder for something else when they want to do important dramatic things with it. I'm sort of hoping that it actually is a finished piece of footage for an Episode 10 event, even if this event was later dropped from the story. But we really haven't seen any VFX from the newer episodes in the early trailers, now have we?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kpnuts]

Kinda curious how the Zhat Vash/Tal Shiar have the resources for that many warbirds after Romulus went kaplooey and the Empire bit the dust.

If Secret Hideout's work on Discovery has taught us anything, it's that reality and realism means nothing when there's an opportunity to throw as many ships/drones/asteroids on the screen has humanly possible. That automatically makes it epic, right?

 

[Kpnuts]

so generic looking! I don't think, John Eaves did this in on purpose... really bad choice from the showrunners

You're surprised an Eaves design looks generic and with no common design language?

https://u.cubeupload.com/browneyes/3.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/fxKf1bg/1.jpg

 

[cooleddie74]

Okay, on THAT we agree. The amount of visual noise for the sake of the "kewl" factor gets obnoxious in both of the new series and less is sometimes more in Trek. That said, PIC is a lot more low-key with the "huge space fleet of random ships" theme than DSC was towards the end of Season 2.

 

[Tuskin38]

If Secret Hideout's work on Discovery has taught us anything, it's that reality and realism means nothing when there's an opportunity to throw as many ships/drones/asteroids on the screen has humanly possible. That automatically makes it epic, right?

Realistically space battles would be so far apart you wouldn't see any other ships on screen.

Star Trek space has never been realistic.

Discovery has probably been the most realistic with the lighting, with the shots being super dark.

with no common design language?

I see a lot of common design language between those Starfleet ships. Saucers, nacelles, Bussard Collectors.

And what's generic about the Romulan Cobra Head? I've never seen anything like it in any other Sci-Fi. It's hardly generic.

 

[Imaus]

If Secret Hideout's work on Discovery has taught us anything, it's that reality and realism means nothing when there's an opportunity to throw as many ships/drones/asteroids on the screen has humanly possible. That automatically makes it epic, right?

Throwing 'realism' as a concern raises a lot of doors. It should be nothing short of easy for a space-faring species or organization to at least crank out thousands, if not tens of thousands, of hulls. Fueling them is another matter, they would be impulse-only hulls maybe (if we read impulse to be fusion reactors, which Star Trek has never officially confirmed IIRC), but that can get the job done. Earth and Sol should always have a few thousand monitor ships and ODPs with no problems, for example. And that's even in the days of ENT or TOS, replicators would make that even more trivial. A few asteroids might be enough to crank out a warfleet.

It's when you throw in dilithium crystals, antimatter (even that might be easy to acquire with a few power-sats and production facilities around a few red stars), quantum singularities and the like that stuff becomes a concern, but even then, less is more unrealistic than more unless there is some bottleneck such as expensive fuel/reaction-mass, power source, or the like. Crews are little problem, material itself is of little concern.

I would say it's far more unrealistic to not have a swarm of ships than not. These are space-faring empires with almost clark-tech level of technology around. Throwing numbers too far down edges into 'writers-can't-do-scale+math' territory quickly.

 

[Ronald Held]

Where do you get certified crew for thousands of ships in months?