Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[TimeIsAPredator]

The Kelvin Timeline starships are closer to looking like TOS than almost all of DSC's.

The naselles always remind me of the cheap knockoff toys and images you would see in the 90s and the Vengence was awful. As for DSC I liked the Shenzhou and feel they have the best original 1701 of the shows its been in but the rest are muck and same goes for me with any ship after 1701-E as I thought the Fed ships in Voyager sucked too

 

[Kpnuts]

For the record, "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II," was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning and Nebula Award-winning author Michael Chabon, not by Alex Kurtzman. If you're going to slag off the writer and pretend you know how to do it better than him, at least get the writer's name correct.

I never mentioned anything about the writer of the episode?

Those ships are really fucking ugly.

Yes they are.

Exactly.

Strange concept I know, but it is possible to make the human drama the focus and have a good looking and dramatic space scene too.

 

[Dukhat]

Many fans dislike the Kelvin timeline ships. Myself included.

I loved them. The only one I didn't like was the Enterprise itself.

I don't have issues with the Odyssey or Luna classes. So that may be your particular take on those classes.

Then by all means, let me explain why I personally don't like them. For the Odyssey, it isn't different enough from the Sovereign class in terms of its shape to warrant being the 'next generation' of ship designs. It also looks like two older designs (the Sovereign & Intrepid) were just meshed together to form this design.

For the Luna: I got the impression from Star Trek: Nemesis that the 'Titan' was supposed to be a supership, even larger and more powerful than the Enterprise-E. Why name it 'Titan' (obviously in honor of the Greek gods of the same name) if it's not meant to evoke power? Instead, Pocket Books decided that it was supposed to be a small ship named after the moon, not the Greek gods. It also didn't help that Sean Torangeau, a talented designer in his own right, was hamstrung by the PB contest rules about what they wanted the ship to look like, and the final design ended up just looking, again, like two former designs (the Sovereign and the Akira) were meshed together to create a new one.

Neither design is original in any way, and while I get that some people like them, I sincerely hope that if those ships are ever shown on screen, that someone else will redesign them.

For those who dislike the fan designed Odyssey and Luna classes, or STO classes: What are y'all looking for in the next Enterprise in terms of design?

I would like them to do away with the traditional saucer/nacelle combo. Have them utilize some other form of transportation, such as former Borg transwarp conduits, so that warp drive is now unnecessary. The Relativity didn't have nacelles and a saucer to speak of, and it was still recognizably a Federation ship.

Now that's the level of detail we should have gotten on the new starships in Riker's armada!

That's not the same ship, though.

As was the E-D when she first appeared.

I thought the Enterprise-D was a fantastic design from the first moment I saw a photo of it in a magazine in 1987.

 

[Tuskin38]

Now that's the level of detail we should have gotten on the new starships in Riker's armada!

That's not the same ship, though.

Yeah that's a fan design from around 2013, the Polaris Class.
https://www.deviantart.com/trekmodeler/art/Polaris-Class-358133241
https://www.deviantart.com/trekmodeler/art/Polaris-Specifications-566241271
Coincidentally it did launch in 2399 according to the artist's lore. Might be why that other artist put it in the title.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yeah, I noticed afterwards. That said: that's still the level of detail we should have seen on the new starships even if they only went the extra mile on Riker's flagship and a few others that were closest to the camera.

 

[Dukhat]

Yeah, I noticed afterwards. That said: that's still the level of detail we should have seen on the new starships even if they only went the extra mile on Riker's flagship and a few others that were closest to the camera.

Actually, if most of the fleet was just lower-poly cut-and-paste jobs, it wouldn’t have been so bad if it was clear that the Zheng He was of a different class, had more detailing, and was shown up close while the other ships were further away to hide their dullness. You know, like how the Romulan fleet looked

 

[Tuskin38]

I still assume it's because of Covid causing delays and a rush job. One FX guy said it was finished a week before the episode aired.

 

[fireproof78]

Why name it 'Titan' (obviously in honor of the Greek gods of the same name) if it's not meant to evoke power? Instead, Pocket Books decided that it was supposed to be a small ship named after the moon, not the Greek gods.

Looks like you answered your own question. As much as I love Greek mythology, I think of the orange moon of Saturn first before the Greek Titans. But, I might owe that to playing too much Spaceopoly.

 

[Rahul]

No more JJ Abrams for Star Trek IMO.

He's good when working on his original IP's, but I don't like it when he touches existing IP's.

John Eaves needs to start designing StarShips of a different Era and different Aesthetic.

Kurtzman, yeah I can live without him either.

Kurtzman was only good when he had Robert Orci working with him as a tandem.

J.J. Abrams will forever for me be the guy who write a Superman script where Lex Luthor was a secret Kryptonian and him and Superman punched it out in the end. He got a very simplistic approach ("Superman is super strong, so he needs an equal or stronger enemy" and "Lex Luthor is Superman's badguy, so we have to use him"). But he fundamentally misunderstands the original properties - Superman has hundreds of super strong enemies, Luthor became the most famous one BECAUSE he was not!

Kurtzman & Orci (besides Transformers...) are the two guys who wrote a sequel to "The Mask of Zorro" - and because they noticed at the heart of the first one was one of the most passionate love stories - they made the sequel into a simplistic romantic comedy sequel, where the couple breaks up and had to be brought back together by their wacky son. In a frickin' Zorro movie!!!

What they all do, is deliver a shiny product, within budget, and on time, with an amazing cast. They all are amazing producers. But they lack the literary understanding of basic storytelling, and never "get" what made the original special. They make Spock and Optimus Prime act in their emotions instead of their virtues. They think Star Wars is defined by TIE-fighters and X-wings and the heroes being the underdogs fighting stormtroopers.

But most importantly: they think too much about the minutae - both the entire plot of ST09 and DIS' time jump are only motivated by answering to canon concerns - instead of thinking about stories and themes. What are their works about? All their works feel like shallow check-lists of existing properties. Changing their unusual, extraordinary parts the most generic, broadly known tropes.

 

[cooleddie74]

I still assume it's because of Covid causing delays and a rush job. One FX guy said it was finished a week before the episode aired.

It wasn't all that bad in terms of the ship design. It was the sheer copy-and-paste repetitiveness that was the worst aspect of the entire sequence but for effects rushed into completion during a global pandemic I'd say they still looked pretty good.

 

[fireproof78]

What are their works about?

Fatherhood, legacy and finding one's place while correct mistakes. And that's if I am being very simplistic. Never mind the smaller stories, the character focus, within the larger politics.

Simplistic themes? Perhaps. Themes I relate to on a deeply personal level? Absolutely.

Do I agree with all them? Nope. Do I think it could be done better? Yeah, probably. But, then we might get the SW Special Edition level of doing it better. But, I would prefer these characters to many others in Trek shows.

Mileage.

 

[pst]

Those ships are really fucking ugly.

i kinda like these things. they're kind of like baseline star trek ships, no fuss.

 

[fireproof78]

i kinda like these things. they're kind of like baseline star trek ships, no fuss.

Yup.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The Relativity didn't have nacelles and a saucer to speak of, and it was still recognizably a Federation ship.

If it didn't have the StarFleet Pennant and double red stripes, I could easily mistake it for alien of the week if I hadn't seen the ship before.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I would like them to do away with the traditional saucer/nacelle combo. Have them utilize some other form of transportation, such as former Borg transwarp conduits, so that warp drive is now unnecessary.

Even "The Borg" can do basic Warp, it's always good to have a backup method of FTL travel.

So just doing away with "Basic Warp" seems like a bad idea.

I don't know why you dislike the traditional saucer / nacelle combo so much.

 

[Gonzo]

i kinda like these things. they're kind of like baseline star trek ships, no fuss.

Yup.

Single role mass produced warships that are most effective in large groups, think Big Wing tactics from WW2, end the fight before it even starts.

Fast and agile, heavily armed and probably heavily automated as well, possibly including hologram crew.

No bells or whistles needed.

Hoping we get some proper information about them sooner or later.

They also seem to be continuing the trend for ships with a lower vertical profile making them harder to land a hit on from the front or side, resulting in fewer decks.

They look like they are around 400-500m long but its hard to be sure using the scenes we got in episode 10, however they could be in the 300m range which would make them very nice compact (Light) Battle Cruisers, about the same length as Voyager but with only 10 decks at most due to no main deflector.

When we saw the two fleets opposite each other the Starfleet ships didn't look that much bigger than the majority of the Romulan rank and file ships, we know they are relatively small which would support the circa 300m range for Rikers fleet, its hard to say for sure at the moment.

Wouldn't surprise me if the Zheng He is larger (pehaps a Heavy Battle Cruiser) and could be a Curiosity class like the Ibn Majid, however that goes against what Riker said about them in the episode as that class is at least 10 years old, I still don't think we saw the Zheng He in the episode as it could have been hidden amongst all the other ships, it would make sense that the command ship of such a fleet would be larger and possibly multi role although it may not be a full Explorer.

Chabon is most likely holding some reveals back for S2.

 

[fireproof78]

Hoping we get some proper information about them sooner or later.

We will.

My thoughts are these ships are designed to be mass produced and crewed as quickly as possible. Head canon is that they made adjustments after the losses in the Dominion War and the Mars attack. With such quick construction possibilities it would allow for more specialized starships to be developed, along the lines of the Prometheus and the Defiant.

 

[Ronald Held]

With such a massive fleet, would it have made any real difference if there were several classes of ships all low res?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Everyone's talking about the models being low-poly but they look fine to me aside from the lack of variety. It's a generic post-TNG ship design, which is exactly what it was designed to be.

 

[Gonzo]

We will.

My thoughts are these ships are designed to be mass produced and crewed as quickly as possible. Head canon is that they made adjustments after the losses in the Dominion War and the Mars attack. With such quick construction possibilities it would allow for more specialized starships to be developed, along the lines of the Prometheus and the Defiant.

I like the idea of the Prometheus in principle but it is overly complicated in practice and would take longer to build.

If I had the option to build 2 or even 3 mass produced ships or one Prometheus I know which I would choose.

Same goes for the choice between multiple Defiant class ships or one Prometheus, it would be an easy decision.

In spite of all the Prometheus classes bells and whistles it is still just a single role warship.

Mass produce single role Battle Cruiser warships on the understanding that in any conflict they will be the first into the fire with a high attrition rate, crew them with mid tier officers (Lt and Lt Commanders) who have little experience and make sure they are grouped with a command ship that has an experienced Captain at the helm, someone like Riker would do very nicely indeed.

As new ships are built strip the older beaten up ships that survived the war and spread the experienced survivors around a much as possible to make up for the number of officers and command staff lost, its the only way to rapidly rebuild after suffering great losses, the ships aren't hard to replace its the crews that are the issue.

Sadly enough the best time to rapidly improve any military career is during or just after a war, lots of opportunities for advancement that wouldn't normally be available in times of peace.