Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard
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And the one which makes the most sense, logically speaking.
We know that the timeline diverged in 2024 but we don't know how long it took for things to change dramatically. Not yet anyway. In the 2009 film the reason given by the writers for the different look and size was because of scans taken of the Narada and technology was advanced in response to a threat such as that ship. Let's say that by coincidence a starship designer named "John Eaves" existed in both timelines and his life course took a similar path much like Picard took a path that lead him to have a high position in the confederation and also in the Federation.
No tentacles but it was a great scene - Odo worked it out and grabbed his arm causing him to shape shift. The Founder responded with a “well done Odo” and flew away.
impersonating an already paranoid Admiral was a good way of making sure he wouldn’t climb down from the ledge he was positioned over - I don’t include Leyton in the “evil Admirals” club, not entirely, he was just a flawed human who let his fears control him.
That kinda works except Rick Sternbach designed the Nova and Alex Jaeger the Steamrunner (along with the rest of he First Contact fleet)
We already saw the Terran mirror universe had developed almost identically to the prime universe in terms of the design of the Constitution Class - though that was before Enterprise put the Defiant into that timeline a 100 years earlier which actually causes more questions than it resolves.
with this universe I wonder whether the Nova is inline with its original back story of being a Borg buster concept for the Defiant program (though in the DS9 manual that was referred to as having 4 nacelles).
I always figured Empress Sato, and those who had control of the Defiant after her, would have had significant interest in keeping the Defiant’s tech to themselves as long as it maintained an advantage over others. Also, having the Defiant didn’t necessarily mean they had the technology to build another immediately. Even properly repairing her may have been beyond them, witness the diagram shown in Discovery.
Fan made, TOS Tech manual style blurprints for the TOS Stargazer
https://twitter.com/NCC4705/status/1505609123429335049
https://twitter.com/NCC4705/status/1505609123429335049
I wonder if that artist is here at TBBS.
I don’t mind that. I usually get the ships I really want from traders. Overall it’s cheaper than trying to gamble my luck.I'm sure STO will have it eventually.
But it will probably be in a Lockbox.
I hope so too. Although no one has asked me from either group.
close up of the left front console from Drexler's facebook
The phaser array diagram, top middle, that's from the TNG Techmanual
https://twitter.com/ajarvis_art/status/1506293264214806539
The phaser array diagram, top middle, that's from the TNG Techmanual
https://twitter.com/ajarvis_art/status/1506293264214806539
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Similar to the D's OPSclose up of the left front console from Drexler's facebook
The phaser array diagram, top middle, that's from the TNG Techmanual
https://twitter.com/ajarvis_art/status/1506293264214806539
http://wrathofdhanprops.blogspot.com/2018/08/okudagrams-part-5-up-close-and-personal.html
Apparently only certain "legacy" ships, ships of distinction, get the re-used registry number + a letter. Enterprise is one. It's had a least *3* ships that had outstanding careers. And maybe 4, as the Ent-C helped prevent a Klingon-Federation War. And who knows, maybe Harriman' Enterprise-C had an esteemed career!? But somehow Sulu's Excelsior had a ho-hum career. (I'm assuming that some event happened, or some political shift, that caused the Empire to abandon or consider abandoning the Khitomer Accords, just like they did during the Dominion War.*)
But if EVERY ship went by the "-A", etc protocol - we'll call it the "dash alphabet designation" - then Rico's brand spankin' new fresh off the showroom floor Stargazer and Picard's old Stargazer, and even the old Radiant Class TOS era Stargazer would all have the same NCC number with an added "-A" for Picard's ship and "-B" for Rico's ship. And Sisko's Defiant in DS9 would have been NCC-1764-A, instead of NX-74205.
And *speaking* of the DS9 Defiant...THEN there were some ships that SHOULD have had a "-A" designation, but because it's cheaper to reuse special effects shots involving models of spaceships and space scenes, rather than refilm new ones (*especially* in the days before CGI) we didn't get new shots in DS9 of the Defiant NX-74205-A after the first Defiant (NX-74205) was destroyed - despite the 2nd Defiant having the very same registry number as the first (again 74205).
I heard someone who worked high up on the show saying that in his head it IS the Defiant-A. Maybe a future remastered version could fix that.
Same for the 2nd Delta Flyer, which had the very same registry number as the first. (Again, so they could reuse effects shots of the ship - despite VOY actually having CGI available - it's still expensive to make CGI scenes...back then, much, much more than now, when some kid can whip it up in a couple of hours on his laptop.)
Ya know, "Yesterday's Enterprise" should have been "Generations"...or, "Yesterday's Enterprise" should have featured the 1701-A. Or there should have been some tie-in involving either the Enterprise either "The Undiscovered Country" and "Yesterday's Enterprise" (with YE having been held off until TUC was made) or with "The Undiscovered Country" and "Generations" being a 2-part affair. Or with "Generations" picking up immediately after the final scene of "The Undiscovered Country" with a story not involving the Klingons, but with some other threat to the future, dragging the original Enterprise into one last mission to save the future...either with the Ent-A being dragged into the future, missing doing something important, or with the Ent-D being dragged into the past.
If it was a film, and set immediately after the closing scene of "The Undiscovered Country" or as a 2-part extension of those events, and it should have ended with the Enterprise-A being destroyed, but the crew escaping. Or, if they were hell-bent on killing Kirk off, have Kirk die, on the bridge of the Enterprise (as opposed to, just a bridge.). You would have to technobabble it so that the REAL Enterprise-D crew was insulated from any timeline changes the scripts makes, because fans are gonna want OUR Picard meeting OUR Kirk, and
not just some alt-timeline versions of them. (Was Deforest Kelly still alive when "Generations" was made? I think he was. Then you could have future McCoy and future Spock and even future Scotty meeting their past selves - maybe that is even what sets the whole mess off.
Though now there is the problem of Scotty not remembering Picard & crew in "Relics".
Awwww screw it!
Sagan class underside.
https://twitter.com/DaveBlass/status/1510828648688865286?t=quG4RQhcSrIT0OvdVG92ig&s=19
https://twitter.com/DaveBlass/status/1510828648688865286?t=quG4RQhcSrIT0OvdVG92ig&s=19
So let's talk about the ships they used in episode 1.
Obviously this came about because of the negativity with the cut-and-paste Inquiry fleet from S1 (which I personally had no problem with.) So this time they decided to go all out and show a large amount of different classes, mostly new designs with a few older ones thrown in (but 'old' as in: the newest ships we last saw from the Berman era):
1. Sovereign class (old)
2. Akira class (old)
3. Inquiry class (new as of PIC season 1)
4. Luna class (new as of LDS season 1)
5. Sagan class (new)
6. Excelsior II class (new)
7. Sutherland class (from STO, new for PIC)
8. Ross class (from STO, new for PIC)
9. Reliant class (from STO, new for PIC)
10. Gagarin class (from STO, new for PIC)
As a budgetary measure, they used ships from STO, since they'd mostly just be seen in the background so they didn't need to be as detailed as, say, the hero ship Stargazer.
Old ships: I was happy to see the Sovereign class again after all this time. The Akira I could have done without, only because I happen to dislike the design. But its inclusion here wasn't the end of the world.
New ships 3-5: Seeing the Inquiry class again was pretty much a given, although I don't know if the CGI model was the one they used last season or the one from STO. I'm of two minds about the Luna. On one hand I'm glad it finally crossed the line over from animation to live-action, for the people who like the design. However, as with the Akira, I was never a fan of it. It looks too much like a cross between a Sovereign and an Akira (both of which conveniently show up here, hmmm....) Anyway...The Sagan class Stargazer is obviously the winner here as far as new ship designs go. It fits perfectly into the design lineage of the time, is a good design, and makes a great hero ship.
New ships 6-10: So here's where things start to go downhill for me. The Excelsior II class, while a neat homage to the previous class and to the Excelsior herself, suffers from what I can only describe as 'New-Design-Looking-Like-Old-Design' Syndrome. It happened with the Obena class from LDS, and it's happening in STO with DSC season 1 ships being 'refitted' into 25th century versions (more on that later.) There is really no logical reason why 25th century starship designers should mimic ship designs from a century or more before. Starships aren't built for stylistic concerns; they're built for functionality. There's a reason why Ford isn't producing new cars in 2022 that resemble Model T's. There's no inherent reason why a brand new ship from 2401 should remotely resemble an outdated ship from 2285. Now if it was an older Excelsior that had been refitted, I could understand. That would even explain the 4XXXX registry numbers. But from everything I've read, they seem to be implying that the Excelsior II class is brand new and not a refit. And if that's the case, why the registry is 4XXXX is unknown. The Obena class is definitely new, and the one ship we've seen had an 8XXXX registry. So what's the difference?
7-10 I'm going to group together, since they're all STO designs and I can say pretty much the same things about them. Clearly the intent of these designs was to give updated versions of ship classes we're already familiar with to give the audience a feel that this is still the Starfleet we all know and love. But again, the individual choices are logically iffy. The Sutherland class is meant to evoke the Nebula class, the Reliant class is meant to invoke the Miranda class, the Ross class is meant to evoke the Galaxy class (although why they didn't use an Andromeda class instead to complement the Sutherland class is a mystery), and the Gagarin is, as stated above, based on a DSC season 1 design 'refitted' into a 25th century version.
So if the choice was up to me to pick four new ship designs from STO as background ships for the fleet, these would not have been my first choices. First of all, the Sutherland and Ross classes simply look too much like the Nebula and Galaxy classes at a distance. They might as well have just used the latter ships in that scene, for all the similarities they share. The Reliant class just isn't that good of a design, and having it be a tribute design for the Miranda class was unnecessary. The Miranda class is old and outdated. It didn't really need an update. And speaking of that, the Gagarin class stands out as an update to a design that's 150 years old! They did make it look different enough from the Shepard class that this fact could be ignored, though.
So given the choice, the four ships I would have used would have been the Concorde class, the Avenger class, the Pathfinder class, and the Yorktown class (but not as the Enterprise-F) as the STO background ships.
What are your thoughts?
Obviously this came about because of the negativity with the cut-and-paste Inquiry fleet from S1 (which I personally had no problem with.) So this time they decided to go all out and show a large amount of different classes, mostly new designs with a few older ones thrown in (but 'old' as in: the newest ships we last saw from the Berman era):
1. Sovereign class (old)
2. Akira class (old)
3. Inquiry class (new as of PIC season 1)
4. Luna class (new as of LDS season 1)
5. Sagan class (new)
6. Excelsior II class (new)
7. Sutherland class (from STO, new for PIC)
8. Ross class (from STO, new for PIC)
9. Reliant class (from STO, new for PIC)
10. Gagarin class (from STO, new for PIC)
As a budgetary measure, they used ships from STO, since they'd mostly just be seen in the background so they didn't need to be as detailed as, say, the hero ship Stargazer.
Old ships: I was happy to see the Sovereign class again after all this time. The Akira I could have done without, only because I happen to dislike the design. But its inclusion here wasn't the end of the world.
New ships 3-5: Seeing the Inquiry class again was pretty much a given, although I don't know if the CGI model was the one they used last season or the one from STO. I'm of two minds about the Luna. On one hand I'm glad it finally crossed the line over from animation to live-action, for the people who like the design. However, as with the Akira, I was never a fan of it. It looks too much like a cross between a Sovereign and an Akira (both of which conveniently show up here, hmmm....) Anyway...The Sagan class Stargazer is obviously the winner here as far as new ship designs go. It fits perfectly into the design lineage of the time, is a good design, and makes a great hero ship.
New ships 6-10: So here's where things start to go downhill for me. The Excelsior II class, while a neat homage to the previous class and to the Excelsior herself, suffers from what I can only describe as 'New-Design-Looking-Like-Old-Design' Syndrome. It happened with the Obena class from LDS, and it's happening in STO with DSC season 1 ships being 'refitted' into 25th century versions (more on that later.) There is really no logical reason why 25th century starship designers should mimic ship designs from a century or more before. Starships aren't built for stylistic concerns; they're built for functionality. There's a reason why Ford isn't producing new cars in 2022 that resemble Model T's. There's no inherent reason why a brand new ship from 2401 should remotely resemble an outdated ship from 2285. Now if it was an older Excelsior that had been refitted, I could understand. That would even explain the 4XXXX registry numbers. But from everything I've read, they seem to be implying that the Excelsior II class is brand new and not a refit. And if that's the case, why the registry is 4XXXX is unknown. The Obena class is definitely new, and the one ship we've seen had an 8XXXX registry. So what's the difference?
7-10 I'm going to group together, since they're all STO designs and I can say pretty much the same things about them. Clearly the intent of these designs was to give updated versions of ship classes we're already familiar with to give the audience a feel that this is still the Starfleet we all know and love. But again, the individual choices are logically iffy. The Sutherland class is meant to evoke the Nebula class, the Reliant class is meant to invoke the Miranda class, the Ross class is meant to evoke the Galaxy class (although why they didn't use an Andromeda class instead to complement the Sutherland class is a mystery), and the Gagarin is, as stated above, based on a DSC season 1 design 'refitted' into a 25th century version.
So if the choice was up to me to pick four new ship designs from STO as background ships for the fleet, these would not have been my first choices. First of all, the Sutherland and Ross classes simply look too much like the Nebula and Galaxy classes at a distance. They might as well have just used the latter ships in that scene, for all the similarities they share. The Reliant class just isn't that good of a design, and having it be a tribute design for the Miranda class was unnecessary. The Miranda class is old and outdated. It didn't really need an update. And speaking of that, the Gagarin class stands out as an update to a design that's 150 years old! They did make it look different enough from the Shepard class that this fact could be ignored, though.
So given the choice, the four ships I would have used would have been the Concorde class, the Avenger class, the Pathfinder class, and the Yorktown class (but not as the Enterprise-F) as the STO background ships.
What are your thoughts?
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There’s only so many combos for saucer/hull/nacelle designs, so I don’t see Starfleet abandoning familiar configurations just because they’re old. The Olympic class resembles the Daedalus class by chance, not by design (pun, hehe).
Overall, it’s space, so the shape doesn’t matter, just the geeblies (new tech). You can build something that looks like an Excelsior but has a completely different interior and purely modern tech.
Ford still builds cars that have a passenger compartment, four wheels for propulsion, an engine hold at the front and a cargo bay at the back, just with modern tech inside and more aerodynamic shapes. Imho, the sleek Reliant class is the perfect “small workhorse” successor to the Miranda.
Overall, it’s space, so the shape doesn’t matter, just the geeblies (new tech). You can build something that looks like an Excelsior but has a completely different interior and purely modern tech.
Ford still builds cars that have a passenger compartment, four wheels for propulsion, an engine hold at the front and a cargo bay at the back, just with modern tech inside and more aerodynamic shapes. Imho, the sleek Reliant class is the perfect “small workhorse” successor to the Miranda.
