Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[USS Artorius]

In a 25th Century incarnation, specifically the USS Titan A and others, it would be practical to have some sort of emergency failsafe that disconnects the impulse power systems from the rest of the warp drive infrastructure to prevent a chain reaction or at worst a warp core breach.

 

[cooleddie74]

Hell, impulse engines themselves are rarely referred to other than as "impulse engines," "impulse reactors" or "fusion reactors." Gary Mitchell in the second TOS Pilot refers to the "impulse deck" which is the visible impulse engine assembly on that Enterprise but we don't get a whole lot of detailed descriptions of impulse engines or how they're rigged up to ships other than they run on fusion reactions and impulse engine design hasn't changed much since the late 22nd century.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

Hell, impulse engines themselves are rarely referred to other than as "impulse engines," "impulse reactors" or "fusion reactors." Gary Mitchell in the second TOS Pilot refers to the "impulse deck" which is the visible impulse engine assembly on that Enterprise but we don't get a whole lot of detailed descriptions of impulse engines or how they're rigged up to ships other than they run on fusion reactions and impulse engine design hasn't changed much since the late 22nd century.

They have changed the design, but have only done it on...impulse.

 

[Racefuel]

No way! I stand corrected. So they truly are Warp Field Governors, and any reference to them being Impulse Deflector Crystals must be taken with a grain of salt. They must at least be a power source for the impulse engines given their location or perhaps like a Warp Field Governor an 'impulse drive regulator' also. Is there any Canon in-universe mention of them specifically called 'Impulse Deflector Crystals'? That's always what I assumed them to be and even Bernd Schneider refers to them as such in several of his articles on starship design.

There is *no* reference to them at all in any capacity on screen or in official text. They're just "the blue energy dome"

 

[Tuskin38]

what I assumed to be the impulse crystals (the lit up blue domes) are now the "warp field governors"???

The term 'Impulse crystal' was never said on screen anywhere in the series. It comes from non-canon sources.

 

[Ronald Held]

Maybe someone could ask Doug about it at the LV Con?

 

[David cgc]

The idea of the Impluse Deflection Crystal was that it allowed power from the warp drive to be syphoned off by the impulse engines, which is why it was at the point where both connect. The other crystals we've seen outside of the Enterprise-refit don't necessarily seem to plug into the warp core the same way based on where they are relative to the necks and nacelles of their respective ships, but I've just had an idea for why the warp governor would be attached to the impulse engines.

The idea is that the warp governor helps synchronize the nacelles so they function as one single unit. My car (stay with me now) has an aux port so I can plug in another audio source to the radio through a standard headphone jack. When I first got it, if you plugged the aux cable and a charging cable running from the car into the same device, you'd get a terrible static and feedback because it'd create some kind of short circuit within the phone. Maybe there's a similar issue, if the fluctuations in the warp field that need to be governed have some connection to the ebb and flow of the warp core, having the governor run off of the impulse system could be to avoid feedback in the system.

 

[Racefuel]

I viewed the Warp Field Governor to be like a differential in a car, taking a singular power source that is divided into two different drive forces and making sure they work in unison to ensure smooth delivery of power and acceleration.

 

[Dukhat]

Y'know, I now find it very unfortunate that TNG 5.18 "Cause and Effect" had to recycle the TWoK Reliant model with relatively few changes to save on budget. As Geordi identified the Soyuz-class as having been retired before 2288, it would mark a smoother transition of Doylist and Watsonian lineage alike for the Soyuz-class to have TOS-style nacelles, being succeeded by the Miranda-class with TMP-style nacelles, and then the Reliant-class with STO/PIC-style nacelles.

The use of the modified Reliant model was mandated by the story. They wanted to build a TOS Constitution class but the budget wouldn’t allow for that. And if they built a new TMP-era model, they’d only be able to use it for that one episode, because the class was decommissioned 70 years ago. They also couldn’t use an unmodified model for the same reason. So they had to make a new ‘class’ from a pre-existing filming model.

 

[Racefuel]

Yep.

Stargazer was originally a Constitution class ship also.

These models were stupid expensive, the big Enterprise-D was something like $500,000 in the late 80's

 

[USS Artorius]

The use of the modified Reliant model was mandated by the story. They wanted to build a TOS Constitution class but the budget wouldn’t allow for that. And if they built a new TMP-era model, they’d only be able to use it for that one episode, because the class was decommissioned 70 years ago. They also couldn’t use an unmodified model for the same reason. So they had to make a new ‘class’ from a pre-existing filming model.

I quite like the ugly SOB Soyuz Class, especially it's use of a large bridge superstructure more similar to the original TOS Connie rather than the refit. The Miranda class have been thoroughly overused at this point, so it was great to see something a little different.

 

[Dukhat]

Stargazer was originally a Constitution class ship also.

Fun fact: That yellow desktop model in Picard's ready room was never supposed to be the Stargazer. It was just random set dressing Rick Sternbach created, which Greg Jein used only later to design his full-size filming model, which he built on time and under budget.

I quite like the ugly SOB Soyuz Class, especially it's use of a large bridge superstructure more similar to the original TOS Connie rather than the refit. The Miranda class have been thoroughly overused at this point, so it was great to see something a little different.

Of course it ended up begging the question later as to why so many Miranda class ships survived for 70+ years in service while a class that was 90% identical was decommissioned in the 2280's.

 

[USS Artorius]

Yep.

Stargazer was originally a Constitution class ship also.

These models were stupid expensive, the big Enterprise-D was something like $500,000 in the late 80's

I heard that the Conne Refit was too bulky and cumbersome to film alongside the also 6ft E-D model - there just wasn't enough space to film them both together. And I heard from somewhere else that as the Kirk movies were still going in Season 1 of TNG that they didn't want to confuse the audience. So they built a new design.

Plus it wouldn't make much sense for Picard to be in command of a Connie Refit when the E-A was taken out of service in 2293 presumably with the rest of her kin before 2300.

 

[Racefuel]

Hot take:

The Miranda class is an offshoot of the Soyuz class, not the other way around

Might make sense.

 

[Racefuel]

I heard that the Conne Refit was too bulky and cumbersome to film alongside the also 6ft E-D model - there just wasn't enough space to film them both together. And I heard from somewhere else that as the Kirk movies were still going in Season 1 of TNG that they didn't want to confuse the audience. So they built a new design.

I think its the case that it was being used for Star Trek V at the time

 

[USS Artorius]

Hot take:

The Miranda class is an offshoot of the Soyuz class, not the other way around

Might make sense.

I prefer this idea. In my head canon the Soyuz was made following re-emerging tensions with the Klingons after the V'ger incident. They blamed starfleet and specifically Kirk for what happened to their 3 K'Tinga class Battlecrusier in 2271. The Soyuz was quickly approved following the success of the Total Modification Programme and were used to patrol the Klingon Neutral Zone, along with some other miscellaneous duties and as a mobile communications array, ferrying intelligence back to SF Command. The Miranda was developed from the Soyuz, a simplified version, modular and Adaptable for any mission type.

We're going off topic...

 

[Racefuel]

I think the Soyuz class were much older, closer to when the Enterprise first was launched in the 2240's and were in the old TOS style, round nacelles, etc and were already 30+ years old when Bozeman disappeared.

The Miranda class were keel up new builds in the refit style based on a modern, simplified Soyuz design.

 

[Dukhat]

I heard that the Conne Refit was too bulky and cumbersome to film alongside the also 6ft E-D model - there just wasn't enough space to film them both together.

While the TMP Enterprise was bulky and cumbersome in general, that wouldn't have precluded it from being used as the Stargazer, as both models would have been filmed separately and then composited into the shot.

 

[Macintosh]

Stargazer was originally a Constitution class ship also.

Yep, which is why in TNG: "The Battle" the yellow Constellation-class model from Picard's ready room is swapped with a Constitution-class model:

Fun fact, this is also why the Constellation-class is called Constellation-class, because it had to be a name that could be easily dubbed over "Constitution-class" – watch Wil Wheaton and LeVar Burton carefully as they announce the class name as the Stargazer approaches. The Stargazer's class wasn't switched until after filming had been completed.

 

[Mudd]

Isn't that based on Diogo Vincenzi's Kusanagi-class? (An incredibly pretty starship in my opinion.)

That's nice!