Spoilers Starship Design in Star Trek: Picard

[Macintosh]

I think I just don't like the bulkiness and overly cluttered look of all these late 24th, early 25th century designs. I still wish we had got this for an Enterprise-F design.

It has a grace to it that I find lacking in the later ship designs.

100% this. The Dedication-class would have been my choice for an Enterprise-F too.

 

[Airmandan]

Modify the Dedication class with the Sagan style nacelles and Sovereign or Conni III struts and I think you’d have a winner.

 

[evilchumlee]

I'd have said onscreen that the ships in Season 1 were based on Hur'q designs from that era of Klingon history and what T'Kuvma's fleet and their allies had to rely on since the Empire had fallen into such instability that other, more traditionally recognizable warships were impossible to come by. That way, if nothing else, the huge discrepancy in looks would have made more sense and we'd actually get a look at Hur'q aesthetics and technology.

There were some early rumors prior to DSC premiering that suggested the Klingons we would see were some kind of ancient sect or something like that. I was rooting for that, like the Sarco ship was a huge ship with a shitload of cryogenically suspended ancient Klingons who for whatever reason came back now.

And then when the very early previews specifically showed T'kuvma talking about "Remain Klingon" and something about DNA... I REALLY thought the Klingon storyline was going to take a deep delve into something more literal, utilize the smoothead Klingons from TOS.

I was... wrong.

 

[Praetor]

I've always maintained that the ships used by the Klingons in DSC S1 were superbly done. They just didn't at all seem to be suitable as "Klingon" ships (especially the one that showed up that everyone called a "D7" that clearly was not).

Would they have worked for any other lesser-known species? Absolutely, without a doubt! Klingons? Absolutely not. The wonky Gorn ship used in SNW doesn't invoke the same visceral disdain as does the DSC Klingon ships to me. That's mostly because we never knew much about the Gorn and they were a pretty much blank slate, so have at it!

And if they'd given the Fed ships the single simple adjustment of round(er) nacelles, I think it would have been a considerably much easier pill to swallow.

Fuller's "change for the sake of change" approach, reversing the "25% different" rule and making it "75% different" was, as @cooleddie74 said, misguided - woefully so. And I think that's putting it very nicely. Oh, well... Much water under the scattered ashes of many fandom bridges demolished with thermite.

I generally agree with everything that you've said here, and I think you've touched on something that has made me realize what bothered me most about the Disco aesthetic when it first started: it all looked like it belonged in the Kelvin universe to me, more than the Prime one. I am not one who wanted proto-TOS or some "Forbidden Planet" sendup but the ENTIRE aesthetic for whatever reason felt like the Kelvin films to me. Your mileage may vary of course.

I'd have said onscreen that the ships in Season 1 were based on Hur'q designs from that era of Klingon history and what T'Kuvma's fleet and their allies had to rely on since the Empire had fallen into such instability that other, more traditionally recognizable warships were impossible to come by. That way, if nothing else, the huge discrepancy in looks would have made more sense and we'd actually get a look at Hur'q aesthetics and technology.

Brilliant. I'm making that head canon.

 

[Tiran O'Saurus]

I generally agree with everything that you've said here, and I think you've touched on something that has made me realize what bothered me most about the Disco aesthetic when it first started: it all looked like it belonged in the Kelvin universe to me, more than the Prime one. I am not one who wanted proto-TOS or some "Forbidden Planet" sendup but the ENTIRE aesthetic for whatever reason felt like the Kelvin films to me. Your mileage may vary of course.

Not really. Kelvin stuff was all very bright and shiny, with gleaming grey hulls. Early-DIS stuff is a lot darker and more worn looking. It doesn't really look like anything that came before.

 

[fireproof78]

It looked like the USS KELVIN and the NX-01.

 

[Praetor]

It looked like the USS KELVIN and the NX-01.

That's it! It was the Kelvin resemblance I was seeing. Thank you folks, this makes much more sense now.

 

[Mage]

Im sorry but I think the odyssey is a beautiful ship. Those curves are perfect

https://www.deviantart.com/dariustrent/art/Odyssey-s-End-Advanced-Super-Capital-Program-1037777093

My God..... I didn't think I'd ever Steve Rivers's Excalibur Class in such a gorgeous image ever again.

Also, so much love for the Odyssey class right here. And for the Titan-A/Enterprise-G.

 

[Dukhat]

I generally agree with everything that you've said here, and I think you've touched on something that has made me realize what bothered me most about the Disco aesthetic when it first started: it all looked like it belonged in the Kelvin universe to me, more than the Prime one. I am not one who wanted proto-TOS or some "Forbidden Planet" sendup but the ENTIRE aesthetic for whatever reason felt like the Kelvin films to me. Your mileage may vary of course.

I also did not think they were going to ape TOS production values, but I also didn’t think they would make things look nothing like TOS. However, while I didn’t get much of a Kelvin vibe, I did think that this new aesthetic would have worked much better had DSC taken place during the Lost Era circa 2300-2340 rather than ten years before TOS. The tech level would have been more believable, the shoehorning into TOS continuity wouldn’t have been a problem, and the Klingons’ need to act strong again after their initial weakness after Praxis would have made more sense. But they needed Michael Burnham to be young Spock’s sister that we never heard of before.

 

[Tuskin38]

The original reason they were in the 23rd century was because Fuller wanted follow up on something that was mentioned but not seen in TOS. But I don't think we even learned what that was.

My theory has always been the Battle of Donatu V because that involves Klingons, and Fuller was still involved when they redesigned the Klingons. It also gets a name drop in Episode 1.

 

[cooleddie74]

We didn't. The Battle of Donatu V from 2244 was referenced by T'Kuvma in the series premiere but that was not the followup so....who knows what Fuller was talking about.

 

[Tuskin38]

Well the series premise did change between the pitch and actual aired series.

 

[cooleddie74]

I still think they snuck in an Augment Virus reference in the opening scene of "The Vulcan Hello" when T'Kuvma references how humans and the Federation had attempted to change Klingons down to the atomic level, which is a clever way to say the cure for the Augment virus aftereffects that Dr. Phlox came up with left generations of Klingons with smooth foreheads and a more human appearance and that those alterations scarred Klingon psychology for the next century, but then DSC did nothing with the Augment Virus or its legacy so at most we have a couple of random, scattered lines of dialogue from T'Kuvma and later Kol about how humans attempted to change Klingons on a fundamental level to make them unrecognizable.

 

[fireproof78]

I still think they snuck in an Augment Virus reference in the opening scene of "The Vulcan Hello" when T'Kuvma references how humans and the Federation had attempted to change Klingons down to the atomic level, which is a clever way to say the cure for the Augment virus aftereffects that Dr. Phlox came up with left generations of Klingons with smooth foreheads and a more human appearance and that those alterations scarred Klingon psychology for the next century, but then DSC did nothing with the Augment Virus or its legacy so at most we have a couple of random, scattered lines of dialogue from T'Kuvma and later Kol about how humans attempted to change Klingons on a fundamental level to make them unrecognizable.

Seems like a reasonable interpretation. Not sure why more needed to be said, since it was just an excuse on the part of T'Kumva is go to war.

 

[Macintosh]

Modify the Dedication class with the Sagan style nacelles and Sovereign or Conni III struts and I think you’d have a winner.

Absolutely not!

 

[USS Artorius]

Absolutely not!

I agree. The Sagan Class nacelles that they also reused on the Connie III are horrible.. imo. Blocky, unelegant and unoriginal.

 

[Macintosh]

I agree. The Sagan Class nacelles that they also reused on the Connie III are horrible.. imo. Blocky, unelegant and unoriginal.

Exactly. I mean, everyone's entitled to their own opinions and beauty is in the eye of the beholder etc etc, but the Sagan/Echelon/Constitution-III/Duderstadt nacelles are... well... frankly some of the worst nacelles the franchise has ever had.

Now if they were Excelsior-II nacelles... that I could tolerate!

 

[Tuskin38]

I think the Sagan/Connie-III nacelles are the best design since the Connie Reift

 

[Dukhat]

The Connie III nacelles were not what was wrong with the ship. If anything, they were the only non-anachronistic thing about the design.

 

[USS Artorius]

The Connie III nacelles were not what was wrong with the ship. If anything, they were the only non-anachronistic thing about the design.

Sure they weren't anachronistic, no one was saying that. The Connie III out of universe was a modified Shangri-La class, and thereby much more in-keeping with the aesthetic of a Kirk era starship. No one is arguing the ship isn't anachronistic, it had a retro look on-purpose in an effort to provide fan service and memberberries, that much we have already discussed to death on this forum. The Sagan nacelles imo are generic and dont match the look of any of the ships they are attached to. There was a vague intent to make them look maybe similar to the TMP Enterprise nacelles, but with the typical red bussards. I don't see any issue in Starfleet making ships that look retro or simply as a tribute to venerable starships of centuries past, especially in peace-time. As of 2401 there has been no mention of another major war since the Dominion Conflict and Starfleet has never been quoted as being a strictly military element of the Federation. So most of the time technology will advance and ships will become faster and more efficient, but there not a constant battle for tactical superiority in Starfleet as of 2401 simply because there is no need for it. This is why all the comparisons to modern day navies and military traditions don't apply to Star Trek at all. There were clear intended comparisons in TOS because of the political landscape in the USA at the time of its release, but the cold war has long been over so most of these can be dropped. The real life militaries of our world always put function before form to achieve tactical superiority, but this not the case for starfleet. During peacetime they can choose to experiment with different looks styles and features of starships because they are aware that they may already be the strongest faction in the milky-way, and if not so they believe they already have ample capability to protect themselves from any forseeable threat. Star Trek is not a historical documentary on War and its also not set in the Warhammer 40K universe, so let them have a retro starship or two and be happy to explore the galaxy.. until the Tyranids arrive and consume all the biochemical mass in the Federation. Its just a TV show, some ships can look similar to each other, maybe they have similar niches to occupy in the fleet or the same mission profiles, not every ship has to be a radical departure from the previous one. If it was the case, nothing would look like Star Trek anymore and we'd just have another generic sci fi franchise on our hands.