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Starships of the Galaxy Era

Depends on the era (and country) For a time a frigate and cruiser were basically the same thing but with different roles. This was in they days when the US built large Destroyer Leaders and started to call them Frigates instead of Destroyer Leaders (because that job description was obsolete) and didn't call them cruisers because the US Navy's cruisers at that time were either the remaining World War II cruisers or newer nuclear powered missile cruisers. It wasn't until all the old World War II cruisers were retired in 1975 that the several of the remaining Frigates and the new "Frigate" Ticonderoga-class were reclassified as cruisers (even though almost all of them are basically the same size and shape as modern Destroyers). With frigate being placed onto lighter patrol warships (formerly Destroyer Escort sized ships).

Star Trek, for a time, used the pre-1975 US Naval classifications system. Well into the 1980s it was still being used by science fiction writers regularly.
 
For a time a frigate and cruiser were basically the same thing but with different roles.

Heck, originally the words were synonyms. That is, big ship-rigged sailing fighting vessels were "frigates" if they didn't fight in the line but instead ran solo sorties, but assorted navies started calling them "cruizers" in the late 19th century, more or less in sync with the propulsion changing from sail to sail-and-screw and then screw-only.

When navies started having "cruisers", they stopped having "frigates". Until late in WWII, when the silly British decided to revive all sorts of old naval names for their all-new range of escort warships. Some became "sloops", some were "brigs", some were "corvettes", and the biggest single-screw escorts were "frigates".

This utter nonsense was clarified postwar with the Royal Navy declaring all these vessels "frigates". Other navies persisted with "corvette" alongside that one. And the USN never bought into the RN silliness, and merely spoke of its escorts as "destroyers" of assorted ilks. But the worst parts of the confusion stuck, and for most of the Cold War, the words "frigate", "corvette", "destroyer" and "cruiser" were utterly interchangeable (even though theoretically meaning slightly different things in different navies).

Today, everybody operates generic warships. Some call theirs frigates, some destroyers, some cruisers. Few operate two different size ranges that would allow them to have both frigates and corvettes, say. Only the biggest have three (USN believes in frigate, destroyer and cruiser, although the size and meaning have changed in the past decades, as described above by Itekro).

Star Trek, for a time, used the pre-1975 US Naval classifications system. Well into the 1980s it was still being used by science fiction writers regularly.

"Heavy Frigate" was particularly apt for Khan's ship. It's in practice the very same thing as saying "Heavy Cruiser", and indeed the ship was identical to Kirk's dramatically. Also, it's a patriotic designation: "Heavy Frigate" was a very uniquely American thing, the Continental Navy's way of having capital ships despite not being able to afford any.

Scifi often looks back for inspiration. Here it also tends to go meta: looking back at naval designations reveals the fundamental impermanence of such things, and allows the writers to just do their thing without care of "consistency" or "realism".

Timo Saloniemi
 
I actually like all the different nautical terms they use, but completely from a layman’s “delight in variety” sort of way. That said, they use so many different ships and types of ships, and fans enjoy coming up with so so many more, that I think a more elaborate classification system may be useful to help make sense of them all.
 
I'm much the same way, and in my personal head canon I try to avoid the organizational scheme from being too complex. I personally don't include a designation like "perimeter action ship" because I find it rather silly, and I don't see it as a unique role but rather one filled mainly by faster ships like destroyers and corvettes.
 
Can everyone see these Pinterest images? I highly recommend joining Pinterest if you can't. It's astounding the number of Trek images I've seen there that I haven't before.
- Godsdammit! Yes I can see them (:drool:), so there goes the rest of my day. I have things to do that aren't going to get done now. Thanks a lot, Arpy! ;)
 
Type-7 Shuttle: the shot that started it all.
(It's funny how high def can ruin the illusion. This wasn't the shot that aired or was ever meant to.)
Casting Away: I want to be on it.
Multi Angles: pretty fan renderings.
Tardigrade: it's funny how much like a tardigrade it can look, especially from the fore/aft.
Ortho.

Probert's Version: had longer windows. (I like the glowing lounge overlooking Shuttlebay 2 here as well.)
Multiple Hatches: it could also open from both the front (like canon) and the sides, as can be seen on the two Type-7's in this Probert painting.
Canon: it actually made it to screen twice and can be seen in this shot too.
Velara III: an unused matte painting for Season 1's "Home Soil" later copied in the comics.

Concept: an early concept was even larger and looked like a cross between a flying saucer (we're the aliens!) and a Lambda Shuttle. I wonder if this is the Type-12 :bolian::bolian::bolian:

(EDIT: Article on evolution of the shuttle, including this curvacious drawing I like.)
 
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Unseen Galaxy Interior concept art for Star Trek Online by Enterprise-D designer Andrew Probert.

Some favorites include:
Deck 7 Lobby: gives you a sense of the larger living ship we didn’t see. If only sets were less expensive to build.
Computer Core: you can almost see them zipping around on those chairs like something out of the Jetsons.
Reception Desk: I can’t tell why I like this except it suggests the larger busier ship than we saw. Imagine a ship of two thousand by the time it returned from its 20 year mission. (Perhaps some Galaxy Class ships that were too far away to be called back in times of crisis thought that they might become the Galactica of the Federation — all that was left if the Borg or Dominion had their way.)
Chemistry/Geology: nothing special, but I like the large crystal formation in the back room and the glowing table in the middle for considering new finds. Although, I always imagined the Geology Lab to have a giant globe in it to Do Geology on.
Xenoacheology: I like the giant Head of Bo statue, War of the Worlds hand, and old-fashioned telephone here.
Exobiology: my least of the favorites, but I like the idea of alien animals.
Stellar Cartography: this is closer to what I think they were going for in GEN. Now if it were just spherical like the one in this ortho for Probert's Enterprise-C.

Cetacean Ops: you can’t discuss the unseen Galaxy without discussing Cetacean Ops. (And maybe if they have their own uniforms.) In his blueprints, Rich Sternbach placed it on Decks 13 & 14 (page 9, second to last image). I wonder if they have their own aqua-holodeck, that can mimic the different water conditions on different worlds.

Ed Whitefire Blueprints: I love how much more ambitious these were than Sternbach's, who was probably constrained by television budgets to think "smaller rooms." Whitefire included large organic waste reclamation spaces, hydroponics/botanical gardens, a mall, a multilevel theater, vast training holodecks (on which for some reason I imagine them practicing the sieges of alien fortifications), and an even bigger airport of a Main Shuttlebay.

Needs More Shuttlebay: note the still bigger Main Shuttlebays in the cutaways on the right. Did different Galaxy Class ships have different shuttlebays as well as bridges? I wonder which one this is.

Galaxy Class Promenade: it must have been something else to walk or jog along that corridor and look out that view... Although the image means that the ship was initially meant to be smaller, I really like the sharper edge of it here.
 
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Nebula Class: the Nebula has some nice angles, but the tower here could be more organic to match the rest of the Galaxy esthetic. They sorta kinda went for it with the third nacelle pylon on the AGT Enterprise.
Cheyenne Class: the saucer on the smaller Cheyenne needs more work, but the ship is nice to look at.
Akira Class (2) (3): the Akira has more of the elegance of the Galaxy than its stubby cousin. With less of a refit than the Saber above, the Akira could be a dazzling addition to the Galaxy Era.

Speaking of ships in need of refits:

U.S.S. Jupiter: from Star Trek Online, reminds me a bit of the Risa Express transport linked above, or of a Sydney Class.
U.S.S. Voyager: concept #3 has stayed with me over the years and I’m sure is Voyager in an Alternate Universe.
U.S.S. Discovery: what light cruisers might have looked like before the Intrepid Class.
Unnamed Ship: the pylons need work but nice organic neck here.

WAHT?:

Enterprise-I: single nacelles are mostly obstructed by the saucers, but they're visible. I wonder what this ship could be used for. And am thinking about playing around with ships with multiple (different-sized) saucers.

A stretch:

Corvettes: the Enterprise-D can sometimes remind me of something out of War of the Worlds. When I saw these Asari light cruisers from the game Mass Effect recently, I thought "slap on a couple of nacelles and some paint & windows, and they could make interesting patrol ships." Or Jackill corvettes.

Some of my doodles imagining Galaxy Era ships of the Constellation Class configuration.

Notes on individual ships:

A is all saucer, with an elaborate pylon structure (larger than the Galaxy Class's) leading to four nacelles. Like the Constellation, there is no deflector on this one — though, like on the Enterprise-D, Galaxy saucers have their own. I’m debating adding one or two smaller deflector dishes to the top and bottom nexus points. If I make those full necks, not just pylons, Main Engineering could fit in one and a deflector array in the other.

(Not shown are the Main Shuttle Bays — they’re flipped around and open on the front of the ships, to avoid shuttles having to mind the necks. The Nebula's should be likewise.)

B actually has two full necks and two full stardrive sections. The pylons, again, are distinctly different from the Galaxy’s. This sucker’s big. (I did a Microsoft Paint cut & paste of this years ago and called it the Sioux Class at the time, in keeping with the Native American theme of the Cheyenne. But I’m sure there’s a Cheyenne Class U.S.S. Sioux already (and Powhatan, Chumash, Iroquois, and the rest), so that’s enough of that. I’m debating calling this the Mars Class as it’s vaguely War of the Worlds-like, but that may be too cute. Or perfectly fitting, as my suspicion is that Cheyenne is so named for the four nacelles that look like feathers on a chief’s elaborate headdress.)

C is the monster. The Constellation’s saucer is much thicker than the Constitution’s, and this is echoed here. I haven’t decided if that’s a Galaxy saucer sliced, then expanded with a massive shuttlebay in the middle (like a mini spacedock), or if those are two new Galaxy-like saucers piled on top of each other with a massive shuttlebay in the middle like a mini spacedock, but it’s big. (I’m debating calling this the Cosmopolis Class (or Acropolis Class) to denote its size. Sister ships would be named after hypercities of the Federation.)

D is the Asari Light-Cruiser inspired corvette. (I’m debating calling it the U.S.S. Malone. Sammy loved his ‘vette.)

(D/E/F aren’t to scale with A/B/C, as you don’t need a full cruiser-size deflector and nacelles on a corvette.)

E is a variant corvette reminiscent of an upside-down Asari Dreadnaught or the Chariot Class. (This one is pretty alien-looking. Maybe I’ll call it after the famed Bolian Adislo family.)

Thoughts on the doodles?
 
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I liked the Probert Version that had the front ramp

Might well be they all have that.

I mean, there's nothing to preclude it in the interior set: to the contrary, a path is cleared for people to march through the two separate forward consoles. There are displays at the centerline, but they could easily hinge up when the door hatch does. And the bottom part is definitely suggestive of something you can step on.

http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x16/qwho_hd_034.jpg

In contrast, we never learn there should be a door anywhere else. The aft bulkhead of the center compartment does not have a doorway in it.

http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x16/qwho_hd_036.jpg

We could argue that the passenger-only version of Type 7 would have the long windows, but the Enterprise carries for its frontier needs a hybrid version with hinged multisection cargo hatches to the sides of the middle compartment, folding open klickety-clack to allow things to be rolled in over the nacelles, somewhat clumsily but still. This is unlikely to be the usual method of passenger entry, though.

On occasion, we saw people walk around the shuttle prop to gain entry through a (nonexistent) door - but there we can argue (in "The Host") that the walk eventually took them to the bow ramp anyway, or (in "Unnatural Selection") that the clumsy prop we saw was not the Type 7 craft we later saw in flight but merely an obstacle the heroes had to clear to gain access to the Type 7 behind it. :devil:

Timo Saloniemi
 
Might well be they all have that.

I mean, there's nothing to preclude it in the interior set: to the contrary, a path is cleared for people to march through the two separate forward consoles. There are displays at the centerline, but they could easily hinge up when the door hatch does. And the bottom part is definitely suggestive of something you can step on.

http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x16/qwho_hd_034.jpg

In contrast, we never learn there should be a door anywhere else. The aft bulkhead of the center compartment does not have a doorway in it.

http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x16/qwho_hd_036.jpg

We could argue that the passenger-only version of Type 7 would have the long windows, but the Enterprise carries for its frontier needs a hybrid version with hinged multisection cargo hatches to the sides of the middle compartment, folding open klickety-clack to allow things to be rolled in over the nacelles, somewhat clumsily but still. This is unlikely to be the usual method of passenger entry, though.

On occasion, we saw people walk around the shuttle prop to gain entry through a (nonexistent) door - but there we can argue (in "The Host") that the walk eventually took them to the bow ramp anyway, or (in "Unnatural Selection") that the clumsy prop we saw was not the Type 7 craft we later saw in flight but merely an obstacle the heroes had to clear to gain access to the Type 7 behind it. :devil:

Timo Saloniemi

In "Skin of Evil," Troi props herself up against the entry ramp at the front of the Type-7 shuttle. http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x23/skinofevil_hd_212.jpg
 
Or a craft with cockpit commonality to Type 7, at any rate.

The miniature depicting the wreck is quite dissimilar to Type 7: the stern, while rounded, lacks the "door" style indentation and the impulse engine, and the nacelles are not attached by blended-in wings but by some sort of easily breakable rods. The paint job is distinctly different, too.

It seems the artists didn't even attempt to pretend to try to strive for Type 7 likeness here, for whatever reason. Yes, the miniature is likely to be much bigger than the shooting model for the shuttle, but no, they didn't go for "cheap" as such, as the end product still has compound curves - just the wrong sort of compound curves.

But this episode is as good as any in showing how the interior indeed has the bow centerline configured as something that could be a ramp.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I'm much the same way, and in my personal head canon I try to avoid the organizational scheme from being too complex. I personally don't include a designation like "perimeter action ship" because I find it rather silly, and I don't see it as a unique role but rather one filled mainly by faster ships like destroyers and corvettes.

"Perimeter defense" is a mission, not a type. A lot of laypeople get that distinction confused. The type of asset you'd task for that mission would depend on how big of a parameter you need to defend, who you're defending it from, and logistical details like distance and length of mission.
 
Then again, destroyer is a mission, too. Further, it's two or three different missions that, each in turn, were the raison d'être for the type, dictating its design. First it was "torpedo boat destroyer", an agile and quick-firing type to thwart attacks by torpedo boats against sluggish capital ships. Then it was "capital ship destroyer", a bigger type of torpedo boat firing almost suicidal torpedo spreads to sink capital ships on the cheap. Then it became "submarine and aircraft destroyer", again a protector for other vessels. And then it became meaningless and interchangeable with all other designations out there...

Perimeter action ship in Trek is likely to be both a mission and a type, too, going by its very descriptive wording. Whether the description remains correct for the putative late 23rd century fan designs, or is outdated or was designed to be misleading from the get-go, we can speculate on whilst accepting every other aspect of the fan concept.

And destroyer in Trek... is a vast capital ship a kilometer long, the badassest asset in the Klingon arsenal as of 2257. Perhaps this is the correct meaning of the word in Starfleet usage, too, and helps us in understanding what ships Sisko was referring to when speaking of "destroyer units" in "Sacrifice of Angels".

Timo Saloniemi
 
Perimeter action ship in Trek is likely to be both a mission and a type, too, going by its very descriptive wording. Whether the description remains correct for the putative late 23rd century fan designs, or is outdated or was designed to be misleading from the get-go, we can speculate on whilst accepting every other aspect of the fan concept.

That's pretty much how SotSF treated it. As mentioned, I agree that it's more of a specific role but I don't see the need for it to be a separate designation. YMMV of course.
 
I don’t know how much the DS9 writers were thinking about Trek lit/gaming when they threw in the line about destroyer units. They maybe were being more militaristic, going full WWII with the war arc. Their destroyers may be ships very different from Diane Duane’s or the Klingons’.

That said, I'd be curious if anyone has a pic of Duane's destroyer from the Rihannsu series and The Wounded Sky. I'm increasingly fascinated by the concept of ships with multiple saucers. The Enterprise-B basically has a second saucer growing out of its stardrive section.
 
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Duane's destroyer had four engines twice as big as Kirk's, a single saucer three times as big, and a secondary hull 1/4 mile across. A ship like that, with a giant secondary hull, would look weird no matter whether the "thrice as big" saucer had thrice the volume (that is, thrice the surface area) or thrice the diameter - unless we assume Kirk's ship already was thrice as big as we have become used to thinking, so 1/4 mi wouldn't be that big a deal yet...

Duane's battleships from The Wounded Sky shared a name with his destroyers, so may have been the same. Those were the ones called multi-hulled.

Here's my old take: additional "tertiary" hulls hanging from the secondary one, and some stretching of the secondary hull with another "tertiary" superhangar to approximate the insane 1/4 mi, while the staggered engines are twice as long and the saucer is thrice as voluminous.

l1n6bWn.png

l1n6bWn

Timo Saloniemi
 
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