Starfleet then starting teaing part the nearest Y-Wing and Star Destroyer to make it happen!
The AGT Dreadnought Enterprise
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
I like it, probably in a fanboy kind of way. It's certainly not better than the regular D IMO, but I like it and its use in that episode. However... looking at those pictures posted here earlier... It really is pretty terrible. 
The only thing that I don't think looks all that bad is the third nacelle. It's kind of odd, and it looks better without it but it doesn't look as incredibly awkward as the rest of the additions. The way that phaser attaches to the hull makes me think of the Yeager kitbash... which is goddamn ugly.
Now, the REAL way to make a good refit is with the Excelsior/Enterprise-B. The B is my all time favorite canon ship. But that's a topic for another thread.
The only thing that I don't think looks all that bad is the third nacelle. It's kind of odd, and it looks better without it but it doesn't look as incredibly awkward as the rest of the additions. The way that phaser attaches to the hull makes me think of the Yeager kitbash... which is goddamn ugly.Now, the REAL way to make a good refit is with the Excelsior/Enterprise-B. The B is my all time favorite canon ship. But that's a topic for another thread.
It never struck me as a believable upgrade.
Look at the upgrade of the Constitution, the old nacelles were taken off and replaced with newer nacelles, this would presumably allow for faster speeds/efficiency. Adding a 3rd nacelle, which looks just like the existing decades-old nacelles by that time always seemed odd.
The big gun was perfectly plausible, if enemy shield technology had been upgraded to the point that antimatter weapons weren't enough any more, you're either looking at a new type of torpedo (quantum), or something else, to replace photons as the primary heavy weapon.
If you imagine all new Starfleet ships as being built around a similar style cannon, it's not that difficult to imagine them finding a way to add one to a ship like the Galaxy class, that still has a lot of years service left.
Look at the upgrade of the Constitution, the old nacelles were taken off and replaced with newer nacelles, this would presumably allow for faster speeds/efficiency. Adding a 3rd nacelle, which looks just like the existing decades-old nacelles by that time always seemed odd.
The big gun was perfectly plausible, if enemy shield technology had been upgraded to the point that antimatter weapons weren't enough any more, you're either looking at a new type of torpedo (quantum), or something else, to replace photons as the primary heavy weapon.
If you imagine all new Starfleet ships as being built around a similar style cannon, it's not that difficult to imagine them finding a way to add one to a ship like the Galaxy class, that still has a lot of years service left.
Plus, it broke the convention that nacelles always worked in pairs - so you could have 2 (Constitution, Galaxy, most others), 4 (Constellation) and so forth, but never an odd number.
Then again, nobody in the episode claimed it was an upgrade.
From what we heard, the likely explanation is that it's just a pair of crutches and a neck brace to keep the overworked, broken ship in action as per Admiral Riker's whimsical orders.
Naah. We had no real reason to think the four nacelles of the Stargazer worked in pairs, or that the single- or triple-nacelled ships glimpsed on computer screens in the movies would have been only half-built. The future E-D was the third three-naceller seen on screen (not counting the barely glimpsed corner of an image of a Franz Joseph Federation dreadnought in ST3:TSfS, but rather the up-and-center views of a Greg Jein Niagara in two TNG episodes).
Timo Saloniemi
Supposedly that "convention" existed only because Gene Roddenberry wanted to "discredit" Franz Joseph's old 1975 Star Fleet Technical Manual, after FJ was able to licence it (to the makers of the Star Fleet Battles tabletop RPG game) without Roddenberry getting a cut.
The SFTM has continued to be a big influence on Trek - the Enterprise discussed in this thread is likely inspired by his three-nacelled Dreadnought-class ships, the USS Kelvin and Spacedock in the last movie resemble FJ's one-nacelled Destroyer/Scout class (as does the barely-seen Freedom-class from the BoBW graveyard) and Starfleet HQ station designs.
I've gotten the impression that Gene always wanted a "balanced" number of nacelles, and this is the only genuine "Roddenberry Rule." But as mentioned, it's a convention that's been ignored more than once. Roddenberry wasn't an engineer by profession, so he never really developed an adequate plot reason for why odd numbers would be unbalanced in the way a helicopter needs torque and counter-torque to fly straight.
I believe one of his rules was also that the bridge should be on the top op the saucer section
I often wondered why so few enemies targeted the bridge with their weapons. It's a huge vulnerability. I remember the Klingons were going to in Generations, and the NX-01 got its bridge ripped off and everyone died in one "what-if" episode. Take out the bridge, and there's suddenly no chain of command or control.
It's almost as bad as having the shield generators stick out for anyone to shoot on Star Destroyers. There's a reason hearts are inside our chest cavity and not on the outside.
...Which didn't stop the designing of ships without saucer sections altogether. A nice balance of diversity vs. continuity emerged, so that we can still tell at a glance when a ship is from Starfleet even though DS9 and ST:FC steered quite sharply away from the TOS Enterprise shape. It's a combination of shape, components, paint job and pennants, even when no single one of these elements is actually a constant.
Yeah, two nacelles may feature into it. But we had no problem identifying the Kelvin as a hero ship.
Both incidents involved an unshielded ships. Perhaps Starfleet has as much reason to prepare its starships for unshielded combat as the US Air Force has to prepare its fightercraft for battles fought on the taxiways of airfields?
Timo Saloniemi
No. no. no. Thats the Planet of the Titans Enterprise.
It's not the job of the hull to protect the bridge - that's what shields are for. Any attack powerful enough to punch through shields will hit the bridge no matter where it is. So the bridge could literally be anywhere and it wouldn't be any less safe.
Does it make any sense for the bridge to be a distinct module sitting right atop the ship? No, not really.
But, at the same time, were the bridge buried deep within the bowels of the ship, it wouldn't really make much difference. Shields are what keep the whole ship intact. Look at TUC. Once the shields are down, a single photon torpedo is able to rip through the entire saucer section from bottom to top. Wouldn't matter where the bridge is at that point. It would still be just as vulnerable.
Also, tactically speaking, why go after the bridge anyway? Just for the emotional punch of killing the captain? If Picard and the bridge crew get taken out, it's not as if the other 1,000 people on the ship would just surrender. Pretty sure everyone from LaForge in engineering to Ensign Ricky in stellar cartography would continue to fight.
But, at the same time, were the bridge buried deep within the bowels of the ship, it wouldn't really make much difference. Shields are what keep the whole ship intact. Look at TUC. Once the shields are down, a single photon torpedo is able to rip through the entire saucer section from bottom to top. Wouldn't matter where the bridge is at that point. It would still be just as vulnerable.
Also, tactically speaking, why go after the bridge anyway? Just for the emotional punch of killing the captain? If Picard and the bridge crew get taken out, it's not as if the other 1,000 people on the ship would just surrender. Pretty sure everyone from LaForge in engineering to Ensign Ricky in stellar cartography would continue to fight.
Gene's directive of where the bridge is kept, I guess that was a retention from naval vessels. The bridge is generally at the top, looking over the rest of the ship.
It makes sense from a story standpoint because the camera can zoom to the bridge, and then you can fade to the bridge set (as was famously done in the original pilot).
It makes sense if the purpose was to raid the ship. With no captain or chain of command, the rest of the crew would be confused and easily defeated if there was an invasion.
It makes sense from a story standpoint because the camera can zoom to the bridge, and then you can fade to the bridge set (as was famously done in the original pilot).
It makes sense if the purpose was to raid the ship. With no captain or chain of command, the rest of the crew would be confused and easily defeated if there was an invasion.
Taking out the handful of officers on the bridge doesn't mean that there's no chain of command. There's always a chain of command to be followed. Look at "Disaster." Everyone trapped in the different areas of the ship knew the proper protocols to follow and who was in charge of what.
Similar threads
