The Much-Maligned TAS Bonaventure

[Cary L. Brown]

I ran across yet another thread where the TAS Bonaventure design was getting trashed, and it started me thinking... hmmm.. is there a way to do a reasonably faithful version of that ship and have it look "right?"

Now, there have been a number of "total revisitations" to the Bonaventure design, including this one from the TNG Encyclopedia:

... and this one from the "Ships of the Line" series:



But the ORIGINAL shot of the ship looked like this:

Some enterprising fans put together the following "cleaned up" views, basically being faithful to the original presentation:

Also, some of you may have noticed that some of Aridas' recent work uses the general nacelle configuration on this ship, which also got me to thinking about this.

Now, in the TAS episode in question, the crew of the Enterprise finds this ship, lost in the "Delta Triangle." It's commented that this was the "first ship with Warp Drive."

This goes along with my personal supposition that Warp Drive is just an outgrowth of the prior FTL propulsion system which used a static subspace bubble and, inside of that bubble, conventional impulse drive, to allow a ship to reach speeds equivalent to WF4.2 (TOS scale). At some point, one of these ships ended up "rippling" it's subspace bubble, and discovered (probably quite by accident) the basis of "warp drive" as it's known in TOS times... or as Jose Tyler tells us, after the "time barrier" has been broken.

So, the Bonaventure is (in this interpretation) a much closer ship to the TOS era than we might expect, basically predating "The Cage" by only a few decades. She's a much smaller ship, however, just as described in the image above.

I've basically been trying to figure out how to put a functional spacecraft into the general configuration seen in the TAS episode, but I'm allowing myself to take some liberties along the way. The images below will show my progress so far.

(Note that I've only created a primary hull so far, and even that is not entirely complete yet.)

First, here are some basic orthographic images of the p-hull:

The boxes on the topside will be reflected on the bottom as well, and are external equipment boxes holding sensor equipment. The domes, top and bottom, hold rotating sensor hardware as well.

There are two big white circles on the front of the animate ship shot... I decided that those are forward scanners (much like the three on the leading edge of the TOS Enterprise), but they're cruder and bulkier. I MIGHT decide to "shave down" the sockets... but I sort of like it how it is for now (your thoughts are solicited! )

The impulse deck is intended to resemble a blend between the TOS design and... yes... the ENT design. I actually sort of like how this turned out, too.

I'm debating weapons systems... and leaning towards a "behind the hatches" concept much like the NX-01 used, but a bit larger in relation to the ship when deployed.

To give you a sense of scale, and general layout, here's a section view of the primary hull:

And to wrap it up for tonight, here are a couple of perspective views. Considering that I've been reasonably faithful to the general layout from TAS, I'm pleasantly surprised how nice these views look to me so far. Then again, I'm close to the topic, so (as with everything) I'm anxious to hear what you guys think.

I'd love to hear what you guys think of my approach!

 

[Gouf]

I've always loved the TAS version. I think what you have done so far really looks in the TAS styling and period. I think you need more of a 50degree slant on the large area on the top and bottom of the saucer. Note in the animated screen cap the gradual slope of decks 2 and 3 on the top of the saucer. The same angle, not curved slope, on the decks on the bottom of saucer.

I can't wait to see more. I would love to see this kitted.

JMHO, the ships of the line version is a well done piece of art representing a really nasty looking bad configuration.

 

[Captain X]

What function do the big headlight looking things have?

 

[Gouf]

What function do the big headlight looking things have?

I don't think they should be curved in like head lights. I think they are the forward lateral sensors. The same ones we see as 3 large white circles on the front ridge of the Constitution Class saucer. The scale would be correct with the b&w line art drawing he provided.

 

[Captain X]

Oh yeah, that makes sense.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

A very interesting take on the development of Warp Drive. But if you're taking Tyler's comment about breaking the "time barrier" to be the development of true warp drive then it must have been developed in the 18 years between the SS Columbia disappearing and the events of The Cage. How then does Zephram Cochrane figure into this as the inventor of Warp Drive, since he disappeared long before that?

Also, how are you going to explain the odd hull registry for the Bonaventure, which seems way too high for a pre-TOS ship?

The rendering of the ship itself looks good so far & I look forward to seeing how you develop it.

I've seen many theories that try to work the Bonaventure into Trek history and explain the apparent contradictions is presents & strongly prefer ones that don't dismiss the design seen on-screen. I think my favorite this far is the one presented in the Federation Space Flight Chronology, which posits that the original Bonaventure was the one presented in the old Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology and that it was "rebuilt" into the configuration seen in TAS as part of a plublicity stunt on the part of the Federation and Star Fleet. Not perfect, but it makes as much sense as anything.

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Very nice 3d work there Cary looking forward to seeing what else you come up with

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I've always loved the TAS version. I think what you have done so far really looks in the TAS styling and period. I think you need more of a 50degree slant on the large area on the top and bottom of the saucer. Note in the animated screen cap the gradual slope of decks 2 and 3 on the top of the saucer. The same angle, not curved slope, on the decks on the bottom of saucer.

I understand what you're saying. This is one of those areas where I "took liberties," honestly.

For the topside (decks A & B) superstructure, I just wanted to maximize interior "liveable" space, and the slant used in the TAS variation made that sort of difficult.

On the underside region, I've assume that the bottom-most deck is really mainly tankage for potable water and possibly compressed gases, and a mechanical service area for the lower sensor dome... but not really intended as habitable space. My first swag had this with a flat-sided region for deck D (slanted as shown) and the "dome-like" region only on deck E, but I alterered that because I just thought it fit better as a "transitional" step between the spherical hull concept and the saucer hull concept (something that others have explored as well, previously).

I can't wait to see more. I would love to see this kitted.

Maybe someday... I've got several other "works in progress" that I've been playing with as well... and if I ever start making kits, the Vega is the first one on the list (that's my avatar, btw), with the upgraded Sawyer-class scout and the Declaration-class ("ringship") also in that queue.

JMHO, the ships of the line version is a well done piece of art representing a really nasty looking bad configuration.

Personally, I really like the "Ships of the Line" version... again, as a ship just barely predating the Constitution-class, not as the "first ship with FTL propulsion." But as I said, I don't consider "warp drive" to be the first FTL propulsion system, just a breakthrough.

I really like that ship, but it's not the "Bonaventure" in my book.

What function do the big headlight looking things have?

I thought I mentioned that before, but to clarify... those are forward scanners.

I differentiate between "sensors" and "scanners" because the two terms really do mean two different things in REALITY (albeit sometimes being used interchangeably in Trek).

A sensor is a passive device. Think of a radio telescope, for instance... it receives information that comes from outside, but puts no energy out. Heck, technically, your eyes, ears, and nose are all examples of sensors.

A SCANNER is something different. It puts out energy in some form, the energy interacts with something remote, and the effect of the interaction is measured, which gives you information. (The measurement of the effect may be done by a passive sensor element, by the way, or may be tied to the scanner itself in some fashion.) Think of a radar system as a scanner. Or... think of your ARMS. You find out how heavy something is, not by looking at it, but by (for example) pushing it, or picking it up... exerting a force against it and finding out how much effect you can have.

That's the nature of the "sensor/deflector" dish on the TOS Enterprise, as far as I'm concerned. It puts out a heavy duty beam of energy, which has the ability to literally PUSH objects, as well as to put out energy which may be reflected or refracted in unique ways by different materials... and the ship then measures the effects of bathing remote objects with these various energies. A very INTRUSIVE (and very VISIBLE) technique, whereas nobody knows if you're just using sensors.

SO... I've always assumed that the "ring of lights" around the bridge of the TMP E were scanners, and that the "four beams" on the underside P-hull of the TMP were scanners... and that the main deflector could serve as a scanner as well (in combination with the cluster of three sensors around it), while the upper and lower domes were passive sensors. And on the TOS E, the domes were passive sensors, and the three "leading edge circles" on the primary hull were the forward scanners (as well as the dish, obviously, in combination with the three enclosed sensors surrounding it).

In this case, this ship has two scanners which are, in effect, the same devices as seen on the centerline of the TOS 1701 design, but a bit larger and bulkier, particularly in relation to the entire ship.

A very interesting take on the development of Warp Drive. But if you're taking Tyler's comment about breaking the "time barrier" to be the development of true warp drive then it must have been developed in the 18 years between the SS Columbia disappearing and the events of The Cage. How then does Zephram Cochrane figure into this as the inventor of Warp Drive, since he disappeared long before that?

Well, I'm treating the term "Warp Drive" as a bit of a slang term...

I'm postulating that Cochrane discovered the techniques necessary to generate a subspace bubble and proposed how to use this to permit easy FTL travel by using a very small amount of actual THRUST inside of that bubble to quickly accelerate to some pretty dramatic FTL speeds. But that his work was the first step, not the final step.

What he discovered wasn't "warp drive" in other words, but is the FOUNDATION of all known FTL travel techniques, including "warp drive."

It's kind of like mentioning that Newton was the "father of modern physics" even though he never envisioned anything remotely Einstein's work, and of mentioning Einstein as the father of relativistic physics, though other people's work has far surpassed his original work.

Also, how are you going to explain the odd hull registry for the Bonaventure, which seems way too high for a pre-TOS ship?

Well, that's an area I've already figured out...

Note that the markings on the side of the nacelles read as follows:

102 81 NCC... not "NCC-10281"

I treat the term "NCC" as "Navigational Contact Code." Basically, this is the IFF transponder code broadcast by the ship for recognition purposes, not the "Naval Construction Contract" or the "type designation." However (and Aridas knows a lot more about the logic behind this than I do), I've also adopted the USNavy-style nomenclature mentioned, among other places, in the "Ships of the Starfleet" books.

In that approach, the Enterprise in TOS was actually CH1701 ("Cruiser, Heavy, ID Code 1701"). It's Navigational Contact Code is NCC-1701. And it's construction contract might be something far more complicated (for instance, perhaps UFPSF-SFNY-2242-CH17-01, for "United Federation of Planets Starfleet, Constructed at San Francisco Naval Yards, contract year 2242, Heavy Cruiser Hull Design #17, Construction sequence #1).

So... in the cases of my "Bonaventure," I'm going to treat this as the 81st experimental hull design launched by the Federation, with a Navigational Contact Code of 102.

Or, at least... that's the plan for now. I'm open to suggestions.

I've seen many theories that try to work the Bonaventure into Trek history and explain the apparent contradictions is presents & strongly prefer ones that don't dismiss the design seen on-screen. I think my favorite this far is the one presented in the Federation Space Flight Chronology, which posits that the original Bonaventure was the one presented in the old Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology and that it was "rebuilt" into the configuration seen in TAS as part of a plublicity stunt on the part of the Federation and Star Fleet. Not perfect, but it makes as much sense as anything.

I'd never heard that suggestion... I sort of skimmed the TNG-era official books but they tended to get over-technical without really giving a lot of the more INTERESTING points (IMHO). I mean, I don't really need to know at how many picoseconds into the transporter process the lateral scanning beam activates... that's "too much information" and not particularly interesting to me.

So, I obviously missed where that was tossed out... or else we're not talking about the same ("official") book.

 

[aridas sofia]

I'm postulating that Cochrane discovered the techniques necessary to generate a subspace bubble and proposed how to use this to permit easy FTL travel by using a very small amount of actual THRUST inside of that bubble to quickly accelerate to some pretty dramatic FTL speeds. But that his work was the first step, not the final step.

If you applied thrust inside the warp bubble, it would be like... Well, there's nothing I can imagine that would be quite like it.

It would be very, very bad.

The warp bubble is the extent of your self-made universe, or more accurately your self-made universe-with-a-little-opening-at-each-end. So, if you apply thrust inside a universe that just barely exceeds the size of your vessel, you're going to run into trouble. Huge spacetime distortions and gravity shifts.

I'd suggest that the difference between the drive that came before Bonaventure and what came after have to do with dilithium, and that it took as long for dilithium to go from first experimental use to production as it took for the jet engine -- about thirty years. (Coanda's piston jet of 1910 to the Heinkel He 178 of 1939)

You can imagine what it'd be like of you found this aircraft somewhere in the Bermuda triangle. You'd be pretty impressed, particularly if you were a propulsion engineer.

IIRC, that was the intention in the FRS and SotSF -- that the first production use of dilithium came with the PB-30 in 2230.

Further, knowing that this was an experimental design, it might well have been named for an earlier Bonaventure that itself was a groundbreaker. I see no problem with a very different Bonaventure being one of the earliest warp (read "superimpellor") driven spacecraft, and being the namesake for the one we saw in TAS that was from, oh, let's say 2202.

In that approach, the Enterprise in TOS was actually CH1701 ("Cruiser, Heavy, ID Code 1701"). It's Navigational Contact Code is NCC-1701. And it's construction contract might be something far more complicated (for instance, perhaps UFPSF-SFNY-2242-CH17-01, for "United Federation of Planets Starfleet, Constructed at San Francisco Naval Yards, contract year 2242, Heavy Cruiser Hull Design #17, Construction sequence #1).

So... in the cases of my "Bonaventure," I'm going to treat this as the 81st experimental hull design launched by the Federation, with a Navigational Contact Code of 102.

I love this approach. It is very much in the spirit of what I was trying to say back then -- that the eventual contact code for the vessel might share the last digits with its construction number, but that what precedes it might be very different. And that what we see on the hull is a truncated contact code -- the hull number with a standard UFP/SF-designator.

A slightly different read of "10281" might be 1=San Francisco, 02=2202, 81=81st research prototype. "NCC" then is left blank to indicate it is a UFP/SF vessel, but that a hull number hasn't been assigned, and the ship is uncommissioned (this would also be why it carries the "S.S."). If this were to remain a research prototype, it might never get another number.

"NX," OTOH, could mean a ship in the process of her trials -- uncommissioned, but intended to be commissioned at some point, and carrying a hull number that will be the same once preceded by "NCC".

So, Bonaventure, a research prototype, might have been followed by a similar vessel that was built with modifications to address what was believed to have caused Bonaventure's disappearance. That vessel might have been another research prototype, or one intended for eventual commissioning. If the latter, it would have begun life with the "NX" designator.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I'm postulating that Cochrane discovered the techniques necessary to generate a subspace bubble and proposed how to use this to permit easy FTL travel by using a very small amount of actual THRUST inside of that bubble to quickly accelerate to some pretty dramatic FTL speeds. But that his work was the first step, not the final step.

If you applied thrust inside the warp bubble, it would be like... Well, there's nothing I can imagine that would be quite like it.

It would be very, very bad.

The warp bubble is the extent of your self-made universe, or more accurately your self-made universe-with-a-little-opening-at-each-end. So, if you apply thrust inside a universe that just barely exceeds the size of your vessel, you're going to run into trouble. Huge spacetime distortions and gravity shifts.

Nah.... I disagree entirely.

It's well-established, on-screen, that a static subspace bubble does EXACTLY what I've discussed. They did it more than once in TNG, and in the pilot to DS9. By projecting a subspace field (or "bubble" as I describe it) you do two things... you DRAMATICALLY decrease the mass of the object (to virtually nothing, relative to the "real universe" you're still, really, within), and you dramatically increase the local speed of light (again, relative to the "real universe" you're suspended within.

SO... in "real space" you accelerate according to F=ma. Well, if you're in a subspace bubble, you accelerate according to F=(m-prime)a... where m-prime is the "shadow mass" you project into real-space when in your little subspace bubble.

Suppose that your "shadow mass" is 1/10,000 of your REAL mass. That means that, given a specific force, you'd accelerate 10,000 times faster for the same thrust... but you'd experience (in your own local "subspace domain") the inertial effects only of what that "real" acceleration would be if operating in real-space with that same amount of thrust.

Similarly, since your "bubble" isn't quite in dimensional synch with the "real" universe you're suspended in, the apparent "speed of light" inside the bubble, as viewed by some other object inside the bubble, is still just C. But the speed of light of objects within that bubble, as viewed from "real space," is much higher. (Since I treat 75C as "the time barrier," and since it's widely accepted that 1/4C is where time dilation effects start to become a concern in real space, I assume that 75C is the subspacial equivalent of 1/4C... or that the speed of light, within subspace, as viewed from outside of subspace would be about 300x that in real space.)

All of this is make-believe... so my argument is every bit as valid as yours is - and has the added benefit of fitting in with several aired Trek episodes.

In that approach, the Enterprise in TOS was actually CH1701 ("Cruiser, Heavy, ID Code 1701"). It's Navigational Contact Code is NCC-1701. And it's construction contract might be something far more complicated (for instance, perhaps UFPSF-SFNY-2242-CH17-01, for "United Federation of Planets Starfleet, Constructed at San Francisco Naval Yards, contract year 2242, Heavy Cruiser Hull Design #17, Construction sequence #1).

So... in the cases of my "Bonaventure," I'm going to treat this as the 81st experimental hull design launched by the Federation, with a Navigational Contact Code of 102.

I love this approach. It is very much in the spirit of what I was trying to say back then -- that the eventual contact code for the vessel might share the last digits with its construction number, but that what precedes it might be very different. And that what we see on the hull is a truncated contact code -- the hull number with a standard UFP/SF-designator.

A slightly different read of "10281" might be 1=San Francisco, 02=2202, 81=81st research prototype. "NCC" then is left blank to indicate it is a UFP/SF vessel, but that a hull number hasn't been assigned, and the ship is uncommissioned (this would also be why it carries the "S.S."). If this were to remain a research prototype, it might never get another number.

"NX," OTOH, could mean a ship in the process of her trials -- uncommissioned, but intended to be commissioned at some point, and carrying a hull number that will be the same once preceded by "NCC".

So, Bonaventure, a research prototype, might have been followed by a similar vessel that was built with modifications to address what was believed to have caused Bonaventure's disappearance. That vessel might have been another research prototype, or one intended for eventual commissioning. If the latter, it would have begun life with the "NX" designator.

I like your idea that the ship hadn't been assigned a permanent registration number, but if it was FLYING, I'd think it would have needed an IFF (aka NCC) code.

I believe that when they gave the Excelsior the NX-2000 designation, the X was intended to represent "experimental" (and why it became NCC-2000 when it was put into active service).

An alternative look would be that the "NX" is present because "NCC" is only one of a number of prefix codes used (this isn't my preferred approach but it's a somewhat logical one as well). IE, NCC might represent a type of ship (say, class-1 ships of the line) while NSV might be used for, say, survey vessels. And before they know what to call it... it's just an NX. I still prefer NX to be "experimental" though. But that would mean that the "contact code" for the Excelsior was always NCC-2000, and the hull marking was purely administrative in nature.

 

[aridas sofia]

The description of warp drive you give is based on the Sternbach/Okuda description in the TNG Tech manual, isn't it?

I have always taken that as being a very different kind of warp drive reflective of the 24th century, and having little to do with the more Alcubierre-esque notions in my head.

Sorry for the confusion. Carry on.

 

[ancient]

*waives broken beer bottle menacingly* And I say that Warp drive is too technical! So settle this out back, consarn it!

Personally I like Farnsworth's explanation:
"Nothing's impossible! Not if you can imagine it!"
"Then explain it."
"Now that's impossible!"

Anyway, regarding the registry; I tend to ignore nonsensical background details, rather than trying to do too much mental gymnastics to justify such a random-number-generator registry as "10281NCC"

The original ship design itself I find uninspired. Really, it's just a Constitution ship scaled down and made somewhat more lumpy.

Cary, with a ship this small, I think your form-follows-function approach might land you with a very clunky ship.

 

[aridas sofia]

^ I like the Sternbach/Okuda description. For the 24th century. IIRC it is a classic scifi hyperdrive, with the spaceship traveling in a pocket universe within "another space" -- in this case subspace -- where it can go at effectively FTL speeds. Given that even in Kirk's time communication can be conveyed through subspace, and that there was talk of a "transwarp" drive twenty years later, it makes sense to me that a way to travel through this medium might be found within the following century.

My conception of warp drive is informed by the description given by Jesco von Puttkamer, that bears striking resemblance to that conceived by Alcubierre and others. The language I use to describe the technology is informed by Franz Joseph's work, which -- with some pushing and pulling -- fits very well. Finally, this whole notion of warp drive -- of pulling the fabric of our universe before you -- reminds me of the nautical definition for warping a ship (attaching a line to a fixed point and pulling the vessel to that point). It's another stretch, but Bell's Theorem and Mach's principle and the concepts of entanglement and connectedness make me feel comfortable enough to add my own little "attachment" idea to the Alcubierre description (to come up with something that has evolved over time, and for Cochrane to develop). In other words, what makes warp drive possible is the ability to fix on a spot via subspace (the otherspace through which everything is connected) and use that connection to form an anchor for your artificial wormhole/warp bubble (which itself is a deforming of real space).

In my mind, what the TNG Tech Manual describes is a very nice evolution of that kind of drive.

 

[TIN_MAN]

It was ST:FC that basically re-wrote TOS: Metamorphosis by portraying Cochrane as the the inventer of warp drive as apposed to "the discoverer of the space warp" as the original episode had it. This is a crucial distiction, one which TNG itself upheld at one point, (apparently to help resolve, ironically, this very contridictuon under discussion) but then the writer/producers of ST:FC had to go and complicate things.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

The original ship design itself I find uninspired. Really, it's just a Constitution ship scaled down and made somewhat more lumpy.

Very true, which is why I'm allowing myself to take a few liberties. The fun here, for me at least, is to see if I can make a plausible ship from what is almost universally hated.

Cary, with a ship this small, I think your form-follows-function approach might land you with a very clunky ship.

Well, since I see the 1701 as being the pinnacle of the synthesis of art and science, and since this is an earlier ship... and since the on-screen presentation was pretty "clunky" to begin with... I'm not uncomfortable with a bit o' clunking here. I still think it'll look reasonably good when I'm done, but we'll see...

FYI, I suspect when I get to the secondary hull, I'm going to incorporate more "Baton Rouge" style detailing... sort of a synthesis of the TOS secondary hull and the Baton Rouge's faceted secondary hull... with the intent to look pretty much as seen on-screen from that angle. But the secondary hull will NOT be generally cylindrical... much broader and flatter.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

So, I obviously missed where that was tossed out... or else we're not talking about the same ("official") book.

I don't think we are. I was referring to the very un-official multi-volume Federation Spaceflight Chronology by Richard E. Mandel. So far as I know its only available in PDF format. It is probably available elsewhere, but off the top of my head I know you can download it here.

 

[Santaman]

Nice work.

The primary hull on its own looks a little like the Arilou flying saucer from Star Control with those headlights. love them.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

It was ST:FC that basically re-wrote TOS: Metamorphosis by portraying Cochrane as the the inventer of warp drive as apposed to "the discoverer of the space warp" as the original episode had it.

Interesting. I'll have to rewatch Metamorphasis now, which isn't a bad thing

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Just a couple of quick updates.. more internal stuff, mainly (laying out windows and setting up the sensor dome internal space), plus some appearance issues. I did go ahead and shave off the "eyebrows" over the forward scanners, and put parabolic scanner beam projectors (NOT DEFLECTORS!) inside of the sockets, too.







Time to start looking at the secondary hull now, I think...

 

[Maurice]

One what are you basing the giganto impulse deck?