Of course, the production folks couldn't really build an accurate and plausible 1:1 section of the standard battlebug for "The Ship", and we only got what was supposed to be a partial bow underbelly - so supposedly the ship crashed tail first into that gravelly slope. (It's just too bad that Sisko later wants the
aft gun to be brought back on line!)
The prop doesn't really match the detailing of the bugship scale model lower bow any better than the lower stern, and the fact that a nacelle tip is also jutting from the slope would suggest that this nacelle was severed from its mountings in the crash. It just shouldn't protrude that far either from forward or aft.
It's not
that difficult to pretend that the differences aren't there, though, especially as at the end of the episode we actually see the entire ship under tow, and it is the standard bugship. But the wrongly positioned nacelle tip does raise some questions. (In theory, our heroes might have welded the pylon back together when we weren't looking...)
As for the dialogue, Dax claims the ship is intact. When O'Brien confesses he can't even determine what sort of a warp drive the ship has, Dax wonders if all the Jemmie ships are like this. So we're led to believe that O'Brien couldn't really tell if this one was different somehow. Enter the plot point where our heroes remain unsure as to why the Dominion wants this specific ship back so badly...
Then Worf and Dax study the ship more and come to this conclusion:
Dax:"Structurally, a lot about this ship's design matches the other Jem'Hadar warships we've seen."
Worf: "But there are some significant differences. There are many systems we are completely unfamiliar with."
So we're left to conclude that there are internal differences, and differences in systems, even though the exterior tells us nothing. How Dax and Worf jumped to these conclusions despite only having seen other such ships from the outside is unknown. Probably they just guessed, on basis of energy signatures and the like. And probably this ship is merely a VIP transport model, not all that different from the regular warship save for the special divine accommodations. And just possibly a special divine entrance at the lower stern, the different shape of which isn't immediately apparent from the model shots. (And possibly Starfleet would later remove the divine entrance and replace it with a standard model, for use of the vessel in covert operations.)
Timo Saloniemi
