I must have missed something - what new canonical information established the TOS Constitution class as 289 meters?
Spoilers The Strange New Worlds Starship Thread™
- Thread starter Tuskin38
- Start date
I must have missed something - what new canonical information established the TOS Constitution class as 289 meters?
What new information are you referencing? Did that recent episode of Picard list any hard on-screen numbers that I missed?
I know some nice folks involved in production have been making a lot of fun posts on twitter that I've enjoyed, but while twitter posts from production crew are interesting to get insight into their thinking and processes, it doesn't necessarily qualify as canon. In reality, the images were put together by talented fans with input from Dave Blass, just something he thought would be fun for other fans, not an official release. And users have already been finding various issues with the scales being presented in those images, both not matching what was depicted on-screen and not in correct proportion with each other. Fun, but not to be taken too seriously.
Oddly enough, the scales of the two Constitutions in the fleet museum don't even appear to be consistent on-screen. At the same distances/mirrored angle, the TOS appears to be closer to classic manual scale and the Refit at almost exactly SNW scale:
I think the moral of the story is not to take the scale of imaginary spaceships too seriously
Scifi spaceships will always be exactly as big as "the shot" needs them to be. This is art, not construction. It's important to keep that in perspective. Star Trek is not a documentary. If someday they decide to make it explicit that the SNW ship gets refit into the TOS one (which I think is already the implication), it will be so, scale be damned!But considering 289 meters never actually made sense in the first place for the number and height of decks, and that 289 was never really made explicit canon outside of reference manuals, and considering that calculating how much space the ship would actually need to contain those decks results in a figure surprisingly close to the SNW scale, plus the fact that SNW has established clearly on-screen that the Sombra class (built from the same frame) is 442m (plus Enterprise's own dedication plaque also explicitly listing 442m but I don't think that's been shown clearly on-screen yet) I'm perfectly content with that being the scale going forward.
It's not a big deal, and could even be viewed positively as resolving the longstanding deck issue.
Last edited:
Yep. Promotional art and in-universe supplemental material are tie-ins, not canon. If the writers of a new episode want to establish, verbally, with dialogue, that the Enterprise in 2267 was 442 meters long, a tweet from Dave Blass (awesome as he is!) is not going to stop them.
Maybe multiple Constitution class variants were constructed at different scales.
I think the moral of the story is not to take the scale of imaginary spaceships too seriously
100%. "This is art, not construction. Star Trek is not a documentary."
Same. As far as I'm concerned, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 was always 442 meters under Robert April, Christopher Pike, James T. Kirk, Willard Decker, and Spock of Vulcan.
Game, set and match.What new information are you referencing? Did that recent episode of Picard list any hard on-screen numbers that I missed?
I know some nice folks involved in production have been making a lot of fun posts on twitter that I've enjoyed, but while twitter posts from production crew are interesting to get insight into their thinking and processes, it doesn't necessarily qualify as canon. In reality, the images were put together by talented fans with input from Dave Blass, just something he thought would be fun for other fans, not an official release. And users have already been finding various issues with the scales being presented in those images, both not matching what was depicted on-screen and not in correct proportion with each other. Fun, but not to be taken too seriously.
Oddly enough, the scales of the two Constitutions in the fleet museum don't even appear to be consistent on-screen. At the same distances/mirrored angle, the TOS appears to be closer to classic manual scale and the Refit at almost exactly SNW scale:
I think the moral of the story is not to take the scale of imaginary spaceships too seriously
But considering 289 meters never actually made sense in the first place for the number and height of decks, and that 289 was never really made explicit canon outside of reference manuals, and considering that calculating how much space the ship would actually need to contain those decks results in a figure surprisingly close to the SNW scale, plus the fact that SNW has established clearly on-screen that the Sombra class (built from the same frame) is 442m (plus Enterprise's own dedication plaque also explicitly listing 442m but I don't think that's been shown clearly on-screen yet) I'm perfectly content with that being the scale going forward.
It's not a big deal, and could even be viewed positively as resolving the longstanding deck issue.
I'm okay with ignoring any measurements or facts in general that aren't on screen, and even the measurements that are on screen if they're blatantly contradicted by the visuals.
This days I'm leaning towards feeling that the official numbers for the Constitution-class and refit are both too low to fit the bridge, those tall corridors and the Motion Picture rec deck, even though they do fit the scene of the crew standing on the hull. I would be okay if the SNW Enterprise was refitted into the TOS Enterprise and the two ships were considered to be basically the same size.
Yes.
On the topic of the New Jersey and how it could relate to the SNW scale debate, nothing solid but interesting to note: The height of the windows appear to be smaller compared to a classic TOS model. Interpret how that affects deck scale however you please
Last edited:
Yup.
It's not like those size post that Blass made were without mistake to begin with. He listed an entirely new size for the Enterprise-A, 300m as opposed to the usually stated 305m. He listed the generally accepted to be wrong scale for the Saber class, and he went with the 511m scale for the Excelsior, which I actually prefer, as opposed to the often stated 467m.
442m for the Constitution just works. It solves all the problems with scale that we've had with the Enterprise for decades. Everything fit and it’s still perfectly in line with size charts that put it bigger then the NX-01 and smaller then an Excelsior.
Last edited:
I am, yes.
That sums it up pretty well. If 289m never really made sense, and if 442m still keeps it larger than the NX-01 but smaller than the Excelsior, and it makes the Enterprise less small compared to the Discovery? Then I say we go with 442m.
Pike's SNW Enterprise got nearly destroyed before he got promoted. Kirk inherited a newly built Connie which looks like the TOS one?
Probably not.
I always found it interesting that people cling to the 289m size when it can only be inferred from a diagram barely glimpsed once in “The Enterprise Incident”, yet discount the size of a shuttlecraft in the hangar deck, which is too large to fit into a 289m ship, even though that is seen in multiple episodes and the only thing in TOS where there is any correlation between internal and external features.
If we accept the size of the Constitution I to 442 meters, then that makes the Refit 466m, the Miranda 425m and the Excelsior 712m. The latter makes a lot of sense too as this explains the small bridge module on the TUC version of the ship and matches some visuals in TNG. The Excelsior would still be a lot smaller than the (now shorter in comparison) Galaxy and Ambassador classes as they are considerably wider. It would have a similar length to the 685m Sovereign class which could therefore have been designed as a direct replacement for the aging Excelsiors with the Excelsior II being a rival design. It would also mean an increase in size of the Constellation class which again matches some of the visuals in TNG but I haven't been able to find accurate measurements for that class, as well as the Oberths which would solve a lot of issues with that design.
Enlarging the TOS and movie era ships also helps make sense of the continuing use of such older ships in the TNG time period, and in my humble opinion, makes them match up better.
Enlarging the TOS and movie era ships also helps make sense of the continuing use of such older ships in the TNG time period, and in my humble opinion, makes them match up better.
Similar threads
