TOS' U.S.S. Valiant and Farragut....
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
This is strictly 2D although I tried for a 3D look. Basically this was very much a cut-and paste work broadly speaking. I cut peices or swatches off other images (mostly modern aircraft) and then distorted their shapes to get what I wanted. Each swatch was a new layer to be merged into other layers. I tried to take lighting and shadow into account so that it all fit together. Sometimes I had to add my own highlights or shadows. The existing variations of colour, tones and distorted reflections on the surfaces from with I took my swatches served to give the ship's hull added visual texture and precluded too much uniformity. I also had to desaturate swatches and match all the peices to have varying tones of the same overall colour for the hull.
It took me the framework of a day to do this one image. Mind you some of that time was taken up searching for the right swatches and pausing to consider how next to proceed.
I like to think of this as artwork, but with a computer rather than pencil and/or paintbrush. Even though it's 2D you still have to be able to think in 3D.
If I have a major criticism of this image it's in regard to the lower saucer dome. It's meant to be white or very light grey in contrast with the silvery grey of the rest of the hull, but it's still too bright for what I wanted and it even seems to look a bit transluscent which isn't what I initially intended.
I did add similar touches as the Pike era Enterprise to establish a visual connection: similar detailing on the upper saucer dome, the spiked nacelle domes, the large reddish deflector dish and the blue tinged dorsal.
3D modeling is beyond me at present with its steep learning curve. So this approach and my 2D schematic drawings (rendered in Illustrator) are the next best thing for me. They're the end result of what starts out as freehand sketching of ideas on scores of scrap paper and even restaurant napkins.
There's something else. This image doesn't look the way I see it on my eMac. I have the brightness turned down a bit on my display which makes it easier on the eyes. As I result I get what I see as a slightly darker and more natural looking lighting effect (considering the subject matter). On many other displays the brightness often appears to be set higher and so the image looks brighter and not as well shadowed. If I try to compensate for that so that it will look better on other displays then the image looks too dark on my computer.
Nothing's perfect and you can't please everyone.
On the plus side it doesn't much look like CGI or 3D computer modeling. Perhaps partly because I'm using photographs for my source material of swatches I end up with something that has a photographic quality to it as if you're seeing a physical object (such as a model kit) or perhaps even a filming miniature.
In regards to lineage and continuity.
My thinking is basically this: the Valiant was an older design assimilated into the Star Fleet service when it was established in the 2200s and much less advanced than the newer ships launched in the 2220s. Or the Valiant could have been one of the newer ships that was just fantastically unlucky when it got to Eminiar 7 (in that case then my design is wrong and I'd have to render another image. Hmm).
Somehow I don't see the Valiant's Captain bringing his crew down to Eminiar 7 to just complacently stroll into desintegration booths anymore than Kirk doing it. I think it more likely the Eminians and/or Vendikans got lucky and were able to blow the ship out of orbit like they were unable to do with the Enterprise fifty years later.
On further consideration I think I got the registry wrong. I'm thinking of this as a sistership of the Republic 1371. In that case the registry should be in the 1300 or 1400 range and not 1500.
Other ships I like to try:
- the Valiant referenced in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Others have tried (like aridas) and so I'd like a crack at it. The small image shown in the Pocket Books' chronology and encyclopedia is interesting but I'm not completely sold on it.
- the "real" Bonaventure rather than the one shown in TAS' "Time Trap" episode.
- the ringship Enterprise only glimpsed on the display wall of TMP.
- the Independence-class as opposed to the Deadalus-class seen in DS9 on Sisko's desk and in the Pocket Books' publications. Essentially something between my ideas for the first Valiant, the Bonaventure and the ringship E and the Valiant I've depicted above.
-a destroyer equivalent class ship that was supposedly Kirk's first command before the TOS E. The FJ destroyer design might serve only as a conceptual springboard for what I'm thing of.
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Great work. 
Your designs have always had originality to them. These are great ships.
I had come up with my own design of the SS Valiant from Where No Man Has Gone Before. My design was based on the Valiant that Okuda designed as well as the SS Conestoga from Enterprise. One of these days I will have to post the design. It is quite unique and one of a kind.
Keep up the great work and keep on trekkin.
Your designs have always had originality to them. These are great ships. I had come up with my own design of the SS Valiant from Where No Man Has Gone Before. My design was based on the Valiant that Okuda designed as well as the SS Conestoga from Enterprise. One of these days I will have to post the design. It is quite unique and one of a kind.
Keep up the great work and keep on trekkin.
Yeah, it's like that dumbass habit of Starfleet naming expensive starships Enterprise. How many o' them suckers has met with a tragic demise?!
Only one: the 1701-D. That is the only Enterprise to end unfortunately - rather lame act of sabotage by Lursa and B'Etor.
The only other Enterprises where we even KNOW how they were destroyed is the 1701 (clearly honorable act by Kirk to prevent the ship's capture by Klingons) and the 1701-C (destroyed in open combat with Romulans).
Those latter two were clearly not the unfortunate, clusterfuck endings that the various Valiants have been subjected to.
Try these.
Early concept for the Bonaventure:
And Valiant mentioned in WNMHGB:
I'm not that crazy about my Bonaventure idea, but I rather like the Valiant.
My thinking behind the Valiant. It could have initially been built as a fast relativistic starship capable of reaching 90-95% of light (for the crew to benefit from the relativistic time dilation) and was on its maiden voyage when Cochrane introduced his FTL space warp technology. On its return the Valiant found itself obsolete almost overnight. A collaboration was reached wherein the Valiant was retrofit with a space warp drive. It was the best of both worlds at the time for if the new stardrive went down inflight then the ship could resort to its already existent stardrive to get home. It would take years, but for the crew they could still benefit from the relativistic effect. Not long after, of course, perhaps after a voyage or two the ship disappears and its recorder marker is found nearly two centuries later by the U.S.S. Enterprise.
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Those are fantastic!
I think the Bonaventure is an awesome start... has a nice DY-100 pedigree, but has an engineering hull and an aesthetic that feels closer to the utility deco of the good ol' 1701. It's very cool, but at the same time, yeah something does seem off about it.
The Valiant is pure win. I'd love to take her for a spin round' the ol' galaxy.
The Valiant is pure win. I'd love to take her for a spin round' the ol' galaxy.
Re: this version of the Bonnie...
There are two "big bugaboos" I see there.
First, the underslung secondary hull could be a bit shorter, overall... start at the same place in front but not extending quite as far aft.
Second, the warp drive nacelles don't have "75% or better line-of-sight" between them. They need that, as far as I'm concerned. Tilting them upwards, just enough to clear the primary hull (which is what I'm calling the entire top section) would fix that, and would also help "balance out" the design (compensating for the underslung secondary hull).
Those are my initial thoughts.
Of course, I still like my version of the Bonnie better...
Here is the thing: the ships shouldn't look too close to the TOS era because we're talking about a 150-200 year difference in approach to space warp dynamics (my bit of tech doubletalk). My thinking is that in the early decades of space warp science and tech there could likely have been a lot of experimentation going on to figure out what worked best. And of course by the 23rd century we still see different configurations likely coming out of different solutions by different approaches and stressing different goals, perhaps like stability of space warp fields over speed.
The Bonaventure as seen in TAS makes no sense because it's just so obviously a play on the familiar E design. But in designing a live-action version I still wanted to try evoking elements of the TAS ship. But maybe it's best just to start with a clean sheet.
The Valiant design was easier because I had a sort of focus to it. I figured the ship was not a warp capabale ship before and so how should it look like as a fast relativistic ship. Then I retrofitted it with immense space warp coils like the ringship E, figuring this was one of the approaches of early warp design. I tried it with nacelles and thought it looked silly. The whole ship might be about the size of the TOS E's saucer hull or about 400-500 feet in length. The Valiant's design is actually a play on the V2 like rocketships of the '40s and '50s sci-fi, much like the ships in Destination: Moon and When Worlds Collide. But that general projectile type shape makes sense as a relativistic ship because you need something like that to pierce the stuff in the interstellar medium at 90% of light even with some sort of navigational deflection system.
In fact I like the Valiant enough that I'm thinking of making more images for it from different angles. Of course there's the depiction of the ship encountering the energy barrier. I've also got an image in my head of a miles long exhaust trail as the ship engages its sublight drive (its own space warp engines burnt out) to put distance between the ship and the energy barrier.
Scotty's reference that the Bonaventure was the first ship with warp drive has to be interpreted. When Cochrane introduces his space warp tech it could be that folks were strapping it onto all sorts of things in a hurry to get going. Maybe what Scotty really meant was that other than Cochrane's prototype the Bonaventure was the first ship to have been designed from conception with warp drive. In that way it makes even less sense that the ship would look like what we saw in TAS. Then again I look at TAS as something of an animated storyboard of live-action events from the TOS universe. (-: The more I think about it I feel that I'm not really that far off in my general idea for the Bonaventure, but that it shouldn't be much bigger than the Valiant either.
The Bonaventure as seen in TAS makes no sense because it's just so obviously a play on the familiar E design. But in designing a live-action version I still wanted to try evoking elements of the TAS ship. But maybe it's best just to start with a clean sheet.
The Valiant design was easier because I had a sort of focus to it. I figured the ship was not a warp capabale ship before and so how should it look like as a fast relativistic ship. Then I retrofitted it with immense space warp coils like the ringship E, figuring this was one of the approaches of early warp design. I tried it with nacelles and thought it looked silly. The whole ship might be about the size of the TOS E's saucer hull or about 400-500 feet in length. The Valiant's design is actually a play on the V2 like rocketships of the '40s and '50s sci-fi, much like the ships in Destination: Moon and When Worlds Collide. But that general projectile type shape makes sense as a relativistic ship because you need something like that to pierce the stuff in the interstellar medium at 90% of light even with some sort of navigational deflection system.
In fact I like the Valiant enough that I'm thinking of making more images for it from different angles. Of course there's the depiction of the ship encountering the energy barrier. I've also got an image in my head of a miles long exhaust trail as the ship engages its sublight drive (its own space warp engines burnt out) to put distance between the ship and the energy barrier.
Scotty's reference that the Bonaventure was the first ship with warp drive has to be interpreted. When Cochrane introduces his space warp tech it could be that folks were strapping it onto all sorts of things in a hurry to get going. Maybe what Scotty really meant was that other than Cochrane's prototype the Bonaventure was the first ship to have been designed from conception with warp drive. In that way it makes even less sense that the ship would look like what we saw in TAS. Then again I look at TAS as something of an animated storyboard of live-action events from the TOS universe. (-: The more I think about it I feel that I'm not really that far off in my general idea for the Bonaventure, but that it shouldn't be much bigger than the Valiant either.
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Well, we only see the Bonaventure from one angle in TAS. My own approach to this was to try to match up the TAS "view" with something that's still quite a bit different from the TOS Enterprise, and clearly a lot more crude (someplace where ENTERPRISE failed, I think... they tried to make an "older ship" that was simulataneously "more advanced" than the TOS ship.)
Well, this is, to me, yet another bit of corroborating evidence that "warp drive" and "faster-than-light-propulsion" aren't synonymous... that "warp drive" is just one possible FTL propulsion system, and is fairly recently developed (in TOS terms).
This goes along with the "more technical" description of warp drive used under Pike's command, and with Jose Tyler's comment about there having been a propulsion-system breakthrough, and with the concept that the Romulan war was fought with ships using "simple impulse," and on and on.
It's really pretty clear to me that "warp drive" was developed a few decades prior to the Enterprise (under Pike) arriving at Talos.
If that's the case, it makes a lot more sense for the Bonaventure to have been the first ship with that particular form of FTL propulsion. Doesn't mean it's the first FTL ship.
Either way, though, we have to "retcon" "ENTERPRISE" a little bit. In my case, I can watch it just fine, and simply refer to what they call "warp drive" as "FTL drive." In your case.... I'm not sure.
That depends...
The Bonaventure shouldn't have had a big crew, but should have had some self-sufficiency that other ships (perhaps like the Valiant) wouldn't have had.
Remember, the ships in the "Delta Triangle" had been stranded there for decades, yet they weren't all starving to death (yet). Obviously, they'd have had to convert some portions of their ships to hydroponics and so forth... but for a ship like Bonaventure to have been a practical "long-term habitat" you'd have to accept that she had to have a lot of space for that sort of thing.
Of course, the Bonaventure ought to be smaller than the 1701, I think.
Not wanting to "hijack" the thread, but here's are a couple of images:
First, the Bonaventure as seen on-screen in TAS:
And my version of the Bonaventure, from effectively the same angle:
But it's not the same as the Enterprise, and is quite a bit more "crude"...
There have been plenty of other "takes" on the Bonaventure, some trying very hard to replicate the ship as seen on-screen (which really doesn't work very well, I think we'd all have to agree), and others trying a pure "clean-sheet" approach.
The Sternbach/Okuda take:
The "Ships of the Line Calendar" take:
I think that the trick is to try to capture the general appearance seen on-screen while still doing what you're trying to do (that is, making it distinct and less-advanced).
I like your concepts, Warped. Thanks for bringing them to my attention. They remind me a little of my own Bonaventure design, similarly based on a presumed evolution of the DY architecture combined with Jefferies' XCV-330 ringship idea:
In my mind (and I believe in Jefferies' mind as well), the secondary hull is a kind of "extended mission pod". I think putting something based on the secondary hull on such an early ship is maybe misapplying that idea, but maybe not. Maybe the slow Bonaventure would take years to get where it was going and would need tons of supplies. But if that is the case, might it be better to try to create something that looks like a midpoint in the evolution from DY-100 containers to NCC-1701 secondary hull? Maybe pie wedges that fit together to form cylindrical drums that line up below like you have it, on an underslung "spine"?
In my mind (and I believe in Jefferies' mind as well), the secondary hull is a kind of "extended mission pod". I think putting something based on the secondary hull on such an early ship is maybe misapplying that idea, but maybe not. Maybe the slow Bonaventure would take years to get where it was going and would need tons of supplies. But if that is the case, might it be better to try to create something that looks like a midpoint in the evolution from DY-100 containers to NCC-1701 secondary hull? Maybe pie wedges that fit together to form cylindrical drums that line up below like you have it, on an underslung "spine"?
^^ Now that Bonaventure I like! I don't recall seeing that before. Very Cool. That looks like something I should work up an image for.
I'd like to know about the thinking and tech behind that design. Just looking at it makes me think that nacelles may be more a 22nd century development and that the ring concept was more common early on, perhaps peaking around the time of the XCV-330 ringship E or a little later in the early to mid 22nd century.
I'd like to know about the thinking and tech behind that design. Just looking at it makes me think that nacelles may be more a 22nd century development and that the ring concept was more common early on, perhaps peaking around the time of the XCV-330 ringship E or a little later in the early to mid 22nd century.
