U.S.S. Curry - WTF?
- Thread starter Arpy
- Start date
Lots of the Dominion War ships were rush-jobs in-universe (if that’s how we want to explain away some of the worst out-of-universe model designs in Trek history), but it doesn’t explain what their purposes were.
The Curry may be a carrier, a troopship, part of a larger ship, or just another standard cruiser experimenting with “warp field dynamics.”
The Curry may be a carrier, a troopship, part of a larger ship, or just another standard cruiser experimenting with “warp field dynamics.”
When we see this ship on screen, there are no legible windows anywhere. Unless there's a shot I'm misremembering. Please cite something if I've overlooked it. Making serious claims based on the hurriedly kitbashed models is a weak position as those were not meant to stand up to scrutiny and we're free to refine the details as much as we need to to make the design make sense, so small details on the kits which are not really visible on screen need not be adhered to; for instance the kit's molded windows.
So with no deck windows to nail down a size, we need to find other scale features. We have a nondescript saucer which happens to resemble the Excelsior-class (though it could as easily pass for a modernized NX-01--I'm not claiming that's what it is, just saying that there are other hulls that also bear resemblance to the Excelsior) and a forward tub-looking section which bears a resemblance to the forward end of the Excelsior, but, it is just a tub, so that wouldn't be too difficult to rescale. On the other hand, the ship is fitted with refit-style warp engines, which we've never seen super-duper sized versions of. Not saying they would be impossible to build, but we've never seen any hints that they were. In fact, I think all the canon ships with these engines feature engines of the same proximate size: Constitution-refit, Miranda, Constellation, Soyuz, Sydney... I think those are all of them off the top of my head, that aren't themselves Frankenfleet ships. They all use engines of the same size. So, for my money, the only thing on the Curry which has an "it should be this big" part are those engines. So I weight my opinion of the overall size there.
And regarding the backstage idea that the "Frankenfleet" was slapped together out of mismatched parts to bulk out the warfleet always struck me as stupid. If that were the case, then we'd expect the Curry to be a regular Excelsior but with the refit engines. Because what possible reason would there be to place the hull in such a novel configuration? Wouldn't that be so much MORE work to change all the structural elements, the power utilities, the turbolift connections and Jeffereies tubes, and all the insanity of rerouting the PTCs from a warpcore in the Excelsior engineering hull, through the saucer and down to engines--that are for some reason scaled up substantially for no reason? No, it makes so much more sense for this ship's interior configuration to have nothing whatever to do with how an Excelsior is laid out. I see this as a smaller military transport whose forward section (the Excelsior's tub) is a cargo hold with a deflector dish at the front end, loading doors on top, and the rear section designed to mate onto cargo pods, possibly even able to draw a train of pods. That makes all the sense in the world and, in that context, the ship is actually a pretty cool design.
YMMV, as always.
--Alex
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Okay, I had a look at the mag and it just says it was made quickly from existing parts to boost fleet numbers during the war. It has no real purpose besides that and it’s classed as a medium cruiser.
It mentions that these ships were launched as soon as their defensive and combat systems were ready. Most launched with no holodecks and science labs, meaning that a majority of the internal layout was left empty.
It mentions that these ships were launched as soon as their defensive and combat systems were ready. Most launched with no holodecks and science labs, meaning that a majority of the internal layout was left empty.
Might well work for the newer designs. These ones with recognizably older parts happen to have "older" registries as well, though; surely "newer" ones would have been chosen when creating all-new ships out of leftover bits? (Or a mixture of numbers seen on individual ships if they really were put together from surviving bits of previously lost ships or something.) Not that we would ever have seen anything up close, of course.
I would hate to think Starfleet only ever built one size of Excelsior style saucer. Those are eminently scaleable things, and the Centaur for one had all-new portholes applied where the Excelsior herself had none, at a suggestively different scale (not that we'd have the Excelsior size down pat, either). Scaling of engines might be more complicated. So my personal preference is for just one size of any given engine shape.
Timo Saloniemi
I would hate to think Starfleet only ever built one size of Excelsior style saucer. Those are eminently scaleable things, and the Centaur for one had all-new portholes applied where the Excelsior herself had none, at a suggestively different scale (not that we'd have the Excelsior size down pat, either). Scaling of engines might be more complicated. So my personal preference is for just one size of any given engine shape.
Timo Saloniemi
The weird undercuts might really be there for a reason. In one of 'em computer games, a big shuttlecarrier is supposed to be towed by the E-E in her undercut, even (but this scene is omitted from the actual game, and the carrier has her own warp engines anyway).
We just haven't seen any of the Ptolemy containers onscreen, so we're on thin ice here. Perhaps the undercuts are ideal for housing the real type of container used by Starfleet, unseen but extremely useful in inserting troops or colonists. Or for erecting a "towing bubble" that can accommodate loads of arbitrary shape...
Timo Saloniemi
^ I’m imagining all sorts of different classes of container, in this idea I’m not taking too seriously.
I’m not actually a fan of the Ptolemy itself for a few reasons — 1) dangling dish looks silly to me, and it lacks to robustness of the rest of that whole deflector assembly behind it on TOS-E, 2) there’s no stardrive to power the nacelles/I don’t like the idea of sticking the warp core in a saucer’s mess hall, 3) the line of sight would work better with the pylons turned upward instead of down, 4) the pods look like something in a container ship than a starship, in which case you need a far less sophisticated machine to pull them than a top-of-the-line Constitution saucer, 5) others...
I like it more than some of FJ other designs, but it, like the Curry, needs work.
To your previous point about scaling, scaling engines is much easier than the entirety of the rest of the ship. There are engines the size of entire starships in service whereas we usually only have the identical ship 60% smaller convo with the Klingon bird of prey (and if they ever want to remaster the entire franchise and stick a new K’vort or B’rel everywhere — or multiple different new ships — to fix that, I’m not immediately against).
I’m not actually a fan of the Ptolemy itself for a few reasons — 1) dangling dish looks silly to me, and it lacks to robustness of the rest of that whole deflector assembly behind it on TOS-E, 2) there’s no stardrive to power the nacelles/I don’t like the idea of sticking the warp core in a saucer’s mess hall, 3) the line of sight would work better with the pylons turned upward instead of down, 4) the pods look like something in a container ship than a starship, in which case you need a far less sophisticated machine to pull them than a top-of-the-line Constitution saucer, 5) others...
I like it more than some of FJ other designs, but it, like the Curry, needs work.
To your previous point about scaling, scaling engines is much easier than the entirety of the rest of the ship. There are engines the size of entire starships in service whereas we usually only have the identical ship 60% smaller convo with the Klingon bird of prey (and if they ever want to remaster the entire franchise and stick a new K’vort or B’rel everywhere — or multiple different new ships — to fix that, I’m not immediately against).
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I actually totally agree with you on this point.
The FJ thought process is that the power was generated in the nacelles themselves and there was no warp core. This is consistent across all of his works as well as the behind the scenes materials for the show, and can be considered consistent with the on-screen info in TOS. The idea of a warp core never showed up until TMP in 1979, and the FJ materials predate this.
Line of sight is clearly not a real rule, when applied to canon ship designs.
I agree with you here as well. The idea of a Class-I hull being used for tug duty seems silly. I justify this by saying that the Class-I components are just the spaceframe and the interior is much more devoted to cargo holds that a Heavy Cruiser would be. Alternately, the idea that Ptolemy-esque tugs would exist but with smaller hulls makes sense to me too, such as the one that uses the Oberth hull, and why a ship (like the Curry) could do tug duty with a smaller hull that just happens to have similar lines to the much larger Excelsior.
We can agree to disagree on this point. My point is that the Shelley-class hull only bears a very superficial resemblance to the Excelsior-class. It's not a literally scaled down version of an Excelsior at all.
--Alex
Of course, what we saw of a "warp core" in TMP would nicely fit within the Ptolemy neck if need be.
But a lot of the material would have us believe in an "engineering hull", and a transport ship would probably need this more than a cruiser, especially if there were tender duties to be performed.
Or for scouts or destroyers, for that matter. But it might be that the Ptolemy was intended to be more than just a tug. Freighters in TOS were helpless damsels in distress. A Ptolemy might not be. She was supposed to be a Class One Auxiliary, after all. Either of first class herself, or then good enough for auxiliarizing for the best of the best at the far frontier.
Timo Saloniemi
Miranda, Centaur, Steamrunner, Sabre classes...none had a secondary hull for any purpose, let alone dedicated engineering functions. Then there's the Oberth class. Sure, it had a secondary hull but available schematics have the warp core horizontally positioned in the top section.
I'd actually believe the Oberth is exactly what we think the Curry might be, a warp ship with a detachable lower section that could be left behind for whatever purpose it was configured for.
ETA: This is interesting (jbobroony on deviantART)
I'd actually believe the Oberth is exactly what we think the Curry might be, a warp ship with a detachable lower section that could be left behind for whatever purpose it was configured for.
ETA: This is interesting (jbobroony on deviantART)
The Miranda and Saber do have a secondary hull (the Constellation too) -- they're the extensions on the primary. The Steamrunner (beyond being awful and wrong on multiple levels we can get into, and MIA) could fit a main engineering behind its deflector if need be. The Centaur is part of the Frankenstein fleet and I can't take that Miranda torpedo pod seriously as the connecting point between the saucer and the engines. If it were to ever be featured more centrally in a series, I'd give it a 90% likelihood of a refit/variant.
Other ships have included main engineering in the saucer (the NX comes to mind, as well as a lot of fan designed ships like some of Jackill's and most Saladin-like ships created after TMP), but they're mercifully few and problematic all the same. Like ships without deflector dishes. The reason these get by is that Star Trek is fake.
The Oberth I really like, even though it breaks both the line-of-sight rule and the deflector rule, regardless where they stick one in on the cutaways. There's also the problem with accessing the secondary hull with turbolift or Jeffries Tube or transporter or stargate.
And although I recognize at least a bunch of those designs as [The Man] Jackill's, they don't make sense to me, because I don't like to imagine the Grissom as some general-purpose starship sent on a science mission but a science vessel with a science-minded design that isn't just as good for a tug or torpedo boat. The tug design, though intriguing, is kinda silly as it doesn't take 4 nacelles to haul stuff here and there, and given the size of most tractor beam emitters, that one looks like it was designed to move asteroids instead of starships. I like the artistry and the creativity of the Oberth being a later Ptolemy, but, for me, it robs us of more designs in favor of tired boring kitbashing.
Also, I don't mind the idea of a horizontally set warp core. A more horizontal ship like this Antares Class is fine for me. It's more that I think ships need to separate the dangerous engine from the habitat zone. It helps make sense the design of the Enterprise itself -- dangerous stardrive separable from saucer; even more dangerous nacelles jettison-able from everything.
And that's fine. I appreciate and enjoy that stuff as its own thing, but generally I think of things in a post-TMP context.
I'm aware of the difficulties, but I like it all the same. I think it helps add an air of faux realism to all this silly Treknology.
We're going to have to agree to disagree because I think the Shelley hull bears an identical resemblance to the Excelsior Class. We know where the model parts came from and the ship was clearly visible. We can run with an idea for our own and shared creativity (I'd love to see what someone could do with a similar-but-different hull -- take that kitbash spirits) but I'm going to keep the Shelley/Curry as what it most likely is too, because I like it a lot.
I just watched that bit from "A Time To Stand" and due to screen resolution and battle damage I'd have to agree that there is not enough window/scale detail on the hull to assume it's the same size as an Excelsior. Maybe the size could be narrowed down more with camera matching.
Oh, so it is the USS Tim Curry.
LOS rule agreed but, to be fair, someone did try to rectify this using the existing design - the deflector was there, albeit hidden behind a radome.
I'm sad we don't see more Radome's more often =D
Even semi Transparent / Translucent ones.
Radomes work for RF radiation because, like windows and visual light, different materials are transparent to corresponding EM frequencies.
Radomes get increasingly troublesome as you widen the bandwidth. Few materials are transparent to RF, IR and visual (say nothing of ionizing EM like UV and X-rays) Fewer still are very sturdy. Now throw in the various particles that deflectors are stated to generate. All of them have to pass through the radome without attenuating (being absorbed or reflected back), which will mean having to boost signal and cool the radome. They just don't seem feasible for this application.
However, I'd imagine there's lots of conformal sensor arrays all over the surface of a starship. If a sensor aborbs (or collects) only one type of particle, it's much easier to design a cover for them.
Which might explain why some ships do (and do not) have externally visible deflectors. Perhaps some ships employ less versatile systems using a narrower band of EM or particle emissions. Thus allowing a covered array.
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I don’t know how well the idea of a radome works for me. Not all ships look like they have them that also don’t have a deflector. The material and design of the Oberth doesn’t immediately suggest one. And deflectors, whatever else they can be used for, specifically push matter away from the front of the ship...I’m imagining a rather terrible explosion if you turned one on with a large metal wall in front of it.
Does anyone know who designed the Grissom? I’m kinda curious what their thinking was overall.
Does anyone know who designed the Grissom? I’m kinda curious what their thinking was overall.
ILM and Image-G, along with the Excelsior, Bird of Prey, Merchantman and Spacedock. In-universe? Don't know... I don't think there was a plaque for the Grisson's bridge but probably either Utopia Plenitia or SF Fleetyards. Ex Astris probably has an article about it.
