Unseen TOS....

[Warped9]

Warped9, I may have had conversations with you about Vulcan spacecrafts and how I was so disappointed of design craft presented in ST: First Contact. To me it never felt Vulcan to me; for some reason I suspected a Vulcan spacecraft would have the DNA of a Romulan ship. What were your thoughts on the First Contact ship, and have you had any ideas what a Vulcan spacecraft would appear like in Star Trek in the 60's?

Candidly I never really gave it much thought. Thats on top of which I never really cared for the Vulcan ships of the TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT production era. Ringships I equate with emerging FTL technology rather than advanced FTL technology.

The Vulcan warp shuttlecraft of TMP was cool, but was it really Vulcan given the TMP refit had the same shuttlecraft design?

There is an idea that the Romulan BoP is essentially a Romulan interpretation of an old Earth design. Does that make it any less genuinely Romulan?

There really aren’t any clues (that I recall) in TOS to suggest what Vulcan ships of that era could look like.

 

[aridas sofia]

Not in TOS, but in TAS there was this Vulcan ship shown in the Guardian of Forever in “Yesteryear”.

https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/tas-vulcan-ship-yesteryear.jpg

Following on the (I think perhaps misguided) idea that Vulcan ships should harken back to the Romulan BoP, there is this concept Doug Drexler worked up for ENT. It would
have been a very old design from our 1950s - a century before the movie First Contact. An interesting design, but again I think the wrong direction in several ways.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0-ELQauFd...Creek+Doug+Drexler+Vulcan+scout+concept+3.jpg

 

[STEPhon IT]

No. I don't like that design from Doug Drexler because it still feels like a relative to their Vulcan design. If it these ships were in the 1950's than embrace those UFO ships from that era and do something with it.

As for the interpretation of BOP was an old Earth ship, I don't recall that ever being referenced in "Balance of Terror", but I think there should be some relation to Vulcans and Romulans whether make up esthetics to ship designs.

 

[Warped9]

The idea of the Romulan BoP being an interpretation of an old Earth ship was referenced in James Blish’s adaptation of the episode, and he was working from an earlier script draft. The only remnant of the idea in the actual episode is Stiles speculating (loudly) that there could be Romulan spies aboard the Enterprise, and in extent the Federation and Starfleet.

But as is in the aired episode Stiles merely comes across as rather paranoid.

 

[137th Gebirg]

It’s funny how that came about, as when I was a kid and got the AMT kit of the BOP before I actually saw it in action on TOS, I thought it was another Starfleet ship.

 

[publiusr]

The three-footer even has a slight Rom-BoP "fin" on the impulse spine. The shadow cast by it made me think it was a dowel rod.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The idea of the Romulan BoP being an interpretation of an old Earth ship was referenced in James Blish’s adaptation of the episode, and he was working from an earlier script draft. The only remnant of the idea in the actual episode is Stiles speculating (loudly) that there could be Romulan spies aboard the Enterprise, and in extent the Federation and Starfleet.

But as is in the aired episode Stiles merely comes across as rather paranoid.

I think the nacelles themselves on the BoP suggest the possibility that Romulan spies had stolen Federation designs, and the BoP nacelles are certainly visible in the final episode.

Wasn't the BoP model conceived and designed with this idea in mind, in the first place?

It’s funny how that came about, as when I was a kid and got the AMT kit of the BOP before I actually saw it in action on TOS, I thought it was another Starfleet ship.

Yeah, the similarity of the nacelles is obvious.

 

[publiusr]

With Romulans passing for Vulcans, it wouldn't be too difficult

 

[Warped9]

I think the nacelles themselves on the BoP suggest the possibility that Romulan spies had stolen Federation designs, and the BoP nacelles are certainly visible in the final episode.

Wasn't the BoP model conceived and designed with this idea in mind, in the first place?


Yeah, the similarity of the nacelles is obvious.

Except it’s never commented on in the aired episode. And a cylinder is a pretty common shape such that any two disparate groups could come up with a similar idea independent of each other.

 

[Michael]

“A cylinder”. That’s the only thing these have in common?

 

[Warped9]

Yes, they’re similar, not identical. It happens enough in the real world that disparate people come up with the same or very similar idea. And then one trues to sue the other for stealing their idea while struggling to actually prove that happened.

So maybe the Federation could defeat or at least hinder the Romulans by taking them to court?

 

[Michael]

Yes, they’re similar, not identical. It happens enough in the real world that disparate people come up with the same or very similar idea. And then one trues to sue the other for stealing their idea while struggling to actually prove that happened.

Totally agree with all of that. In universe the similarities could absolutely be chalked up to the fact that both technologies are almost identical and necessitate that particular layout and configuration. I don't think you'd need to have Romulan spies to make sense of this.

Was just surprised by your remark that they a both cylinders, as if that was all they had in common.

 

[137th Gebirg]

“A cylinder”. That’s the only thing these have in common?

in fairness, it's more than just a simple cylinder. The Romulan nacelle (let's set aside Scotty's odd "simple impulse" comment here) is tapered from front to back, just like the TOS Starfleet one, just more pronounced. There is a red Bussard collector on the front of both (although I think I've seen versions that were glowing blue-green). Then you have the slanted aft nacelle cowl, which actually looks more like the Discovery and SNW E-nill nacelle cowl than the TOS version. I mean, aside from the bird wing decal on the bottom, they really are damn-near identical. Plus, the main BOP hull follows a similar saucer configuration to nearly all SF ships of the era, even with the slanted edge, that didn't change direction until the Excelsior came around. The BOP could easily fit into Starfleet's stable of ships, using a TOS Miranda-style hull, with nothing more than a simple change of livery.

Even our own John Payne (@Forbin) did a "refit" flavor of one, the Peregrine class frigate and it really looks like it belongs there:

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Except it’s never commented on in the aired episode. And a cylinder is a pretty common shape such that any two disparate groups could come up with a similar idea independent of each other.

The question was whether Stiles's comment was "the only remnant of the idea." The shape would appear to be another remnant of it.

 

[aridas sofia]

I did a version of what this stolen design would have looked like in my 50th anniversary coverage of this episode. It very much harked back to my TOS “Surya” configuration of a pre-Reliant, laid out like the BoP, which it turns out, (sort of) follows one of Jefferies own sketches of alternate Starfleet designs.

https://forgottentrek.com/the-origi...terprise/images/Enterprise-concept-art-17.jpg

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was Jefferies’ attempt to come up with a Starfleet-inspired “bird of prey”.

As for this ship being impulse-powered, as I have said for years upon years, it is limited to impulse WHILE CLOAKED. That’s the only way Enterprise has encountered her, except for the few moments she revealed herself when firing. That very fact- that she has to lose the cloak when firing that weapon - shows us this ship is a one-trick (at a time) pony who can’t walk and chew simultaneously. She can cloak but then not have enough power for warp. She can shoot the weapon but then not have enough power for the cloak. SSS+W: shields, speed, stealth, plus weapons. Enterprise can juggle, which gives her tactical versatility. Not so with the BoP.

 

[blssdwlf]

“A cylinder”. That’s the only thing these have in common?

Actually, the Romulan BOP's nacelle had clear or bluish bussard/nose cap and the end cap is a big opening versus the Enterprise's red-orange bussard/nose cap and sphere/grilled end cap.. So -2 areas that appear to be in common but are not. SNW leaned into the nacelles being a part of the impulse system so it wouldn't be too far a leap to think that the Romulans fighting Earth ships would've adapted some of the salvaged tech to their ships.

Could the Romulan BOP be confused for a Federation ship? Yeah. Thank goodness for the giant bird painted on the ship

 

[137th Gebirg]

Heh... It looks clear in that last photo - I guess the blue internal lighting was too close to the blue screen and wound up getting left out during the compositing process!

 

[Warped9]

Not a model design update (still working out ideas), but something I thought I'd share connected to my design and model work.

I currently use a 2011 21.5 iMac for my work. It has a 500GB SSD, Intel i7 2600S and 32 GB RAM. This computer runs better than new and in twelve years I've never had an issue even as I upgraded the hardware over the years.

But it's time for a change. I can no longer update the OS and I'm presently stuck at High Sierra. This hasn't created any issues for me except my current version of Safari is starting to be incompatible with some websites. That isn't major because if I really want to go to those websites I can easily use my iPad Air 5 I picked up a year ago. Also I refuse to add Google Chrome to my Mac as a browser.

So in the near future I will be ordering a new M3 iMac with 1TB SSD and 24GB RAM (I think I'll get the blue one). This should be a serious upgrade from my present setup and with good fortune should last me another ten years. It's a small annoyance I will have to purchase and install a fresh version of Microsoft Office Home & Student (no Office 365 as I hate subscriptions for something I use periodically). I will also have to purchase a version of SketchUp Pro optimized for Apple Silicon as my current old version of SketchUp will not transfer. I will also have to add a new version of Maxwell Render or perhaps something else.

One last annoyance is that I currently use Adobe Creative Suite 4 with Photoshop and Illustrator. Sadly I'm pretty sure I can't transfer that over and it won't run on my new computer. For years now you can no longer buy Photoshop and such, but are forced into a subscription, something I refuse to do. So I will have to find a viable alternative I can actually buy.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I still use the old Adobe Creative Suite 3 that I was fortunate to obtain when they opened up the license for free use (yes, it happened, however briefly). I think it’s gone now, but it still works relatively well.

I’m the same way. If I buy something I want to own it, unrestricted. No damn subscriptions. EVER. Adobe really is way too full of itself and I will not support their business model.

That said, I think there’s this thing called Gimp that I’ve heard works reasonably well as an open-source Photoshop. I tried it once, about 15 years ago and, while it was quite feature rich, the hot keys were all different and my brain had been too long-programmed for the Adobe hot keys to make the jump. But, IIRC, its reputation as an Adobe clone was not far off the mark.

 

[StarCruiser]

Just gonna leave this here:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/mac/

There is a version of Firefox for Mac...