Unseen TOS....

[publiusr]

Captain Daily of the Astral Queen also mentioned that he owed Kirk about a dozen favors - presumably the Enterprise (or whatever ship he previously commanded) coming to save them from attack or for repairs.

I like Blssdwlf’s Class J for that...maybe as pods/excursion craft on a warp-equipped spine...Starlost style

Or cut big staterooms in the side of the Antares, with the dish in the lower section...so’s it looks like those cut-outs to either side of Voyager.

This Antares I see as the Federation’s most numerous ship!

 

[Scott Kellogg]

Hello folks,

Just an observation, but I always thought that the tradition was "(Area Name) Queen" was the name of a liner or passenger ship, just as "Star of (Town name)" was the name of a freighter.
Star of Borneo, Star of Bengal etc, rather like the "(Town Name)-Maru" for Japanese freighters.

The "Queen" title gives the connotation of royal treatment one would expect on a quality liner, like "Pacific Princess" on the old "Love Boat." Essentually, it's a sales gimic to entice paying passengers. A lot of old Mississippi steamboats had -Queen names.

You get a lot of "Martian Queen" and "Interstellar Queen" and "Galaxy Queen" names in older space operas.

The African Queen can be taken as a 3rd world parody of a luxury "Queen" liner.

 

[Warped9]

Kirk refers to the Astral Queen as “a good ship.” That isn’t something you would usually think someone would say of a tramp steamer unless they knew something not common knowledge. In counterpoint it’s easy to think of a liner as “a good ship” based on its reputation.

In Star Wars the Millenium Falcon was “a good ship” despite it often being dissed as a beat up transport that looked like it was barely holding itself together.

I have the impression the Karidian troupe was touring frontier worlds beyond well established space lanes. If so that doesn’t strike me as the most likely place to find a liner, but it would be more appropriate for a tramp steamer.

So what I nebulously have in mind is something between the Class J transport and the Antares design in terms of size.

 

[Scott Kellogg]

I had been kind of thinking of the Astral Queen as something like the "Subsidized Liner" from the old Traveller RPG.
YMMV

 

[BK613]

FWIW, this is the description that the transcript provides. As I said earlier, I get more of a USO Show providing a service for the frontier than some credit-making operation making its own way.

KIRK: Stop. Information on Anton Karidian.
COMPUTER: Director and star of traveling company of actors sponsored by galactic cultural exchange project, touring official installations last nine years. Has daughter, Lenore, nineteen years old,​

 

[Scott Kellogg]

Just thinking out loud again:
The Astral Queen is now more and more reminding me of a Mississippi Steamboat.
A great deal of the planets mentioned in Season 1, and "Conscience of the King" were agricultural ones.
Tarsus IV, the one Kirk met his friend on, the one in "This side of Paradise." After all, the first thing you're going to have to do is establish a food source. (Also, this was made before TV execs purged any rural shows like "Bevely Hillbillies" "Green Acres" "Petticoat Junction" and "Hee Haw".)

And, my understanding of the old Steamboats was that the main deck was a cargo deck, while the upper deck had the "State" rooms. The "Texas" room, the "Louisiana" room, the "Missouri" room etc.
And like the old 1950s musical, "Show Boat" was a steamer carrying actors (as well as cargo)

Seems to me that if the old Astral Queen had to load up more cargo than usual, (Say from a bumper crop.) They'd have to bump passengers as needed.

Note the ramps and cranes on the front of the ship for loading cargo and the broad deck for carrying it.



Oh, I forgot to mention:
Edit:
The Mississippi steamboats mostly moved agricultural products as cargo.

 

[Warped9]

I was thinking the Astral Queen was mostly a thought exercise, but then it might have been possible to slip in a quick view of the ship in orbit. Showing multiple ships in orbit was not a thing with TOS due to time and budget onstraints, BUT it could be done. A barely discernible glimpse of the Astral Queen could have been seen orbiting the planet in the same frame as the Enterprise in orbit.

 

[Warped9]

A crude concept idea for the Astral Queen. If I go with the idea I had for Mudd's stolen ship, of a quickly built and rather simple design glimpsed only briefly onscreen, than this could work. Essentially I thought of taking a piece of wood, cutting out the shape then angling and softening the edges, then finally adding a few extra pieces. I'm even considering something of a quad arrangement for the nacelles with each being somewhat smaller than if the ship had only two nacelles. The general idea isn't particularly elegant, but than neither is a tramp steamer.

 

[Warped9]

Trying it out in 3D. It sure ain't elegant.

 

[BK613]

Your old Swiftsure might work...

 

[Warped9]

Your old Swiftsure might work...

Hmm…

 

[Warped9]

Trying it out in 3D. It sure ain't elegant.

The more I look at this the more I don’t care for it. Whenever I work something out there is a “Ah, ha!” moment where I feel I’m on the right track, and I’m not feeling it with this.

 

[Scott Kellogg]

Your images are blocked when I'm at work, but I did see your sketches of the ship which I like.

Just thinking out loud but, visually, 4 nacelles says "Hey, Look out! This ship's FAST!"
I'd be tempted to go more with just the standard 2, or, if you want a distinctive look, go for a single.

Something that says more "DC-3" than "747"

But, you're doing just fine without my advice.

 

[Kahloke]

The more I look at this the more I don’t care for it. Whenever I work something out there is a “Ah, ha!” moment where I feel I’m on the right track, and I’m not feeling it with this.

Nacelle pairs having to be in line of sight with each other was, if I’m not mistaken, a Roddenberry-ism that came about much later. This brings to mind two thoughts.
1. Mounting the nacelles amidships.
2. Not having nacelles at all. The ship’s propulsion could be a ‘simple impulse’ drive. Still FTL, of course, but not that newfangled ‘warp drive’. Slower-than-lightspeed impulse power being a clarification that only came along in later seasons/series, IIRC.

 

[Warped9]

My four nacelle arrangement says “less advanced” to me. But the overall blockiness of the design just looks off.

I can say that some ideas I had when working out the Antares and Class J struck me as too similar (the main hull section) to Wah Chang’s Romulan Warbird even though that design hadn’t appeared yet in the season. The two aforementioned ships were exercises in simplistic manufacture—something credible for the purpose that could be put together with relative ease within a short period of time. The Valiant was a full blown and more thoroughly reasoned out design that only needed to be drawn rather than actually built.

The Astral Queen falls in the simple build camp.

I have another idea percolating in my head.

 

[Scott Kellogg]

Off the wall idea:
Remember the Dual engine pods of jets like the B-47 & B-52? Turbojets had limited thrust, so they just packed more onto the pods.

Perhaps an "Less Advanced" ship would have small nacelles strapped into dual pods?

 

[Henoch]

Small and hard to see from TAS The Time Trap:

Not quite two nacelles on each pylon, but overall concept could work for a transport ship with planet landing capability...

 

[Warped9]

One thing I want to avoid, for the most part, is the kit-bash look. Fans went nuts with that approach inspired by Franz Joseph blatantly just rearranging Enterprise design components. While I was initially wowed by FJ’s Star Fleet Technical Manual it soon became apparent those designs were not really fleshed out. It wouldn’t be until TWOK when we finally got a credible and fleshed out Kit-bash starship design with the Reliant.

In our reality there is a relative sameness to aircraft design or boat design. There will be variations given varying requirements, but there remains an overall shared sense of design necessity. To that end, and reinforced by the appearance of the Reliant, we can expect that Starfleet vessels, at least the major ones, will have a familiarity to them from one class to another. Thus the Enterprise, being the only major design we’ve seen, can be a springboard to envisioning other Starfleet ships beyond simply rearranging parts. They have to have their own logic just as the Enterprise has its own design logic.

When we get to Federation civilian ship designs there can be some similarities with Starfleet ships, such as nacelles and some form of nav deflector system, but from there there should be more divergence for the sake of creativity and to avoid monotony in the eyes of the audience. This exercise is based on the thinking of designing things to look interesting on television as opposed to being rigidly more realistic.

Does anyone know if there are any sketches of MJ’s as he worked toward the design of the Botany Bay?

 

[Henoch]

Only these well known Jefferies' sketches. Note that he originally called it an antique or obsolete "tramp freighter".

 

[Warped9]

^^ That looks like he seemed to have his concept pretty well thought out from the beginning.