USS Altair-Prototype?

[Silversmok3]

In the Ships of the Line book,there's a full page spread of a flying wing starship that's captioned as being the USS Altair.

As the Enterprise D is in the background I assume its involved with TNG somehow.

What kind of info exists on this type,and what if anything became of it?

I think its a cool design being a Trek ship that isn't the classic saucer shape.

 

[Clawhammer]

I have to guess here, but the ship was designed and modeled by Doug Drexler, it's probably based on a concept he made for Voyager.

I think this ship was also claimed to be part of the Enterprise J, sort of separated without the saucer. (I'm pretty certain it is not.)

 

[Silversmok3]

I have to guess here, but the ship was designed and modeled by Doug Drexler, it's probably based on a concept he made for Voyager.

I think this ship was also claimed to be part of the Enterprise J, sort of separated without the saucer. (I'm pretty certain it is not.)

As I understand the whole Enterprise J was a mixup with the Altair proto,so its NOT the same ship.

Heck it'd be nice to see a Starfleet ship with some different design than another re-arranged saucer.

 

[Dukhat]

I have to guess here, but the ship was designed and modeled by Doug Drexler, it's probably based on a concept he made for Voyager.

I think this ship was also claimed to be part of the Enterprise J, sort of separated without the saucer. (I'm pretty certain it is not.)

I'm afraid it is.

There were two versions made of the Enterprise-J. The first version was what we saw in "Azati Prime" and in the regular SOTL calendar, created by Doug Drexler. IMO, this is actually one of my favorite Starfleet vessels. It just screams "futuristic" to me The only drawback to this painting was that the underside of the ship was not shown.

The second version was made for the cover of the SOTL calendar art book. Unfortunately, this design wasn't as nice, as it basically took the original J's saucer (minus the front deflector that made the original design so unique) and stuck it to the top of the Altair.

As for the Altair being a "24th century prototype" as stated in the caption to the painting, that's just pure crap that somebody pulled out of their ass. The design is obviously meant to represent a ship that is contemporary to the 26th century Enterprise-J. Why the Enterprise-D is in that picture, I have no idea. And why somebody stuck it to the underside of the already-tampered-with E-J's saucer, I have no idea either. As far as I'm concerned, the original J is the canon ship, and it's underside is still unknown. I'd love for Doug Drexler to make a true render of this beautiful ship.

 

[Clawhammer]

The Enterprise J as seen in ENT, seems alright. It's does make sense: an increase of living space because the technological level is advanced enough to downsize bulky equipment.

I think that at the time of production people like Doug dit not have a lot of time to create a ship, perhaps only a couple of weeks, so the result is pretty good for such a time period.

Btw: With a little fantasy, this would make a great asymmetrical alien design perhaps from a slug species?

 

[Unicron]

Clawhammer, you had an error in your original link. I've gone through and fixed it in all the associated posts, so it should work fine now.

 

[Timo]

Umm, it's accusing us of hotlinking to Bernd Schneider's Ex Astris Scientia now...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Clawhammer]

Sorry for all the trouble, hotlinking was not my idea either... so I changed the original link to the story/website. Strange web!

 

[Unicron]

Well, it shouldn't be doing that. I might have to go through and look at the links again. I got it to work fine the other night, since the original URLs were not located at EAS. And I'm not sure why a normal link to one of his images wouldn't work, because that's not the same as hotlinking. Hotlinking is if you tried to post the image directly from his site, and you'd get his error message.

Edit: Okay, fixed the quoted links again. They should now all link to the Voyager page.

 

[Clawhammer]

Unicron, you are really a busy bee! TY!


To get back on topic:

I think the classic saucer configuration can be executed in a lot of variants without getting "dull", but it's also good to see a different kind of configuration every now and then, just to get some diversity. My next project would probably have a more traditional layout, because my last 2 ships where different.

 

[Unicron]

No problem. That's what I'm here for.

 

[hellsgate]

Please show an image of the Altair "prototype".

 

[Herbert1]

I would agree that the U.S.S. Altair does not appear to be a 24th century starship. It seems like the writers of the Star Trek book series are taking scenes rendered from the Ships of the Line book and calendars and placing them in their books. I wonder if it is only a matter of time before we see the Altair in the book series?

I found the following image on the Internet of the Altair:
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/3069/altairgo0.jpg

Like Dukhat, I have issues with some of the descriptive text in the book. For example, the U.S.S. Bonchune NCC-70915 has become the Nebula-class U.S.S. Ranger. If you are going to rename the ship, make sure that it matches the name on the model.

 

[hellsgate]

*LOL* Oh gawd, not THAT fanboy monstrosity from the (Wells-Class) "Relativity" era.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

I like it on an aesthetic level besides the weirdness of the attachment between the warp nacelles and the hull (and the hull texture).
Looks like a sexy stingray.

*LOL* Oh gawd, not THAT fanboy monstrosity from the (Wells-Class) "Relativity" era.

Pot and kettle my friend.

Pot and kettle.

 

[Wingsley]

It looks almost Romulan, in a Bird-of-Preyish kinda way.

Maybe the Feds and the Roms buried the hatchet in the 26th century, and this was a joint project between them.

 

[Dukhat]

*LOL* Oh gawd, not THAT fanboy monstrosity from the (Wells-Class) "Relativity" era.

Actually, the Relativity came from the 29th century, while the Enterprise-J (and presumably the Altair), came from the 26th century.