USS Floaty Parts Concept

[Go-Captain]

I just had a moment of FArt inspiration and had to make this a reality.

I like floaty bits ships quite a lot, but I am unsatisfied with what we have in canon, so I decided to make a quick concept.

Floating parts are mostly a better way to isolate systems from the crew, like pylons, but with extreme flexibility for refits, environments, and disasters. The isolated sections are not meant to have anyone in them except in unusual emergencies or in drydock.

Each section is fully independent, and has a primary role in the configuration. The command section houses personnel, sensors, weapons, and defensive systems, but still has a secondary power sources, engines, and deflectors. The reactor section has the primary power source, fuel, and primary navigational deflector/sensor array as well as its own propulsion. The engine sections house all the primary means of propulsion, and Bussard collectors as well as their own deflectors and sensors. The combination of specialized sections allows the entire ship to be greater than the sum of its parts, while also being flexible and survivable enough that any one section can operate on its own in an emergency capacity.

The sections are connected to each other through multidimensional channels. Power is transferred non-physically through the same channels, and have conventional power beaming backups and tractor beam arrays in case of irresistible multidimensional distortion. Connection through dimensional channels allows power and communication transfer between sections to be maintained over significant distances.

If you want more power you could add a second reactor section, or for more speed just add as many engines as you want. Also, the reactor section could spin on any axis to reorient its deflector to use as a weapon. If things are really desperate, use an engine as a mace.

 

[Atolm]

I can dig it

 

[Professor Moriarty]

I have to admit that the floaty nacelles in Discovery just look… wrong.

But then again, the Discovery has a TARDIS field running inside its hull, so if you can accept that a ship that only looks about 1200 feet long and 300 feet tall on the outside is miles long and tall on the inside, I suppose anything is possible!

(FWIW I’m a fan of DISC and as long as they tell a story that entertains me I’m willing to overlook glaring inconsistencies like this, but I wish that the Enterprise in Strange New Worlds wasn’t similarly TARDISsed. Unfortunately, the “Q&A” Short Trek made it clear that the producers think the Enterprise is approximately the height of the World Trade Center. )

 

[Go-Captain]

(FWIW I’m a fan of DISC and as long as they tell a story that entertains me I’m willing to overlook glaring inconsistencies like this, but I wish that the Enterprise in Strange New Worlds wasn’t similarly TARDISsed. Unfortunately, the “Q&A” Short Trek made it clear that the producers think the Enterprise is approximately the height of the World Trade Center. )

I was going to get into the nitty gritty like the TARDIS interiors, and other things, but decided to stick to just the exterior concept. It's weird how the TARDIS interior doesn't bother me, it's purely ridiculous and I can take it kind of how it was intended, as something just there to excite. Yet the floating parts explanations bitterly disappointed, maybe because it was their time to shine and I feel it falls short of anything we've got in other Treks. Although, it bears noting the floating parts are used to good effect with Book's ship.

There are any number of other advantages and mechanisms they could have mentioned but they went with maneuverability and magnetism. They could have used macro level strong force, warp fields, wishes granted by Q, knitted quantum strings, and so on. I see it like using dilithium and phasers instead of lithium and lasers, we got something normal instead of novel.