What TOS "things" would you like to see on this show?
- Thread starter Infern0
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Except it wasn't. They used DS9's CGI model of the TMP K't'inga/Koro instead of Greg Jein's physical D-7 model (which itself was subtly updated relative to TOS) despite Sussman having assumed they would use the latter. And guess what? Even that relatively tiny difference was enough to engender complaints from us overly nitpicky fans!
Original battlecruiser from "Elaan Of Troyius" (TOS):
Remastered version:
"D-7" in "Trials and Tribble-ations" (DS9):
"D-7" (actually K't'inga) in "Prophecy" (VGR):
Likewise with "Unexpected" (ENT) using it in place of the D-4 design that had originally been designed and built especially for the scene, but was scrapped at the last moment. And I'd bet my wee bairns that if they had used the new-old one, the same people would have then complained that the D-5 "doesn't fit" properly into the lineage, being more different to either a D-4 or a D-7 than those were to each other. They'd say the D-5 should be the D-4 and the D-4 should be the D-6, no doubt with a tangent about whether or not TAS and ENT are canon, because Kor said the Klothos was a D-5 in "Once More Unto The Breach" (DS9) but it looked like a D-7 (with some extra bits, because the animators based it on an inaccurate AMT model kit) in "The Time Trap" (TAS). And then we'd spiral off into how the so-called D-4 in Into Darkness was totally wrong and couldn't realistically be the result of a timeline divergence in 2233...and so on.
K't'inga in "Unexpected" (ENT):
Unused "D-4" created for "Unexpected":
"D-4" from Into Darkness:
"D-5" from "The Time Trap" (TAS):
"D-5" from "Judgment" (ENT):
Further, I don't know why I seem to be the only one here that ever brings up where all this "D-whatever" business came from in the first place, or appreciates that it's an in-joke...
I WENT ON THE STAGE ONE DAY, AND THEY WERE ALL READY AND WAITING FOR ME, BECAUSE THEY KNEW I WAS REALLY EXHAUSTED FROM SOME LONG RE-WRITE SESSIONS. AS SOON AS I WALKED UP TO THE SET, BILL AND LEONARD BLEW A SCENE, BUT THEY DID IT ON PURPOSE AND BEGAN ARGUING VERY VIOLENTLY. BILL WAS SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF HIS VOICE, "LEONARD! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SAYING THIS IS A D-7 KLINGON SHIP! IT'S A D-6!" LEONARD SHOUTED BACK, "NO, YOU IDIOT, THE D-6 HAS FOUR DOORS OVER HERE AND THE D-7 ONLY HAS TWO!" BILL IMMEDIATELY SHOUTED BACK, "NO, NO, NO—IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. YOU'VE GOT IT ALL WRONG."
WHILE ALL OF THIS IS GOING ON, I'M STANDING THERE, BEGINNING TO GET FRUSTRATED, WATCHING THE MINUTES TICK BY AND MENTALLY COUNTING THE MONEY WE'RE LOSING IN EXPENSIVE CREW TIME, BECAUSE THE CAMERAS AREN'T ROLLING. AND AS THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED, I'M THINKING TO MYSELF, "WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? THEY'VE GONE TOO FAR!" THEN I BEGAN THINKING THAT I SHOULD REMEMBER WHICH IS THE D-6 OR THE D-7. FINALLY I COULDN'T STAND IT ANY MORE, AND SO I WALKED IN BETWEEN THEM AND SAID, "COME ON, FELLOWS, IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER. LET'S GET ON WITH THE SCENE." THEN THE WHOLE CREW BROKE UP LAUGHING. THIS WAS THEIR WAY OF SAYING TO ME, "HEY, TIME IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. RELAX A LITTLE."
-Gene Roddenberry, The Making of Star Trek (1968)
WHILE ALL OF THIS IS GOING ON, I'M STANDING THERE, BEGINNING TO GET FRUSTRATED, WATCHING THE MINUTES TICK BY AND MENTALLY COUNTING THE MONEY WE'RE LOSING IN EXPENSIVE CREW TIME, BECAUSE THE CAMERAS AREN'T ROLLING. AND AS THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED, I'M THINKING TO MYSELF, "WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? THEY'VE GONE TOO FAR!" THEN I BEGAN THINKING THAT I SHOULD REMEMBER WHICH IS THE D-6 OR THE D-7. FINALLY I COULDN'T STAND IT ANY MORE, AND SO I WALKED IN BETWEEN THEM AND SAID, "COME ON, FELLOWS, IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER. LET'S GET ON WITH THE SCENE." THEN THE WHOLE CREW BROKE UP LAUGHING. THIS WAS THEIR WAY OF SAYING TO ME, "HEY, TIME IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. RELAX A LITTLE."
-Gene Roddenberry, The Making of Star Trek (1968)
Please note that I'm not shouting here. It's in all caps like that in the text.
Other notes: "Koro class" comes from the first-draft "In Thy Image" script penned for the unmade Phase II show, wherein it's specified that this is a new and bigger version of the familiar battlecruiser. "K't'inga" comes from Roddenberry's novelization of the film, and went on to be used by production staff behind the scenes on the later shows. Neither was ever spoken onscreen. One might also note that the official blueprint packet for TMP called it a "Drell 4" model, so it's actually a D-4 too!
Sorry, what were we talking about again?
-MMoM
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The only TOS thing that I'd like to see on STD, is quality storytelling but I know now that's impossible
An interesting anecdote, considering that there had never been any scenes taking place in a Klingon ship when this book was being developed.
Kor
True. The scene they "blew" must have either been thereafter deleted from whatever episode it was, or been wholly ad-libbed for the sake of the prank to begin with. In any case, it seems the designation "D-7" only later became commonly thought of as the "correct" one with reference to the model that would subsequently appear in the third season, and in sly reference to this very anecdote!
As the Okudas noted in the 1999 edition of their Star Trek Encyclopedia, pg. 244, under Klingon battle cruiser:
A hybrid version, a copy of Jefferies's original model, but with the elaborate hull panelwork from the feature-film version, was built by Greg Jein for ''Trials and Tribble-ations" (DS9). The term K't'inga is conjectural. The term D7 was originally a gag devised by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy during the filming of the original Star Trek series, but "Trials and Tribble-ations" made the term "official."
It also appeared on a blink-and-you'll-surely-miss-it display in "Drone" (VGR):
(I'm sure it was probably being used in fandom, and perhaps even in some licensed materials, well before the '90s though. Probably since the '70s, I'd guess. It would be interesting to know if anyone ever instead sided with Kirk over Spock in this "argument"!)
Hey look, it's my uncle Barry!
-MMoM
Charm. Would love to see some charm.
Tilly with her lovely hair in a Rand style beehive.
Yeah, that's close enough for me. K't'inga is basically D7 with more detail, I'm absolutely fine thinking they're one and the same, or at least slight variations withing a single class.
I'm fine with that too.
But I'm also fine with "they called the wrong ship a D-7" being a longstanding tradition in Star Trek.
And I think DSC pranking us like Shatner and Nimoy pranked Roddenberry is hilarious!
"It's not that serious. Relax a little."
-MMoM
(PS...I'm even fine with the "right" "D-7" "actually" being "wrong" too! Or the D-designations having nothing whatsoever to do with any particular hull plan, and rather referring to something else entirely. That might actually fit all the evidence best. But my real point is, no matter how close they came to replicating the original, if it wasn't exactly accurate in every detail, if they'd changed it even the slightest bit, that would have been too much for someone. It wouldn't have averted 99.999% of the never-ending debates over DSC's Primacy, I guarantee you that!)
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I'm supposed to believe that Shatner and Nimoy were arguing over the makeup of Klingon battleships?? 
Pretending to argue about it, as a prank, in order to get a rise out of Roddenberry, rather. They were trolling him!I'm supposed to believe that Shatner and Nimoy were arguing over the makeup of Klingon battleships??
Ahhhhhhhh. Still sounds like one of those things that people "reiminisce" about that just sounds like they're making it all up.
Well, it would be a very odd story to make up, especially in 1968. But whether it's true or not (I wasn't there), that's how we got the term "D-7" originally, from that anecdote published in The Making Of Star Trek! Its use onscreen has always been an in-joke in reference back to that. Just remember that next time the complaint comes up!
Carry on...
-MMoM
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I think all these ships could super easily be the same ship or upgrades and refits of it.
Like the real-life Soyuz spacecraft, which is officially the same spacecraft since the sixties, but obviously they have changed all parts of it over the year.
In fact, the russians are known for not having clear "classes" like the Americans do, but every single ship/submarine/plane/whatever of the same class being very much different, so much so that every single model was clearly unique. They weren't creating everything new for a new clas, but essentially updating one thing at a time, and once they were updating bigger things (like the outer hull), it became a new "class" in the American databank, even though internally it could have had more in common with the latest ship of the previous "class" than it will have with the last ship of it's "own" class.
The klingons seem to be very inspired by this non-definite class updates, so having a bit of leeway in naming conventions here is not just bug, but a feature.
Except this thing. This thing looks ugly as fuck. I'm still amazed at how BAD the TOS remastered' CGI effects are. I would never put something like that on screen. Bleh.
This. If the original Enterprise and the refit are supposed to be the same class, then the D-7 and K'Tinga are certainly just minor variations of the exact same ship.
Well, it was the best they could do for television ten to twelve years ago.
Kor
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The name "D7" is used in canon first in Voyager's "Prophecy". The separation fandom makes between D7 and K'tinga doesn't exist since it's first ever on-screen use referred to a model of the latter.
The TOS and TMP versions of the ship are the same model, one smooth-surfaced and the other with loads of detail. It's the Discovery version which is a completely different design.
The TOS and TMP versions of the ship are the same model, one smooth-surfaced and the other with loads of detail. It's the Discovery version which is a completely different design.
It doesn't have its own style? It looks and feels very little like its predecessors, for better and worse.
Whatever in-universe interpretation one ultimately prefers, and there's certainly room for a few, your real-world facts are quite blatantly incorrect here.
It was first used onscreen in "Trials and Tribble-ations" (DS9), and there referred to a replica of the TOS version with updated surface details, made especially by Greg Jein from molds of the original. "Prophecy" (VGR) came more than four years later, and used a CGI model of the TMP iteration, which had in the meantime been created for the last couple seasons of DS9. This was called out at the time by fans, and subsequently acknowledged by the writer, as an error. In the words of Nero, I watched it happen. I saw it happen. Don't tell me it didn't happen.
But all right, I'll play along...this is my sort of game, after all. If we ignore all intents and go just by what's onscreen, and interpret that the not-K't'inga is merely a refit (or improved visual depiction) of the D-7 that merits no distinguishing designation, then we are left with the matter of it being said in "Prophecy" that D-7s were retired from service "decades" earlier, despite us seeing them in regular use beyond that timeframe. Even saying they were pressed back into wartime service leading up to "The Way Of The Warrior" (DS9), and that the Voyager crew simply don't know this because they were stranded in the DQ before it happened—which I'll grant, sure sounds like an attractive theory at first blush—doesn't really work, because in "Heart Of Glory" (TNG) we see one in current service. So we have to make 13 years from 2364 to 2377 into "decades." Okay, it is slightly more than a single decade, even if it isn't two...if we were talking 2358 to 2371, I could buy it.
Or we could always fall back on: "Tom Paris doesn't know what he's talking about, amirite?" Sure, but then we'd still be left with Kor saying the Klothos was a D-5 in "Once More Unto The Breach" (DS9) despite it looking almost exactly like a D-7 in "The Time Trap" (TAS) and nothing like the D-5 in "Judgment" (ENT). Now, we could readily explain that by saying he too made a mistake, as he clearly was going senile, after all. Or we could say he commanded two ships in succession called Klothos, one a D-5 and the other a D-7, just as Kirk commanded two called Enterprise. (If I'm not mistaken, it was I who personally originated both of those theories back in the day.) Or we could just default to: "TAS is not canon!" (thus defeating the whole point of the reference in the first place) and/or "ENT is an alternate timeline!" or a visual retcon or whatever. Fine. We could indeed say all of that, and then on top of it all, say "DSC isn't Prime! It's a reboot!" Whatevs.
But personally, I would rather think of the D-designations as more analogous to something like the V-designations of car engines (or perhaps even more apt, considering their origin, "four door" vs "two door" sedan body types) allowing more than one configuration to bear the same D-number, or indeed for two examples of the same hull configuration to bear different ones. In "Prophecy" (VGR), Tuvok is only able to identify the ship as a D-7 by its tetryon readings. In "Choose Your Pain" (DSC) the ship is only identified as a D-7 by its warp signature. (And here we might further note that, in "The Augments" [ENT], we are explicitly shown that such signatures can readily be "faked" simply by reconfiguration of the warp coils.)
All three D-7s aside, this allows us to accomodate both D-4s, both D-5s, and a faulty retired D-12 that looks identical to other BoPs of different class names that are still in service, to boot! So to my eye, that seems the most elegant and sensible solution, all things considered. YMMV. You're the guy that apparently likes there to be as many continuity errors as possible, after all...
-MMoM
[P.S. -- Congrats, you got me again. Well played. Can we do "Antares class" next?]
[P.P.S. -- You'd probably never guess it by such posts as this, but I actually enjoy your "imponderable" videos rather more than those dudes' at Trekyards. Peace and long life to you, Sir!
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