If Matt Jefferies had taken the "Hornblower in Space" idea literally, the aft end of the Enterprise would have had a rudder.
Why do almost all StarFleet ships have a Aft Ventral-Side Concave cavity on the StarDrive?
- Thread starter Kamen Rider Blade
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The styling queues were an homage to the old sailing ships. That's also why the TOS Enterprise is rather tall - to evoke a "tall ship".
You don't have to go so far as to include a rudder plus, masts spars and sails etc...
You don't have to go so far as to include a rudder plus, masts spars and sails etc...
Decorative only - of course (as far as we know).
I agree its mostly cosmetics. I think in one novel I read that Earth had pushed for twin nacelles in design over the Vulcan insistence there be only one. Some one nacelled ships were made... but they are terribly inefficient at impulse comparatively. Same power available at stand still so Kelvin probably had a chance there in space. Deep space science missions typically hold at position and monitor like the opening scene. When you got to run around the sector in firefight you really get a severe disadvantage. That's my guess on it anyways. Warp field is established be concave section or not. mostly there's an arc emission from centrical point that eventually constricts around one nacelle, two, three, or four... and even a cube as mentioned. two nacelles shapes the arc on two emissions overlapping... such as a shuttlepod warp capable and maybe even some ships.
I've seen an image of the fan designed USS Metaluna. A radiator system is mounted in the undercut space. Then when technology advanced and the Metaluna was refit the radiator system was removed leaving behind the undercut.
That would make sense of one generation of ships but not for continued use of the undercut centuries later. Unless the "modern" thermal control systems require the undercut shape. and are placed in the same spot on most ships.
Doesn't explain the outliers though.
That would make sense of one generation of ships but not for continued use of the undercut centuries later. Unless the "modern" thermal control systems require the undercut shape. and are placed in the same spot on most ships.
Doesn't explain the outliers though.
I guess that depends on if the glowing blue cavity in the undercut (easily seen at the end of TUC) is a shuttle bay or not.
It's called an "effeciency undercut" in the tech manuals, apparently to help the re-pinching of the field behind the midpoint. Some kind of narrowing of the hull to not stick out of the shrinking half of the warp field.
But then Voyager shouldn't have one, or any Starfleet ship where the nacelles are far enough back to have the second half of the field mostly behind the ship anyway.
But then Voyager shouldn't have one, or any Starfleet ship where the nacelles are far enough back to have the second half of the field mostly behind the ship anyway.
For the same reason as the original Enterprise.
Which manuals? I don't recall seeing that.
I don't see it so much as an undercut, as the "addition" of the shuttle/landing bay at the end of the hull, and then streamlining the hull around it.
Related ship designs probably evolve in this regard. The Excelsior has a looooong "undercut," with the upper bay waaay back of the rest of the hull; the newer Ambassador, probably closely related to the Excelsior, has more space filled in in front of the upper bay, and thus a smaller "undercut."
I would've used the Excelsior's loooong "undercut" with the top as a very long and large Shuttle Bay and the bottom as a very long Cargo Bay.
Imagine how much potential a updated / modified Excelsior Class could be as a modified Armed Cargo Vessel.
Good points, and perhaps the only reason that the Excelsior did not have these long open bays and instead an "undercut" was sort of a way to leave room for future improvements to the design.
Perhaps the Curry-"class" from DS9 reflects this armored carrier logic to some degree.
I've designated the spine feature above the impulse engines on the top of the saucer as the ship's impulse rudder and ship's keel. The entire spine itself can be an elongated gravity emitter, or a series of smaller emitters along its length, primarily used for maneuvering the ship in a straight line, or up, down, side-to-side, plus rotate and pivot in any direction (e.g. Pitch, Roll and Yaw).
It could simply be part of the "template" of a secondary hull. A LOT of Fed ships have a basic design of a saucer that connects to a secondary hull that connects to two nacelles. Just like how most of our aircraft today is two wings coming off of a central cylinder with a rear fin to balance it all out. There's other ways of doing it, but that's what we have used for decades, it works, we likely won't change it soon. But still, we have other styles and types of craft as well (such as the Stealth F-117, which uses more of a triangular wedge design).
That is a reasonable assumption, but just as aircraft have a certain shape because it once filled a function, so too the "undercut" must have once had a function, even if newer ships don't actually require one.
Again, in-universe, I don't think it really is an "undercut" in the sense that the lower aft of the secondary hull was reduced in the design process. Rather, since shuttles are support craft, the aft of the ship was "added" onto to create the landing bay, the amount of space taken up by this feature depends on the needs of the ship. Since travel pods and smaller craft exist that can be dropped from smaller hatches (even from the primary hull perhaps), the shuttle bay extension at the rear is likely optional or reduced in some designs, especially those that do not have a secondary hull.
It. Makes. The. Ships. Look. Fucking. Cool.
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