Kinda OT, but when I saw this thread I thought of Zaragoza Spain where I spent a lot of my Air Force time TDY to. Oh, nice design too, will keep an interested design on it.
Zaragoza-Class Starship
- Thread starter Belisarius
- Start date
^
The class is named for Mexican general Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, but I was also aware of the (originally Roman, IIRC) city in Spain. Mostly, it sounded cool.
Here's a very rough size comparison between this starship class and the Galaxy-class.
~Belisarius
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"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
The class is named for Mexican general Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín, but I was also aware of the (originally Roman, IIRC) city in Spain. Mostly, it sounded cool.
Here's a very rough size comparison between this starship class and the Galaxy-class.
~Belisarius
---------------------------
"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
^
I love your size comparison... a very decent size. Usually, when I see someone refer to the Galaxy-Class in a size comparison, I go "Oh, no, not another fanwank ubership that'll make the Galaxy look like a micro-machine!", but you kept it real... good work.
I love your size comparison... a very decent size. Usually, when I see someone refer to the Galaxy-Class in a size comparison, I go "Oh, no, not another fanwank ubership that'll make the Galaxy look like a micro-machine!", but you kept it real... good work.
Thanks, man. I'm really trying to follow design lineage realistically...with purpose. Justification for each aspect of the concept. If an idea doesn't make sense, I tend to either throw it out or modify it. True, I'm also having fun with this, and that's part of why we do it, I suppose. But to me, if it's not realistic and at least reasonably well thought out, it's not...respectful? Is that the right word? It's not respectful to the hardworking folks who have done this kind of stuff for a living, and still do it, or to the franchise itself. That may sound a bit pretentious, but it's just my honest feeling about it. It wouldn't be right not to try my best at doing lineage designs within an established fictional universe properly. Not saying it's for everyone, but that's how I try to go about it.
As for my justification of the scale of this ship, compared to the Galaxy-class...Zaragoza is a deep space explorer. She's visibly larger than the Galaxy, and has significantly more internal volume for a very practical reason...storage. Her missions will frequently keep her out in wild space for extreme lengths of time, and subsequently, she cannot count on regular resupply and refit. So she carries as much with her as possible. Not just Starfleet crewmen, but also civilian specialists, engineers and scientists, and their families. All specifically chosen for either maintaining shipboard function and operations, or for the various exploratory mission roles. She's a wanderer, a merchant, a naturalist in nature's greatest uncharted expanse. I imagine her dedication plaque bearing something along these lines:
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started...and know the place for the first time.”
- T.S. Eliot
To me it says that our desire to explore and understand the world around us is the same as our desire to understand and know ourselves. But that's just me.
~Belisarius
---------------------------
"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
As for my justification of the scale of this ship, compared to the Galaxy-class...Zaragoza is a deep space explorer. She's visibly larger than the Galaxy, and has significantly more internal volume for a very practical reason...storage. Her missions will frequently keep her out in wild space for extreme lengths of time, and subsequently, she cannot count on regular resupply and refit. So she carries as much with her as possible. Not just Starfleet crewmen, but also civilian specialists, engineers and scientists, and their families. All specifically chosen for either maintaining shipboard function and operations, or for the various exploratory mission roles. She's a wanderer, a merchant, a naturalist in nature's greatest uncharted expanse. I imagine her dedication plaque bearing something along these lines:
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started...and know the place for the first time.”
- T.S. Eliot
To me it says that our desire to explore and understand the world around us is the same as our desire to understand and know ourselves. But that's just me.
~Belisarius
---------------------------
"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
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Zaragoza Airport is the landing site for the space shuttle in case of a trans-atlantic abort-landing (TAL), where the shuttle reenters as soon as the solid rocket boosters detach. While not all trajectories used Zaragoza, all of the high inclination orbits to the ISS use LEZG as TAL site.
In other words, a very good name.
I'm also toying with the idea of Zaragoza serving as mothership to a new, compact class of starship...larger than a runabout but smaller than Defiant (built along the same lines, only not overpowered). This smaller scout ship would berth in a specially designed hanger in the aft ventral section of the engineering hull. I'm playing around with the concept because of Zaragoza's deep space exploratory role. I think it would be helpful to have something more robust than shuttlecraft along for the ride. Still considering this, though. It may not be practical.
~Belisarius
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"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
~Belisarius
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"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
Teh neck is a struktural weakness so lose it u noob
also needs longer nacelles
also needs longer nacelles
I like the neck... a good and strong tie to the TNG era.
The neck stays.
Here's a quick mock-up of the scout ship hanger location/proportions (I've substituted a re-scaled Defiant for my unrealized scout). I also slightly elongated the engineering hull to better balance the design and give me more room for the scout hanger bay. Click for full resolution.
~Belisarius
---------------------------
"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
Here's a quick mock-up of the scout ship hanger location/proportions (I've substituted a re-scaled Defiant for my unrealized scout). I also slightly elongated the engineering hull to better balance the design and give me more room for the scout hanger bay. Click for full resolution.
~Belisarius
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"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
Hmmm... methinks the aft neck section, if it's wide, would make a better hangar bay area... but that's just my take... to be fair, I haven't seen the front and aft views yet.
The neck/pointy bit won't be large enough...it's not nearly as wide as the Galaxy's cobra hood. Besides, I'm integrating the standard shuttlebays into the saucer section's aft/dorsal hull.
~Belisarius
---------------------------
"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
~Belisarius
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"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
Made the move to California. Still getting everything organized, so I haven't been able to do much more with this design. Adding hull details and such. I'll post an updated lateral view as soon as I can.
~Belisarius
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"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
~Belisarius
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"All life is struggle, from first breath to last."
- Anonymous
Can I cast a vote for common sense and ask you leave out the 'scout' idea? I've seen people do this before in designs and it makes no sense at all. You compromise the design of your big ship so that it can carry something which can operate independently quite happily. It's like building a WWII cruiser with a destroyer or corvette on board, or ripping out the back seats of your car to carry a moped just in case you need it one day. You can use it to extend your already immense sensor range, but only in one direction and at the cost of less armour/range/stores/weapons on your main ship. If you like I can post a long list of valid reasons why this is a crazy idea and why no military designer does anything like this in real life?
That's not entirely true. In the 50s the USAF used the GRB-36 to carry an RF-84 recce fighter. It worked well. In the 30s the USN had dirigibles that carried fighters. Battleships carried scout aircraft....
I don't really mind the scout craft idea, but the suggested alteration to the engineering hull looks awful.
Officially was never deployed. However rumors say they used it before the U-2 came online. Nevertheless the system was considered operational by the USAF.
