This is topic Sternbach's Constellation-class article from latest Mag in forum Starships & Technology at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.


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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
I figured this should go separate from Dukkie's Excelsior prototype thread.

Here are scans of the four-page article that I did rather quick-and-dirty, but at a fairly large size. (Be warned...)

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I got somewhat ragged on for posting scans of Sternbach's Intrepid-class article some months back. Please note that I am only putting these scans up to allow those of us without access to the Magazine itself to read and absorb the information contained therein. I am not advocating the use of these scans as a substitute for the Mag. I, however, do not personally care what you do with these images. I am a member of the "information wants to be free" camp.

Happy reading!

http://www.cdeath.net/monkeyofmim/Const1.jpg
http://www.cdeath.net/monkeyofmim/Const2.jpg
http://www.cdeath.net/monkeyofmim/Const3.jpg
http://www.cdeath.net/monkeyofmim/Const4.jpg

[from the May 2002 issue of Star Trek: The Magazine, pp. 98-101]

-MMoM

[ January 01, 2003, 15:31: Message edited by: The Mighty Monkey of Mim ]
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Crazy.

But, are those supposed to be every Constellation ever built? Because there's only one that's new to this article, as far as I can tell.
 

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Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
 
It's also interesting to note that it claims the Soyuz and Miranda classes existed in earlier TOS-forms before being refit.

BTW, the USS Houbolt is named after Dr. John C Houbolt, an aerospace engineering who is credited with inventing twin fuselage aircraft.
 

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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
The article does indeed seem to imply that only these eight Constellations were ever commissioned. Of course, this leaves out the NCC-7100 ship from Picard's ready room. Perhaps, in light of the TNG Tech Manual's bit about "yellow warp-stress test paint" or whatever , it was an additional vessel that was constructed or partially constructed, but never made it to commissioning. (And yes, I *know* it was always supposed to be the Stargazer, but oh well... )

I don't know if the article is saying the Soyuz and Miranda classes existed in the pre-refit era. I rather got the opposite impression. ("When the Miranda and Soyuz classes also became major outgrowths of the refit program, the production lines expanded...") It sounds to me as if it's actually saying that they *didn't* exist except as offshoots of the Constitution-class.

It's interesting that the museum complex that the Stargazer and Valkyrie (I guess the whole convention studio model thing is moot now ) are stored at is *beneath* the surface of the Moon rather than in orbit.

Also, it's rather fun that the Stargazer was rebuilt after being recovered from the Ferengi in TNG "The Battle" and returned to limited service, considering what we know about the Hathaway in "Redemption."

I'm intrigued by the idea of the "deflector grid field" as a substitute for a navigational deflector dish. This raises some possibilities with other seemingly nav-deflector-less designs...

-MMoM
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Sternbach also posits that the Stargazer was BUILT on the moon, and launched from there - a ratehr major feat only hinted at before with "San Fransisco Yards" and the DS9 novel "Antimatter".

Mark
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Mabye the first Illustration represents the prototype, but it sure does'nt have torpedos.

Strange.

I have a hard time believing that the Constalation served very long during the same time period as the Constitution class.
This baby easily has more firepower than an Excelsior class with four torpedo bays!
....plus, being a much smaller starship means that it would out-perform it too!
 

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Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
 
I also wonder if that is all the ships in the class.

BTW, "Deflector grid field" is nothing new. I've been touting it since '98 as an obvious solution to the problem of ships without deflector dishes. I've mentioned it a few times that I can remember on Flare and in other places. In the end it is also on a number of websites, I think EAS is counted among them.

PS: I also seem to remember Rick talking about such a device on the PDE server when it still had his newsgroup.
 

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Posted by newark (Member # 888) on :
 
Well, this article disproves the commonly accepted notion that the Constellation Class starships were retired by 2370. (Ahem...Bernd)

One item caught my eye-the Constellation Class ships were designed for spying. They had the ability for covert reconnaisance and were able to send stealth shuttles into enemy territories. (Is this the first mention of this type of shuttles in official Star Trek literature?) Was Captain Picard spying on the Ferengi in 2354 before his ship was attacked?
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
How could Picard think that the Stargazer was destroyed!?!

Does this mean the Ferengi got their hands on that classified warp-shuttle?
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
Sweet damn this is how Treknical publications should be... i aM vERY hAPPY iN a sPECIAL wAY!!!

some good notes..

the minus warp-sled TMP shuttle seen in real Starfleet use, as it was in the hangar paintings of the E-refit. noting they are impulse only though, disproves Picard's line about the group of shuttles limping to a Starbase, considering only one of them was warp-capable.. if the 'Gazer was in interstellar space anywhere, impulse shuttles would never have made it anywhere (of course, this is something that Trek has gotten wrong since WNMHGB (when the 1701 just happened to be a light-week or so from a Fed outpost, even though they were in unexplored space), so theyre just being consistent. consistently wrong. oh well.

the list of ships still might not be complete.. remember the article only discusses the initial design of the class.. perhaps those were the ships that were realized before 2300, then there might have been a 24th century series also. (like the 2000 series Excelsiors and the 18xx Mirandas were followed by 4xxxx and 2xxxx-3xxxx versions, respectively (and blessedly non chronologically, you'll note, maybe allowing for a 7100 Constie, just like we had the 956-17xxs range for Connies).

As I was just saying.. non-chronological registries are already shown in this list.. with an explanation that the regs were drawn in a certain order, but different ships yielded ships at different speeds for a variety of factors. hasn't that been my explanation all along? yay!

Mirandas refit from TOS era originals? yay!

BTW, the warp scale.. notation as 'absolute scale' .. acknowledgement for the change between TOS and TNG.. yay!

so the big thing on the bottom is a focused sensor beam array. funny, i just thought it was some sort of mech war greeblie.

the disappearing torpedo bays are wierd.. since the cutaway drawing was a cutaway, maybe it was showing the internal structure of where the torpedo bays were hidden.. they could fire from ports between hidden plates at the front of those pylon bends

BTW, just because the ship has 4 torp launchers doesnt mean it outguns an Excelsior (which probably has more torp launchers than the two I know about anyway). in the fanboy b0RG k!LLERz!1!world, quantity == tEH r0><0Rz!1!, but we have no actual knowledge of how many torpedoes it could fire simultaneously, the reload rate or the yield of the torpedoes. It's possible that the four bays could take twice as long to be reloaded with lower yield torpedoes that couldnt all fire at once, which would make Excelsioras actually more powerfully gunned. This explanation could extend towards the Akira, who just might have 15 of the weakest torp launchers in the fleet for all we know..

hm.. the fact that the 'Gazer served for another decade puts a wrench in the new Intrepid class Stargazer thats popped up in a few comics and other licensed works.. oh well, it can be explained away since the 2893 is chilling on (under!?) the moon
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
This is great stuff!

"The New Constellation Class Project" would seem to imply an old Constellation class

This subsurface museum complex sounds interesting. The ships are kept in a pressurized atmosphere? Any ambitious 3D-artists around?

Are those Vulcan warpshuttle pods in the hangars?

The Miranda/Soyuz as "outgrowths of the refit program" could be explained both ways I think.

I think I'll even add Talvihna IV to my UFP database. These new TDB articles are a very nice addition to the Tech Manuals, and just as canon (or non-canon, depending on your definition of canon.. please, don't discuss this any further )
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
weve had the canon discussion before.. i remember the consensus before, that Sternbach knows enough to write the write stuff down that will support what has come before (because he knows all there is to know about a lot of the stuff, he designed it with these specs in mind, or he came up with these specs to explain what he designed).. and that, being the good tech advisor, he doesnt try to establish things that are likely to be contradicted in future productions. he leaves it vague where he should, i.e. areas writers might want to adapt to suit their stories, and gets overly specific in areas that most writers avoid, like the technical specs (and since the writers avoid stuff like that, they put 'TECH' in the script and Sternbachs material gets used anyway.. remember how hard they worked over the past few years to work the saucer landing and captain's yacht into the last few movies, because of such things being publicized in the TNG TM?

Yeah those are the TMP shuttles.. keep in mind your nomenclature is off, Harry, because they were never exclusively Vulcan. I believe you could see them right in the E-refit's hangar bay right in the same movie.
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
The shuttle complement of the ship may well have changed during the century of operations... Perhaps back in the TOS movie days, supporting even one warp shuttle was a major feat for a starship, but in TNG it's trivially simple.

Rick, like pretty much everybody else, forgets the five single phaser domes on the dorsal surface. They aren't even reinterpreted as running lights in the drawings - they are simply omitted. Sure, it may be they weren't part of the planned original weapons complement, which is what Rick is listing...

Seven shuttlebay doors for four craft? Crazy. Rick should have left that ambiguous. The four small doors could still be considered dedicated to cargo handling, with just a token internal access point to the main hangar volume.

The bow "hangar door" would have made for a perfectly good navigational deflector! A missed opportunity here. We only ever saw bow views of dysfunctional Constellations, and we know the deflectors of Constitutions don't glow while the ships are powered down.

I love the idea that early SIFs (or super-SIFs, since some sort of artificial reinforcement must have been around since the days of Cochrane) required distinct external gridwork. Of course, the prominent grids could have been what the corresponding things are on Soviet warships, too: degaussing cables, for greater stealth.

The recce role could be specialized enough that no further ships in the class were needed. Or then production was halted when the Excelsiors came along and forced Starfleet to accept the need to build, repair and replenish starships larger than the Constitution. All the compromises made to keep the Constellation down to that size would then be abandoned in disgust.

Rick has a weird take on the nacelle orientation - he seems to be saying that the nacelles just happened to be tilted 90 degrees for no good reason, which forced the designers to rethink warp propulsion. I'd think it would be vice versa: the nacelle tilt was the way to realize some harebrained warp field scheme.

In the end, not an objectionable article at all.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by newark (Member # 888) on :
 
I am in the minority, a minority of one, on this one. When I look at the model, it appears the lower nacelles at an angle. I think this is attributable to the support 'beam' which connects the nacelles to the pylon, then finally to the ship itself. This is evident in the photos by Mike Trice of the U.S.S. Valkyrie NCC-2590. Based on only photographic evidence, the support 'beam' slopes downward in the center, thus having the nacelles at an upward angle. The upper nacelles seem to be at a 90* angle. I would say the angle of the lower nacelles is 15 to 25 degrees upward.
Well, anyway, here are the pictures:

http://www.mjtsc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/valk4l.jpg
http://www.mjtsc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/valk5l.jpg

I don't subscribe to the idea this is battle damage. This angle of the nacelles would appear to be structural.

Of the many mysteries answered by this article (When was the Constellation Class first introduced into service? What are the ships in this class? What sets this class apart from the other known classes in Starfleet?), I am glad this following mystery was not answered: Why did Starfleet create the likeness of a man on the underside of this class?

http://www.mjtsc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/valk1l.jpg


[Edit: Images are too wide; making the board layout all wonky]

[ December 02, 2002, 04:32: Message edited by: Topher ]
 

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Posted by newark (Member # 888) on :
 
Yikes!
I never realized how large these images would appear on this page. Is there a control in the size of the image?

When I was looking at the figure situated near the pylon, I noticed a possible second figure located at the front. This figure has a robe with outstretched arms and a mask with a single opening. Agreed, I could be seeing things. I just thought I would remark on this.

Another thought entered my mind-if the pairs of nacelles were the same, wouldn't the lower pair (seen as upper in the first photo) mirror the upper pair (seen as lower in the first photo) in the first pic?

Anyhow, a good question-is it ok to have a reconnaissance ship with performance issues? I don't remember the exact line from "Relics", but my impression was that the Constellation Class starships, especially the U.S.S. Stargazer, were performing less well than anticipated for a starship.
 

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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
I'm all about some TMP shuttles. However, they do not appear as such in the movie. You're thinking of an "Art of Star Trek"-type matte painting seen in one of the books. I got corrected on this previously, so I know how you feel . . . I liked them, too.
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
And the not-quite-90-degrees is probably just caused by the materials the ship was built from. Pretty much everyone who has modeled the 1701 has had that problem
 

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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
My only problem is the recon role. Don't get me wrong . . . I don't want Starfleet to be a bunch of science ships and couriers, and I do like the fact that he's at least acknowledging different roles for all these zillions of Federation ship designs. But, a recon ship called the Stargazer (of the Constellation class) strikes me as a contradiction in terms.

Of course, the U.S. Navy has a Constellation that's a warship, but still.

I would think the vessel better suited to exploration, myself . . . a more capable Soyuz, perhaps.

Though, I must admit, the lack of a dedicated navigational deflector does lend itself to a "low observability" idea, at least while at warp. But, given the Miranda and Soyuz, I might simply be talking out of my butt.

However, splitting the warp field between four units might also serve in that concept quite well. If you think of the warp nacelles as light bulbs illuminating an object or area, you could use one 100 watt, or two fifty watts, or four 25 watts . . . and perhaps even smaller wattages to get the same coverage, like 100 / 40 / 15. From an opponent's perspective across the zone, the ship might seem "less bright" that way. The fact that the ship was underpowered according to Picard might support the 15-watt concept.
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Picard did indeed consider the Stargazer "underpowered" and "overworked", but that may have been with respect to her poor state of repair, or in comparison with modern starships. It's a bit unlikely she would have fared badly wrt other TOS movie era ships, and yet would see so much service.

The two mech figurines on the underside could be there for planetary assault duties. (I think I suggested this two-three years ago already)

Speculation on what makes the "sensor cannon" special & cannonlike: it has its own subspace field generator for FTL sensing, and doesn't have to rely on the field generator that is normally associated with the deflector dish and its assorted forward-pointing long-range sensors. Previous vessels lacked FTL scanning in directions other than the one where the dish was pointing (explaining why it's called both the sensor dish and the deflector dish, while allowing for plenty of sensors elsewhere on the ship). TNG era ships might have a number of more elegantly housed "sensor cannon" somewhere, for off-axis FTL scanning. Or then not, depending on how crucial that capability is to a non-recce starship.

(Not that there's any canonical basis for the above, but it sounds nice that the FTL scanning abilities of early starships would be very limited. I like limitations. They make for drama. Unlike omnipotent superships.)

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by SoundEffect (Member # 926) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Timo:
We only ever saw bow views of dysfunctional Constellations, and we know the deflectors of Constitutions don't glow while the ships are powered down.

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We did see the USS Victory flying toward us and it was good as new with no glowy thing on the front. We'll just have to accept 4-level high shuttlebays!
 

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
 
This is a fascinating article, and I really enjoy and appreciate that Mr. Sternbach is continuing to contribute small articles in this way -- even though some of it is stuff we already know, it's still probably the most official data we'll ever get. Heck, some of us already consider the TNG Tech Manual to be "near-canon," and IMO these articles could be given the same status, since they're written by the same author for the same basic purpose (that is, for the establishment of hard data regarding the technology and for the enjoyment of us fans).

The only part that I don't like at all is the suggestion that the Constellation-class starships could stay in service through 2435. That's an extraordinarily long time period.

(Now that I think about it, I'm going to start another topic on this because it's a more general issue that I could go on about for a page or more. )
 

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
 
Ambassador on the design board in the 2280s. I don't like that at all. No, sir..I don't like that one bit.

It is contradictory to canon. The Hierarchy does not approve.
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
The Galaxy Project took 20 years. That would put the first launch of the Ambassador possibly around the turn of the century, hopefully a bit later, which is not that far off the scale.
 

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
 
Fortunately, I've already worked around that little problem.
 

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Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
First of all, Picard's comment was that they were "overworked" and "underpowered", which I think is appropriate for any Constitution-era-tech vessel serving in a fleet that's long since moved on to Excelsior and Ambassador tech and is in the process of cranking out the new Galaxy tech...

Secondly, the shuttles. I have it from Andy Probert directly that he designed two sizes -- the smaller shuttlecraft seen in the hangar matte painting, and the larger long-range shuttle that Spock arrived in (which was attached to the Vulcan Science Academy, if anyone didn't know...). The latter is also the provenence/design of the "long-range shuttle Laika" buried in the Epsilon 9 chatter.

And, lastly for right now, we had a bow shot of the Victory in "Elementary, Dear Data". The bow door/deflector/whatever was distinctly unlit -- no surprise, seeing as it was re-used footage of the Stargazer.

--Jonah
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I'm not sure I buy that the Stargazer was put back into service without Picard making any mention of it. I mean, he was on the ship for what, twenty years?

Beyond that, the reason the TNG technical manual could be considered to be...well, in a nebulous state as far as canon goes, is because the people writing it worked for the show. Sternbach isn't even employed by Paramount anymore, so, while I think there are other reasons one might want to include information from this and similar articles in their Big Lists of Everything, (For instance, they're neat! Another reason should not really be required.) those shouldn't be the same reasons one resorts to for inclusion of the technical manual material.
 

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Posted by Boris (Member # 713) on :
 
Assuming you're analyzing the real, legal Star Trek as opposed to your personal perception of Star Trek, there really are three major categories of data that stand out. In the order of importance:

Canon = data in the shows and the movies that isn't a blooper, meaning the data which makes sense in the context of the portrayed reality regardless of whether it was intended by producers or not. Unless you're using an outside source to fix an error as defined above, it overrides every other source.

Apocrypha (term suggested by Ryan) = data created by people who worked on the show for the purpose of making the actual show. This includes the partial registry systems, stardate systems, blueprints, model photos, and series bibles, as well as any External sources chosen to function as apocrypha = TNGTM, DS9TM, Star Fleet Technical Manual, possibly the Star Charts. This data only supercedes the external data if it's more consistent with canon than the external data, but otherwise it's in the same category.

External (need a better term for this) = licensed data not functioning as apocrypha. This includes most of the novels and games, and probably Starship Spotter, Worlds of the Federation, Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, but also websites and sources written under the Fair Usage provision of the Copyright Law. Online theories can fit into this category likewise.

Rick Sternbach's articles are technically external data, but they probably would function as apocrypha if the need arose. Hence, they're pretty high up in the External category, overriding just about everything other data. That doesn't mean that a better-researched External resource couldn't override it if it happens to be more consistent with canon than this article.

However, Rick's recent articles are so good that only a website could realistically do that.

Boris
 

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
 
I was under the impression that "Star Trek: The Magazine" was an official publication licensed by Paramount.

Furthermore, aside from "Nemesis" there isn't ANY development of the TNG-era right now. Therefore, I consider Sternbach's previous and similar works to be sufficient justification to consider the new articles on a similar (though not completely equal) level.
 

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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
The Magazine/Fact Files are on the same level as the Tech Manuals, Encyclopedia, and Chronology. That is, "canon except where contradicted by the actual episodes, films, etc."

While Sternbach does not work in the Star Trek Art Department at Paramount Studios anymore, he has been commissioned by Paramount to do these articles for the Mag.

-MMoM
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
I beg to disagree, Der M�chtige Affe von Mim... the parts of the magazines written by Sternbach I will accord the same credulity as the TM and Encyc. material, but the tripe wheeled out by the Mag and Fact Files regular writers is garbage, with no basis in canon, and has nothing to do with Paramount's canon, and there for is accepted on a level at or below other officially licensed but non-canon sources like comics and novels.

With the exception of like two issues, most of the magazine's tech articles have been written by ninnies that had nothing to do with the production of the show.
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 

"I'm not sure I buy that the Stargazer was put back into service without Picard making any mention of it. I mean, he was on the ship for what, twenty years?"

He also never mentioned taking a crap, but I'm sure he did so far more often than the Stargazer was returned to service.

And who says he never mentioned it, anyway? The episodes don't show every waking moment of his life.
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
"He also never mentioned taking a crap, but I'm sure he did so far more often than the Stargazer was returned to service."

He did say "Merde!" in Season 1.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Yes!

Look, I usually dislike the "But someone would have mentioned it!" argument too. But, I don't know, in this case it just feels right. Like, twenty years is a long time. He should have gotten the Stargazer post-D. That would have been crazy. Then it gets destroyed fighting the Borg and Captain Riker saves him aboard the E, and there is a rousing First Contact! You're on your own as far as explaining Insurrection and Nemesis, though.
 

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Posted by newark (Member # 888) on :
 
I sent a pleasant e-mail on the NCC-7100 to Mr. Sternbach. He replied the next day.

quote:

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Well, the model on his ready room pedestal was simply decaled with whatever decals we had lying around from the ERTL kits, and while the ship config was supposed to be Stargazer, it was more like a testbed vehicle painted with warp-stress yellow indicator paint and given generic markings. The model was likely a gift from the Stargazer upgrade and maintenance teams to Picard.

Howzat for rationalizing?

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Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
 
I'm just happy that we finally have an official length and deck count. Note that the actual cutaway has 16 decks whereas the labels only go up to 15.
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
I reckon the Stargazer model could have been winner in the Captain Picard Day 2364 competition. It nearly was beaten by a Stuffed Nausicaan wielding a knife because of the registry and colour. The Nausicaan with knife did sort of put itself out of the running!
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
Dax: I reckon that 16th deck isn't so much a deck as it is just the sensor dome on the bottom of the saucer. Deck 15 would be the last actual deck of the ship, though there's probably not alot of elbow room down there.
 

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Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
 
I agree that the 16th deck does appear to be just the lower sensor dome, but it's worth mentioning that the deck line labels don't accurately match those of the cutaway e.g. the deck 1 line is actually at the top of the bridge instead of at the bottom where it should be. And yeah, the article mentions that only 11 out of the 16 decks are habitable.
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
actually... i read it as saying there are only 15 decks...11 habitable and "the other 4" which aren't.
 

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Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
 
Oops, you're right. I stand corrected.
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
What is in these uninhabitable decks!?! Conduit? What if you needed to get in there - EVA suit?
 

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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by AndrewR:
What is in these uninhabitable decks!?! Conduit? What if you needed to get in there - EVA suit?

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Just look at what it says at the bottom of this pic.



-MMoM
 

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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 
I sent off an e-mail to Mr. Sternbach with a few queries about the article:

quote:

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Mr. Sternbach,

I thoroughly enjoyed your latest technical article (the one on the Constellation-class) in Star Trek: The Magazine. I'm really liking what you're doing with stuff in this line. I have a few questions that came into my mind after reading it, though. I'd be most appreciative if you might take the time to answer them for me:

1.) Where did you get the U.S.S. Valkyrie NCC-2590 from? I am aware that this ship appeared as a model on display at Star Trek conventions some years ago. I believe it was even the actual studio model used on TNG, but I don't think it ever appeared labeled as the Valkyrie in any episode. So then, were aware of this model from fans or from some other source such as Mr. Mike Okuda or someone? How did it come to be included in your article?

2.) Do you really mean to imply that there were only eight Constellation-class ships ever commissioned? Or did you only list the first eight? (Personally, I don't really have a problem with there having been only eight, but I just find it a little surprising. I'd assumed there were more.)

3.) There is one passage in the article that reads: "When the Miranda and Soyuz classes also became major out growths of the [Constitution class] refit program, the production lines expanded, ultimately involving a total of three Starfleet yards." I interpreted this wording to imply that the Miranda and Soyuz designs evolved directly from the Constitution-refit design. But a friend of mine takes it to mean that the Miranda and Soyuz were previously existing ship classes of their own that Starfleet subsequently decided to refit along with the Constitution. Which one of these inferences is correct to your intention?

There are also a few, more general questions that I have:

4.) Does the magazine commission you to do these articles one by one, or have you agreed to do a certain number of them? (I hope you have plans to continue writing them.)

5.) Do you get to write on any subject you choose, or do they specifically request certain topics for particular issues? (I've got some great suggestions for articles I'd absolutely LOVE to see. Have you considered doing one on the Constitution-class? Or the Daedalus? Or the Akira? Or any of the somewhat obscure ships seen as wreckage at Wolf 359? If the latter suggestion appeals to you, there's a great little website run by Mr. Bernd Schneider at http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org . He and several others there have done a highly extensive and well researched write-up on the ships from the battle, all based on onscreen evidence from the show and some behind-the-scenes information gleaned from conversations with Mr. Mike Okuda. This would be great information to bring to official disclosure. Some of it seems to be right in your line.)

Anyway, I'll be glad to hear from you in response to my queries. Thank you for sparing your time to read my message. And, above all, keep up the good work!

-Kris Olinger
a.k.a "The Mighty Monkey of Mim"

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quote:

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Well...

1. Yes, it was the display model. Why not have a little fun with the history? Not everything I write about is taken from actual episodes; if I had to stick to only what the show writers wrote, it wouldn't be terribly interesting. Got to think outside the box.
2. This was an article more about the Stargazer than the entire class; I'm sure there could have been more Constellation class ships built, but I limited the discussion to the first eight. Go ahead and speculate about what happened yourself; that's how everyone gets to talking and imagining.
3. I meant the former, that the three of them grew out of the Constitution refit program. After all, the Miranda and Soyuz studio models used the same molds in different ways, but the ancestor was the TMP Enterprise.
4. In the past, I've bugged the editors to let me write articles, and they graciously agreed. We've talked about topics, and then I write.
5. See above. The editors and I would work out topics, some I like, some they like better, depending on how much we actually "know" about a certain technology and how many bits of art are needed.
I've corresponded with Bernd and know EAS pretty well. The whole idea of writing about this stuff has been terrific, but it doesn't exactly support my family, so real jobs take priority. I don't know where the articles will go from here; we'll see.

All the best,

Rick

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So, looks like he *didn't* mean for the Miranda and Soyuz to be pre-Connie-refit classes.

-MMoM

P.S.

In retrospect, my message sounds slightly...gulp...fanboyish. Oh well, it was my first correspondence with Sternbach. I must have gotten a bit excited or some such thing.


*edit by the site admin: Due to being linked in Wikipedia, this topic is closed to prevent bumpage*

[ December 17, 2005, 05:30 AM: Message edited by: Charles Capps ]
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
"Just look at what it says at the bottom of this pic."

Didn't see that - obviously!

I was thinking about the pylons to the nacelles - the verticle ones - nothing in them?
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
Aside from warp plasma conduits, probably not.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Just want to say that I would KILL to have Rick write something about the Prometheus. He designed it, I am sure, with 1970s giant robot anime in mind. An article with his design sketches for teh Prommie would make my year.

Mark <--- pround owner of a 1:1 scale replica of Rick's former office
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
BTW, it only says those decks arent 'rated for habitation'.. not that they are completely uninhabitable.. maybe they are on minimum life support, since there are no manned crew stations on them
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Or "habitation" could be synonymous with "accommodation". That is, there are no permanent quarters for any of the personnel on those lower decks. All decks cleared for "habitation" include at least one permanent bunk for a crew member (perhaps just the shuttle hangar door operator guy on deck 10, but nevertheless) plus the basic living amenities like water, light, muzak and Orion girls.

The rest of the decks still have gravity, air and heat, but people only go there to work. Or to perform private activities.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
Yes, that's what I took it to mean too. Not "unihabitable" just that there were no living quarters on those decks. The lower decks are probably dedicated 100% to ship's operations without living amenities.
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
Didn't it say that crew-quarters were restricted to decks 2 and 3?
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
I think it said "Concentrated in"
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
BTW, ive just done some layout and square footage calculations, and theres no way in hell that 500+ people could live in the smallest decks of the ship.
 

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Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
 
It's odd that Picard would call 500+ crew "undermanned".
 

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Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
*sigh* He didn't. He said the ship was overworked and underpowered.

--Jonah
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Just out of foreignah curiosity... What does "overworked" mean? That too much work has been done on something, so the end result is not very good? Or that something constantly requires lots and lots of work? Come on, baby, be my Webster's!

I could easily see how just about any 23rd century vessel would be considered labor-intensive in the 24th. Also, it's possible a starship requires more labor after a century of service than it did originally - although it seems that old ship types actually operate with smaller crews in the 24th, considering how low the crew-per-ship figure on Wolf 359 losses is, and how many of the ships lost are either these older types, or then huge vessels that should have crews much larger than the average obtained.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
In the context of Picard's comment, "overworked" means that more was being demanded of the ship than it was designed to do. Perhaps the missions it was engaged in required it to travel farther or faster than it was supposed to go. Perhaps it needed to generate more power than it was designed to generate. Basically, he was indicating that he felt the ship was being pushed to her limits which would have a taxing effect on the superstructure and most likely the systems.

This has been your lesson in American Vernacular English for the day.
 

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Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Peregrinus:
*sigh* He didn't. He said the ship was overworked and underpowered.

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Shit, that's the second time I've stuffed up in this thread.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I didn't read through all the text (reading text on a computer screen still being one of those things that I do often, but don't necessarily relish), but isn't the crew compliment given for the Constellation at the time of the launch of the class, and thus not necessarily representative of how many people were aboard the Stargazer half a century or more later?
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
IIRC, the Miranda class Lantree, downgraded to a mere freighter, had a crew of only about 25.
 

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Posted by SoundEffect (Member # 926) on :
 
Yeah, 26 crew. I so completely disagree with that! It's an 11 deck ship with 26 crew members from presumably all departments, except maybe science. With a normal 3-shift rotation, that means under normal operations there's approximately 8 people running the ship at any given time, right? Someone didn't think that through. I think the writers/producers get jittery having to say 300-500 people died at once. Easier on viewers if it's a lower number or something.
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
I suppose it's possible that a hella bunch of the Lantree's suacer area was converted to cargo storage and that very little of the internal vlume needs to be "operated". I doubt there's any science equipment on board. Weapons would be minimal.

So... say you've got 4 people on standard bridge shift (CO, XO/Tactical, Conn/Ops, Cargo Ops). Times threes shifts, that's 12 people. Now, say 4 people on a standard engineering shift. Another 12 people. We're up to 24. That leaves 2 for, say, shuttle ops and CMO.

I agree... it's still too slim for a fully operational starship, but that's how it might work. Remember too that these people's range of duties would probably be quite varied and there wouldn't be very many amenity jobs like chef, or ship's Betazoid hottie.
 

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Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Aban Rune:
there wouldn't be very many amenity jobs like chef, or ship's Betazoid hottie.

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So that's what she was there for. I did wonder.

I think the 26 crew is a little on the low side, although not by much. All you'd really need on a transport ship is command and engineering personnel.
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
We tend to go over this a couple times every year...

I strongly disagree with Sternbach's Miranda crew estimate of 220. For the TOS movie era, I can live with that. In TNG, I think everything would be suffficiently automated - even in an older refit like the Miranda - that low crews would be the norm on older ships. Given the two primary examples we have (Lantree with 26 crew, and Br!ttain with 34), I think that Mirandas that stay close to the core of the Federation have a core crew of twenty, and additional payload specialists (6 on the Lantree) or scientists (14 for the Br!ttain). Even during the Dominion War, I doubt that the average Miranda would carry more than 40 crew, adding people for tactical support duties and damage control. Regarding the core crew count posted above, you gotta remember that there is only one CO and XO, which are unique positions in the TNG era - the second officer, who'd normally be in charge on the third shift, usually heads up his own department as well.

It's been speculated that Saratoga would be carrying up to a hundred people, including civilians, and that makes sense to me. I figure that Saratoga was configured for medium-duration scientific missions on the edge of, but still within Federation space, and would thus have space for more crew redundancies plus their families.

Mark
 

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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
Well, look at it this way: 7 of 9 and the Doctor mananged to keep an Intrepid Class together for a month with no help at all.

But wait... that was Voyager. We don't count Voyager...

Another position that I will assert every Starfleet ship staffs is that of a Medical Officer. For a ship with a crew count as low as the Lantree, I could see this position being filled by a crewman or a "medical specialist" as opposed to an actual physician. This would also make sense given the fact that this kind of ship would always be near to Federation outposts.
 

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
 
Since I'm not an expert on naval engineering, my guesses may be completely off the mark here. But I've always thought that a lot of effort aboard a starship would go into systems maintenance and efficiency enhancement.

For example -- just how many of the 1,012 people on the Enterprise-D were actually there to run the ship? I seem to recall a semi-official figure saying that there were 400 civilians on the ship; factor in maybe 200 mission specialists, and the whole ship could be running with 400 people (or less). Despite the often obsessive focus on regular characters and disregarding the non-senior staff, I'm sure that all the extras in the background are doing something other than Pong when the camera's not on them.

Other examples: We know that the Defiant was a fairly small ship and ran with only 50 officers -- but I'm wondering if the Defiant might have actually been a maintenance-intensive ship since it was a work-in-progress (originally, anyway). Also, though I hate to admit it, Voyager frequently managed to run on a seriously reduced crew complement -- Doc, Seven, and Chakotay each managed to keep things running by themselves for a while.
 

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Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
 
I should also remind everyone the Enterprise was run by a crew of 5 (Kirk, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, McCoy), and even then McCoy wasn't doing much. The ship was automated, so all non essentials were maintained by the computer. If they can do this in the 23rd century with a ship larger then a Miranda, then a Miranda ought to be able to do it with 26 people in the 24th century.
 

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Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
If we're talking about ST III, then remember that it took one photon torpedo to knock the ship out (now, I know that realistically a single photon torpedo should probably be able to destroy the ship if the shields aren't up, but this is the hero ship, and therefore almost indestructible). In battle situations, it's reasonable to assume that the computer might not be able to repair damaged systems if it is itself damaged. So you'd need crew for that. In war time, you'd have a LOT of crew for that.

In the TOS "Aliens become humans and try and fly the Enterprise to the Andromeda Galaxy" episode, the ship ran with a seriously reduced compliment. I recall their being some sort of line about "Well, we're not going to meet anything travelling between galaxies, we're flying in a straight line, so we don't need lots of people", but did the Kelvins (I think that was their name) stick a cardboard box onto a panel and say "That makes the computer better", or not?
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
One viewpoint to add: today's real seagoing ships do reflect the crew size figures given for Starfleet's vessels. A large container ship is typically run by 25 people or less, whereas a frigate one-fourth her size may carry 250 crew, every single one of whom has a specific, vital job aboard.

Now, all the above arguments about automation should hold. There's nothing to prevent Starfleet from running a ship with zero crew for cargo hauling missions (and indeed, we've seen this both in TOS and TAS). Crew is only required for an escalating list of contingencies: engine trouble or autonav mishap; unscheduled encounter; hostile action; combat damage. As long as we buy into the concept that Starfleet's ships can perform a wide variety of missions, then a wide variety of crew sizes should also be accepted.

Not that I really think a Miranda would make for a good supply ship. Perhaps a special "armed supply ship" for high-risk supply runs - but then there ought to be a little more "contingency crew" aboard. Still, better to have a cargo Miranda than a cargo Constitution or Excelsior. The ratio of apparent shuttlebay volume to ship volume is more palatable.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Timo:
One viewpoint to add: today's real seagoing ships do reflect the crew size figures given for Starfleet's vessels. A large container ship is typically run by 25 people or less, whereas a frigate one-fourth her size may carry 250 crew, every single one of whom has a specific, vital job aboard.

Now, all the above arguments about automation should hold. There's nothing to prevent Starfleet from running a ship with zero crew for cargo hauling missions (and indeed, we've seen this both in TOS and TAS). Crew is only required for an escalating list of contingencies: engine trouble or autonav mishap; unscheduled encounter; hostile action; combat damage. As long as we buy into the concept that Starfleet's ships can perform a wide variety of missions, then a wide variety of crew sizes should also be accepted.

Not that I really think a Miranda would make for a good supply ship. Perhaps a special "armed supply ship" for high-risk supply runs - but then there ought to be a little more "contingency crew" aboard. Still, better to have a cargo Miranda than a cargo Constitution or Excelsior. The ratio of apparent shuttlebay volume to ship volume is more palatable.

Timo Saloniemi

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dukhat:
the Saratoga, which had those kickass side guns instead).

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Of course we can't be certain those were 'guns' and not just sensors. Remember, we only saw the Saratoga fire from her LOWER SENSOR ARRAY!
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Because, of course, Saratoga had her lower sensor array removed and replaced with those outboard pods. This naturally allowed a more powerful phaser mount than her standard rollbar types to be installed in a strategic location.

I mean, duh...

Mark
 

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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dukhat:
The 'pedia states that the Brattain didn't have a rollbar either, but that's wrong.

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Well, it doesn't really "state" that. The little Miranda side view next to the entry simply doesn't have one.

Just trying to pick a few nits, split a few hairs, make you mad, etc, you know...

-MMoM
 

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Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
 
Do not mess with senior Flarites, as they are grumpy and quick to anger.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I went through my ship list, to see what I had written there about the Stargazer, and apparently I disagree less than I thought I did, re: the possibility of her return.

quote:

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USS Stargazer, NCC-2893 - former command of Captain Picard, abandoned and believed lost. Later recovered. What happens to the Stargazer after Starfleet gets her back is anyone's guess. All indications suggest the ship is old. Very old, considering her TOS movie era graphics, general design, and registry number. On the other hand, she was on active exploratory duty just nine years earlier, and she seemed to have no major damage. (One wonders why Picard thought it necessary to abandon ship in the first place, though it is certainly possible that the Ferengi repaired certain systems, perhaps even in the context of reverse engineering them. We have no idea how long they had posession of the ship.) It is certainly possible that the Stargazer was repaired, refit, and ultimately put back into service, though it seems like something Picard would have mentioned at some point. [The Battle]

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quote:

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Originally posted by darkwing_duck1:
Earlier someone mentioned the automation of 1701 in ST III. I'd just like to point out that when they went into combat that the system quickly became overloaded, and unable to keep up with the demands placed on it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Reverend:
If there were then I'd like to know how they got up there. Mind you, the same would apply to people in the Oberth's secondary hull.
Perhaps they use hardwired transporters and pipe their molecules from one pad to another?

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quote:

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Hardwired transport pads...? Makes all the sense in the world.

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quote:

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I'd be very surprised if there were a man-sized crawlway up the rollbar supports -- because those large phaser cannons kind of block the passage.

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quote:

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Here's a weird idea... if the automated launchers were a new idea, perhaps they were deliberately placed outboard in case of malfunction. And then later designs just kept that configuration because it saved some internal space.

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It's certainly possible and consistant with Sternbach's notion of the Mirandas being a reletively new design, compared to the Conni.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
The Miranda has to have a transporter up there in the Torp pod. There is no airlock or storage place for a couple of workbees....besides, in an evacuation situation, those guys would be screwed in slow little workbees....
Mabye during evac the guys manning the torpedo launcher just do the "kaylar coffin ride" inside an ampty torp casing!
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
I think the crawlway idea could still have merit, though. Those super-hyper-mega-phasers-that-did-no-more-damage-than-regular-ones would probably require maintenance access, too. The crawlway would just go up the vertical pylon, through a spacious control room between the forward and aft megaphasers, and then along the horizontal pylon.

And you needn't really crawl - there should be space for a corridor about two meters high there (unless those radiator panels on the lower surface take up space internally). Or if not, you could simply tilt the gravity of the corridor so that it becomes a 45 degree stairwell (going *down* in both directions, of course, for ease of passage), so a two-meter fellow can stand upright on a corridor 1.5 meters high.

Some sort of manual backup access is extremely likely, even if direct transporter access exists, and even if regular maintenance is NOT needed.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Reverend:
If there were then I'd like to know how they got up there. Mind you, the same would apply to people in the Oberth's secondary hull.

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That reminds me of one of the details Andy Probert pointed out to me about the E-D. He put a docking at the base of each nacelle precisely so engineering crews could get in there. His rationale was that the amount of energy thrown around in there was no immense that even shut down the engines would be dangerous (electromagnetic fields that might cook you, a la Jupiter) and so there's be no shirt-sleeve access. I'm sure there would be crawlspaces or Jeffries type tubes, but work crews would carry stuff via some kind of shuttle.

I know later they had the crew going up into the nacelles via other means, but that wasn't the original intention.

One other possible explanation for the crew manually working the torpedo room in TWOK would have been that the automated loader got damaged in the Reliant attack. That would work except those floor grills sure didn't appear to have any mechanical means of opening.
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
The system could still have been 100% automated, and the floor grilles were there only because this special training vessel had her torpedo bay converted into a formal reception/inspection area, a function unnecessary aboard regular Constitution starships. We never really saw anybody actually touch the torps or anything, now did we?

Alternately, there could have been a manual element to the torpedo system of ST:TMP, but we never saw it because the camera was on the bridge. After all, in TOS, we learned that the phaser turrets were manned, even though this was shown in a single episode only - all others made it look as if the weapons were completely automated save for Sulu's manual trigger.

Personally, I believe in three different systems: fully automated, a bit risky but cheap (Miranda, New Orleans, what-have-you), largely manual and deliberately awkward (Enterprise in ST2), and partially man-tended and optimal (Enterprise in TMP, regular Constitutions, most starships).

Plus, I strongly believe that there are ships out there that do NOT have torpedo launchers at all. It should NOT be trivially easy to add torpedoes to a ship, or else all ships would be like (the artist-intended version of) the Akiras, bristling with tubes. Instead, torp-equipped ships should be a special breed, carefully built around that weapons system. At least in the TOS/TFS era where the ships aren't so humungous yet that engineers have problems inventing stuff to fill them with...

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
i agree to the 'mostly automated' theory, especially when you start to think of the more technical aspects of the job.. i believe the 1701 was mostly unmodified during the five-year mission in TOS (Roddenberry's intention was that the ship was far out the whole 5 years, not recieving modifications very often.. that's why he balked at showing 23rd century Earth)..

for example.. the Balance of Terror phaser crews.. the command to fire was given from the weapons station on the bridge, but obviously those guys down there had jobs. i can see them coordinating with the sensory (and the bridge weapons panel) for targeting, and checking the charge of the weapons, modifying the intensity of the blast, running the Deadley-Pinke� coolant systems that made sure the phaser cycled properly, timing the cool-down and recharge phases, and , yes, physically servicing the phaser apparatus.

while the bridge could obviously fire the phasers, all of these minute details would be more efficiently handled by people on site, especially since the weapons fire panel on the bridge seemed to be either double tasked with helm or navigation. do you want to distract your pilot with monitoring the phaser banks status and regulating their power and temperature, or would you rather have him only go through the trouble of verifying a ready light on his board before firing?..

this still allows phasers to be fired without full phaser crews, just not as efficiently. there would be power falloff from approximated monitoring, since the automated system might miss a lot of things that the phaser control crews normally went through (as seen again in Balance of Terror, when the phaser didnt shoot, they did have to circumvent that and manually fire from the phaser room)..

i see the same thing happening with torpedoes.. (i favor the less complicated explanation that the 1701 refit was mostly unmodified between TMP and TSFS). even though lifting the grating was done by a numerous crew, it could be done by one or two people, just not as quickly.. remember, after that the torpedo was loaded and launched fairly automatically.. the robot arm placed it on the track, and into the launcher..

of course, i feel the same way about this setup as i do about the TOS phasers.. sure, so you could fire a torpedo on automatic, but its a lot more efficient to have a crew monitoring the loaing in case of a jam, setting the coolant levels, monitoring the exhaust or whatever. if the torpedo was jolted out of place and no one was there to verify it, you could have a rather nasty misfire, i think, with basic computer control.

i think that the TSFS automation failure was a problem of computer programming/capacity. asknig the computer to read all of the internal sensors on the ship and then tasking it with changing the settings on dozens of systems, rather than having crew doing it manually, must have taxed their processor. perhaps they needed a few more gigaquads of RAM.. was that the UFP blue screen of crash behind Kirk?.. beside if the Klingon torpedo hit severed data lines that monitored and allowed the computer to regulate any vital system, any attempt to reroute the entire computer's capacity through remaining data lines would be akin to downloading Nemesis from a P2P on a 56K modem ( ) .. it would just be too slow to keep up..

BTW i have to disagree on one ponit, i think that most vessels, as a matter of course, must have launchers of some kind. as i've said before, the Federation probably doesnt have only one level of torpedo/probe launcher.

Galaxy tubes can fire large spreads of torpedoes simultaneously, while other ships seem severely limited to one ata time, every few seconds. its nots like US Navy ships have only one type, class and size of missile. There are dozens of different launcher types capable of different ranges, payload sizes and launch speeds. i think that most ships have launchers, but you are right, not all of them need to be as powerful as 1701's even.
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
wow, did i really get the last word?
 

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Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
 
No.
 

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Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by CaptainMike:
(Roddenberry's intention was that the ship was far out the whole 5 years, not recieving modifications very often.. that's why he balked at showing 23rd century Earth)..

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quote:

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Originally posted by Timo:
Even the deck count jibes with the Johnson/Probert count, IIRC.

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