Let's look at a few:

[ July 10, 2001: Message edited by: Ryan McReynolds ]

Wait. Now that I think about it. You know what the new/old Enterprise really reminds me of. The Akayzi!! I'm not sure if I spelled that correctly, but it was in 'Ship of the Starfleet volume 2'

[ July 10, 2001: Message edited by: MIB ]

[ July 10, 2001: Message edited by: MIB ]

Similarities in detail I see to the Akira:
�The notch in the bow -- whether it is filled in this case by a sensor dish or not -- is unaltered from the outline of the Akira.
�The rectangular shape of what I call the 'bridge stripe' (the bit that comes down from between the catamaran hulls) is straight off of the Akira.
�Those landing pads (or whatever) to port and starboard are the same as the torpedo tube cutouts on the Akira.
�The identical shape and placement of the 'superchargers' on the catamarans.
�The placement, and even general shape, of the impulse engines is that of the Akira.
�The shape (not going to argue placement -- placement makes too much sense) of the main shuttlebay and control tower.
�The aft canting of the nacelle pylons is of the Akira.

Any ship can be made 'TOS-y' by texturing it with an old-style hull-plating scheme and old-style fonts and markings (like the black stripes overlaying the p/s running lights), or adding an old-style sensor dish. That's not an argument for either the age or the originality of this ship.

Going back from the Constitution class, the trend seems to be for ships getting smaller and rounder -- through Oberth all the way to Daedalus. So what the devil are we doing with a pre-Fed ship with a fully realized disc-saucer of comparable size to that of the Constitution class? Also, the nacelle pylons should probably be squared to the hull, rather than backswept, in keeping with the other ships of this period and a century after.

Unlike many people, I don't have a problem with it being a design predacessor to the Akira class. I doubt they spent two hundred years kicking around starship designs without coming up with that one... But I do echo many others in my hopes that the detailing is not yet set -- that John Eaves will pull through and come up with a catamaran ship that has its own truly unique details, without lifting so many from someone else's design. That's all for now...

quote:

---

The notch in the bow -- whether it is filled in this case by a sensor dish or not -- is unaltered from the outline of the Akira.

---

The secondary hulls of the Galaxy, Nebula, Intrepid, Sovereign, and Excelsior all have a notch taken out of it. And almost all of them house cargo holds in that location.

quote:

---

The rectangular shape of what I call the 'bridge stripe' (the bit that comes down from between the catamaran hulls) is straight off of the Akira.

---

The Constitution bridge sat on a platform. That same platform was used by its variants the Miranda and Constellation. The Excelsior and Ambassador share a similar bridge platform. The Galaxy bridge sits on a platform that is copied on the Nebula.

quote:

---

Those landing pads (or whatever) to port and starboard are the same as the torpedo tube cutouts on the Akira.

---

Can't think of an objection to this one. You got a point.

quote:

---

The identical shape and placement of the 'superchargers' on the catamarans.

---

The identical shape and placement of the auxiliary navigational deflector dish on the Nova and Intrepid classes.

quote:

---

The placement, and even general shape, of the impulse engines is that of the Akira.

---

The identical placement of impulse engines on the Enterprise-B type Excelsior, the Galaxy class, and the Sovereign class. In fact, the Enterprise-B's structure for impulse engines bears a strong resemblance to the Sovereign's. And the Ambassador and Galaxy main impulse engines strongly resemble each other in shape and placement.

quote:

---

The shape (not going to argue placement -- placement makes too much sense) of the main shuttlebay and control tower.

---

The same shape and layout of the shuttlebays between the Constitution and the Ambassador. Plus, the similar placement in comparison to the Intrepid and Excelsior.

quote:

---

The aft canting of the nacelle pylons is of the Akira.

---

"The notch in the bow -- whether it is filled in this case by a sensor dish or not -- is unaltered from the outline of the Akira."

No it isn't. They are clearly a different shape.

"The rectangular shape of what I call the 'bridge stripe' (the bit that comes down from between the catamaran hulls) is straight off of the Akira."

No it isn't. Different shape.

"Those landing pads (or whatever) to port and starboard are the same as the torpedo tube cutouts on the Akira."

I don't have a picture of them on the Akira, but I imagine they're not in the exact same place.

"The identical shape and placement of the 'superchargers' on the catamarans."

It is entirely possible that these have an important purpose that requires their existence and placement there.

"The placement, and even general shape, of the impulse engines is that of the Akira."

Where else do you want to put the engines? As for the shape, they appear to be far more rocket-like on the Enterprise.

"The shape (not going to argue placement -- placement makes too much sense) of the main shuttlebay and control tower."

How else do you want a shuttlebay to be shaped?

"The aft canting of the nacelle pylons is of the Akira."

Like ships all the way back to the refit Constitution. Meanwhile, the nacelles connect at different places, and the pylons have different proportions.

"Any ship can be made 'TOS-y' by texturing it with an old-style hull-plating scheme and old-style fonts and markings (like the black stripes overlaying the p/s running lights), or adding an old-style sensor dish."

And this wasn't the case here, as shown above. There are plenty of structural differences.

"Going back from the Constitution class, the trend seems to be for ships getting smaller and rounder -- through Oberth all the way to Daedalus. So what the devil are we doing with a pre-Fed ship with a fully realized disc-saucer of comparable size to that of the Constitution class?"

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peregrinus:
Ryan, you are seriously starting to worry me. After all the good work you've done on the analysis of the TOS Enterprise, how can you be this blind to the mess that is the Akiraprise?

---

Call me crazy. I've got nothing against anyone who finds flaws in the Enterprise, I just disagree. I think that things have been exaggerated by (1) hearing the ship described as Akira-like before seeing it, and (2) it not being what anyone would expect. I agree fully that the ship does not fit in with what most people thought of that era. But what people thought is irrelevant unless they get hired to design something for said era. I maintain that there is nothing anachronistic about it.

Let me reiterate that I do believe that, in the most basic sense, John Eaves used the Akira as a starting point and essentially created the Enterprise by tweaking the details. What I'm arguing is that such a thing is irrevelant in character terms. I'm also arguing, as I shall discuss more below, that Star Trek almost always does this, and nobody complained before.

quote:

---

The notch in the bow -- whether it is filled in this case by a sensor dish or not -- is unaltered from the outline of the Akira.

---

And, as I said before, the Akira is not the only ship to exhibit such a notch. As such, the Enterprise ehxibits a similarity to several ships in this respect. It's nothing Akira-specific.

quote:

---

The rectangular shape of what I call the 'bridge stripe' (the bit that comes down from between the catamaran hulls) is straight off of the Akira.

---

I'll gladly grant you that one.

quote:

---

Those landing pads (or whatever) to port and starboard are the same as the torpedo tube cutouts on the Akira.

---

Wha--? They're not even near the same position! The Akira torpedo tubes are right on the rim, and the Enterprise pads are near the catamaran hull. The Enterprise pads, if anything, are where the film-era ships had phaser banks. Where the Akira has torpedo tubes, the Enterprise has running lights and chronologically consistent, pre-TOS stripes.

quote:

---

The identical shape and placement of the 'superchargers' on the catamarans.

---

I conceeded this earlier.

quote:

---

The placement, and even general shape, of the impulse engines is that of the Akira.

---

No, they're not. The Akira's impulse engines, from above, are essentially parallelograms, "following" the hull curvature. Enterprise's are semi-trapezoidal. And they share placement with several other ships, as noted before. Again, this is not an Akira-specific similarity.

quote:

---

The shape (not going to argue placement -- placement makes too much sense) of the main shuttlebay and control tower.

---

I son't see any more similarity than between the Enterprise-A and Prometheus, two ships also seperated by a century. Why is that acceptable but the Akira-style is not?

quote:

---

The aft canting of the nacelle pylons is of the Akira.

---

Well, to be technical, the Akira is sixty-five degrees while the Enterprsie is seventy degrees (along the forward edge), so they're not actually the same angle.

But seriously, I again submit that many ships have aft-canted nacelle pulons. How is one more suddenly inappropriate?

quote:

---

Going back from the Constitution class, the trend seems to be for ships getting smaller and rounder -- through Oberth all the way to Daedalus.

---

I hardly think that three classes seperated by a century is any evidence of a trend. Again, Enterprise shatters one's expectations, but when did John Eaves ever agree to meet everyone's expectations? For all we know, all ships before the Constitution included a saucer-shaped primary hull, and the Daedalus was the exception, not the rule. As I and others have mentioned, the Olympic was viable in the twenty-fourth century, despite being dramatically different from any other ships. Why is this any different?

quote:

---

So what the devil are we doing with a pre-Fed ship with a fully realized disc-saucer of comparable size to that of the Constitution class?

---

I dunno about anyone else, but I'm integrating it into canon.

quote:

---

[QR]Also, the nacelle pylons should probably be squared to the hull, rather than backswept, in keeping with the other ships of this period and a century after.[/QR]

---

Which other ships? The Daedalus and the Constitution? If I take the Enterprise-A and the Sovereign, I can make the arguement that all ships between should have swept-back nacelle pylons. After all, two ships seperated by a century have them. And yet nobody finds the Excelsior and Galaxy unusual. Once again, how is Enterprise any different?

quote:

---

But I do echo many others in my hopes that the detailing is not yet set -- that John Eaves will pull through and come up with a catamaran ship that has its own truly unique details, without lifting so many from someone else's design.

---

But nobody minded Andrew Probert lifting so many details from Matt Jeffries Constitution.

Consider:

Whether or not the Akiraprise is too similar too the Akira is subjective. This matches, but this doesn't. That's already been discussed. But the look of a ship goes beyond the specific angles of some hull extension.

The starships of Star Trek, are essentially, works of art. They are creative designs that involve a large part of aesthetic sense that goes beyond the sepcific hull details.

In essence, the Akiraprise doesn't feel right. There is a lineage of design that stretches from the Pheonix to the Soveriegn. These belay a certain evolution of understanding by engineers over several hundred years of a (albeit) fictitious technology. If there were degrees available in warp theory and starship engineering, then we could understand in detail why starships look the way they do. But all we have to go on are what we see onscreen. And I think the reasonable extrapolations that we have all made about why starships look the way they do just don't jive with the Pre-E as it exists.

Star Trek Ship Design is probley the most non realistic of any Scifi Series.

It shows no variation , its like the same person designed them all or the same group of people with the same cultural background.

The designs show no cultural variation in Federation Ships like we see in real life. With maybe the exception of the few Vulcan Ships we see throughout trek.

When we think of American design , we think of Big , complicated , tough but looks nice and clean.

When We think of Russian Design , we think of Simple ,not overly luxurious but able to keep up with those more complicated designs coming out of America.

German design is known for performance and inovation , luxury and presision crafting. Agressive.

We dont see these variations in trek , its like every federation race has taken on the same way of design. I never liked that.

Its for that reason that we can see there being two schools of design at one time in Trek.

[ July 10, 2001: Message edited by: Dr. Obvious ]

'The black stripes around the running lights were also seen on the pilot model from "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before."'

I'm gonna go out on a massive limb here, and tentatively say that those black strips weren't there in the cage. We did get a good look at the saucer remember, in the whole TWO shots we got of the Enterprise.

To my knowledge, the TOS ship had three versions. The Cage version, the WNMHGB version, which had the black strips, and the series version, which had bubbles instead of vents at the end of the engines, no spikes on the forward nacelles, and a smaller deflector. And no black strips again.

Whether they recognize it or not, they'd say photos of the two ships look similar. We're not debating whether TPTB are reaching for new viewers or old, only that the ships are unmistakeably similar, at least to those who haven't heavily invested themselves in Treknology arguments.

And all these little comparisons of "well, this feature was also on the Excelsior or the Sovereign" ignore the fact that they were all found on the Akira. It's the entire design that counts. Only if it was just a bunch of unconnected details that had never been collected on a single design would that argument be valid.

I get the feeling that even if Berman or Eaves said "Yes, we just modified the Akira a little," some people here would still say it doesn't resemble the Akira.

[ July 12, 2001: Message edited by: Reginald Barclay ]