posted
I usually question the need for a generational ship in Starfleet's future. I was hoping that by the 27th century or whenever the E-J was built, that transwarp or even faster tech would allow Starfleet to zip pretty much anywhere in the galaxy, or even to neighboring galaxies, within months or years at the most. Still dowsn't rule out the multi-year missions that the E-D was originally built for, though.
With a crew of thousands or more, this Enterprise could probably be a sort of mobile starbase and local hub of exploration for thousands of light years around. Smaller starships could be assigned to short-range exploration around the travelling city, which could itself be in another galaxy for years at a time. The Enterprise could have a huge civilian population, maybe even with a small campus for Starfleet Academy in there.
Ahh, fan speculation. How I miss your warm slathering touch...
posted
Maybe the Enterprise-J is going to explore other galaxies A while back a modder from Bridge Commander made an Ent-J and filled in the blanks with his own guestwork. He wasn't too far off. At least now I can disregard this other fan made Ent-J which had a ridiculous "shark fin" structure on its ventral side.
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
One thing that comes to mind when looking at the scale of the E-J: the General Systems Vehicles from Ian M. Banks' Culture novels. Whereas the Culture has Orbitals, Rocks and Planets as well, the GSVs are considered the backbone of their civilisation - giant spaceships with populations in the millions, always on the move around the galaxy, never really stopping in one place for very long.
posted
I really dig it- it might house a couple of smaller starships that scout ahead to determine what's intresting and safe for the civvies on board.
Judging by the shallow angle of the saucer, it would need to be very large indeed to have multiple decks.
I'm thinking larger than the Voth ship in length though probably not in volume.
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I'm sure Doug wasn't thinking of precise size or scale when he built the thing, and it's really tough to judge deck count or size based on the "windows" we see. However, if you look at the middle of the saucer, IF the rows of windows there could be analogous to a more typical saucer section, then just the middle part could be twice as wide as a Galaxy's saucer..! The outer windows could be portholes to large internal areas like parks or communal areas.
In one of my favorite anime series "Macross" (et.al.), humanity is nearly extinguished when the Earth's surface was basically destoyed during an alien attack. Knowing there were plenty more hostile threats out there, the surviving population decides to embark on a program of colonization, building a series of ever-larger colony fleets with populations up to ten million. Some would find planets to colonize, while others would be cruising space for decades, but all with the knowledge that if Earth were ever to be destroyed, humanity would survive out there.
I can see the Enterprise-J as an extension of that school of thought. We know that folks the Borg, the Dominion, and even the Xindi had plans of destroying the human species for one reason or another. In the case of the Xindi, we know that if they had succeeded they would have continued a campaign of finding human worlds and destroying them. So, Starfleet extends the idea of bringing families on starships to purposefully building a ship to carry a representation of the Federation as a whole, such that if the next alien attack succeeds, the Federation would survive to start again.
posted
I dont think that would be a humans-only clubhouse- recall that even the cardassians serve n the J. I think it's more a grand exploration to neighboring galaxies (though you'd need something faster than Transwarp to reach Andromeda in a laifetime). Also, there could be real species-specific population controls in the Trek future to sonserve resources and avoid wars...possibly the ship only starts out 3/4 full of civilians to avoid that.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Oh yeah, they are nice. But I wonder Jason if you saw Drex's post on the status of Galileo Shuttlecraft. Its in some dump somewhere and it looks like Shite.
Registered: Feb 2005
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Sad for a prop with such history to go that way but it's happened before- almost all the original Star Wars fullsize ship props were destroyed due to termites and wood rot.
In truth, I never liked the TOS shuttle design- it was a box with nacelles that did nothing.
I wonder what happened to the 1:1 Runabout sets though.
Suprisingly, the Elkins shots held no suprises for me- I got pretty much everything right on my small model (though I bet Soundeffect's is far closer to that exact model- I tweaked a few things on mine). Thanks go to Bernd for hosting those few references shots I had prior.
I posted a link and a reply on Drexler's blog but afterwards I caught an error and a typo and look a fool (moreso than usual). Lament!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Regarding the E-J, Drexler estimates that the ship is around two miles in length, the crew uses site-to-site transporters to get to the distant parts of the ship, and the saucer itself is around 30 decks thick.
-------------------- Is it Friday yet?
Registered: Feb 2000
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That is crazy shit right there. 30 decks thick at the saucer...(shakes head) I'm thinking Data would have to come back just to manage security on such a vessel.
Maybe they could have teams of roving Horta for trash detail.
You know what? Screw the new movie- I want a series with this ship!
Also, I need orthographic views for building a physical model- even a large model would have to be 1:10,000th scale though. And here I just bought some Steel spray paint for a Sentinel I'm re-painting for my roommate. Fate? I'm saying, [b]yes[/b[.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Yeah, this ship just screams series, and it's large means there could be episodes which focus solely on specific parts of the ship. I mean at this point it would be more like a city than a ship.
Registered: Feb 2005
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Absolutely- it would have all the story potential of starbase and starship life.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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The other morning, Dominic West (star of The Wire) was interviewed on the Today programme (BBC Radio 4's flagship political radio show) ofor what was obviously a puff-piece for the Beeb's terrestrial showing of The Wire. He bemoaned the fact that UK drama these days only seems to be good at period pieces. Well, the Trek shows you all seem to want are period dramas at this point. I want something like The Wire, the Sopranos, Mad Men, Six Feet Under, The Shield, Breaking Bad, Generation Kill. BSG was the only show being lumped in with that lot and it's gone now; I had high hopes for Virtuality but last reports were that Fox were lobotomising it.
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Well if they put in a ZPM they could travel to other galaxies in 3 weeks.
-------------------- I'm slightly annoyed at Hobbes' rather rude decision to be much more attractive than me though. That's just rude. - PsyLiam, Oct 27, 2005.
Registered: May 1999
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![[Wink]](wink.gif)
A while back a modder from Bridge Commander made an Ent-J and filled in the blanks with his own guestwork. He wasn't too far off. At least now I can disregard this other fan made Ent-J which had a ridiculous "shark fin" structure on its ventral side.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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