posted
So where the hell does this "America" varient come from? And why on earth do people want to have different class names for the tinniest possible differences between the ships?
I mean, on this logic, the 6 foot and 4 foot Enterprise-D models would be different classes, as would the Venture-variant.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
PsyLiam, there is a reason why the ships are labeled with the words "variant" and "subclass". they aren't new classes, but variations and subclasses. they do this in real life. as ships are refined during production, different variants emerge. if the USS Poontang is a Chitlin' class destroyer, but it differs from the rest of the Chitlin' class destroyers due to a difference in baboon cannon design and shoehorn propulsion spike design, then the USS Poontang is a "Poontang Variant" type. it is still Chitlin' class ship, but it is labeled differently to show that it has a somewhat different configuration. if more ships are made to the same specs as the USS Poontang, then it becomes the "Poontang type, Chitlin' class destroyer". or in otherwords, it is part of the USS Poontang sub-class. the Venture was a variant of the Galaxy class. i agree, however, that in such cases as the 4 foot and 6 foot TNG Enterprises, or the TAS and TOS Enterprises, that it is silly to claim they are variants as they are clearly the same ship in the same general time period (and in the case of the TNG models, sometimes the same ship in the same 30 second time period).
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I disagree that the Constitution variant is the Phase II ship. The general lines sort of look right it if you squint, but one good look at the stuff in the Phase II book shows that the details are all wrong. Except for the new bridge and the weapons mount on the dorsal, the lines of the saucer and the secondary hull remained largely unchanged from TOS. The schematics from SoSF lean far too much towards the TMP layout.
As for the Tikopai, that's just the TMP Enterprise before they finalized the design of the bridge, decks 2 & 3, and the deflector dish housing. It also had a lot more red markings all over the hull and engines. The edition of the Magazine covering the TMP director's edition printed schematics for it, and there's a lovely shot of the model in that configuration on page 158 of The Art Of Star Trek.
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Registered: Aug 2001
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I honestly don't have a problem with the three versions of the Connie seen in the show (although the names do drive me up the wall). But the obsessive need to give every single stage of every single work in progress version of the model it's own class seems to me to be the very height of overly anal geekiness.
A whole seperate sub-class for the TMP Enterprise before they finished the bidge design? Come on...
And where does the America-subclass come from then?
quote:and in the case of the TNG models, sometimes the same ship in the same 30 second time period).
Surely this applies to the original TOS models as well? How often did the Enterprise leave a planet's orbit in it's series configuration and then fly away from the camera in it's WNMHGB configuration?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
yeah, you're right. TOS is a melange of different configs.
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I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
Liam, I would be tempted to do the same type of image to sort out the variations in the Galaxy design too.
The fact remains that, as I accept it, all of the versions of the Enterprise from 'The Cage' up until 'The Undiscovered Country' are Constitution-class.
On TrekBBS, some git said he wanted a schematic on his website of a Constitution-class ship, labeled as the I.S.S. Excalibur. I noticed his site had movie era markings like circle backed gold badges and the such, so I drew a large schematic and labeled it like he asked. I posted it and he said 'No! I wanted a Constitution-class, not the movie ship'
THAT is why we need to separate the design differences... because its fucking cofusing otherwise.
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
Well, to be fair, class designation aside, the differences between a movie era Constitution and a show era one are large enough to make such a warrant such a demand. Of course, they are also large enough to make one wonder why you wouldn't specify refit or nonrefit at the beginning.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: A whole seperate sub-class for the TMP Enterprise before they finished the bidge design? Come on...
And where does the America-subclass come from then?
Ships of the Star Fleet has a pretty good explanation for all of it. The Tikopai class (or the pre-finished TMP Enterprise) was much different from the Enterprise class in the fact that it was designed primarily for exploration duties, and lacked several tactical and offensive systems. It also had a different model of warp engine, and was equipped with a large hangar bay just behind the VIP lounge in the saucer (visible in the schematics Topher posted).
The America was essentially an Enterprise class starship, but was the class's twenty-year upgrade and was the explanation for the Enterprise-A. It could have been updated to feature rear-firing torpedo tubes, had a larger impulse engine (both of which were not on the Enterprise-A), and modified warp nacelles. There were also several drastic internal changes apparently designed to explain why the Enterprise refit and Enterprise-A sets were dramatically different.
Registered: May 2002
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posted
I think the question was, where does the real-life cue for the America come from?
AFAIK:
Original Constitution, with high bridge dome: "The Cage".
Bonhomme Richard: "WNMHGB", TOS, TAS - with some details magically alternating between the mildly different "WNMHGB" and TOS/TAS versions. Todd Guenther tries to explain these as refits and upgrades, but I prefer to believe in retractable or otherwise transformable gadgetry myself.
Achernar: Never seen in model form, but clearly seen as computer-readout blueprints in TMP and ST3. Upper variant from Franz Joseph, lower probably just something Todd Guenther doodled up for the sake of "historical consistency".
Constitution variant/ "Constitution II": The best approximation of Phase II that Todd could come up with, combining several sources to finish an in reality unfinished model. Note how Todd has two different torp tube configurations, neither of which probably made it to the model.
Tikopai: Todd's take on an early TMP version, seen e.g. in poster form.
Enterprise: Actual TOS movie ship.
America: Actual TOS movie ship with alternate elements from surviving Probert sketches (many of which can be seen in Johnson's "Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise"). Todd's take on what could have been had just about every single detail been done according to these alternate sketches.
As for where the hell the Endeavor originates from... I've been told that sketches showing those weird nacelles exist, and may even have been made by Jeffries himself. I just haven't seen the sketches anywhere myself.
So you have an entirely different clase for the Archenar, which only has a slightly different bridge dome to show for it, and yet the WNMHGB and series ships get lumped into the same class, despire having different nacelles, bridge and deflector dish?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Anduril
Ex-Member
posted
The bridge of the WNMHGB is the same as The Cage's in general appearance. The only differences are in the detail such as the forward view screen area. The WNMHGB has a single square whereas The Cage has a few boxes "screens whatever" and a couple slanted vertical lines. The upper saucer of the WNMHGB ship has colored running lights and two black arcs probably put there to accent the red and green of the lights. The Cage has no running lights and possibly a shadowy gray outline of the two black arcs. These differences are minor. The rear of the nacelles on the WNMHGB ship has a number of holes/vents on the back and The Cage version has a squarish structure with a small rectangle running across the lower part of that detail. I think someone posted a link to that pic above in this thread. I'm not going to go into any possible window differences, etc as I'm only noting the obvious easily visible changes. The only other difference to note is the configuration of the impulse engines.
These differences are not enough to put the 2nd Pilot ship in a seperate class from the 1st. They are basically the same ship. It is only a minor refit between the two..
I have a ton of dvd shots of both that I used to make low poly models of them for use within Star Fleet Command.
As to all the versions of the ship appearing in the same episode. For anybody who realizes that they were probably given $10 for each special effect shot, and that was only if they begged nicely, it's no wonder that they reused previous shots. In the first pilot you see only its version of the ship. In the second you get treated to the 1st and 2nd versions. Then in the regular series we get spoiled with all three wonderfull versions!
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These differences are not enough to put the 2nd Pilot ship in a seperate class from the 1st. They are basically the same ship. It is only a minor refit between the two..
Yeah, but I was asking why the WNMHGB and the series proper models are lumped together (by Timo anyway), when the differences between them certainly seem at least as great as those between the movie model and the "America", and certainly more than the series and the "Achernar" versions.
quote:
As to all the versions of the ship appearing in the same episode. For anybody who realizes that they were probably given $10 for each special effect shot, and that was only if they begged nicely, it's no wonder that they reused previous shots. In the first pilot you see only its version of the ship. In the second you get treated to the 1st and 2nd versions. Then in the regular series we get spoiled with all three wonderfull versions!
Er, yeah, we know. That's why there are two schools of thought on this. Some go for the "the ship has moving bits!" theory, while others, myself included, go for the "they had to reuse shots, give them a break" theory.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I only lump "WNMHGB" and TOS/TAS together because that's how the footage is used - the ship from the second pilot IS the ship from TOS, despite looking different in every second shot. (Well, the ramscoop rods may not "be" there in TOS, since we can't see them, but there's no way around the nacelle endcaps but to say they are retractable, or keep falling off.)
If I had to simply enumerate the different models used in filming the shows, I'd keep these two separate. And I wouldn't include things like Achernar, Endeavor or Tikopai which never even existed in model form.
But I'm not doing that. I'm describing a fictional class lineage for the Constitution-related designs, following the lead of Todd's book and the good Captain Mike's graphic. In that lineage, Kirk never flew an Achernar but the graphics for that subclass were on screen when he flew an Enterprise. And his Bonhomme Richard did keep changing the nacelle endcaps and other details in mid-flight. Whether Kirk's colleagues flew Constitution (II)s or Tikopais or Americas or other such "fictional" ships is up to the reader to decide.
posted
Well I wouldn't say it is the ship from TOS either. Any more than The Cage's is. Going by the criteria that it appears in the series episodes would place both pilot variants in that class.
The series version has a reworked bridge, smaller deflector dish and two decks in the outer saucer rim area as opposed to the one deck in both of the pilots. The difference in window configurations between the series version and the pilot versions suggests different deck layouts. The differences may seem minor but would lead some internal differences and different classifications. And of course there is the ball at the end of the nacelles. I doubt they would retract it and put the other two end cap configurations up from time to time. More new technology that separates it from the two pilots as does the lack of whatever those antenna are on the bussard collectors.
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So, only three of these "variants" were ever seen onscreen. . . and they were all the same ship! So what's the fucking point already? Was there some scene where Kirk says to Scotty:
Kirk: "While we're back at Earth, Scotty, why not put the ship in for some refitting? Let's make us, ooh, how about a Tikopai variant?" Scotty: "We cannae do that Captain, we became a Tikopai last time. Can I interest ye in maybe becoming an America instead?"
While the nerdier among us come at the very idea of such a scene existing, I'll cut to the chase and say no, there wasn't. So I fail to see the relevance of any of this.
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