Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Steamrunner questions

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Posted by Saboc on :

I was looking at all the topics posted during the past year and there was no topics about the steamrunner so...
Anyway, what is the crew complement for this class? And during piece time, will there be any ships of this class being commissioned? or is just like Defiant-class which only call into service during conflicts?

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

There isn't any reliable number for the Steamrunner's crew compliment. Heck, there isn't really a reliable number for any ships aside from the main ones.

Also, there's no indication that the Steamrunner is anything else then an ordinary starship.

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"And if we weren't good to you, Dave, you shouldn't take it all the way to your grave."
--
Will Rigby

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

There have been a few Steamrunner discussions some time ago, but they were mostly pointless because there is *nothing* we know about the ship, we only have a very rough guess about its size. I think we all agree that the specs given in the DS9TM are crap.

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"When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way."
A somewhat different Janeway in VOY: "Living Witness"
Ex Astris Scientia

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

Yes. We don't even know where the name comes from. . . B(

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Chiun: "No! I am BETTER than that!"

- Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous (1986)

Starfleet Weapons & Tactics

Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :

Wasn't the name originally meant to be Streamrunner? That's what the sketch in the TNG Sketchbook said, anyway.

Bernd: The class isn't actually in the DS9TM at all. And yes, the specs are rubbish.

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"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK

[This message has been edited by Dax (edited November 19, 1999).]

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

Yes, but we don't know where the name Streamrunner comes from either.

Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

I know where it comes from...
It's a [censored]... er, a fubar

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"Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

I reckon - if it was Jaeger who desgined them - went an looked back at Matt Jefferies original sketches for alternate Enterprises... This is where I reckon they originally got the ideas for the oberth too... There is a sketch in there with a saucer section attached to the top of two nacelles and the engineering section attached to the back...

maybe the Steamrunner is just a newer spin on the old oberth design!?!

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Ralph: Um, Miss Hoover? There's a dog in the vent.
Hoover: Ralph, remember the time you said Snagglepuss was outside?
Ralph: He was going to the bathroom.

Posted by Striker on :

This isn't canon or anything, but in one of the TNG Sourcebooks, they go into specific details about the Steamrunner, Norway and Saber classes. They say that they were part of some sort of fleet wide modernization program to deal with weapon obseoletness(sp?). Anyways, I can't remember the exact details, the book itself I read at chapters. It was a very well done book though, very informative even if it wasn't canon or anything. I might go back and check out what they say for length and all that.

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-Striker
kob.diabloii.net

Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :

The way I see it is that the First Contact CGIs were never meant to be analysed in great detail. They're simply insignificant battlefield filler ships. We'll probably never see the insides of any of them. Other than the Akira-class, we know next to nothing about these ships.

It would be good to speak (or write) to Jaegar about these ships. He's the only one liable to know the "secrets" behind these vessels. I'd be happy to know just how big/long they're meant to be.

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"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

We tried. We made contact, secured his permission to submit a brief list of questions, agreed to about twenty between ourselves - Vorlon may still have the list - and then never heard from him again. Probably ran a mile when he realised how serious we were.

Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :

We should all put in for a bounty hunter

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"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Y'know what, let someone else try it...the person just needs to say that he finds Jaeger's ships very cool, that he's drawing a big nice size comparison chart, and that some numbers are needed.

Then somebody else could call him up two weeks later and say that he finds his ships kick unowhat, and that he's wondering about the number of guns they have!!!

Then somebody else could call him up a month thereafter and say that he finds his ships really cool, and...

Boris

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"Wrong again. Although we want to be scientifically accurate, we've found that selection of [Photon Energy Plasma Scientifically Inaccurate as a major Star Trek format error] usually indicates a preoccupation with science and gadgetry over people and story."

---a Writers' Test from the Original Series Writer's Guide

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Well, Vorlon's actually the only one who has Jaeger's e-mail address. As I recall, he got it by e-mailing ILM's HR department. If you can find that address, I suppose you could possibly get Jaeger's...

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-Commander Adams, Forbidden Planet

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

That would be [email protected].

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"Anarchias de meizon ouk estin kakon." - Creon

Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

You know, I reckon the shape of Jaeger's ships is to conform to the Defiant - ships with lower "target areas". After all, if it's possible to pull the nacelles so close in to the body, it makes ship harder to hit in combat.
So maybe these designs are variants on the basic morphology of the Defiant?

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"Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Well the back half of the Steamrunner saucer section has a back half sorta like the back half like the defiants...

Plus the Sabre isn't much bigger than the Defiant - maybe these were some other post Q Who? Designs that Shelby was helping design... and since the success of the Defiant - they brought them out of mothballs too!?!

Maybe thats why we haven't seen much of the Norway - it wasn't as a successful design as the Defiant - or they just pulled the two or three or what ever number that were at the Borg Battle in FC - out of storage... and maybe they hadn't been tested further than the original test period!?!

I can just see those ships in a Dusty corner of Utopia Planitia - with a skeleton crew - faithfully keeping her in working condition... The weren't assigned to her for the Borg incursion - but they went anyway... since no one else knew the two Norway's like they did - they were their babies.

Andrew

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Ralph: Um, Miss Hoover? There's a dog in the vent.
Hoover: Ralph, remember the time you said Snagglepuss was outside?
Ralph: He was going to the bathroom.

Posted by Obi Juan (Member # 90) on :

You really cannot judge the quantities of particular classes in service just by what is seen on screen (except for the fact that there are a s***load of Excelsiors). Sure the Dominion war gave us the closest thing we have seen to a cross section of starfleet. But even then we were only seeing a small fraction of one fleet most of the time (it was usually the Ninth wasn't it?). The First Fleet may consist alomost entirely of Ambassadors and Steamrunners with a few wings of Olympics to take care of casualties.

Speaking of Olympics, since this class does currently exist (according to Okuda anyway) why didn't they ever show one during the Dom war? I mean they were making hideous kitbashes to make the fleet look bigger, why not cameo a nice aesthetically pleasing Olympic instead of letting the model gather dust in some wherehouse. Hell war is a great excuse to bring in the hospital ships and at the very least they could have shown one orbiting in the background of DS9. Did they drop the model? Maybe they let the same guy who was in charge of transporting the Ambassador model handle it (after he'd had a couple of drinks).

Posted by The Vorlon (Member # 52) on :

Bah, for all the good it did me, take it... [email protected] I sent him another email, about 2 months ago, just asking if he'd still be interested in talking about them, an I've yet to recieve a response... I think his address may have changed.

The original list of questions:
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1. - Did you design the Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Norway classes with any general or specific dimensions in mind? If so, what were they?

2. - Where did you get the names of these classes from?

3. - Did you design these ships with the intention that they be newer or older ships?

4. - Do you have a favorite of the 4?

5. - What exactly was the problem with the Norway and do you know why it has not been seen outside of FC, while the other ships have been seen on DS9? The most popular rumour is that there was some sort of problem
rendering the mesh (textures?)

6. - Did you have any stats for the ships in mind when you designed them? (ex: # of decks, kinds of weapons, engines, shuttlebays, any other special characteristics)

7. - What served as your inspiration for the ships? Ex: Drawing from existing ST designs, previous work you had done, etc...

8. - Did you come up with any ideas for more new ships that were shelved early on?

9. - Did any/all of the ships in the Borg Battle have names, or were they nameless?

10. - What program were the ships built in? Also, just out of curiousity, how large are the meshes/textures in terms of memory, # of faces, resolution, etc?

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Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

Hmm. I remember them well. Maybe we asked too many questions and scared him off. But he could have come up with short snappy answers to each that wouldn't have taken more than 5 minutes all told, rather than just completely vanishing. . .

Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :

One thing unique about the Norway-class is that it's the only FC CGI that has Defiant parts. The Norway nacelles have the Defiant plasma vents. The Norway also has that Defiant engineering four injector thing (or whatever it is

Anyway, I dare say that the Norway's the ugliest out of the 4 ships.

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"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

$%@&!#

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Posted by The Vorlon (Member # 52) on :

Actually, Jaeger said that he'd be happy to answer them, that he'd already rounded up some of the answers we wanted, but that he'd have to get permission from TPTB (Paramount, ILM, I don't know...). He said to give him time, I did, he likely forgot about it. =<

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Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Actually the specs about the Steamrunner in the DS9TM are so crap that they are entirely missing and a ship that was never seen on DS9, namely Norway, is depicted instead

. I wonder if the specs could in fact be supposed to belong to the Steamrunner, and they messed it up in the same way as they have given the Norway and the Sabre the same specs.

Anyway, it will be a great day of glory when Jaeger finally reveals the secrets of the Steamrunner. Is it possible he omitted all the windows for simplicity or because there was no time? The convenient canon excuse, of course, is that suddenly there are several types of warships in Starfleet and have always been.

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

We did see the Norway ONE other place outside of FC...

On that plaque in that bar in "In the Flesh"

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Ralph: Um, Miss Hoover? There's a dog in the vent.
Hoover: Ralph, remember the time you said Snagglepuss was outside?
Ralph: He was going to the bathroom.

Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

For more info on the Akira class, I believe Jaeger wrote an article for Star Trek: The Magazine.
Unfortunately I can't get it here in the UK - so would any of you Stateside types be kind enough to scan it and mail me a copy??

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"Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"

Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :

Its a random ship designed to fill the backround of the Borg Battle of 001 from first contact. It's cg model wasnt as detailed as the holly Akira-Class, although a great design, i wish they would put more time into it, and gave it a good shot in FC.

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Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :

Just what are you having a sad about, Frank?

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"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Well, a long time ago, Adam was slightly less willing to supply Jaegar's address.

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Frank's Home Page
"Anarchias de meizon ouk estin kakon." - Creon

[This message has been edited by The Shadow (edited November 24, 1999).]

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Well, Frank, imagine what would happen if twenty people were to read it on the forums, and then all decide that they want to send an e-mail to him. Might be a little too much. I think I'll try right now, though....

"hello coud you pls tell me how long the ships in first contact are i am making a model and need some numbers boris..."

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited November 24, 1999).]

Posted by The Vorlon (Member # 52) on :

Frank: I think you mean MORE reluctant...

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Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Boris: Well, long story, but basically, he agreed to give me the address, but then decided he was Jaegar's close personal friend, and thus didn't.

Adam: Er...right. I'll fix that.

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"Anarchias de meizon ouk estin kakon." - Creon

[This message has been edited by The Shadow (edited November 24, 1999).]

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Here goes. Note the Steamrunner spelling (although I may have influenced him by spelling the ship that way in my question). As for the Defiant, he probably means that (at least in FC) the ship is supposed to be much smaller than the 170m Sabre, and not the same size or larger.

No idea what he means by existing saucers, perhaps trying to match saucer sizes with those of existing Starfleet designs? Jaeger did say in the Magazine that the Akira saucer was the same size as the Sovereign saucer, and taking a brief look at Vorlon's top view charts, the Steamrunnner, Norway, and Akira saucers do seem to be about the same length. Jaeger probably drew up -some- kind of a comparison chart without adding specific numbers, and thus he knows that the Saber is bigger than the Defiant, but not the actual sizes.

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 15:47:54 -0800
From: alx
To: Boris Skrbic
Subject: Re: FC ship sizes

Greetings:
Thank you for comments about the FC ships. In regards to your query about the sizes of them please refer to the size chart from the Star Trek Encyclopedia "A Reference Guide to the Future" updated and expanded
edition, ISBN: 0-671-53607-9 pages 578 and 579. You'll see that the Akira, Norway, Steamrunner and Saber-class sizes in comparison to ships of known size. Although personally my intentions were that the Saber would be larger than the Defiant-class. These charts are accurate for the most part visually, but I never really had hard numbers for the sizes while designing
them due to time constraints. I mainly based the sizes on existing ships by the size of the "saucer" sections. Me hope and intentions are that Paramount will be contacting me soon to publish more information on these ships in the "Star Trek Magazine". So for the time being I'm unfortunately bond by confidentiality contracts not to reveal any further information about the actual workings, structure and or details of their specific operations (STFSC: 004-331 sec:002).
I hope this little tidbit of info helps you, sorry I can't reveal more at this time, but in the mean time check out Galaxy Quest this Christmas! See some more of my handy work as the N.S.E.A. Protector NTE-3120 battles across the universe with the help of it's fans!!!! And Happy Thanksgiving!

Never Give up, Never Surrender!
Alex Jaeger

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited November 24, 1999).]

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

Whoa, cool. He, like, wrote back. ehyeah.

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Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Well, sometimes you're just lucky. I tried visually matching the saucer areas (roughly), and the Steamrunner comes out as slightly shorter than the Akira, while the Norway is slightly longer than the Steamrunner, as expected. Of course, these results may vary.

I'm only not sure whether the Saber is supposed to be bigger than we all thought, because it's the only ship that doesn't look right after saucer matching. Remember, Stipes had it at 190 meters, which seemed right to us, but the Akira and Steamrunner were both downscaled (262 and 243 meters). What if the Saber is supposed to be bigger?

Boris

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited November 24, 1999).]

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

No doubt he'll be inundated with questions now, so I won't bother him. But I REALLY want to know where the name Steamrunner comes from. . .

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Don't worry, Boris thinks of a question before you know you are going to ask it

I didn't want to let go of the lucky strain, so I questioned him about the Steam/Streamrunner issue before I left to watch that awful Voyager episode. But I suppose he's out for Thanksgiving by now.

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 18:33:50 -0800
From: alx
To: Boris Skrbic
Subject: Re: FC ship sizes

Originally it WAS STReamrunner, named after a song on a CD of my favorite band, Fold Zandura, they are a little known but excelent alternative Christian band and good Star Trek fans as well. I also named another ship that did not appear in the film the Zandura-class, a protype science ship (like the Grissom) with separation capabilities for atmospheric flight
conditions.

Anyway the "r" in the name"STReamrunner" got lost in the muddled communication to paramount and it ended up getting approved as "Steamrunner" which has it's own sort'of coolness in a Hightech named low tech kind'a way. Anyway I'm out'a here,

Later
Alex

---a Writers' Test from the Original Series Writer's Guide

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited November 24, 1999).]

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Well, that is very very interesting. The mystery solved.

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--
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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Personally, I was hoping that he favored the spelling "Sabre" over "Saber", but apparently not...

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Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :

Is "saber" the US spelling of "sabre"? That's what I've always assumed.

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"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

I think it is the US version of spelling it - hope they don't call a ship the color/colour or harbor/harbour...

Steamrunner is better than Streamrunner - as Bart Simpson says all the best bands are affiliated with Satan

so I guess were going to wait in anticipation for those Star Trek magazines eh?

is the new one out yet - someone said that there were some great scans of Starbases... anyone care to scan some of the piccies?

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Ralph: Um, Miss Hoover? There's a dog in the vent.
Hoover: Ralph, remember the time you said Snagglepuss was outside?
Ralph: He was going to the bathroom.

Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

Hmmm...
Steamrunner sounds kinda low-tech/hi-tech at the same time... like something out of Bruce Sterling and William Gibson's "The Difference Engine":

Captain: "Engineering, we need more processing power. All hands to the Babbage Engines!"

Engineer: "I'm givin' her all we've got, Sir! If I push any harder, the whole thing'll blow!"

First Officer: "Damn it, Captain - I told you we needed more men to stoke the boilers!"

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"Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Just another wee question - which I'm sure wouldn't interfere with his contract - did anyone bother to invite him here to lurk... at least. Anyone give him the URL?

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Ralph: Um, Miss Hoover? There's a dog in the vent.
Hoover: Ralph, remember the time you said Snagglepuss was outside?
Ralph: He was going to the bathroom.

Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

I for one would love to see people who worked on Trek invited to the forums... that way they can share ideas with us, sort out SWDAOs...
I wonder - can anyone set up a chat site?

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"Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Well they probably wouldn't want to participate - probably against their contracts - although Mike O and Rick S do potter around the net...

I wouldn't mind some lurking by them, like Jaeger for instance - then he might get some ideas or he might see some stumbling block and might realise its not in his contract not to talk about some particular point - and share it with us

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Ralph: Um, Miss Hoover? There's a dog in the vent.
Hoover: Ralph, remember the time you said Snagglepuss was outside?
Ralph: He was going to the bathroom.

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

From what I understand, the Trek creative team isn't supposed to examine any fan-generated stuff unless it's been submitted through a literary agent. Otherwise if they used something that's inspired by something they saw on the web, they might get sued by the guy who created it (who, as we have all seen, isn't always the guy who says he created it).

I know they monitor some newsgroups, but that's about it as far as I know. It'd be nice if I got a letter from Paramount asking to use some concept I developed, but if I did, I would view the letter with more than a little suspicion. It is more probable that such a letter would have originated with a practical joker than paramount.

--Baloo

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