Flare Sci-Fi Forums: E-nil vs. E-A

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Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

During the original Enterprise refit what could be left over from the refit. If the core structure of the E-nil was left over and rebuilt around it, it could be possible to refit ships like that. Thoughts?

(By the way I know the title had E-A in it just for easier references)

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Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :

Here's a little animation Bernd made:

For the full article, go here.

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[This message has been edited by Fabrux (edited April 22, 2001).]

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

That's cool....

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Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

Couldn't the neck be saved too? Since I'm too laz to pull up the two schematics of the two ships I am assuming that they are almost the same angle to each other. The two arem't exactly matched but you take the hull plating and gut it you can work it from there to reconstruct it in terms of the E-A.

I understand that the Nacelles and the bridge are new because one the PB models can't match up with the LN model and two the bridges are known to be swappable.

Tje reason why I asked this is that various countries prior and during World War II refitted their battleships with new guns new superstructure etc. Two examples are:

The US battleships Tennessee and California of the Tennessee class part of the 'Big Five' after Pearl Harbor were rasied and refitted with with a totally new superstructure that closely resembles the South Dakota class, a modern battleship. This gave these old ships of more than 20 years a appearence of modern battleships.

The Japanese since they were not allowed to build new battleshis because of the Washington treaty had to refit their battleships and battlecruisers. Tjis involved the pagoda type superstrutures that Japanese ships are known for and adding more length to give the ships a better length to beam ratio. Also the weapons and the machinery was to make the ships go faster to keep up with the fast fleet carriers.

All these ships have in common, depending onb the situation you can make a seemingly old design be refitted up to modern standards. Perhaps this is why Starfleet reftired the Enterprise and Constitution classes early, because a batter design that could use the latest technology was developed called the Excelsior class.

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Hey, very interesting ideas! Here's one more, derived from what you said about the Washington treaty:

What if the Enterprise was refitted exactly because a treaty existed, forbidding or limiting the construction of new starships?

The Organian truce had been declared fairly recently. Apparently, both sides had agreed to some pretty unlikely concessions, like voluntarily giving up planets to the side that develops them better. It wouldn't be all that impossible to think that there was also a clause in the treaty that limited the number of new ships to be built. The ban need not be absolute - even if there was only a slight limitation in the number of biggest capital ships or something, Starfleet would still be very interested in finding out whether this limitation could be circumvented by refitting. If refitting proved technically unviable, then screw the treaty - but if it was possible, then Starfleet would benefit from it, since the treaty would be upheld and more time would be won for escalation.

Mind you, the treaty could have been abandoned or altered well before TMP, perhaps soon after the starting of the refitting project. The project would still proceed on its own inertia. And if it was a success, it might be followed up with further refittings, even though nobody would have thought of performing such complex and risky projects if not for the initial treaty limitations.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by colin (Member # 217) on :

And with the canonical revision in years, rf. "Q2", the USS Enterprise is on a five year mission between 2266 and 2270 and encountering V'Ger in 2273.

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

The V'Ger encounter could still be in late 2272, assuming Kirk's mission ended in early 2270. But forcing TMP to 2271 doesn't seem to be possible any more, since Kirk had to have a hiatus of 2.5 years during which he scored no "star hours".

Of course, one could say the refit was begun immediately after the mission ended, and only lasted 18 months, llike stated by Scotty - and Kirk simply forfeited a year's worth of "star hours" for some reason, perhaps as punishment for all those times he broke the Prime Directive. Or perhaps he omitted that year for taxational purposes?

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

OR....

If I were Starfleet, before I started on the refit, I'd be taking every section of that ship apart & analyzing the FUCK out of it. They had some starnge-ass meetings out there & Scotty did a LOT of fucking juryrigging. I'd bet even money that it took a year just for that to happen.

After that, the construction/refit could begin.

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Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

One of the last issues from DC Comics in the '90s provided a non-canon answer to this one. Remind me to go dig it out... something like an 18 month refit, but a 1 or 2 year "queue" before they could start on the Enterprise.

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Unless the mission finished at the very end of 2270, it's more likely to have started in 2265.

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

Scotty's modifications are evident in "Trials and Tribulations", where even O'Brien had a problem figuring stuff out. Given how messed up the original ship was, and how reworked everything was after the refit, I'm of the opinion that they just ripped everything out of there without much analysis or dissection.

That, or they just built a whole new ship when no one was looking. Even Kirk apparently didn't know what the refit really looked like until the movie.

Mark

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Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

Not to blow apart a nifty idea, but that little bit about the treaty probably didn't happen. Given the time it took to develop the Galaxy-class, I'm sure the Excelsior-class was ALREADY well past the design phase. That ship is much bigger and better armed.

Also, you people should remember that these hulls have to be extremely stress tolerant. You can't just rebend the metal and say "hey, now that looks about right." I'm sure over 75% of the original framing was scrapped.

The entire upper section of the primary hull was shot because the original and refit have different curves, (one is concave and the other convex). The "bubble" ABC deck superstructure was also removed and replaced with that more angular version. The overall shape of the secondary hull was drastically changed as well. It went from a pretty straightforward cylinder to a splined structure.

The neck was probably also taken out. If the angle of the load bearing structures changed even slightly, it's probably better to take'em out and replace them with newer, stronger pieces than just reposition the old ones. Also, remember the bulge for the torpedo bay had to be put in there at the base.

Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

Yeah I under stand that the ship's main skeletal structure was probablt mostly scrapped. But keep in mind that in even modern ships that ships have their hulls gutted and then rebuilt with a loonger hull removing the not needed supports and add new supports to resupport the older supports. However in this case the ship's main skeletal structure could have been kept.

If you look at a house for example, take all the coverings off you have a skeletal frame right? Now if you add a couple of feet in the front, lose a few in the back, reconstruct the sides and the re side the house again, you get a similar but not exact house from before.

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Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

Yes, I understand the concept quite clearly. This is a pretty easy technique to apply to modern day naval vessels, because it's mainly the upper hull superstructure that is modified.

However, it isn't so easy to apply to a starship. For example, if you took the plating off of the secondary hull of the original and the refit-E, you'd see that the general bracing structures would be completely different in shape, length, and placement.

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Regarding the Excelsior and the putative arms limitation treaty:

The Excelsior was first seen a decade or more after TMP, depending on timeline details. Having a big complete starship suddenly appear (and be so experimental that experienced people like Scott don't even know if its main propulsion system is going to work at all) actually jibes nicely with the idea of a construction ban.

During the time when Starfleet wanted to pretend that the Organian peace was enforced, the R&D department would come up with all these grandiose plans but would lack the means of constructing prototypes. So when the limitations were finally dropped, the ship was already designed down to the last gamma-weld and helical tensor, and you only needed to build it - and for the past decade, you would have fermented an unhealthy hubris about this design, and thus you would skip some vital prototyping stages in order to win back the time lost because of the stupid treaty.

It's not as if we'd hear of any newbuild starships between TOS and ST3. The closest canonical newbuild would be the Hathaway, in 2284 or so. Noncanon newbuilds are noncanon. And semi-canon things like the Federation or Cygnus classes would come to being just before this ban was effected.

Timo Saloniemi