I thought I'd look over these pages also while we're at it, for the sake of completeness. Hope you don't mind!
Danube
Their maximum speed is given as Warp 4.7 in the DS9 bible, supported by an exchange in "Dax" where Kira is specifically asked to search for ships faster than runabouts, and replies by listing ships that meet or exceed Warp 5. The only contradiction is Jake's "warp eight" order in "The Jem'Hadar", which we didn't see executed because he lacked proper authorizations. If runabouts could do Warp 8 from the planet to the wormhole, why not for the short time it would take to catch Dax's kidnappers? Why not worry about ships capable of Warp 9 or more?
Defiant
Why didn't the Defiant land onscreen? Ron D. Moore: "The Defiant can land?"
The poster who mentioned this to him quoted Captain's Chair. Ron then questioned that source, not knowing that the Captain's Chair actually has the canon cutaway. That's one reason why the Defiant didn't land onscreen, there may be others. The crew complement was alternately given as 47 ("The Adversary"), 49 ("Children of Time"), 50 ("Paradise Lost"). The bible also gives a crew of fifty, so I'd accept this number as the theoretical crew size.
I'm sure the Defiant can reach Warp 9.8 (DS9 bible) for very short periods, though you'd have to reroute energy from the weapons to achieve even Warp 9.5 (as mentioned in "The Sound of Her Voice"). The regular maximum speed is only Warp 9 according to the episode -- I'd use this number.
Excelsior
There is the third variant from "Star Trek VI" which has a smaller bridge (to account for the reused Ent-A bridge instead of the original sets from Star Trek III), two impulse deflection crystals and an extra row of windows in the aft shuttlebay area. It was recreated as a smaller model by Greg Jein for "Flashback", and almost certainly used as reference for the CGI model now in use by Foundation and Eden. No differences are visible in a side view, though.
Intrepid
The standard complement quoted by Rick Sternbach is 150. Voyager started out with 141 before they added on the Maquis and lost some crew due to Caretaker.
Miranda
The registry of the Majestic is actually NCC-31060, as seen in the text of "Starship Spotter" and also the CGI model shown there.
Nebula
In "Second Sight", O'Brien modifies the Prometheus' engines so they can do "Warp 9.6 in a pinch, but I wouldn't take it any faster". Dax says she thought the theoretical maximum was Warp 9.5. O'Brien: "It was." This dialogue is certainly in the episode, and I'd set the Nebula's maximum speed to Warp 9.5, the theoretical limit.
Also, in "Interface" (TNG), we learn that there were 300 people aboard the Hera.
Prometheus
Its length is exactly, not approximately, 1360 feet or 414.528m. There are 16 decks. Both pieces of info come from Rick's blueprints -- he posted the numbers on startrek.expertforum.ricksternbach. The size was confirmed in a rare view in the Magazine of Eden FX's bookleet that keeps track of ship lengths -- unfortunately, no other numbers were visible. It's maximum speed is also given in the episode as Warp 9.99.
Yellowstone
Seems to be same length (23.1m) as the regular runabouts, if nothing else.
Chakotay's raider
David Stipes mentioned in an old Voyager or TNG magazine article (don't have the exact name but I did see it) that the raider was 1/5th the length of Voyager. However, the interior sets are those of a runabout and can be matched with the exterior model. In this case, I got a size of only 40m or so. Have you tried this?
[ December 06, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
Chakotay's raider is fairly assuredly 85m long from both VFX evidence from Caretaker (which is fairly inconsistent anyway) and more conclusively from scaling the cockpit windows of the miniature to those of the interior set.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
If the Defiant can hold 50 people, surely it can hold 49 or 47. And yes, the Defiant does have landing struts according to the MSD, but I can't think of an episode where it would have been necessary for the Defiant to land. Sisko said she's not made for atmospheric operation, so the struts would most like be meant for moons or asteroids or emergency situations.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
He didn't specify "atmospheric operation" -- he only said, in "Starship Down", "I know it's not what she was built for", probably meaning entering a class-J gas giant with wind speeds of 10,000 kph according to Kira. It could refer to atmospheric operation in general, or it may not. The Defiant did manage to crashland 200 years in the past in "Children of Time".
I scaled the two forward windows of the Maquis raider cockpit to those on the model, and got about 40m.
[ December 06, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I updated my own site with the information... except for the Maquis raider since everyone has a different size for it.
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
Thanks for the comments. I will make the corrections and additions soon.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Ooh, thanks Phelps, I'm udating my site info as well. Nice one
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
I did the math on this raider front-end ages ago and got 21m tall, which clunks out to an 85ish length. The window height has to be the same as the Danube, and so a nice three-plus-one deck layout emerges from that. It also fits the VFX, or at least the only overhead we have.
NB: links are to geocities, so need to be copied-and-pasted.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote: The only contradiction is Jake's "warp eight" order in "The Jem'Hadar", which we didn't see executed because he lacked proper authorizations.
If Jake looked as inept at running a runabout as he did in that episode - i.e. pulling out all the chips... he probably didn't know the top speed of a Runabout and just said "warp eight!"
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
Too bad... Warp 8 on a vessel that has a sustainable max cruise of less than warp 5 would probably blow up from a core breach in seconds.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
Hmm... The Nebula's a pretty close match for the Galaxy, so what makes her so much slower? Poor warp field geometry? Might it have something to do with how I suddenly realize that I can't seem to find an impulse engine (therefore secondary power) on that thing, period? Where's the impulse engines??? AAAHHH!!!!
Posted by PopMaze (Member # 302) on :
Oh, the Nebbie does have Impulse Engines. They were included when Greg Jein built the USS Phoenix and so have been included on all future Nebbie variants. I can't be bothered to go dig up a Nebbie picture showing the aft of the model and then circling the engines to point them out. Perhaps someone else here can do it for me. The reason you normally can't find them is that they're rarely ever lit to be seen.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I'd love to see it, as I don't think any Nebula model since the Phoenix has had impulse engines on it.
(Obviously, the "real" ship does, but that's beside the point at the moment.)
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think they're perched on top of the nacelle pylons...funnily enough. It took me a while to find them myself. Does anyone know why they blocked out the sauser nacelles from the galaxy class?
Posted by mrneutron (Member # 524) on :
quote:Originally posted by David Templar: Hmm... The Nebula's a pretty close match for the Galaxy, so what makes her so much slower? Poor warp field geometry? Might it have something to do with how I suddenly realize that I can't seem to find an impulse engine (therefore secondary power) on that thing, period? Where's the impulse engines??? AAAHHH!!!!
Better yet, try to find the impulse engines on the Romulan Warbird. Guess what? There aren't any. Andy Probert told be he intended there to be two vertically stacked impulse exhausts at the very back of the Warbird, but he had a lot less time than usual to design that ship, and left the show before ever drawing the aft elevation. When Greg Jein built the model he didn't think to ask about the impulse engines or add them. Thus the ship hasn't any! (The triangular "mouth" on the front of the Warbird was supposed to be the navigational deflector, not a weapon. When I asked Andy where the deflector was on the Ferengi ship he said, "I forgot it." )
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
Speaking of the Warbird, am I alone in thinking the design is strangely reminiscent of the Concorde planes?
It doesn't seem that unreasonable that the "mouth" of the Warbird could be both the nav deflector and a weapon array. The Galor cruisers seem to be the same. I also think it's feasible that the torp launcher area of the Klingon BoP and battlecruisers are nav deflectors too (where else could the deflectors be on those ships?).
We also know that the Ent-D dish could be modified into a super powerful weapon. And we've seen the Defiant dish converted into a phaser emitter. The difference is that with these Federation ships the dishes were burnt out after firing.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
There is a phaser emitter in the area of the Defiant's deflector dish... it wasn't converted into an emitter.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Yeah it was, in "Starship Down"
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Re: the deflector dish on the Ferengi Maruder it could be theoretically be anything - part of the 'head' section... the 'pincers'... at the peak of the 'buffalo hump'.
And as for possibilities for new areas for a deflector system on the Warbird - I would assume those grill looking 'talons' underneath. They face forward.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think you'll find that those are shuttlebays
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: There is a phaser emitter in the area of the Defiant's deflector dish... it wasn't converted into an emitter.
There are 4 phaser bank and 1 phaser array on the Defiant that we've seen, none of which are anywhere near the main deflector dish. There isn't any reason for a phaser emitter to be there; the forward arc is covered by the 4 pulse phasers.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
We've seen more than that:
"Starship Down": the deflector is modified to act as a phaser emitter and burns out in the process.
"Paradise Lost": beam phasers are fired from the deflector and the bridge areas.
"Shattered Mirror": a beam phaser is fired from the bridge area.
"Message in the Bottle" (VOY): a beam phaser is fired from somewhere on the underside when one of the Defiant-class ships joins in for the final salvo on the Warbird.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I'm sure I've seen a pic of the Deffie, with a phaser strip down the middle of the 'nose'.
Andrew
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I don't think that's a phaser strip. I've got a model of the Defiant, and it's got little weird circle projections at both ends of the strip. Plus, the corners aren't rounded like all other phaser arrays we've seen.
So, it COULD be a phaser array, but it looks totally unlike every other array I've seen.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Hey, has anyone mentioned that those gawd-awful Miranda side-views from the Fact Files are way off? The pod is frickin' huge!
-MMoM Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
I'm sure nobody in the world has any idea what most of the Defiant's details are supposed to represent. That's why I say, bring in Rick Sternbach to do the blueprints after Martin's done with his sketches. They could've tried to assign meaning to all of the random features we see, but maybe not everything worked visually. Also, most of the widgets are on the underside of the model, in the cavity surrounded by Deck 4. Kinda difficult to have a phaser emitter or a torpedo launcher there.
Most of the Defiant's weaponry is probably hidden under hull plates. Ever noticed how all of these random phasers or torpedoes were always shown from a distance in order to conceal the lack of features on the model? Of course, once they started using CGI more, we would see the hull plates pull aside, revealing the escape pods or shuttlebays underneath. All of this would've been rather difficult to do using motion control alone, which is what DS9 was using 80% of the time.
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
We also saw the mirror Defiant fire beam phasers from its bridge in "The Emperor's New Cloak" but it might have been stock footage from "Shattered Mirror".
Another Defiant oddity, in "Shattered Mirror" there is a scene where the Defiant is attacking the BoPs (before facing the giant Negh'var) and it fires a fwd photorp that appears to come from the main shuttlebay area. When the torpedo hits they finish the Bird off with the pulse phasers.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
A shuttlebay-launched torpedo doesn't help at all! Although it did seem to me that the aft torpedo from "Paradise Lost" was launched from about the same area (just note how the glow grows big enough to fully envelop the starboard quantum launcher, so this photon launcher must be closer to the front of the ship than to the back).
Maybe that's where a foward photon launcher was installed or should've been installed according to the stolen Defiant specs -- after all, the DS9TM says the shuttlebay area was originally reserved for future weapons systems. It could be a plug-and-play slot, just like the shoulder modules that housed quantum launchers most of the time.
My theory is that the Defiant had been originally outfitted with two forward launchers in the nose and two aft launchers on either side of Deck 4, as shown on the original MSD. They would've fired both photon and quantum torpedoes. However, they just couldn't get them to work as well as the newly developed weapons that could be fitted into the plug-and-play slots, so for the time being, they filled the plug-and-play slots in the shoulders with quantum torpedo launchers, and the one in the shuttlebay-area with a forward and an aft photon torpedo launcher. The MSD weapons would've hence stayed offline most of the time.
Once the series ended (note that the DS9TM blueprints and MSD have stardates in the 53xxx range), somebody finally figured out how to get the deflector launchers and the Deck 4 aft launchers working right -- they moved the forward tubes together (as seen in the deck plans) and fixed some other things. That opened up the forward shoulder slots for targeting sensors. The shuttlebay-area weapons had been replaced with a shuttlebay long before that, since that was deemed more necessary than a photon torpedo launcher, rarely used in the series.
I also forgot to mention that for a period of time in 2374, during which no torpedoes were fired onscreen, O'Brien would have another try at liberating the shoulder-slots by putting the quantum launchers on the nacelles (as mentioned in the text of the DS9TM). However, that didn't work either, so back they go into the shoulder modules, just in time for us to see them in "Tears of the Prophets".
In the meantime, newer starships of the Defiant class would be outfitted with only a single forward and a single aft torpedo launcher (as seen in the ship section at the end of the DS9TM), located in the shuttlebay slot. Starfleet saw that installing deflector and Deck 4 aft launchers just didn't make any sense until their problems were fixed. Quantum torpedoes in the shoulder slots would be classified as too expensive until warranted by a mission -- after all, how many ships have we seen using them?
[ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
thats odd because, even though the pod looks oversized in that pic of the Miranda.. the Encyclopedia pic weve been seeing for years has the pod a little on the small side. The Ships of the Star Fleet version looks best, oddly enough.
What worries me more is how the nacelles on all Mirandas and Miranda variants are drwan wrong in current Fact files/ST:The Mag issues.. the forward side grill assemblies are misshapen..
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
Phelps: I personally prefer to ignore anything in the DS9TM regarding the Defiant that contradicts what's been established on screen. I mean why complicate things? The Manual clearly wasn't well researched when it comes to the starships - so stuff it!
I should clarify from my last post - when I said "the shuttlebay area" I really should have said "the central bottom area of the ship". With the Defiant we never ever see a clear origin point for a photorp firing. Like you suggest, the origin point from "PL" and "SM" could very well be the same.
All we know for sure is that the triangular units have exclusively been used as quantorp launchers. I'm also willing to except that the knob in the deflector dish is a torpedo launcher (based on the clear VFX of the probe launch in "Rejoined" and the MSD).
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
I'm just trying to find an explanation that allows canon information to be used in future publications AND satisfies the Paramount licensing department. If we stick to just the canon, how likely is that the canon information will ever see print?
On the other hand, we could be so canonical as to disregard completely the placement of launchers on the MSD, like we do with that on the Ent-E and Equinox MSDs. That gives us two forward quantum and two forward photon launchers (the other one being in the ventral area), with two aft launchers (one in the ventral area and one in the Drexlerian-impulse-tail, as seen in "Shattered Mirror" where the entire tail surface glows yellow before the torpedo exits).
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
I most certainly agree that we shouldn't take the location of the MSD torp launchers as gospel. But then, I think we should also be careful with how we judge the VFX. Because we can't clearly see what's going on with the torp firings in "PL" and "SM", I've chosen not to draw any conclusion as to the location(s) of the aft launcher(s). For all we know there is (or was) some sort of fancy launcher that can fling torpedos in both directions.
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
That's true.
If the Defiant were an ideal ship, then we'd usually accept the locations specified in its blueprints as gospel, ignore the MSD placements, and accept one or two faulty VFX shots. Applying that to the Defiant, the only designed launchers were those in the shoulders as far as we know. However, the writers insist there is an aft torpedo launcher as well, which brings us to at least three. The probe launcher is also hard to forget because it's onscreen AND on the MSD (though the MSD puts it at either side of the deflector). That brings us to four.
However, where do we put the aft launchers? Given that the proven launchers all have visible holes, the aft launcher(s) should preferably have one as well. Most of the widgets are on the underside, as I've said, so it only makes sense to work with the suggested locations from "Paradise Lost", and accept a feature somewhere on the ventral side as an aft torpedo launcher.
We can ignore the VFX from "Shattered Mirror" because that Defiant need not be identical to the original, even though it really looks that way. Conclusion: canonically, we have a forward launcher in the deflector, an aft launcher somewhere on the underside, and two forward quantum launchers.
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
Once again we are in agreement. One thing I'd dare to add to your conclusion is that the aft launcher would be in the rear half of the underside. I believe that best fits the VFX and satisfies the MSD to some degree. That only leaves a few widgets on the underside as possible launcher candidates.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I think it's a pretty good idea that the aft launcher would be in the place where the big shuttlebay will later go. That *is* the most obvious location for a plug-and-play module, after all. In a cinch, that could also be where the forward launcher is - a rotating turret for a round hole sounds logical...
The putative forward standard torpedo launcher in the deflector area is a bit of a mystery when it has never been used for the launching of torpedoes. One can launch probes from many things besides torpedo tubes (DS9 the station used to launch probes from docking ring airlocks, for example), and the launch of the probe in "Rejoined" was a preplanned thing, allowing O'Brien to rig a special launch system for the single mission. So I'd be ready to forget about a forward launcher, and be happy with the ones firing from the "shoulders" of the ship.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
The widget on the shuttlebay door would've made a nice torpedo launcher but there's a couple of problems. First, that widget was established to be a tractor beam emitter in "By Inferno's Light". Second, I'm convinced that the aft torpedo in "PL" is fired from an area further back on the ship (my source material is an official CIC video release of the episode).
I too am at least a little skeptical about the torpedo launcher in the nose. That same spot has been established as the focal point of the deflector in "Rejoined" itself, and "Starship Down". And it also seems to be the most probable origin of the opening beam phaser in "PL" judging by the VFX.
TPTB and the VFX crew should have asked themselves "can the little Defiant really be so advanced as to pack in 3 shuttlebays, multiple torpedo launchers, and magic mulifunction widgets?" Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
some of the widgets have to be the self-sealing stembolts or the reverse-ratcheting routers, don't they? And is it true that the Sao Paulo was a variant where all the cogs had been replaced with sprockets?
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