I was just at the Star Trek Experience in Vegas and shot a lot of photos of Greg Jein's Daedalus class model, which he built for The Star Trek Chronology book, and which later appeared on SIsko's Desk (I believe). I've not seen a lot of detailed photos of this, so I thought I'd share.
Excuse the fuzziness of some of the images. I was doing handheld in low light with no flash and sometimes my hands weren't as steady as I'd like!
Dude, awesome. Thanks!
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Well, from quick glance it appears as though this ship doesn't have an obvious deflector array/sensor dish. Those four windows on the front of the secondary hull look like lounge windows of some sort, possibly for a rec deck or maybe even an arboretum.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
(Really?)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Fabrux snuck in and deflected my VGS-directed snark.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I think those portals are some sort of technology akin to a deflector/sensor thingy. The gold ring around the larger structure has that gold ring around it - I'd say it's part of that whole system.
Remember the E-D primary hull secondary deflectors were just those squares on the ventral side of the hull.
Couldn't get round to photograph from the back, eh? Oh well. Nice job!
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
Makes me wonder why nobody else ever took pics of it. Great pics particularly the view from below. I don't think we've seen that indent on the "saucer"(?) before.
Is that a Danube class above it? I thought they'd sold that off now. Good to see they've kept some of this stuff.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Sweet photos.
Based on the size of the other portholes, the circles in question would be gi-normous windows. I vote for some kind of deflector.
Interesting side note... there appear to be windows on the ventral side of the neck too. I'm assuming they're some other detail and just look like windows. Perhaps this could be considered the 24th century's version of an ERTL kit and thus, not 100% accurate to the real thing.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I still think this thing is beautiful, and the most convincingly pre-TOS-looking design we've seen. Can't get my head around why so many dislike it so much. (This is not directed specifically at the posters in this thread, however.)
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Aban Rune: Sweet photos.
Based on the size of the other portholes, the circles in question would be gi-normous windows. I vote for some kind of deflector.
Interesting side note... there appear to be windows on the ventral side of the neck too. I'm assuming they're some other detail and just look like windows. Perhaps this could be considered the 24th century's version of an ERTL kit and thus, not 100% accurate to the real thing.
I saw that too... maybe the gravity plating in the 'neck'/'tube'/'tunnel' is different due to the position of the nacelle pylons... or something?
Maybe the designer thought it'd be cool to have windows below you - as you walk across a deck made of transparent aluminium! Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Seeing the hull detail up close makes me think that the secondary hull actually has all the important machinery crammed in front. Aft of this area, there are two gigantic "hatches" on the top of the cylinder. Those might actually open, or then they might at least indicate a continuous volume inside. Sort of like the ship were towing a cylindrar payload...
Nice to see some asymmetric detail at the bow. Is that horizontal black line close to the top of the sphere a panoramic window...?
Also, "United Federation" rather than "United Federation of Planets". I guess it's similar to US versus USA.
The four roundels at secondary hull bow could be anything, but if this is the part where the main engines are, large observation windows are IMHO not a good idea. Perhaps those are cover plates for plug-in antimatter pods? They obviously don't enjoy a field forward. But I guess they could be sensors directed downwards to survey planetary surfaces when this baby overflies them.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Nice to see some asymmetric detail at the bow. Is that horizontal black line close to the top of the sphere a panoramic window...?
It has skylight windows too! Must be a pretty nice lounge.
Now.. was this ship really supposed to be only about 100 meters in length? It doesn't seem particularly cramped or especially tiny...
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Nice to see some asymmetric detail at the bow. Is that horizontal black line close to the top of the sphere a panoramic window...?
Back of the sphere - wouldn't that be an impulse engine?
Back of the cylinder - that's the shuttlebay.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I'm starting to think that the Daedalus model was supposed to be a LOT larger than the Encyclopedia suggests. Look at the inline image above, and specifically the "right" side of the sphere visually near the starboard warp nacelle. It looks like there's a second row of windows just below the main row. Almost as if the rows of windows are supposed to be for every third deck. That would suggest an intended length somewhere in the realm of 200+ meters, not 100.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
We also don't know how big thos windows are. They could be small portholes the size of the O shape formed by your hands.
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
True, it might be worth considering the size of the windows on the NX-class. Yes, I know it wasn't actually designed at the time this model was made, but it shows how window sizes can differ. Those ones were at eye level and about the size of an average widescreen TV.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Is it possible there was supposed to be something - like a dish stuck into the four holes at the front of the secondary hull?? It could have been lost over time? There seems to be a few things peeling off etc.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote:Back of the sphere - wouldn't that be an impulse engine? Back of the cylinder - that's the shuttlebay.
Could be. I'd rather have it vice versa, though. That is, the stern rectangles could be the impulse engine, which should look more impressive than a mere dark slit. The shuttlebay, if any, could be the entire dorsal half of the secondary hull, below those vast hatches we see.
The line I was thinking of would be in front of the sphere, though - the first line down from the plateau where the bridge dome rests. The one that makes it look almost as if there were a "sunken" rectangular area at the dorsal bow, except that there isn't - there is just this painted line atop, and two curious vertical knife-cuts on the sides, and then a horizontal cut of the same sort, but it's all flat and on the level of the rest of the sphere.
And yeah, the ship works better at 200 than at 100 meters. But it would be a fun exercise to try and figure out the interiors at the smaller scale, too. The Oberth works pretty well at the Encyclopedic 120 meters, after all.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
If I remember correctly - the back view in the Chronology - there is a ring around the perimeter of the back of the cylinder - that could be an interesting variant of an impulse engine... but the rectangle on the back of the primary hull matches what a lot of starships have - like the Oberth and the Constitution and the Excelsior.
Even though it's just a 'rectangle' and not something fancy - this was just an 'at home' project by Greg Jein (I think) and not a 'commissioned' piece. So he probably skimped on areas. Also depends on what the Matt Jefferies original sketch had - as that is what it was based on I think.
Andrew
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: Is it possible there was supposed to be something - like a dish stuck into the four holes at the front of the secondary hull?? It could have been lost over time? There seems to be a few things peeling off etc.
I like to think the deflector is embedded behind that structure (see the gap between the outer rich & the deflector's structure) and the cap protects a delicate array of sensors with those four circles - being the primary sensor dishes - are visible.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote:Also depends on what the Matt Jefferies original sketch had - as that is what it was based on I think.
The various MJ sketches don't have have "motion lines" (I forget the exact jargon) or "engine exhaust" drawn in, nor do they show any apparent "rocket engine" nozzles - perhaps the original idea was that propulsion would be entirely by the nacelles?
Too bad there is only one dark and blurry rear view in the photoset. That would have been one of the most interesting areas of the ship... The aft ends of the nacelles seem to have careful finish, with dark-painted, corrugated endcaps, but it's more or less impossible to see if there's aft-facing grillework there or something like that. And yes, the secondary hull rim nozzles would be a really interesting concept!
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
This was in the Chronology:
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
so the impulse engines are in the nacelles. I wonder how much stress that'll put on the pylons & central spine.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
No, the impulse engines are those little dots around the rim of the main secondary hull. Sure, they're not glowing, but it's a heck of a lot more reasonable, IMO.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
The Defiant and the "Iceland class" ENT ships also had blue glow at the aft ends of the nacelles, while having separate impulse engines elsewhere. Apparently, the "warp windows" can face whichever way, including aft here, up in the newer Excelsiors and Sovereigns, to the sides and aft in Galaxies and Ambassadors, and to the sides in Mirandas et al...
The cabin portholes in that Encyclopedia picture are obviously painted in afterwards, seeing how the model itself is not rigged for such lighting. (The pattern doesn't quite match that of the black-taped viewports on the model, either.) The ends of the nacelles are probably drawn in for this picture as well, then. I wonder what they would look like in the model?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I believe that the ends of the nacelles look like that at the back - I reckon it was a way to connect it with the 'original' nacelle ends of the Enterprise (The version from The Cage and WNMHGB (I think). And yes, similar to the nacelle ends of the Defiant. Does anyone know or can contact Greg Jein for questioning?? Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
You know, the schematics that were published in the Fact Files were probably drawn from this model, so the aft view probably looks like it does in those.
I'd be wary of trusting the Fact Files diagrams, as they were notorious for inaccuracies and taking creative license with a lot of stuff...
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
If I remember correctly, the Fact Files missed a warp nacelle in the aft view in their Daedalus views originally (it took them until issue 192 to release a sheet of stickers you needed to add to a lot of pages to correct a few errors). I'd hardly take their images as accurate when they miss something that obvious off. Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
That's true. They're not the most reliable source. Still, their diagrams of the Daedalus match what we can see of the model, so maybe they match the parts we can't see as well.
P.S. Could someone delete my extra post up there? I did the old "quote instead of edit" thing.
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
I would have loved to have gotten a good shot of the back of the model, but it was situated in the display case such that the back was angled away from the aisle side, and the back was pointed at a costume. There was no way to get around that side. As was, I had to go some pretty weird angles to get the shots I got.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
We're thankful even for what little we got, you know.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Treknophile (Member # 1869) on :
Personally, I think the model/ship is amazing - and I agree it is much more 'realistic' for the pre-TOS time period than the Enterprise-class NX-01. Something in its lines, proportions and markings just make it 'feel' more authentic.
The circle of round 'ports' around the perimeter of the Engineering hull's stern almost have to be impulse engines (or their precurser).
I'm going to do a cross-section and see what I get in terms of size. I'll assume that a shuttlepod can fit inside the rectangular hangar doors - as well as a TOS shuttlecraft.
BTW: just to be the Devil's Advocate; we know that the Enterprise-class wasn't Starfleet's first warp starship - just the first with the capability of warp factor 5. Could the Daedalus-class explorers be pre-Enterprise? What time period were they supposedly operating in according to 'A Piece of the Action'?
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Treknophile: BTW: just to be the Devil's Advocate; we know that the Enterprise-class wasn't Starfleet's first warp starship - just the first with the capability of warp factor 5. Could the Daedalus-class explorers be pre-Enterprise? What time period were they supposedly operating in according to 'A Piece of the Action'?
Well, the episode made it sound as if it had been after the founding of the Federation. Kirk introduced himself as the captain "of the starship Enterprise, representing the Federation of Planets" and the Iotian responded immediately: "You're from the same outfit as the Horizon?"
Plus, he said the ship left Sigma Iotia II "100 years ago."
OTOH, if we are accepting that this design is indeed the Daedalus Class mentioned in "Power Play" (TNG) then it was retired by 2196. That doesn't really tell us when it was first built, although if it was extant in the ENT era then its absence is curious. Also, it seems unusual that an older, less-advanced design than the NX (retired in the early 2160s as per "These Are The Voyages..." [ENT]) would outlast it by more than three decades.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Could the Daedalus be the new Warp 7 ships mentioned in "These are the Voyages"?
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Certainly, it could be.
So, what did we ultimately decide on as a likely scale for this thing?
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
I don't think it was mentioned anywhere in "These are the Voyages..." that the entire NX class was being retired at that time. Rather it was just Enterprise's time for retirement... possible after extensive action during the war with the Romulans.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
...But certain novels now try to retcon "TAtV" as having taken place in 2154...
It wouldn't much surprise me if the Daedalus class had been in active Starfleet service during ENT. If she were one of the slower, older designs, she'd only be encountered if NX-01 sailed in her operational area (that is, the Daedalus wouldn't be able to sail to where NX-01 is).
And if she's a nearspace explorer, NX-01 and Daedalus simply wouldn't share territory. Not the way NX-01 might quite plausibly encounter some heavily armed homesystem watchdog types at the S2/3 threshold, or some very long-ranging tramp freighters at random times.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Aren't we overlooking a rather obvious factor here, though? Namely that the Daedalus looks much more like a TOS vessel than anything we saw in ENT, all of which had a particular "look" about it...
BTW, what's this about retconning the date of TATV?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Maybe it was the Daedalus that started the TOS look.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Hmm. I'm not sure I see anything TOS-like in the Daedalus. It's not smooth or curvy like Kirk's ship, it's not sleek, it's not light grey...
The ENT novel Last Full Measure is the center of this retcon thing. Not to spoil too much, but it deliberately countermands the plot points and factoids given in ENT "These Are the Voyages" one by one, and reinterprets that episode as a "major exercise in disinformation" rather than a "realistic description of 22nd century events". A valid plot twist, I guess - but not one I'd particularly like.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I don't know. Tech business aside, that episode was powerfully no good.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:A valid plot twist, I guess - but not one I'd particularly like.
So you'd rather have the abysmal crap that we got?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
In a word, yes.
First of all, because if it becomes an accepted practice to just plain contradict in novels whatever is seen on screen, all pretense of these adventures taking place in the same fictional universe falls apart. And without that pretense, there isn't much to the stories themselves.
And second of all, because Last Full Measure is worse than "These Are the Voyages" by far. And yes, that's saying something.
As a distant third, I might mention that the retcon in the novel is embarrassingly clumsy. It would have been far more believable to say that a wizard did it.
^3
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Which is why I stopped reading Star Trek novels a long LONG time ago.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:First of all, because if it becomes an accepted practice to just plain contradict in novels whatever is seen on screen, all pretense of these adventures taking place in the same fictional universe falls apart. And without that pretense, there isn't much to the stories themselves.
And second of all, because Last Full Measure is worse than "These Are the Voyages" by far. And yes, that's saying something.
As a distant third, I might mention that the retcon in the novel is embarrassingly clumsy. It would have been far more believable to say that a wizard did it.
Actually, are you referring to "The Good That Men Do?" "Last Full Measure" is about the Xindi attack, and ***SPOILER ALERT*** Trip's 23rd century bits are just in the background.
I just got a copy of "The Good That Men Do" at my local library and will start reading it soon. I'll let you know what I think.
As for the "retconning," I believe that this is the only time that a novel's authors deliberately tried to change what happened in an episode, and I believe that they had Pocket Books's (and presumably Paramount's) thumbs-up to do so. And, contrary to Timo's point, I think we all know why.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Many an episode of Trek has sucked, but as a general rule the novels suck even more. Leave them alone.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
There are other Enterprise novels that deal with the crew of the NX-01 encountering an alternate universe where Earth's first successful warp 5 ship is not the NX class but a different type of ship called the Daedalus-class.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Uh, not exactly. The two-part novels that you're referring to, the "Daedalus" series, has nothing to do with either the Daedalus class starship or an alternate universe Daedalus class (although there is an alternate universe, but the crew of the true universe's Daedalus got sucked into it.)
The Daedalus ship in the novel was a pre-NX prototype utilizing a different type of engine than a warp engine. IIRC, it was this engine that caused the ship to explode and carry the crew to an alternate universe.
quote: Many an episode of Trek has sucked, but as a general rule the novels suck even more. Leave them alone.
No, the novels do not suck. Most of them are very enjoyable, especially now that there's more cohesiveness between individual authors than when Richard Arnold reared his ugly head years ago. Sure, there's the occasional lousy novel (which is the way with all multi-authored series), but on the whole they're still interesting. And don't forget, Masao's a celebrity now Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I know it's not the Daedalus class we know off, but I find interesting that it was still called Daedalus. Also, I thought it was the Daedalus of the alternate universe that survived the explosion. The professor character on board that Daedalus had a book which had a note written by Trip that was different from the message our universe's Trip wrote. In any case, it was good series. I mean I enjoyed it more that the entire second season of Enterprise.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
I think the author's intention was that the ship's fate was similar to the mythological Daedalus, whose son Icarus flew too high with wax wings and fell to earth. I think the metaphor was that the Professor who designed the Daedalus was "Daedalus" himself, and that "Icarus" represented the crew. Or something like that.
I'm sure the author probably didn't even know what a Daedalus-class Federation starship was.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote:Actually, are you referring to "The Good That Men Do?"
Uuuuuh. Yes, I am.
I truly regret buying that one, but I have no problem with either Last Full Measure or Burning Dreams, both of which feature this as such acceptable piece of necromancy. Trip could definitely be a-kicking despite "TAtV", but the why and how given by Mangels and Martin are less than satisfactory IMNSHO.
quote:I'm sure the author probably didn't even know what a Daedalus-class Federation starship was.
Ditto. But I'm happy it turned out that way. It fits perfectly my perverse view of the history of the Daedalus class!
That is, the class as such precedes ENT by that much. The prototype, a competitor to the NX program, shuns dilithium and instead uses polaric ion cascades � la VOY "Time and Again" for liberating the power of antimatter, much like Daedalus/D's Children says. But she is a failure, blowing up and giving a bad rep to all polaric ion experimentation, and the class already under construction is named after the second ship Horizon instead (as in Spaceflight Chronology). The four or so surviving ships (as suggested by Last Full Measure) serve with indistinction, propelled by an inferior conventional warp drive.
After the Romulan war, the honor of the class is restored, as the vessels are turned into survey ships for the exploration arm of the new Federation Starfleet (their onboard equipment modified as per Starfleet: Year One). More keels are laid, too, allowing some to persist until 2196. The original class name is readopted, leaving Horizon free for the later Ships of the Star Fleet class of that name.
And yeah, I like all the books mentioned above, plus a bunch of other Trek novels of similar or better writing. It's just this particular Mangels&Martin retcon that I majorly dislike.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
SPOILERS FOR "THE GOOD THAT MEN DO" $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
Timo,
Well, I finally finished reading "The Good That Men Do," and I didn't find it anywhere near as bad as you made it out to be. It was certainly better then Braga's hastily written crap that was called a series finale.
Basically, IMHO, the most implausible thing about the book was it's premise: That the events in "These are the Voyages..." were a cover-up for Trip's recruitment as a surgically altered Romulan spy employed by Section 31. And I don't mean that the cover-up was implausible, but rather the idea that the character of Trip Tucker could be in any way good at espionage. Nowhere in the show did Trip ever show any kind of talent for the spy business, other than his engineering knowledge. Of course, without this premise, there'd be no book, so obviously once our belief is suspended, it allows us to enjoy the actual book.
And on that note, I felt the book was very well-written, interesting, and, at the end, satisfied that there may be more to the story in the future. Hell, it even gave a very plausible reason why the whole "no one has ever seen a Romulan" thing actually makes sense (i.e. there were indeed many people who knew what the Romulans looked like, but if the secret were to be known to the general public, there would be distrust against the Vulcans to the point that the Coalition would never be able to form).
Posted by Treknophile (Member # 1869) on :
'Mighty Monkey of Mim' - you're right, this design came first. The conceptual art(although not necessarily the model shot) was created by Matt Jefferies(?) as one of the possible starship Enterprises - before he came up with the disk. No wonder it seems more 'TOS' than the NX-01.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
They're not the most reliable source. Still, their diagrams of the Daedalus match what we can see of the model, so maybe they match the parts we can't see as well.![[Mad]](mad.gif)
^3 ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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