, who might have otherwise suffered from DS9TM's deceptions. We might also put it on our shelves as a tangible result of our indirect contributions.It's a fan work by Alex Rozenzweig, really, modelled after "Ships of Star Fleet" and the website creating PDF documents in that format. In fact, much of the information was taken from these two sources, as well as the DS9TM, Encyclopedia, and some of our discussions. The Foundation guys, it seems, merely provided a miscellaneous CG wireframe view, as well as a nice, two-page wide model shot for each ship.
The ships are a selection of Starfleet and alien ships, including the smaller vehicles. The entries are nicely done, and as we can expect from a fan work, much more accurate than the DS9TM. Still, the specs are nothing new -- the lengths, for example, are a combination of DS9TM lengths, Ships of Star Fleet specs, Encyclopedia measurements and some of our analyses. Whoever selected them didn't always select wisely (they took Galor's 229m size from the Encyclopedia, Jem'Hadar bug's 68m from the DS9TM).
I thought Foundation would provide some new Visual Effects lengths from their charts as well as weapons specs, but their involvement doesn't seem to have extended beyond the pictures. The rest of every entry contains much the same invented information as the SOSF books (Warp factor acceleration times, engine designations etc.)
What's new is a view of an Aeroshuttle CG model, presumably built for the unused test sequence that Rick mentioned a while ago. You'll see what it looks like pretty soon. They also seem to have built a Romulan bird-of-prey model.
Overall, it's great that a fan work with its higher level of quality is released to all the "beginners" , who might have otherwise suffered from DS9TM's deceptions. We might also put it on our shelves as a tangible result of our indirect contributions.
On the other hand, little of that information is new, some of it is non-canon, and despite the huge improvement in accuracy (they actually have the Defiant at 119.5m), it could be more accurate for a fan work. The specs are heavily influenced by Ships of Star Fleet, whose view of Starfleet you may or may not agree with. It could be improved by a more careful scrutiny of our discussions, especially Bernd's articles, as well a greater involvement by Foundation in providing specs, not just images.
[ November 01, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
And who was found slaughtered in his apartment.
A warrant still exists for the strange being known as "Omega"
How about the actual renders. Any good? Are schematics of all ships?
Hardly what I'd call a fan work, any more than the Encyclopedia, which also has Mr. Rosenzweig listed as a contributer/helpful person.
FYI: Here's the url of "Dockyard Review" and other publications Phelps mentioned.
So who's going to buy a copy? I think I will.
On the other hand, Rob Bonchune and Mojo say in the book they're fans who owned the old Starfleet Tech Manual and read Doug Drexler's fan magazine (!). I suppose, however, they had their hands full modelling the Romulan BOP and maybe the Aeroshuttle. There's also a 1701 Enterprise model there, don't know how long that took.
Actually, how about Alex and Mojo saying a word of two about this right here? Talk about pointless theorizing.
[ November 01, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
"Aeroshuttle (Starship Voyager captain's yatch)"
Ha...hahaha....hahahahahahahahaha.....
Mark
And the shuttle Chaffee and the Aerowing shuttle "reflect the noble history of space travel"? What were they smoking, and how can I be sure never to be accidentally exposed to it?
The book is 128 pages wide, about 6mm or 1/4" thick. It's as wide as a legal pad, but not as long, maybe 8x8. There are four pages per ship:
Page 1: History, mission objectives.
Page 2: Miscellaneous wireframe view, specs.
Page 3,4: Big, miscellaneous CG model view.
[ November 02, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Just kidding.
Do they have the Excelsior class USS Melbourne? And that ship that's in spacedock in STIII?
Jokes aside, the book doesn't suck at all, it's unusually accurate, well designed and written, but there's hardly anything you don't already know, unless you consider non-canon tech fandom style info "new".
What wouldn't suck for *me* is if Foundation had filled the four pages/ship with
1) five-view drawings or CG views
2) specifications obtained from visual effects charts and Rick Sternbach's blueprints that Foundation must have, as well as analysis of actual CG sequences they made (now where did that torpedo come from? Look it up in LightWave!)
3) Behind-the-scenes info on how the models were built, who built them, etc.
That's something I'd expect Mojo to know and something he could do very easily, yet be unable to reveal due to proprietary restrictions, commercial value, and simply a lack of demand. We're a minority -- most fans would prefer the book as it stands.
[ November 03, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Sorry, laughing at a girl on the E! True Hollywood Story "Scream" ... "By noon, the show was all sold out ... gasp!"
Anyway.
Mark
Another issue is the specifications listed for each ship. The Enterprise-E is listed as being pretty powerful, having Type XII phasers (I guess it's official, then) and all, and the Nebula class specifications seem a bit on the weak side compared to her Galaxy class cousin.
I didn't really care to learn about the Midas Array or the Malon ship and would have rather seen sections on the Excelsior class and the other "First Contact" vessels like the Saber, Norway, etc. Speaking of the FC vessels, the Akira class is listed as having 15 launchers (it's official, again )
Last, they mention that the Galaxy class production run is on indefinite postponement. I hate the Sovereign (as in what it has done to the 'power' factor of the Galaxy)!
Besides a few other quibbles, it seems a nice, but short, book (though I didn't get it as I was hoping for more orthographic projections and such). It's listed at $16.00 US, which is only $11.00 from the paperback Star Trek: Encyclopedia and $8.00 from the DS9 Technical Manual, so it's a little on the expensive side.
[ November 03, 2001: Message edited by: Ace ]
It's been a while since I posted, mainly because I've been busy but also because I lost my password and I never heard back from anyone when I requested it to be sent to me... anyway, I finally dug it up, so I thought I'd drop in and talk about Starship Spotter.
First of all, here's some background on how the book was put together.
Rob Bonchune and I picked the ships, handled the rendering (the wireframes and color images) and worked up the basic layout of the book. Pocket Books hired their own folks to write the specs, but as we got close to the deadline it was determined that new, more Trek-capable writers were needed.
Both Jon Lane and Alex Rosenzweig have been friends of mine for many, many years, and I knew they would do an excellent job, so Pocket agreed to take them on.
They did not disappoint, and I am very, very pleased to hear that (so far) most of you here in the Forum agree that they have 'got it right.'
While much of the specs did indeed come from previous sources (after all we couldn't ignore what had previously been established), for the first time ALL the correct specs are in one place, and the contradictions and innacuracies have been laid to rest.
I know that many of the more hardcore tech-heads will already be familiar with much of the material, but most casual fans will be happy to have a simplified guidebook to these ships.
I've read in your posts that many of you would have liked to see more images of the ships. Keep in mind that this is meant to be a basic reference book (I thought of it as baseball cards for the ships) so I felt simplicity was the order of the day. Besides, more pages for each ship would have meant fewer ships! The page count was set in stone early on.
For those of you on the fence about parting with your hard-earned 13 bucks, keep in mind that good sales for this book will insure a follow-up!
And for the people talking about scanning and uploading the pictures so as to avoid purchase, I wish you luck dealing with the fold down the middle :-P
Right now I am finishing up the 2003 Ships of the Line calendar (which I am sure will please people who prefered the 2001 edition over the current one) and then I am hard at work - finally - on Star Trek: The Unseen Frontier. It's going to be epic. And your suggestions will be heard!
Mojo
Duh.
Mojo Jojo == just some poster who names himself after cartoon characters
Foundation, however, abandoned B5 in pursuit of profits at Voyager, leaving Tim Earls and Netter Digital to keep going. However, Tim Earls *also* left for Voyager to work as Rick Sternbach's assistant of sorts.
However, B5 still has JMS. And even if its effects regressed to the level of TOS, B5 would still have better writing than *any* Star Trek show! So there.
[ November 04, 2001: Message edited by: Phelps ]
Tim: Mojo Jojo is the Evil Lord, I think. And he has picked a stunning name to use. I salute him.
Hmm. I haven't seen this book over here yet.
Mojo, when you say "official" information, what did you use whe the official information conflicted? Like with the Defiant's length? Was there someone who picked what to use?
This action almost put Foundation out of business - fortunately, Star Trek was experiencing CG growing pains and came and asked us to do a show for them (Basics, part 1). Luckily, they were pleased with our work and kept a relationship with us.
I mean, seriously - why would we tell B5 to shove off in favor of Trek when we could have easily done BOTH??
I was sad to see the show go.
Mojo
Alex and Jon handled deciding which specs would be kept. When there was a contradiction or discrepancy, they used the dimensions of the physical models at Paramount as a basis of measurement.
That seemed about as official as we could get...
Mojo
It's preferable to maintain consistency with previous specs when the previous specs are right. It's fabulous that you kept the original and refit Constitution specs, the K'tinga specs, the Enterprise-E specs, the Voyager specs, etc.
However, watch this:
Doug Drexler made an alien ship size comparison chart for the Encyclopedia. Although he ordered the ships by size, Doug did not intend them to be to scale. Nevertheless, most ships were to scale, except for an oversized Vor'cha and another ship I can't remember.
Along comes Rick Sternbach, who's fabulous in everything Voyager and TNG, but does not know DS9 as well because he didn't work there. He's making the DS9 Tech Manual, and needs some specs. He looks at the Encyclopedia charts, misinterprets them as being to scale, and takes the worst ship imaginable as the scale reference: the Vor'cha.
So we get a K'tinga at 340m instead of 214m, a Bird of Prey at 157m instead of 110m, etc. These absolutely nonsensical specs are published and republished in the Magazine, and other books. Your book comes along and corrects a lot of that, because we finally have people with some sense looking at them.
But, there are still places where the original Encyclopedia charts themselves were wrong, and where Rick Sternbach accidentally corrected the specs so that they are good enough for you to keep them. Jem'Hadar fighter was about 45m long according to the Encyclopedia, which is absolutely nonsensical, yet Rick accidentally scaled it up to 68m. That's a bit closer to the probable value of 100m.
It would be good if these "accidentally correct" specs were replaced with something more analytical. If they aren't, maybe it's OK. Just pointing out how much error, yet how much influence there is at the official level. The Super Star Destroyer remained 5 miles long to this day in official publications, even though it's quite obviously 11 miles long in the movie and by the fact that it's bridge tower is identical to that of a regular Imperial Star Destroyer.
Hooray! Still, let's save the conversation about Imperator-class (hnng) and what those bubbles on top of the bridge do for another long, drawn out and boring conversation about Star Wars, okay?
It is more an overal look at the events that have shaped the Star Trek universe, as if it were told by the pages of National Geographic. Incidents such as the launching of the NX-01, the Doomsday Machine, the battle at Wolf 359, Voyager's defeat of the Borg and more will be looked at as history through pictures, with an eye for the dramatic.
In large part, the book will be new renders of special effects imagery (some seen before, some not), but it will also be filled in with live-action pictures from Star Trek - after all, history is not just made by space ships! A lot of time is going to be spent looking through Paramount's photo archive, picking images that are dramatic, tell the story and have not been seen before.
In addition, the plan is to have several of the chapters open with blank-backed gatefolds, suitable for framing!
Mojo
Masao: "Unseen Fronteir" will be about unseen parts of Trek history, not (correct me if I'm wrong, Mojo) necessarily only about ships. There will be such things as Wolf 359 (a chapter!), Voyager's disappearance, etc.
Or, you can visit the "Unseen Article" threads in the Creativity forum.
(I know, it's shameless to advertise a thread...)
If it's the latter, wow, wouldn't that be cool! I mean, imagine seeing a picture of the signing of the Khitomer accords? Or a picture of a Captain sitting on the bridge of a starship as her ship is torn apart by Cardassian weapons? As you said, it's not just about spaceships... But it's not just about the relatively few number of people on those spaceships either.
Plus, it'd be cool to see you guys flex your muscles on CGI backgrounds and interior sets. Like bridges, for example. I'm sure whatever you guys come up with will rock, though. Just don't pull another "New Worlds, New Civilizations" artbook, which is only found in the bargain bins of most bookstores these days. Did anyone buy that, BTW..? I fully credit the artists in that book for some good work, but the presentation and subject matter of that book just didn't work...
Mark
Mojo: Firstly, your description alone has me slobbering, and I can't say I've bought anything from Pocket since the DS9TM. 128 pages at that size in full colour ought to inflate the sticker like mad, though. Is this thing going to run in the order of 70 bucks?
One thing that would cause the ship-heads to renounce pornography for good would be if, in the name of gleaning images from the archives, you could see about tracking down the lost Wolf 359 battle footage that Robert Legato had shot but later had to discard from "Emissary." Presumably you'll be sprinkling in all-new CGI renders of the battle... having the real unseen stuff (in there with your new art or as a starting point for the new stuff) would make it oh-so-much cooler from the fanboy point of view.
The thought of Enterprise even figuring in the book hadn't even crossed my mind. Rather cool, although the launch of the NX-01 was hardly "unseen." By the time this thing has released, will F.I. have a big enough stable of 2150s era ships and such that we might have a sizable glimpse at this era? On a related note, can we expect some 2150s-era shots in the next Ships of the Line?
Note the warp nacelles' glow and the thin red lines going around the front of the hull to the registry and name. Oh well, I wonder why the computer model would be modified.
On a lighter note, I did get the book after several trips to the bookstore.
[ November 06, 2001: Message edited by: Ace ]
quote:
Originally posted by The_Tom:
One thing that would cause the ship-heads to renounce pornography for good would be if, in the name of gleaning images from the archives, you could see about tracking down the lost Wolf 359 battle footage that Robert Legato had shot but later had to discard from "Emissary."
ha, fat chance.
David, you got issues.
1) Being in Australia - it'll take forever for them to release the fekking new book. Could you jump on someone to get their act together!?! I *STILL* haven't seen the new Calendars yet... although there are reports trickling through that they are appearing.
2) If you're going to do 'history' shots for this Unseen Frontier's book... we should start a new thread for suggestions!
We definately have to have Original Enterprise stuff (I'm talking KIRK and co. here).
I had a thought about something from DS9 - a few things?
Maybe a 'departure of the Cardassians' from a week or two before the events in 'Emissary'? Or even a depiction of the battle by the Rouge Jem'Hadar in "To The Death"?? where they blew off an entire upper pylon on DS9!
Please maybe a peak at some ships that we never saw much of in action? The destruction of Walker Keel's Ambassador class ship from "Conspiracy" Or the orbiting ships of Dytallix B in that episode - 2 New Orleans, 1 Amassador and 1 Galaxy class starship!
Some angles of ships we NEVER see - like close ups. Maybe sets we've never seen on the E-D like the inside of the Main Shuttle bay - which looks bloody HUGE according to Rick Sternbach's blueprints. Or the Captain's Yacht on the E-D.
- The book WILL be more expensive than most, but I don't think it will be more than 30 or 40 bucks.
- Even if I could track down 'lost' battle footage of Wolf 359, it would only come from video masters and look fairly fuzzy and grainy when printed. This means ALL the battle scenes will be NEW!
- Everyone also needs to remember that this book is not a Foundation Imaging effort - I will be the sole author. Mind you, I'll be using the Foundation models, having new ones made and getting A LOT of help from other artists!
- It would be VERY time consuming and expensive to effectively take new live action pictures. Costumes, sets, actors... with such a wealth of photography at my dispsoal, the ends would not justify the means. That being said, I plan to go through both Paramount and Pocket Books' Star Trek photo archive with a fine tooth comb and use (as often as possible) photo material that has not been seen before. Also a possibility is, as opposed to taking new pictures, digitally manipulating existing ones. 'Nuff said.
- Most of the chapters will deal with major events - the kinds of things that would have made headlines if we were living the the 24th century. Perhaps the 'showstopper' of the book will be a huge, chronological history of the Borg - taking every event from the Raven to 'Endgame' and mapping it out through pictures (this is where we will see Wolf 359). I also have a few surprises in store, but I can't say anymore until things get approved!
- By all means, I'd like to hear suggestions. Nothing is set in stone yet, so...
If there a thread for this book yet?
Mojo
You've discussed your plans an concepts for "Unseen Frontier" here many times. Throughout it all, you've kept mentioning a variant or the same phrase: "The events we know as seen through something like National Geographic." This line is what has really stuck with me.
Like most of the people here I'm sure, I've grown up reading NG all my life. I don't really look at it that often nowadays due to fiduciary concerns, but when I do, the images are always what grab me, even if they concern an article I'm not particularly interested in. I've had the good fortune to meet and talk lengthily with many NG photographers, both staff and freelance, and so the stories they have to tell are stuck in my mind as well.
One of the reasons NG is held in such high regard is because it excels at its primary goal: to bring understanding of the world around us home to the average person. Whether it be through funding expeditions to the Weddell Sea and the Kalahari or simply sending a field reporter to live in Brussels or Ville De Qu�bec for three months, the experiences and stories of other places are brought to us in a short, hardhitting and striking form. Many of us on this forum are naval history fans; who among us can forget the late 1985 issue of NG in which Bob Ballard published his first mosaic images of Titanic? I was ten years old and they still take my breath away. I remember leafing through old issues with articles about the circumnavigation and later polar voyage of the Nautilus. I remember seeing the shots of Robert Falcon Scott's final fateful encampment in Antarctica. I've seen underwater shots of black smokers and aerial images of a barren glacier with three small dots on it--a Norwegian scaling team.
These are the same things that should be captured in "Unseen Frontier," the same breathtaking feel. Some of this can come from ships, yes, but let the word "unseen" by the guide. We've seen Wolf 359; what about the aftermath, the cleanup effort? Was there one, or is it now like the Arizona memorial? The comings and goings of a busy spaceport; all DS9 has shown us is a few floating vessels--nothing like a real harbor. Are there festivities for Federation Day like Independence Day? Did they have something like OpSail on the Federation's 200th birthday in 2361?
But the Trek galaxy--like the real world--is more than just starships. There's people. Legends. Heroes. Cultures. So many unknowns. Celebrations after the end of a war, whether it be the Dominion War, Cardassian Wars, Romulan Wars. The memorial service for James T. Kirk in late 2293. Someone suggested the signing of the First Khitomer Accords. There's interstellar phenomena, natural wonders of black holes and pulsars and nebulae. These are all things that the average Federation citizen wouldn't know about. Even other worlds in and out of the Federation: Betazed, Andor, Tellar. Trill's oceans were said to be purple in a DS9 episode; who knows from purple water?
"Omnipotent observation" is fine for calendars; there it's not expected. For "Unseen Frontier," as a reader, I'd like it to be more first-person. I'd like to feel that there was a person there who saw this perfect image and captured it so that others may share and revel in its power, its beauty, its sense of amazement. That sense of humanity is what would set this project apart from all others. (Indeed, an idea has just hit me on a way to help accomplish that feel. Often in NG itself and most definitely in its compilation tomes, there are comments from photographers and staff on the power of the imagery--what they felt when they saw the sight, how they decided to choose that particular one, how that perfect combination just happened to come together at the right moment. Comments like that--not just from humans, but others--would definitely help with the touch.)
I encourage you to take all of the above to heart. Following this train of thought, this overall feeling and setting will almost guarantee that the book will reach beyond the hardcore audience that the more recent offerings have pandered to. I know for a fact that this is something many friends would be overawed at and by, not so much because it's Trek, but because of what it could BE. They are not the kind of people to purcashe technical manuals and don't care if a bird-of-prey has been rescaled or not. They are the "casual fans," the one who enjoy the stories and imagery, the ones who've been left in the lurch. This is a chance to reconcile the two ends of the markets in a most spectacular way.
I, like others here have in the past, formally offer my help, advice, and knowledge on this project, and I would consider it a great honor to take part in such an endeavor from such an early stage. But let us lay the groundwork for reason and rationality here, at the beginning, so that later on we can progress smoothly.
Translated to subject-relevancy: A scene from Wolf 359 could with full justification be reproduced by giving us a fuzzy screencap from a videotape, and then slapping graphics over it that would specify this as a "gun camera shot", or something taken by a recording drone amidst the battle's heavy EM interference and subspace shockwaves and whatnot.
Similarly, a key live-action event could be presented as a snapshot taken by an away team's tricorder-wielding Ensign Expendable, just when he was hit by that disruptor beam. Or then he had to take it covertly through some vegetation, from a distance. Surely the reduced quality of the image could be forgiven.
Here's a possibility that should not be overlooked when making use of all that accumulated wealth of Trek visual records.
Timo Saloniemi
(Note, of course, that the article would be from late 2367 or mid-2368, before Ben Sisko became a well-known name as commander of DS9.)
quote:
Originally posted by Timo:
Translated to subject-relevancy: A scene from Wolf 359 could with full justification be reproduced by giving us a fuzzy screencap from a videotape, and then slapping graphics over it that would specify this as a "gun camera shot", or something taken by a recording drone amidst the battle's heavy EM interference and subspace shockwaves and whatnot.
Even simpler: those shot were recovered from what's left of the Fleet at Wolf 359, which were mostly irradiated wrecks.
You hit the nail on the head! The obvious passion with which you wrote that essay is exactly what is fueling this book. The pictures will tell the story, the text will fill in the details.
You had some great ideas in there and have given me some food for thought.
Someone really needs to start an 'Unseen Frontier' thread, and the first post should be Shik's - his note describes the book better than I did!
And yes, I agree that the images in the book need to look like they had been taken by some manner of physical means. As a matter of fact, that's EXACTLY what I did in the much-maligned 2002 calendar - every image's source is revealed in the captions.
Mojo
And DAMN, that aeroshuttle kicks ass!
Mark
[ November 18, 2001: Message edited by: OnToMars ]