Okay, so now we know that the USS Enterprise (XCV-330) had to have been in service before 2143, when a commemorative picture of it was seen in the 602 bar in "First Flight."
Given the obvious similarities between Cochrane's Phoenix and the NX prototypes, not to mention the constant use of nacelles throughout, I'm starting to doubt some of the previous theories. So far, most people seem to believe that the ship was either an Earth-built, warp drive-capable vessel intentionally designed to mimic Vulcan ships (obviously built after First Contact, since they'd have to know about the Vulcans!), or else was a stripped-down Vulcan ship that was given to the Humans for operations.
I've got another possibility: what if this ring-nacelle ship was actually a pre-warp prototype or testbed? Think about it -- It's almost a given that Cochrane couldn't have started his research from scratch during and after World War III. I find it extremely unlikely that he could single-handedly invent matter/antimatter reactions, exotic-material warp coils, and subspace field technology all in the space of 10 years. There could easily have been other experiments and preliminary testbeds before war broke out (and incidentally probably incinerating most of the research labs out there, to boot).
Back in the old TNG:TM, Rick Sternbach wrote about an early form of pseudo-warp drive called "Continuum Distortion Propulsion," which had the effect of reaching light speed without actually creating a full warp field. It wasn't warp drive as developed with the Phoenix, but rather a precursor to advance the basic principles of subspace field technology.
Therefore, the ring structures in the rear really ARE a single warp coil (or two), and not actually prototypical nacelles. Some agency or other (probably the United States working alone, based on the USS prefix) managed to launch this testbed into orbit -- probably assembled it there, given the fragile ring structure -- and then used it to test the theories of subspace propulsion.
We can have Earth scientists test the theories of warp drive without actually having them achieve warp speeds, after all -- they can just get the basics down. We know that "partial" and "sub-warp" subspace fields can be established, so why couldn't it be something like that?
Posted by Cartmaniac (Member # 256) on :
"It's almost a given that Cochrane couldn't have started his research from scratch during and after World War III. I find it extremely unlikely that he could single-handedly invent matter/antimatter reactions, exotic-material warp coils, and subspace field technology all in the space of 10 years."
For starters, I really doubt ol' Zeffy cobbled the Phoenix together in his garage & planned to launch her from an old ICBM he happened to pick up at a local junkyard.
More likely, he headed a development team pre-war at some government installation (or private contractor, or whatever passes for Skunk Works in the 2050s), and in the aftermath of the war, he and other project survivors somehow solved their more immediate and pressing problems of 1) surviving radioactive fallout 2) dealing with scavengers and looters 3) finding potable water and uncontaminated foodstuffs and 4) arranging for transportation, and then moved Project Phoenix from wherever it was originally located to the Montana complex.
XVC-330 was probably a donation from the Vulcans to help mankind get back on its feet again, but she need not have been a testbed per se.
[ May 20, 2003, 03:36 PM: Message edited by: Cartmaniac ]
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
Well... the DY series was in operation about 40 years, before WW III, so it's logical that the ring-ship was an early 22 century long-haul ship.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Woozle, you state two facts there, but one does not logically implicate the other. We can probably accept that various DY-series ships were in service for all of the pre-First Contact time period. We can NOT assume that the DY's were the only type of ship in use. Besides, the DY-series was a SUBLIGHT starship... even if we assume that warp drive was retrofitted or designed in for the later (post First Contact) models, there's still absolutely no reason at all why only ONE starship design MUST be used...
Cartman, that's basically what I was talking about -- they had a pre-war project going that laid the basic theories for warp drive down, and they ended up getting moved out to Montana after the nukes fell.
Take a look at the size and layout of that ring-ship, for goodness' sake! There's practically no volume to it at all! Even with an apparently large and possibly reasonable length of 300 meters, there's literally no room for anything aside from a something about the size of a runabout. And even assuming that the reactor system (which should be rather bulky) is mounted in the long "neck," there's still hardly any space available.
I think that this ring-ship design was basically a small ship, kinda like the NX testbeds we saw last week. A cockpit in the front with a reactor system immediately behind it, both enclosed in a single forward hull that is placed as far away as possible from the subspace field technologies -- which at this point in time, they know very little about.
Think about it... launch the forward module and spine into orbit on a rocket of some sort, ship the sections of the ring (which I think is basically little more than a single, gigantic warp coil) to be mated to the central section in microgravity, and then send the thing out for test runs. Expensive and costly in effort and resources, but that smacks of the kind of management that NASA is doing these days. Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
CDP engines ARE warp engines. They name "warp" was a nickname that stuck. Like how we always Xerox things or ask for a Kleenex.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Personally I think that the Vulcan resemblance is far too striking to ignore.
I prefer to think that it was an Earth built ship, possibly constructed by Cochrane himself (guess where he got the name from ) in the post-FC pre-Warp 5 program era. The most likely function therefore would be to test and see if Earth building materials and engineering techniques were capable of duplicating Vulcan systems.
I agree that it was probably a one or two person test vehicle that was relatively small in the volume department and the idea of the crew module being as far away from the field nacelles as possible makes perfect sense.
As for what Cochrane, Sloane and their team were up to before and during the war; I'd be very surprised if they weren't working on some kind of weapons program, perhaps an antimatter based weapon or a faster for of propulsion for the delivery system. I'm sure that most of the major powers involved in that conflict would have had numerous kinds and types of technological advances being fuelled by the desperate need to gain a tactical, political or economic advantage over their adversaries. Just look at what came out of the last World War: radar, the rocket engine, the jet engine, nuclear weapons to name a few. It's more than likely that many of the advanced technologies we see in Star Trek have their origins in the radioactive battlefields of WWIII.
It might also be worth considering the possibility that WWIII was fought in space as well as on the surface/atmosphere/oceans of Earth, this would be mostly likely because like allot of wars WWIII could have been fought over something as simple and yet as vital as resources. With Earth's own resources being nearly depleted the nations who were capable of space travel would start turning to the rich deposits on Luna, Mars and in the Belt to fulfill their requirements. The Major powers would doubtlessly have to compete for their prospecting claims, in desperate situations competing may lead to fighting, fighting can lead to war and war leads to a need for even more resources and on it goes.
So it would be a huge advantage to any party that develops an engine that can propel their space vehicles to the mining grounds and back to the processing stations in a matter of hours instead of weeks or months. Which is where Cochrane and his team come in.
This second space race could also account for the seaming abundance of ready made warp ships in the mid to late 2060s. The Valiant and the Conestoga like the Phoenix could have been leftovers of the brief and traumatic technological surge forwards, that were abandoned when the governments and corporations funding them literally ceased to exist.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Did the TNG crew mention 'Enterprise' to Cochrane at anytime? Maybe he wanted to keep naming his ships 'Enterprise' in honor of them (only he and Lily know about them). It'd be nice to see Lily in an episode - as a much older woman perhaps - or a flashback?
Maybe this was an pre-warp non-warp Near Speed of Light ship? Maybe - as per a previous thread - there WERE those off-Earth bases like Alpha Centauri. Maybe those ring ships got them there. Maybe Cochrane was motivated to build the Phoenix to get home (as well as getting some money).
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
After Cochrane sees the Enterprise through his telescope, Troi says, "That's our ship, the Enterprise."
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, actually, that's my justification for arguing that ENT takes place in an alternate timeline. Cochrane got a brief look at the Enterprise-E through the telescope, and got the idea of a saucer and nacelles that he wouldn't have tried otherwise. And so, instead of ships like the UES Amarillo which are proper contemporary designs, we get the NX-01.
The Valiant as a leftover hull from World War III, refitted for warp drive exploration? It makes sense, in a way... especially because of the quick launch. I actually kinda like the idea of Humans going off half-cocked to explore the galaxy in a nearly-useless, Warp 1.3-capable starship... It would kinda justify the Vulcan snootiness later on. To an extent, anyway.
Posted by Phoenix (Member # 966) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Yeah, actually, that's my justification for arguing that ENT takes place in an alternate timeline. Cochrane got a brief look at the Enterprise-E through the telescope, and got the idea of a saucer and nacelles that he wouldn't have tried otherwise. And so, instead of ships like the UES Amarillo which are proper contemporary designs, we get the NX-01.
I like that idea. Does that mean that in this timeline the Enterprise NCC-1701 will look like the Akira? Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :
I myself lean toward the idea that the 'ring ship' is a bussard ramjet - a manned stl probe. The ring is the magnetic coil of the ramjet.
Possibly the class of the Charybdis - launched on July 23, 2037, commanded by Colonel Steven Rickey. "...It was the third attempt to explore beyond Earth's solar system. The ship is declared missing after telemetry is lost..." (TNG: "The Royale"). - Thanks to Bernd.
AS I see it - the dating would work (pre-Cochrane-Phoenix), and it is a starship, explaining its presence on the wall of a pilots' bar.
There can only be so many stl starships launched in this time (including a few DY-100) - this explanation would account for 1 design and 1 unseen screen reference.
On the other hand, inductive logic is tricky...
Posted by Middy Seafort (Member # 951) on :
If you guys want to check out some alternate ideas on the XCV-330 Enterprise, ring ship, I'd direct you to this thread on the subspace bbs. There is volumes on the XCV-330 and possible ideas on how it'd fit into the "Enterprise" timeline and still fit with TMP.
It's been a long road working on that project, and it seems to still be mostly about the XCV-330. Someday we'll get to the NX-01.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
Proper contemporary design? Where did this come from? Just because the Daedalus class is pretty much the only ship aside from the NX class that's in Starfleet means that all 22nd century ships now have to look like the Daedalus class?
Has anyone occured to them that the reason why perhaps the Akira class looks like the NX class is probably the same reasonw why the Olympic class looks like the Daedalus class?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Proper contemporary design? Where did this come from? Just because the Daedalus class is pretty much the only ship aside from the NX class that's in Starfleet means that all 22nd century ships now have to look like the Daedalus class?
Because a saucer is, to my thinking, most definitely NOT the most logical use of space -- it's not the most structurally sound, the most voluminous for internal space, or the strongest shape. I can easily see why it would be the design of choice a century later, when Starfleet is focusing more on refining ship's performance... but for the very first long-range starship, I strongly feel that something a lot less finished would be more appropriate. But then, we've had the Akiraprise debate for far too long already. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Saucer + nacelles = Star Trek. It's as simple as that.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
But I thought they were trying to be DIFFERENT from previous series?
(Don't mind me, just being facetious.)
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
I don't think the ring ship and the Vulcan ships have anything in common at all. People are basing this assumption on the fact that the ship has rings. So what? Who ever said that those rings were a warp drive? Just because the D'Kyr-type ships look like the Talarian plague ship doesn't mean that they have anything in common, either.
If you look at the real picture of the XCV-330, you'll see that those rings are nothing more than (presumably) metal rings. They don't glow, have any openings, or any other indication that it is a propulsion system. Conversely, the ship has a huge rocket engine in it's center, obviously the true propulsion system.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: I don't think the ring ship and the Vulcan ships have anything in common at all.
Except for the fact that the Vulcan ring ships in "Enterprise" were based directly on the TMP ringship, with as far as I recall, the specific idea that the Earth vessel was an attempt to mimic Vulcan engine designs.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Besides, the DY-series was a SUBLIGHT starship... even if we assume that warp drive was retrofitted or designed in for the later (post First Contact) models, there's still absolutely no reason at all why only ONE starship design MUST be used...![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
) in the post-FC pre-Warp 5 program era.![[Smile]](smile.gif)