quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: yes that's the point - I think they just chopped up the S.S. Enterprise (your 'Enterprise Starliner') and made three ships.
No. Those are three different ships, seen in profile. They have nothing but a coincidental resemblence to the parts of that starliner, and just when seen from the only views given - the profiles.
The one you are using for the starliner's neck is the Frobisher class, and when seen from the top looks a little like a large version of the Vulcan shuttle, with a rectangular command hull between two long nacelles. The one you are using for the starliner "head" is the Leonardo class, a smallish catamaran design, with short nacelles attached to a "deck" a'la the Grissom, but with a much smaller "deck" -- just two decks and a bridge module, and a complicated impulse assembly at the stern. Finally, the ship that started the speculation, the Ariadne, is a very different animal indeed. What you are seeing is the side view of a ship that when seen from the front has a long, verrrry narrow look. From the front it looks a little like the Frobisher does from the side.
That "stovepipe" is actually a pair of nacelles that are all front and almost nothing else. The "coils" are arranged vertically instead of horizontally, and the huge "maw-like" front is to maximize this ship's warp speed in areas of space with high matter densities, like nebulae. Its design was developed to fit with Geoff Mandel's explanation (in his first Star Trek Maps) of the effect of matter density on warp speed.
I'm glad this poster is still popular after all these years. It started as a lark, throwing together a number of the designs that had been mentioned, but only vaguely sketched out, for Ships of the Star Fleet, the Federation Reference Series and the Heavy Cruiser Evolution Plans. Many fans wanted to know something, ANYTHING about those ships that had been mentioned only by name, with perhaps the barest further description. So this silhouette chart was the result, to give those fans something to further speculate on.
posted
Got top views of these terrible designs (at least from the side, they suck real hard)?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Dunno, I found the Leonardo side profile quite "conventionally cool" - it immediately struck me as an Oberth-sans-ventral-pod kind of vessel. (The "just two decks" thing is a bit weird, though, since it would be incredibly difficult to squeeze MORE than two decks into an Oberth saucer!)
Very interesting info on the Frobisher and Ariadne... Is the former perhaps conceptually related to the Spaceflight Chronology Sawyer scoutships, which consist of two big nacelles plus a cabin in between?
And what is the latter supposed to do inside a nebula? Is it more like a special research vessel, similar to a minisub a wet navy might operate - or a regular warship/explorer which just happens to have an unconventional drive system, similar to a hovercraft- or hydrofoil-based warship in a wet navy?
quote:Originally posted by Timo: And what is the latter supposed to do inside a nebula? Is it more like a special research vessel, similar to a minisub a wet navy might operate - or a regular warship/explorer which just happens to have an unconventional drive system, similar to a hovercraft- or hydrofoil-based warship in a wet navy?
Timo Saloniemi
Mabye it scans the nebula by filtering large volumes of the gas itself? That would be a neat idea to see in an Enterprise episode....
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: [QB] Dunno, I found the Leonardo side profile quite "conventionally cool" - it immediately struck me as an Oberth-sans-ventral-pod kind of vessel. (The "just two decks" thing is a bit weird, though, since it would be incredibly difficult to squeeze MORE than two decks into an Oberth saucer!)
I'm sorry. The Darwin class is the one that is two decks thick plus a bridge level, because it was quite literally the Grissom without the lower pod, which I took to be a third, (or third and fourth, combined) warp unit. Darwin was a scout, while Grissom with its enhanced enginery was a supercout type.
Leonardo was only one deck thick, a bridge and an expanded deck behind, terminating in the impulse arrangement I mentioned.
quote:Very interesting info on the Frobisher and Ariadne... Is the former perhaps conceptually related to the Spaceflight Chronology Sawyer scoutships, which consist of two big nacelles plus a cabin in between?
I don't recall there being any connection between Frobisher and any of the Chronology ships. There was a close connection between Nordenskjold and that book, however. IIRC Nordenskjold is basically our tip of the hat to Rick's Baton Rouge. We didn't like very much in that book, but liked Rick so we wanted to acknowledge him in some way.
quote:And what is the latter supposed to do inside a nebula? Is it more like a special research vessel, similar to a minisub a wet navy might operate - or a regular warship/explorer which just happens to have an unconventional drive system, similar to a hovercraft- or hydrofoil-based warship in a wet navy?
God, Timo. I don't have a lot of the notes for that thing handy anymore, and I'm trying to remember this stuff. As I recall, Ariadne was my way of really challenging the fans' ideas of what these ships could look like. I went as far outside the envelope as I could while still staying true to what was the accepted, Paramount-given explanation for how things worked. Mandel had explained warp drive in the Maps as I described above, and I took that and went with it. I don't believe that class ever got any more detailed mention in any of the books than name and NCC numbers, so I don't think any clear mission profile was established. It started out as a fighter design, and it ended up as something much bigger. But it still had a very small crew -- twelve IIRC. If I were to pick between your two options, I'd say it was a research vessel, but it was definitely meant to be outfitted with an adapted propulsion system, sort of like the hovercraft that ply the Everglades. A warp drive using existing propulsion tech reworked to access a particular environment in the best possible way.
quote:Originally posted by Harry: Interesting story..
I have friend that have ordered from these idjots. They could not handle a rubber raft on a clear day in a kiddie pool. What my friends have found out is what they advertize is different from what they have in stock. I hope you get your chart.
:{)
I was going to warn people against buying from Starland.com, but I'll wait until I have the charts in my hands.
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posted
And another aincent thread is brought back from the online-afterlife by Captain Newbie! Join us next week as we re-hash the length of the Defiant for the ten-thousandth time...
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
You guys got me to thinking about the "stovepipe" Ariadne design from the Starship Recognition Chart, and I decided to go ahead and put together some of your speculations with what I had already worked out. This is the result. Thanks for the help:
posted
Heeey....pretty damn nice. Definitely making leonaide out of a lemon design.
A lot smaller than the one on the chart though.
Just scale down the people silouettes...mabye ad a couple of windows or a docking hatch to show scale too.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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