posted
Thanks. The docking port just looked like a possibility, especially since the claws seem movable.
I checked the relevant scripts:
"Profit and Loss":
There's no mention of the ship being a freighter; the script simply describes it as a "small Cardassian ship". Dax says it's "definitely Cardassian" and doesn't describe it further; the important thing is that nobody's wondering why a teacher should be commanding a military ship. Maybe we ought to see it as a civilian variant.
The ship looks rough and is damaged because it had taken some pounding from the Cardassian disruptors while running away. Although Natima does say that she's "not much of a shuttle pilot", she then calls it a ship, as does everyone else. Furthermore, Quark says:
I've installed the cloaking device in your central engine core. You can activate it from the bridge as soon as the mooring clamps are released. Then I suggest you take your ship to warp eight and don't look back.
...suggesting that it probably isn't just any shuttle, with a maximum speed of probably Warp 8. Still, The cloaking device used is relatively small. Only three people were aboard, but this doesn't tell us much; after all, Picard and Riker were able to run the Enterprise-D in "11001001".
"Tribunal":
The computer describes it as a "Cardassian patrol ship, Hideki-class." That ought to be seen as the official class name and designation for this ship, given the source (Lwaxana Troi).
"Sacrifice of Angels":
A script note mentions "Hideki-class Dominion fighters". The writers obviously consider these ships identical to the patrol ships from "Tribunal."
"Tacking into the Wind":
Here, it's simply called a Cardassian shuttle. It was probably intended to be a different model altogether.
Conclusion: If I were Jim Martin reading the "Profit and Loss" script, I probably wouldn't design something that's 152m long. It would be a cross between a shuttle and a small ship; his Defiant concepts seem to fit the description perfectly, as does Doug Drexler's size if we correct it down to 60m. In "Tribunal", there would've been no need to scale up the ship.
On the other hand, it is likely that when the size of the Jem'Hadar attack ships was increased from 100m to 152m to match the 171m Defiant, so was the size of the Hidekis (at least by David Stipes). Unfortunately, the Hidekis are mostly seen next to Galors, and they aren't supposed to be small.
Perhaps we should distinguish between a 20-30m Hideki "shuttle" and a 152m Hideki fighter/patrol ship? After all, we really can't use DS9 as a size reference in "Profit and Loss," and there is the "shuttle" line common to the two episodes.
Another possibility is to ignore the large Hidekis altogether and use a 60m size for everything but the Cardassian shuttle, taking into account the fact that we've seen smaller Hidekis in the war arc likewise. Maybe we could also take into account the "shuttle pilot" line from "Profit and Loss" as a proof that Cardassians have a different meaning for the word shuttle, and use only one Hideki, regardless of the VFX from "Tacking into the Wind"?
[ March 25, 2002, 09:35: Message edited by: Boris ]
Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:Bernd said: As usual, I plead for establishing only one size. The question is if this should be rather something like an "original size" (if there was ever one) or an average of the VFX sizes, ignoring only the most blatant scaling errors (like the huge BoPs in "The Defector" too).
I know there is the whole BOP debate - and your page on this is very good - but there has to be SOME allowances for those huge BOPs in The Defector - since Picard/Tomalok was confidant that a Galaxy against 3 Warbirds = death but a Galaxy + 3 BOP = 3 Warbirds or even overpowers them.
[ March 26, 2002, 02:40: Message edited by: AndrewR ]
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posted
And actually, it makes sense for a Cardassian military patrol ship to be capable of high speeds up to Warp 8.
I just thought of something -- what if Lang and her two associates actually STOLE that ship? That would explain the military-ship-in-the-hands-of-civilians bit. And we know that Lang and Co. were desperate to get away...
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posted
There's no need to suggest that the ship was stolen; maybe it was assigned to her by the Cardassian government, given her previous position as a teacher, especially since Cardassia is a military dictatorship at the time. We know that the Cardassians care a lot for education and their children, hence sparing a downgraded military ship as a teaching tool doesn't seem terribly inconsistent.
As for the size, I think that a 152m Hideki patrol ship/teaching variant/fighter fits the evidence best, along with a 15m shuttle. It was probably meant to be smaller, but the average of the shots in all the episodes suggests a greater size, and we don't want to postulate several classes.
OR, if we want to take into account what was originally designed, maybe we could stick with 110m as a compromise, which happens to be roughly the average between the likely intended size (60m) and the new VFX size, and doesn't feel so big anymore for a teacher and three students.
OR, we could use the official size of 86m for simplicity and consistency.
The problem with the last two options is that they really won't fit the relationships with the Galors and other big ships, where the Hidekis appear to be almost capital ships.
[ March 26, 2002, 11:02: Message edited by: Boris ]
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
I do live in Australia but the Trek VFX guys don't. Although I otherwise use metric it can be useful to have an understanding of the imperial system when dealing with ship lengths. Even so, I still quote metric only on my website.
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