posted
I've been meaning to do this analysis for quite a while, but I never got around to it. Now that I'm working on ship comparison charts, I've got a reason to get it done.
This analysis is done without any glimpse at episodes like "The Maquis." Or any other screen shot images, either. So it's possible that I could be way off the mark here.
Quite a while ago, I read some tidbit that the Peregrine's cockpit scenes in "The Maquis" were filmed in the TNG shuttlepod mock-up. It occurred to me that if the cockpit was the same basic dimensions as the Type-15, then we might be able to compare the forward viewports of the two ships.
I used a reference photo of the Type-15's viewport, and then scaled the Peregrine so that the slant of the cockpit area is approximately the same size.
Based on the length of 3.6 meters for the Type-15, that means that the Peregrine could be in the vicinity of only... 12 meters.
Obviously, we can't take this definition as an absolute, since screen evidence trumps the designers' intentions. *cough*DEFIANT*cough*
Ahem, excuse me. Frog in my throat.
As I was saying, I haven't used any screen references here -- and I particularly haven't found any from "The Maquis, Part II," which IIRC had some fairly close-quarters shots between the fighters and the runabouts that could provide us with a good and possibly accurate comparison.
Anyway, if anyone's got some good screen shots for reference, it'd be helpful. Bernd has a length of something like 30 meters, which IMO is far too large. When I first got the number, I thought that 12 meters was far too SMALL... but then I looked at the shuttle by comparson. Consider that the Type-6's and Type-9's were interstellar craft with warp engines; the Peregrine can be considered a shuttle with gigantic engines and some wings.
Of course, that might not explain the use of those same fighters in the Dominion War... but it's a place to start.
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Been here and done than and so on and so forth. VFX have always had it 30ish, though, many of which were pretty obviously so.
Incidentally, I find it strange that though the ship was scratch-built for "The Maquis" there does appear to be a disconnect between intended size and what the VFX there clearly show.
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Is it possible to prove that in the particular episode where the interior of the cockpit was shown, the window size of the fighter had this particular relationship to the overall length of the ship? If the VFX size of the ship can be determined from onscreen evidence, while the cockpit length:overall length relationship cannot, then the VFX size takes precedence over the ratio calculated from this diagram because the diagram is non-canon, whereas the VFX size in the episode is canon.
In problematic cases, it's always good to think exactly what was seen onscreen and what was not or cannot be measured from onscreen evidence.
posted
To be sure, we never really saw the window of the cockpit set during the episode. In fact, the cameraman was probably careful not to show any hints of the true identity of the cabin (not to mention avoiding the costs of inserting a moving starfield).
And frankly, the set no longer WAS the type 15 shuttlepod interior, since the gullwing doors were now decorated with display panels (like they would be in all the following times the set was used, for the type 18 pods and for assorted other things). But the origins of the set could be recognized and thus its dimensions were known.
The failure to show the window, however, pretty much invalidates the dimension knowledge, as it removes the only good interior/exterior connection. All we can say is that the interceptor must be big enough to hold a cabin of type 15 pod size. But it can also be bigger.
Frankly, I still find a length of less than 20 meters the most realistic. It would provide a logical explanation to the cramped quarters we see aboard Hudson's craft, as opposed to the spacious luxury in Sisko's runabout cabin, or even in the cabin of Ro's Maquis ship.
And since these things maneuver even more than yer standard DS9 variety of ships, and virtually never come to a halt close to a feature of known size at a known distance, it's pretty darn impossible to establish size relationships from VFX.
posted
Harry's two pics aren't of the-ship-we're-calling -the-Peregrine-at-the-moment, incidentally, but Ro's baby version of the full-size raider.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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Quite true. And now you will never get woman love.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
Also, Ro's baby raider had a Type-6 shuttle set as the basis. If one were so inclined, you could thus scale the Peregrine from the baby raider in external shots.
posted
AFAIK, Ro's raider used the "Alien shuttle set", a separate full-size prop that was seen for example as the Nenebek from "Final Mission", the time pod from "A Matter of Time" (heavily camouflaged), and the Yridian craft from "Birthright". The triangular side windows are a telltale. The exterior of the Maquis model reflects this, although it takes some liberties with the exact dimensions of the windows (which is what the VOY type 12 / class 2 shuttle set does, too).
Due to these liberties, it's probably not possible to do a full size comparison between the "set"/prop and the model. There was a thread on this once, I swear, but I can't find it just now. The consensus at the time seemed to be that exterior VFX shots made both Ro's and Chakotay's ships roughly (and thus probably exactly) the same size, but cockpit design suggested a size difference.
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