posted
Unless he's lying, Rick didn't have a specific intended length. I'll quote from one of his emails:
quote:Well, contrary to popular opinion, I never had the time to work out all the details, even though I love that kind of stuff. The size of the ship in the blueprint drawings fit the bill, but after the drawings were finished I never actually took out a ruler and measured it. All I know is that I used a deck height that averaged ~12.5 feet, and with a smaller number of decks, it made for a smaller ship than Voyager. If VFX ever got the size relationships wrong, that's their own problem.
[ October 28, 2002, 06:36: Message edited by: Dax ]
posted
I e-mailed Rob Bonchune, asking if he could look it up in that booklet they have at Eden FX, mentioning at the same time that he needn't be quick responding to such trivial e-mails. Perhaps a good question for RS would be whether he intended the Equinox to be exactly the size of the pathfinder, and I suspect the answer is "yes."
I made up this story in the meantime:
"How the Equinox was Designed?"
Back in early '98, Sternbach figures he needs to show us how the Defiant looked before the ablative armor was slapped on. To explain the short development cycle, he figures they would've used an existing design as a starting point, one which looked more like a regular starship (on which he's quite expert), with perhaps a few Defiant components sprinkled here and there.
So, he starts off with the usual doodles, and after a couple of designs arrives at the current shape, without really knowing how many decks there will be or what details will be where.
Now, he pulls out his blueprint paper. It's time to nail down the scale, so he measures the size of the Defiant's bridge section using the 171m length and uses the number to decide on the scale of his blueprints. He might have measured the pathfinder's width in the process, just to make sure that whole thing would fit on paper, but it wouldn't be necessary if he has a good eye for scale. Only now, knowing the scale, can he decide on the precise deck heights and other details. Doug Drexler draws the schematic based on the resulting blueprint, and this part of the job is done.
One year later, Rick decides to use the pathfinder for the Equinox. To make things easy, he pulls out his original blueprints and, after a few rough sketches of the never-before-seen side view, draws the new blueprints, using either the old scale or a new one that works better for this size of the paper. Since he knows the scale, at no point does he have to measure the overall length, and since there are no size comparisons(barring the probably rough comparison of pathfinder with Voyager he showed to Peter Lauritson and that few others saw), everybody is confused about the ship's length, even though it simply is the length of the pathfinder.
The story may change, but this is the best I can figure out at the moment.
Boris
[ October 28, 2002, 19:28: Message edited by: Boris ]
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
Even if we could be sure of the length of the Pathfinder (is Defiant 120m or 560'?), it wouldn't be conclusive evidence as to the length of the Equinox. The final Equinox product is quite different structurally to the Pathfinder -- in particular, the length/width ratio comparing the two top views.
posted
We can be sure of the intended length of the DS9TM pathfinder schematic because it is obvious that both Doug Drexler and Rick Sternbach believed in the 560' Defiant at that point. Perhaps, in terms of Star Trek, we'll have to scale down the pathfinder or completely change its shape, but that specific top view was, in the real world, intended to be approximately 230m long.
Rick Sternbach has indicated that the Equinox is a modified pathfinder, and he'll probably explain any proportional changes as being part of the process of changing the never-built pathfinder into the Nova-class. So in terms of his intentions, the Nova couldn't have been a lot shorter and this is reflected in its details. It might be useful to superimpose the two top views by matching their details, which would allow us to measure the exact length differential.
posted
Ah hah, I sense divergence towards a Defiant length debate. Muhahahah! We now return you to your regularly scheduled tech discussion.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
The length of the Equinox doesn't depend on the length of the Defiant (or vice versa) because the pathfinder is non-canonical.
However, Rick's intended length of the Equinox VERY LIKELY depends on his assumed length of the Defiant. Fortunately, the latter is not a matter of debate.
capped
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posted
i think the 'drawing board' Defiant-pathfinder has as much to do with the final Nova Equinox as the 'drawing-board' NCC-1701-E in the TNG TM has to do with the actual 1701-E product.
both books said they were sketches that werent quite used, lets just drop them from consideration.
Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Boris: It might be useful to superimpose the two top views by matching their details, which would allow us to measure the exact length differential.
I tried doing that last week and that's when I discovered the proportions and details are quite different. I personally don't think it'd be possible to derive an accurate length differential.
I agree that the pathfinder was likely intended as 230m, but the Equinox could do with being smaller. The Equinox decks don't need to be that tall and the bridge dome would be way oversized at 230m overall length.
Anyway, I'd love to hear what Bonchune has to say. Although I value his word, I honestly don't think RS can be of any further help here.
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