posted
The more I see of this design the more I like it. I refer to the Connie Refit saucer with the neck and two nacelles attached via short pylons from the DS9TM. Anyone spotted this onscreen on DVD yet? I know they made afilming model but I sure missed it onscreen.
This (to me) is a perfect final configuration of the Connie Refit: by the DS9 era, most of the Connie's huge engineering department would be reduced to fit in the "neck". The whole secondary hull is eliminated for the most part with the warpcore running along the back of the neck and ejecting downward.
Your thoughts? Is this a class unto itself or possibly Starfleet squeezing every last drop of lifespan from the Connie Refit....or just a "one off" made in desperate times?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I think of it as a refit of the old Hermes-Class scout that has been around since the 2270s. It certainly looked old and beatup, they might have even pulled it out of mothballs since it had no apparant name or reg as I recall.
posted
hmmmm...that's a possibility. I wouldnt call it a Hermes exactly with two nacelles though.....unless it was a biiiig refit!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
An extra nacelle is hardly an extensive refit for a design like that, especially when you consider that (assuming it recived similar treatment to the Connie refit) most of the systems would be totally new anyway, including the warp drive.
One could speculate that there is a single nacelle version which was the refit of the Destroyer class (Saladin?) while the twin nacelle (faster) variant is more appropriate as the refit of the Hermes-Class Scout.
Either way, it's certainly a better explanation than the overused "they got desperate in the Dominoin war and did a chop-job" excuse.
posted
I don't see how you could really fit everything from a Connie secondary hull into the neck (minus a shuttlebay), even assuming advancements in tech would allow for size reduction of hardware.
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posted
Well, consider that the Polaris could use whatever deflector system is on the Miranda, wouldnt need a shuttlebay and by TNG, the warpcore is only about a tenth the size of the TMP version, I can see it working just fine. What else is down in the secondary hull anyway? Ship's foodstores would be replaced with replicators. The Botanical gardens would be replavced by a far smaller holodeck in the saucer.
Anything else down here that I missed?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I really don't think it's a cut-down connie refit. I just don't really see the point. Also there would probably be far more than just food stores in the secondary hull. And you'd have to carry virtually the same quantity of base matter (deuterium?) for the replicators anyway. See the entry in Timo's Hitchhikers guide for my interpretation...
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Agreed, a cut down connie just doesn't make any practical sense. More likely it was an existing piece of 23rd century hardware that got pulled out of mothballs and dusted off for use as a scout/picket ship/support vessel/tug/whatever. Whether it was a refit of the old Hermes or a seperate yet very similar class developed later is up for debate.
posted
Something I noticed about the filming model that I didn't know about when I built my model was that the connecting hull for the engines is made with the bendable pylons on an Intrepid Class, though minorly out of scale for the actual kits involved.
Since the Voyager impulse engines are facing forward on this DS9 kitbash model, and the saucer already has impulse engines in the usual place, these two details could be twin deflectors (the same way Jason interpreted two deflectors on the Elkins.)
Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
HUh. Got a pic of that, Stephen? All I found is the top view...and I thought those were custom parts....although I DO like the idea of twin deflectors.... Wiggy.
Hey, you finish your Miranda variant yet? I'm posting pics this week of the USS Loftus.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Jason, look at the top view of the 'Polaris' studio model and then look at corresponding details of a bottom view of Voyager...the details are identical to the use of the 22" AMT Enterprise-A and the large Monogram Voyager. Remember, it's only the bending part of the pylon that was used and placed together.
posted
Thate reslly is a fine looking studio model.
I do believe you're right on those pylons...I'd probably place a Voyager deflector emitter in the model's torpedo bay opening and use the tiny impulse engines facing forward as torp launchers though.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
I agree with the sentiment that it is NOT a connie refit. I see it as perhaps a "Light Cruiser" class.
It appears that Starfleet was started by General Motors. Slap a different trim and nameplate and it becomes a Chevy, or a Pontiac, or an Oldsmobile etc.
-------------------- I am the Anti-Abaddon. I build models at a scale of 2500/1
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