posted
It’s an obvious question, sure, but I was having one of those r/ShowerThoughts and a few things occurred to me. There’s still ages to go in Belgium v Romania, I’m not really watching it, so I thought I’d bore what few of us are left here with my thoughts!
Now, there are pros & cons…
PRO: 1. The registry. The USS Farragut is NCC-1647; while that could make it a Constitution, it’s not impossible it could make it a Reliant too (three have registries in the NCC-18xx range, and we’ve assumed ships are of the same class based on lesser proximity of registries before this!) 2. Sure the placing of the nacelles, and the pylon configuration, is very different: but so then is that on the Constitution-refit…
… BUT. #2 above leads me on to the cons:
CON: 1. The Constitution-refit, nacelles and pylons aside, didn’t really change all that much otherwise. Sure there were significant internal reconfigurations, but by and large externally the superstructure - primary hull/saucer, secondary hull/engineering section, and to a lesser extent the neck - didn’t really change all that much apart from in detailing.
But the Miranda-refit - if the Miranda IS a refit - has a significant superstructure aft of the bridge, containing shuttle bays, impulse engines, presumably the warp core. And this superstructure rarely appears on many fan-made TOS Miranda designs, and it’s not on the Farragut-type. And if you apply my logic about the Constitution-refit above, shouldn’t it be, if the F-type IS the TOS-M? 2. Memory Alpha suggests the F-type is the Bellerophon-class, - but is unable to provide a valid source for being so…
Thoughts? Does it matter? If they said it was, there’re plenty who’d choose to ignore it, and NOT just because they’re incel edgelords who hate nuTrek mainly because it’s got too many women and ethnics and gays in for their liking.
On the other hand, if we don’t get an answer to this perennial question now, would we ever? Probably not, and that definitely doesn’t really matter - there've been too many over-contrived attempts to answer such questions canonically recently, and not just in Trek (he said, cursing former Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall and his Timeless Child bollocks…).
posted
I have always felt that the Miranda class Reliant as seen in TWOK always looked that way (i.e. it was not refit from a TOS-style look like the Enterprise was.) There is some evidence to support this hypothesis, but nothing ironclad. It's just how I feel, especially after seeing the abundance of them in DS9, but no TMP refit Connies to go with them.
As for the SNW Farragut being a TOS Miranda? See above. While I don't have a problem with them making the Farragut a non-Connie despite Greg Jein's T-Negative list which was used as gospel in the past, I think the lazy kitbash they did use doesn't really qualify as a TOS Miranda. I think if they were really trying to go that route, they would have made the design look more like the Reliant instead of just the SNW Enterprise saucer with some underslung nacelles and just a hint of secondary hull underneath.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
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quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: I have always felt that the Miranda class Reliant as seen in TWOK always looked that way (i.e. it was not refit from a TOS-style look like the Enterprise was.) There is some evidence to support this hypothesis, but nothing ironclad.
Yes.
In my estimation, the TMP ship style was not new in 2270, and the TOS ship style observed in the 2250s and 2260s was actually the product of an even earlier decade. Based on chronology of observed registries, the Constitution Class was probably first built in the 2210s ( possibly even in a slightly different configuration ).
Given the existence of Entente, NCC-2120, in 2271/2, we can easily point to a 2250s-ish build time for the Lantree and Reliant. In principle, then, there's no reason why Pike's Enterprise couldn't have left Talos IV and rendezvoused with a Miranda Class ship.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
If there never was a “TOS Miranda” - an idea I’ll admit has a certain appeal - then it would also answer one of those perennial chicken-and-egg questions: where did that nacelle design first appear - on the Constitution-refit or the Miranda? And the answer is, the latter.
And from there, it goes a long way toward explaining why the C-refit didn’t have anything like the longevity of the Miranda: perhaps refitting the Cs was a way to extend the life of ageing spaceframes built using obsolete principles and concepts, until the Excelsiors and Constellations came online…
quote:Originally posted by Lee: If there never was a “TOS Miranda” - an idea I’ll admit has a certain appeal - then it would also answer one of those perennial chicken-and-egg questions: where did that nacelle design first appear - on the Constitution-refit or the Miranda? And the answer is, the latter.
And from there, it goes a long way toward explaining why the C-refit didn’t have anything like the longevity of the Miranda: perhaps refitting the Cs was a way to extend the life of ageing spaceframes built using obsolete principles and concepts, until the Excelsiors and Constellations came online…
So there's two schools of thought on the subject.
1. The TOS Enterprise was refit into the TMP Enterprise, which was the prototype for all new Connie refits and Connie newbuilds going forward as of 2270.
2. The TOS Enterprise was refit into the TMP Enterprise to 'catch up' technology-wise, because there were already Connie refits/newbuilds during TOS, and we just never saw them.
Where does the Miranda class fit into this? Putting aside for the moment the idea that it might be a refit of an older TOS-style hull and just assuming it was new as of post-TMP, that would go far in explaining why we saw a huge proliferation of them during the decades between TWOK and pre-TNG, but not a single Connie refit (which would make option 2 more likely than option 1, despite the idea in TMP that this refit design was brand-new.)
So the hypothesis would then be that the Miranda class was brand-new as of the TMP era, and the TOS Connies/refit Connies/newbuild Connies were on their way out (which would also explain why the Enterprise-A was decommissioned so early.) Because if the Miranda class had been refit from an older TOS-style hull like the Enterprise was, then why did we see tons of Mirandas during the Dominion War but not a single Connie, if they were contemporaries?
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Exactly. I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between your (1) and (2) in terms of their implications. Especially given the number of Connies, refit or OG, is in flux, in doubt, in contention.
And while it’s no longer safe to say that “not seeing them means they didn’t exist”, not now the apparent long life of the California-class is in the mix, the idea that the Miranda has certain properties of longevity, durability, adaptability that the Connies lacked even after extensive refitting (or, yes, being built from scratch to the updated specs) has a certain appeal.
- We don’t know for certain any new build Connies exist - We know at least one OG wasn’t refitted, possibly for posterity!
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Exactly. I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between your (1) and (2) in terms of their implications. Especially given the number of Connies, refit or OG, is in flux, in doubt, in contention.
And while it’s no longer safe to say that “not seeing them means they didn’t exist”, not now the apparent long life of the California-class is in the mix, the idea that the Miranda has certain properties of longevity, durability, adaptability that the Connies lacked even after extensive refitting (or, yes, being built from scratch to the updated specs) has a certain appeal.
- We don’t know for certain any new build Connies exist - We know at least one OG wasn’t refitted, possibly for posterity!
The only other refit Connie we ever saw was the Enterprise-A, and even after seeing it again in PIC, we still have no idea if it was a brand-new ship as of TVH, an older newbuild ship that was renamed, or an even older TOS ship that was refit AND renamed. My gut tells me that it was an older ship, since there would be no reason to decommission a seven-year old ship after TUC.
As for the California class, I don't think it's all that old. Mike McMahon stated that he wanted the ship to look like something that would have realistically been introduced in TNG's 5th season (2368.) So they would only be around 15 years old at the start of Lower Decks (2380.)
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Maybe there were no other refits, but that just feels unlikely… somehow. But as we don’t KNOW, it renders the question - of whether all the refits (we assume existed) were all just refits, and/or whether there were from-scratch new builds in the design as well - completely moot.
What about the -A? It was in a right state when they got it. Was that a: freshly-post-refit right state; a newly-built-ship in a right state because it’d not had a shakedown cruise yet; or, an existing refit that was just old and beaten-up after possibly as many years under the belt as the -null would have had if it hadn’t been destroyed?
And are we overlooking the fact that the -null, once the pride of the fleet, was by TWoK an Academy training ship?
As for the age of the Cali, putting it as TNG era at most seems like the best explanation, and we can tell ourselves that the Rubidoux and the Solvang (both destroyed, both registries in the 12xxx range) were either mistakes or were meant to be 72xxx ones.
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I would love a future production to show TMP-era Connies. Apparently the upcoming Section 31 TV movie is supposed to take place...
Spoilers
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ ...around the 2330's during the Lost Era, so perhaps we'll see some? But probably not.
And yeah, the Enterprise-nil relegated to a training ship (and then Morrow wanting to decommission it because he 'felt her day was over') seems to indicate the status of these vessels as aged.
I seem to recall that there might have been at least one or two more Connies in Spacedock during TVH, and of course the destroyed Ent-nil from TSFS used as a derelict in BoBW, although you couldn't see either ship fully:
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
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posted
There were also the (apparent) outlines of refit Constitutions on the Operation Retrieve charts in TUC, if you want to count those.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Pros and cons really. It’s a cut scene. It in all seriousness shows them still using FLIP CHARTS in 300 years time. The names feel a bit, I dunno. And they complicate the number-of-Connies debate, not that I’m particularly dogmatic about that or even really pretend to follow it - or care!
posted
Regarding Constitution versus Miranda, I found and noted a couple of decades ago that the Miranda has about the same volume but is much more volumetrically efficient, with no bottleneck between hulls.
(Imagine you want to install some bulky doodad in Science Lab 3 . . . bringing it in by cargo pod to the shuttlebay, you store it in the cargo area just forward of the bay. But how do you get it up to Deck Six? Well, you're gonna have to bring it up through the neck, if you're in a Connie. If you're in a Miranda, you just wheel it down the corridor.)
My conclusion was that the Constitution was originally built that way because of a lack of core ejection, whereas the Miranda could indeed eject her core. The fairly unique Federation saucer-and-secondary-hull design is something of a holdover from this original necessity, perhaps retaining some other utility in the direction of their design evolution.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Wasn't there something in the TNG Tech Manual about how the E-D's shape (I think especially the cutout at the back) has to do with the efficiency of the warp bubble? Perhaps, because the Constitution ships are meant to be zipping all over the Federation all the time, they're designed in a way that maximizes the efficiency of their warp drives, even if it's not the most efficient on the inside, while the Miranda is meant to go to a place and sit there doing science or whatever for an extended time, so they were less concerned with the warp drive being perfect and more concerned with things like moving equipment around inside.
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posted
There may be something in this. Particularly the bit about long slender necks being literal bottlenecks for moving stuff around. And quite a lot of the classes are quite squat with little/no neck. And then it occurred to me: what’s one other class that doesn’t seem to have had the longevity we might have expected? The Ambassador. Which is possibly the most Constitution-like class ever.
Perhaps the Connie and the Ambie were like… I dunno, hard to think of a good analogy. Like the F-22 Raptor: far too expensive for what it could do. What’s a good fighter aircraft that just wasn’t as versatile as less good ones?
Incidentally, there’s a YouTube channel called We Travel By Night (I don’t know why it’s called that) which does really good looking CGI videos. In one, he looks at the neck of the C-refit. It’s actually quite difficult to make the structure fit everything that needs to be in there: two torpedo bays and a usable turbolift shaft, for one. And there’s another where he shows that everything - engineering and shuttlebay - in the secondary hull isn’t much better in that regard. He’s far from perfect: he genuinely said that he could pick and choose what was canon according to his own preferences!
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