posted
Back in TNG 'The Neutral Zone' did Data say the Warbird was "nearly twice as long as the Enterprise" or "at least twice as long as the Enterprise". I haven't seen that episode for ages and can't remember.
posted
That Warbird was really large, the E seemed like a small cargo tug beside it I liked the shot when the ships can be seen "head to head". I suppose the Warbird was some kind of a flagship, because I can't remember such a large Warbird in any other episode (Haven't seen DS9 Season 7 yet).
posted
The Warbird was the original length quagmire, back from the days when everyone thought the only Defiant was Constitution-class.
Probert himself has given the length at which he designed the ship, which is in the region of 1200m long. Indeed, in the head-to-head shot from "TNZ" suggests just that.
However, come "Contagion", the idea was to make the Warbird and Galaxy somewhat matched. Either oblivious to or intentionally ignoring the previous length, the VFX guys portrayed the Warbird as only slightly larger than the Galaxy. The same stock footage of the WB to the upper right and the E-D to the lower left with different backgrounds has been reused throughout TNG since then, and while a bit of distortion may come into play, the WB is clearly under a kilometer.
In "Tin Man" we see a Warbird very close to the E-D on two occasions... one firing on it from behind and passing over it, and the other getting tossed by Tin Man. It is without a doubt under 800 m here.
In "The Die is Cast" we see Warbirds and Keldons next to one another. Whatever about the length of the Cardie ships being inconsistent, the Warbirds are again not in the 1200m range.
------------------ "You're not quite evil enough. You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the Diet Coke of evil, just one calorie, not evil enough." -The good Doctor and his son, Scot
posted
There could also be two different classes of Warbirds. Picard did once mention something about a type B Warbird (The Defector, I think), which carries the connotation of a type A existing. And since he said that they were likely to encounter a type B (not sure about this), there might only be very few type A's, which are like the big one we saw in "Neutral Zone". It would also make sense, as the first Warbird encountered by the Federation was the big one, thus a type A designation would be appropriate until more information could be gathered by Starfleet.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, it was Worf who called it "type-B", but I was going to make the same point. It doesn't make sense for it to be designated "type-B", if there's only one kind. The question is, is the D'deridex the small type-B, or the big "type-A"?
------------------ "I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me." -from Baloo's cousins' endless supplies of e-mail jokes
posted
In 'Yesterday's Enterprise' Captain Garrett tells Picard the Ent-C was attacked by four Warbirds (back in 2344). Could these have been of a earlier/different design then the D'deridex? Maybe they were the type-A Warbirds.
I hate to think that there is another ship (other then the BOP) that has different scales for the same model. It is illogical...
posted
I rather agree with Dax. Keep in mind that the type designations were assigned by Starfleet, most likely because everything known about Romulan vessels post Tomed was based on sketchy intelligence information.
At any rate, I remember reading that Probert's numbers were never really transmitted to the VFX people. So it's likely they never had a concrete number for it, at first anyway.
------------------ "Have you ever seen a bloody egg? Glass in hand, laying up in bed?" -- They Might Be Giants
posted
Yeah, I'm also a proud member of the "A-type Warbirds were from Yesterday's Enterprise" camp, too... *shows his button*
The reality behind the D'deridex is quite simple, really. It had to be tuned down just because it's so damn scary looking anyway. Push it up to twice as long as the Enterprise and you have a ship that looks like it could eat anything else with nacelles for lunch.
------------------ "You're not quite evil enough. You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the Diet Coke of evil, just one calorie, not evil enough." -The good Doctor and his son, Scot
posted
Oh, and Tim, Picard called it a "B-type Warbird" when doing a little tirade in front of Jarok in "The Defector", IIRC. D'deridex came up later in "Tin Man".
------------------ "You're not quite evil enough. You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the Diet Coke of evil, just one calorie, not evil enough." -The good Doctor and his son, Scot
posted
Im glad you guys agree with me, even so, no-one has answered my original question.
Oh, the DS9 Tech Manual gives a length of 1042m for the D'deridex-class - any comments on this? Should this be taken as "canon" if Probert intended 1200m?
Jim Phelps
watches Voyager AFTER 51030
Member # 102
posted
Probert's size is 4,400 feet or 1,341m, and was given to me over e-mail (I think Bernd recently pointed to his website for an image). The same number is evident in the three-ship AMT/Ertl set. Doug Drexler's charts seem to be based on the "nearly twice the size" comment in the Encyclopedia text, which is likely an estimate Mike Okuda received from someone (I'm not sure that the NZ dialogue had anything).
Rick Sternbach apparently measured the Encyclopedia II Ships of the Galaxy charts for the DS9TM figures; the Warbird size looks like it had been derived through comparisons with the 682m long Negh'Var in the tiny silhouettes at the bottom of the page. The normal Romulan Spacecraft charts have the usual 1200m, so this might be a scaling mistake.
Probert did tell me that the VFX people didn't agree on this one, I think I'll e-mail him again and ask for details. In the meantime, perhaps we should get some vidcaps of the aforementioned comparisons to determine some clear upper and lower limits.
Boris
------------------ "Wrong again. Although we want to be scientifically accurate, we've found that selection of [Photon Energy Plasma Scientifically Inaccurate as a major Star Trek format error] usually indicates a preoccupation with science and gadgetry over people and story."
---a Writers' Test from the Original Series Writer's Guide
posted
No! A scaling discussion. Run for your lives!
My old argument: Don't scale if it's not absolutely necessary. If the authors continuously invent new ship types and classes, this is because they don't know better and not because they want to portray a larger or smaller ship.
BTW:; Welcome to the Forum, Dax.
------------------ "Since we know that the frames are 1/24 of a second, this means that the time delay between the two frames above is 0.83 seconds. If Alderaan was roughly Earth-like in size, then the first frame shows a superheated debris cloud roughly 17500 km wide, with large trails of debris that extend to a width of roughly 31000 km." Mike Wong Ex Astris Scientia
posted
*thinks* Okay, I guess I'm thinking of Worf as the one who called it "D'deridex". Nevermind. :-)
------------------ "I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me." -from Baloo's cousins' endless supplies of e-mail jokes
posted
*there are many constants in the universe, but one that stands out is Tim's insanity*
Data called it a D'deridex, Tim.
------------------ "You're not quite evil enough. You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the Diet Coke of evil, just one calorie, not evil enough." -The good Doctor and his son, Scot
One of the ST:TNG Pocket Books ("The Romulan Strategem", I think) told of a D'Kazanak Class Warbird, which was said to dwarf the "Normal-Sized" D'Deridex Class warbird. It got zarked, though, as I recall.
Also, the new book "Vulcan's Heart" names the class of Warbird used at Narendra III. But I don't recall it at this time.
END NON-CANON ALERT ***WHOOOoooo...***
------------------ "When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"
I liked the shot when the ships can be seen "head to head". I suppose the Warbird was some kind of a flagship, because I can't remember such a large Warbird in any other episode (Haven't seen DS9 Season 7 yet).
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