Frank: You are probably right, I also have in mind that the average Galaxy decks are not quite 3.4m or 3.5m. If I get it right, the Galaxy, the ship with a kindergarten and elementary school, carpetry in engineering and a weapon console that looks like our former living room furniture is supposed to be a warship.

The Danube: The pic is from the scene I was talking of, but here the Deffy is only about five times the length of a Danny (which for most of us yields the desired length). Could there be another screencap where the runabout is closer to the Defiant and therefore appears smaller? I remember a factor of 7.

BTW, which episode is it? It's probably before the shuttlebay was installed.

Bridge: There is no definite reason why the bridge should be larger on the real ship.
*engages speculationjustificationconjecturedevice*
Maybe there is an additional hull armor around it?

The image is from "By Inferno's Light."

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Frank's Home Page
"Okay, what's an MSD?" - Rick Sternbach

While he does fudge the numbers from time to time in order to make a particular shot fit, the deviations we observe are far more likely, in my opinion, to be the work of other supervisors using different figures. I'm gonna be sending a regular letter to Gary Hutzel in a couple of days (now that we're in the same country), asking him about the Defiant and perhaps a few other issues.

The tractor emitter remained there a long time after the shuttlebay was shown. One of the clearest views is in fact provided during the Defiant's destruction.

Boris

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"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

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited November 04, 1999).]

1. Your ** says that the ILM chart is from TWOK. The chart was for ST:III.

2. Shouldn't the length of the Sovereign-class be accepted as 685m? 2248ft is written twice in the TNG Sketchbook. 685m is also listed on the SciPubTech poster.

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"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK

1. When you calculate your decks, you have to leave additional room for Jefferies Tubes between decks.

2. Can't we just say that the Danube is about 1.5 decks thick (the main deck plus room for storage and crawl spaces above and below)? If the Defiant has five decks (I know the Tech Man says four, but Jadzia said "Hull breach on deck 5") and the Danube has 1.5 and they're close to the same height...you should be able to calculate the Defiant size.

The fifth deck on the Defiant was mentioned in three episodes, "To the Death", "Rejoined", and "Way of the Warrior". Sure, we can arrive at a pretty good lower limit using the five-deck figure, but we also have to keep in mind the fact that the MSD shows four decks plus a little subdeck downbelow.

This means that Deck 5 is likely an accessway of some kind, which could be ceiling-less in some spots so as to allow people (Sisko) to walk on it. In order to emphasize the deck-function of the crawlspace, we should probably assume the greatest size possible for those four decks, which gives us perhaps 110-120 meters as the length.

The upper limit to the size is, of course, provided by the observed set spacing of Engineering levels 1 and 2. I'd really like to know what this works out to.

Boris

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"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

I measured the AMT Defiant model. The height from the bottom of the nacelles to the top of the circular area around the bridge (basically, the distance you'd get if you placed the model flat on a table and put a flat piece of wood across the top of the circle and measure the distance between the wood and the table) is 6 cm � .5 mm (I sure hope you guys can see that "+-" thing; if you just see some odd character, it's a "give-or-take" thingie). The length from rear to deflector was 41 cm, � 1 cm. Using these measurements, estimating a reasonable deck height, and agreeing that the Defiant has to have at least 4.5 decks, we should be able to come up with a reasonable range for a completely internally consistant size for the Defiant. Assuming, of course, that the AMT model has the same ratios as the official physical model and the CGI model. I think we'll all agree to that.

Let's start with the minimum size. If the Defiant only has four full decks and no subdecks (just for the sake of argument, and so we won't have to debate about the size of deck five), the length of the model is 40 cm, and a deck is two meters high including all space between (ala Jefferies tubes), we get 55 meters, � two for outer hull and armor.

Now for max size. Say deck five is actually a full deck (again, for the sake of argument), the length of the model is 42 cm, and a deck is three meters high, including all space between, we get 105 meters, � two for outer hull and armor.

So using those assumptions, and throwing in a reasonable margin of error, we get a length somewhere between 50 and 110 meters. The only real guesswork involves the height of a deck. Anyone have a dispute over that?

If not, I'd say that the average of the boundary lengths is as close to the real length as we're gonna get until new evidence emerges. That would put the Defiant around 80 meters. Internal consistancy only gaurenteed, of course.

As for comparisons to other ships, the only way this works is some odd subspace phenomenon. Then compairing to DS9 would be a problem, since no subspace field could be active when docked. So we could say it's a problem with the size of DS9, not the Defiant!

55m??? There is no way the Defiant could be that small. 2m high decks? I think not. Realistically, no full starship deck should be less than 3m tall. This gives a minimum length of 90m for our friend, the Defiant. I would be surprised if the ship was actually less than 110m long, though.

So the AMT model has a different shape that the official model?

And you have to keep in mind that the bottom of the nacelles isn't the actual bottom of the Defiant. For reference, MSD Deck 3 is the bottom of the ship, while Deck 4 is the surrounding shell areas. The nacelles extend a little below the shell areas.

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"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

One question- why would Sisko take Weyoun and the Jemmy soldier to this deck 5 (turbolift ride in "To the Death")?

Boris

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"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

All three get on together and then Sisko says "deck 5, section 1". The scene does imply that they are all going the same place. Emphasis on the word "imply"