posted
Here's something I began to wonder after discussions with Bernd on the infamous Talarian freighter that is reused as just about anything, from "unidentified alien ships" to "Federation transports" to "Gamma quadrant freighters". Are the Talarians perhaps the greatest starship merchants in the galaxy?
Not only does the freighter design, first introduced in TNG "Heart of Glory", get around quite a bit. The two Talarian military vessels introduced in TNG "Suddenly Human" are also surprisingly prevalent. Take a look at pIn'a'Sov's Talarian page .
The ship with cruciform wings, simply called a warship, is later used by Kriosians ("The Perfect Mate"), Frunalians ("Emissary") and Hekarans ("Force of Nature"). With the aftmost modules of its segmented aft hull removed, along with the aft halves of its wings, the ship serves as the Valerian ("Dramatis Personae") and Boslic ("Sons of Mogh") freighters seen docked to DS9, stern first.
The one dubbed "observation craft", with vertical wings, does not make another appearance in the original configuration - or does it? However, there is a high likelihood that the model actually serves as the basis of the Tamarian ("Darmok") and later Klaestron ("Dax") and T'Lani ("Armageddon Game") ships, as well as the Drayan ship "(Innocence"). The stubby horizontal wings of the observation craft apparently become the broad forward pylons of the Tamarian ship.
Finally, there appears to be a wreck of the observation craft at Qualor II ("Unification"). See the bottom part of pIn'a'Sov's Qualor collection and compare the wreck seen there to the observation craft and the warship on the Talarian page. Mysteriously, "Unification" comes several episodes after "Darmok", where this model apparently already was modified into the Tamarian ship.
What I now desperately need is more and better pictures, opinions, judgement calls: Is the observation craft the basis of the Tamarian ship? Is the "Unification" wreck the same as the observation craft? Are the Talarians selling these ships across the galaxy, or buying from some yet unseen vendor like so many others? Who is that vendor? Is the wreck-shot in "Unification" actually stock footage from an episode that would predate "Darmok"? If so, what other episode could it be except "BoBW2"? Is the design actually also operated by Starfleet, and among the Wolf 359 wreckage? Is *Starfleet* the mysterious galactic arms merchant? Do I need a vacation?
Timo Saloniemi
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[This message has been edited by Timo (edited July 31, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Timo (edited July 31, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Timo (edited July 31, 2000).]
Alpha Centauri
Usually seen somewhere in the Southern skies
Member # 338
posted
Perhaps you should go on vacation... All the confusion causes stress, which in turn can result in cardiovascular diseases...
Well, I think we have indeed a great starship-hypermarket around here in the galaxy (Captain John's Used Starships? *L*). It is a nice rational explanation for all those model reuses (Merchantman, Antares, Nenebek, and whatever more), but in my point of view on the Trek universe, Starfleet would build their ships themselves, instead of buying it at the local supermarket. Starfleet itself, however, is probably not a vendor. We've seen numerous examples on screen, which make clear that Starfleet does not share their technology. Older, obsolete ships, OTOH, might be put in sale.
Well, that is the only thing I could currently come up with.
------------------ Advertisement in the United Federation NewsPADD, SD 53675:
"Now for sale at your local dealer: Antares class vessels, as good as new! They can shapeshift! Everybody in the galaxy has one! Now for only $800!"
posted
Another possibility is that someone sells the blueprints/deck plans/instructions for building these things.
A newly warp-capable species may be capable of entering the galactic civilization, but it's hard to get practical things done with Phoenix-level warp tech. The Ferengi might go around selling such "primitive" planets designs for 200-year old starships in exchange for whatever raw materials the locals have handy.
Or perhaps these designs are "public domain" - some benevolent civilization broadcasts them on subspace radio, or the copyright has just expired. When a species develops subspace radio and can decipher the traffic, they pick up these designs for free. They won't all be built identically, but they're reliable old standards so mucking about with the design isn't common.
Or they're public domain, *and* the Ferengi still sell them.
posted
I doubt the Tamarian ship was modification of the Observation craft. Just looking at the pictures, it would take such heavy modifications (going to the triple hull, adding fore and aft wings) that TPTB would probably have saved time and money building a new model . Aside from them both being a yellow-brown color, there really are very few similarities.
------------------ "When I was in prison I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap. People shouldn't read that stuff. When we read these books what purpose does it serve in this day and time?" -Mike Tyson
posted
Depends on what pictures you look at. I'd love to see a better picture of the Talarian observation craft, but from the tiny screen-smears I've seen, the aft hull wouldn't need major modifications. Just remove the vertical "sails" and bolt the nacelles to the horizontal stub wings, then insert similar stub wings to the aftmost section of the existing hull, and that's all you need.
The Fact Files diagrams on the observation craft should be ignored as inaccurate, whereas those on the Tamarian ship look pretty accurate, except for the patterning on the foremost of the aft hull segments. Has anybody tried to do accurate schematics of the observation craft or the x-winged Talarian warship?
The big Tamarian ship of TNG "Darmok" first gets reused in 1st season DS9 "Dax" as the Klaestron vessel. The engine glow changes from red to blue and the ship is flipped upside down, but otherwise the model isn't altered.
Then in 2nd season DS9 "Armageddon Game", the model gets a more thorough revamp: nacelle forward and aft endcaps are removed, vertical fins bolted to the nacelles, some greebling added and the paint job improved, including adding of national symbols for the T'Lani. Engine glow goes back to orangish.
But strangely enough, in Voyager's "Innocence" we get to see the ship in Drayan hands, and it's back to its "Dax" appearance, complete with nacelle endcaps and blue glow and lacking the vertical fins. Were all the shots of the ship in "Innocence" really stock footage of elements of "Dax"?!? Weird, considering that TPTB even built a shuttlecraft just for this episode, with a design to match that of the mothership...
posted
That's a nice beauty shot of the Tamarian ship! Yup, it's definitely built out of the OC.
The piece of Qualor wreckage probably isn't the bottom piece of the OC/Tamarian, since we see this side of the Tamarian ship close up when the model is reused as the Klaestron ship, and it's smooth. It's smooth in the T'Lani appearance as well, but theoretically there could have been some smoothing done between the Klaestron and T'Lani appearances. However, apparently nothing was done to the rest of the ship between Tamarian and Klaestron incarnations, so why would this hull section have been altered?
So I agree with you that the wreck is very likely to be the WS hull. Or then it's an Imperial Star Destroyer that got lost in the Trek galaxy when somebody stole its conning tower. Which makes me wonder, did Sternbach or whoever bash the two Talarian models out of ISD kits?
Curious, curious. The WS seems to lack the wings in the wreckage scene. Yet we see new footage with wings in place in "Emissary", and then later the Boslic freighter version with half the wings. Okay, so probably the wings were easily detachable for storage...
posted
After yet another round of checking and rechecking, I found out the following, just for completeness' sake:
-The Drayan ship is not a reuse of Klaestron stock footage. Instead, it's yet another variant with truncated endcaps, and with the T'Lani vertical fins removed. Too bad the modelmakers couldn't make more extensive changes.
-The T'Lani ship is shown with a ventral "bridge" in the final shots of this ship. Some details around this bridge look different from the dorsal details to me, so perhaps the model wasn't just flipped - perhaps it has always had top and bottom bridges, explaining why it seemed to be upside down in "Darmok" already.
-The T'Lani ship's green-and-orange MSD screen shows a ship with nacelle endcaps - is this MSD originally from "Darmok"? Anybody have interior set screencaps from that episode?
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