posted
Well, we've always been told that the nacelles are the heaviest part of a ship, making up a large percentage of the mass... I can't imagine it would have been easy for the colonists to remove them using manpower alone...
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Oh easy. A bit of rope, some scaff, a block and tackle, maybe an A-frame and/or a tripod. Plus it helps to have 20 or so adults on hand, so plenty of manpower. Anyway, once they're loose, gravity can do most of the work. Just put Archimedes and Newton in the driving seat and you'll be fine.
Another possibility, inspired by your looks for the ship: perhaps this was a tug-barge combination, and the Mad Matriarch organized for the tug section to be abandoned and destroyed before entry to make sure the ship could never return. Sort of like Earth 2.
posted
I'm not saying they did, I'm not saying they didn't, just that they could. Perhaps the dense coils were making that end sink? Either way, they're small enough to have been hidden behind those trees and tents.
The tug idea isn't a bad one, though there's absolutely no dialogue to support it and in fact I think it was explicitly stated that they had problems with their warp drive and so had to land for repairs. Which suggests they took the warp drive with them when they went. Furthermore Sisko calls this a "Erewhon-Class Personnel Transport" not a passenger module or something that might necessitate a tug.
posted
Granted, although there have been one or two misleading designations for onscreen ships before...
Skimming through the TrekCore script, it seems the ship developed (no doubt faked) life support problems and landed, after which the engines and other systems failed (probably as Alixus flipped the switch on her device, but also possibly simply because she and her son sabotaged or shut down the involved systems one by one). Probably doesn't tell us anything useful about the nature of the ship, except that she landed on "engines" and was supposed to take off again.
Of course, the ending makes it sound as if there wouldn't be a way to fly Santa Maria out again, even when the duonetic trap was turned off - transporter evacuation onto a tiny runabout would be the preferred way to move the community. But then again, perhaps that was for practical rather than treknological reasons.
posted
Well for one thing she wasn't airtight any more as wots-er-face made a point about how they removed all the doors. Secondly, as I said before I imagine they would have had to have dumped the anti-matter pods, otherwise when they set down near that whozit field generator they would have probably lost containment and exploded on the ground. I have no idea what story reason could be given for dumping the pods when at that point they were only having life support trouble, but that's not my problem. That, plus the need to dispose of various hazardous substances (plasma coolant etc.) probably means the engines are at least partly dismantled.
There's also the matter of what 10 years in a fertile swap will do to the integrity of the outer hull and whatever else they might have stripped out to make use of. Opticable for rope, insulation padding for ground sheets, that kind of thing.
One thing that is bugging me though, is there any indication of just how many passengers were on-board? There seamed to be about 15-20 hanging around outside the ship at any time, plus whomever was working in the fields, the "mine" and however many were inside. I think we only saw 2 children young enough to have been born on the planet (they're the last one in the final shot) and mention was made of three who died from the same insect that killed Meg (presumably there were other deaths.) I'd guesstimate the the original compliment would have been in the 40-50 region.
posted
I think the engine design still needs work, but that's looking nice. You intentionally reusing the bow of one of the Jum Martin's designs for the stern of this design?
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
That's probably because I haven't worked on the engines much yet, just roughed out the general shapes and proportions. Still, I kind of like them being simple squashed rectangle looking things.
posted
...But the design just yells for a third set of landing legs. (Although then it would look like a squashed bug.)
And the matter remains that we can't see the upper deck on screen, at least not to the left of the landing struts. So why not at least flip the whole design around so that the bow of the ship is to the left, and the stern to the right?
Yes, I know the characters turn left at the outer door. But there could be a cargo hold to the right of the door or something - a space that isn't exactly personnel-accessible, as possibly evidenced by the partial-door-thing on the outer wall (Martin's drawings have a crane of some sort protruding from there). The characters would have to go left to access a central corridor that eventually takes them to whichever spaces they desire to access.
Or then the characters could simply be on their way to the extreme bow of the ship, which could be the runabout aft cabin reversed. What we see through its windows wouldn't be treetops, but rather the sort of bushes you get in the decade after your ship has felled the earlier trees...
Why do I gripe? Because I still don't much like the idea of an upper deck, or the aesthetically and functionally annoying low relative ground clearance resulting from such a large ship. And because for this once, the unseen component of writer/artist intent isn't all that bad. If the bow of the ship is to the left, it could well be the Martin design reversed and with two quite ordinary nacelles stuck above the stern, to the unseen right.
And the "four times runabout" ratio would be internal volume against internal volume - presumably sufficient because a runabout can pack something like sixty people in discomfort, so four should be able to pack thirty and their luggage in comfort...
posted
First off, there WILL be an extra set of landing gear for the aft section, I just have to wait until I've plotted out the ventral view so I can find a sensible place for them to go (not as simple as you might think.)
As for the visibility of the upper deck, as I've already explained I designed the bridge with an eye towards it being dismantled and used as a balcony by the colonists - note that the deck level of the bridge is about a meter lower than the outer dorsal hull, so it wouldn't be visible from the ground - as for the rest of the upper deck, it's far enough back so that it wouldn't be visible in the screen shots.
I did think about flipping the whole thing 180 to have the upper deck on camera left but it causes more problems than it solves. For one thing yes, there could be a central corridor, but with a ship this small it just doesn't make sense to have THREE hallways running parallel and it would make it impossible to place the passenger cabin set (the one they had meg in) anywhere inside the hull. Believe me, you're not suggesting anything I haven't already considered and eliminating the upper deck altogether just makes it worse as you have less space for passenger cabins and cargo bays.
As far as the ground clearance goes, I may yet extend the belly to ground level, or add retractable parallel skids along the entire length, I haven't decided yet and again, it will have to wait until the ventral view is sorted.
As for the Danube's capacity, 60 would be at EXTREME discomfort and strictly short term. This is a civilian personnel transport, so it requires at LEAST one bunk for every two passengers and a seat in an escape pod for every person aboard, with room to spare. So the internal volume to passenger ration goes up compared to a runabout. Then you need somewhere for them to eat and socialise, hence the midship mess hall and you need to see to their hygiene and any medical issues, so that means a sonic shower room and a very small infirmary with a stasis pod. It's as small as it's going to get and any bigger and it becomes two big for the "about 4x the size of a Danube" to be valid.
posted
I'm toying with the idea of removing the front set of lading support arms. What do you think? Better, or worse? In a weird way I think it looks more balanced than before.
I would have hoped that the ship could be developed into something better looking than a flounder, but with only one deck there were definitely not many options.
Registered: Mar 1999
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