posted
I wonder why the Ency III has a depiction of the huge ship on page 621, but no entry. There is a "battleship" entry, but it's actually about a battlecruiser and not about the ship from "Valiant" which is not mentioned at all. I should have expected that they get the difference between these two ships.
posted
I haven't seen it yet but the Ency III sounds rather dodgy. Apparently the cruiser pic is still upside-down as well The battleship is obviously a completely different class than the cruiser and is probably twice the length.
It really annoys me to think that us forumites could produce a better book than those that are getting paid good money to.
------------------ "Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets) Dax's Ships of STAR TREK
posted
Only the side view of the battleship is depicted (well, that's sufficient for my size chart ), but it looks completely different than the battlecruiser (which is still upside down indeed in both the individual pic and the size chart). So why let poor Doug Drexler draw the ship, if no one writes about it?
posted
Honestly, I think we should call this the Ency 2 1/2, not 3. Call it 3 when they reformat it and add the really important bits from the last season of DS9 and the rest of Voyager.
Then, they should hold off on another one entirely until at least 2 more movies and one more show have run their course. (or, if demand is really high, publish seasonal "supplements" that cover ONLY 1 or 2 seasons of whatever shows are on, plus whatever movies have come out.)
REAL encyclopedias do that. They call them "Year Books."
------------------ 'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson
Jim Phelps
watches Voyager AFTER 51030
Member # 102
posted
I've no idea why the production people should waste their time writing books. They certainly cannot give them the proper attention, and Mike Okuda did mention in a recent Continuum chat that most of the research was done by an assistant.
I personally find that they should merely present the original material to the fans to examine. Unfortunately, books of that type are not in demand - Margaret Clark recently ascribed the lack of any further Sketchbooks to poor sales in the first two. The Magazine helps out with its "Designing the..." pieces and Visual Effects pieces, but it's still a beginner's guide by 66% of its contents. There is also some stuff in the Communicator, but that's even more rare.
Rick Sternbach just mentioned that the visual stuff is furthermore entangled into copyrights and cannot be released online easily. I would guess that anything which allows people to accurately reproduce items in the show is heavily guarded. That may be a part of the reason for those errorneous Drexlerian reproductions, instead of CGI/photo views of the actual miniatures.
Fan-written And authorized tech manuals are usually of a better quality, although I'm not sure as to what it takes to obtain this kind of a license, as well as permission to look into the production materials. Larry Nemecek has gotten close, so has Shane Johnsen in the earlier days. Nowdays, it seems as though the Encyclopedia and the Manuals have monopolized the market. I'll ask Margaret Clark about all this, we really should be pushing to understand the situation.
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
I think the production people should rather write well-considered articles here and then, the Encyclopedia as it is now could be done by anyone else (by a fan who happens to be an acknowledged author or vice versa). The pieces of background information often don't go together anyway, so it wouldn't matter if the Okuda Clan write themselves or are just asked for the info.
------------------ "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way." A somewhat different Janeway in VOY: "Living Witness" Ex Astris Scientia
The battleship is obviously a completely different class than the cruiser and is probably twice the length.
), but it looks completely different than the battlecruiser (which is still upside down indeed in both the individual pic and the size chart). So why let poor Doug Drexler draw the ship, if no one writes about it?
Printer-friendly view of this topic
