NCC 1701-F

[Graham Kennedy]

Ok maybe one should clarify something for me. Holograms are supposed to be forcefields with a certain shape and need a holodeck to exist whereas replicated objects are real objects you could theoretically use outside of a holodeck, right? A holodeck works with both systems meaning the enviroment is probably a forcefield but if you order a drink you could take it outside the holodeck and enjoy it elsewhere. So why not eliminate the holo-part and use replicators instead for your proposed applications? (Assuming I am right about holograms.....) I always thought the exocomps also replicated their tools and made not a holographic simulation of them but I admit it has been years since I watched that episode.

The precise details are subject to some contradiction. In Encounter at Farpoint we're specifically told that much of the stuff on a holodecks is replicated. Subsequent episodes act as though everything on a holodeck is a hologram with a forcefield to solidify it; Picard even demonstrates this by throwing a book through the open doors in one ep and it vanishes instantly. That's exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to be replicated. Yet there ARE times we see people take things off the holodeck - even in "Elementary Dear Data", the episode that states over and over again that nothing can be taken off the holodeck, has Data take a piece of paper off the holodeck!

One could make a case either way. But people do eat and drink on the holodeck, and I for one find it impossible to believe that they're eating forcefields that are only pretending to be food and drink. And if food and drink are real, then there's no theoretical reason other things couldn't be as well.

There is a great many deal I do not like about the Intrepid (the fat sec. hull, the hunchback, the "saucer") but the little nacelles never bothered me. Wasn't it a trend started with the galaxy class to have comparatively smaller nacelles to illustrate the advancement in technology and therefore the Intrepid beeing the next logical step? (I guess the concept would still apply if not for the sovereign suddenly having huge nacelles again)

The Galaxy nacelles are shorter than the Connies were, but not nearly so small as the Intrepid. Try putting an Intrepid next to a Galaxy sometime, you'll see. And as you say, the Sovereign goes back to much bigger nacelles, as does the Prometheus.

I suppose small fast nacelles are not catastrophically impossible, but they just always bugged me. When I see the Intrepid, I always think "should make warp 8, tops".

Lol, ok quite possible . Well since I asked what nice gimmicks the next enterprise should have in "your" opinion it would have been perfectly ok to say:"I wish they would forget about the stupid warp 10 episode and having the ship travel at a new maximum warp of 13,4 similar to the All good things Enterprise." for example.

I think I posted on the forum once the idea I came up with for a new series; a 2420s or so ship with a combined Federation (including Klingons and Cardassians), Romulan, and Dominion crew, exploring other galaxies through transwarp drive. But the writers seem to want to keep our galaxy as a big place, for some reason.

[McAvoy]

The only problem I see with a ship designed as a really, really big holodeck is that in battle, damage no matter or big it is, could disable it the whole system. Starfleet for it to make it work is to make the whole system super efficient with redunant systems that can the load of multiple systems. So that if one or two go offline, others can take over with any noticeble loss in efficiency.

[Atekimogus]

The precise details are subject to some contradiction. In Encounter at Farpoint........... has Data take a piece of paper off the holodeck!

Well then, let's summarize that we want easily modifiable space similar to a holodeck with some preprogrammed settings (sickbay, labs etc. ) but which doesn't disappear every time an enemy phaser hit disrupts the power for a second.

And as you say, the Sovereign goes back to much bigger nacelles, as does the Prometheus.

Yes, but why? I am sure one could think of many reasons (to squeeze out a few 0,0001 warp, becaue of subspace-pollution whatever) but why not the shift back to bigger nacelles on other ships, the klingons for example. I just think to provide meaningful consistancy it would have been better to say, "Hey look, until now these things got smaller but with the new sovereigns onward we are able to breach the warp 10 barrier and had to put more stuff back into the nacelles".

I suppose small fast nacelles are not catastrophically impossible, but they just always bugged me. When I see the Intrepid, I always think "should make warp 8, tops".

One could argue that is because of the stupid variable warpfield mumbo-jumbo. Maybe not the best of reasons but meaningful consistency at least to that point. Not beautiful to look at but than the Intrepid fails on so many levels in this area that those turkey-leg nacelles are lower down on my list (but I admit, still there).

I think I posted on the forum once the idea I came up with for a new series; a 2420s or so ship with a combined Federation (including Klingons and Cardassians), Romulan, and Dominion crew, exploring other galaxies through transwarp drive. But the writers seem to want to keep our galaxy as a big place, for some reason.

I can see Cardassians on the crew (the ufp moving into cardassia the peaceful way, helping developing their democracy etc.) but Romulans and Dominion? Who would represent the dominion? A founder, a Jem'hadar, a Vorta, something else?
Now you surley have a better grasp of warp speeds than I do but how small a place would the galaxy become with transwarp? Lets say warp 11 from one end to the other? Rendering the DS9 wormhole obsolete? Or would you go with the warp 10 popping up where you want instantly?

[Tyyr]

And as you say, the Sovereign goes back to much bigger nacelles, as does the Prometheus.

Yes, but why? I am sure one could think of many reasons (to squeeze out a few 0,0001 warp, becaue of subspace-pollution whatever) but why not the shift back to bigger nacelles on other ships, the klingons for example. I just think to provide meaningful consistancy it would have been better to say, "Hey look, until now these things got smaller but with the new sovereigns onward we are able to breach the warp 10 barrier and had to put more stuff back into the nacelles".

Because the Intrepid looked fucking stupid. Even if you kept the ships at standard warp speeds you need bigger nacelles just to abort the design lineage the Intrepids started.

One could argue that is because of the stupid variable warpfield mumbo-jumbo. Maybe not the best of reasons but meaningful consistency at least to that point. Not beautiful to look at but than the Intrepid fails on so many levels in this area that those turkey-leg nacelles are lower down on my list (but I admit, still there).

Your meaningful consistency is already shot if that's your measure. Post-Intrepid designs have already gone back to large fixed nacelles. For whatever reason the idea they had with the Intrepid failed.

I can see Cardassians on the crew

Apparently their women can be quite hot according to some of what I've seen.

Now you surley have a better grasp of warp speeds than I do but how small a place would the galaxy become with transwarp? Lets say warp 11 from one end to the other? Rendering the DS9 wormhole obsolete? Or would you go with the warp 10 popping up where you want instantly?

No. You'd either be looking at a recalibration of the scale or some different kind of travel all together. Even if warp 14 was twice what an Intrepid could do you'd still be looking at a 30+ year journey to the other side of the galaxy. It'd still be a very big place even to the most bat out of hell fast Federation ships.

[stitch626]

I personally view the tiny nacelles of the Intrepid an attempt to save construction costs (materials) but in the end proved more costly, and as such was dropped in favour of normality.

And for large nacelles and Klingon ships... you have seen the Neg'var right?

And the Norexans had rather large nacelles (I think those were nacelles) as well.

[Atekimogus]

Because the Intrepid looked f***ing stupid.

Altough I agree with you I just think that isn't a good enough reason.

Your meaningful consistency is already shot if that's your measure. Post-Intrepid designs have already gone back to large fixed nacelles. For whatever reason the idea they had with the Intrepid failed.

Certainly true, but since we know how fast the ship was and how tiny those nacelles were we can assume that the variable warpdrive worked just fine and was only dropped because it was - for example - very maintance-heavy.

Apparently their women can be quite hot according to some of what I've seen.

Well to each their own I suppose.

No. You'd either be looking at a recalibration of the scale or some different kind of travel all together. Even if warp 14 was twice what an Intrepid could do you'd still be looking at a 30+ year journey to the other side of the galaxy. It'd still be a very big place even to the most bat out of hell fast Federation ships.

Well that was basically my answer to GKs statement where he expressed the fear of the writers that the galaxy might get to small. My gut feeling also was that even at warp 14 nothing would really change but since I haven't yet done the math and he probalby has I thought asking might not hurt.

Well let us try a bit to stay on topic so let my summarize a few of the suggestions we had so far for a theoretical E-F

- Huge mission specific space easily transformable to fit specific needs with the help of holograms/replicators.
- Phase-cloaking device
- Some new energy weapon still experimantal with drawbacks

Not much to be honest, most of the things mentioned could probably be fitted on a galaxy without beeing noticable from the outside....... .

[Graham Kennedy]

Yes, but why? I am sure one could think of many reasons (to squeeze out a few 0,0001 warp, becaue of subspace-pollution whatever) but why not the shift back to bigger nacelles on other ships, the klingons for example. I just think to provide meaningful consistancy it would have been better to say, "Hey look, until now these things got smaller but with the new sovereigns onward we are able to breach the warp 10 barrier and had to put more stuff back into the nacelles".

Best I can suggest is that the variable geometry angle lets the nacelles be much smaller (As I see you suggested later). An experiment that never made it to subsequent designs.

I can see Cardassians on the crew (the ufp moving into cardassia the peaceful way, helping developing their democracy etc.) but Romulans and Dominion? Who would represent the dominion? A founder, a Jem'hadar, a Vorta, something else?
Now you surley have a better grasp of warp speeds than I do but how small a place would the galaxy become with transwarp? Lets say warp 11 from one end to the other? Rendering the DS9 wormhole obsolete? Or would you go with the warp 10 popping up where you want instantly?

I had a whole thing worked out. Cardassians and Klingons joined the Federation; both could reasonably do so with a little time, especially the Cardassians after the Dominion war.

The Dominion contingent would be a Jem'Hadar security force, with a Vorta in charge. Basically the Redshirts of the series. No Founders.

As for the speed of transwarp, we don't really know. The canon examples have varied hugely.

The fastest end; Borg transwarp, with conduits supported by a hub. Speeds sufficient to cross the galaxy in "minutes", i.e. 1 billion times lightspeed or more.

See this for more details along with the theory of mine that I mentioned earlier.

[Atekimogus]

Best I can suggest is that the variable geometry angle lets the nacelles be much smaller (As I see you suggested later). An experiment that never made it to subsequent designs.

Was there an oou reason you know of? Maybe it was hard filming moving parts on a ship convincingly?

I had a whole thing worked out. Cardassians and Klingons joined the Federation; both could reasonably do so with a little time, especially the Cardassians after the Dominion war.

Makes sense, I always liked the cardassians (even Dukat before he went completely nuts) and joining the UFP also makes sense. The klingons on the other hand....beeing largely self sufficient and proud with lots of tradition.....possible, I suppose, not sure I would like it though.

The Dominion contingent would be a Jem'Hadar security force, with a Vorta in charge. Basically the Redshirts of the series. No Founders.

That I do not like for various reasons. First I wouldn't put the security in the hands of only one race. Naturally most of the crew would be humans but having pet jem'hadar doing the dirty work doesn't ring true imho. (Altough it is interesting how starfleet would deal with a "friendly" force of breed killers completly dependent on white.....) Secondly it would rob us of the chance finally picturing starfleet guys doing the job competently.
How is it in the first place that we have dominion guys onboard the E-F? Already a part of the federation? A condition for allowing a ship explore the gamma-quadrant?

[Graham Kennedy]

Best I can suggest is that the variable geometry angle lets the nacelles be much smaller (As I see you suggested later). An experiment that never made it to subsequent designs.

Was there an oou reason you know of? Maybe it was hard filming moving parts on a ship convincingly?

As I recall, they wanted something "different" about the ship to differentiate it from others and make it more easily recognisable. Show runners in Trek tend to view ships rather differently than fans do; they seem to think that the average viewer won't be able to tell ships apart unless there is something fundamentally different about the design.

(You know the powers that be wanted to use an Akira for the NX-01 in Enterprise? Not "something that looks like an Akira". They wanted to take an actual Akira class model and just use it as is. They seriously thought nobody would notice or care.)

Makes sense, I always liked the cardassians (even Dukat before he went completely nuts) and joining the UFP also makes sense. The klingons on the other hand....beeing largely self sufficient and proud with lots of tradition.....possible, I suppose, not sure I would like it though.

I think it's fairly inevitable. They've been allies for decades, fought wars together. I can easily see them joining forces full on.

That I do not like for various reasons. First I wouldn't put the security in the hands of only one race. Naturally most of the crew would be humans but having pet jem'hadar doing the dirty work doesn't ring true imho. (Altough it is interesting how starfleet would deal with a "friendly" force of breed killers completly dependent on white.....) Secondly it would rob us of the chance finally picturing starfleet guys doing the job competently.
How is it in the first place that we have dominion guys onboard the E-F? Already a part of the federation? A condition for allowing a ship explore the gamma-quadrant?

Actually I've always hated the idea that most of any crew would be Humans. By rights, even assuming Humans have some "special place" in the Federation, no more than a fraction of any crew should be Human. It's only limited budgets that make it otherwise. One thing I always loved about the TOS novels was that they showed the E-nil to have a massive diversity in the crew, and that's certainly how I would go.

The idea of the setup was that the major powers were butting heads in our galaxy. Between the Borg, Dominion and Federation there wasn't much room left to expand here. The major powers aren't at war, but the peace is rather uneasy and most think it won't last. They launched a joint mission to open up new territory to expand into, hoping to relieve pressure at home by giving them new arenas to push into.

The idea was to give maximum possible variety of stories. You can have the ship spend time in another galaxy doing TOS-type exploration missions. Since it can go from one galaxy to another, it's always easy to introduce a new threat, or to drop and abandon a threat that isn't working out - much as Voyager eventually left the Kazon behind and moved on to the Borg because the audience didn't like the Kazon but did like the Borg. You could also have the ship return home anytime you want, where you can have political intrigue type stories of the sort DS9 did. You can build a complex ongoing world... but you can dip into that as you like and then jump out of it again and easily do standalone stories. Basically it's a premise that lets you tell just about any story you like.

[Captain Seafort]

Actually I've always hated the idea that most of any crew would be Humans. By rights, even assuming Humans have some "special place" in the Federation, no more than a fraction of any crew should be Human. It's only limited budgets that make it otherwise. One thing I always loved about the TOS novels was that they showed the E-nil to have a massive diversity in the crew, and that's certainly how I would go.

On the contrary - mono-species ships make more sense than the pretty extensive combination we see. That way the life support settings can be tailored to make the crew as comfortable as possible, making the ships more efficient

[Tyyr]

Efficient, but flying in the face of the Federation's, Peace, Love, and Integration, message.

[Mark]

Not to mention all the other little quirks and nessessities that mixing species may have. Such as carnivore feeding time (example taken from the books) as a prime example. To many individual concessions, and it stops being a cohisive unit.

[Mikey]

On the contrary - mono-species ships make more sense than the pretty extensive combination we see. That way the life support settings can be tailored to make the crew as comfortable as possible, making the ships more efficient

Perhaps. But GK wasn't talking about what type of crew makes the most sense - he was talking about a fully-integrated crew making more sense than the half-assed, minimal integration which we've seen.

[Atekimogus]

Actually I've always hated the idea that most of any crew would be Humans. By rights, even assuming Humans have some "special place" in the Federation, no more than a fraction of any crew should be Human. It's only limited budgets that make it otherwise. One thing I always loved about the TOS novels was that they showed the E-nil to have a massive diversity in the crew, and that's certainly how I would go.

Well I said most of the crew would be humans mostly because of the oou reasons you stated but let me rephrase. Having the majority of the crew consist of UFP people with the jem'hadar beeing forced into the security role doesn't seem right to me. Thats probably where they are best but at the most they are part of a mixed security force.

(To be honest, before we invite jem'hadar on the ship I would much rather see more personell from the founding worlds on the ship. Where are all the andorians, telerites, vulcans or all the other 100+ members? Still enough room to explore those cultures first before concentrating on jem'hadar (which are fairly boring imho with next to no culture naturally)

To get back on topic let me through in a few other features I would like to see in the new E-F:

Two warpcores completely integrated with the nacelles. The concept is from old tos blueprints but I actually like the idea, gives us reason to put them away from the ship and makes room in the sec. hull. (Some might object it because of damage-resistance in a fight etc but given how the AM pods etc are placed on the ships I say it makes no difference in a battle.) Maybe add a third usually dormant backup-core in the eng. hull.

The extra space in engineering is used for large scale production facilities. (Basically doing the same as almost every Voyager episode, eg repairing a completely wrecked ship within a week or building shuttles but now within reasonable norms)

The captains yacht is used more often, but though warp capable it isn't build like a shuttle but more like a diplomatic conference center. I always thought it might be less scary for cultures who just developed warp to see a ship landing and making first contact than just beaming down appearing out of thin air or even obduct people by beaming them up.

The escape pods are a bit larger, more damage resistant and able to make one lift-off of a planet in case they are needed for evac. with the transporter beeing no option. They might also used as troop drop pods during a conflict.

Thoughts?

[Graham Kennedy]

Actually I've always hated the idea that most of any crew would be Humans. By rights, even assuming Humans have some "special place" in the Federation, no more than a fraction of any crew should be Human. It's only limited budgets that make it otherwise. One thing I always loved about the TOS novels was that they showed the E-nil to have a massive diversity in the crew, and that's certainly how I would go.

On the contrary - mono-species ships make more sense than the pretty extensive combination we see. That way the life support settings can be tailored to make the crew as comfortable as possible, making the ships more efficient

Sorry, but bull. Virtually every alien species we see are perfectly comfortable in Human-normal environments. Vulcans are, Klingons are, Romulans are, Betazoids are, Gorn are, and I could probably name hundreds of others. Even when these folks come from a different environment the differences tend to be minimal, and they still seem perfectly happy in ours.

So far as I know the only species that's EVER said they aren't comfortable in human normal environments are the Cardassians, and even then only Garak seemed especially bothered by it.

And yeah, it's madness that that should be the case. But there you have it.