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Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 7:16 pm
by McAvoy
So I was thinking about why Starfleet has the look that had a Earth based design lineage. Also why the ships have English words painted on them (we could ignore that for sanity's sake).

I think Earth was a major player and the main focus of the Romulus Earth War but still drew in the other powers as well. Maybe Romulus recognized that humans were the glue of the little Alliance.

So even with perhaps inferior ships and maybe even inferior fleet size, Earth stepped up production and out built everyone.

Beginning of the Federation everyone still had their fleet and for a time continued to operate and replace their old ships. Over time that became secondary as the human based fleet started to take dominance to the point where they were the sole design lineage for the fleet.

But the other races still used some of their own influences in design into the 'official' design pattern. Which is why some odd looking ships appear like the Norway or the Steamrunner class.

It could also explain why Starfleet has a wide variety of ships that probably do similar tasks as the major races with in the Federation build their own equivalent Starfleet ships for the Federation using Earth based templates. Perhaps to prevent Earth and the humans from having a monopoly on the fleet.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 8:21 pm
by Graham Kennedy
I always thought that the Earth model turned out to be a superior design. The Vulcan ring ships we see are more advanced than Earth ships, but given how the Enterprise Vulcans are I can easily see those being extremely mature designs that the Vulcans have been tinkering with for centuries, gradually making smaller and smaller improvements because they've just about reached the maximum potential of the design model, and there's just not much further to take it. Whereas the human design model may be inferior but it's a new design concept, with a ton of room for improvement. So over time it just supplanted the Vulcan, Tellarite and Andorian designs.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:19 pm
by McAvoy
That would suggest that it was a new design from what everyone else was using.

Problem is Starfleet's design is rare. We see more alien ships with nacelles integrated, and more of a single hull design. Those who are not like that share more in common with Klingon and Romulan designs.

That is just off hand without really looking into it.

Could be for an interesting article if someone compared all of the Trek ship designs though

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:39 pm
by Graham Kennedy
McAvoy wrote:That would suggest that it was a new design from what everyone else was using.
Well it is, isn't it? We've never seen anybody else using an Earth-style design, that I can think of. Which is kind of weird, when you think about it.
Problem is Starfleet's design is rare. We see more alien ships with nacelles integrated, and more of a single hull design. Those who are not like that share more in common with Klingon and Romulan designs.
Funny, but if you think about it the basic Klingon D-7 cruiser design is rather like the Constitution in broad strokes. Both have the warp engines on nacelles separate from the main body of the ship, but attached to an engineering hull. Both have a second hull attached by a neck to the engineering hull. There are different shapes and proportions at work, obviously, but it's not radically different.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2014 11:44 pm
by Teaos
Maybe Earth was the planet most willing to be the industrial base. If Vulcan didnt want to play host to the "military" aspect of statfleet, and the other powers not wanting former enemies on their home world.

I think it was Earth willingness to embrace everyone on their planets that gave them the leading position, as design flowed out from there. Earth didnt need to be the best to lead the newly formed Federation... it just needed to be the least objectionable.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:38 pm
by Mikey
I'm with GK, I always figured that the Earth-type design aesthetic took over because of its merits. Like he said, the design type featuring twin nacelles, a main engineering/bulk hull and a secondary command/bridge hull seems - in broad strokes - to have been common to Earth, Andorian, Romulan, and Klingon shipbuilding to name a few prominent cultures offhand.

In addition, Earth was the up-and-comers of the nascent Federation. Earth design philosophy would be more dynamic, adaptable, and easy to modify with the best SOP's of other cultures' ideas.

As to the lettering... I hate to use an OOU idea to explain an IU factoid, but I always take the "Babel fish" approach - what we see is just a TV-friendly translation of what would be Galactic Standard characters.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:02 pm
by Jim
As you pointed out, the general style (function wise) was used by various races. Additional bias toward certain things could be due to the technology, different power cores, different coils etc, and the restrictions or requirements of those. The white might just have been the preference of the original design team, nothing more than their opinion for the best look with an eye to expense.

Then, when you look across the races, most of each races ships have a similar look.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 4:42 pm
by LaughingCheese
The Vulcan design more scientifically accurate, at least according to recent theories.


Also I read somewhere the elongated saucer section design is supposed to help with subspace flow, being analogous to aerodynamics.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 5:31 pm
by Mikey
LaughingCheese wrote:Also I read somewhere the elongated saucer section design is supposed to help with subspace flow, being analogous to aerodynamics.
This supposedly is the rationale behind Roddenberry's rules of ship design (the IU rationale, anyway, the real reason being to fuck Franz Joseph.) The only fact of the matter is that we can't really fathom any facts about subspace fluid dynamics any more than we can discuss biological facts about fire-breathing dragons.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 6:57 am
by Coalition
The other option is Federation ships were optimized for speed. When you are dealing with a cloaked opponent, you have to get to areas where they might strike next. So each system gets a starbase equivalent, that will hold out against Romulan ships for a period of time. Starfleet reinforcements have to arrive within that period of time, so the faster they get there, the better.

The Vulcan design might be the most efficient in terms of fuel usage, the Klingon design might be the best in terms of cloak and protection, Romulan design is optimized for cloak, but the Federation decided that getting to the trouble spot first is a good idea.

This also leads to a set of cultural changes. When a race is in trouble, who shows up to help right away? The humans from Earth. They don't have that much in terms of resources, but their presence means an interstellar power is now looking over your planet.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 2:42 pm
by Reliant121
Federation starships always struck me having an awful lot exposed surface area compared to more stout designs by the Klingons and Andorians; perhaps, given Starfleets predisposition toward exploration and investigation, more exposed surface area supports a greater number of different types of sensors needed for exploration.

It could simply be a sense of nostalgia; many of our great discovery's have been via radio telescopes that are the same disc shape as the primary hulls of Federation ships.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2014 9:39 pm
by McAvoy
The saucer is really the biggest difference between all alien ships. Yes, there are ships with a distinct engineering or secondary hull with something protruding out front, but none of them are saucer shaped. They are everything but saucer shaped. Some of them are a single hull design with nacelles integrated with the hull for example.

It's cool because you could say there are different varieties of warp drive designs out there and the Federation version is just one of them, and perhaps the saucer performs a function for that type.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 3:27 am
by Mikey
If we're talking simply about the saucer vs. other "command modules," I think we can chalk that up to the difference in intent between the UFP and other governments. A saucer primary hull - as compared to the simple neck/head of the Klingon and Rommie designs, the more integrated Cardie and TOS Romulan ships, etc. - lends itself to a more exploratory, less martial mission statement. I.e., a saucer is certainly more vulnerable, harder to shield, and presents a larger profile to enemy gunners; by the same token, it also allows for greater surface area of sensor arrays, larger computer capacities, etc.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 7:51 pm
by DarkMoineau
But the saucer allow for phaser array... Isn't that a tactical advantage? Or at least a compensation.

Re: Starfleet's starship look

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:05 pm
by Mikey
DarkMoineau wrote:But the saucer allow for phaser array... Isn't that a tactical advantage? Or at least a compensation.
As I understand it, it's the technology of the phaser itself compared to disrupters that allows for arrays. If disrupter tech allowed arrays, they could be strung laterally along the head and neck of a Klingon ship (for example.) An individual array wouldn't have the field of fire that one on a saucer would, but that's neither here nor there.