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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Lavaflow said:
I think the Doylist reason for using a lot of PADDs is a combination of set designers wanting things to look recognizably like paperwork but sci-fi and not yet knowing just how crazy digital storage density would get IRL.
In a blatant attempt to bring things slightly more on-topic for the thread, this design is going to end up producing a lot of data for research papers to go on those PADDs, eh?
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I'm sure with all the SCIENCE happening on a single ship every lab has a dedicated PADD-terminal considering how bulky the TOS padds were.

We'd probably even have more data being processed if we somehow fit extra lateral sensors onboard. When Enterprise D had to undertake a big sector survey, every minute of sensor capacity was fiercely contested prior to the trouble of the episode.
 
[X] UFS Hoshi Sato

[X] UFS T'Pol

BTW do we have an Enterprise tooling around or are we waiting for the next explorer design?
 
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Ramble said:
BTW do we have an Enterprise tooling around or are we waiting for the next explorer design?
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I think while the NX-01 accomplished a lot, it wasn't until Kirk's Enterprise that the name and registry started rolling forward. The first 1701 did some pretty incredible stuff then saved the Federation from V'ger, until Kirk blew it up. Then they saved the Federation again, so the 1701-A as a replacement may well have just been a nod to the idea that Kirk's crew belonged on an Enterprise rather than the start of a legacy. At which point they promptly did some more legendary stuff and dismantled a conspiracy that would have thrown the Federation into a war.

At that point it was either a "well we already rolled the registry forward to a new Enterprise once" or "we should keep the name in service for morale reasons". So they transferred the name to the next most-advanced ship to come out of the yards, which was an improved Excelsior. At some point between the 1701-B and the 1701-D the Enterprise then officially became the Federation/Starfleet flagship rather than mascot and Enterprise became the prestige posting.
 
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One option to explain things could be that it took until April/Pike/Kirk's Enterprise for Starfleet to be established enough that the Starship Naming Committee felt that it was reasonable to reuse the name of Archer's ship - ie., until then, Archer's ship was both too fresh in memory (especially for powers like the Romulans) for the SNC to want to revisit it, while also being too iconic to issue to anything short of an explorer - something that the properly unified Starfleet hasn't fielded yet, versus the "United Earth Starfleet with a new coat of paint" Sagarmathas.
 
Sayle said:
I think while the NX-01 accomplished a lot, it wasn't until Kirk's Enterprise that the name and registry started rolling forward. The first 1701 did some pretty incredible stuff then saved the Federation from V'ger, until Kirk blew it up. Then they saved the Federation again, so the 1701-A as a replacement may well have just been a nod to the idea that Kirk's crew belonged on an Enterprise rather than the start of a legacy. At which point they promptly did some more legendary stuff and dismantled a conspiracy that would have thrown the Federation into a war.

At that point it was either a "well we already rolled the registry forward to a new Enterprise once" or "we should keep the name in service for morale reasons". So they transferred the name to the next most-advanced ship to come out of the yards, which was an improved Excelsior. At some point between the 1701-B and the 1701-D the Enterprise then officially became the Federation/Starfleet flagship rather than mascot and Enterprise became the prestige posting.
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It's a whole thing, because NX-01 Enterprise was a Starfleet ship but not a Federation ship. The Federation didn't exist yet. And there has to be some frankly fascinating history in there - the transition between the United Earth Space Probe Agency and the pre-Federation Starfleet.

Personally I've got a whole headcanon about Starfleet forming as an originally informal network of scientists among the boomers and slow warp space culture, who were basically doing science as a side gig because they were out there anyway. Different ship cultures become more dedicated to it, it becomes a bit more of a formal civilian scientific organization. You've got the whole thing with the Kzin Wars - raids by a similarly low-tech alien culture. It's a bit like someone saying 'The Viking Era' rather than an interstellar war between states like you normally think of. And then one day someone gets a distress call. And they come to the rescue, because that's what you do. And for the first time - "Tell them Starfleet is coming."
 
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Darth Locutus said:
SNW retconned it slightly, with Pike referring to the SNW/TOS Enterprise as the Federation Flagship.
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Its the perils of doing a prequel.
Kirk is canonically the Horatio Hornblower, ideal captain of his age that everyone else within this period is measured against. Picard escaped this by being in a sequel and in a new age of Starfleet. But Pike is trapped, he's in the same age and on the exact same ship. Pike is a good captain but if you want things to make sense overall everything Pike ever does is destined to be totally overshadowed by Kirk and his nearly mythological career.

How does anyone write that? And even if you can your producers are going to shit all over it saying everything has to be bigger and better then everything that came before while they ignore this is supposed to happen before the Kirk stuff. Prequels, particularly those written with corporate overlords, are so toxic to a cohesive storyline that many of us just don't bother trying to justify this stuff anymore.
 
Rihtan said:
Its the perils of doing a prequel.
Kirk is canonically the Horatio Hornblower, ideal captain of his age that everyone else within this period is measured against. Picard escaped this by being in a sequel and in a new age of Starfleet. But Pike is trapped, he's in the same age and on the exact same ship. Pike is a good captain but if you want things to make sense overall everything Pike ever does is destined to be totally overshadowed by Kirk and his nearly mythological career.

How does anyone write that? And even if you can your producers are going to shit all over it saying everything has to be bigger and better then everything that came before while they ignore this is supposed to happen before the Kirk stuff. Prequels, particularly those written with corporate overlords, are so toxic to a cohesive storyline that many of us just don't bother trying to justify this stuff anymore.
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In the case of Strange New Worlds what they've done is set up Pike as someone who absolutely could be Kirk and Spock's mentor, like he was in the Kelvin branch. You give him his own accomplishments and adventures, and imply that while Kirk maybe - is - the great hero we know, who saved the Earth so many times? He may be exceptional but he isn't UNIQUE. The tradition that produced Thomas Cochrane didn't begin or end with him.

Can you tell I really like Strange New Worlds?
 
It is very close still through.
Last voting had 60+ votes per option and here the voters stay with their vote no matter the ranking. Names seems to either leave very litte negotiation room or seen as flavor and therby less involving. Maybe both.
To the birdwatcher in thread: Some examples for bird names that would fit to the winning vote (curious and likes to life in groups).
To the stargazers in thread: Names of places where life may be.
Adhoc vote count started by inirlan on Feb 29, 2024 at 3:38 PM, finished with 249 posts and 108 votes.
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The long vote also gives time to figure out next possible project options and consider tweaks and background event progressions. All that changeover machinery movement behind the curtain.
 
Yeah, but we totally need to vote to make a garden diplomacy ship that has the top of the saucer made of transparent aluminum and turned into a giant open garden complete with trees.

And I mean BIG saucer section. I am thinking a 600k ton ship with no secondary hull huge saucer. It's a little piece of a federation world flying through space.

You could then project onto the inside of the transparent aluminum to give it an artificial day/night where the night cycle sky is actually just space outside the ship.
 
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Rihtan said:
How does anyone write that? And even if you can your producers are going to shit all over it saying everything has to be bigger and better then everything that came before while they ignore this is supposed to happen before the Kirk stuff.
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I actually really like how they handled this exact issue. They had some kind of future sight technobabble that let Pike see the results of what plays out in one of the best and most famous TOS episodes: Balance of Terror, the one with the Romulan cloaked warbird with the super plasma torpedoes. And Pike and the audience get to see how his more careful and measured command style is inferior in this encounter to Kirk's brasher and more aggressive tendencies. And they did it without making Pike look like an idiot or Kirk looking like some kind of wizard either.

Just human differences leading to a drastically different outcome.
 
A next generation heavy cruiser probably wouldn't go amiss I don't think. The Sagarmatha ships are getting older but they should still be fairly functional all things considered. And a heavy cruiser should be sufficient as a mainline generalist ship while also being capable enough for exploration.

Or we can do as we are wont to do and stick a shitload of science labs in a battlecruiser hull so they have a reasonable chance of surviving if we fling them out into the inky black.
 
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If I understand this correctly, then something like this is under discussion. Just at least two orders of magnitude smaller.
 
I want a dome too, but not the whole saucer. A bubble that's "open" to space in the center, with a donut of more traditional saucer around it.
 
darkstarling said:
In the case of Strange New Worlds what they've done is set up Pike as someone who absolutely could be Kirk and Spock's mentor, like he was in the Kelvin branch. You give him his own accomplishments and adventures, and imply that while Kirk maybe - is - the great hero we know, who saved the Earth so many times? He may be exceptional but he isn't UNIQUE. The tradition that produced Thomas Cochrane didn't begin or end with him.

Can you tell I really like Strange New Worlds?
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Glad you're enjoying it. :) I sort of bounced off most of new trek. Mostly because of how many retcons have happened over the years. The names are the same but everything else has been rewritten so many times the the new stuff fails to resonate with my soul. It probably doesn't help that my first love in literature is hard sci-fi and Trek, never the hardest of sci-fi, isn't that anymore.

Can you tell TOS is still my favorite?

I will say that new Enterprise has one of the mostly stupidly beautiful interiors I've ever seen in a starship. This causes me a almost painful level of mental dissonance with my aeronautical-adjacent background. I love it, but I just can't find a reasonable justification for heavy cruiser being outfitted so lavishly that the most opulent luxury cruise ship in the world is green with envy.

Darth Locutus said:
I actually really like how they handled this exact issue. They had some kind of future sight technobabble that let Pike see the results of what plays out in one of the best and most famous TOS episodes: Balance of Terror, the one with the Romulan cloaked warbird with the super plasma torpedoes. And Pike and the audience get to see how his more careful and measured command style is inferior in this encounter to Kirk's brasher and more aggressive tendencies. And they did it without making Pike look like an idiot or Kirk looking like some kind of wizard either.

Just human differences leading to a drastically different outcome.
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Haven't seen that one. Sounds like they did a good job at the episode level.
Most of my worries are more on the series level. Lets take it as a given that all Starfleet Captains are exceptional. When you have a ship that can destroy worlds only the very best can ever be trusted with that power. Kirk's main call for being exceptional in an exceptional pool is mostly due to how long he stayed there as captain of the Enterprise without dying or screwing up. He was the youngest captain ever and he also remained a captain for decades longer than any of his peers. Its like comparing two top tier authors of roughly equal skill, but one of them has written five or six times as much as the other.
Kirk may have just been a man, but he was good at his job and his body of work is so big that every other Starfleet Captain will always be judged against him.
 
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