Linked contents
- Location
- USA
Also fitting.
Famous early industrialists of the Federation member species would be a good shout, and given the sheer size of this thing and what it can carry I'd suggest Isambard Kingdom Brunel or some variation there of, or SS Great Eastern fame.
The largest ship of her time, only surpassed decades later, and the layer of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.
He also did quite a bit more than just build ships (though he set many firsts with the SS Great Western and SS Great Britain too), such as the Great Western Railway and the various bridges and tunnels that went alongside it (and even more, including the first tunnel under a navigable river) and the development of the techniques that made it possible. Is father was also quite accomplished.
The largest ship of her time, only surpassed decades later, and the layer of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.
Article: SS Great Eastern was an iron sail-powered, paddle wheel and screw-propelled steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by John Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames, London, England. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling. Her length of 692 feet (211 m) was surpassed only in 1899 by the 705-foot (215 m) 17,274-gross-ton RMS Oceanic, her gross tonnage of 18,915 was only surpassed in 1901 by the 701-foot (214 m) 20,904-gross-ton RMS Celtic and her 4,000-passenger capacity was surpassed in 1913 by the 4,234-passenger SS Imperator. The ship having five funnels (which were later reduced to four) was unusual for the time. The vessel also had the largest set of paddle wheels.
He also did quite a bit more than just build ships (though he set many firsts with the SS Great Western and SS Great Britain too), such as the Great Western Railway and the various bridges and tunnels that went alongside it (and even more, including the first tunnel under a navigable river) and the development of the techniques that made it possible. Is father was also quite accomplished.
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Seconded. The Weaverbird or the Weaver is an excellent name!
KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
What about a Tellarite name?
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't think naming ships after early industrialists is a great idea, a lot of them were less-than-spectacular people. To say Henry Ford had some less-than-commendable views on Jews is one hell of an understatement and while a search through the Wikipedia page of Bessemer doesn't show anything nearly as bad there is an implication he may have screwed over fellow inventor Robert Forester Mushet who helped perfect the Bessemer process. People are very rarely saints and naming things after them comes with attaching the baggage they've accumulated over the course of their lives.
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, I AM an enormous fan of swallows. But that should be an explorer ship
- Location
- USA
The Federation has used the names of far worse people. Repeatedly. Including a USS Ford in one of the video games.
History is not clean. History is NEVER going to be clean. And we must still respect the deeds of those that got us where we are.
Brunel seems to have been fairly non-controversial, plus given our who cargo pod modularity discussion this stuff with the pre-fab hospital aboard the Great Eastern during a war.
StriderInCosmos
Wanderer in the Worldsea
- Location
- Somewhere in... Terminal Dogma? I think?
Perhaps some mythological engineers and architects are in order if we're looking for the names of sapient beings? Daedalus springs to mind easiest, but I'd be interested to see a Tvastar or Svarog.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
Yeah, I'm down for either option.
Anyway, I do think that those of us who were outvoted can make some lemon meringue pie out of things in that the cargo pod presents an obvious precident for mission pods (as in the much neglected and occasionally maligned Nebula class) which I feel are something worth pursuing for second line ships; we just need to make sure they're cross-compatible like the cargo pods are. and possibly cross compatible with the cargo pod couplings, for that matter.
edit: Hm, actually, now that I think about it, a Proto-Miranda like I've wanted to do for some time would greatly benefit from that kind of thing; design it as a dabbles-in-everything generalist sans pod, and then have more specialist equipment in modular pods, so if you know in advance you need XYZ extra equipment, you can grab an available pod for that, and if you don't have the right pod, well, the ship is still a decent generalist.
Anyway, I do think that those of us who were outvoted can make some lemon meringue pie out of things in that the cargo pod presents an obvious precident for mission pods (as in the much neglected and occasionally maligned Nebula class) which I feel are something worth pursuing for second line ships; we just need to make sure they're cross-compatible like the cargo pods are. and possibly cross compatible with the cargo pod couplings, for that matter.
edit: Hm, actually, now that I think about it, a Proto-Miranda like I've wanted to do for some time would greatly benefit from that kind of thing; design it as a dabbles-in-everything generalist sans pod, and then have more specialist equipment in modular pods, so if you know in advance you need XYZ extra equipment, you can grab an available pod for that, and if you don't have the right pod, well, the ship is still a decent generalist.
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NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
History is never going to be completely clean but that doesn't mean we have to name things after the dirtier parts of it. The USS Ford could be named after any number of people named Ford and just because some past Star Trek writers named things after terrible people without putting much thought into it beyond basic name recognition that doesn't mean we have to. Naming something after Henry Ford, antisemite and anti-unionist who used violence to try and suppress worker collective bargaining, who did business with Nazi Germany and whose German subsidiary used French POWs as slave labour, who's policies spread and still persist and are the source of many of modern capitalism's evils, that Henry Ford? If we were playing Mirror Universe Starfleet Design Bureau sure, absolutely. Given we're playing prime universe Starfleet Design Bureau? Hell no.
KnightDisciple
Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
Ooooh, I do like Svarog, I just would like to, at least at some point, look to give ships names that aren't always Human-centric.
StriderInCosmos
Wanderer in the Worldsea
- Location
- Somewhere in... Terminal Dogma? I think?
I think we'd either need to dig fairly deep for non-Earth linked names, or Sayle would have to be willing to make up their own. I don't know how likely either outcome is, but I'm up for being pleasantly surprised.
[X] Catamaran Nacelles [5.2 Cruise, 6.2 Max Cruise, 7.2 Max Warp] [Operating Range: 70ly]
Phaser strips want to be as long as possible in order to build charge and spherical hulls inhibit that. They are easier to mount but still have issues with the hull.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
To a degree, yes. but the problem changes from "investment cost per fire arc" to "maximum beam strength", and I think we will mainly be keeping spheres for utility and second line ships.
Starfleet is the Federation's military whenever the fecal matter hits the rotary impeller, and its ships are very much designed with an eye to the fact that they will go in harm's way in wartime, no matter how they are used in peacetime.
And when war inevitably breaks out, these ships are going to see a significant amount of action, given the Klingon fondness for deep strikes and raiding behind front lines where these ships will operate.
Operating costs take a backseat to effectiveness in those circumstances.
I mean, paying increased fuel costs is vastly preferable to having to replace a star system's orbital industry and the skilled workers because you chose the cheaper, slower engines for your military ships transporting war supplies.
Hell, given the fact that those cargo pods are modular enough to switched out, I fully expect to see these things pressed into service for stuff like offensive minelaying just behind the forward edge of the battle area as well as resupply of Starfleet fleet elements for shit like torpedoes and spare parts. Just swap out the pod.
Of course they asked for a military vessel. Thats why they contracted a military design bureau, and why these things are being built to military standards with military drives. Civilian vessels dont get experimental duratanium-enhanced plating; they barely get lastgen warp drives.
This might not primarily be a shooter, but make no mistake, its a military vessel.
Look at the Algol-class transports for a RL example of the principles Im talking about.
They are unarmed, but at a speed of 33 knots, they are fast enough to keep up with nuclear carriers.
They gobble a lot of fuel to operate, but in wartime, the military doesnt care about that
Algol-class vehicle cargo ship - Wikipedia
- Location
- Somewhere and somewhen in time and space
[X] Catamaran Nacelles [5.2 Cruise, 6.2 Max Cruise, 7.2 Max Warp] [Operating Range: 70ly]
A minelayer in the TOS era is an immensely cool concept, and fits perfectly with the sort of early Cold War vibe that clearly inspired the more naval action heavy episodes of TOS. One could absolutely see a Halley-type ship laying minefields along the Romulan neutral zone, or in strategic border systems with the Klingons.
The only caveat is that these sort of interesting additions to the combat paradigm of space warfare is something Trek is only semi-interested in, to the extent that it's interested in a coherent paradigm of warfare at all, which is "mildly". Mines have definitely come up before (most notably the one across the Bajoran wormhole in DS9), as have many other interesting things like space forts, short-range attack craft, etc., that come together to make a naval combat paradigm much more similar to the complexity of historical or modern combat and less "models shoot glowly lines at each other in empty space". But these things are almost always just a plot device for particular episodes, brought up and then forgotten, and there is less than zero guidance given to how they fit together in overall doctrine or practice - often there is a mild element of contradiction. It's left to fanon to work out a coherent theory of how something like short-range attack craft might fit into the wider paradigm of warfare.
But if @Sayle is willing to do that with mines and mine-laying in this quest then I am one hundred percent here for it.
The only caveat is that these sort of interesting additions to the combat paradigm of space warfare is something Trek is only semi-interested in, to the extent that it's interested in a coherent paradigm of warfare at all, which is "mildly". Mines have definitely come up before (most notably the one across the Bajoran wormhole in DS9), as have many other interesting things like space forts, short-range attack craft, etc., that come together to make a naval combat paradigm much more similar to the complexity of historical or modern combat and less "models shoot glowly lines at each other in empty space". But these things are almost always just a plot device for particular episodes, brought up and then forgotten, and there is less than zero guidance given to how they fit together in overall doctrine or practice - often there is a mild element of contradiction. It's left to fanon to work out a coherent theory of how something like short-range attack craft might fit into the wider paradigm of warfare.
But if @Sayle is willing to do that with mines and mine-laying in this quest then I am one hundred percent here for it.
Iirc Lower Decks has shown an actual system encompassing mine network, like the Klingons were meant to be doing/trying to do around Bajor iirc.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
[X] Catamaran Nacelles [5.2 Cruise, 6.2 Max Cruise, 7.2 Max Warp] [Operating Range: 70ly]
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What about Weyland?
