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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Yes, but... Does a diplomatic ship go unarmed or undergunned to prove its there for peace, or does it go overwhelming but defensive firepower to protect the diplomats?

Hopefully we can at least give it experimental hull/shield/defence tech even if not guns
 
Fouredged Sword said:
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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This exact ship exists by the 31st century, though I'm sure you know it. We just see it in passing as one of the surviving Starfleet ships after the Burn though.

For now, that works for an unarmed diplomat ship that is not meant to be out doing science and whose response to fighting is to nope out.

Rihtan said:
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.

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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It also helps that we mostly don't follow ships not named Enterprise. For example, Strange New Worlds establishes that Pike had his first five year tour with the Enterprise, and now he's returned to command while on the personal countdown to his disaster, which he knows about due to Time Nonsense in Disco Season 2.

It's really too bad it's spoilers out the wazoo because there's a climactic scene in Disco 2 where Pike seals his fate and Pike gives a speech that is SO quintessentially Starfleet it hurts. One of the best scenes in all of Star Trek.
 
Diplomatic Heavy Cruiser with about 4 torpedo launchers (2 Front, 2 Back), 6 Phasers, and High Maneuverability. See if that new hull material has some extra durability too. We're not threatening but we definitely won't be threatened. "Starfleet is extremely committed to the safety of any alien diplomats we are transporting".
 
KarmaA said:
Diplomatic Heavy Cruiser with about 4 torpedo launchers (2 Front, 2 Back), 6 Phasers, and High Maneuverability. See if that new hull material has some extra durability too. We're not threatening but we definitely won't be threatened. "Starfleet is extremely committed to the safety of any alien diplomats we are transporting".
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Engines and shields all the way, seriously no guns. If the diplomat ship is shooting something has gone horribly wrong.

What it needs is a special diplomatic transporter room - The Enterprise may have dignitaries arrive in the standard transporter room, but we want a transporter room that can actually have a proper entrance without walking through the ship. Not direct to the party - they have site-to-site transport for that - but to the equivalent of a coat room, where you can prepare yourself before entering formally and/or be taken to the ambassadorial suite with your luggage.

Also TWO SEPARATE WINGS for ambassadors from hostile nations. With every possible connection between them going through vacuum except when the formal corridor is extended, and isolated computer and communications systems. For most groups it won't matter, but for the tense ones? They'll thank you later. No murders on this ship.
 
I would have prefered Kiwi or Moa if we do New Zealand birds but Kea is fine
[x] UFS Kea
 
You know, it's been sixty years, surely the Andorian Kumari-class battlecruiser has been decommissioned by now, right?

Kumari was the name of the icebreaker ship to first circumnavigate Andoria, it's an even better fit for an explorer than a battleship, and it's a sensible canon name that isn't Earth-centric. Maybe we can say that one of the main designers of the next explorer is Andorian.
 
darkstarling said:
This exact ship exists by the 31st century, though I'm sure you know it. We just see it in passing as one of the surviving Starfleet ships after the Burn though.

For now, that works for an unarmed diplomat ship that is not meant to be out doing science and whose response to fighting is to nope out.



It also helps that we mostly don't follow ships not named Enterprise. For example, Strange New Worlds establishes that Pike had his first five year tour with the Enterprise, and now he's returned to command while on the personal countdown to his disaster, which he knows about due to Time Nonsense in Disco Season 2.

It's really too bad it's spoilers out the wazoo because there's a climactic scene in Disco 2 where Pike seals his fate and Pike gives a speech that is SO quintessentially Starfleet it hurts. One of the best scenes in all of Star Trek.
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I actually had no idea that such a ship is canon! What was it called? I want to look it up.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
I actually had no idea that such a ship is canon! What was it called? I want to look it up.
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The Angelou Class. It was very much in passing, but such a thing does exist and it can absolutely have a predecessor a thousand years ago

Angelou class

The Angelou class was a type of Federation starship operated by Starfleet during the 31st and 32nd centuries. It featured a torus-shaped design that supported a rainforest ecosystem within a transparent exterior. (DIS: "Die Trying") In 3069, ships of this class were lost to The Burn, when all...
memory-alpha.fandom.com
 
Perhaps something like the Horizon-class?

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IIRC the forcefield dome is meant to store biological samples/even full on arboretum equivalents. Though I could be misremembering.

But either way, a sphere hulled ship with a great transparent aluminium and forcefield backed dome for a mezzanine/general meeting and relaxation spaces could be interesting.
 
[X] UFS Europa

Golgotha said:
Yes, but... Does a diplomatic ship go unarmed or undergunned to prove its there for peace, or does it go overwhelming but defensive firepower to protect the diplomats?

Hopefully we can at least give it experimental hull/shield/defence tech even if not guns
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It can't be completely unarmed: diplomats will want to be secure, which means the ship needs to be able to defend itself.

I agree that you probably do want to avoid arming it too heavily, though. We don't want it to look like Starfleet is doing literal gunboat diplomacy. Maybe more phasers, and less torpedoes, since phasers are less indiscriminately destructive.
 
Tank man said:
Perhaps something like the Horizon-class?



IIRC the forcefield dome is meant to store biological samples/even full on arboretum equivalents. Though I could be misremembering.

But either way, a sphere hulled ship with a great transparent aluminium and forcefield backed dome for a mezzanine/general meeting and relaxation spaces could be interesting.
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Do a predecessor of the Separating Saucer Section of the Enterprise D. Heck even the original Enterprise can separate the Engineering and Saucer sections if it must right?

So we have the Diplomatic Hull, like an Oberth. Isolated from the Engineering Hull. For the safety of the diplomats of course, and not at all that we don't trust the Romulan Ambassador as far as we can throw him. And a major feature of the Diplomatic Hull is the Peace Forest, where you have a flying outdoor environment with transparent aluminum roof.

The other feature, of course, is the diplomatic transporter where people can make a formal arrival and head to the ambassadorial suites. Which are also isolated from each other, very thoroughly.

In case of emergency, the diplomats evacuate to the Engineering Hull - where the Bridge is, this is a weird ship for Starfleet - and drop the diplomatic hull before running away at high warp.

If we get REALLY fancy it's modular, to accommodate different climate preferences and aesthetics. But that's very much optional.

edit: Hmm. I imagine that there are going to be occasions where a diplomatic ship will be acting as a flying embassy, with all the need for privacy and soverignty that entails. And other times where a diplomatic ship will be acting as a neutral meeting ground for third parties, which has a very different set of requirements - especially if they want to bring their diplomatic staff and move in to your offices. But you'll also need to account for if they have their own diplomatic ships as their own flying embassies.

It's an entirely different set of design trade-offs. I like it.

Especially things like 'how many diplomatic suites' vs 'how private are they' and 'onboard Federation embassy' and 'cultural library' and 'legal library' and 'flying park' and 'ambassadorial bar and restaurant' and... I'm looking FORWARD to this!

I really think an Oberth style hull is the way to go for a diplomatic ship.
 
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darkstarling said:
The other feature, of course, is the diplomatic transporter where people can make a formal arrival and head to the ambassadorial suites. Which are also isolated from each other, very thoroughly.
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You know what bonds people, camping, no need for ambassadorial suites. Just make sure the environment is modular and that there are forcefields to keep atmospheres seperate.
 
LunaMoth said:
You know what bonds people, camping, no need for ambassadorial suites. Just make sure the environment is modular and that there are forcefields to keep atmospheres seperate.
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Nobody sleeps in a real bed until this matter is settled. Ether the deadlock breaks or your back does. We have set the ground to become progressively more filled with uncomfortable rocks each day that passes.

Peace in our times gentlemen... Peace in our times.
 
LunaMoth said:
You know what bonds people, camping, no need for ambassadorial suites. Just make sure the environment is modular and that there are forcefields to keep atmospheres seperate.
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Storms occur at random, but the odds increase the longer this happens. So help me if you don't bond over the table you'll bond UNDER it, complaining about us!
 
Put both ambassadors in a natural environment.

Lock the doors.

Release a hungry tiger.

"The UFS Darmok and Jalad had a storied if not illustrious history of resolving three separate long-standing interstellar conflicts by causing both sides to unite against the Federation."
 
LunaMoth said:
You know what bonds people, camping, no need for ambassadorial suites. Just make sure the environment is modular and that there are forcefields to keep atmospheres seperate.
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It's like a terrarium but for alien ambassadors. I wonder how long it would take Q to go for a stroll on the transparent roof looking down at the delegations and pointing.
 
TeaMug said:
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.
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So like a UN thing, set up with offices in a ring around the center, but you put yourself in orbit above the planet so it looms over you with weight and drama? I can see that. Have forcefield-contained atmosphere so you can have people make statements from their balconies, if it's big enough. Have a central holoprojector as well. And an extendable 'floor' that isn't really structural as far as starships go if you want to turn it into a meeting hall.
 
I had a thought, what kind of chaos could we cause if we named our version of the Constitution the Enterprise-Class?

Would the Flagship of the Federation be the Constitution then?
 
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