All Good Things love

[spyone]

Uh spyone,

Look at ships and aircraft.

OCean going ships usually have propellorrs (Screws) that turn the power generated by the engines into motion, just like a starship. With ocean going ships one of the reasons why mutliple propellors is desireable is for reducancy. Another is for finer control in maneuvering. Still another is to get past the limited efficnecy of a propellor system. Once you reach a certain point, the props no longer propell the ship as efficnecy.Eventually they will either just turn the water into vapor, or wreck the screws. To get around this limit, ships have mulitple screws.

Oh, I agree they might have a use.
What I meant was that I don't think most of the people who design 3-naceleled ships see it that way. They didn't go, "We'll start with a Constitution Class hull, but we'll put in a much bigger powerplant (and thus engine room), which means we'll have to remove a lot of the science labs and such. And then, to be able to handle all that new power, it will need a third nacelle."
I'm pretty sure they went, "I want it to be just like a Constitution Class, but with more weapons and faster. So I'll give it a third nacelle."

If a kid showed you a battleship he'd drawn, and it looked just like an Iowa Class except it had more propellers, you'd probably think it was a bit goofy. If you got the idea that he thought that would make it go faster and fight harder, without any need to change the other systems within the hull, .... well, he's having fun and you wouldn't want to spoil his fun, but part of you would be thinking "That's just dumb."

And that's the vibe I get off of three-nacelle designs: They look to me like they were drawn by a kid (or kid-at-heart) who didn't understand what made the ships go. He thought they were like airplanes: the nacelle contains both the "propeller" and the engine that powers it, so more nacelles = more power/speed.

I distinctly got the impression from AGT that the future Enterprise-D got the power for the nifty new cannon because it now had three nacelles.
Its just my opinion, but I wanted it to be clear.

For Star Trek, if the number of nacelles didn't matter, then there should be some single nacelle designs.

Except that Gene said (during development on TNG) that there would be no ships with an odd number. For whatever technobabble reason, nacelles always come in pairs.
The common speculation as to why Gene made the even numbers rule is that he specificly wanted to exclude the Federation Class Dreadnaught from canon.

FASA had some single-nacelle designs, and for whatever reason those don't look nearly as goofy to me.

[spyone]

Cool, didn't know that either. That is classic BSG footage, not the new series, right?

No, that's definitely the new series' Galactica.

And, IIRC, in First Contact there are a few Millenium Falcons battling the Borg at earth, just too small to make out anything other than that it is a smallish, disc-shaped ship.

[First of Two]

Just to throw it out there, the AGT E-D did have a significantly built-up engineering section, from the close-ups and schematics I've seen.

[tonyg]

spyone,

Oh, okay. I see your point. I agree with it too. Most of the three engine ships's I've seen, inlcuding the old Federation-class Dreadnought, don't look like they have 3 nacelles for any reason other than to look "cooler" or more powerful.

BTW, rumor has it that Gene's "no odd number" rule was created specfically to invalidate the designs from the Franz Joseph TECH MAN. Only problem is, if that was so, why did they use images from the TM on readout displays in STII?

About the only one of the rules that made sense was that you coulldn't block off the front of the nacelles (that's where the bussard scopes would be).

[The Tatterdemalion King]

BTW, rumor has it that Gene's "no odd number" rule was created specfically to invalidate the designs from the Franz Joseph TECH MAN. Only problem is, if that was so, why did they use images from the TM on readout displays in STII?

The art dept wanted to save time?

[spyone]

Because STII was where Gene started to lose control of the franchise, control he was trying to re-assert with TNG?


I've read an interview with the guy who directed Wrath of Kahn (name escapes me at the moment), and he said Gene was very upset with him, saying that Starfleet was not as "militaristic" as he was portraying it.
His response was that he had watched all the TOS episodes just before doing the movie, and felt that what he portrayed was in line with what the episodes actually showed, even if that didn't seem to line up with what Gene thought they had showed.

I happen to agree.


I respect and admire Gene for coming up with Star Trek for us. That doesn't mean I think he was infalible.

[tonyg]

The art dept wanted to save time?

That's what happens when Star Trek subcontracts out to Lucas (well, ILM).

[tonyg]

Because STII was where Gene started to lose control of the franchise, control he was trying to re-assert with TNG?


I've read an interview with the guy who directed Wrath of Kahn (name escapes me at the moment), and he said Gene was very upset with him, saying that Starfleet was not as "militaristic" as he was portraying it.
His response was that he had watched all the TOS episodes just before doing the movie, and felt that what he portrayed was in line with what the episodes actually showed, even if that didn't seem to line up with what Gene thought they had showed.

I happen to agree.


I respect and admire Gene for coming up with Star Trek for us. That doesn't mean I think he was infalible.

Nicholas Meyer? He was also repsonsible for ST VI.

Personally, I think that Gene had a point. Trek started getting a lot more militaristic after STII. Of course, Gene deserved a lot of the blame. If TMP had been a better movie Gene would have been able to have more control over the franchise. Then again, if Gene had given credit where it was due (most of the setting was invested by others), he could have avoided a lot of the problems.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

That's what happens when Star Trek subcontracts out to Lucas (well, ILM).

I'm talking about the art dept, not the effects.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Then again, if Gene had given credit where it was due (most of the setting was invested by others), he could have avoided a lot of the problems.

What the hell did he invent of the setting, anyway?

"Here are some dudes on a ship. One of them has pointy ears! They have adventures!"

[C5]

Back on the topic... for once I like All Good Things. Didn't felt quite like a series finale, but then, it would have been hard to give a sense of closure as there was no major story-arc in TNG (something I feel lacks).

I had no trouble either with the three-nacelle design. Maybe an even number of nacelles generates a decent warp field, but other nacelles could give an improved, if less stable warp field, and technology evolving could have allowed for such a design to exist. Or maybe the Ent-D refit was just an experimental ship.

To be honest, the ship design I didn't like was the Defiant. Even or odd-numbered, I like a ship's nacelles to be far from the hull. The Defiant always looked to me like a Trekified Millenium Falcon.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Back on the topic... for once I like All Good Things. Didn't felt quite like a series finale, but then, it would have been hard to give a sense of closure as there was no major story-arc in TNG (something I feel lacks).

Well, they couldn't blow up the ship, because they were going to do that in Generations. Remember, it was the same guys (pre-crap Braga and RDM) writing that and AGT, at the same time. We're lucky one of them turned out as good as it did.

[JALU3]

To move off topic . . . I always thought that the two great losses in Generations were Anticlimaxtic. The fall of death of Kirk was blah, so was the loss of Ent-D to a small D-12 Bird of Prey . . . although I like Riker, he should be court martialed for loosing his command, and for Picard for abandoning his command. And its loss was for nothing major . . . not blaze of glory, no sacrafice for the Federation, no great villian's death.

But back to AGT. I like the fact that it was a Q centric show . . . but the Future Enterprise seemed more in line with a DW gone wrong . . . then anything else. I could care less about the modified Engineering Hull and the Third Nacelle, as there was much to 2390 technology which we were left in the dark about . . . but it seemed to go against the nature of what the Galaxy Class Ship was about . . . they were never ment to be Dreadnoughts, they were ment to be well armed science/cruise ships. I don't think they were ever ment to be the Cavalry . . . more like a rear HQ ship.

As for the Defiant . . . it was purpose built, and the opitomy of the Non-Quasi Military that Roddenberry disagreed with . . . it was ment for one thing . . . War. Something that a Federation Nautical Architect would have never dreamed of designing. This is why it has all its problems from the start . . . cause it was to much in to little. There was no-multipurpose or exploration about it. So I can understand why many would dislike it. But as with all navies, even the oddest ships have their place in the fleet.

[C5]

I've read somewhere that the writers intended at one time to have the Ent-D being blown up by the Jem'Hadar in DS9 instead of the Odyssey (and I'm pretty sure you can see that the Odyssey registration looks strangely like "1701-D" in one shot - I remember looking pretty hard). Might have been better than in Generations (though the saucer crash scene is pretty cool). As for Kirk's death... I don't like Kirk much, but I don't think there could have been a more ridiculous one (dying in a fist fight at two against one aged scientist ?)

Back on topic... maybe in AGT future, the Federation, when needing to create more military-oriented ships, didn't create the Sovereign class but retrofitted some of its Galaxy class into something more warlike, while new, non-military ships, like the hospital ship Beverly Picard commands, appeared.

[tonyg]

I read the same thing about the Oddyssey. I doubt it,t though, unless they were thinking of moving the Next Gen crew to another ship. I can't see them thinking of killing off that crew at that time. A neat idea, but it probably wouldn't have worked to try an one up the ENT crew that way.

Kirks death is unsatisfying. What's funny is that the original death was worse (Soron shot him, making Kirk completly superfluous to the story). Now if he had died pushing Picard out of the way, that would have been better, AND in character.

Heck, if they were going to kill him, they should have done it in STVI. Back when that came out there were a lot of rumours going around that it was going to be the last TOS film, and not everyone was going to live. The whole mood of that film, plus the t shot in the trailer where the chameleoid gets disintergated while looking like Kirk, really gave an "all bets are off" feel to that one.


Back to topic. If seems likely that the retrofit would be in addtin to the Sovereign class. Since captial ships require a lot of resoruces it is common to try to get the most out of them by upgrading them. If the Dominion War occured in the AGT future, then upgraqding older ships is even more likely. But, since Picard altered the timeline, and the ENT-D was totaled, it just won't get the upgrade.