TNG movie era - Sovereign, Sabre, Steamrunner, all of it!
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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A user of taste and discernment, I see.
@Digital_Cam The II - VI OG movie era. Harder lines but upgraded from the series. There was a harshness and realness to the ships, almost armored looking which fits the more conflict oriented tone of those movies.
I'm going to get crucified for this, but I really dig Discovery's design language (both the show in general and the ship herself). In particular (I'm ready for those nails), I like their take on the Enterprise in season 2 (and subsequently SNW). In my mind it's tied with late-TNG era stuff which is what I grew up watching. I have mad respect for the older designs, but I find that modernizing the classics isn't diminishing my enjoyment even though I'm very acutely aware of the canon issues.
I *really* hate the transparent consoles they use in new Trek. I would be so angry being forced to work on one those ~8 hours per day. How can you see anything with zero contrast and background disruptions?! Like trying to read a web page with a movie going on behind it.
My computer terminal is at 75% opacity just for the novelty and visuals, but it makes it harder to work with. I wouldn't have it if I were working in the terminal all day.
My only problem with Discovery era is that the areas are made to be more spacious than TNG, which was supposed to be cruise ship quality. The design language is modern, but it feels way too spacious.
I bet if you sailed on a late-80s unrefurbished cruise ship, it'd feel dinky and small.
Probably, but that isn't the feel.
I'm just saying, our definition of luxury has moved since they built those sets in 1987.
That's really my point as well. The modern updates of ships are because our expectations have definitely shifted. I feel like disparate design languages of the shows don't necessarily have to detract from the shared universe. Though, don't get me wrong, Star Trek is many things but one thing it isn't, and has never purported to be, is a documentary. By that I mean that the set dressing, the costumes, our "presence" as the audience, everything about the way the shows are produced tells me we're watching a dramatization of the "real" events. Contrast that with something like the 2000s era Battlestar Galactica which had a lot of elements in its filming that were designed to make it feel more like a documentary and we, the audience, were watching footage captured of "real" events.
I agree with this. It looks really good, but it was weirdly huge.
Discovery S3+
Especially in later seasons. Where did all that space come from? Or was all that extra space we see later specifically added during the retrofit?
I guess you can blame it being a platform for experimentation. They wanted it to be able to produce the stuff they'd need even away from stations? Still feels weird though.
I found myself quite taken with the post burn fleet in Dis, just because it pushed the boundaries of the designs seen in the past. Shame we'll probably never see any of them explored further.
No one's shown any love for my favourite ship design yet, so I'm gonna speak up about my love for the Intrepid class. Voyager just looked so sleek and graceful compared to other ships of the era — the comparatively lumbering Galaxy glass, the oddly square shaped Defiant class, or the cold and sterile Sovereign class.
Probably the TNG films... or maybe call it "post Wolf-359?"
Defiant, Steamrunner, Luna, Akira, and my dear, sweet, beloved, gorgeous Sovereign; everything produced in response to The Borg just looked so fuckin' good.
I love the late TNG / Dominion War era, but less for the designs themselves and more for how many different ship types we see from all over the Alpha and Delta quadrants.
Honestly? Probably the 'Lost Era' between TOS and TNG.
Excelsior and Ambassador classes were excellent.
Dominion War/TNG film era for me, and further stuff that's extrapolated from that. I prefer ships to be flatter, having a neck just seems to scream "weakpoint".
It's hard to watch The Wrath of Khan where the Reliant fires and hits the Enterprise's neck and not think "Gee, if Khan had got a bit more of a shot in, that would've been the end of the movie right there." Beyond even followed through on that. I love the Enterprise's design and love the way that it shows that it's in space by not being constrained by the rules you need to follow in gravity but it's definitely not a tactically sound design.
But then my favourite ship design is the Steamrunner which is equally impractical so sometimes tactics can go out the window for a pretty ship.
Era: TNG
Specific ship: NX-01
It peaked with the Excelsior.
The Enterprise F we briefly saw was also an absolute beaut.
The Excelsior was definitely a good-looking ship. VI remains my favorite of the movies. (Slightly controversial, I know.)
The long line ships of STO are beauties, I agree.
I wish Terry Matalas hadn’t been so keen to push them out of use in Picard.
The Vesta class is also a favourite of mine. Mark Rademaker’s designs are very compelling.
The Dominion/Borg/DS9 era of ships. The Akira, Steamrunner, Defiant, Prometheus, Sabre, and Sovereign are awesome (and the Galaxy even though that came earlier). It represented a reality check when Starfleet finally snapped out of complacency.
Connie Refit. Mmmhm those are gorgeous lines. 80s swagger on top of that classic chassis.
Sometimes I watch TMP just for the Enterprise porn (yes, some is also in TWOK, but sometimes the slow pacing is warranted).
Edit: and speaking of TWOK, Reliant/Miranda Class was nice too. Same parts mostly, different configuration. Exactly what I would expect from a vessel serving a research group; no nonsense.
Hell yes! The constitution refit is my all time favorite! I watch TMP all the time just to watch that beauty grace her way across the screen.
ENT era.
Externally speaking Starfleet ships march to the beats of NACA/NASA X-planes, Klingon embrace a very soviet yet alien look in contrast, Vulcans look advanced and sleek yet ancient and mythical with the biggest pointiest toys on the block.
Internally speaking construction is depicted as having limits, tech and interfaces are familiar to real world, cramped ship like rooms are the norm, and there's no handwaving over how everything might fit inside the ships.
TMP Era is just the best looking classic Star Trek experience some of the designs in my opinion were in things like Starfleet Command the video game like the Akula class, but I have a soft spot for the DS9/First Contact/Star Trek Armada period.
The TMP nacelles are very 70s (lol), but the rest of the ship looks so good that it makes you overlook it.
Agree with ye OP. I'm even a fan of the Miranda and the Oberth, I feel like nobody likes those classes. There's just something special about the TOS film ships. Those sexy nacelles 🥰
TNG but SNW is really nice even if I don't understand it chronologically
TOS or OG movies for me. They are just too iconic and cool. I am also a sucker for retro-futurism so I love to see those chunky computers paired with unbelievably high tech spaceships. Plus Kirk's charisma somehow improves the ships too, at least in TOS.
The fat one
Maybe this is blasphemy but I liked the ENT era ships. And since its now canon, the NX-01 refit especially.
The DS9-Prodigy (~2370-2385) era gave us several lovely ship classes-- the Sovereign, Intrepid, Parliment, Obena, and Protostar classes come to mind for me
Kelvin timeline Enterprise. It’s like the muscle car of Enterprises IMHO.
I agree with OP, TMP ships are beautiful and graceful and yet still have some nice angles... and while TMP uniforms must be as uncomfortable as all get-out, I also think they look the best. Excelsior is one of my favorite classes, and a lot of the ships they introduced for the first two Starfleet Command games, extrapolating outward to other classes, are also really fun.
DS9, Defiant & Kelvin Timeline Enterprise versions (bonus points for the Vengeance)
Loved some of the TNG ships as well, but in terms of uniqueness the above still stands.
I have seen almost all the Star Trek content, and never developed a love of the ship structure. I like the Defiant because it doesn't look like it will snap in pieces when it turns a corner. It also proves you don't need to put the propulsion on sticks.
The Defiant had a lot of issues due to it's "lack of sticks" though.
The manual for a licensed video game I once played claimed that the nacelles are mounted on pylons to separate them from the rest of the ship because they emit hazardous radiation when in use.
According to Memory Alpha, however, each of the Galaxy class' unusually large nacelles contains a control room for monitoring the warp drive's operation up close. This implies that it is safe to be not only near but inside the nacelle while the warp drive is running, which nixes the hazardous radiation theory.
Yeah, I think Roddenberry's initial vision, the nacelles were set apart from the living areas because constant close contact with the source of the warp field was hazardous (and who knows, in time the Alcubierre drive may prove him right).
I think over time there's just been this implication that the risk was reduced/eliminated thanks to advances in technology (spurred mostly by the narrative), and they stuck with the look basically out of Aesthetic^TM^.
Meanwhile, the Klingons put the nacelle inside their BoP. I guess they just YOLO it.
Design notes for the shows have said that nacelles usually work best in pairs and with at least 50% line of sight with each other, but they're not hard requirements. The nacelles in TOS were supposed to be detachable in an emergency but it never happened on the show, similarly to the saucer section.
I think the explanation for nacelle positioning they ultimately settled on during TNG was something about the shape of the warp bubble, but I'm not sure.
Meanwhile, the Klingons put the nacelle inside their BoP. I guess they just YOLO it.
Which honestly fits for the Klingons, who probably consider safety as an afterthought.
I'm partial to the Galaxy class. It's big, sleek, and luxurious, which is great for when you need to be diplomatic. “Join the Federation! We have abundant resources and advanced technology, like this cool starship.”
For when you don't need to be diplomatic, it's also got plenty of firepower (enough to melt 20% of an unadapted Borg cube in one phaser blast) and speed (it can soundly outrun a D'deridex).
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TOS/TAS/Kelvin/32c
I like the TOS/TAS and 32nd century designs for pushing the envelope for what a star Trek starship could look like, instead of just iterating on the same basic designs over and over, or repeating generic Sci-Fi starship designs. A starship that's just a giant disco blob, a bunch of loosely-connected pods, or a space doughnut/colon~~y~~, are all unique ideas we've not seen before or since. Even the Enterprise was unique compared to the rocket-ships of the time, taking a lot of design work to give it that iconic look, unlike any other starship seen before.
By comparison, a lot of series after TOS/TAS tended to mostly iterate on the same design. For its flaws (like using a millennium-old drive mechanism), the 32nd century ships appear to try and buck that with radical changes. Chain and Courier ships look nothing like alien vessels of the time, and the Federation starships are rather different, with ships like the Eisenberg class being tall instead of wide, compared to previous Federation ships we'd seen before.
Kelvin is just a fun modern take on the TOS, even if I'm not entirely convinced about the interior, and like Discovery, lays the groundwork for the TMP style of ships, with their square-ish nacelle designs.
ENT era, and specifically the Andorian Kumari-class.
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