2007-06-26
10. Cake
Alleged Literature >>> TOSS >>> 10
2007-06-26
10. Cake
In the foreground: USS Mumbai (NCC-1496), in the background, Nagoya (NC-1488), and Darwin (NCC-1493), with the USS Ballarat (NCC-1567) at the bottom of the panel.
These slightly goofy-looking starships are my attempt to come up with something that looks like it fits in between the Daedalus class ships of the late 22nd century and the Constitution class of the mid-23rd. My thinking is (based on the way starships are designed in TNG) that there are two design constraints in play: one which makes it desirable for ships to be smoothly contoured and shaped like a duck, and one which makes it easier to fabricate ships if they are made from simple geometric shapes. So in TNG we see circular saucers replaced by ovals and later by spade-shaped or pointed hulls, and the stick-like struts become flattened and swept back in Enterprise A, curved in D_, and moveable in Intrepid_. I’ve also stuck with Roddenberry’s rules (much as I dislike having the bridge on the tippy top of the hull).