Is the funeral in Leningrad?
Star Trek TV series to begin filming in Toronto this fall, CBS confirms
New show to make its debut in January 2017
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/star-trek-tv-filming-toronto-1.3562759
http://www.startrek.com/article/introducing-the-u-s-s-discovery
Introducing the U.S.S. Discovery
StarTrek.com Staff
July 23, 2016
And the name of the newest Star Trek television series is… Star Trek: Discovery, with the show’s hero ship called the U.S.S. Discovery (NCC-1031). Executive Producer Bryan Fuller revealed the details and debuted the logo today during a standing-room-only “Star Trek 50th Anniversary” panel in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con.
There’s a short video showing the new ship here…
http://trekcore.com/blog/2016/07/new-star-trek-discovery-show-launches-january-2017/
…plus a note saying “Bryan Fuller has confirmed at the after-panel press conference that Discovery will be set in the Prime Trek timeline, but will not yet confirm the timeframe.”
Thanks for keeping the discussion updated Marc. I read this the other day and didn’t even think to post it.
So… there she is. Not much to look at if you ask me. A couple nice design elements, but the overall geometry of the hull is… bold to put it mildly. Looks like a giant XB-70 with a saucer on the front. Or a Klingon K’T’inga. Apparently this is extremely close to a ship design put forth for the very first Star Trek film back in the 1970s, which was never made.
Also supposedly, the ship above is not the ‘final’ design. Such that Bryan Fuller stated, “[The influence of the McQuarrie art is] to a point where we legally can�t comment on it until we figure out some things.” To me, this says that they simply need approval to use the design or significantly borrow elements from it, before it can be official. Only a matter of time. http://trekcore.com/blog/2016/07/star-trek-discovery-producer-says-ship-designs-not-final/
What all this alludes to is very interesting however. The McQuarrie Design/Art/Model, abandoned and never used in the planned Star Trek film, was actually used in The Next Generation episode “Unification Part I”. You can see the ship in the foreground shot of the orbital junkyard (attached pic). Thus, the ship actually has canonical basis.
While I am not down on the design very much, a) it could be worse and b) if the writers/production team actually delved into obscurity to both come up with the design and find an in-universe basis for it… well that is darn impressive and deserves a standing ovation. They get a lot of respect from me for that alone. God knows how much easier it is to just make up something cool and new (e.g. Enterprise NX-class) and say F*** the whole continuity thing. IF they did all this purposely, they deserve a tremendous amount of credit. It had to be Mike Okuda’s doing.
See video in article below for a more detailed look:
http://trekcore.com/blog/2016/07/new-star-trek-discovery-show-launches-january-2017/
What this also tells me, again, IF done deliberately, is that the timeframe is somewhere between TOS and TNG. Fuller has already admitted to it being in the Prime timeline and the history of this ship design points to post-TOS and maybe pre- or very near to ST:TMP. Several elements of the ship indicate this also. The saucer is almost perfectly circular and the recessed/domed portions of it are quite similar to those of the Constitution-refit, Miranda and Excelsior designs. The deflector dish is very much like that of the Excelsior. The aft portions of the nacelles appear to be throwback in nature and have a cowling-like hood extending beyond the actual endpoint. Perhaps the most notable feature is the point-emplacement phaser banks, shown as pairs of raised bumps around the saucer. These were used on the TOS-era ships, including Constitution-refit, Miranda and Excelsior. TNG-era (and pre-TNG, ex. Ambassador class) ships use a more modern phaser strip which extends around the saucer and other portions of the ship. This is very noticeably absent.
They say that this design was thrown together in 3-weeks specifically for this teaser. So the design isn’t final, but I would be surprised if it is radically different from what they showed here. The ‘legal’ aspect of what Fuller brought up seems to reinforce that they are waiting on some sort of property rights approval. Thirdly, this is a very specific ship design and I do not see why they would publicize something so recognizable and unique without planning to use it directly or borrow from it significantly.
Just one point, because I’m not sure from the way your post is phrased whether or not you’re aware of this, but one of the four pictures in the great picture collage you posted is actually the old Ralph McQuarrie painting (which I recognize from one of my Trek reference books), not a picture of the new ship from the new series. If you compare the top right picture (the McQuarrie painting) with the bottom right CGI shot from the video that was just released, you’ll see that the McQuarrie design’s secondary hull is basically a solid triangle whereas the new ship’s secondary hull is more of an arrowhead; in fact, it has more than a passing resemblance to the Starfleet emblem, which is kind of a nice touch (whether intentional or not).
Also, note that the McQuarrie painting has the registration number 1701 (for the original Enterprise), while the CGI model has the registration number 1031, so they’re not the same ship. (Or at least I think it’s 1031; it’s hard to read.) Since 1031 is lower than 1701, this tends to support your theory that the new series predates the original one in its time-frame.
@CWO:
Just one point, because I’m not sure from the way your post is phrased whether or not you’re aware of this, but one of the four pictures in the great picture collage you posted is actually the old Ralph McQuarrie painting (which I recognize from one of my Trek reference books), not a picture of the new ship from the new series. If you compare the top right picture (the McQuarrie painting) with the bottom right CGI shot from the video that was just released, you’ll see that the McQuarrie design’s secondary hull is basically a solid triangle whereas the new ship’s secondary hull is more of an arrowhead; in fact, it has more than a passing resemblance to the Starfleet emblem, which is kind of a nice touch (whether intentional or not).
True. However, the designs are so recognizably similar overall that I think this is a very minor difference. Besides, as with anything more modern, I have no doubt they will tweak McQuarrie design as required for their purposes or for a bit of streamlining, while retaining the dominant flavor.
@CWO:
Also, note that the McQuarrie painting has the registration number 1701 (for the original Enterprise), while the CGI model has the registration number 1031, so they’re not the same ship. (Or at least I think it’s 1031; it’s hard to read.) Since 1031 is lower than 1701, this tends to support your theory that the new series predates the original one in its time-frame.
Very true. I did not think to compare the registry numbers. The McQuarrie design has 1701 because it was intended to be the new USS Enterprise in the aborted movie. The 2017 tv show will not feature the Enterprise, but rather the USS Discovery, as per the title. It may be in one of the articles I linked to, but the press release did indicate that the show will revolve around the crew of a new ship (Discovery), thus the registry would be different.
And just to advance this line of spaculation a bit further: based on a list I checked of Starfleet vessels, the registration numbers that come closest to 1031 while still being below 1701 are the ones for four ships of the Oberth class (USS Copernicus NCC-640, USS Grissom NCC-638, USS LaGrange NCC-617 and USS Oberth NCC-602). The best-known one is USS Grissom, which was featured in The Wrath of Khan; the Oberth class therefore clearly already existed in the timeframe of Star Trek II, though this doesn’t tell us how old the design is. (Starfleet gets a lot of service years out of its ships: a few Oberth-class vessels popped up in The Next Generation.) So while this doesn’t give us an actual time-frame, it shows that there’s nothing which rules out the ship in the new series being an older design than the classic Enterprise. Though of course that doesn’t prove that the show is set at a time when the design is a brand-new one (as was the case with Star Trek: Enterprise); the series could be about a design that’s in mid-career or maybe even edging towards obsolescence, though I tend to doubt that last possibility.
Nice investigation Marc. I like your line of thinking.
Actually, now that I watch the promo again, I am thinking this is probably set sometime closer to post ST:VI Undiscovered Country. Or in that area. The evolution of the nacelles to the now standard red/orange bussard collectors and blue down the sides was chronologically introduced after the TOS era. This seemed obvious at first, but I dismissed it offhand because ST:ENT really threw that out the window. I like to disregard ENT as an anomaly and ignore its poor contributions to Trek continuity.
Using the evolution of ship design as a basis for dating (again, ignoring NX-class), this USS Discovery should be somewhere in the 2290s - 2230s. I would put it at the lower end of that range. This fits very nicely into a very mysterious time period of Prime Star Trek history. There have been a number of things hinted at in this time span from TNG and DS9, though extremely little actually said or shown. It is very much a gap in the Star Trek lore. Seems like the perfect place for a new show to carve out its own history.
For reference to those not in the know…
Star Trek Enterprise 2121 - 2155
The Original Series was approx 2250s - 2293 (Undiscovered Country)
Aforementioned gap 2290s - 2350s
Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager 2360s - 2379 (Nemesis)
http://io9.gizmodo.com/everything-the-discovery-can-tell-us-about-the-new-star-1784257704
Supposedly, according to a denial by Fuller, my above post is completely off base in terms of time frame.
If you take into account ST:ENT, my nacelle argument amounts to next to nothing and ST:DSC could just as easily be set post ST:ENT and pre TOS.
Dammit.
The blue-sided nacelle configuration you describe was (if we ignore Star Trek: Enterprise) first seen in ST:TMP, so it’s after The Original Series (and The Animated Series) but not after the TOS era (which includes the first six movies). But anyway, within the fictional Trek universe, there would actually be two different possibilities regarding the blue-side nacelles.
The first possibility is that the blue-sided nacelles were indeed a technological innovation that appeared around the time of TMP; new ships would have been incorporated the new nacelles straight off, while older ships (as in the case of the original Enterprise, as we saw in TMP) would have been refitted with the new design during their next major overhaul. So by that hypothesis, the ship in Discovery would be an older design that’s been uprated with new nacelles, which would place the series either around the time of TMP, or a bit before, or anytime afterwards.
The second possibility, however, is that Star Trek: Enterprise does not represent a continuity gaffe, and that instead Starfleet has used two types of nacelles at the same time: one type on some ships and another type on other ships, depending on requirements, in the same way that steam, turbo-electric, diesel and nuclear ship propulsion systems existed simultaneously in the 20th century. This possibility would not rule out for the series the TOS/TNG gap timeframe you mentioned, but it would add the possibility that the new series is set between Enterprise and TOS (in a period which itself constitutes another interesting gap in the Trek timeline).
@CWO:
The blue-sided nacelle configuration you describe was (if we ignore Star Trek: Enterprise) first seen in ST:TMP, so it’s after The Original Series (and The Animated Series) but not after the TOS era (which includes the first six movies). But anyway, within the fictional Trek universe, there would actually be two different possibilities regarding the blue-side nacelles.
This is true, however, my premise was based on having both blue sided nacelles and red/orange bussard ramscoop collectors at the front end of the nacelle.
But… my point below may just nullify the whole argument.
@CWO:
The first possibility is that the blue-sided nacelles were indeed a technological innovation that appeared around the time of TMP; new ships would have been incorporated the new nacelles straight off, while older ships (as in the case of the original Enterprise, as we saw in TMP) would have been refitted with the new design during their next major overhaul. So by that hypothesis, the ship in Discovery would be an older design that’s been uprated with new nacelles, which would place the series either around the time of TMP, or a bit before, or anytime afterwards.
The second possibility, however, is that Star Trek: Enterprise does not represent a continuity gaffe, and that instead Starfleet has used two types of nacelles at the same time: one type on some ships and another type on other ships, depending on requirements, in the same way that steam, turbo-electric, diesel and nuclear ship propulsion systems existed simultaneously in the 20th century. This possibility would not rule out for the series the TOS/TNG gap timeframe you mentioned, but it would add the possibility that the new series is set between Enterprise and TOS (in a period which itself constitutes another interesting gap in the Trek timeline).
These are reasonable theories. Your propulsion-type postulation is interesting and could account for such a difference. However, Federation starships have never had anything other than matter-antimatter warp engines for their main interstellar propulsion. Therefore, there was never really a difference in the propulsion systems in the vein of diesel vs steam vs nuclear.
From a vessel design perspective, I do personally consider the NX-class a continuity gaffe. However, now that we are talking about it, ST:ENT was not the first to make this aesthetic choice when going back in time. TNG did so in First Contact. Zefram Cochrane’s Phoenix had the red collectors and blue lined nacelles also… before ST:ENT was even a thought.
Perhaps it is simply personal preference, but I have never liked the idea of prequels that do not or can not visually match the original aesthetic.
The real-world explanation for all this is, of course, that TOS was produced on a small budget and with 1960s modelmaking and effects technology. With the exception of the (literally) “star” ship of the series, the USS Enterprise, the producers couldn’t afford to put nifty glowing parts on the nacelles of their ship models. The Romulan Bird of Prey ships of the series had solid nacelles and the Klingon battlecruiser ships of the series had solid nacelles. When the Enterprise series came along, they retroactively gave glowing nacelles not only to the old NX-class starships, they did likewise for the old Klingons as well: the episode Sleeping Dogs shows a Raptor-class Klingon ship with red glowing parts on the nacelle sides. In TMP, conversely, the new Klingon K’t’inga-class battlecruisers had solid nacelles; in The Undiscovered Country, the same ship class was updated to have glowing nacelles. The Romulan ships likewise were given glowing nacelles in TNG. So I don’t think that the presence or absence or configuration details of glowing parts on engine nacelles is necessarily a reliable indicator of the evolutionary stages of a fictional technology; it’s more an indicator of how motion picture and television technology (and budgets) have evolved from the 1960s to today.
It’s a fair point to say that this results in apparent aesthetic inconsistencies across Trek’s eras, but the flip side of the argument is that maintaining rigid aesthetic consistency across several hundred years of fictional history would not only be visually boring, it would also be unrealistic from the point of view of technological evolution. To give just one example, the US Navy’s current aircraft carriers and submarines have absolutely no resemblance to the USN’s three-masted sailing frigate USS Consititution, but the USN still uses them anyway even though they’re aesthetically inconsistent with eighteenth-century sailing ships. I’d even argue that, at least as far as Trek’s Earth / Starfleet ship classes are concerned, the series and films have actually been pretty good about using a recognizable and broadly consistent design architecture for many (though not all) of the important ship types we’ve seen: two elongated nacelles connected by two struts to a hull, which has consisted of either a cylinder (Phoenix) or a saucer (NX-01) or in most cases both (several Enterprises and Voyager). Discovery basically just replaces the cylinder with a wedge. (This triangular shape can be seen as an indirect connection to Star Wars: the original design sketches on which Discovery is based were made, as previously noted, in the 1970s by Ralph McQuarrie, who also designed the Imperial Stardestroyers around the same time.) Some of the McQuarrie sketches show the same bronze colour tone used for Discovery; this tone is actually quite novel for Earth / Starfleet ship classes, and in a sense is a nice follow-up to the NX-01 Enterprise, which was a similarly novel metallic silver.
Good post Marc. You sum it up well.
The production inconsistencies or developments over time are what they are. The nerds among us, of which I am one, will usually go through significant theoretical gymnastics in seeking to justify these differences. Ultimately, it is a pointless endeavor. Though a pleasant distraction from real life on occasion.
Your analogy to the evolution of our own naval ships is well taken. However, there is an apparent (perhaps self-evident) physical and technological improvement over time. You would expect something similar to occur in Star Trek, were it an actual time in history. However, with the Phoenix in First Contact and the entire Enterprise show, we have been presented with a fairly consistent image for human (and even alien) spacecraft design over the course of 300 years (from 2063 to 2379). And TOS/films I-VI are really now the aberration, at least when it comes to some of the aesthetics. This lack of evolution is what nags me more than anything else.
But it must also be expected given how many people have been involved in a creative capacity for the Star Trek brand for 50 years now. Similar things could be said of Star Wars. Though one figure is primarily associated as the father of a franchise (Roddenberry and Lucas), rarely are they able to keep total creative and artistic control. I think it may be impossible this day in age. Tolkien did it. But he was a world builder on a scale different from almost everyone. Can George RR Martin claim to have this? I cannot say since I haven’t read or watched his work.
Speculating about fictional technology is, as you said, a pretty abstract (though fun) exercise because one’s conclusions can’t be proved objectively one way or the other. Since, however, you’re disappointed by the fact that in the TOS TV series the Enterprise has glowy red nacelle caps but no glowy blue nacelle sides, and that in the first six Trek movies the Enterprise has glowy blue nacelle sides but no glowy red nacelle caps, here’s a speculative argument that might make you feel better.
If I understand correctly, you’re saying that the presence or absence of glowy parts on nacelles should be logically (to coin a phrase) provide as an index of technological progress: no-glow nacelles ought to represent the most primitive stage of nacelle evolution, two-glow blue-and-red nacelles ought to represent the most advanced stage of nacelle evolution, and one-glow (blue but not red, or red but not blue) nacelles ought to represent an intermediate stage of nacelle evolution. If we accept that premise, then yes the depiction of nacelles over several centuries of fictional Trek history makes no sense. But here are two reasons why the premise might not actually be correct.
First, the presence of a design feature on real machine A and its absence on real machine B does not necessarily mean that A is more advanced than B (or vice-versa). It might instead simply be because A and B are designed along different principles, in the same way (for example) that helicopters have rotors and airplanes don’t because they’re different types of flying machines. The presence/absence difference might also be due to specialized design/mission requirements that have nothing to do with technological sophistication in an overt sense. Take the MiG-25 Foxbat interceptor, which the West go to study up close when a Soviet pilot defected with one back in the 1970s. Publicly, Western analysts mocked the plane for having vacuum tube electronics. Privately, they weren’t laughing: vacuum tubes are more resistant than transistors to electromagnetic pulses from nuclear explosions and are more temperature-tolerant in extreme conditions.
Second, the lack of visible red glowy nacelle caps or visible blue glowy nacelle sides doesn’t necessarily mean that both glowy parts aren’t actually built into the nacelles; it may simply mean that, for some sort of engineering reason, they’re plated-over or shielded from view in that particular model. Take modern jet aircraft as an example. For the past several decades, we’ve seen some aircraft whose jet engines are mounted externally on the wings (like the KC-135 Stratotanker) and some aircraft whose engines are buried inside the airframe (like the F-15 fighter). An even better example would be the B-58 Hustler and the prototype XB-70 Valkyrie: both were American 1960s-era jet-powered supersonic strategic bombers, yet they look radically different because (among other things) the Hustler had huge external engine pods while the Valkyrie had recessed engines. Somebody who knows nothing about aircraft design might glance at the Valkyrie and think that it has no engines at all, or might look at the twin square intakes below the plane and think that it has two engines, and therefore conclude that the Hustler (with four highly visible engines) is more powerful. In fact, the Valkyrie had six engines buried in its fuselage, each of which could produce 28,000 lbf of thrust with afterburner, or 168,000 lbf in total. The Hustler’s four highly-visible engines could each deliver 15,600 lbf with afterburner, or 62,500 in total, which is two-and-a-half times less than the Valkyrie (which could fly at over Mach 3, in contrast with the Hustler which was a comparative slowpoke at Mach 2).
I hate the new ship design. It looks like a low life transport rather than a Heavy Cruiser. I saw that the design was taken from those old art concepts, but id rather they go back to original 1966 design. Aren’t they copying the characters… Kirk , Spock anyway? On you tube they got some group that’s making terrific original episodes true to the original. One such episode was based on hypothetical extension of Mirror, Mirror
@CWO:
Speculating about fictional technology is, as you said, a pretty abstract (though fun) exercise because one’s conclusions can’t be proved objectively one way or the other. Since, however, you’re disappointed by the fact that in the TOS TV series the Enterprise has glowy red nacelle caps but no glowy blue nacelle sides, and that in the first six Trek movies the Enterprise has glowy blue nacelle sides but no glowy red nacelle caps, here’s a speculative argument that might make you feel better.
It is less that I am disappointed and more that I would have rather seen the design aspects of the TOS era applied in a logical retroactive progression when delving into the pre-TOS time period. Star Trek has always prided itself on being based in scientific plausibility or, at the very least, rationale. That includes how its ships are designed. Form fits the function, primarily. This aberration, as I see it, of the nacelles is just an indication that some writers/artists/designers found the need reverse that and make form more important. It was more important to utilize the now-accepted-as-standard blue/red configuration because that is what people thought a Federation starship looked like. As though it would be confusing if this was not adhered to.
As you rightly pointed out, there were probably production/budgetary and technological limitations during the filming of TOS that precluded the use of a more ‘flashy’ ship design. No argument there. However, I do believe that the period from TOS -> Films I-VI -> TNG era saw a design evolution of its own that embodied the natural progression I am alluding to. Designs became more advanced and visually more sleek. Going back in time (pre-TOS) to make a new show while simultaneously having advanced in our time will naturally lead to a more modern aesthetic; it cannot really be helped. The more we discuss, the more pointless I realize my opinions are. Since these things cannot be changed.
Your aviation analogies are well put however.
http://trekcore.com/blog/2016/08/bryan-fuller-reveals-long-awaited-star-trek-discovery-details/
Whoa ho ho… This is pretty big considering how non-specific past reveals have been. A few questions answered.
Interesting. The part which says that the new show is “set approximately ten years before James T. Kirk takes command of the Enterprise, in the Prime timeline” (which he did in about 2265), places the Discovery series around the same time as the events of the original pilot episode The Cage, which is set around 2254.
