The Shuttle Pod Crew Nerd Out On Star Trek Starships, Designs, Favorites, And More

Listen along with the Shuttle Pod crew as Jared and Matt talk with Thomas Marrone of Star Trek Online (STO) about favorite starships, starship design, and of course working on Star Trek Online.

Shuttle Pod 58 – All I ask is a tall ship …and plenty of merchandise for it

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We chat about why people love starships, why the design of the Enterprise endured, how the new designs seen in the Kelvin movies and Star Trek: Discovery fit, and designing a unique visual language for alien ships.

Thomas holds a replica of the Enterprise-F from STO

We also touch on the news that the new Picard series will take place in 2399, which is a stone’s throw away from the early 25th century were Star Trek Online takes place.

During the show Thomas mentioned the work of senior concept designer Hector Ortiz. A sampling of his impressive work can be seen at Hector’s portfolio.

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Well, that’s tomorrow’s gym listening sorted out!

Haha. Just powering up for an hour long slog now. We need these things weekly at the very least. Perfect distraction.

I haven’t listened yet but I think the Ent-B is my favorite ship design. Excelsior class has a nice balance to it and I like all the extra fins. Sovereign is another favorite. I keep spending money on Eaglemoss models, I have like 10 so far! I got a bunch of the lesser-seen ships: Nova class, New Orleans, Akira, NX-refit and Daedelus class which is such a cool unique design. At the bottom of my list: CROSSFIELD CLASS *vomits* but hey it’s growing on me

For me the Crossfield feels too two dimensional from front and rear angles. Which is bizarre as I love the rest of the Starfleet ships aesthetic on Disco. Still, the Eaglemoss Discovery sits on my desk next to the Shenzou and classic Enterprise!

Somebody ought to do a mashup of that ORVILLE ep where they investigate and pass over the two-dimensional universe, and drop the Discovery in there, because it really does look that flat to me. I never really liked McQuarrie’s version, but the original Ken Adam sketches had some possibilities, if they just made the nacelles longer …

My favorite will always be the refit from the motion picture, and Prime universe Enterprise A. Second favorite is TOS Enterprise.

Loved this episode! Many great details and tangents :) Had to look up the ships and classes for many of the ships during the discussion. Maybe do a visual companion if you have the time for future episodes of this type. Matt was sure a good guest <3

U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (refit included)
No bloody A
No Bloody B
No Bloody C, D, E, F….etc.

Yeah… The entire concept of the letters was just…. Dumb.

Miranda Class… it will always look badass to me.

The story I heard, and this goes contrary to what was said in the podcast, was that they wanted the audience to EASILY tell the difference between Enterprise and Reliant. So that meant nacelles below the saucer. The down nacelles implied “bad guys” like the Klingon ships before it.

And the classic Klingon D-7 battle cruiser has always been my favorite antagonist ship. Not the little “Bird of Pray”, which for some weird reason the lifted from the Romulans and gave to the Klingons.

“Not the little “Bird of Pray”, which for some weird reason the lifted from the Romulans and gave to the Klingons.”

Real world: the villains were originally supposed to be Romulans in Star Trek III but the name wasn’t changed to reflect the Klingons when that was changed.

In-Universe: The Romulans got the D-7 design from the Klingons (see “The Enterprise Incident”) and the Klingons got the Bird of Prey design from the Romulans.

I guess that explanation makes sense if the change came late enough into the planning for the SPFX. But then why did the Klingons get a neutral zone in the movies as well? Was it just so they could reuse the TMP footage in the simulator room? That’s the only reason I can come up with. But even then, they didn’t need to mention the Neutral Zone. Just say it was in a disputed Klingon territory or something.

I am aware of the Enterprise incident. But that was mainly done to save money on model costs. And I figured that would get brought up. It is a convenient in universe explanation. But I don’t have to like it. :)

It’s true that they were told: “In the dogfight you had to instantly recognize which ship you were looking at, so they had to look different.” And it is also true that the nacelle’s were up instead of down initially.
http://www.startrek.com/article/forgotten-trek-designing-the-reliant-for-star-trek-ii

Matt Wright,

Well, those preliminary sketches included with the startrek.com article present us with a bit of a conundrum. They neither feature the round nacelles in 2 of Paramount’s Reliant patent artwork diagrams, nor those diagrams’ rollbar, which the article claims was added later for Reliant.

So which drawing came first, round nacelles rollbarred or flat?

ML31,

If you examine Figures 4 & 5 of the drawings Paramount submitted for its patent on it:

http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/39/728/D02/2.pdf

You’d realize that design feature predates the flat nacelles of the 1st 2 movies.

A little confused here. What point are you trying to make? That image has a 1984 date on it yet WOK came out in ’82 and has nacelles down.

Enterprise D will always be my ‘home’ ship but I love the look of the E. But I have loved most ships though. The only one I don’t like sadly is the Discovery. It’s kind of growing on me but it sill looks ugly and awkward to me personally. But the interiors are cool!

I don’t like much from the TNG era. Enterprise D is only okay, it would look better with smaller and more windows. If they could figure out the self lighting thing would cool, too. They ruined the excelsior with the enterprise b. I guess I do like the nebula. I the Enterprise E is the best looking ship from that time period. Everything else, Voyager and all, is yuk, especially the stuff from Star Trek Online. I wish they would get back to the necks.

What about the B ruined the Excelsior??

Isn’t the consensus that the add-on ‘boat hull’ didn’t really fit?

for me I think it actually might look better, because I never liked the Excelsior, this at least gives it some goofy character. I though the original EXC was almost like a John Berkey (my fave space artist) painting that had been turned upside down with a saucer added, but then I read that bit in CFQ describing the secondary hull as looking like a mercilessly squeezed tube of toothpaste and that is where I’ve lived ever since in my mind regarding the -2000.

LOL interesting analogy…I mean it isn’t stunning from every angle but I really like the flared boat hull and the extra bells and whistles. She looks like a super starship to me which is what she was supposed to be :)

lol, can’t unsee “mercilessly squeezed tube of toothpaste” now :-)

Said it before and I’ll say it again. My favorite Enterprise was the one in the TOS movies. Followed closely with the original TOS TV version. Still think the TNG version was the absolute worst. The TNG film version was quite the improvement. I actually applauded when it bit the dust in Generations. Conversely, when the Big E burned up in TSFS I darn near shed a tear.

Will there be any updates on CBS shutting down the fan-based Star Trek Stage 9 virtual tour of the Enterprise D?