Ships of the Line 2011
Jack Bohn
Line calendar. If not all of Usenet, at least this group seems to
have died. Discussion is spread across the World Wide Internet, but
in some recompense, can include pictures, which can make discussion
here (if any) easier than before for those who haven't yet picked up
the calendar. See:
http://trekmovie.com/2010/07/21/2011-star-trek-ships-of-the-line-calendar-available-now-see-covers-centerfold/
Cover: The Enterprise-A entering Spacedock and approaching the
Excelsior. Alas, the other ship, partially behind the pier, is not
the Ralph McQuarrie study model, but a Miranda-class ship. That's a
question: how about printing some film frames in the calendar? We've
already had paintings by Andrew Probert and John Eaves (and we get one
each this calendar). How would the resolution compare? I don't think
Douglas Trumbull was a firm believer in 70mm film at the time of TMP.
January: We have a ship I saw last year, although on a different
calendar: the Enterprise CVX-33 the ringship from background art in
TMP and ENT.
http://www.starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index.cfm/product/1575_49/starship-modeler-2010-calendar.cfm
We get a lot more detail here, by Mark Rademaker, who's been doing new
ships for the last few calendars. We get even more detail, with
technical blather, in the centerfold, where we find that the front
part is called an "enviropod," but we don't find why it has a giant
lens in the front. Really, it looks like a camcorder with built-in
microphone, but interesting.
Might as well cover the center pages of the calendar, they have
orthographic views of the ringship and the NX-01 with its refit of a
secondary hull addition. I'd like them to revisit this arrangement,
with this October's Aventine, or last year's Spirit.
The refit NX features in September's picture in drydock, by Doug
Drexler.
http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/category/sotl-closeup/
Back to a chronological rundown.
February features the Kelvin, the first image from the new version of
Trek.
A second image features the New Enterprise in June, in one of its
least unflattering angles, with the station and squadron of ships
alas, too small, in the background.
Now, back to a chronological rundown.
March is a painting by Andrew Probert of his D'Deridex, three of
them... cartwheeling through space? No, wait, the middle one is
larger than the other two. Ah! It's his one nacelle up, one nacelle
down bird he'd first designed. It is a large ship, each nacelle seems
about twice the size of the D'Deridex's. Actually, perpective makes
the closest ship seems twice as large as the furthest ship; the center
ship, the one of interest, is not quite as wide as the others, but
then, that is its shortest dimension! I think it's safe to say the
thing is huge.
And this month is designed to be hung vertically, in traditional
calendar style. Too bad the hanging holes are only at the tops of the
pages for hanging it the other way. For anyone wanting to hang their
calendar "sideways," January's and February's images may work as
their respective ships soaring upwards, but only April works really
well.
April: The Enterprise vs. a Klingon vessel. The Klingon is the
retro-D-7 designed by John Eaves for ENT, so I looked more closely at
the Enterprise to see what "era" it was. The angle doesn't allow me
to check if the size of the bridge module matches "The Cage", but the
aft end of the nacelle has the later series blue globe on the end.
Actually, the globe and the end of the nacelle look more complex than
the series model. The more you look at, the more evident it becomes
that it is an entirely different model. Compare to the ship in
October; the impulse engine, the name on the back half of the saucer
and shuttlebay apron, the nacelle struts are modified. The drexfiles
blog linked above does explain that the artist, deg, did build both
these models.
May: "Khan!"
The Enterprise firing on the Reliant. I'm satisfied to check that the
NCC-1701 does not have an A after it, and that the other ship is named
Reliant and not Majestic or something. The fact that the chase is
taking place over a blue-green world with a star and wispy nebula in
the background does not bother me.
July: "Klingon Repair Dock"
One of the Klingon ships from ENT surrounded by gantries, trusses,
cranes and catwalks, a dense and somewhat claustrophobic image.
August: a closeup of the damage done to the Constellation from "The
Doomsday Machine"
October's picture is titled "Amok Time", so the planet is presumably
Vulcan. But the shuttle wasn't used in that episode, rather "Journey
to Babel". Still, a nice postcard.
November will become perhaps the most controversial image of the year.
It is the 1701-A leading a squadron of some of the uglies Frankenships
since the Dominion wars. We can't even call these one-offs, since
each is represented by at least two ships.
The main focus is the NCC-2707, USS John Glenn, an "upside-down
Enterprise". Not quite a complete inversion, the nacelle struts in a
horizontal line from the secondary hull, and the struts each have a
photon torpedo bay matching that of the dorsal connector -- sorry,
ventral connector -- between the primary and secondary hulls. The
second is seen in the background above the Glenn, and seems to be
renumbered, but I can't read the numbers.
Next comes the NCC-2530 Sun Tzu, a "Nebula-ized" Excelsior. The
Excelsior saucer has the nacelles slung below, and an extension aft
and possibly below the impulse engines to support the "AWACs"
platform, which, in this era, is round -- quite possibly oval like the
Phoenix version of the Nebula from TNG:"The Wounded". The second
ship, under the November month grid, shows a secondary hull under the
ship.
Finally, the Valley Forge, NCC-1778-A (yes, "A") an "Oberthized"
Enterprise. The saucer blends into an extension that looks very much
like a (larger) Oberth hull, with Enterprise nacelles attached
directly. If the NCC-1878-A is the same class, there is a secondary
hull with a blue deflector dish indentation below.
Hmm... what I thought was a third example of this ship, just leaving
the cresent of the planet, is a different ship, a one-off. Where on
the other two the aft extension of the saucer meets the saucer at the
level of its widest deck, this ship has a raised aft section like the
Reliant, with the nacelles standing off from it on short struts.
All three of these ships are firing green beams (disruptors? artistic
effect?) while the Enterprise, Glenn, and Tzu are firing red beams,
with red photorps from the Glenn and both Tzu-class ships.
December is a painting by John Eaves, the shuttlebay of the
Enterprise-E. Along the starboard side are hung a series of Argo
shuttles (from their personel access tubes?) the McCall, Yeager,
Siouxsie, and Edwards. On the deck on the port side is a Type 11
("Insurrection") shuttle; the image does not extend far enough along
this shuttle to show whether a personel access tube is attached to the
top. Entering the bay is, I think, another Argo, name not visible.
For the series scorecard:
TOS 3
TFS 3
TNG 1
TGF 1
ENT 4
NEO 2
I didn't credit the Enterprise ringship to any series, rejected for
TOS, background image in TMP and ENT. However, the total still comes
to 14 because April causes a dual credit, the Klingon to ENT and the
Ent to TOS.
Another note: I often mention that these ships of the line seem
limited to the "star"ships of the shows. (With the total lack of DS9
and Voyager from this calendar, that means a subset of the ships named
"Enterprise".) This year takes quite a step away from that, with four
months of no ship that could even be mistaken for one of the stars,
and of the remaining ten, six prominently "guest-star" another ship.
What is a little troubling is that six of the other ships seen here
(countng the NX-01 refit) are non-canon, made up (or, in the case of
the previously rejected Romulan, detailed) for the calendar.
On the chance that anyone is reading this, I would like to say that
there are still a lot of ships already in the computer waiting for
their beauty shot: the Romulan Valdore and Reman Scimitar, the Son'a
ships, the "Class of '96" ships from "First Contact", the Nova and
Prometheus, ...something from DS9... the Bajoran solar sailor built by
Sisko! the Xindi ships, the Class Y and Class J freighters, Mudd's
Class J ship... there's an idea; gather a gaggle of civilian vessels,
and have them threatened by the Orion pirate ship from the Remastered
"Journey to Babel". Call it "Convoy Raiders".
There are a host of obscure or non-canon ship that need to be built
for the computer, starting with the McQuarrie and the other Phase II
"almost-refits," to the Romulan Scout from TNG:"The Defector" or The
Animated Series's Huron. But I can see the artists being more
interested in creating their own designs.
--
-Jack
Phillip Thorne
darkness and called out into the void:
>A lot of changes have happened in the first decade of the Ships of the
>Line calendar. If not all of Usenet, at least this group seems to
>have died.
>On the chance that anyone is reading this,
Yes, somebody is. There's been nothing much to talk about since
Trek-2009 -- probably nothing that the half-dozen of us would've all
seen/read and could therefore comment on. There's Treknological
content in the ongoing novels and in the STO MMORPG.
But yes, I agree that the SOTL calendar continues to show a shortage
of imagination. Why not just call it "Enterprise and Friends, The
Calendar"?
** Phillip Thorne ** peth...@comcast.net **************
* RPI CompSci 1998 *
** underbase.livejournal.com ***************************
Joseph Nebus
>A lot of changes have happened in the first decade of the Ships of the
>Line calendar. If not all of Usenet, at least this group seems to
>have died.
Alas. I was thinking of going week-by-week through some series,
most likely either Original or Next Generation since I have those on
DVD, to pick over the technical pieces and see what bones might not be
so terribly chewed-over, but I just don't seem to find the time for it
anymore. I still like the tech talk; I just don't know anything much to
talk about.
> Discussion is spread across the World Wide Internet, but
>in some recompense, can include pictures, which can make discussion
>here (if any) easier than before for those who haven't yet picked up
>the calendar. See:
>http://trekmovie.com/2010/07/21/2011-star-trek-ships-of-the-line-calendar-available-now-see-covers-centerfold/
And worth doing, since I haven't seen the calendar in stores yet
(I'm trying very hard to ration my trips to book stores as I've got a
lot of long books yet to finish reading.) Probably even if I had seen it
I'd have forgot all but the most striking pictures anyway.
>Cover: The Enterprise-A entering Spacedock and approaching the
>Excelsior. Alas, the other ship, partially behind the pier, is not
>the Ralph McQuarrie study model, but a Miranda-class ship. That's a
>question: how about printing some film frames in the calendar? We've
>already had paintings by Andrew Probert and John Eaves (and we get one
>each this calendar). How would the resolution compare? I don't think
>Douglas Trumbull was a firm believer in 70mm film at the time of TMP.
I would *think* that film frames would print well enough at
these sizes. Come to think of it the non-tech calendars would have
stills from the movies or original-series episodes and those worked
out just fine.
Original Series original effects, done as they were on leftover
Edison Photo-Play Monopoly Trust 4mm film stock and processed by being
kicked into puddles on the street in case any of them happened to have
developing compounds, might not be suitable. Though if you matted it
into an Original Series-style viewport and put in a title along the lines
of ``Communications disruption'' it would all look suitably charming.
>January: We have a ship I saw last year, although on a different
>calendar: the Enterprise CVX-33 the ringship from background art in
>TMP and ENT.
>http://www.starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index.cfm/product/1575_49/starship-modeler-2010-calendar.cfm
>We get a lot more detail here, by Mark Rademaker, who's been doing new
>ships for the last few calendars. We get even more detail, with
>technical blather, in the centerfold, where we find that the front
>part is called an "enviropod," but we don't find why it has a giant
>lens in the front. Really, it looks like a camcorder with built-in
>microphone, but interesting.
The ringship seems to get a lot of attention in these Ship of
the Line calendars, although I don't know the roster of previous year
ships and finding them would require some Google-like engine designed
for Usenet searching to be in place. I'm not sure how I feel about
that, really. The ringship came into existence in that little stretch
leading up to The Motion Picture of trying to re-establish all of the
Trek Tech canon in what gets passed off as hard science fiction, which
mostly put some amusing late-70s notions like, well, ringships into
place and otherwise drained the imaginative-far-future out of things.
On the other hand, it *is* something distinctively of its creative era
and that's the one which had the least Trek brand theme product to
show off.
>Might as well cover the center pages of the calendar, they have
>orthographic views of the ringship and the NX-01 with its refit of a
>secondary hull addition. I'd like them to revisit this arrangement,
>with this October's Aventine, or last year's Spirit.
The orthographic-view breakdown of a ship is another of those
pieces I'm undecided about. On the one hand it actually gives a fairly
clear view of a ship and what it looks like, which seems like it should
be essential for a 'Ships of the Line' review. On the other hand, only
the Refit Enterprise of the movies actually looks good in side or top
view, and to be an appealing calendar I'd really like to have at least
a few beauty shots in there.
>February features the Kelvin, the first image from the new version of
>Trek.
Another of those weird anomalies. I suppose it's easy enough
to get this stuff contracted for years in advance and they wouldn't
want advance copies of the calendars to mess with the marketing
sooper-geniuses, but how did they not have any New Trek stuff for the
2010 calendar? It's not like anyone catching a glimpse of it way
ahead of time in Barnes and Noble would be *less* likely to go to the
movie.
>March is a painting by Andrew Probert of his D'Deridex, three of
>them... cartwheeling through space? No, wait, the middle one is
>larger than the other two. Ah! It's his one nacelle up, one nacelle
>down bird he'd first designed. It is a large ship, each nacelle seems
>about twice the size of the D'Deridex's. Actually, perpective makes
>the closest ship seems twice as large as the furthest ship; the center
>ship, the one of interest, is not quite as wide as the others, but
>then, that is its shortest dimension! I think it's safe to say the
>thing is huge.
Oh yeah, I remember that ship, or at least hearing about it.
I suppose it's nice breaking up the orientation convention, though
that's never been one of the things Trek does on-screen to drive me
crazy.
>And this month is designed to be hung vertically, in traditional
>calendar style. Too bad the hanging holes are only at the tops of the
>pages for hanging it the other way. For anyone wanting to hang their
>calendar "sideways," January's and February's images may work as
>their respective ships soaring upwards, but only April works really
>well.
That's a return to hanging-vertically for the Ships of the Line
calendars, isn't it? I seem to remember them deciding the calendars
needed to be un-hangable for a while there.
>April: The Enterprise vs. a Klingon vessel. The Klingon is the
>retro-D-7 designed by John Eaves for ENT, so I looked more closely at
>the Enterprise to see what "era" it was. The angle doesn't allow me
>to check if the size of the bridge module matches "The Cage", but the
>aft end of the nacelle has the later series blue globe on the end.
>Actually, the globe and the end of the nacelle look more complex than
>the series model. The more you look at, the more evident it becomes
>that it is an entirely different model. Compare to the ship in
>October; the impulse engine, the name on the back half of the saucer
>and shuttlebay apron, the nacelle struts are modified. The drexfiles
>blog linked above does explain that the artist, deg, did build both
>these models.
Interesting decision. Is there any explanation to why there
was a wholly new model built? Meant to suggest a refit between the
era of 'The Cage' and 'Where No Man Has Gone Before', or maybe to give
it the air of Robert April's starship Enterprise?
It occurs to me I can't think of examples of non-canon material
like these calendars for the April Enterprise. This is because I'm
overlooking the plain examples of $_OBVIOUS_EXAMPLE and $_OTHER_QUITE_
PAINFULLY_OBVIOUS_EXAMPLE, but for now I believe I'm perfectly right.
>May: "Khan!"
>The Enterprise firing on the Reliant. I'm satisfied to check that the
>NCC-1701 does not have an A after it, and that the other ship is named
>Reliant and not Majestic or something. The fact that the chase is
>taking place over a blue-green world with a star and wispy nebula in
>the background does not bother me.
``Oh, man, we go searching for Spock, searching for Spock, and
what turns up? Regenerated maniacally super-engineered madmen.''
... You know, I just now realized Khan, product of crazy
super-scientists hoping to remake the world, was undone by Genesis,
product of crazy super-scientists hoping to remake worlds generally.
Dramatic irony or just you keep throwing crazy super-scientists in
to whip up stories and you're going to get that sort of thing?
>July: "Klingon Repair Dock"
>One of the Klingon ships from ENT surrounded by gantries, trusses,
>cranes and catwalks, a dense and somewhat claustrophobic image.
Logical, since cramped and claustrophobic spaces make it
easier to access items and repair them. This is why the Federation
was able to keep the Klingon Empire at bay for two generations just
by doing the ``got your skull bumps'' trick.
>August: a closeup of the damage done to the Constellation from "The
>Doomsday Machine"
I have to figure deciding whether to include something from
'The Doomsday Machine' or 'The Tholian Web' is not the toughest choice
the Ships of the Line calendar editor has to make.
>October's picture is titled "Amok Time", so the planet is presumably
>Vulcan. But the shuttle wasn't used in that episode, rather "Journey
>to Babel". Still, a nice postcard.
Hm. Does the Enterprise actually leave Vulcan by the end of
the episode? It could be stuff which happens alongside the events of
the show, although it's hard to see what point shuttles would serve
there other than symbolic roles.
>November will become perhaps the most controversial image of the year.
>It is the 1701-A leading a squadron of some of the uglies Frankenships
>since the Dominion wars. We can't even call these one-offs, since
>each is represented by at least two ships.
Oh, come now, is it possible to get Federation ships ugly enough
to match *that* record?
>The main focus is the NCC-2707, USS John Glenn, an "upside-down
>Enterprise". Not quite a complete inversion, the nacelle struts in a
>horizontal line from the secondary hull, and the struts each have a
>photon torpedo bay matching that of the dorsal connector -- sorry,
>ventral connector -- between the primary and secondary hulls. The
>second is seen in the background above the Glenn, and seems to be
>renumbered, but I can't read the numbers.
Hm. Playing around with the old AMT/ERTL three-in-one starship
set I found that if you put the nacelle struts in upside-down and turned
the whole model upside-down again you got a starship which looked a bit
like a metal detector, but which looked pretty good for that. Putting
the nacelles out in line with the secondary hull I wouldn't have tried
and would have broke that model anyway, but, it might work, maybe.
>Next comes the NCC-2530 Sun Tzu, a "Nebula-ized" Excelsior. The
>Excelsior saucer has the nacelles slung below, and an extension aft
>and possibly below the impulse engines to support the "AWACs"
>platform, which, in this era, is round -- quite possibly oval like the
>Phoenix version of the Nebula from TNG:"The Wounded". The second
>ship, under the November month grid, shows a secondary hull under the
>ship.
Bleah. I've never got into adding an air hockey puck above
a saucer, and the Excelsior design already has enough problems.
Maybe the Federation strategy is for visual contact with their fleet
to cause blindness and insanity in the invading Cthuloids.
>Finally, the Valley Forge, NCC-1778-A (yes, "A") an "Oberthized"
>Enterprise.
I stand by my support for suffixed NCC Numbers as a general
thing.
> The saucer blends into an extension that looks very much
>like a (larger) Oberth hull, with Enterprise nacelles attached
>directly. If the NCC-1878-A is the same class, there is a secondary
>hull with a blue deflector dish indentation below.
>Hmm... what I thought was a third example of this ship, just leaving
>the cresent of the planet, is a different ship, a one-off. Where on
>the other two the aft extension of the saucer meets the saucer at the
>level of its widest deck, this ship has a raised aft section like the
>Reliant, with the nacelles standing off from it on short struts.
Oh, wow. Um. Apparently, the Federation *is* going for
either blindness-or-insanity, or else hoping the enemy will be
paralyzed with laughter. From looking at the cover image zoomed in,
this Modified Reliant looks like it was caught with one of those hood
enclosures for going camping when the call to arms went up. I bet
next to the sensor array there's a couple trail bikes with their
wheels spinning freely.
>All three of these ships are firing green beams (disruptors? artistic
>effect?) while the Enterprise, Glenn, and Tzu are firing red beams,
>with red photorps from the Glenn and both Tzu-class ships.
>December is a painting by John Eaves, the shuttlebay of the
>Enterprise-E. Along the starboard side are hung a series of Argo
>shuttles (from their personel access tubes?) the McCall, Yeager,
>Siouxsie, and Edwards. On the deck on the port side is a Type 11
>("Insurrection") shuttle; the image does not extend far enough along
>this shuttle to show whether a personel access tube is attached to the
>top. Entering the bay is, I think, another Argo, name not visible.
The shuttlebay looks neat and clean, but awfully generic. From
the merchandise image I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be
Enterprise-E, Motion Picture, or maybe Star Wars. (I suppose Star Wars
would have had a bit empty pit of workplace safety inspectors.)
>For the series scorecard:
>TOS 3
>TFS 3
>TNG 1
>TGF 1
>ENT 4
>NEO 2
>I didn't credit the Enterprise ringship to any series, rejected for
>TOS, background image in TMP and ENT. However, the total still comes
>to 14 because April causes a dual credit, the Klingon to ENT and the
>Ent to TOS.
That's a fair accounting. And your major point is really strong.
>Another note: I often mention that these ships of the line seem
>limited to the "star"ships of the shows. (With the total lack of DS9
>and Voyager from this calendar, that means a subset of the ships named
>"Enterprise".)
My sense of genericized justice is irritated that there's not
even a token thrown at Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Personally, I like
the Original Series/Original Movies much more so a calender focusing on
those eras is better to my tastes, but it feels like they shouldn't
neglect two-fifths the total screentime of Trek Brand Product.
But I suppose the Deep Space Nine entry would just be the
Defiant surrounded by Dominion-backed glowing light beams of death,
and the Voyager entry would be the Borg cutting up shuttlecraft
numbers 2,038 through 2,047 inclusive. Don't need much work to
visualize that.
> This year takes quite a step away from that, with four
>months of no ship that could even be mistaken for one of the stars,
>and of the remaining ten, six prominently "guest-star" another ship.
>What is a little troubling is that six of the other ships seen here
>(countng the NX-01 refit) are non-canon, made up (or, in the case of
>the previously rejected Romulan, detailed) for the calendar.
That's an interesting observation. Have you got any sense of
how the breakdown of ... well, if I say ``imaginary starships'' will
you know what I mean? ... this year has changed since Enterprise
groaned off the air?
>On the chance that anyone is reading this, I would like to say that
>there are still a lot of ships already in the computer waiting for
>their beauty shot: the Romulan Valdore and Reman Scimitar, the Son'a
>ships, the "Class of '96" ships from "First Contact", the Nova and
>Prometheus, ...something from DS9... the Bajoran solar sailor built by
>Sisko! the Xindi ships, the Class Y and Class J freighters, Mudd's
>Class J ship... there's an idea; gather a gaggle of civilian vessels,
>and have them threatened by the Orion pirate ship from the Remastered
>"Journey to Babel". Call it "Convoy Raiders".
>There are a host of obscure or non-canon ship that need to be built
>for the computer, starting with the McQuarrie and the other Phase II
>"almost-refits," to the Romulan Scout from TNG:"The Defector" or The
>Animated Series's Huron. But I can see the artists being more
>interested in creating their own designs.
Certainly the artists should be expected to be more interested
in their own designs. You've got a point about the obscure ships,
though; some of them have to be such unloved-oddballs as to appeal to
someone in the calendar design process. And a good number of the
Original Series ships were originally shown as blobby light effects (eg,
the barely-seen Klingon thingy from 'Friday's Child') so that they could
be pretty near 'designed' for the first time by whoever got the calendar
assignment this time around.
I'm curious what the calendar-assignment process is like. Does
the editor go to a panel of likely artists with suggestions about eras
or ships to feature, or does the editor send out a request and everyone
put up cartoons or descriptions of what they think would be cool? That
is, if we wanted to get more Animated Series starships in line, who do
we have to subvert?
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
alie...@gmail.com
> Jack Bohn <jackb...@bright.net> writes:
> >A lot of changes have happened in the first decade of the Ships of the
> >Line calendar. If not all of Usenet, at least this group seems to
> >have died.
Nah. Suspended Animation. Ahem.
(slight snip)
> >On the chance that anyone is reading this, I would like to say that
> >there are still a lot of ships already in the computer waiting for
> >their beauty shot: the Romulan Valdore and Reman Scimitar, the Son'a
> >ships, the "Class of '96" ships from "First Contact", the Nova and
> >Prometheus, ...something from DS9... the Bajoran solar sailor built by
> >Sisko! the Xindi ships, the Class Y and Class J freighters, Mudd's
> >Class J ship... there's an idea; gather a gaggle of civilian vessels,
> >and have them threatened by the Orion pirate ship from the Remastered
> >"Journey to Babel". Call it "Convoy Raiders".
> >There are a host of obscure or non-canon ship that need to be built
> >for the computer, starting with the McQuarrie and the other Phase II
> >"almost-refits," to the Romulan Scout from TNG:"The Defector" or The
> >Animated Series's Huron. But I can see the artists being more
> >interested in creating their own designs.
>
> Certainly the artists should be expected to be more interested
> in their own designs. You've got a point about the obscure ships,
> though; some of them have to be such unloved-oddballs as to appeal to
> someone in the calendar design process. And a good number of the
> Original Series ships were originally shown as blobby light effects (eg,
> the barely-seen Klingon thingy from 'Friday's Child') so that they could
> be pretty near 'designed' for the first time by whoever got the calendar
> assignment this time around.
If there were sufficient interest (for which read: a large enough
market segment projection) specialized calendars showcasing small
craft, alien craft, "pirate" craft and so on could be fun.
> I'm curious what the calendar-assignment process is like. Does
> the editor go to a panel of likely artists with suggestions about eras
> or ships to feature, or does the editor send out a request and everyone
> put up cartoons or descriptions of what they think would be cool? That
> is, if we wanted to get more Animated Series starships in line, who do
> we have to subvert?
Hack Marketing's computers so they believe they can sell them. Sigh.
Mark L. Fergerson
Jack Bohn
>But yes, I agree that the SOTL calendar continues to show a shortage
>of imagination. Why not just call it "Enterprise and Friends, The
>Calendar"?
I was surprised to read in The (late, lamented) Magazine that the
calendar is one of their better sellers; I thought it was only me.
Popularity is a blessing, and a curse. I can't help feeling the ships
are mostly kept to the recognized ones as part of an appeal to the
casual fan. Certainly the cover needs to shout "I'm Star Trek! You
want me!" to a shopper standing twenty feet away and not especially
looking for it.
--
-Jack
Jack Bohn
>Jack Bohn <jack...@bright.net> writes:
>
>
>>Might as well cover the center pages of the calendar, they have
>>orthographic views of the ringship and the NX-01 with its refit of a
>>secondary hull addition. I'd like them to revisit this arrangement,
>>with this October's Aventine, or last year's Spirit.
>
> The orthographic-view breakdown of a ship is another of those
>pieces I'm undecided about. On the one hand it actually gives a fairly
>clear view of a ship and what it looks like, which seems like it should
>be essential for a 'Ships of the Line' review. On the other hand, only
>the Refit Enterprise of the movies actually looks good in side or top
>view, and to be an appealing calendar I'd really like to have at least
>a few beauty shots in there.
I'm conflicted, too. You can't beat a good composition for reminding
you of the excitement of these ships. And there are nooks and
crannies you otherwise might miss, like the too-arty-by-half 2002
calendar, where Mojo was fascinated by the way the refit nacelle
struts connect to the stongback. But there are things I do want to
know: How long is that secondary hull hidden under the primary? Is
the saucer circular, or elongated fore-aft, or athwart? I'd be
willing to sacrifice the centerfold each year. After all, it doesn't
have the advantage of being twice the size of the monthly images, but
it does have the advantage of not having a monthly grid, and so can
accomodate text.
>>February features the Kelvin, the first image from the new version of
>>Trek.
>
> Another of those weird anomalies. I suppose it's easy enough
>to get this stuff contracted for years in advance and they wouldn't
>want advance copies of the calendars to mess with the marketing
>sooper-geniuses, but how did they not have any New Trek stuff for the
>2010 calendar? It's not like anyone catching a glimpse of it way
>ahead of time in Barnes and Noble would be *less* likely to go to the
>movie.
The movie was, what? May? The calendar kiosk opens in the mall area
where people are trying to walk late August at the earliest. The DVD
came out last Christmas, and the Hallmark ornament is available this
year (*was* available, I guess you had to go Christmas shopping on
Labor Day) and I'm still waiting for the 1/2500 model (which would
seem to be the size of the 1/1000 TOS and TMP kits, but that's another
discussion). Yeah, I can see a physical artifact taking time, but
these pictures are "just data." Hmm... I should pop in the DVD and
see if they are "frames" from the movie...
>>March is a painting by Andrew Probert of
...
>>his one nacelle up, one nacelle
>>down bird he'd first designed.
>
>>And this month is designed to be hung vertically, in traditional
>>calendar style. Too bad the hanging holes are only at the tops of the
>>pages for hanging it the other way. For anyone wanting to hang their
>>calendar "sideways," January's and February's images may work as
>>their respective ships soaring upwards, but only April works really
>>well.
>
> That's a return to hanging-vertically for the Ships of the Line
>calendars, isn't it? I seem to remember them deciding the calendars
>needed to be un-hangable for a while there.
Sorry, sometimes I miss the goal of being understandable without doing
a lot of typing. Graham Kennedy, I think it was, who was always
agitating for the traditional hang-it-from-one-hook and
at-the-end-of-the-month-lift-up-the-bottom-of-the-page-and-slip-it-over-the-hook
presentation. This calendar is still in the
hang-it-from-two-hooks-and-don't-try-to-slip-a-page-off-one-hook-and-onto-the-other,-you'll-rip-it
style. And I can't help wishing they'd saved this picture for a
special oriented vertically and designed-to-be-hung vertically year.
Alas, the longest dimension of most Trek ships is along the direction
of motion, which is across the "glass tabletop," so it'd seem like
you'd have part of the ship cut off or a lot of empty space above and
below it. Some images in the current format tilt the "tabletop" to
diagonal corners, like this years April, and I point out when that
would also work if hung vertically. That is, assuming we aren't going
all the way to the traditional picture on one side of the page and the
calendar grid on the other, so one could (*gasp*) mark on the dates.
>>April: The Enterprise vs. a Klingon vessel.
>>The more you look at, the more evident it becomes
>>that it is an entirely different model. Compare to the ship in
>>October; the impulse engine, the name on the back half of the saucer
>>and shuttlebay apron, the nacelle struts are modified. The drexfiles
>>blog linked above does explain that the artist, deg, did build both
>>these models.
>
> Interesting decision. Is there any explanation to why there
>was a wholly new model built? Meant to suggest a refit between the
>era of 'The Cage' and 'Where No Man Has Gone Before', or maybe to give
>it the air of Robert April's starship Enterprise?
http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/category/sotl-closeup/
has an entry for this image. It would seem deg designed it for his
own amusement as a TOS+.5 version when he got "discovered."
>>May: "Khan!"
>
> ... You know, I just now realized Khan, product of crazy
>super-scientists hoping to remake the world, was undone by Genesis,
>product of crazy super-scientists hoping to remake worlds generally.
>Dramatic irony or just you keep throwing crazy super-scientists in
>to whip up stories and you're going to get that sort of thing?
As the Genesis Device started out as an Omega Bomb, and Khan replaced
nigh-omnipotent aliens in the original ST II script, I'm guessing this
is one of the happy accidents that happened all over the production of
that movie.
>>October's picture is titled "Amok Time", so the planet is presumably
>>Vulcan. But the shuttle wasn't used in that episode, rather "Journey
>>to Babel". Still, a nice postcard.
>
> Hm. Does the Enterprise actually leave Vulcan by the end of
>the episode?
I remember being told that Kirk's brushoff of the Guardian of Forever
is the only time an episode didn't end on a shot of the Enterprise
flying off into space. Of course, we could retcon anything except
Spock talking with his father to fit between "In a pig's eye!" and the
final shot.
>>November will become perhaps the most controversial image of the year.
>>It is the 1701-A leading a squadron of some of the ugliest Frankenships
>>since the Dominion wars. We can't even call these one-offs, since
>>each is represented by at least two ships.
>
> Oh, come now, is it possible to get Federation ships ugly enough
>to match *that* record?
Well, later eras had more parts in wildly different scales to combine,
so comparisons with the "dead ball era" are always debatable.
>>The main focus is the NCC-2707, USS John Glenn, an "upside-down
>>Enterprise". Not quite a complete inversion, the nacelle struts in a
>>horizontal line from the secondary hull, and the struts each have a
>>photon torpedo bay matching that of the dorsal connector -- sorry,
>>ventral connector -- between the primary and secondary hulls. The
>>second is seen in the background above the Glenn, and seems to be
>>renumbered, but I can't read the numbers.
>
> Hm. Playing around with the old AMT/ERTL three-in-one starship
>set I found that if you put the nacelle struts in upside-down and turned
>the whole model upside-down again you got a starship which looked a bit
>like a metal detector, but which looked pretty good for that. Putting
>the nacelles out in line with the secondary hull I wouldn't have tried
>and would have broke that model anyway, but, it might work, maybe.
Maybe if you stuffed an in-scale Reliant rollbar in there and put the
nacelles in place of the "Megaphasers". The more I look at it, the
more I wonder if that's what it is.
>>Next comes the NCC-2530 Sun Tzu, a "Nebula-ized" Excelsior. The
>>Excelsior saucer has the nacelles slung below, and an extension aft
>>and possibly below the impulse engines to support the "AWACs"
>>platform, which, in this era, is round -- quite possibly oval like the
>>Phoenix version of the Nebula from TNG:"The Wounded". The second
>>ship, under the November month grid, shows a secondary hull under the
>>ship.
>
> Bleah. I've never got into adding an air hockey puck above
>a saucer, and the Excelsior design already has enough problems.
>Maybe the Federation strategy is for visual contact with their fleet
>to cause blindness and insanity in the invading Cthuloids.
It does look awkward, but then, the AWACs airplanes do, as well. The
Excelsior -- it seems over the years I've gotten used to it.
>>Finally, the Valley Forge, NCC-1778-A (yes, "A") an "Oberthized"
>>Enterprise.
>
> I stand by my support for suffixed NCC Numbers as a general
>thing.
On general principles, or any reasoning you'd try to convince others
with?
>>December is a painting by John Eaves, the shuttlebay of the
>>Enterprise-E.
>
> The shuttlebay looks neat and clean, but awfully generic. From
>the merchandise image I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be
>Enterprise-E, Motion Picture, or maybe Star Wars. (I suppose Star Wars
>would have had a bit empty pit of workplace safety inspectors.)
My clue was the nacelle seen out the hatch. (Then there was the
Master Status Display with the giant "USS ENTERPRISE NCC-1701-E" on
the far wall.)
I remember thinking this shuttlebay looked interesting from the
outside, let me check.
Ah. The deck above it, stepped in closer to the cente of the primary,
has three docking rings and a group of windows around each corner.
Now, if the camera were twice as far from the hatch as it is now, and
if the whole area were open, so we could see a catwalk around the next
level to the docking hatches...
>>Another note: I often mention that these ships of the line seem
>>limited to the "star"ships of the shows. (With the total lack of DS9
>>and Voyager from this calendar, that means a subset of the ships named
>>"Enterprise".)
>
> My sense of genericized justice is irritated that there's not
>even a token thrown at Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Personally, I like
>the Original Series/Original Movies much more so a calender focusing on
>those eras is better to my tastes, but it feels like they shouldn't
>neglect two-fifths the total screentime of Trek Brand Product.
Not counting the cartoon there's eight franchises, nine if we posit
that one month will showcase a new design to keep the universe
"alive." Something has to give, and I suppose it'll mostly be those
two middle children.
> But I suppose the Deep Space Nine entry would just be the
>Defiant surrounded by Dominion-backed glowing light beams of death,
I feel they still haven't explored the nooks and crannies of the
station, and the varous ships that could visit it!
>> This year takes quite a step away from that, with four
>>months of no ship that could even be mistaken for one of the stars,
>>and of the remaining ten, six prominently "guest-star" another ship.
>>What is a little troubling is that six of the other ships seen here
>>(countng the NX-01 refit) are non-canon, made up (or, in the case of
>>the previously rejected Romulan, detailed) for the calendar.
>
> That's an interesting observation. Have you got any sense of
>how the breakdown of ... well, if I say ``imaginary starships'' will
>you know what I mean? ... this year has changed since Enterprise
>groaned off the air?
The first ship we'd never seen before was in April 2006, the NCC-1000,
and an Oberth kitbash was in the background October of that year.
2007 featured an arrow-shaped warp test ship and an almost-'09-movie
type reworking of the Enterprise (and the Captain's Yachts for the E-D
and Voyager, but we treknical types already knew those existed).
2008 is only one new ship, an ice-bound sorta runabout.
2009: a speedy warp grayhound and what Probert is calling a fighter,
but what I prefer to think of is the replacement for the sphinx
workpod:
http://probertdesigns.com/Folder_STORE/Folder_CONCEPT-KITS/F-Fighter_KIT.html
2010 features the Aventine, and, well, I guess you could call the
Romulan drydock a brand-new space-thing.
> I'm curious what the calendar-assignment process is like. Does
>the editor go to a panel of likely artists with suggestions about eras
>or ships to feature, or does the editor send out a request and everyone
>put up cartoons or descriptions of what they think would be cool? That
>is, if we wanted to get more Animated Series starships in line, who do
>we have to subvert?
I thought there might be an editor's credit on the back, but no. Doug
Drexler seems to blog the most about it, but I can't tell if the
editor gives him his marching orders, or is resigned to praying he
doesn't want to pit the Enterprise against Lectroid invaders from
across the Eighth Dimension.
--
-Jack