Comment on On the end of Discovery
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 6 months ago“Programmable matter” was really just techno babble for hand held replicators, or 3D printers really
From what we’ve seen so far, I don’t think that’s quite true. For example, there’s no indication that programmable matter is edible. It also seems to be able to assume its forms with little-to-no power input, once it’s been programmed to do so. I hope we get to see its advantages and limitations more in the future (heh), but I really do think it’s a unique technology.
detachable nacelles, how does that even work?
Superconductors, according to “That Hope Is You, Part 2”.
I will rewatch the show before the final season, and I look forward to another peek at the pre-Burn ships you mention. As I recall we barely saw them before they exploded but your description definitely makes me want to revisit those scenes!
I should clarify, then, that I’m talking mainly about the ships we saw clustered around Federation Headquarters in season 3. Maintaining the cloaking field around HQ sadly kept them out of the action, but some of them are gorgeous. My personal faves (and I’m going to unabashedly pull from outside sources like STO to get the best possible images):
And of course, it turns out that Federation HQ itself is a fully-capable starship:
Oh those ships! Yeah, I think that episode skimped on the ship porn, I could have sat through another couple of minutes of that scene 🙂
Tbf, when you wrote “abstract art” my hopes were for a ship that looks like a 3D Jackson Pollock, but I can rationally see how, even in Star trek, that wouldn’t be feasible for space travel…
Thanks for sharing those pics. Who knew star fleet turned into the Orville??
Orville ships have the superior design.
My shoe runs ludicrously fast
ApostleO@startrek.website 6 months ago
I saw a lot of hate for the Saturn class, and the arguments made sense assuming classic Starfleet designs and concepts.
I, however, love it because it begs the question: why? What is that for? And my mind jumps to all sorts of cool technobabble uses for such a weird ship design.
Some weird portal experiment? Evacuation ship made to maximize shuttle bay access? A specialized science ship designed with tons of inward-facing sensors? The mind boggles with possibilities.
The people who hated in it see wasted space. I see an unopened techno-mystery-box.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 6 months ago
I don’t know if this makes me a radical, but I personally think that the truest sign of an advanced civilization is if they’re building these things because they can.
Art on equal footing with science, y’know?
ApostleO@startrek.website 6 months ago
That’s fair, and I think Starfleet HQ fits that bill. But I think (at least in my opinion of architecture as an art form, which I think starship design falls under, since people live and work there), I’d be frustrated to work on a Saturn class if that big hole did nothing, and made navigating between any two places on the ship more of a pain. That said, with personal transporters, maybe it’s not an issue (assuming this ship isn’t near any action that could make personal transporters inoperable). Maybe it would work well as a sort of diplomatic vessel, where having all these rooms with windows facing into the ring (like a giant round table) could be artistically conducive to discussion. Maybe they have a bunch of huge holo emitters in the ring, and they use it to project the current speaker, or just cool holo-art when not in session.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 6 months ago
Yeah, and those sorts of whimsical designs could even point to exactly where the Federation was before the Temporal Wars and Burn happened and put them into survival mode.