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So, yeah, it's what I thought. Him deciding to ignore canon on the basis of him not liking it. How very objective of him.

Yeah, it's like saying that the gravity on Jupiter is the same as earth's, because he doesn't like it having higher gravity

Nothing says he has to like it, and he can even say so. But is it up to him to "de-canonize" something?

Nope. Canon, according to Paramount who are the only group that can decide such things, is all live-action Trek. Ergo, the nEnterprise is canon in its reality.

He uses the fact that they don't have a lot of windows to support his 300 meter argument... which makes little sense to me.

In a more militant Starfleet fewer windows makes sense.

Well, it has more windows that the original Enterprise, but close to the same amount as the refit... and a lot less than most other ships after.

Tyyr wrote:Nothing says he has to like it, and he can even say so. But is it up to him to "de-canonize" something?

You can have your own personal views on what is and isn't Trek, lots of folks do (I do) but if you want to debate then you pretty much have to use the canon material.

I've been rereading his analysis and something I picked up on is that I don't think Bernd completely gets that this new timeline has zero impact on the classic one and is a totally different continuity.

Tyyr wrote:I've been rereading his analysis and something I picked up on is that I don't think Bernd completely gets that this new timeline has zero impact on the classic one and is a totally different continuity.

I think he does, he's just choosing to ignore that in favour of beating the dead horse that is "Abrams is raping my childhood!"

Edit: More then a few have pointed it out on his forum.

I have the upmost respect for Bernd and the work he does, but he and I have somewhat different approaches to ships and things like scaling.

Ex Astris basically takes the view that ship designs must ultimately make engineering sense. For example if a show depicts a ship as 1 km long, and Bernd finds that this means it will have 20 foot tall windows, he will often declare that it must only be 300 m long instead so that the windows make sense from an engineering point of view.

My approach is to find ways to justify what is on the screen. In the above example my tack would be "okay, how can a ship most sensibly have 20 foot tall windows?" - so for example I once suggested that a ship had a sort of "atrium" area where two decks opened out onto a large open space with big windows, like this :

------------------------
Deck |
---------- Atrium | <- 2 deck tall window
Deck |
------------------------

For Bernd, ship designs MUST make sense to him, and he will disregard any that don't. For me, the objective is to come up with explanations that include as much canon as possible, and if it seems a little nonsensical... well, so be it. Neither approach is inherently 'better' than the other, they are just different ways of doing things.

He lists six basic reasons he's against a large nEnt. I'll briefly summarise along with my reaction.

The sheer size of the new Enterprise is ludicrous.

Well... does that even need rebutting? Ships of this size and larger CAN be built, we've seen it time and again. We've even seen the Federation do it - the Galaxy class is about this size!

The proportions of the saucer, neck, engineering hull and nacelles are similar enough to the TOS/TMP Enterprise that it must be about the same size

Again... huh? The PROPORTIONS of these things has no bearing on their size. He's basically saying it looks like the TOS Ent so it must be about the size of it.

Phasers, thrusters, etc are scaled up in proportion with the ship. You wouldn't expect that of a larger ship.

Basically the argument is that if you actually make a ship twice as large you don't make the guns twice as large, the thrusters twice as large, the impulse engines twice as large... that's a sign that a ship has been scaled up by VFX, not by actually designing a bigger ship. True... but there's no reason why you CAN'T make these details larger in proportion. It's just an argument from incredulity.

Two window rows in the saucer rim. A big ship requires in-between decks with no windows

Again, argument from incredulity. So some decks have no windows? And....? Is there a rule that decks MUST have windows?

Not many windows overall

And once more... so what? Big ships must have many windows? Why?

The radically different looking engine room should not be taken as a sign that, if the technology inside the ship is different, the same should apply to its size. Sure, the "brewery" would realistically be too big for the ship. But aside from the size of the set it is circular reasoning that it is an alternate timeline, and if the technology inside is different, then the ship could just as well be 16 times as large.

I'm not even sure what point he is trying to make here. He's saying it's different inside... and therefore we SHOULDN'T think it is different outside?


Overall, I'm not really impressed with his reasoning here. It's a classic example of the difference between out ethos; he wants an Enterprise design that makes sense to him as a piece of engineering that fits with everything else. I will see how big the ship is on the screen, and then come up with a speculative reason why it's that big (actually I already did that in the alternate timeline thread).

I don't even see how the bigger ship doesn't make sense from an engineering perspective. Admittedly, I've little knowledge on the subject, but the ship simply doesn't seem like it wouldn't work from that perspective if it was 700 metres long.

The Federation can build ships that long, as the GCS clearly proves. His stance seems to be "they couldn't do it in the original TOS era, so they can't do it in the new TOS era". Obviously, that's pretty poor logic. This new universe has nothing to suggest otherwise. Indeed, the simple fact that the ship scales that big is clear proof that they can build such ships!


I'm lazy, so I'm just going to reply to the points that Graham posted.

The proportions of the saucer, neck, engineering hull and nacelles are similar enough to the TOS/TMP Enterprise that it must be about the same size

That just makes no sense. He's saying that because the ship is basicaly the same exterior design, it must be the same size.
The GCS is roughly the same shape and proportions as the Constitution class. Does that mean they're the same size? No, obviously not.
It's the same with the nConstitution. It shouldn't be treated as being the same as the oConstitution. It should be treated as if it's an entirely new observed class that just looks more or less similar. That is, after all, what it is. Hell, we don't even know if it is called a Constitution class over there.

Phasers, thrusters, etc are scaled up in proportion with the ship. You wouldn't expect that of a larger ship.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but back in WW2, didn't the size of guns and propellers on ships increase as the ship increased in size?

He's basicaly saying that the ship can't be that size, because the impulse engines, phasers, etc would all have to be increased in size. I really don't see a problem with doing that. The GCS's impulse drives are much larger than the oConnie's, so why can't the nConnies be larger as well?

Two window rows in the saucer rim. A big ship requires in-between decks with no windows

So the GCS doesn't have any windows, then?

Not many windows overall

So? The nBSG has a grand total of one window. Does that mean it can't be 1.4KM long?
Granted, it's a different universe, but I think I'm illustrating my point easily enough. A ship doesn't have to have windows. Hell, it'd be better for a ship expected to see combat if there were no windows. Given that TOS was a more militaristic time, the relative lack of windows compared to TNG+ era ships doesn't surprise me.
Hell, the thing still has more windows than the oConnie.

The radically different looking engine room should not be taken as a sign that, if the technology inside the ship is different, the same should apply to its size. Sure, the "brewery" would realistically be too big for the ship. But aside from the size of the set it is circular reasoning that it is an alternate timeline, and if the technology inside is different, then the ship could just as well be 16 times as large.

I'm not too sure what he's saying here, it's all a bit muddled.
That said, in this line

Sure, the "brewery" would realistically be too big for the ship

he completely admits that the engineering set would be too big for the ship to be just 300m long. Yet he ignores it completely.

Except from an engineering standpoint there's no reason you can't have a 725m E-nil. His reasons have no engineering reason behind them. It's just him not liking the size.
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EDIT
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Damn it Rochey....

Rochey wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but back in WW2, didn't the size of guns and propellers on ships increase as the ship increased in size?

He's basicaly saying that the ship can't be that size, because the impulse engines, phasers, etc would all have to be increased in size. I really don't see a problem with doing that. The GCS's impulse drives are much larger than the oConnie's, so why can't the nConnies be larger as well?

To an extent, depending on the role of the ship. As destroyers increased in size they tended to mount a larger amount of guns of similar calibre to pre-war designs. Simply because those weapons where already mature and the lines available to produce them. Propellers, well yeah but by the same token the larger the ship the more they had. None of this is a hard and fast rule mind you.

Oh, I know it's not exact. I'm just using it to point out that guns and stuff can increase with size.