That Wacky Redhead

[Derek Pullem]

NCW8

Well given what the Federation was in Blake's 7, a vicious dictatorship, I doubt he would want any link between the two series.

Steve

That wasn't the only one - here's the ship from Babylon 5 Crusade

 

[NCW8]

Well given what the Federation was in Blake's 7, a vicious dictatorship, I doubt he would want any link between the two series.

Yes. No-one would want to confuse these two organisations (see attached)

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[THE OBSERVER]

Ah yes, an excellent question. And the answer is: in a few days! Thank you, everyone, for your patience.

Thank you.

 

[Dan1988]

Yes. No-one would want to confuse these two organisations:

-snip-

Cheers,
Nigel.

Hmm, one of those looks almost like a ripoff.

 

[NCW8]

Hmm, one of those looks almost like a ripoff.

You might think so. The second one is the emblem of the Terren Federation from Blake's 7. It may be a co-incidence that it is like the Star Trek Federation emblem turned on its side

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Thande]

I like Shevek's idea of a ship with an odd number of nacelles--they would probably want the three ships to be immediately recognisable at a glance, and the Declaration and Miranda types might be too similar at a distance.

Hmm, one of those looks almost like a ripoff.

It was a deliberate reference. Terry Nation thought the Federation from Star Trek was too good to be true, and Blake's 7 was basically inspired by "What if Star Trek is propaganda produced by the Federation about their heroic Starfleet crews and in reality it's an oppressive dystopia?" Obviously it moved away from that concept, but that's where it started.

 

[Shevek23]

I like Shevek's idea of a ship with an odd number of nacelles--they would probably want the three ships to be immediately recognisable at a glance, and the Declaration and Miranda types might be too similar at a distance....

Oh dear. I thought I was clear--I don't like the odd-nacelle designs...But I have to admit there is a certain rationality to them. They don't look so nice though, because the OTL Trek canon designs tend to have a birdlike look that also goes with the generally more or less streamlined look for an aesthetic win.

But OTOH if a warp nacelle is just a sort of rocket thruster, or if the layout of generating an effective warp field is indifferent to whether you've got an odd or even number of generating nodes, then the ability get some kind of useful warp field even when you've lost some of them is certainly less hair-raising than the implication of Roddenberry's dictat, which is that if you lose one nacelle you've effectively lost both.

(Then the canon evolved into an even more dependent, risky place by going on to assert the even numbered nacelles, almost always two though sometimes four, are driven by one central warp core, the implication being you can't get the necessary synchronization of the field pulses by any other means--now there are two single-point failure nodes, knocking out either warp nacelle OR the core means the ship is drifting between stars!)

And the ability to whip up a small ship design by simply using one standard nacelle instead of having to scale down two comes in handy too, though obviously that ship is vulnerable to being dead in the water should its one nacelle fail for any reason.

I just want to reiterate, I'm glad OTL canon went the way it did, because it looks good. But I can't deny Franz Joseph was being sensible with his designs, only claim they don't look so nice.

 

[Thande]

Oh dear. I thought I was clear--I don't like the odd-nacelle designs...But I have to admit there is a certain rationality to them. They don't look so nice though, because the OTL Trek canon designs tend to have a birdlike look that also goes with the generally more or less streamlined look for an aesthetic win.

But OTOH if a warp nacelle is just a sort of rocket thruster, or if the layout of generating an effective warp field is indifferent to whether you've got an odd or even number of generating nodes, then the ability get some kind of useful warp field even when you've lost some of them is certainly less hair-raising than the implication of Roddenberry's dictat, which is that if you lose one nacelle you've effectively lost both.

(Then the canon evolved into an even more dependent, risky place by going on to assert the even numbered nacelles, almost always two though sometimes four, are driven by one central warp core, the implication being you can't get the necessary synchronization of the field pulses by any other means--now there are two single-point failure nodes, knocking out either warp nacelle OR the core means the ship is drifting between stars!)

And the ability to whip up a small ship design by simply using one standard nacelle instead of having to scale down two comes in handy too, though obviously that ship is vulnerable to being dead in the water should its one nacelle fail for any reason.

I just want to reiterate, I'm glad OTL canon went the way it did, because it looks good. But I can't deny Franz Joseph was being sensible with his designs, only claim they don't look so nice.

I agree they generally don't look as nice, but it makes sense from a producers' point of view to have a ship that looks distinctive from a distance. If you want to do it within the Roddenberry model you could instead have the fourth ship be a four-nacelled one like a TOS version of the Constellation class.

 

[phx1138]

the Star Trek Federation emblem

Except it's not the Fed emblem: it's the Enterprise emblem. Recall "The Omega Glory". It's widely mistaken, because so few other ships' emblems were ever seen.

four-nacelled one like a TOS version of the Constellation class.

That makes me think of a funny-looking giant X-wing, somehow.

 

[NCW8]

Except it's not the Fed emblem: it's the Enterprise emblem. Recall "The Omega Glory". It's widely mistaken, because so few other ships' emblems were ever seen.

That's true, but wasn't it later it was retconned to be the Fed emblem since crew from other ships were shown wearing it ?

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Lord Insane]

It ended up apparently becoming the Starfleet emblem. Not the emblem of the Federation proper, and of course this TL has two more seasons for people to realize that it's actually the Enterprise emblem.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

That's true, but wasn't it later it was retconned to be the Fed emblem since crew from other ships were shown wearing it ?

No.
In TMP it had become the insignia of some of the departments of Starfleet (e.g. Starfleet Headquarter etc.), but space stations (like Epsilon IX) still had their own insignia.
But with the introduction of the red uniforms in 2278 it became the sole insignia of Starfleet.
The emblem of Federation is similiar to the emblem of the UNO.

 

[NCW8]

No.
In TMP it had become the insignia of some of the departments of Starfleet (e.g. Starfleet Headquarter etc.), but space stations (like Epsilon IX) still had their own insignia.
But with the introduction of the red uniforms in 2278 it became the sole insignia of Starfleet.
The emblem of Federation is similiar to the emblem of the UNO.

Thanks for the explanation.

It ended up apparently becoming the Starfleet emblem. Not the emblem of the Federation proper, and of course this TL has two more seasons for people to realize that it's actually the Enterprise emblem.

Also I suspect that the reason it was used for ships other than Enterprise OTL was simply the lower budget in the 3rd season, which didn't allow for costuming details to be correct (such as seperate badges for other ships).

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Thande]

I always thought the argument over is the arrowhead the Enterprise or the Federation/Starfleet was silly. The signage on the original Enterprise has the "boomerang" symbol, which also featured on wall logos at Starfleet facilities...

(Alternate link if that image doesn't work, because I know photobucket is horrible: Link )

And to my mind that is just a minor variation on the same symbol as the arrowhead. The TOS Enterprise one could be said to be a stylised variant that eventually ended up being adopted as the preferred one for the whole of Starfleet. Ultimately both of them seem to be derived from a parabola symbol as used in the NASA meatball logo, which Enterprise (quite correctly IMO for all its sins) ran with:

Enterprise's version of early Starfleet logo:

Amusingly, btw, several real life space agencies have now adopted logos that look suspiciously inspired by the Starfleet arrowhead:

Chinese National Space Administration

Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos)

Indian Space Research Organisation

 

[Brainbin]

That should be Enterprise.

I'm going to pretend you didn't say that

It still is IMO. Does this mean Starfleet built 210 ships of a class with Enterprise?

The USS Excelsior is not of the same class as the Enterprise, and the same goes for most of the 210 ships built between the NCC-1701 and the NCC-1911.

(One unintentional-but-fun bit of relevant information about the number 210? That's the exact number of television markets in the United States.)

(OTOH, over 70,000 built in about 100yr between "TOS" & "ST:V" OTL? How bad was that war?)

That's completely irrelevant to the history of Starfleet within the context of this timeline, and really shouldn't be juxtaposed against it.

I wonder what Rodenberry thought of Blakes 7. If he didn't like the series, that could be another reason for making three nacelles uncanonical. It would prevent the Liberator from showing up in his Federation.

Assuming that Blake's 7 exists in exactly the same form as IOTL (which is vanishingly unlikely, of course), I honestly think that Roddenberry simply won't care ITTL - beyond trying to determine if there's any profit in it for him. Desilu, on the other hand, would be far more likely to react negatively to the situation.

That wasn't the only one - here's the ship from Babylon 5 Crusade

Welcome aboard, Derek! Thanks for your contribution. The Enterprise was certainly an influential design, there can be no doubt about that!

I like Shevek's idea of a ship with an odd number of nacelles--they would probably want the three ships to be immediately recognisable at a glance, and the Declaration and Miranda types might be too similar at a distance.

One thing worth noting is that the Artemis would be considerably smaller than the Excelsior, and more compact. The engineering hull being arranged the way it is on the Excelsior would create a "three nacelle" effect without actually having three nacelles - though I am looking for a more subtle deflector pod design atop the Artemis.

Except it's not the Fed emblem: it's the Enterprise emblem. Recall "The Omega Glory". It's widely mistaken, because so few other ships' emblems were ever seen.

You are correct, sir! And among those emblems were:

The USS Constellation, from "The Doomsday Machine":

The USS Exeter, from "The Omega Glory" (IOTL, though the episode was not made ITTL):

The Antares, from "Charlie X":

And a mission insignia used repeatedly for the crews of observational outposts (in "Balance of Terror" and "Arena"):

It ended up apparently becoming the Starfleet emblem. Not the emblem of the Federation proper, and of course this TL has two more seasons for people to realize that it's actually the Enterprise emblem.

Good point - especially since, as noted, the crews of every new Starfleet ship will have their own mission patches ITTL.

The emblem of Federation is similiar to the emblem of the UNO.

IOTL, this was the flag of the Federation at the time (before it was decided to simply adapt the UN iconography for a spacefaring civilization). As with "The Omega Glory", the episode in which that appeared (the notoriously awful "And The Children Shall Lead", widely considered the actual worst episode of the show when people dismiss "Spock's Brain" for being so-bad-it's-good) has been butterflied ITTL. With regards to the flag and emblem, they'll probably settle on something similar to those of the UN, as IOTL.

Also I suspect that the reason it was used for ships other than Enterprise OTL was simply the lower budget in the 3rd season, which didn't allow for costuming details to be correct (such as seperate badges for other ships).

I checked "The Tholian Web" and (though we don't get a clear shot of any mission patches on the crew of the Defiant, which I'm sure is no coincidence) they do appear to be re-using those of the Enterprise. IOTL, the Defiant was given a distinct mission patch by a later spin-off - the exact shape of the insignia pointed out by Thande:

I always thought the argument over is the arrowhead the Enterprise or the Federation/Starfleet was silly. The signage on the original Enterprise has the "boomerang" symbol, which also featured on wall logos at Starfleet facilities...

And to my mind that is just a minor variation on the same symbol as the arrowhead.

I appreciate your diligent research, Thande, though I must disagree with your conclusion. The Enterprise mission patch had a curvature to it that did not exist in the more angular arrowhead featured on the hull of the ship. The shape also appears to my eye more evenly distributed than the extremely lopsided Enterprise arrowhead. The two shapes are broadly similar, but I would argue no more so than a square and, say, a lozenge. The Enterprise shape could well have been chosen as a deliberate homage or reference to the Starfleet logo (within the context of the fictional universe), much as many real-life military units and vessels borrow from their own national iconography.

All that said, I hope to have the next update ready tomorrow! Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

 

[stevep]

Assuming that Blake's 7 exists in exactly the same form as IOTL (which is vanishingly unlikely, of course), I honestly think that Roddenberry simply won't care ITTL - beyond trying to determine if there's any profit in it for him. Desilu, on the other hand, would be far more likely to react negatively to the situation.

Brainbin

I would say that there's still a decent chance of something like Blake's 7 and if Nation is still a major contributor we could get the same idea of an evil Federation. There are a couple of factors that might make a difference:
a) If the separate Darlek series takes off then Nation might not be involved in a Blake's 7 programme.
b) Possibly the interaction between Doctor Who and Star Trek TTL might mean that either Nation is less jaudiced by Roddenberry's fairly simplistic view or that because of the links between the studios he has less room to take even a small poke at Star Trek.

Otherwise I could see Blake's 7 pretty much as OTL and if Terry Nation is involved his anti-Federation might well play a part.

If so Desilu might complain in some form but their probably better off saying nothing, rather than drawing attention to any comparison. After all a Federation is an accepted term for a government and Desilu have no monopoly over the word while if they kick up a fuss about the word they will just look rather stupid. [Its not as if the script includes references to Command Servalan's lover and right hand man in suppressing rebellions James Caligua Kirk.]



Steve

 

[NCW8]

Assuming that Blake's 7 exists in exactly the same form as IOTL (which is vanishingly unlikely, of course), I honestly think that Roddenberry simply won't care ITTL - beyond trying to determine if there's any profit in it for him. Desilu, on the other hand, would be far more likely to react negatively to the situation.

Quite - I was refering to OTL of course. I've seen claims that Andromeda was influenced by Blake's 7. I'm not sure that I believe it myself - the claims basically boil down to using similar character archetypes - but if true, it could be seen as Roddenberry's response to Blake's 7.

It's true that Blake's 7 could be different ITTL. The original treatment described Vila as "thirty five, good looking athletic" - more of a Simon Templar type than his OTL character. Another member of the crew was to have been an important figure in the administration who had been made a scapegoat by other corrupt officials. Avon was to have been this character's sidekick and would have been "a self-serving, treacherous coward".

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[phx1138]

I'm going to pretend you didn't say that

Not as majestic as the OTL design, I admit.

Excelsior is not of the same class as the Enterprise, and the same goes for most of the 210 ships built between the NCC-1701 and the NCC-1911.

So you're taking the view the NCC numbers aren't hull numbers? So it doesn't matter if they're not strictly sequential?

(One unintentional-but-fun bit of relevant information about the number 210? That's the exact number of television markets in the United States.)

And that was entirely coincidental, I'm sure.

That's completely irrelevant to the history of Starfleet within the context of this timeline, and really shouldn't be juxtaposed against it.

Only as an example of the seeming conflict. Which you've addressed TTL.

You are correct, sir!

Do you notice the common "rocket"? (Do you suppose that was supposed to mark the "big ships"?) Also, didn't Mendez wear a different badge, too, in "Menagerie"?

 

[e of pi]

So you're taking the view the NCC numbers aren't hull numbers? So it doesn't matter if they're not strictly sequential?

I'm consulting on this a bit, but this isn't final and may be changed by the time it sees a post. We've been working from the point of view that they are sequential hull numbers. A build rate of 13 or 14 ships per year (210 over the roughly 15 years we've pegged between Enterprise and Excelsior's commissioning ITTL's canon, then 55 over the 4 years between Excelsior and Artemis) and a lifespan of 40ish years implies a fleet of about 500 ships--enough to have a ship almost anywhere its needed, but not necessarily enough to fully cover the size of the Federation we've laid out--hence the Enterprise being the "only ship in the sector" so often. Starfleet is stretched thin. This core Starfleet would then be supplemented by local system forces for the various home systems and primary colonies, which aren't Starfleet and don't receive NCC numbers.

And that was entirely coincidental, I'm sure.

It is, actually! 1911 is the birth year of That Wacky Redhead herself, 1966 is the first airing of Star Trek--they're in-jokes both among the production staff in the timeline and between Brainbin and I. They also happen to nicely fit a roughly 14/year build rate, which is what we wanted.

Do you notice the common "rocket"? (Do you suppose that was supposed to mark the "big ships"?)

It marks the command division of the ship's company. Other divisions had other symbols that went in the same place.

 

[Lord Insane]

It marks the command division of the ship's company. Other divisions had other symbols that went in the same place.

I happen to know what you are talking about, but I should warn you that Ex Astris Scientia's hotlinking policy is a tad excessive, and that the link therefore doesn't work.