I can still clearly remember. It was 1983, or early 1984. My dad took 11 year old me to the theatre to watch Star Trek III. When Scotty handed Bones the parts he took out of the Excelsior's Trans Warp core, my dad erupting in laughter in the theater saying: "Wow that's all it takes to disable a starship? Just remove its balls?!" Everyone within earshot laughed. Ill never forget that....
You are right about the USS Ingram, it is the Ingram class. As for the table on sulu's bridge, if I were a captain of a ship, I would want a table next to my command chair of my coffee, or tea😀
davidedward10 the table was made to disguise the center point for the gimble That Shook the bridge set where in previous iterations they just took the camera. I didn't want to put it underneath his chair and had to be in the center so they just built the table to the skies to Centerpoint so they could shake the gimble for more realistic action.
One of my favorite features of this ship is the really long Nacelles. I always thought though with how large and complex the refits impulse drives are that it could do with a larger saucer section. Also I like to compare Star fleets design aesthetic to cars of the day. The TOS enterprise is nice and rounded, very much like cars were like when it was originally conceived. Then you move onto the 80s and the excelsior comes along and it too is very much like the cars of the day were being deigned. Boxier, harder lines, and lots of "seemingly" extraneous bits and bobs added on to the core design. Then you move onto the the early mid 90s and cars are starting to get larger sleeker and more rounded again, I.E. the N.C.C. 1701-D
also understand that there wasn't really a ready room or observation lounge on the NX-2000, that modification wasn't added until the early 24th century
The Excelsior bridge was the first one design to shake in real life during filming for a more realistic effect rather than just shaking the camera. The little table-height protrusion is the centre is the support point of a very large gimbal that the bridge was attached to. You can think of a ferris wheel on its side, and this centre part was the mechanical hub that everything was attached to. To disguise it since it couldn't be hidden, they built a box around it and made it a table for Captain Sulu. They didn't want to put the center protrusion for the gimbal supporting the entire weight of the set and that was going to move directly under the captain's chair for obvious reasons. That would be a VERY uncomfortable injury if it were to fail under Captain Sulu's chair! Its absence in earlier and later versions of the Excelsior class further demonstrates that this bridge set was unique in that it was designed to shake in real life. Your explanation is as good as any but I hadn't seen anyone mention the real life reason why suddenly there's a random protrusion in the middle of the bridge that none before or after ever had.
I finally got to see part 2, and thanks much guys for doing this. A few comments. 1) You are a great leader, Capt. Foley, for listening to your crew and taking their opinions into account. It is a great being who is willing to look at something they are not crazy about looking at, and will garner even more loyalty from your crew! I'd take a phaser shot for you. (Please don't send me a red shirt!! ;-) 2) The USS Ingram!!! I practically wore out my blueprint set as a kid I love this ship so much! I agree with you, Captain, and I too prefer this design to the Excelsior. It feels more efficient. There is remarkably little online about this sister ship of Excelsior, with most of the story in the blue prints. There is also a great wall poster I had with silhouettes of Federation ships that has both the Excelsior and Ingram on it. But at any rate, because there is so little about this ship, I don't expect you all would do a separate episode for the Ingram, though it would be awesome to see some 3D renders and animations of the ship. I am actually trying to learn how to use Blender to see if I can produce a good one, and perhaps print a 3D model. At the very least, I hope you use the Inboard Profile Cutaway (Sheet 5) in the episode. It has a nice little surprise with a cloaking device. As a kid I imagined that Starfleet stole the one from the "HMS Bounty" after crash landing in SF. :-) 3) Lastly, I only found this channel a few weeks ago and have binge watched nearly everything while I was doing other work. This channel is awesome, and I hope us Internet Hacks don't ever get you down again. Also, Commander, you are awesome too, being very sleek and stylish in nearly every episode. :-)
Glad they're discussing this at 12:56. The Excelsior, based on its own internal scaling, should basically be the TMP-era Galaxy-class cruiser. Its bridge, its window scaling, its sheer bulk, make it look like it has a really massive spaceframe, far beyond the offical 467m, or whatever it is.
Really enjoyed this video! Liked seeing the size comparisons between the refit enterprise and NX 2000. Absolutely beautiful picture at 19:04 of the two ships side by side!!
There are some interesting comments and observations but I've always found the Excelsior to be an elegant ship. A clear link from the TOS to the ships that followed. On the ST6 bridge my only complaint is that the helm consoles are very TNG.
@3:00 or so These are the USS Ingram class modification of the Excelsior. It was found in fan conjecture plans drawn by Todd Guenther and Jason Genser and published in 1986.
Maybe the color panelling on the top of the saucer is supposed to be a mark of Fleet/Unit/Sqadron?Sector the ship belongs to? Like easy way to identify it on a spot from far away?
On the msd behind the captain thing...there's a much easier solution if 24th century cameras work in the same way as current tech that is. Even modern digital cameras still work by capturing lots of still images in quick succession, for example modern camcorder can capture HD1080 at anything up to around 60fps. It wouldn't be hard to have the displays frame rate in sync with the camera so all the camera sees is a blank screen ;)
And because as a sad tech geek I can even answer why the displays are visible on Enterprise's view screen. If the camera runs at 120fps for secure comms to friendly ship it sees the displays but if only @ 60fps when non secure or talking to hostile ship, camera will only see blank displays...I obviously have way to much time on my hands.lol
I can picture people in Starfleet discussing the Excelsior and coming to the conclusion that since it would be such a major step forward, they might as well make it look good. And it becomes something that has big names in design attached to it. Previous ships were pretty much utilitarian designs, even the Enterprise refit, with the Excelsior there is this feeling that Starfleet is upping the game and creating a controlled visual identity rather than something borne from engineering and construction. To me the Excelsior is a very elegant ship, it's not perfect, the shuttle bay looks dodgy, but the lines are just gorgeous.
On the Memory Alpha page for Excelsior Class, the MSD graphic describes that little habitation or office nub you were talking about that peaks out in front of the aft cargo bay as the "Aft Crew Lounge." I thinks it's a cool idea cuz there must be folks who work full shifts all the way back there at the stern of that lonnnng secondary hull. When they have a break they don't have to shlep all the way to the saucer section just to put their feet up for 20 minutes or have lunch.
I actually think the TOS-y bridge for the NX version makes a lot of sense. Developing new ship classes takes a lot of time, and when you add the Great Experiment to it you might want to skip on unnecessary development time. The bridge actually always looked to me like a control room for a space station; with Bridge Modules being swappable the might just grabbed the biggest bridge module they could find and called it a day, only swapping it out later on to bring her to fleet standards. Or the TOS-style was simply still state of the art when that part of the Excelsior was designed. Personally i prefer the original bridge, to be honest. I do like the Enterprise-version more in theory but the dark colors kill it. It's just so.... bland. I'm colorblind; i prefer flashy colors that are easy to see.
The little table thing that sulu used for his tea, my theory is that it might have a console for him to record his captains log on it. Another thing I liked about Excelsior NCC-2000 is the chair colours on the bridge, added some contrast to the bridge and makes it more classy.
Genuine_Intrepid they never wanted a table there it disguised the gimbal protrusion that shook the bridge set for more realistic action scenes and they had to make it into something so they just decided to make it into little table since it would have been dangerous to put the spoke right underneath actors chair!
For those who like working with model kits, AMT/Round 2 Models is about to release a greatly upgraded kit of the Excelsior that is far more accurate than the original 1994 release! The kit is in 1/1000 scale (@18" length) and has parts for both NX and NCC versions! There is a write-up on their site with several images in the blog section.
+Mark Bernero I'm getting back into model building after almost a 20 year absence. I've picked up the 1/1000 Enterprise Refit and the Reliant... looks like I found the next ship for the fleet. This is awesome news!
the excelsior has a cargo conveyer at the back of the main shuttlebay, it can transfer cargo between the main cargo facility at the bottom of the secondary hull and the main shuttle bay at the aft of the secondary hull.
on the ncc-2000 excelsior the blue and yellow panels conceal the escape pods. in the prototype era the Excelsior used to have a separate ring of hatches to represent the lifeboats.
i love the NX 2000 , there is something very imposing about it, its possibly the lighting or the music in ST3, But i just love it and if it stayed in that appearance i think it would have bin so much more a powerful ship. i was not happy that it could be disabled buy removing a handful of chips );( not good. i always felt it was a good look for (THE GRATE EXPERIMENT),,,,, and when it become the NCC 2000 i felt it lost its dark power look, and then all other ships of the class just did not seem the same. what would have bin so cool is to see a NX 2000 engine room. so just to say ,,,,,,,, its a cool ship ,,,,,,,,, only when its a NX, still i love it
According to the original TNG tech manual there are ejectable self propelled test "shakedown'" bridges used during warp certification trials for every ship produced. Maybe this is a lifeboat bridge in case the trans-warp failed and left them stranded days or weeks from help.
According to the novel that I read it has a crew of 750 people. I found that to be quite amazing due to the crew of a Galaxy-class being a 1000. If that is true, the Galaxy's improved automation meant that it did not require nearly as much resources to operate as one would suspect.
+Enterprise-H Automation came a long way over the years. I always think back to the TOS episode (can't remember which one) where Kirk explains without his crew he can't even get the Enterprise out of orbit
It took me forever to figure this out, but the "Christie's Auction' Excelsior shown here is the 1/2 scale Gregory Jein small scale Excelsior built for Flushback and relabeled multiple times for DS9 until it was labelled back to the Excelsior (poorly) for the Star Trek The Exhibition. Note the straight "USS Excelsior" and the "NCC 2000" which isn't even the right font. I found a better picture from that exhibit (or worse depending on your perspective) where you can actually see decal glue from the relabel.
+Shawn McDonald I went to Star Trek The Exhibition when it was in Newcastle (UK) and the roughest looking model was the USS Stargazer. When you see the model up close it looks very bad, like it was slapped together in a matter of hours. If it was entered into a model-making competition it would be laughed at.
+james bielby I know right? It makes sense though, as most of the non hero ship models were slapped together quickly and cheaply. Most filming models are actually very rough. If you follow Simon Mercs at all he talks about this in his De Boers Enterprise finale. His patron happened to own the miniature Enterprise A from ST6 (which he admits he paid $50K for!) and up close its super rough.
+Shawn McDonald The small Enterprise-A was actually the Ertl AMT model kit that's been available since 1980. What happened to the large scale refit Enterprise's paint scheme was tragic. The way it looked in TMP was spectacular only to go through the painting equivalent of a lobotomy. All that time and effort just sploged over. All is not bleak though. there is a effort taking place to find the large scale Enterprise Refit studio model and restore her to her former glory. TrekWorks is the RUclips channel to go to for information on that.
james bielby actually they found the owner, its Jeff Bezos. The model is in the blue origin lobby. Hes not interested in restoring it as he feels it'll take away from its historical value, so the new campaign is to build a 1:1 replica
in answer to the question what is the hump between the warp nacells, its mainly power transfer equipment to run the nacells, as the lower decks on the aft section are dedicated to the cargo conveyer system.
I think the greatest flaw in this design is the struts. They are contrary to everything else on this ship. The fluid, organic lines are lost. The entire strut/nacelle assembly looks like a bolt on it to he hull.
I wonder if Stuart would gain an enhanced appreciation for the Excelsior if he built a large model of it ? Hopefully if we get a TV show set in the "Lost years" someone will have some fun with the Excelsior Template for background or Hero ships since they will be needing to make CGI models for them anyway - and having offshots of the Excellsior means you get more use out of the CGI Models as they'd still be in Service most of a Century later.. I like the 4 nacelles designs some people have done - also the Excelsior versions of the Miranda shapes are rather neat too. I'd certainly be interested in seeing some heavily modified takes on them in a TV show - sort of Digital Kit bashes if you like. Not to mention fiddling with the design makes the Excelsior more unique in the universe then for a longer while. Though I also would love to see a heavy REFIT of the Excellsior class made around the time or just before the C is invented - as I think such a thing would make sense in universe. Looking at the C I'd say an Excellsior Refit would likely have a shorter secondary hull rear section extended chins that bland into the main body more perhaps a totally different neck and much shorter thicker engines. perhaps a slightly larger saucer too. Oh and doesn't the Excelsior have the rear cargo handling bay covered on the NCC version and it's a big gap on the NX-2000 or is it the B that has the hole filled in - Something I need to double check I guess. Despite how often they used the design on TNG's earlier years - we really did get only the shortest of looks at the class - so I do look forward to seeing more of it shot in the more modern dynamic way CGI allows for. That is one of the things that is appealing about the Lost years era to me - to flesh that period of time out a bit more. I also wonder if they ought to make the Tzinkethi a cannon race too. as with the inability to use Romulans as much after a certain date - they have to either use them then never use them again or just ignore them if the Lost Era time period is true.
+90 Lancaster Fun fact- they had enough budget for precisely one shooting session of the Excelsior model for TNG.... so every single appearance of the ship came from that one session. Talk about reycling footage....
+Shawn McDonald I did notice even on the 1st viewing that the effect shot of any Excelsior class was always from the same side and a pretty static looking shot. Like chalk and cheese compared to the Enterprise B redress used on Ds9 where you actually get to see the ship properly.
I had to laugh that you accidentally integrated an image of the Ingram class. I'm a big fan of the class (I've written several novels based on it), as it not only packs the punch of a Dreadnought, but it carries about 100 shuttles (including squadrons of fighters). It's the kind of ship you send into the worst situations to win the day.
Loved this episode! If you deal with the differences between her and Enterprise B, please do not call it a refit. Enterprise B was not a refit, she was a flight 2 variant of the same ship design.
Does a larger ship necessarily have more systems that need people to work on them, thus necessitating making them bigger, which in turn requires more space devoted to said larger crew?
Stuart, How is it you like everything about the Excelsior that's wrong on the prototype? The Prototype Bridge lacked detailed and was the wrong size. The Observation windows were staring at the big Warp Hub...how do you think that makes for an interesting view? 17:00 what looks good on paper changes in perspective.
I always wished that when we see the captain taking to other ships on the view screen, when you see the alien view screen, to them all the consoles look turned off.
Did you guys notice that at the beginning of the "Designing the Enterprise - B" Video those holes in the neck were used as shuttlebays? Check it out at 0:58 in the other Video. :) So that should clear up what those are, seem to be maintenance shuttlebays. Weird position but why not. :)
The tos and refit enterprise hull is roughly the same length as the saucer, and the nacelles aren't much longer. That's a good balance, and the excelsior would look much better, in my opinion, with those proportions, and the pylons should come out of the hull, not the weird pod.
Never liked the Enterprise-B/Lakota refits, they just look like they had stuff arbitrarily pasted on. Speaking of, they had to make a new Excelsior model for Voyager "Flashback", because removing the stuff they added would have damaged the model. additionally, the difference in the bridge modules between the NX and the NCC-2000 was that it was a removable plug-in bridge, ejectable and with its own life support. This was rationalized that if something went wrong in the test phase, it could be ejected and recovered.
+Mork_of_Ork2001 The Centaur was the replacement of the Miranda, and the Miranda has all the pieces of the Constitution Class, in essence the Centaur has all the pieces of the Excelsior class since they are making them at the time. You cannot have the Excelsior class as your only class in this the [Centaur, Excelsior, and Ingram [the dreadnought version of the Excelsior, just more weapons and a minor aesthetic differences.]] in this the Excelsior had two more ships designed with it [Cheyenne [the stargazer variant], and the [Sitting Bull, carrier variant] though the Sitting Bull was an emergency build for a war 40 years after the Excelsior and Centaur classes releases. The NX-2000 family of ships was a turn in a generation of ships, the Cheyenne was built only 15 years later after the Centaur and the Excelsior.
lnlraven079 O-kay... The Centaur has different nacelles to the Excelsior, I believe that they were made from the bottom halves only of the Excelsior class nacelles. See the second ship down on this link - www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/ds9tm.htm
Man, I do NOT like the Excelsior-refit with its Galaxy-class-inspired tapered bits on the secondary hull ... and the extra bulky-looking impulse engines. Just a lot of overkill, IMO. I vastly prefer the sleeker design of the original Excelsior-class. (And, Stuart, I also prefer the NX version over the NCC version.)
If Mega-Phasers draw directly from the warp core, doesn't that mean the Enterprise had those as well? Since the new Phaser design was tied into the Warp Engines as well? Which it is stated by Decker in TMP.
+Rob Wong That line was always stupid. The warp core is a matter anti matter reaction chamber that releases pure energy(heat). If it wasn't 100% then there would be radioactive waste. Of course you could use that waste to run nuclear reactors(so not really a down side but it would complicate how it works). That energy or heat is then used to generate electricity. It's just another case of the writers not giving a damn about the science and rendering the show close to fantasy than scifi. The line would be more properly The phasers divert a large amount of the warp plasma directly to run their own power generators. Spacecraft in Trek are basically electric. It's the only part of JJ that makes sense. All those water pipes to feed electric steam generators, or cool nuclear power plants, but JJ fucked up the presentation and explanation.
+charlescomly1 Canonically they don't stand for anything. American civil aircraft started with the prefix NC then the extra C was added to look better (an alternate explanation is that American civil aircraft start with NC and Russian CCCC so NCC is a combination of the two). Franz Joseph (author of the Star Fleet Technical Manual and Star Trek Blueprints, which are the sources for most post-TOS side canon technical data) came up with Naval Construction Contract (which is my preference). NX denotes eXperimental but again no actual canon description exists (Naval Experiment?)
What the episode where they talked with Rick Sternbach about the Vor'Cha? I don't think it was the main profile ep for that ship. Was it a different episode?
As much as I ADORE the Excelsior-class? I hated both interior bridge designs (as seen in Star Trek III and Star Trek VI). Ugh. I mean, Sulu's little table would become a HUGE safety hazard during combat situations. "Ow. my shin!!!"
SpiritOfBagheera this was the first bridge to actually move rather than just having the camera Shake so the action shots look more realistic and unfortunately that meant a support peace coming up in the Centre of the bridge set which they disguised with sulu's little tea table. The entire Bridge was on a gimble That Shook around this Central Point and there was no other safe place to secure they certainly wasn't going to put it underneath the actor's chair! :-)
Dustin Chattaway the table disguised the center point for the gimbal That Shook the entire set which was new rather than just shaking the camera for more realistic action. So they just disguised it with sulu's little table
they had the Ambassador, Constellation, and Nebula, but from a real life POV, see my answer above about how they had the highly detailed models from the movies, which until they converted to CGI were less expensive than making a bunch of new models - and when they did make the models for the Ambassador and Constellation classes, they were less detailed than the models made to be shown in large screen detail. That limited how they could be photographed, the photographic limitations even applied to the Galaxy class, until a more detailed 4 foot model was made mid-series.
You are missing my point though.Despite whatever plot rationale is used to explain why so many exist in the 24th century, the real life reason they appear so frequently is that the models already existed, they were highly detailed, and it was cheaper than making new models. the only reason that the Ambassador model was made was "Yesterday's Enterprise" specifically called for it. As for the Constellation, they nearly chose to use the Constitution model for the Stargazer, but the events of the TOS movies were calling out how the Constitution was old and nearing the end of her lifetime. That required a different model. The script called for the Stargazer to be an " over-worked, underpowered ship, seemingly ready to fall apart at the seams at a moment's notice". The models available to them were the Oberth (too small to represent a threat to the Galaxy-Class) the Miranda (after Wrath of Khan, it wouldn't seem a credible threat to a Galaxy because " pfft Kirk took one of those out in the original Enterprise"), and the Excelsior (which wouldn't have fit the "over-worked, underpowered" image). So they made the Constellation model. After that, they made use of redresses of the Miranda and Excelsior until "The Wounded", by that time DS9 was well into development and they needed more ship models for backgrounds, as well as a model that photographed well, and looked like something that could push the Cardassians - and possibly the Enterprise-D - if they got into a slug-fest with the Phoenix, thus the need for the Nebula. To sum up what I've said in REAL WORLD terms, the economics of serialized television made introducing new starship models prohibitive, unless it was essential to a story that it had t be something they couldn't re-dress or fake. Because that was the case, it meant they saved on the budget by using models that had been paid for by the TOS movies. (that also explains why the Oberth was still around, a ship that pre-dated the Constitution by quite a bit)
I know they where looking at fan designs but there was the ncc, the nx and the USS. What s the difference and why would they have a ship called nx more than 100 Yeats after enterprise.
StarStuff ST SW SG DW and more The Movie version is NX. The first time NX was used for prototypes onscreen. St-6 is the first time NCC is used on the Excelsior. USS is on all ships regardless of NCC or NX. Well at least until someone got lazy and left off USS on a recent ship. The top of the Excelsior was not seen on film until St-4 and it does has USS.
Whose to say trans warp was a failure it seems to me it wasn't when the warp scale changed . As for the ship itself I liked it when I first saw it . I dont like the sea plane additions.
I can still clearly remember. It was 1983, or early 1984. My dad took 11 year old me to the theatre to watch Star Trek III. When Scotty handed Bones the parts he took out of the Excelsior's Trans Warp core, my dad erupting in laughter in the theater saying: "Wow that's all it takes to disable a starship? Just remove its balls?!" Everyone within earshot laughed. Ill never forget that....
lol, I love that sound of discuss from Sam when Stuart said he liked that NCC-2001 design. Totally agree.
I loved this episode. I love the Excelsior. Was so hoping it Kirk and crew were going to get the Excelsior at the end of Star Trek IV.
After the amount of orders he disobeyed in III, he was lucky they didn't lumber him with a Daedalus
Naa I love these ships , thing Kirk ship should always be a Connie .
THE greatest Federation design in my opinion
You are right about the USS Ingram, it is the Ingram class.
As for the table on sulu's bridge, if I were a captain of a ship, I would want a table next to my command chair of my coffee, or tea😀
davidedward10 the table was made to disguise the center point for the gimble That Shook the bridge set where in previous iterations they just took the camera. I didn't want to put it underneath his chair and had to be in the center so they just built the table to the skies to Centerpoint so they could shake the gimble for more realistic action.
One of my favorite features of this ship is the really long Nacelles. I always thought though with how large and complex the refits impulse drives are that it could do with a larger saucer section.
Also I like to compare Star fleets design aesthetic to cars of the day. The TOS enterprise is nice and rounded, very much like cars were like when it was originally conceived. Then you move onto the 80s and the excelsior comes along and it too is very much like the cars of the day were being deigned. Boxier, harder lines, and lots of "seemingly" extraneous bits and bobs added on to the core design. Then you move onto the the early mid 90s and cars are starting to get larger sleeker and more rounded again, I.E. the N.C.C. 1701-D
The Excelsior class refit is amazing. My favorite ship.
also understand that there wasn't really a ready room or observation lounge on the NX-2000, that modification wasn't added until the early 24th century
I love the Excelsior Class of ships...
The Excelsior bridge was the first one design to shake in real life during filming for a more realistic effect rather than just shaking the camera. The little table-height protrusion is the centre is the support point of a very large gimbal that the bridge was attached to.
You can think of a ferris wheel on its side, and this centre part was the mechanical hub that everything was attached to.
To disguise it since it couldn't be hidden, they built a box around it and made it a table for Captain Sulu. They didn't want to put the center protrusion for the gimbal supporting the entire weight of the set and that was going to move directly under the captain's chair for obvious reasons. That would be a VERY uncomfortable injury if it were to fail under Captain Sulu's chair!
Its absence in earlier and later versions of the Excelsior class further demonstrates that this bridge set was unique in that it was designed to shake in real life.
Your explanation is as good as any but I hadn't seen anyone mention the real life reason why suddenly there's a random protrusion in the middle of the bridge that none before or after ever had.
I think there were many variants to the Excelsior class. this could be one of the many variants that were on the drawing board.
I finally got to see part 2, and thanks much guys for doing this. A few comments.
1) You are a great leader, Capt. Foley, for listening to your crew and taking their opinions into account. It is a great being who is willing to look at something they are not crazy about looking at, and will garner even more loyalty from your crew! I'd take a phaser shot for you. (Please don't send me a red shirt!! ;-)
2) The USS Ingram!!! I practically wore out my blueprint set as a kid I love this ship so much! I agree with you, Captain, and I too prefer this design to the Excelsior. It feels more efficient. There is remarkably little online about this sister ship of Excelsior, with most of the story in the blue prints. There is also a great wall poster I had with silhouettes of Federation ships that has both the Excelsior and Ingram on it. But at any rate, because there is so little about this ship, I don't expect you all would do a separate episode for the Ingram, though it would be awesome to see some 3D renders and animations of the ship. I am actually trying to learn how to use Blender to see if I can produce a good one, and perhaps print a 3D model. At the very least, I hope you use the Inboard Profile Cutaway (Sheet 5) in the episode. It has a nice little surprise with a cloaking device. As a kid I imagined that Starfleet stole the one from the "HMS Bounty" after crash landing in SF. :-)
3) Lastly, I only found this channel a few weeks ago and have binge watched nearly everything while I was doing other work. This channel is awesome, and I hope us Internet Hacks don't ever get you down again. Also, Commander, you are awesome too, being very sleek and stylish in nearly every episode. :-)
Glad they're discussing this at 12:56. The Excelsior, based on its own internal scaling, should basically be the TMP-era Galaxy-class cruiser. Its bridge, its window scaling, its sheer bulk, make it look like it has a really massive spaceframe, far beyond the offical 467m, or whatever it is.
Really enjoyed this video! Liked seeing the size comparisons between the refit enterprise and NX 2000. Absolutely beautiful picture at 19:04 of the two ships side by side!!
There are some interesting comments and observations but I've always found the Excelsior to be an elegant ship. A clear link from the TOS to the ships that followed. On the ST6 bridge my only complaint is that the helm consoles are very TNG.
@3:00 or so
These are the USS Ingram class modification of the Excelsior. It was found in fan conjecture plans drawn by Todd Guenther and Jason Genser and published in 1986.
Maybe the color panelling on the top of the saucer is supposed to be a mark of Fleet/Unit/Sqadron?Sector the ship belongs to? Like easy way to identify it on a spot from far away?
the Bridge was basically a redress of the Enterprise-A. I like this Bridge and the Bridge of the Enterprise-B
On the msd behind the captain thing...there's a much easier solution if 24th century cameras work in the same way as current tech that is. Even modern digital cameras still work by capturing lots of still images in quick succession, for example modern camcorder can capture HD1080 at anything up to around 60fps. It wouldn't be hard to have the displays frame rate in sync with the camera so all the camera sees is a blank screen ;)
And because as a sad tech geek I can even answer why the displays are visible on Enterprise's view screen. If the camera runs at 120fps for secure comms to friendly ship it sees the displays but if only @ 60fps when non secure or talking to hostile ship, camera will only see blank displays...I obviously have way to much time on my hands.lol
+MoA-Reload... honestly it's one of those that you should think about as we don't see everything on screen
I can picture people in Starfleet discussing the Excelsior and coming to the conclusion that since it would be such a major step forward, they might as well make it look good. And it becomes something that has big names in design attached to it. Previous ships were pretty much utilitarian designs, even the Enterprise refit, with the Excelsior there is this feeling that Starfleet is upping the game and creating a controlled visual identity rather than something borne from engineering and construction. To me the Excelsior is a very elegant ship, it's not perfect, the shuttle bay looks dodgy, but the lines are just gorgeous.
On the Memory Alpha page for Excelsior Class, the MSD graphic describes that little habitation or office nub you were talking about that peaks out in front of the aft cargo bay as the "Aft Crew Lounge." I thinks it's a cool idea cuz there must be folks who work full shifts all the way back there at the stern of that lonnnng secondary hull. When they have a break they don't have to shlep all the way to the saucer section just to put their feet up for 20 minutes or have lunch.
I love the Excelsior class. Beautiful ship.
I actually think the TOS-y bridge for the NX version makes a lot of sense. Developing new ship classes takes a lot of time, and when you add the Great Experiment to it you might want to skip on unnecessary development time. The bridge actually always looked to me like a control room for a space station; with Bridge Modules being swappable the might just grabbed the biggest bridge module they could find and called it a day, only swapping it out later on to bring her to fleet standards. Or the TOS-style was simply still state of the art when that part of the Excelsior was designed.
Personally i prefer the original bridge, to be honest. I do like the Enterprise-version more in theory but the dark colors kill it. It's just so.... bland. I'm colorblind; i prefer flashy colors that are easy to see.
The little table thing that sulu used for his tea, my theory is that it might have a console for him to record his captains log on it. Another thing I liked about Excelsior NCC-2000 is the chair colours on the bridge, added some contrast to the bridge and makes it more classy.
Genuine_Intrepid they never wanted a table there it disguised the gimbal protrusion that shook the bridge set for more realistic action scenes and they had to make it into something so they just decided to make it into little table since it would have been dangerous to put the spoke right underneath actors chair!
For those who like working with model kits, AMT/Round 2 Models is about to release a greatly upgraded kit of the Excelsior that is far more accurate than the original 1994 release! The kit is in 1/1000 scale (@18" length) and has parts for both NX and NCC versions! There is a write-up on their site with several images in the blog section.
+Mark Bernero I'm getting back into model building after almost a 20 year absence. I've picked up the 1/1000 Enterprise Refit and the Reliant... looks like I found the next ship for the fleet. This is awesome news!
Glad to be of help!
Alot of these images you guys use are by my friend, Dave. You should ask him about his Pallada-class. It's a really nice ship he made.
the excelsior has a cargo conveyer at the back of the main shuttlebay, it can transfer cargo between the main cargo facility at the bottom of the secondary hull and the main shuttle bay at the aft of the secondary hull.
It looks like an ice breaker with a sorcerer on top
the Blue and yellow pods near the bridge section are the escape pods.
My second Favorite of all time....Major disagreement
on the ncc-2000 excelsior the blue and yellow panels conceal the escape pods. in the prototype era the Excelsior used to have a separate ring of hatches to represent the lifeboats.
2:01 Ingram-class? Based on TMP style ship design. Interesting design.
The colorful panels around the center were the shield emitters/sensor pallets.
those little yellow and blue square things going around the rim of the bridge section or Escape pods for the saucer section
+Brian Justin ahh! cool!
Or he presses another button on that table and it refills his tea lol
The pic is an INGRAM from Jane's Starhips books
i love the NX 2000 , there is something very imposing about it, its possibly the lighting or the music in ST3, But i just love it and if it stayed in that appearance i think it would have bin so much more a powerful ship. i was not happy that it could be disabled buy removing a handful of chips );( not good. i always felt it was a good look for (THE GRATE EXPERIMENT),,,,, and when it become the NCC 2000 i felt it lost its dark power look, and then all other ships of the class just did not seem the same. what would have bin so cool is to see a NX 2000 engine room. so just to say ,,,,,,,, its a cool ship ,,,,,,,,, only when its a NX, still i love it
According to the original TNG tech manual there are ejectable self propelled test "shakedown'" bridges used during warp certification trials for every ship produced. Maybe this is a lifeboat bridge in case the trans-warp failed and left them stranded days or weeks from help.
Did Scotty disrupt transwarp development for nearly 100 years? :)
Sulu drink a lot of tea that's why there's a table there
At the 4 min mark, you are looking at the Ingram Class
According to the novel that I read it has a crew of 750 people. I found that to be quite amazing due to the crew of a Galaxy-class being a 1000. If that is true, the Galaxy's improved automation meant that it did not require nearly as much resources to operate as one would suspect.
+Enterprise-H Automation came a long way over the years. I always think back to the TOS episode (can't remember which one) where Kirk explains without his crew he can't even get the Enterprise out of orbit
From what I can tell the Galaxy class was very roomy to compared to the Excelsior.
It took me forever to figure this out, but the "Christie's Auction' Excelsior shown here is the 1/2 scale Gregory Jein small scale Excelsior built for Flushback and relabeled multiple times for DS9 until it was labelled back to the Excelsior (poorly) for the Star Trek The Exhibition. Note the straight "USS Excelsior" and the "NCC 2000" which isn't even the right font. I found a better picture from that exhibit (or worse depending on your perspective) where you can actually see decal glue from the relabel.
+Shawn McDonald I went to Star Trek The Exhibition when it was in Newcastle (UK) and the roughest looking model was the USS Stargazer. When you see the model up close it looks very bad, like it was slapped together in a matter of hours. If it was entered into a model-making competition it would be laughed at.
+james bielby I know right? It makes sense though, as most of the non hero ship models were slapped together quickly and cheaply. Most filming models are actually very rough. If you follow Simon Mercs at all he talks about this in his De Boers Enterprise finale. His patron happened to own the miniature Enterprise A from ST6 (which he admits he paid $50K for!) and up close its super rough.
+Shawn McDonald The small Enterprise-A was actually the Ertl AMT model kit that's been available since 1980. What happened to the large scale refit Enterprise's paint scheme was tragic. The way it looked in TMP was spectacular only to go through the painting equivalent of a lobotomy. All that time and effort just sploged over. All is not bleak though. there is a effort taking place to find the large scale Enterprise Refit studio model and restore her to her former glory. TrekWorks is the RUclips channel to go to for information on that.
james bielby actually they found the owner, its Jeff Bezos. The model is in the blue origin lobby. Hes not interested in restoring it as he feels it'll take away from its historical value, so the new campaign is to build a 1:1 replica
in answer to the question what is the hump between the warp nacells, its mainly power transfer equipment to run the nacells, as the lower decks on the aft section are dedicated to the cargo conveyer system.
FLY HER APART THEN!
YES! COMPLETELY!
I think the greatest flaw in this design is the struts. They are contrary to everything else on this ship. The fluid, organic lines are lost. The entire strut/nacelle assembly looks like a bolt on it to he hull.
the area at the stern are Auxiliary shuttle space and cargo space.
I wonder if Stuart would gain an enhanced appreciation for the Excelsior if he built a large model of it ?
Hopefully if we get a TV show set in the "Lost years" someone will have some fun with the Excelsior Template for background or Hero ships since they will be needing to make CGI models for them anyway - and having offshots of the Excellsior means you get more use out of the CGI Models as they'd still be in Service most of a Century later..
I like the 4 nacelles designs some people have done - also the Excelsior versions of the Miranda shapes are rather neat too.
I'd certainly be interested in seeing some heavily modified takes on them in a TV show - sort of Digital Kit bashes if you like.
Not to mention fiddling with the design makes the Excelsior more unique in the universe then for a longer while.
Though I also would love to see a heavy REFIT of the Excellsior class made around the time or just before the C is invented - as I think such a thing would make sense in universe.
Looking at the C I'd say an Excellsior Refit would likely have a shorter secondary hull rear section extended chins that bland into the main body more perhaps a totally different neck and much shorter thicker engines. perhaps a slightly larger saucer too.
Oh and doesn't the Excelsior have the rear cargo handling bay covered on the NCC version and it's a big gap on the NX-2000 or is it the B that has the hole filled in - Something I need to double check I guess.
Despite how often they used the design on TNG's earlier years - we really did get only the shortest of looks at the class - so I do look forward to seeing more of it shot in the more modern dynamic way CGI allows for.
That is one of the things that is appealing about the Lost years era to me - to flesh that period of time out a bit more.
I also wonder if they ought to make the Tzinkethi a cannon race too. as with the inability to use Romulans as much after a certain date - they have to either use them then never use them again or just ignore them if the Lost Era time period is true.
+90 Lancaster Fun fact- they had enough budget for precisely one shooting session of the Excelsior model for TNG.... so every single appearance of the ship came from that one session. Talk about reycling footage....
+Shawn McDonald I did notice even on the 1st viewing that the effect shot of any Excelsior class was always from the same side and a pretty static looking shot. Like chalk and cheese compared to the Enterprise B redress used on Ds9 where you actually get to see the ship properly.
There are some 3D photos on Google for the Enterprise B.
Nice video.
I wonder how many Miranda/Excelsiors were made and dusted off after Wolf 359?
I had to laugh that you accidentally integrated an image of the Ingram class. I'm a big fan of the class (I've written several novels based on it), as it not only packs the punch of a Dreadnought, but it carries about 100 shuttles (including squadrons of fighters). It's the kind of ship you send into the worst situations to win the day.
Loved this episode! If you deal with the differences between her and Enterprise B, please do not call it a refit. Enterprise B was not a refit, she was a flight 2 variant of the same ship design.
Does a larger ship necessarily have more systems that need people to work on them, thus necessitating making them bigger, which in turn requires more space devoted to said larger crew?
Stuart,
How is it you like everything about the Excelsior that's wrong on the prototype? The Prototype Bridge lacked detailed and was the wrong size. The Observation windows were staring at the big Warp Hub...how do you think that makes for an interesting view?
17:00 what looks good on paper changes in perspective.
The blue and yellow bits are sensor pallettes
2:50 is a Ingramm Class Ship not a Excelsior Class xD
I always wished that when we see the captain taking to other ships on the view screen, when you see the alien view screen, to them all the consoles look turned off.
Did you guys notice that at the beginning of the "Designing the Enterprise - B" Video those holes in the neck were used as shuttlebays? Check it out at 0:58 in the other Video. :)
So that should clear up what those are, seem to be maintenance shuttlebays. Weird position but why not. :)
5:00 looks like what would be an STO Excelsior variant.
The tos and refit enterprise hull is roughly the same length as the saucer, and the nacelles aren't much longer. That's a good balance, and the excelsior would look much better, in my opinion, with those proportions, and the pylons should come out of the hull, not the weird pod.
Never liked the Enterprise-B/Lakota refits, they just look like they had stuff arbitrarily pasted on.
Speaking of, they had to make a new Excelsior model for Voyager "Flashback", because removing the stuff they added would have damaged the model. additionally, the difference in the bridge modules between the NX and the NCC-2000 was that it was a removable plug-in bridge, ejectable and with its own life support. This was rationalized that if something went wrong in the test phase, it could be ejected and recovered.
I thought all phasers drew power from the warp core since the refit?
never liked the ST6 bridges....too military for my tastes. I'm more of the ST5 bridge myself, looked more comfy and relaxed
That NCC-2001 thing has nacelles that look a lot more like the Centaur class nacelles than the Excelsior nacelles.
+Mork_of_Ork2001 The Centaur was the replacement of the Miranda, and the Miranda has all the pieces of the Constitution Class, in essence the Centaur has all the pieces of the Excelsior class since they are making them at the time. You cannot have the Excelsior class as your only class in this the [Centaur, Excelsior, and Ingram [the dreadnought version of the Excelsior, just more weapons and a minor aesthetic differences.]] in this the Excelsior had two more ships designed with it [Cheyenne [the stargazer variant], and the [Sitting Bull, carrier variant] though the Sitting Bull was an emergency build for a war 40 years after the Excelsior and Centaur classes releases. The NX-2000 family of ships was a turn in a generation of ships, the Cheyenne was built only 15 years later after the Centaur and the Excelsior.
lnlraven079 O-kay...
The Centaur has different nacelles to the Excelsior, I believe that they were made from the bottom halves only of the Excelsior class nacelles.
See the second ship down on this link - www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/ds9tm.htm
It's his foot rest.
Man, I do NOT like the Excelsior-refit with its Galaxy-class-inspired tapered bits on the secondary hull ... and the extra bulky-looking impulse engines. Just a lot of overkill, IMO. I vastly prefer the sleeker design of the original Excelsior-class. (And, Stuart, I also prefer the NX version over the NCC version.)
I agree 100%
If Mega-Phasers draw directly from the warp core, doesn't that mean the Enterprise had those as well? Since the new Phaser design was tied into the Warp Engines as well? Which it is stated by Decker in TMP.
+Rob Wong That line was always stupid. The warp core is a matter anti matter reaction chamber that releases pure energy(heat). If it wasn't 100% then there would be radioactive waste. Of course you could use that waste to run nuclear reactors(so not really a down side but it would complicate how it works). That energy or heat is then used to generate electricity. It's just another case of the writers not giving a damn about the science and rendering the show close to fantasy than scifi. The line would be more properly The phasers divert a large amount of the warp plasma directly to run their own power generators. Spacecraft in Trek are basically electric.
It's the only part of JJ that makes sense. All those water pipes to feed electric steam generators, or cool nuclear power plants, but JJ fucked up the presentation and explanation.
Wonder what a JJ Verse Excelsior would look like..?
I'm still not a big fan of the "Pregnant Guppy Class", but this was still interesting.
at the risk of great ridicule I was wondering if someone could tell me what NX and NCC stand for, thank you.
+charlescomly1 Canonically they don't stand for anything. American civil aircraft started with the prefix NC then the extra C was added to look better (an alternate explanation is that American civil aircraft start with NC and Russian CCCC so NCC is a combination of the two). Franz Joseph (author of the Star Fleet Technical Manual and Star Trek Blueprints, which are the sources for most post-TOS side canon technical data) came up with Naval Construction Contract (which is my preference). NX denotes eXperimental but again no actual canon description exists (Naval Experiment?)
What the episode where they talked with Rick Sternbach about the Vor'Cha? I don't think it was the main profile ep for that ship. Was it a different episode?
+toddsmitts We have not made an episode with Rick yet talking about the Vorcha!
I really like this ship class. Love its curves, and its thiccnes.
As much as I ADORE the Excelsior-class? I hated both interior bridge designs (as seen in Star Trek III and Star Trek VI). Ugh. I mean, Sulu's little table would become a HUGE safety hazard during combat situations. "Ow. my shin!!!"
SpiritOfBagheera this was the first bridge to actually move rather than just having the camera Shake so the action shots look more realistic and unfortunately that meant a support peace coming up in the Centre of the bridge set which they disguised with sulu's little tea table. The entire Bridge was on a gimble That Shook around this Central Point and there was no other safe place to secure they certainly wasn't going to put it underneath the actor's chair! :-)
did y'all notice they used the wrong impulse crystals on the last few shots?
what if captain sulu table on the uss excelsior ncc-2000 had a built in replicator for early grey tea and coffee and like snacks
+Dustin Chattaway Naw, Sulu's old school. The top comes off and it's full of tag leaves and a difuser.
Dustin Chattaway the table disguised the center point for the gimbal That Shook the entire set which was new rather than just shaking the camera for more realistic action. So they just disguised it with sulu's little table
sorry for the typo
how many Excelsior and Miranda been built? and Why they are still the most widely use ship in the 24century?
because the models already existed, and they were movie-quality detailed
Ida Bagus Arya Yoga they were easy to build and untill the akira was deployed the excelsior was the only heavy cruiser the federation has
they had the Ambassador, Constellation, and Nebula, but from a real life POV, see my answer above about how they had the highly detailed models from the movies, which until they converted to CGI were less expensive than making a bunch of new models - and when they did make the models for the Ambassador and Constellation classes, they were less detailed than the models made to be shown in large screen detail. That limited how they could be photographed, the photographic limitations even applied to the Galaxy class, until a more detailed 4 foot model was made mid-series.
Rose Redd well, the nebula and ambassador are way more expensive, and the constellation is more of a light cruiser
You are missing my point though.Despite whatever plot rationale is used to explain why so many exist in the 24th century, the real life reason they appear so frequently is that the models already existed, they were highly detailed, and it was cheaper than making new models. the only reason that the Ambassador model was made was "Yesterday's Enterprise" specifically called for it. As for the Constellation, they nearly chose to use the Constitution model for the Stargazer, but the events of the TOS movies were calling out how the Constitution was old and nearing the end of her lifetime. That required a different model. The script called for the Stargazer to be an " over-worked, underpowered ship, seemingly ready to fall apart at the seams at a moment's notice". The models available to them were the Oberth (too small to represent a threat to the Galaxy-Class) the Miranda (after Wrath of Khan, it wouldn't seem a credible threat to a Galaxy because " pfft Kirk took one of those out in the original Enterprise"), and the Excelsior (which wouldn't have fit the "over-worked, underpowered" image). So they made the Constellation model. After that, they made use of redresses of the Miranda and Excelsior until "The Wounded", by that time DS9 was well into development and they needed more ship models for backgrounds, as well as a model that photographed well, and looked like something that could push the Cardassians - and possibly the Enterprise-D - if they got into a slug-fest with the Phoenix, thus the need for the Nebula.
To sum up what I've said in REAL WORLD terms, the economics of serialized television made introducing new starship models prohibitive, unless it was essential to a story that it had t be something they couldn't re-dress or fake. Because that was the case, it meant they saved on the budget by using models that had been paid for by the TOS movies. (that also explains why the Oberth was still around, a ship that pre-dated the Constitution by quite a bit)
I can think of a small ship I would rather have USS Defiant NX-74205
Excelsior is more female and Enterprise is a MANS Ship!
Im so confused how many different versions of the excelsior are there?
+StarStuff ST SW SG DW and more Fan created designs/blueprints.
I know they where looking at fan designs but there was the ncc, the nx and the USS. What s the difference and why would they have a ship called nx more than 100 Yeats after enterprise.
StarStuff ST SW SG DW and more The Movie version is NX. The first time NX was used for prototypes onscreen. St-6 is the first time NCC is used on the Excelsior. USS is on all ships regardless of NCC or NX. Well at least until someone got lazy and left off USS on a recent ship. The top of the Excelsior was not seen on film until St-4 and it does has USS.
+SFB Addict OK thanks all makes sense now.
Whose to say trans warp was a failure it seems to me it wasn't when the warp scale changed . As for the ship itself I liked it when I first saw it . I dont like the sea plane additions.
the excelsior is a 3/10 for me