I love the USS Shenzhou. What a gorgeous ship. And I wish we'd gotten a chance to see more adventures of a ship that was neither a flagship nor a pure support ship like the Cerritos. That is: I would rather have had a series about Prime Captain Georgiou's career pre-Discovery than Pike's tenure on the 1701, but frankly, I'm grateful enough _Trek_ got Yeoh to come back for a "long trek."
i prefer it to the Discovery design and used this instead as the spore drive ship. a beat up older ship used as a secret testbed, that has a unique tactical advantage but outclasses by everything else so it has to fight smarter.
I've always liked the Walker Class. I mean most of the ships from Discovery I really didn't care for but for some reason the Walker class was unique and I liked it. I liked the idea of the bridge being on the bottom of the saucer. After all it was Malcolm Reed who said this, "There's no rule that the bridge has to be on top of the ship". When him and Trip were stranded on the Romulan's remote piloted Marauder.
I like the McGee the same way i like the Oberth, not sexy, obviously not a fighter, but a plain jane working ship all fleets need. It also has some features that point to it's part in combining the designs of member worlds early on. @kaitlyn__L
"lots of room" you said. i can easily see this being used for "back lines" supply from the various homeworlds to the ever increasing number of star bases. up date it's shields and guns and it could fly back up in fleet actions. i wouldn't mind being captain of one
In STO, the walker served as my main ship for my lower level character until i got to Captain and then was "Allocated" the new USS Caelian, a Stealthy Multi-Mission Cruiser. Since the walker had 4 fore weapon slots, i had a dual beam bank, a Phaser cannon and two Proton torpedo launchers, allowing me a massive damage dealing potential. Good stuff.
Love these looks into ship designs! Especially the ones on the discovery era, as there is so little info out there on them. Are you planning on doing more ships from this era? Great work as always! 😁
LOVE the Walker Class! The USS Shenzhou was such a cool ship. I loved everything about if from the overall shape, to the flatter nacelles, the "older" yet awesome looking deflector dish on the front of the primary hull, the smooth top hull and the ventral bridge location for its role in planetary survey... the blend of old school with the updated presentation from modern production methods, all of it was just great. Def wish we had gotten more screentime with it, but happy with what did get :)
I would put down the bridge positioning on the Walker Class as a measure of practicality. If you look on the model where the shuttle bay is it is directly in line to take up the entire top deck area through the saucer section not counting the rear 'hump directly above the bay entrance. If this design, being smaller than a Constitution class, was meant to house a decent array of shuttle craft to make use of the docking facilities it would make sense to organize the design in this way so the decks below could be used for crew housing, engineering, etc.
I love the idea that there were still some in private hands being flown around the outer edges of Federation space. Occasionally a Starfleet ship sees one on sensors and operations goes ‘WTF is that?’.
It would be nice to see a series cover more of the pre TOS times, possibly focusing on the first few decades of the federation. There's a lot of time to cover in the post-enterprise years. :)
One of my favorite ship classes. One of only two ships I got myself a model for my desk :) I love the look of to, it creates a feeling of familiarity while also the urge to start venturing into space. Kinda looks like more "real" than any other Star Trek vessel to me- if that makes sense It is definitey Starfleet design while also not too much. I could picture this ship also being used in some newer part of the Prometheus film or so. Just love this class. Sad we didn't see more of it, like a dedicated series before discovery or so.
well yeah because its a ship thats design to be in line with more "modern" views since its a ship only a century or two down the line, its still a futuristic trek ship, but the tech still leans more towards modern design philosophies than the later ships do since later tech let them develop newer design philosophies. It also one of the few disco ships that FULL scream its a federation ship without just looking wierd.
The prologue to Discovery, ie the first third-ish of the first episode, definitely made me wish we’d had a season of “regular” Trek stuff, getting to know Georgiou etc better on typical missions before they _ended_ the season with the Battle at Binary Stars instead of starting. Especially because Burnham was comfortable and jokey with Georgiou, but it’s so brief that a lot of viewers seemed to forget that so they talk about her like she was Cold Vulcan the entire time (rather than regressing in a time of crisis to how she acted before arriving on the Shenzhou).
@@SuperGamefreak18 I am among the first in any room to point out the turmoil in the writers room in the first two seasons affected plans and execution. It was on the same level as TNG S1&2’s problems.
@@kaitlyn__L which is crazy to think about but just like TNG it was the first series at the time in over a decade, since there was 2 decades between tng and disco like there was about the same amount of time between disco and tng thinking now. The big difference being TNG overall turned out alright, DISCO no clue what the views on that show will be.
'Nyoom' killed me. I was a huge fan of the underslung bridge. Feel like it was more protected that way, rather than having it slap bang on top as was starfleet standard - big hulking sticky-out bit that says 'HEY, SHOOT HERE', same as the nacelles and pylons... But I digress, the profile does present the deflector as a primary target though which has problems in it's own right.
I like Poseidon class like think it gave birth to Walker Miranda Centre nebula Luna has all seem be cousins to NX constitution Excelsior Galaxy sovereign
A sexy upgrade from the NX series with some nice angles and more of a sleekness (not to mention all its upgrades...8 Phaser cannons!!? Nice). Also, got to love that big burgundy colored 'go faster' stripe down the middle. Like a Ford Mustang. Definitely the only really nice design from 'Discovery'.
I've always wished that this sort of coloration scheme would have become standard in Trek. From solids to patterns, I think they would be a fantastic addition to specific classes of vessels, and from a distance would even aid in identification.
Why would you have need of visually identifying a ship that is farther away from you than the circumference of Earth? Looking out the window isn't exactly something you do, it's all screens.
I loved the design ever since she flew out of that storm in the first Discovery episode. The sleek and angular engine look is much better than the rounder look that becomes standard for starfleet. I also wonder if the paint job is sort of like what the California class has. It's coloring describes what area of expertise it focuses on. It would make sense of some classes in starfleet have the same design but a different internal layout. And the updated sto version was an instant buy for me.
Really interesting iteration…I always liked the idea of exploration ships making use of good sensors and a large number of shuttles, almost like a temporary starbase parking in a system
I'd never heard that decommissioned Starfleet ships could end up in civilian hands, but the idea is intriguing. Honestly, I'd love to see a Trek side-series centered around a group of aged-out ex-Starfleet ships being used by civilians for various purposes -- give us a broader look at the non-Starfleet elements of the setting.
There’s a graphic novel called “Ashes of Eden” where a decommissioned constitution is gifted to a struggling planet as aid by starfleet. It ends up being fitted with Romulan disrupters etc... Awful story, bad art, but the it has an interesting central idea at least.
This does look very unique and cool though I do find it slightly awkward I think? The idea of adding the secondary hull to the NX-01 was absolute genius and really makes the design look 'right' this design in terms of design language is a bit of a step back from that, so for me I'd prefer if it 'slotted in' after the NX-01 but before the secondary hull refit as sort of a "B-tier" ship to fill out the growing fleet instead of much more expensive NX-01 designs or other top of the line contemporaries. To me it looks like it would fit right in with the early NX era but stops fitting in pretty quickly as soon as secondary hulls get involved which is a pretty narrow window of existence. Of course if they are ubiquitous by that point it does make sense why they are still around, I just find them visually a little awkward as we get closer to the Constitution and TOS era generally
I really like the Walker Class. Much more so than Discovery's titular ship. One of the many faults I found with season 1 was introducing a "fake out" hero ship that was much cooler looking than the actual hero ship of the series. The Walker to me looks like a more advanced Centaur type, and I always liked the Centaur type (another of Discovery's early flaws was that pretty much all the design elements, from the ships to the sets, looked like they'd come after Voyager, not before TOS).
Interesting it was “meant” to be the successor to the NX class, I definitely thought of the NX when I first saw it but had assumed 2 or 3 generations of improving that basic ship layout rather than just 1. Also the reflector dish with its two “antennae” reminds me a lot of NX-02 Columbia’s, just with a circular dish instead of a stretched one. (I headcanon each NX class as using a different deflector design to compare efficiency and efficacy, since we saw such different ones between NX-01 and NX-02.) I do like how big its shuttlebay entrance is, as well as the two wide flat decks between the pylons - get some use out of that negative space now they’re not docking shuttles via the belly of the ship! But I feel weird about the warp nacelle glow thing. Enterprise really opened a can of worms by having glowing nacelles that early, instead of entirely enclosed ones like TOS (since TMP was the first time glowing nacelles had appeared and that was meant to be more efficient somehow). Oh well, I guess the same can be said about phase cannons and so on. I also wonder if the NX-class transporter was also a “lateral” kind, given we saw many small sensor dishes surrounding the pad when the walls were removed. But then, even the TOS/TNG transporter room layout had some kind of stuff behind those walls, I’m sure those light panels weren’t only decorative.
When I watch this, do you know what occurs to me?... The continuity of Star Trek was absolutely shot to pieces, starting with the ship designs featured in 'Enterprise'. Completely shot.
There's a book series that came out in 2008 called the Destroyermen Series by Taylor Anderson. In the series the main hero ship name is USS Walker DD163. I've been with the series since it first came out all the way to the last book. Love the series and wish more was done with it. The author came out with a new series called ArtilleryMen and I believe it takes place like 100 years before the Destroyermen Series
While I don't like how flat it is, and then there's this other ship that's basically identical to the Walker except flipped 180 upside down.... I do like the Walker class.
I love Discovery, but god damn do I wish we could have gotten at least one full season of Michelle Yeoh's prime timeiline Georgiou as the captain of the Shenzhou. I probably would have watched a full 7 seasons of that tbh
I absolutely loved the Walker when I first saw her. Along with all the first Discovery era ships. Never like the original and later NG designs. (90's star wars baby). But I loved the Enterprise when it showed up in Discovery and everything that came after during SNW. The modern look of TOS era is really hitting my nerd heart 😊
Discovery was a totally different universe! the design aesthetics are totally different and while subtle variation SHOULD be made, 'whole sale' alterations just wreck continuity... that being said; for a Federation ship having the bridge module on the ventral side of the saucer actually seems to make more sense to me although ultimately its a space ship it doesnt matter.
While obviously I get that the 23rd century is just nostalgic in general, this really helped me put into frame the context of Discovery’s timeline placement in its first two seasons. Enterprise was the last show on the air, and designs like the Walker Class and the first two seasons’ uniforms show an intentional effort to follow on from that show while also crafting something new :)
I'm curious what sources you draw from for these videos. I've only seen Project Next Step in the Star Trek Adventures, Utopia Planitia Sourcebook, but is it mentioned elsewhere?
It's great looking ship. Some of the unorthodoxy to it's design makes it really stand out, in a good way ofc. I the Eaglemoss model of it and it's really big compared to other xl ships.
I like the suggestion that the Walker could have been primarily designed and built at another member civilization's shipyards, contributing to its unique details. For my money, the final design ends up looking rather Vulcan - it has the angular Vulcan aesthetic and a certain air of pragmatic thinking. As a pre-Constitution mainstay the Walker also looks as if it is stuffed full of a large suite of advanced technology and capabilities which, at that time, were not as efficient or miniaturized as they would later become. Therefore, parts of the ship are "oversized" for their function, like the big assembly for the navigation deflector. A ship meant to sustain high speeds for its generation requiring a powerful deflector.
My personal take is that the combination of separate saucer and engineering hull emerged as a neccessity to house all the upgraded systems, shield generators, weapons and larger warp core that was given to the NX during the Romulan war. . In later designs like the Walker attempts were made to reintegrate the larger engineering hull with the saucer but then designs deviated again in the 23th and 24th centuries.
I wish they hadn't felt so compelled to make newer trek ships so "busy". Lots of angles and flanges and bits that don't seem space-efficient or necessary. I get that this is what they probably would have been doing since TOS if tv production budgets had allowed, but there's something elegant about the simplicity of the smooth-hulled, cylindrical nacelled ships.
I don't know why this video made me think of it but I kind of want to see a Star Trek series showing the life of a civilian, with very little ties to starfleet. It would be different yes but could be interesting.
After examining the ship, I am thinking that if the windows & doors were rearranged & the gravity plating was moved to the ceiling, along with a few other small details, you could have a ship that is "upside down" & it would not matter at all. In fact, they could place all of the gravity plating on the walls on the starboard (right) side & have the ship fly sideways.
i like how its not quite the current era and not quite old school like the Nx. either way i like seeing all the Desgins that showed up before the constitution took the scene and ran with it
I like the layout of that class. The bridge on the bottom is a little odd but presumably it would give a better view of any planet. A bridge with that layout would need a screen above the windows showing a view on top of the saucer. The layout could accommodate a 3rd warp nacelle on the top. I'd like to see an updated version of it.
Is anyone else finding their foot bobbing to the drum beat in the subtle background music? I had to rewind a couple of times because I was distracting myself. 😁
That's a pretty amazing looking ship! It's too bad we never got to see it in the main timeline(?)... The only bad thing about looking back on these ships is that it makes the TOS Enterprise look like it should have been the earliest ship made. They got a lot right in TOS they just didn't take it far enough imo.
My head cannon for the walker is its a design by the tellerites based on human base. It explains differences between this and whats used in other designs.
Definitely my favorite saucer hulled Federation ship design. Sleek, compact, efficient looking and non-superfluous, second only to the Oslo as my all time favorite and with the Sovereign as a close third. I never liked the overly thin and exposed neck sections most Federation ships tend to have, with the Excelsior and Ambassador doing that design best in my opinion, but the no-neck designs are king.
Not bad, I just need something more agile. I really like the Magee class despite it being more for short range missions. It is small and very nimble, perfect for an escort vessel. What I REALLY like about the Walker Class is the underslung bridge, the view from the big chair would be magnificent to behold. I like it, but I'll keep looking for something more appropriate for my needs. Oh yeah, phase cannons are a must, as the closest thing to a wave-motion weapon around is the disruptor, and those things are just awful, really unreliable and they require a lot of power to be effective.....like lasers.
"Hey, I've got an idea -- what if the main deflector _didn't_ point directly ahead of the ship?" "...Then it couldn't do its job." "Oh...well, do it anyway." 🤪
There's a real craving for an _Enterprise_ sequel-the problem is that we were instead given 2-½ _TOS_ *prequels* (not to say _SNW_ is bad, and I personally Stan _DSC_ S01 and S04)
Gotta love how holographic technology was being used for communications during the prehistoric times of Starfleet, but they switched to plain 2d images on a viewscreen later on.
The TOS viewscreens weren’t 2D, they were 3D like a window (ie not popping out, but having interior depth). They showed it much more clearly in TNG but the intent even in TOS was every glowing blue-outlined screen (ie the viewscreen and the desk monitors) had this kind of imagery.
@@QuestionDeca No, he says Constitution in the first 30 seconds of the video. The Walker class was only supposed to bear a resemblance to the NX and Miranda. Even taking the argument that it was supposed to be between the NX and Miranda like you said - my point still holds true. It doesn't look the Walker class fills that space to me at all.
Agreed. I'm not even sure where it would fit- maybe an anti-Borg ship? It's weirdly chunky and ornamented, unlike either ST:ENT or ST:TOS ships. It's just designers breaking away from existing Trek and doing just enough to make it fit in with its role.
I think it works as a companion deployment with the Shepard Class which looks closer to the NX than Walker ( helps that the two ships are technically the same but flipped over)
U would think we would see a lot of these classes on Strange New Worlds given the fact they are contemporaries and budget-wise it would make sense to reuse them. That's my two cents.
The shinzo and the enterprise g look like they're from the same timeline. They both have a very angular design, With a long gated missiles that taper at the end.
While unmistakably a Federation design, even without looking at the official numbers, i've always found this one to be just way too big for the era it was supposed to be in. Now don't get me wrong, i like the overall layout and geometry, it's just something that seems like it belongs more in the pre-TNG, TNG, post-TNG era. At least size wise.
I love the DISCO Era ships. Fight me. They all seemed experimental as Starfleet was trying to find out what worked, what didn't. Some designs worked very well post ENT Era. Some designs did not. They all seemed tanky in-betweens of Polarized Hull Plating, and early Shield tech.
I love the USS Shenzhou. What a gorgeous ship. And I wish we'd gotten a chance to see more adventures of a ship that was neither a flagship nor a pure support ship like the Cerritos.
That is: I would rather have had a series about Prime Captain Georgiou's career pre-Discovery than Pike's tenure on the 1701, but frankly, I'm grateful enough _Trek_ got Yeoh to come back for a "long trek."
i prefer it to the Discovery design and used this instead as the spore drive ship.
a beat up older ship used as a secret testbed, that has a unique tactical advantage but outclasses by everything else so it has to fight smarter.
I've always liked the Walker Class. I mean most of the ships from Discovery I really didn't care for but for some reason the Walker class was unique and I liked it. I liked the idea of the bridge being on the bottom of the saucer.
After all it was Malcolm Reed who said this, "There's no rule that the bridge has to be on top of the ship". When him and Trip were stranded on the Romulan's remote piloted Marauder.
It’s my favourite of the Disco ships too. All the others just looked a bit awkward in one way or another, while the Walkers have nice proportions.
I like the McGee the same way i like the Oberth, not sexy, obviously not a fighter, but a plain jane working ship all fleets need. It also has some features that point to it's part in combining the designs of member worlds early on. @kaitlyn__L
@@DrewLSsix oh, the one that Trouble With Edward was set on. ngl I can’t get past that nacelle placement…
an underslung bridges always made the most sense to me it's much less of a target😊
@@warwolf88 I like the underslung two decks between the nacelle pylons too, it’s a great use of space
"lots of room" you said. i can easily see this being used for "back lines" supply from the various homeworlds to the ever increasing number of star bases. up date it's shields and guns and it could fly back up in fleet actions.
i wouldn't mind being captain of one
In STO, the walker served as my main ship for my lower level character until i got to Captain and then was "Allocated" the new USS Caelian, a Stealthy Multi-Mission Cruiser.
Since the walker had 4 fore weapon slots, i had a dual beam bank, a Phaser cannon and two Proton torpedo launchers, allowing me a massive damage dealing potential.
Good stuff.
Love these looks into ship designs! Especially the ones on the discovery era, as there is so little info out there on them. Are you planning on doing more ships from this era?
Great work as always! 😁
LOVE the Walker Class! The USS Shenzhou was such a cool ship. I loved everything about if from the overall shape, to the flatter nacelles, the "older" yet awesome looking deflector dish on the front of the primary hull, the smooth top hull and the ventral bridge location for its role in planetary survey... the blend of old school with the updated presentation from modern production methods, all of it was just great. Def wish we had gotten more screentime with it, but happy with what did get :)
I would put down the bridge positioning on the Walker Class as a measure of practicality. If you look on the model where the shuttle bay is it is directly in line to take up the entire top deck area through the saucer section not counting the rear 'hump directly above the bay entrance. If this design, being smaller than a Constitution class, was meant to house a decent array of shuttle craft to make use of the docking facilities it would make sense to organize the design in this way so the decks below could be used for crew housing, engineering, etc.
I love the idea that there were still some in private hands being flown around the outer edges of Federation space. Occasionally a Starfleet ship sees one on sensors and operations goes ‘WTF is that?’.
It would be nice to see a series cover more of the pre TOS times, possibly focusing on the first few decades of the federation. There's a lot of time to cover in the post-enterprise years. :)
That would be awesome. There's a good book series that covers that period called Rise of the Federation.
One of my favorite ship classes. One of only two ships I got myself a model for my desk :)
I love the look of to, it creates a feeling of familiarity while also the urge to start venturing into space. Kinda looks like more "real" than any other Star Trek vessel to me- if that makes sense
It is definitey Starfleet design while also not too much. I could picture this ship also being used in some newer part of the Prometheus film or so.
Just love this class. Sad we didn't see more of it, like a dedicated series before discovery or so.
well yeah because its a ship thats design to be in line with more "modern" views since its a ship only a century or two down the line, its still a futuristic trek ship, but the tech still leans more towards modern design philosophies than the later ships do since later tech let them develop newer design philosophies. It also one of the few disco ships that FULL scream its a federation ship without just looking wierd.
The prologue to Discovery, ie the first third-ish of the first episode, definitely made me wish we’d had a season of “regular” Trek stuff, getting to know Georgiou etc better on typical missions before they _ended_ the season with the Battle at Binary Stars instead of starting.
Especially because Burnham was comfortable and jokey with Georgiou, but it’s so brief that a lot of viewers seemed to forget that so they talk about her like she was Cold Vulcan the entire time (rather than regressing in a time of crisis to how she acted before arriving on the Shenzhou).
@@kaitlyn__L it’s called bad writing that’s why we couldn’t connect with her
@@SuperGamefreak18 I am among the first in any room to point out the turmoil in the writers room in the first two seasons affected plans and execution. It was on the same level as TNG S1&2’s problems.
@@kaitlyn__L which is crazy to think about but just like TNG it was the first series at the time in over a decade, since there was 2 decades between tng and disco like there was about the same amount of time between disco and tng thinking now. The big difference being TNG overall turned out alright, DISCO no clue what the views on that show will be.
The Walker Class is probably my favourite Starfleet ship. There's something about how it looks that appeals to me.
'Nyoom' killed me.
I was a huge fan of the underslung bridge. Feel like it was more protected that way, rather than having it slap bang on top as was starfleet standard - big hulking sticky-out bit that says 'HEY, SHOOT HERE', same as the nacelles and pylons... But I digress, the profile does present the deflector as a primary target though which has problems in it's own right.
It's not more protected. It's not rolling along the ground. There is no up or down in space.
Bless your soul for working to make the Kutrzmen and Discovery stuff fit into the lore and timelines. You at least do it in a way that is tolerable.
Like the design. Just wish we also had the Poseidon from Star Trek Legacy to bridge the gap.
I like Poseidon class like think it gave birth to Walker Miranda Centre nebula Luna has all seem be cousins to NX constitution Excelsior Galaxy sovereign
Walker has a very industrial feel to it, idk why but that reaaalllly pleases my monke brain
Very utilitarian.
Love it honestly. Those striking huge Nacelles are 🔥
Same, and that some went to civilians and could still be out there
Same....I think it's a really nice looking ship
Unga bunga
A sexy upgrade from the NX series with some nice angles and more of a sleekness (not to mention all its upgrades...8 Phaser cannons!!? Nice). Also, got to love that big burgundy colored 'go faster' stripe down the middle. Like a Ford Mustang. Definitely the only really nice design from 'Discovery'.
I've always wished that this sort of coloration scheme would have become standard in Trek. From solids to patterns, I think they would be a fantastic addition to specific classes of vessels, and from a distance would even aid in identification.
It sounds like you just want to paint flames and shark teeth on the nose of Trek -attack- escort vessels.
Why would you have need of visually identifying a ship that is farther away from you than the circumference of Earth? Looking out the window isn't exactly something you do, it's all screens.
@@dominic.h.3363 yes. But I’m also talking about from the point of view of someone watching the show rather than a logical in-universe explanation.
@@Voltaic_Fire yes. Yes I do.
There were a number of ships that had similar kinds of coloring schemes, before this.
ya'know, the miranda class rocked...
I loved the design ever since she flew out of that storm in the first Discovery episode. The sleek and angular engine look is much better than the rounder look that becomes standard for starfleet.
I also wonder if the paint job is sort of like what the California class has. It's coloring describes what area of expertise it focuses on. It would make sense of some classes in starfleet have the same design but a different internal layout.
And the updated sto version was an instant buy for me.
Nice video. The Walker class is my favorite design from the Discovery series.
Really interesting iteration…I always liked the idea of exploration ships making use of good sensors and a large number of shuttles, almost like a temporary starbase parking in a system
I'd never heard that decommissioned Starfleet ships could end up in civilian hands, but the idea is intriguing. Honestly, I'd love to see a Trek side-series centered around a group of aged-out ex-Starfleet ships being used by civilians for various purposes -- give us a broader look at the non-Starfleet elements of the setting.
There’s a graphic novel called “Ashes of Eden” where a decommissioned constitution is gifted to a struggling planet as aid by starfleet.
It ends up being fitted with Romulan disrupters etc...
Awful story, bad art, but the it has an interesting central idea at least.
This does look very unique and cool though I do find it slightly awkward I think? The idea of adding the secondary hull to the NX-01 was absolute genius and really makes the design look 'right' this design in terms of design language is a bit of a step back from that, so for me I'd prefer if it 'slotted in' after the NX-01 but before the secondary hull refit as sort of a "B-tier" ship to fill out the growing fleet instead of much more expensive NX-01 designs or other top of the line contemporaries. To me it looks like it would fit right in with the early NX era but stops fitting in pretty quickly as soon as secondary hulls get involved which is a pretty narrow window of existence. Of course if they are ubiquitous by that point it does make sense why they are still around, I just find them visually a little awkward as we get closer to the Constitution and TOS era generally
I really like the Walker Class. Much more so than Discovery's titular ship. One of the many faults I found with season 1 was introducing a "fake out" hero ship that was much cooler looking than the actual hero ship of the series.
The Walker to me looks like a more advanced Centaur type, and I always liked the Centaur type (another of Discovery's early flaws was that pretty much all the design elements, from the ships to the sets, looked like they'd come after Voyager, not before TOS).
Interesting it was “meant” to be the successor to the NX class, I definitely thought of the NX when I first saw it but had assumed 2 or 3 generations of improving that basic ship layout rather than just 1.
Also the reflector dish with its two “antennae” reminds me a lot of NX-02 Columbia’s, just with a circular dish instead of a stretched one. (I headcanon each NX class as using a different deflector design to compare efficiency and efficacy, since we saw such different ones between NX-01 and NX-02.)
I do like how big its shuttlebay entrance is, as well as the two wide flat decks between the pylons - get some use out of that negative space now they’re not docking shuttles via the belly of the ship!
But I feel weird about the warp nacelle glow thing. Enterprise really opened a can of worms by having glowing nacelles that early, instead of entirely enclosed ones like TOS (since TMP was the first time glowing nacelles had appeared and that was meant to be more efficient somehow). Oh well, I guess the same can be said about phase cannons and so on.
I also wonder if the NX-class transporter was also a “lateral” kind, given we saw many small sensor dishes surrounding the pad when the walls were removed. But then, even the TOS/TNG transporter room layout had some kind of stuff behind those walls, I’m sure those light panels weren’t only decorative.
Excellent work, love every one! Please do one on the Merian-class!
When I watch this, do you know what occurs to me?... The continuity of Star Trek was absolutely shot to pieces, starting with the ship designs featured in 'Enterprise'.
Completely shot.
For a ship that was so technologically behind the times, the design made it look far more modern.
I can't wait to see the future of ST ship designs.
To me it's the best SciFi universe to evolve as time goes by IRL.
5:23 right there with ya. If I had a ship that could land on a planet, i would definitely do it lol
It’s these videos that help me gain an appreciation for the discovery ship designs
Thanks Ric, I always loved this ship since it was introduced in Discovery.
They should've rounded the warp nacelles. It would've fit better into the design lineage.
amaizing another spectacular video sir congratulations!!!
The dorsal centerline structure really reminds me of the Normandy SR2 from Mass Effect a bit
There's a book series that came out in 2008 called the Destroyermen Series by Taylor Anderson. In the series the main hero ship name is USS Walker DD163. I've been with the series since it first came out all the way to the last book. Love the series and wish more was done with it. The author came out with a new series called ArtilleryMen and I believe it takes place like 100 years before the Destroyermen Series
While I don't like how flat it is, and then there's this other ship that's basically identical to the Walker except flipped 180 upside down....
I do like the Walker class.
I love Discovery, but god damn do I wish we could have gotten at least one full season of Michelle Yeoh's prime timeiline Georgiou as the captain of the Shenzhou. I probably would have watched a full 7 seasons of that tbh
I absolutely loved the Walker when I first saw her. Along with all the first Discovery era ships. Never like the original and later NG designs. (90's star wars baby). But I loved the Enterprise when it showed up in Discovery and everything that came after during SNW. The modern look of TOS era is really hitting my nerd heart 😊
I thought a “phaser array” was one of those 24th century style strip phasers?
Discovery was a totally different universe! the design aesthetics are totally different and while subtle variation SHOULD be made, 'whole sale' alterations just wreck continuity...
that being said; for a Federation ship having the bridge module on the ventral side of the saucer actually seems to make more sense to me although ultimately its a space ship it doesnt matter.
I wish we could have seen more of the Shen Zhou or another Walker Class. It's one of the ships I really like!
While obviously I get that the 23rd century is just nostalgic in general, this really helped me put into frame the context of Discovery’s timeline placement in its first two seasons. Enterprise was the last show on the air, and designs like the Walker Class and the first two seasons’ uniforms show an intentional effort to follow on from that show while also crafting something new :)
i kinda wish the nacelles looked less "24th century", but this ship has grown on me.
I'm curious what sources you draw from for these videos. I've only seen Project Next Step in the Star Trek Adventures, Utopia Planitia Sourcebook, but is it mentioned elsewhere?
It's great looking ship. Some of the unorthodoxy to it's design makes it really stand out, in a good way ofc. I the Eaglemoss model of it and it's really big compared to other xl ships.
Nice work as always.
I like the suggestion that the Walker could have been primarily designed and built at another member civilization's shipyards, contributing to its unique details. For my money, the final design ends up looking rather Vulcan - it has the angular Vulcan aesthetic and a certain air of pragmatic thinking.
As a pre-Constitution mainstay the Walker also looks as if it is stuffed full of a large suite of advanced technology and capabilities which, at that time, were not as efficient or miniaturized as they would later become. Therefore, parts of the ship are "oversized" for their function, like the big assembly for the navigation deflector. A ship meant to sustain high speeds for its generation requiring a powerful deflector.
This Might be my favorite starship Just got a unique feel to it
My personal take is that the combination of separate saucer and engineering hull emerged as a neccessity to house all the upgraded systems, shield generators, weapons and larger warp core that was given to the NX during the Romulan war. . In later designs like the Walker attempts were made to reintegrate the larger engineering hull with the saucer but then designs deviated again in the 23th and 24th centuries.
I wish they hadn't felt so compelled to make newer trek ships so "busy". Lots of angles and flanges and bits that don't seem space-efficient or necessary. I get that this is what they probably would have been doing since TOS if tv production budgets had allowed, but there's something elegant about the simplicity of the smooth-hulled, cylindrical nacelled ships.
Honestly I am a huge fan of the underslung bridge.
I don't know why this video made me think of it but I kind of want to see a Star Trek series showing the life of a civilian, with very little ties to starfleet. It would be different yes but could be interesting.
After examining the ship, I am thinking that if the windows & doors were rearranged & the gravity plating was moved to the ceiling, along with a few other small details, you could have a ship that is "upside down" & it would not matter at all. In fact, they could place all of the gravity plating on the walls on the starboard (right) side & have the ship fly sideways.
I actually like the Walker more than I like other hero ships. It feels scrappy and yet not an obvious war ship.
i like how its not quite the current era and not quite old school like the Nx. either way i like seeing all the Desgins that showed up before the constitution took the scene and ran with it
Yeah, my favourite design from the Disco era.
Would love to see a…erm, TOS version of it…if that makes sense!
I like the layout of that class. The bridge on the bottom is a little odd but presumably it would give a better view of any planet. A bridge with that layout would need a screen above the windows showing a view on top of the saucer. The layout could accommodate a 3rd warp nacelle on the top. I'd like to see an updated version of it.
Is anyone else finding their foot bobbing to the drum beat in the subtle background music? I had to rewind a couple of times because I was distracting myself. 😁
so you could say this was early Starfleet, united earth walk to the next level :P
I kinda feel like videos having to do with kurtzman-era shows should have a note indicating that they're alternate-universe content.
5:40ish... shapes of things to come... thought i missed that?...
That's a pretty amazing looking ship! It's too bad we never got to see it in the main timeline(?)... The only bad thing about looking back on these ships is that it makes the TOS Enterprise look like it should have been the earliest ship made. They got a lot right in TOS they just didn't take it far enough imo.
its a design that deserves a modern refit😊
I very much like this design.
My only question: how do I know when the walker classes are firing phase cannons and firing phasers banks?
My head cannon for the walker is its a design by the tellerites based on human base. It explains differences between this and whats used in other designs.
Disco really has some amazing ships, set and prop designs
Definitely my favorite saucer hulled Federation ship design. Sleek, compact, efficient looking and non-superfluous, second only to the Oslo as my all time favorite and with the Sovereign as a close third. I never liked the overly thin and exposed neck sections most Federation ships tend to have, with the Excelsior and Ambassador doing that design best in my opinion, but the no-neck designs are king.
So we have a Walker class and a Texas class. Is there a Ranger class?
In my head canon there is a Texas and Ranger class.
I’ll say one thing, it’s prettier then the crossfield.
Agreed. And I *like* the Crossfield (specifically once Ric pointed out that it's a hybrid of the 1701 concepts and the Klingon D-7).
Not bad, I just need something more agile. I really like the Magee class despite it being more for short range missions. It is small and very nimble, perfect for an escort vessel. What I REALLY like about the Walker Class is the underslung bridge, the view from the big chair would be magnificent to behold. I like it, but I'll keep looking for something more appropriate for my needs.
Oh yeah, phase cannons are a must, as the closest thing to a wave-motion weapon around is the disruptor, and those things are just awful, really unreliable and they require a lot of power to be effective.....like lasers.
I really, really wish that the shows' storytelling was as good as their ship designs can be.
I imagine in universe , it may have had an influence on the Centaur class
"Hey, I've got an idea -- what if the main deflector _didn't_ point directly ahead of the ship?"
"...Then it couldn't do its job."
"Oh...well, do it anyway."
🤪
Maybe a TV series with a Walker class Columbia.
i dont know why as much as i hate the show the walker is my favorite ship from the show and i love to have seen the show take place on this class
There's a real craving for an _Enterprise_ sequel-the problem is that we were instead given 2-½ _TOS_ *prequels*
(not to say _SNW_ is bad, and I personally Stan _DSC_ S01 and S04)
Gotta love how holographic technology was being used for communications during the prehistoric times of Starfleet, but they switched to plain 2d images on a viewscreen later on.
The TOS viewscreens weren’t 2D, they were 3D like a window (ie not popping out, but having interior depth). They showed it much more clearly in TNG but the intent even in TOS was every glowing blue-outlined screen (ie the viewscreen and the desk monitors) had this kind of imagery.
Hey Ric is there enough information available to be able to make video breakdowns on other cultures & organizations spacecraft?
I think The Walker Class Starship is a beautiful design. It's very sleek, but also looks very modern.
Holographic communication was first seen in Deep Space 9 😊
Don't know if it's just me, but I just don't see this ship being between the NX-01 and the Constitution. It doesn't fit in that space to me at all.
Because it’s between the NX and Miranda class, as stated at the start of the video.
@@QuestionDeca No, he says Constitution in the first 30 seconds of the video. The Walker class was only supposed to bear a resemblance to the NX and Miranda. Even taking the argument that it was supposed to be between the NX and Miranda like you said - my point still holds true. It doesn't look the Walker class fills that space to me at all.
Honestly, it looks like someone bolted a plate onto the NSV Normandy from Mass Effect
Agreed. I'm not even sure where it would fit- maybe an anti-Borg ship? It's weirdly chunky and ornamented, unlike either ST:ENT or ST:TOS ships.
It's just designers breaking away from existing Trek and doing just enough to make it fit in with its role.
I think it works as a companion deployment with the Shepard Class which looks closer to the NX than Walker ( helps that the two ships are technically the same but flipped over)
U would think we would see a lot of these classes on Strange New Worlds given the fact they are contemporaries and budget-wise it would make sense to reuse them. That's my two cents.
bunch of desert orphans start intoning "walkerrrrrrrr.... walkerrrrrrrr...."
The shinzo and the enterprise g look like they're from the same timeline. They both have a very angular design, With a long gated missiles that taper at the end.
The Walker Class was the only good thing that came from Discovery. Well, that and a launching pad for Strange new worlds.
It’s a beautiful 25th century design.
While unmistakably a Federation design, even without looking at the official numbers, i've always found this one to be just way too big for the era it was supposed to be in. Now don't get me wrong, i like the overall layout and geometry, it's just something that seems like it belongs more in the pre-TNG, TNG, post-TNG era. At least size wise.
Is there a diagram of what the warp bubble looked like? I'd like to see exactly what the problem looked like.
Anyone know what the music at the start is called?
I love the DISCO Era ships. Fight me. They all seemed experimental as Starfleet was trying to find out what worked, what didn't. Some designs worked very well post ENT Era. Some designs did not. They all seemed tanky in-betweens of Polarized Hull Plating, and early Shield tech.
Looks pretty hard to break apart back then.
Hmm..i wonder,are there any federation generational colony ships?
They really should of used this as the main ship in the show and ditched the weird looking pizza cutter and it’s so dated sounding tardigrade thingy.
It would look so much better if it were upside down
Would love to see a video on the Georgiou class and shenzou class the successors to the walker
If often thought a a dhip that can land , you could probably built her on a ground based shipyard and then finish her in an orbital shipyard
I really liked the it it. They nailed it
Anybody else get Mass Effect Normandy SR2 vibes?