Everything Wrong With The Inquiry Class
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 3 апр 2023
- Today i delve into the Disgraced (Elder) brother of the beloved avenger class... The Inquiry Class, introduced infamously in the finale of picard season 1. while i was initially willing to give this often maligned ship the benefit of the doubt. closer inspection revealed even more behind its ugly duckling facade. so lets delve into Everything Wrong With the Inquiry class.
Развлечения
Imagine sitting in your car, about to enjoy a lovely new ship chat about your 2nd favourite STO ship... And finding out you triggered the FUG out of Venom to the point that the loud pings are setting off my google assistant prompts on Bluetooth... To say nothing of the little shit in the blue bmw behind me so triggered by the pings that he tries to cut me off 5 times before flipping the bird.
At least the long day at work had a lively drive home. My thanks ❤️
Ps: Avenger-Chan be cute AF. Do her justice.
Im just waiting for the day I trigger Venom over my constant rambling and gushing over the Vo'Devwl to the point he makes a video specifically to bash it
Younger me: X starship class is so badass. Why didn't they mass produce it during the dominion war?
Older me seeing a whole fleet of the same ship: Ohhhhhhhhhhh.
Having like 200 ships of the same class is actually realistic given the amount of space the Federation needs to cover, just not having all of them there at the same time.
When I saw this ship first appear in Picard, I thought the Inquiry was some kind of Defiant/Nova hybrid design, being a fast rapid response patrol ship that could work as some kind of scouting vessel for Federation fleets, then be used in attack wings when in combat along side some Defiants. That being the reason why Starfleet was able to get a seemingly get an infinite number of them to this out of the way planet so quickly. Scaling it down to about the size of a Nova would probably being the best thing for it because like you said, it being the size of a Galaxy is waaaaay to oversized.
oh no you're correct it being a defiant/nova would make since for alot of those scaling issues
Yeah and would make the ridiculous numbers a little more forgivable
Totally agree, I thought they were derivative of a Nova Class and around the same size, or maybe closer to Voyager size at most. But then again **we've** actually watched Star Trek, not sure about the people who made that scene of Picard.
@@julius-stark the people behind most of nutrek barely did at best and only started when they realized the amount of people they were getting to watch the show was small, and how most of the people that would get paramount plus for anything but trek was likely less than half of that
My headcanon is that there were only three ships on the Starfleet side of that battle, because that's all that Riker could get on such short notice, and he decided to bluff the romulans by using their experimental hardlight emission systems to project a fleet that, while not necessarily "real", could still dish out damage the way we see in STO. That's why there's only three variations of the ship at the battle and everything else is a copypasta; because they LITERALLY are.
Hell, maybe those "windows" around the rim are the holoemitters.
The Inquiry is one giant metaphor for Kurtzman Trek.
It desperately apes the originals, but ends up as a dark and violent mess that falls short on every metric.
Well said! It showcases a blatant lack of both understanding of practical starship design and grasp of Starfleet aesthetics. Or care for any of that, for that matter. Clearly a rushed design intended for little more than a placeholder.
After losing so many ships at Utopia Planitia, Starfleet was in a big rush to fill the vacancy, with only a few weeks before the script draft change called for a full battle fleet to be ready. Commodore LaForge did pose a rather cryptic question of why the new designs were so huge, with such enormous material requirements, but none could truly understand or fully appreciate his intellect, and thus the question remained unanswered.
The skill of the STO team in designing good Trek ships cannot be overstated. Calling them the gold standard is funny... but absolutely correct. There are some serious misses, of course (the dyson-sphere-themed collection comes to mind), but half of those misses are misses made by the shows that are being faithfully reproduced ingame.
Personally the Avenger has been one of my favorite Star Trek ships since it released - those bulky nacelle pylons, that Odyssey-esque negative space (the fact they managed to make the negative space somehow not make the ship feel any less robust impresses me to this day), the little armor cover on the nacelles that deploys when entering combat, the robust deflector assembly, etc. She's an excellent blending of "adorable" and "can and will beat you to a pulp". Or, less anthropomorphically, an excellent blending of Starfleet's traditionally graceful saucer/hull/nacelle arrangement with its hyper-compact combat-focused designs like the Defiant. My only gripe is the prominence of the weapons pylons, as I'd have preferred them to be more recessed (the recesses are already there, too) to be more in line with the rest of the ship's fairly unique (IMO) styling, but I think that's a minor gripe. I don't know if there's any chance of a facelift of the Avenger akin to some other premium STO ships, but I hope there will be at some point because she's showing her polygons a bit and she deserves to be retouched with STO's modern brush.
I don't remember the lore of the release that well, but she always seemed like the kind of ship that was designed to combat the Borg by shrugging off cutting beams to the face and/or standing a nonzero chance upon last-ditch ramming into a Borg cube of making it all the way out the other side. A ship that's tough, little, and proud of both.
I think that the worst part of the about the Inquiry class is that you can tell that it was rushed for that season finale of Picard. Look at the concept art that it was based on, and it is clearly fleshed out, and the details look organic and manufactured. And she looks fantastic!
Then we have the "final" product, and there are just so many curves, angles and parts that don't look like they belong. You can tell that John Eaves was given no time to refine the design to a larger size!
yup John Eaves is a legendary designer when a ship he makes looks horrible on screen you know something went wrong behind the scenes
Yeah I didn't realise its size until I saw those smaller windows
I got the Eaglemoss Inquiry model (admittedly I kind of like the design) and in the info Magazine that comes along with it has an interview where Eaves mentions how he initially sent them some designs for a ship that never ended up being used in the actual show. About 3 weeks before it aired they asked him to send one of the designs again, the one that would eventually become the inquiry class. I think that p much confirms it lol.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 i actually heard about that story
I always figured it was a Voyager-esque sized ship.
Me too, I mean, look at the styling, it should intrepid size.
I got goosebumps when you did the cinema sins intro 😂
Even had the sin counter, brilliant.
My headcanon is that Riker was bluffing the entire thing and only had a few of this new experimental ship. Possibly it was a tactical holoship or had other holographic capabilities and not only projected duplicates of its self to seem like they had a massive fleet of the things but projected the ship much larger than it really is. Really its just a 250 metre starship with minimal weapons but a massively powerful experimental holographic array. Could be what that weird looking deflector dish is with the white things around the saucer being projectors.
Yeah that would be a great retcon
yeah that dose make sense we said something similar on my channel though comments
The Tactical use of holo-technology is a seriously untapped resource for star trek. Like, we know the holodeck can make literal guns that shoot bullets, but the idea of using holographic armor or even something akin to holographic weapons that can be repositioned or reprogrammed according to needs is extremely interesting to me.
I always imagined them to be roughly the same size as the Intrepid class
It is clearly intended to be a Voyager/Intrepid type and scaled to that size.
Ha! I actually get the parody you're going for here. And, yes, I am not crazy about the Inquiry class.
Ah yes, the Copy And Paste Class idiot ship. Nice going Picard
Basically the Inquiery class suffers from the same issue as the Xyston class from Episode 9 of Star Wars. Where they got the ISD-1 model from Rogue One and just scaled it up. But this left it with HUGE windows and it just looked weird. Same here, the Inquiry would be better off as a 200 meter like craft at most.
Man I almost forgot about that star destroyer...
Wow, I did not realize how hideous the Inquiry class's defector looks from the front view. As for the rest of the Inquiry class's design, I find myself mostly okay with it. The main problem as you said is the scale. For its era the ship is way too big in general let alone to be mass produced like a Miranda class. I'll be curious to see the eventually ship chat for the Avenger class (which in retrospect has become an increasingly fitting name given the design of the Inquiry class).
The deflector particularly is reminiscent of a Baleen whale.
I hope you won't be disappointed
Hoping that STO gets the Inquiry Refit, because the changes are a decent improvement.
It has now with the legendary Avenger in the legendary battlecruiser bundle. But the Avenger is still the better and prettier design for a battlecruiser.
@@axelhopfinger533 I'm so happy. Avenger is great but Inquiry Refit fixes everything that was wrong before.
@@entropy11 Well, the bundle isn't that cheap, but it gives you a hella skins and options. Plusquite a few very powerful and fun universal consoles.
Also the traits on the two ships are extremely powerful and account unlocks.
Not to mention the legendary Avenger itself being one hella powerful and tough ship. Basically a dreadnought with the firepower of a cruiser and the maneuverability of an escort.
Legendary Bortasqu is a good ship as well.
I'd recommend the investment.
This video was the first indication I ever had that the U.S.S. Naruto Clone-Jutsu was supposed to be the size of a Galaxy-class. Based on the "windows" around the saucer and the size of the impulse engines and the aft (only? I thought at the time) shuttlebay, I was originally pegging this as almost the size of Voyager.
Holographic decoys... you know what... that's a great retcon of that scene.
@@venomgeekmedia9886that actually somewhat helps it, then say that its the toughest ship because its fucking massive and can make sensor ghosts and do a massive picard manuver- *drones on making the class better than it is*
Here’s what I think is better about the inquiry design: Based on the image 3:37 into your post, the two middle ships have thin necks connecting the drive section or secondary hull to the saucer section or primary hull. That thin exposed neck is a design weakness. The top ship, a Sovereign class, has a thicker more sturdy neck to absorb more damage. The bottom ship appears to have further strengthened this area.
Yea, I’m a trek nerd, lol.
This video made my day, one of your best.
I love when you break down soecific ships in this way; very intriguing and informative
I love it
You just could not resist doing that intro, could you?
I couldn't either
I had no idea the ship was supposed to be that large. It is rather odd. I do love the Avenger Class in Star Trek Online.
Man, I do like the original Eaves design. It was a good looking 'recent' ship design and I had it pegged at Intrepid/Constitution size.
Then Picard and this.
Would love to see you go over the Hestia, since it just got revamped. I'll happily bring the USS Amirani around for a photoshoot.
When you started talking about shipyard and production, I was vocally saying "thank you!", because that was what I was thinking about for the latter half of this video
I think a reason it looks so clunky at least in the canon is that it was an emergency build after the Mars attack. This would be reasonable for mass produce a fleet that will make up for their losses. I also think that it wasn't that big somewhere between 300-400 meters like you suggested. This would make a more versatile fleet, small enough not to be a hindrance for production and big enough to hold it own.
Yeah if you ignore the shuttlebay 300m does work.
I've always enjoyed your videos, especially your recent collaborations with Drachinifel. This short video was a lot of fun with the format. I don't play STO so don't have the other info. My guess on the Inquiry would have been about the 400 meter mark, pure instinct, not paying attention to anything around it that would suggest scale. It's an okay ship design, not bad but not fantastic either. My issue was the lore around it, It feels way overpowered for it's backstory. I would have no issue with it being a very cost efficient design to explain it's high numbers... but they way it's spoken about makes it sound like the best ship Starfleet have every produced as well as being cheap to produce. It's lazy writing to explained their numbers. It's a great point about design language, you can quickly gauge the era or lineage of a vessel compared to the ones around it, when something new comes along it will be distinct. The best example is the appearance of the Excelsior, it made the Constitution look instantly dated.
Love your work you have a wonderful style of Narrative story telling keep up the great work Trek is lucky to have you ❤
I adore that you did a sin counter for this thing. Well done!
These are the voyages of the Starship Retcon. :)
(Also, really, if they can do a copy-paste fleet, why not a 'find and replace ' task force of those 'little' Avengers? )
Reminds me of the Vengeance.
The people who wrote Picard season one and two clearly did not understand Star Trek. The cut and paste fleet was just one example of this. Even the actors kind of forgot how to play their characters. At least they remembered what Star Trek is for Picard season 3 and did a pretty good job.
That is so funny i'm glad you had the same idea I did the ship doesn't make any sense. Looks like what's a random things thrown together
I have a soft spot for the design but the Avenger/ Arbiter class is better.
The ship has some cool design elements but the fact that they don't seem to mesh well makes it ugly overall.
Cracked me up! love it
You need to host a competition to design the worst Star Trek ship possible!
I was wondering if you could do a ship chat on the Sovereign class at some point? I know you are doing other videos, but I would like to know your take on the Sovereign.
This is a very nice video. Though you're incorrect in one respect: the concept art of the U.S.S. Archer you pointed out as the basis for the Inquiry was actually art done for Startrek Online, while it was in Perpetual Studios hands; before Cryptic Studios got to work on it. Ultimately, STO didn't really use it (until they added in the Inquiry from PIC S1).
PIC S1 had Eaves reuse concept art from several STO concepts from the Perpetual days. The Eaglemoss magazine on the Inquiry revealed that PIC S1 was going to show off a Starfleet ship at some point, but they weren't sure what. A tug? A tender? Logistics cargo hauler? Concept art was done, and they included a sizeable frontal shuttlebay to account for that. But late down production, they needed a warship. The Inquiry became that, in 2 paintjobs, 2 nacelle variants and... the copy paste fleet.
Also, in PIC S1, the tugs you see on display for the Romulan evacuation where mostly inspired from the hollow donut-saucer ship that was next to the USS Archer concept. Except, without the donut part of the saucer.
🤣🤣🤣 after listening for 15 minute of burtal ranting i nealry died laughing when i heard this 15:37
Could those big "windows" on the main hull / front section of the ship be shield projectors. And could the large deflector dish (perhaps part of it) possibly be the projector for the slip stream drive? What do you think?
The slipstream deflector does make some sense. That tech existed as early as the 22nd century.
Apparently the deflector is used as a weapon too - some kind of powerful beam
The large blue windows are actually emergency plot armor emitters.
Also they don’t even have markings, like the numbers or names, like yeah you can’t do it for a fleet of that size but that just adds to the problem of the CaP fleet
Avenger entered the game when Into Darkness was in theaters. It was a play on Vengeance. They couldn't put Vengeance in yet, so they gave us Avenger.
I was having such a nice day, then you had to go and put the Cinemasins format into this. God I hate that channel with a passion.
"I will take my pyramid, slap it onto an armed warp sled, and ply the stars at max speed."
“Adorable little attack dog” is a perfect description
The thing that confuses me the most of the Inquiry class is that the bottom of the primary hull is an ugly, senseless mass of greebles, and bits that feel like they'd be more at home on a ship from Star Wars. Even smaller Star Trek ships are supposed to have a certain flow to their design, to minimize inward inflections in the hull shape (this is also why I've never been totally happy with the Sovereign class - the cutaway at the aft end of the saucer is awkward, as are the stepped parts of the top and bottom of the saucer).
Id love to get your take on the others newer ships ie Sagan, Neo Constitution, Excelsior 2, Dunderstadt etc
Yeah some work. Some don't. And lore-wise some are just ridiculous...
I think scaling it to the Phaser stripes might be interesting though the windows may or may not remain an issue, one also has to keep a watch on the height of the shuttle bay doors too.
'If' it is huge though... maybe the phasers are parallel double emittor strips or they could be a loop that cycles in a circle around and around if hey are type 14 hot charge phasers that are often in constant pre-fire mode when at red alert status.
She's not the only ship of the era with missing stuff but that may not be such a big deal as one can make up reasons for that.
such as not having phaser strips at all if it instead can use the ship's shield grid to direct energy from anywhere to anywhere.
It never had phaser strips on screen. They got added (finished) for STO
Is it official they are this big? At the end of Picard S3, where most of the inquiry class ships seem to have disappeared from the fleet. The few you see are in the middle size of the fleet?
There is a difference? (As an Avenger-Class owner.)
Then, again, I am a Carrier Captain in STO. Even after a long break. I came back and ended up buying the Hiawatha-Class Command Carrier. It is ugly, big, and I love it.
When your tasked to make a ship that makes the CrossFeild class look beautiful in comparison....
that is what was so good about season 3 it had a lot well thought out ships deigns that mostly worked unlike the inquiry they didn't just cgi a fleet of the same ship.
The window-like objects around the edge of the saucer are sensors.
Trying to make sense of this design in an Inquiry in of itself
at about 1.5 2.0 mark, the secondary hull looks very much like a flipped over and reversed D7 power section
I personally headcanon’d it to about 190-200 ish meters in length, making it on a par with the Nova class. Basically, its a nova class but they slapped some guns on it
How would you change the design of the ship to make it look right?
So does the impulse exhaust just bombard the other engine struts?
I have to say, the Inquiry makes me think mass production, which fits with it's approximate origin.
Okay, love Venom and agree with most of his analyses, but dead wrong here. All real world cut and paste issues aside, the Inquiry Class is about the UFP and Starfleet saying “ Enough with Mr Niceguy”. They massed produced a heavy battlecruiser intended for combat, large enough to take on secondary missions with room for mission-adaptable volume where needed, but designed, built and deployed for combat. The Sovereign class had a similar philosophy but Inquiry takes it to another level. 640m is too big? Too bad… the longer nacelle variants are pushing if not over 700m. The thing can kick ass, and it’s AFT given what has transpired in-universe. The Inquiry class is all about the UFP drawing a line in the sand to hold ground while they sort out what to do next in the chaotic and dangerous universe, and again, it’s AFT.
I also think the scale is just off. It makes sense to place it a bit smaller than an Excelsior, a kind of a fast response ship with high sustainable warp speed, good impulse and firepower with utility for all kinds of emergencies, but sacrificing defenses and not as comfortable inside as a Galaxy and Ambassador.
To me at first glance, it really looks like it should be Intrepid sized based on its proportions and scaling.
All of the JJ ships seem to stand out like this, taking up so much space it's silly.
Well Venom can rant and rave all he wants, I'll agree with him it IS a rushed design, but I was fortunate enough to get one of these on one of my Federation characters, and I will say I LOVE the Inquiry Class; it's very maneuverable, it's tougher than it looks, and when you combine all the consoles together with it's V.A.D.A. console, it is a formidable beast! Like I've said before, quoting my fleet boss, "If you're able to build your ship right, it can and will be both formidable and durable, no matter what." And he's right. Oh, by the way Venom, if you had bothered to look closer on the designs, you'd see the Photon Torpedo Launchers below the forward shuttle bay. Hey, whatever floats your boat Venom. I have one, and I love it; hasn't let me down yet.
If they have used STO's Avenger Class at the end of Picard for that assembled fleet would Riker have broadcast a fleet wide message saying Avengers Assemble?
Bad joke I'll show myself out.
Avenger saucer + Arbiter hull + fleet pylons + Inquiry nacelles= best looking ship in game
I always thought it was about Voyager size, so roughly 330 meters.
The producers saying it's over 600 is ridiculous.
So, about 6:04 we see the original model and what appears to be escape pod textures slapped on (including one that's split by a hull line...). Are those supposed to be Sovereign style pods, and what's the scale for the ship in that case? Also, what is up with that gaping toothy grin deflector dish?
I headcanoned that the reason we have torpedoboat Akira instead of carrier Akira is because the "flight deck" and front opening were shorter than normal and that caused a lot of issues with people piloting shuttles in/out of the original ship, and Starfleet gave up on the concept shortly before Wolf 359. (I also like to think that the runabout program spawned off a last ditch effort to figure out a carrier Akira.) As a result, it ended up reimagined into an anti-borg torpedoboat to be used in combination with Defiants.
Oh, and I'm surprised you didn't tally a sin for each Inquiry in that pan shot near the start. ;D
That deflector is DIS-GUS-TING
There’s a diagram of this ship scaled for STO at 383.54 m and at the “Eaglemoss” scale of 640 m. Looks more appropriate being the smaller length.
the inconsistencies you point out are the result of an editing error, the inquiry is roughly the same size as the intrepid class but it has a lot more fire power and much more heavily armed
Could the inquiry classes big window lookn areas be for slip stream or something like that as u said sensors , if they light ,n up the hull some it would looks a lot better say more in line with the movie variants of the Enterprise D an E say a white or bluish tent
Everytime I here an official scaling on a Star Trek (an often other IPs) seen on screen, I'm like... really?
They're almost always over sized. And small need love too.
Yeah the titan A is guilty of that.
I always figured the Inquiry class was a design laying around in case of an emergency, and after the Amars disaster was thrown into emergency production, like the Clemson class in WW1 and Fletchers and DEs in WW2. A lot of the curves and gracefulness would be tossed aside to get ships cranked out, hence the brutish design. As for the size, another example of showrunners and visual designers screening up.
Not even halfway through and I think the little counter is gonna break
4:12 maybe they’re airlocks? Or small shuttle bays?
@Venom Geek Media, bigger impulse engines do not mean faster unless you mean greater acceleration. Max impulse speeds are the same across all eras, only the time to get up to speed changes.
It sounded to me as if you were sizing up the disappointing body of a potential lover, not a starship design.
I love the design of the Inquiry.
You seen the refit for s2, the refined the parts people didn't like and it looks better than the original, I recommend you check it out
I and many others think of the Inquiry as sort of a “Jack of all Trades but Master of None” Type Vessel.
Yeah, Not Perfect, but it works, originally following the Mars Attack by Romulan Hacked Synths (Which is another book yet to open on the Zhat Vash,) Starfleet lost 2/3rds of the Fleet, including ALL Active members of Older Ship Classes, Such as the New Orleans, Niagara, Excelsior, and Even Ambassador Classes, and with the remaining fleet Starfleet couldn’t defend itself adequately anymore. With only a Small number of Older Models left and moderate but Expensive to Build Newer models including 2 Odyssey-Class Starships in service, with a 3rd, The Enterprise-F, 90-95% Complete at San Francisco Fleetyards, not being widely available? Starfleet needed a Class of Ship to Temporarily fill in numbers, they Got the Inquiry and based its construction on the Liberty and Victory Classes of Cargo Ship from Earth’s Second World War.
It was never meant to be Specialized, Be Fast, Last-Long, or even Look Pretty, She’s Meant to Just Plain Work.
So Yeah, the Inquiry Might’ve had the most up-to-date-weapons, but down under she’s just as advanced as the Ross, Excalibur, or Sovereign, and Riker only called them the most advanced to intimidate General Nedar.
Yet, the Design, even though it was meant to be a Short-Term Solution to the Numbers Problem, Was Actually unusually Popular With Civilians and Starfleet crews, and out of that, they Designed a Longer-Lasting and more durable version, which eventually became The Avenger-Class.
Venom I think it Is a good idea doing the strengths and weaknesses of various classes of vessels
The Inquiry class is a whole lot of messed up good stuff. You want to love it but it's just a lot of stuff that doesn't really mesh well. It reminds me of our US Navy's LCS ships. They had a lot planned for it. Ordered 30+ built 4-5 of them and said welp we messed up let's retire most of them.
What the littoral combat ship?
@@venomgeekmedia9886 a ship that doesn't quite fit what it's supposed to be. From what you can gather from the Navy sources and people who cover that stuff it was supposed to be a fleet support ship a jack of all trades but it doesn't do any of that stuff really well. What was supposed to be a naval blue water ship turns out to be really nothing but a coast guard patrol vessel. An overly expensive one at that.
@@marcushall6821 so a glorified pimped out high endurance cutter?
@@merafirewing6591 that is one way to put it 😂
Bridge module looks like it was stolen off the Protector from Galaxy Quest.
You got to remember... Yes it was based off of a old STO class, but in the end its a CGI design made in one or two days for Star Trek Picard so quality isn't going to be very good. If you need access to one in game let me know, I have one. Oh, and in game the scale is pulled back and is a lot smaller then say a Galaxy-class.
What the hell is that? That was my first reaction to seeing it. At least I guess it lives up to its namesake then because I still don’t know.
Avenger looks like a tank, Inquiry looks like a mistake.
Two things: First, This thing is the flagship of the POS era fleet.
Second, I would have forgiven everything else about Picard if 800 Galaxy class had shown up in the finale. That would have somehow felt less lazy.
On 'Dim Windows": Well, thanks to the lighting we see on the new Titan on Picard S3, maybe we have an explanation for that ^_^
The Avenger is strange at first but has been growing on me
This was one of my least favorite designs, and that was when I thought it was smaller than an Intrepid.
well you might have hit on something, could be be a carrier, of some kind, I mean really it would explains a lot
The Avenger from STO actually LOOKS like a StarFleet ship while the Inquiry looks like a copy paste from folks (secret hideout production) who do not know or like Trek
What does Star Trek have against the Emissary class Star Cruiser?
Feels like they introduced so many controversies with this ship. And then to get rid of it, "there is a major flaw". Whats the flaw? But to the point of scale, it should be the size of beefy USS voyager.
24 the deflector dish, well it’s not like a Galaxy class, Sovereign or Intrepid classes starships, it’s just weird
The ctrl+C, ctrl+V fleet.
As I understand the lore, the Inquiry class was rushed into production shortly after the Synth attack on Mars. Starfleet needed ships FAST, so the design was the simplest, most basic one that met the performance requiremements. I see them as 24th/25th century Liberty ships. Shipyards cranked them out as fast as possible and didn't bother with the
"technology unchained" aesthetics of the rest of the fleet. I'd be willing to bet that, like the Liberty ships, they would have a very short service life, say 20 years or so at most (compared to the century+ other classes are capable of).