2016/50th Anniversary Ships of the Line calendar
From
Jack Bohn@21:1/5 to
All on Wed Oct 14 06:23:23 2015
Had to check, thought there might be some joke to be made with "fifty/fifteen," but the calendars began in 2001, which'll make it easy to remember what number they're on. Next year will be 51/17, meaning the calendars will have been around an amazing
one-third the life of the Universe! (Personally, this appears to be the dozenth month-by-month review I've done.)
The 40th anniversary calendar was a celebration of TOS, this seems to cover the breadth of the Universe.
cover: Gary O'Brien does the Enterprise-D. This image is repeated in March with the ship a bit reduced in size and the additional horizontal space showing a planet.
January: Brian McMahon shows the TOS Enterprise and the Enterprise-C against a backdrop of either a heavily-filtered sun or especially chaotically swirled clouds of a gas giant. The bussard caps have reflective highlights I don't remember seeing before.
Interesting look, but I'm not sure I like thinking of the front of the nacelle as made of glass.
February: David Gian-Cursio has the refit Enterprise out of drydock. In drydock is the Endeavour, NCC-1895. It is, as far as I can tell, the TOS production model, fan-named Bonhomme Richard, not any interim upgrades. What I took to be "Wrath of Khan"-
type scorching on the side is actually shadows cast by the drydock; the connecting rods between the square segments. Which brings up the...
centerfold: Michael Yager has the TOS Enterprise in drydock - an earlier model of drydock; the lights are of a different shape, and the square segments are connected closer together, such that they cast a cool shadow shape on the starboard hull,
coincidentally centered on the pennant.
April: Mark Kingsnorth introduces a new design, the Veracruz, NCC-75400. It appears to be based on one of the "Nova" future starship proposals at the back of the ST:TNG Tech Manual, the one with the saucer divided into twelve wedges, the eight forward
ones being swappable modules. It eschews the extended nacelle struts which the engines slide along for variable warp geometry, but does keep their forward sweep (something I thought was only introduced in trying to design the Enterprise-E). Kingsnorth
includes a small five-view drawing in the corner.
May: Colin Morella does the Enterprise-E being approached by an Argo shuttle. We're approaching from below, and the ship is lit from above, so it's mostly in shadow, which is a bit of a shame. The outline of the ship from this angle makes it look
quite different.
June: Richard Smith shows Enterprise NX-01 keeping pace with a comet. The hint of speedlines from Enterprise I'm going to imagine are shadows cast through a dust field surrounding the comet.
July: Robert Heckadon brings us the Columbia NCC-621. It is a single-nacelle scout with the engine below the saucer and a pod holding eight small copper sensor dishes above the saucer. The saucer is simpler than the Constitution-class; the upper
section seems to be a simple dome rather than recurved, and the bridge sits directly on it rather than a B/C deck island. Various pieces of equipment are scattered about the flat portion of the top of the saucer deck, including what may be a shuttle
elevator in the aft starboard quarter. The main deflector dish is an oval one set in a cutout at the front of the saucer (backed by blue light). Not sure if they are trying to make the 621 an older ship and evoke the NX-01, or if it is because the
support for the nacelle is shorter than Franz Joseph's model and a dish-on-a-stick would totally obscure the bussard collector. The bussard shows more machinery than we usually see behind its clear dome.
Also of interest is a station in the background. Jupiter Station is supposed to be made of Ambassador saucers, this station is made of about 14 Constitution-class secondary hulls. No! not all Constitution-class hulls, he clearly shows they are
different sizes! I don't know how to explain why the Federation would have a policy of stockpiling starship parts or of cancelling projects deep into completion. Some of the shuttlebays are converted; the clamshell doors replaced by a sloping wall with
two rows of large windows. The hulls are aligned along three axes, not connected end-to-end like Mir or ISS, but the front ends of some hulls meet connectors attached to the side of other hulls (these connectors look like the rings from the front of a
hull). Some of the hulls show what may be "bumpers" with ports for side-by-side docking. I wonder about the one hull that runs "up and down" compared to the others, do occupants rotate to match its internal gravity when crossing over, or have all its
decks been rearranged to match the orientation of the rest of the hulls?
August: Robert Thompson shows the Vor'cha in the foreground with the Enterprise-D in a supporting role in the background. I think this may be the first time the Vor'cha has gotten a close-up in the calendar.
September: Thomas Raube does a Romulan fleet. Warbirds are seen from above, below, and behind. A Valdore is seen from below and behind, a good angle for it. In the distance more Warbirds are coming and going across the planet.
October: "Charting the Cygnus Loop" by Shawn Weixelman. I haven't mentioned the titles of the other months, as they've mostly been the names of the ships (except for last month's, which was "A New Home for the Rihannsu"). That would have been useful
here as it is a new design. I can make out an NCC-17011, but no name. ...I was about to joke about 1701-i, so I looked at the number under magnification; small and blue-on-blue, it may actually be 1701-F. That would make more sense; there aren't a lot
of *near* neighbors to 17011 in the known NCC lists, but that would put it in the midst of a bunch of Excelsiors, while this ship is more of a post-First Contact aesthetic, with the saucer longer than it is wide and its decks stepping down in a series of
terraces. The connector between the primary and secondary hulls extends way behind the saucer and the nacelles connect to it, which adds an interesting look, and raises the possibility of different separation modes.
November: Chris Ford shows a Romulan Warbird from the front, firing.
December: David Combe has the Defiant chasing -or just approaching- a Borg cube. There are several nebulae in the background, and either the cube is passing in front of another nebula, or it is venting gas/plasma/debris. The cube isnt tilted at such an
angle as to suggest it has been in distress a long time.
TOS 3
TMP 1
TNG 5 (not counting the reuse of the cover)
DS9 1
TGF 2
ENT 1
One might wish a shot of Voyager had shown up, but nothing's perfect.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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