Star Trek: How much can be understood by hull shape?

[Lucky]

How much can you tell about a ship in Star Trek by its outward appearance?

TNG: Q-Who
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x16/qwho_hd_261.jpg
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x16/qwho_hd_262.jpg

Voyager: Relativity
http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... ty_000.jpg

It looks like the hull plates on a Galaxy class are different from run to run?

It would seem that internal designs may change while outwardly the ships might not?

[Picard]

Galaxies from Relativity are AFAIK from the Dominion War, so it might be that they got up-armored.

[Jasonb]

Galaxies from Relativity are AFAIK from the Dominion War, so it might be that they got up-armored.

That likely theory since in practice we saw part Galaxy class starship in groups on Mars. Likely put in service they stored test to make sure do well in space.

[theta_pinch]

Galaxies from Relativity are AFAIK from the Dominion War, so it might be that they got up-armored.

That likely theory since in practice we saw part Galaxy class starship in groups on Mars. Likely put in service they stored test to make sure do well in space.

What are you trying to show in that picture?

[Jasonb]

Galaxies from Relativity are AFAIK from the Dominion War, so it might be that they got up-armored.

That likely theory since in practice we saw part Galaxy class starship in groups on Mars. Likely put in service they stored test to make sure do well in space.

What are you trying to show in that picture?

Galaxy class starship build on the planet surface I am try show picture here.

[theta_pinch]

That likely theory since in practice we saw part Galaxy class starship in groups on Mars. Likely put in service they stored test to make sure do well in space.

What are you trying to show in that picture?

Galaxy class starship build on the planet surface I am try show picture here.

It's extremely doubtful they'd build it on a planet since without the structural integrity field it would collapse from its own weight, and it wouldn't survive the actual trip into space. Plus all other known ships are built in space.

[359]

It's extremely doubtful they'd build it on a planet since without the structural integrity field it would collapse from its own weight, and it wouldn't survive the actual trip into space. Plus all other known ships are built in space.

Why would it collapse under its own weight? Sure that's mentioned in the TM, but that's not canon. And in Generations the unpowered saucer seemed to do just fine, as did Voyager's hull in VOY: "Timeless."

[theta_pinch]

It's extremely doubtful they'd build it on a planet since without the structural integrity field it would collapse from its own weight, and it wouldn't survive the actual trip into space. Plus all other known ships are built in space.

Why would it collapse under its own weight? Sure that's mentioned in the TM, but that's not canon. And in Generations the unpowered saucer seemed to do just fine, as did Voyager's hull in VOY: "Timeless."

The problem is the connected form. You have more than a million tons trying to fall away from the relatively small neck. Duranium/tritanium would have to be incredibly absurdly strong to withstand that kind of force. In Voyagers case it was made to land on planets, was much smaller, and didn't have the connective neck, while the saucer in generations was essentially one piece.

Edit: Actually it's mentioned in a behind the scenes note in the TM that explained why the writers added the structural integrity field, so it can probably be taken as fact.

[Mike DiCenso]

Given that we see in the alternate timeline of the Abramsverse Trek the Alt-E was built on the ground in Iowa, and the saucer section, which is about the same size as the E-D's, was shown being easily supported despite full Earth gravity, and there's no reason why the much thicker necked E-D couldn't support the weight of it's saucer, especially in the 1/3rd Earth gravity of Mars.

On top of that, we've seen the Prime Timeline Constitution-class Enterprise hold up under full 1-G while flying very low through the Earth's atmosphere in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" [TOS, Season 1], and the supporting dorsal neck is much thinner than either the Alt-E or the E-D's.
-Mike

[theta_pinch]

Given that we see in the alternate timeline of the Abramsverse Trek the Alt-E was built on the ground in Iowa, and the saucer section, which is about the same size as the E-D's, was shown being easily supported despite full Earth gravity, and there's no reason why the much thicker necked E-D couldn't support the weight of it's saucer, especially in the 1/3rd Earth gravity of Mars.

On top of that, we've seen the Prime Timeline Constitution-class Enterprise hold up under full 1-G while flying very low through the Earth's atmosphere in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" [TOS, Season 1], and the supporting dorsal neck is much thinner than either the Alt-E or the E-D's.
-Mike

But the saucer also wasn't connected to the secondary hull by hooks.

See that little S shape in the middle of the neck? 12 of those things are all that's holding the saucer on. So the connection is actually weaker and smaller than in the two examples you gave.

[Mike DiCenso]

I don't see anything much at all in that image because it is too small and low res. But there is this:





Those are the latches in question and they are quite thickly built. Another set of angle views of the latch docking slots:







Those are easily 20 meters long, and 5 wide. So no, those are not tiny little latches, but rather robustly built chunks of metal.
-Mike

[theta_pinch]

I don't see anything much at all in that image because it is too small and low res. But there is this:





Those are the latches in question and they are quite thickly built. Another set of angle views of the latch docking slots:







Those are easily 20 meters long, and 5 wide. So no, those are not tiny little latches, but rather robustly built chunks of metal.
-Mike

Hmm, they looked much smaller compared to the rest of the ship on the master systems display. Apparently I was wrong.

[Lucky]

Hmm, they looked much smaller compared to the rest of the ship on the master systems display. Apparently I was wrong.

The M.D.S. are not to scale.

[Mike DiCenso]

More accurately, the MSDs are two dimensional cross-sections, and don't show the full size of some of the systems, or does not show them at all. On top of that, I'm not sure that the MSD Theta posted is a canon graphic used in the TNG series and movie.
-Mike

[Lucky]

More accurately, the MSDs are two dimensional cross-sections, and don't show the full size of some of the systems, or does not show them at all. On top of that, I'm not sure that the MSD Theta posted is a canon graphic used in the TNG series and movie.
-Mike

The floors are depicted as solid and very thin, but there is often stuff between them. If the MSD was to scale they should be thicker, but that information is irrelavent for what the MSD is suppose to show.