Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

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Mike DiCenso
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Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:37 pm

Without a doubt the most impressive Federation space station seen to date in either timeline. Some facts about it as gleened from various sources:

- Yorktown is out on the frontier of explored space. Its main purpose is diplomatic; those considering membership of the Federation are invited to send people to live and work there so that they can meet and interact with a wide cross-section of Federation species. It's a way for them to learn what the Federation is all about and become more cosmopolitan, build relationships, etc.

- Yorktown was constructed in lieu of a planetside settlement so as not to show favoritism to any particular recently-admitted worlds.

- Behind the scenes, Sean Hargreaves, the designer of the station, stated that the "space lane" the Alt-prise moves through to the core is 17.5 miles (26 km) long, which not including the core, would bring the station to 56 km wide total! Compare to Starbase 74 at 14-18 km on its long axis and 8-9 km wide.

- The station is comprised of a gigantic transparent sphere with hexagonal lattice framework, at least 56 km wide, with many weapons emplacements mounted over the exterior. There are at least six, possibly eight of the 26 km long radial "space lane" armatures the one the Alt-prise flies inside through and then a series of inner rings connected by a number of much thicker armatures that where there are vast communities and workplaces set up to appear as cities along the outside surfaces and maintained via artificial gravity. Finally there is a core that serves as command and control as well as docking port and shipyard.

- Yorktown is home to millions of inhabitants.

- The station's defenses include pulse phasers and photon torpedoes set in emplacements spaced at intervals corresponding to the hexagon frames (literally potentially thousands of them!) over the surface of the outer sphere structure as well as positioned, free-flying defense satellites, the first time such defenses have been seen for a Federation space station and the second in Trek after the Cardassian/Dominion Orbital Defense Platforms.

So, any thoughts or ideas on why the Kelvin Timeline Federation would build something like this. Do you think that there is a Prime Timeline equivalent?
-Mike

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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Aug 11, 2016 2:33 pm

So, any thoughts or ideas on why the Kelvin Timeline Federation would build something like this. Do you think that there is a Prime Timeline equivalent?
Narada.

A size comparison between both would be interesting too. The Naranda would be dwarfed but it would still represent a big enough threat to the station, whereas the altPrise is nothing but an insect.

Now, for a station meant to serve as a presentation for Federation newcomers, it may be dotted with defenses, but I hope for them that only pure UFP certified ships are authorized to enter it and go to the core of the starbase.
A planned overload would be terrible news for the whole structure and its inhabitants.

I suppose it's also a hell of a beast to kick down in VS topics now?

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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by 2046 » Tue Sep 13, 2016 1:28 am

Why in the world would you build a giant heavily-armed station for that? Ugh. Pretty sure they could accomplish that task on the ground somewhere.

We build tall buildings because we need a lot of room in a tiny footprint. The only way such a space megastructure makes sense is if it is amidst some prime real estate, a la Earth's orbital habitats, or as a defensive position.

I doubt the real Trek universe has anything similar. Witness Cestus III and DS9 and all the other small frontier locations, not to mention the Starbase Shipname problem.

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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Sep 13, 2016 8:38 pm

The meta-verse reason for that is quite simple, Robert; the budget difference between them is quite huge and TOS Trek did show gigantic space stations once the budgets allowed for it: Space Dock. But everything in the Kelvin Timeline in universe suggests that the move to build mega starships and structures is all because of the Narada and Kelvin incident, and so it is not unreasonable for the Federation in the aftermath of that and the loss of Vulcan to have something that not only represents the ideals of the Federation, but also sends a message of strength.
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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by 2046 » Thu Sep 15, 2016 2:38 pm

1. Real budgets do not explain starbase size differences. Witness the ship from "The Corbomite Maneuver" versus K-7. They could make a big'un if they wanted to.

2. The Narada does not adequately explain things. I realize they use that excuse, but that is just tossing words at the logical problem.

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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Sep 15, 2016 7:24 pm

1. Real budgets do not explain starbase size differences. Witness the ship from "The Corbomite Maneuver" versus K-7. They could make a big'un if they wanted to.
Um, no. Not even close to the same level of detail. Balock's ship is a ball with a bunch of ping-pong balls strapped to it and why do you think we never saw more ships and stations than what we did? Money. It was easy to make Balock's ship comparatively and it came off a bit cheesy but still alien. K-7 was just an outpost on the border and working to make it detailed enough to be then scaled up with FX to be the size of the Fesarius, and then still have it be on the same level as the 11 foot Enterprise model. That's money.

2. The Narada does not adequately explain things. I realize they use that excuse, but that is just tossing words at the logical problem.
Scary, super-huge ship from the future with very advanced weapons and all that then later destroyed Vulcan, plus a defending fleet of ships and nearly Earth. Hmmmm.... I wonder.
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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by 2046 » Fri Sep 16, 2016 12:10 pm

Ironic coming from me, but you are over thinking the huge station FX problem. It cost time and money to detail K-7. Had they skipped the windows and just shown it as huge past the Enterprise a la the Fesarius shot, it would have been a huge station.

As for the Narada, how many times did we see Starfleet completely realign itself based on a one-off threat that was demonstrably beatable, if even by suicide ramming? Enterprise had several examples. It isn't like they knew it was a future ship that would destroy Vulcan when they met in 2233, so that being used as an excuse for the Monsterprise and such falls flat. Even if we allow for the Kelvin being huge in an unmodified timeline, the idea that the less militaristic alternate timeline would feature massive battlecruisers and similarly massive battlestations (even under diplomatic guise) compared to the naval soldiers-not-diplomats of TOS in 'cool war' with the Klingons just doesn't follow.

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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:12 pm

2046 wrote:Why in the world would you build a giant heavily-armed station for that? Ugh. Pretty sure they could accomplish that task on the ground somewhere.

We build tall buildings because we need a lot of room in a tiny footprint. The only way such a space megastructure makes sense is if it is amidst some prime real estate, a la Earth's orbital habitats, or as a defensive position.

I doubt the real Trek universe has anything similar. Witness Cestus III and DS9 and all the other small frontier locations, not to mention the Starbase Shipname problem.
Altrek is all about big dicks, we all know that.
Same nonsense that got spilled into the already heavily slanted Star Wars franchise. I mean, that Starkiller planetoid...

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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:23 pm

2046 wrote:As for the Narada, how many times did we see Starfleet completely realign itself based on a one-off threat that was demonstrably beatable, if even by suicide ramming? Enterprise had several examples. It isn't like they knew it was a future ship that would destroy Vulcan when they met in 2233, so that being used as an excuse for the Monsterprise and such falls flat.
All depends on if oldSpock revealed stuff and violated the time-sshh policy. Although I don't see what it changes.
Logic would dictate that they'd actually start building relatively mobile but even heavily defended, armoured and armed long-range space guns, not adventure ships and glass-stations on steroids.

For one, that Yorktown Starbase looks like a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge waste of space and there's not even a blahblah-dangerousnacelles-blahblah excuse going for it.
Even if we allow for the Kelvin being huge in an unmodified timeline, the idea that the less militaristic alternate timeline would feature massive battlecruisers and similarly massive battlestations (even under diplomatic guise) compared to the naval soldiers-not-diplomats of TOS in 'cool war' with the Klingons just doesn't follow.
It is even a stretch from a chronological and industrial perspective. Facing the Bord and the Dominion does not seem to have pushed the Federation into building far bigger ships and stations with resources suddenly coalescing into existence.

Considerd the Altprise compared to the E-D for example. How many E-Ds could have been built with the materials from SBYT?
And that's early TOS era btw!
They'd have to cannibalize many other starbases projects, which would seem totally idiotic.
Or did they scrap the entire Memory Alpha base? Screw the academics, let's have 'em guns?
It would be a good thing if at some point they'd address the gigantism and reveal that for some reason, this obsession with concentrating resources into fewer structures, at fewer places, hasn't really helped the Federation grow in territorial size!

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Re: Kelvin Timeline Tech: Starbase Yorktown

Post by Jasonbelkin » Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:26 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
2046 wrote:As for the Narada, how many times did we see Starfleet completely realign itself based on a one-off threat that was demonstrably beatable, if even by suicide ramming? Enterprise had several examples. It isn't like they knew it was a future ship that would destroy Vulcan when they met in 2233, so that being used as an excuse for the Monsterprise and such falls flat.
All depends on if oldSpock revealed stuff and violated the time-sshh policy. Although I don't see what it changes.
Logic would dictate that they'd actually start building relatively mobile but even heavily defended, armoured and armed long-range space guns, not adventure ships and glass-stations on steroids.

For one, that Yorktown Starbase looks like a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge waste of space and there's not even a blahblah-dangerousnacelles-blahblah excuse going for it.
Even if we allow for the Kelvin being huge in an unmodified timeline, the idea that the less militaristic alternate timeline would feature massive battlecruisers and similarly massive battlestations (even under diplomatic guise) compared to the naval soldiers-not-diplomats of TOS in 'cool war' with the Klingons just doesn't follow.
It is even a stretch from a chronological and industrial perspective. Facing the Bord and the Dominion does not seem to have pushed the Federation into building far bigger ships and stations with resources suddenly coalescing into existence.

Considerd the Altprise compared to the E-D for example. How many E-Ds could have been built with the materials from SBYT?
And that's early TOS era btw!
They'd have to cannibalize many other starbases projects, which would seem totally idiotic.
Or did they scrap the entire Memory Alpha base? Screw the academics, let's have 'em guns?
It would be a good thing if at some point they'd address the gigantism and reveal that for some reason, this obsession with concentrating resources into fewer structures, at fewer places, hasn't really helped the Federation grow in territorial size!
First after UFP face the Borg they did start to design warships like the Defiant. Now for something like the Narada a bigger ship might will made sense because you need lot heavy phaser banks and be able fire many weapon possible special photon torpedoes that. That just goes limit technology realistic response with USS Enterprise D fire 15 to 20 photon torpedoes at once likely more advance auto reload systems. USS Enterprise E could fire at least 20 photon torpedoes likely using a more advance from reload system possible transports and possible lot more launchers . USS Enterprise in the Kelvin Timeline could fire 80 photon torpedoes and was much bigger then either starship. This likely had t do less advance load systems in general.

Bigger starships means need bigger starbases. As the shock and aw Vuclan be destroy like help push matter more so.

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