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If that's the case, why would they have interstellar freight at all? Surely planets are self-sufficient in terms of resources, and it would be outlandishly expensive to charter small ships to travel interstellar distances just to carry a small shipment of goods.

We're talking about trade between entire planets here. If the trade is worthwhile at all, one would expect economies of scale to dictate that huge freighters be employed.

I agree with Darth Wong, and I think it's a problem of SciFi in general. In this particular Trek movie we saw no commercial craft at all, and perhaps we shouldn't have, but it does leave me wondering about the state of the economy in general. Hopefully we will see some civilian craft in the next movie.

Darth Wong wrote:If that's the case, why would they have interstellar freight at all? Surely planets are self-sufficient in terms of resources, and it would be outlandishly expensive to charter small ships to travel interstellar distances just to carry a small shipment of goods.

We're talking about trade between entire planets here. If the trade is worthwhile at all, one would expect economies of scale to dictate that huge freighters be employed.

It depends. If the entire planet was a colony, then it might have a tiny population. If you dropped a colony of 50,000 on a planet and let it go, it would take centuries of breeding at a fairly brisk pace to produce a population of a couple million and that population would be living a fairly simple lifestyle, unless there was significant immigration and investment from outside sources.

Such colonies might only NEED a drop off of small goods, replacement parts, tools, et cetera.

Darth Wong wrote:We're talking about trade between entire planets here. If the trade is worthwhile at all, one would expect economies of scale to dictate that huge freighters be employed.

Firstly interplanetary trade may only be worthwhile for high value items (luxuries, rare chemicals, specialist technological components), and the demand for those might not be enough to support bulk fleets. Secondly Trek engine technology may rule out freighters larger than their capships and make even capship-sized freighters prohibitively expensive to run. For naval vessels, increasing size decreases fuel consumption per tonne of cargo because of the square/cube relationship. However the energy required to generate a warp field is probably scales with the volume of the field at best, and warp cores large enough to power capships may have prohibitive acquisition cost and maintenance requirements. Finally it could be that Starfleet doesn't like civilians getting their hands on large quantities of antimatter, closely monitors all usage, and won't supply enough at once to fuel giant freighters.

I assume DW is asking the question about freighters in light of the ludicrously huge mining ship that the protagonists cruised around in?

Maybe it wasn't a ship. Maybe it was the remains of an orbital defense station. Why should a founding member of the Federation not have at least one such defensive station in orbit over their homeworld?

I've only seen the film the one time, but I'm almost positive it had an NCC-number. I will report again if I get a chance to see it anytime soon, but I specifically remember thinking something "guess Starfleet has battleships, then."

Anguirus wrote: I've only seen the film the one time, but I'm almost positive it had an NCC-number. I will report again if I get a chance to see it anytime soon, but I specifically remember thinking something "guess Starfleet has battleships, then."

Looks like it does, you can see something on the saucer here;

Jon wrote:

Anguirus wrote: I've only seen the film the one time, but I'm almost positive it had an NCC-number. I will report again if I get a chance to see it anytime soon, but I specifically remember thinking something "guess Starfleet has battleships, then."

Looks like it does, you can see something on the saucer here;

The best I can make out is an "O" and a "C" on the left side, but that can just as easily be hull detailing or damage.

Anybody catch designations or numbers before the ships warped to Vulcan?

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Anybody catch designations or numbers before the ships warped to Vulcan?

It's all rear views and distant shots.

I did catch the Scot from Stargate saying a shuttle was going to "Regula One"

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Anybody catch designations or numbers before the ships warped to Vulcan?

A better question is; did anybody catch any ships that seemed to be that size before they all warped to Vulcan?

I don't recall any, but my memory of that scene is fuzzy. I was too busy thinking something along the lines of "...--hey, they actually have corpses in space... that makes sense--holy shit holy shit holy shit..."

I think the Miranda alike tri-nacelle ship is about right it was one of two all saucer ships, you see a glimpse of it as the enterprise doesn't take off to warp with the fleet.

From memory, the novelisation includes the Mayflower and Defiant among the ships that precede Enterprise to Vulcan. It names the others, too, but I've forgotten them, sorry. I think the Excelsior was another.

It also mentions the Enterprise was built in Iowa because it's near-ish to the Mississipi shipping lanes, midwest industrial centres ( ? ) and because if something goes wrong at it blows up, all that gets irradiated is a thousand square miles of fuck-all. Take that as you will.

I'm just amused thinking of the acres of bird shit that must have covered the Enterprise by the time they got done building it planetside.

Yeah, I know, force fields or whatever.

andrewgpaul wrote:From memory, the novelisation includes the Mayflower and Defiant among the ships that precede Enterprise to Vulcan. It names the others, too, but I've forgotten them, sorry. I think the Excelsior was another.

Truman, Hood and Farragut were mentioned in the film.

It also mentions the Enterprise was built in Iowa because it's near-ish to the Mississipi shipping lanes, midwest industrial centres ( ? ) and because if something goes wrong at it blows up, all that gets irradiated is a thousand square miles of fuck-all. Take that as you will.

Only useless arable land. That's pretty poor logic, I must say.

Well if the ship building in the trek universe is anything like the real world it's likely that the ship was built dirt-side was moved into orbit and
then had the major "high risk" (warp core etc.) components installed with minimal risk in the case of an emergency.

But that would require someone in trek being sensible

Leman-russ wrote:Well if the ship building in the trek universe is anything like the real world it's likely that the ship was built dirt-side was moved into orbit and
then had the major "high risk" (warp core etc.) components installed with minimal risk in the case of an emergency.

But that would require someone in trek being sensible

Not that it matters in this new universe, but that is how the Ent-D was depicted as being assembled in TNG.

Havok wrote:

Leman-russ wrote:Well if the ship building in the trek universe is anything like the real world it's likely that the ship was built dirt-side was moved into orbit and
then had the major "high risk" (warp core etc.) components installed with minimal risk in the case of an emergency.
But that would require someone in trek being sensible

Not that it matters in this new universe, but that is how the Ent-D was depicted as being assembled in TNG.

As per what? Not that I'm saying you're wrong and it's been eons since I saw TNG but I can't recall ANYTHING saying E-D was even partially constructed groundside. Especially as building it in orbit from the word go would make a hell of a lot more sense.

^probably this that was seen on a display in an episode depicting utopia planitia fleet yards

Yes to the above. Then the episode (If it isn't the same one) where Geordie is being all creepy in the holodeck with the holographic Leah Brahms, the Ent-D shell/hull is shown in the background in space awaiting its propulsion system and presumably other systems as well.

Some notes from ILM on the size here, in which they confirm is is larger;

http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo ... 10905.html

The following image was provided to Gizmodo by Bad Robot Productions;

http://gizmodo.com/5253324/how-big-is-t ... -galactica

Aerrfgkljhfgjkfdlshglsdkjfghsd. That side view of the corvette is wrong. It doesn't match the actual model at all.

Jon wrote:Some notes from ILM on the size here, in which they confirm is is larger;

http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo ... 10905.html

The following image was provided to Gizmodo by Bad Robot Productions;

http://gizmodo.com/5253324/how-big-is-t ... -galactica

Is that size for the Galactica accurate? 615 meters? I could've sworn I've seen somewhere that is twice what it says on that drawing.

Seems you are correct according to http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Galac ... battlestar

I also noticed they labelled the new movie Enterprise as the 1701-A too. Perhaps best not to put to much weight in that image after all, though the other article I linked in which ILM discuss the model attributes as size over 2000ft in length too.

Jon wrote:Seems you are correct according to http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Galac ... battlestar

I also noticed they labelled the new movie Enterprise as the 1701-A too. Perhaps best not to put to much weight in that image after all, though the other article I linked in which ILM discuss the model attributes as size over 2000ft in length too.

It seems to me like somebody posted that comparison image in a hurry and neglected to double check it. I wouldn't be surprised if they saddled some intern with the job and then forgot about it.