Galaxy X debate (renamed)

posted on August 16th, 2011, 4:42 am

Just remember that in All Good Things the Enterprise went at least warp 13. Meaning that that 3rd nacell prolly allowed the ship to create a stronger warp field making the ship go faster. Now we all know warp 10 is the max in the standard TNG scale but I would guess they revamped the warp scale again. When you think of it by the time Voyager came around they are having ships go warp 9.975 and isnt the Prometheus supposed to do 9.99. It makes sense that as "standard" warp technology allows for greater speed they arnt going to want to keep tacking on 9's to the end of warp 9. So instead they make 9.99 warp 10, 9.999 warp 11, warp 9.9999 warp 12 and so on. Altho by that time I would expect the federation to be using QSD or some such technology. Just my thought on the matter, and personally I love the Galaxy X design, altho as far as I know the X designation was only added to that ship in Star Trek Birth of the Federation, but since then most people seem to accept it as the Galaxy X type ship.

Generally that's exactly how I justify the odd warp 13. What other designation would fit besides using the "X"? She's definitely a heavy combat vessel.

[Equinox1701e]

posted on August 16th, 2011, 5:03 am

Last edited by Equinox1701e on August 16th, 2011, 5:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

Im just saying that the X came from (as far as I can tell) the game Birth of the Federaion, I havent seen any other source (prior to BotF) that used that designation. Someone had asked or mentioned it earler and there seemed to be some confuision about it. I dont think its cannon that its called the Galaxy X, just thats what most people seem to know it as, most likely fellow BotF players. 

posted on August 16th, 2011, 9:00 am

FYI

The "Wing Things" are phaser cannons.  Also, they added torpedo tubes above the saucer shuttlebay.

As far as the AGT Galaxy and the Niagara, both designs were approved by Roddenberry.  I don't have the exact quote, but you can look it up.  He explains that warp nacelles have to be in even numbers because they usually only have one warp coil thing per nacelle.  The TNG era ships like nebula, galaxy etc have two coils per nacelle.  So the the AGT Galaxy for example has 6 coils, which makes it an even number, which makes it fall within the starship creation guidelines (that are largely ignored now lol).  And this is straight from the man himself.

-B

posted on August 16th, 2011, 9:48 am

FYI

The "Wing Things" are phaser cannons.  Also, they added torpedo tubes above the saucer shuttlebay.

says you. they never fired them in the show, so they are just wing things. pointless crap added to make teh future ship look kewl.

As far as the AGT Galaxy and the Niagara, both designs were approved by Roddenberry.

i really hope they didnt ask roddenberry about the galaxy x, seeing as he was dead before that episode was made. maybe they asked his headstone.

about the whole 3 nacelles thing, we have absolutely no idea what makes a good warp drive. and we have no idea which numbers of nacelles work. we know for a fact that 2, 3 and 4 work. there was no indication in all good things that 3 nacelles was faster than 2. as the ship was from the future, it would naturally be faster than the ent from the past. for all we know riker's future galaxy x was slower than all the other 2 nacelled ships of the same time. all we have is speculation and non canon sources.

[Equinox1701e]

posted on August 16th, 2011, 2:49 pm

Last edited by Equinox1701e on August 16th, 2011, 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

about the whole 3 nacelles thing, we have absolutely no idea what makes a good warp drive. and we have no idea which numbers of nacelles work. we know for a fact that 2, 3 and 4 work. there was no indication in all good things that 3 nacelles was faster than 2. as the ship was from the future, it would naturally be faster than the ent from the past. for all we know riker's future galaxy x was slower than all the other 2 nacelled ships of the same time. all we have is speculation and non canon sources.

Not entirely true, we hear Riker order the ship to warp 13, we can surmise that warp 13 is faster then say warp 9.6 (the standard max for the Galaxy class). We can the surmise that the 3rd nacelle is responsible for the ship being able to attain that speed, thats the most logical conclusion as there was obviously alot of work needed to fit a 3rd engine on there and you would assume they wouldnt have done it unless it gave a significant advantage. Again all speculation, but well within reason IMO. Also I agree with you on some of these odd attachments like the wing things, also not a big fan of the "fins" on the lower part of the nacelle pylons, seem out of place, but overall I do like the design.

posted on August 16th, 2011, 3:01 pm

Not entirely true, we hear Riker order the ship to warp 13, we can surmise that warp 13 is faster then say warp 9.6 (the standard max for the Galaxy class). We can the surmise that the 3rd nacelle is responsible for the ship being able to attain that speed, thats the most logical conclusion as there was obviously alot of work needed to fit a 3rd engine on there and you would assume they wouldnt have done it unless it gave a significant advantage. Again all speculation, but well within reason IMO. Also I agree with you on some of these odd attachments like the wing things, also not a big fan of the "fins" on the lower part of the nacelle pylons, seem out of place, but overall I do like the design.

thats not a logical conclusion at all. we have a ship of the future being faster than a ship of the past.

just because a third nacelle was added doesnt make the 3rd nacelle responsible for the higher speed.

for all we know the 3rd nacelle was added to prevent the engines doing damage to subspace, thus letting the enterprise routinely travel at higher warp without causing damage. this also is logical and satisfies the desire not to waste money adding a nacelle without benefit.

it doesnt mean the 3rd nacelle is necessarily not responsible for the speed increase. my point is that we cant draw any conclusion. and you will find that i didnt say that the 3rd nacelle wasnt responsible in my post. i said that we cant draw the conclusion that it is responsible.

posted on August 16th, 2011, 3:49 pm

my issue was the stupid tacking on of a 3rd nacelle for no particular reason.

Right here you said the 3rd nacell was added for NO REASON, that is what a my point was, it was added for a reason and I think its pretty logical to surmise the Enterprise was getting to warp 13 due to the added warp engine. And drawing conclusions is all we can do, and as Tyler already pointed out MA gives a reason for the 3rd nacelle, it gives a third more power to the warp drive, greater acceleration and faster engagement. That kinda says it all right there.

posted on August 16th, 2011, 4:05 pm

The real silly part of the GalaxyX was the wings on the sides of the bridge.

posted on August 16th, 2011, 4:10 pm

Right here you said the 3rd nacell was added for NO REASON, that is what a my point was, it was added for a reason and I think its pretty logical to surmise the Enterprise was getting to warp 13 due to the added warp engine. And drawing conclusions is all we can do, and as Tyler already pointed out MA gives a reason for the 3rd nacelle, it gives a third more power to the warp drive, greater acceleration and faster engagement. That kinda says it all right there.

and as i said that conclusion is merely possible (among many other wild things not mentioned) not implied.

for example riker could have ordered it installed as an admiral, just for fun. or a more reasonable conclusion is that the 3rd nacelle stops damage to subspace.

in reality, from a production point of view, the 3rd nacelle wasnt added for any of these. it was added to make the ship look cooler. it was stupid, like go faster stripes and neon lights.

its not logical to assume that the ship gets to warp 13 because of an additional nacelle. that is merely 1 possibility. the fact that this 3 nacelled ent was seen over a decade later than the original enterprise makes it equally possible that the new faster warp speeds were attained by refinement of warp technology completely independent of how many nacelles were on the ship. otherwise why cant the stargazer reach warp 13 with its 4 nacelles? obviously years of technological advancement has an impact. obviously 2 nacelled ships from AGT Q-future would be faster than 2 (or 4) nacelled ships from TNG.

the simple facts are we saw a ship from over a decade in the future going faster. it also happened to have a third nacelle. either tech advancement or the 3rd nacelle are possibly why. it doesnt change the production stupidity of tacking on a third nacelle, as if the audience would be too stupid to realise that a ship was from the future if it didnt have more stuff stuck on the hull.

warp nacelles arent simply engines like crude combustion rockets. if it was as simple as more nacelles = moar speed, then every time a ship gets hit in 1 nacelle, why do they lose warp speed completely? they wouldnt, they would lose speed, only be able to travel at slower warp. its not that simple, you can tack an extra rocket booster onto a spacecraft and it will accelerate faster, there's no evidence you can just tack nacelles on to make ships faster. otherwise why was only the constellation class gifted with 4 nacelles (lets ignore the even weirder prommie) ? picard called that ship overworked and underpowered. no its far more complicated.

ma has that source in the non canon background section, from a book that cannot stand up to any scrutiny. dont quote background sections, they dont help your argument. shatner novels are on equal standing to the source you quote.

so no, it doesnt say it all. its a weak source, and it says only 1 possibility among many.

posted on August 16th, 2011, 6:28 pm

I'll go back to my original theory and say the added nacelle allows for higher warp speeds to be sustained longer. In effect providing a sort of engine strain relief. It works with galaxy nacelles because the coils are in pairs.

The constellations inadequacies could point to engineering issues since she is most likely cobbled together from Miranda and constitution class vessels. It is possible the 4 nacelles were necessary to take strain off the warp drive. 4 would be needed since those older nacelles have 1 coil each.

The Prometheus was designed with all her features in mind. The 4 nacelles allow her to stay at high speeds longer, they most likely use dual coil system, this allows for separating and each part able to warp independently. Which is a weakness in prior vessels capable of separating.

posted on August 16th, 2011, 7:51 pm

Or the Enterprise's plot armor lold at the vibrations and hid them under trois chair.

Troi was dead in that timeline. 



I think Riker was just pig-headed and wanted to make the Enterprise the action-hero ship (MOAR PHAZORZ) with a touch of a sportwagon (MOAR NAZZLLSS) and to prove his opinion of the Galaxy being perfectly designed to bear the high stress of three-nacelle-warp.

posted on August 16th, 2011, 9:25 pm

The Prometheus had 6 nacelles I believe ...

[Anonymous]

posted on August 16th, 2011, 9:41 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on August 16th, 2011, 9:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Prometheus had 6 nacelles I believe ...

when the lego ship is assembled the saucer's 2 nacelles are recessed into the saucer and not used. only when the ship splits into 3 do the 2 saucer nacelles pop out to give each segment 2 nacelles.

---

EDIT: thinking of the prommie gives another argument against the idea of more nacelles = moar speed.

when the prommie separates for the first time on screen, when it does the worf effect on the bonchune to show how uber godship it is, it splits into 3 at warp, which is odd as saucer sep was supposedly risky at warp, having 3 separate ships form their own separate warp fields while the warp field of the original big ship has to go sounds tricky.

so yeah the prommie was supposedly really really fast, fastest in the fleet. yet a early tng era ship (a nebula) keeps up. maybe the romulans were too stupid to fly it, or they damaged it, or they went slow on purpose to attract the bonchune in so they could show their might for fun. either way the bonchune is gaining on the prommie, then it splits, and each new ship has less nacelles, but they dont slow down, as the bonchune doesnt suddenly gain on them or fly past.

but yeah thats not really strong evidence, as maybe the slowing down of the prommie takes time and the bonchune could slow as well. meh.

posted on August 16th, 2011, 10:46 pm

The Prometheus had 6 nacelles I believe ...

That is correct Dom... I knew someone was going to call me out on that though. However I believe they remain inactive until MVAM is activated. They extend from the upper and lower portion of the saucer once it has separated from the other parts of the ship.

when the lego ship is assembled the saucer's 2 nacelles are recessed into the saucer and not used. only when the ship splits into 3 do the 2 saucer nacelles pop out to give each segment 2 nacelles.

---

EDIT: thinking of the prommie gives another argument against the idea of more nacelles = moar speed.

when the prommie separates for the first time on screen, when it does the worf effect on the bonchune to show how uber godship it is, it splits into 3 at warp, which is odd as saucer sep was supposedly risky at warp, having 3 separate ships form their own separate warp fields while the warp field of the original big ship has to go sounds tricky.

Tricky not impossible.

so yeah the prommie was supposedly really really fast, fastest in the fleet. yet a early tng era ship (a nebula) keeps up. maybe the romulans were too stupid to fly it, or they damaged it, or they went slow on purpose to attract the bonchune in so they could show their might for fun. either way the bonchune is gaining on the prommie, then it splits, and each new ship has less nacelles, but they dont slow down, as the bonchune doesnt suddenly gain on them or fly past.

but yeah thats not really strong evidence, as maybe the slowing down of the prommie takes time and the bonchune could slow as well. meh.

You have a point here though. The only evidence to offer to counter what you said would be that the Romulans arent familiar enough with starfleet vessels for them to get her max rated speed. I do recall though that in TNG when the Enterprise was running from the Borg cube Geordi really had to work to get the Enterprise to reach her maximum speed. SO its possible that without an Engineer familiar with the Prometheus' engines the romulans couldnt get as much speed as she was capable of. The Bonchune could simply have a better more efficient warp drive than early Nebula Class vessels, The Enterprise had numerous tweaks done to her over the years to improve her performance and efficiency.

All speculation though.

[Equinox1701e]

posted on August 17th, 2011, 2:22 am

Last edited by Equinox1701e on August 17th, 2011, 2:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

First off Myles the Prometheus DID let the Nebula catch up as they shot the hel outta it from behind as they let it pass between the separated ship. So indeed separated maybe they couldnt sustain as fast a speed. Second, the most logical explination as to the Enterprise going warp 13 would be due to having the extra warp engine mounted on it and presumably a more powerful warp core. The reason most ships cant go to warp with a disabled engine is because they cant maintain a stable warp field with only 1 nacelle (altho there was an episode of Voyager where they did fly around with 1 inoperable nacelle at a reduced speed so it is possible), unless the ship is designed for it. It seems silly to do all that work just to make a "cleaner" engine when they could just limit how fast the ship goes or just retire it. Yeah Riker saved it, but its not like theyre just gonna refit it at his whim for no good reason, likely it was a refit program for the ship that was done before he took it over in the first place. And as far as sources, I never stated it was cannon, just that MA listed the ONLY info we have to go on that comes even close to authentic. And pointing out something like the constellation doesnt make sense as its old technology thats almost a century out of date, obviously some ships wouldnt be able to be upgraded to that extent.

Warp drive is established using a warp field created by the warp nacells, a stonger warp field means you can "warp" space more, ergo you go faster. Strength of the field is determined by your core and your field coils, it would make sense that the more field coils you have the stronger field you could create and the faster you could go. And seeing as how in Voyager and Enterprise the ships had damaged nacelles but were able to maintain warp at a slower speed indicated that less nacelles indeed equals less speed, and the reverse should also apply.