Licensing makes sense in a sci-fi universe. With space so big, with so many customers and enough places to make counterfeit variants to sell, it makes sense to just sell the rights to build your design to other shipyards or governments
Presumably when you have a shipyard with giant industrial replicators and 3D printers, if someone pics a model from the line-up you could ask for a up or downscale within reason with a button press.
The original ship looks rather like a primitive Cardassian ship to me. Additionally, I like the idea that there was some civilization out there that made the starship equivalent of the Jeep a few centuries back and the ships we see scattered across the galaxy are just old military surplus tossed off to anyone with something of value to give and have slowly spread throughout the galaxy in the hands of various long-haul traders that would eventually change hands over and over again until you see them as an ubiquitous trait of all galactic civilizations.
I'd think that some of these ships could be "lent" to someone for a time. During that time said someone would perform certain missions and/or give a part of what they transport as payment for the ship. Then they get to keep it. It would also be a way to show that a captain can handle themselves when running a ship. It might make sense too in the context of post-scracity civs.
Another option is that it's simply just *parallel evolution.* Like how a dolphin and a shark look similar on the outside just because they're both dealing with the same environment and 'coming up' with the same basic solution. And yes you have the Toyota Hilux everywhere, but you also have Ford F100's and even VW Amaroks. And the basic layout of the utility pickup has even been around since at least _1937,_ no doubt with many bespoke versions even before the first mass produced pickup/ute, and some of them would have had nothing to do with a Hilux. I am suprised however that no one's ever stuck highlighter pens on a Merchantman…
There is Harry Mudd's ship and Cyrano Jones' ship. If you count Enterprise, there is the boomer ships. There is the Kobayashi Maru (which nobody knows exactly what they look like, though I like FASA's design). There are the Tugs in the Star Fleet Technical Manual though they are essentially military tugs. I do like this design, maybe a stretch to say they're all really the same ship but fun.
And when you're at it I know I'm not part of your discord channel or anything like that but kind of interesting to take your opinion on the wasp in some of the much-older United earthships
The idea of independent multinational civilian companies creating freighters for different civilization is an interesting thought. And one that does make sense, as freighter captains or worlds with little domestic ship manufacturing would want the most bang for their buck. I also find it interesting that nearly all freighters in Trek are just some variant of a blocky rectangle. The theory behind the merchantman itself seems coherent enough. I'd be curious more videos on reused background designs.
If the design was Klingon origin, it would make even more sense, as it was used by them, and races in the surrounding vicinity. We know that they traded warship hulls to the Romulans, so trading freighters to other species makes sense.
A big boxy rectangle is the easiest way to store things. Palets in boxes is just the most efficeient way to do things storage space wise if we presumme its cargo is non replicatable or too big to be replicated eaily. It makes sense that a freighter is just going to be engines, as little crew quarters life support etc as you can get away with for keeping the ship going and maintainance plus a bridge/control centre. Then you just go up or down in size based on customer needs possibly using it in a modular way like an airliner will add or take away sections depending on the number of passengers the company wants to carry. Then you add weaponry shields etc depending on the products carried. All highly illegal of course but the miranda captain on patrol is probably not going to board the 12th identical merchantmant in the system, or at least thats what your Ferengi contact told you.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Yeah, that might be in line with the methodology in the Hayne's Klingon Bird of Prey manual, by Rick Sternbach, where it's noted warp coils can be flattened into 'tiles' or plates, within the wing of the Bird of Prey. So there may be a variety of configurations. Heck, you might even get some sort of 'liner of flux' out of it, or a Tr-3b, ahem (ask Quark last time he was at area 51, wink) But it does allow quite a bit of flexibility for the model makers, for sure. I'd also doubt the Merchantman has to be 150 m, meantime. 40 to 61 might do?
Hello Venom. I agree that the 'Merchantman' is a design that is seen all over the place, and often with 'griblies' added to the general design. To me, at least, this is a sign that the basic Merchantman is probably a civilian made design, that is produced in bulk numbers and sold to as many races as can afford them. Given that a lot of the smaller, single star governments cannot afford the R&D to build and design their own ships, it makes sense that they would buy an already available design that is proven to be reliable, plentiful, and as cost-effective as possible. Unlike your example, I tend to associate this in my head with the VW 'van', or VW 'bus' design. Again, reliable, cheap, effective, and not very fast, but well-built, and having obtainable parts in plentiful supply. For over 30 years, the VW, in its various subtypes, was readily available, and cost-effective, but lacked the performance that Americans were used to with the various 'muscle' car designs. For everyone else, though, the VW Van and VW Bus were a cheap alternative to more expensive models with higher performance. In the case of the Vidian ship, it is a case of: want more crew space? Want more internal cargo capacity? Want more passenger space? Just add on to the existing design. Which, could probably be done at a 'local' shipyard. As for the Shelliak? Well, they just upscaled the design's specs and produced a licensed variation of the basic Merchantman, and then added the carrier pods for their colonists (the submarine hulls). All of this 'makes sense' for the most part. Allowing for how aliens will be 'alien'. Minor things, like controls, displays, environmental systems, etc, would all be alterable to fit with the buyer's species preferences. But the general hull would remain the same, for the most part, for all races using the design... barring the previous examples. There is no reason, that I can see, why many races would not have Merchant fleets of this design, moving their freight between star systems for their economic benefit. One gets used to thinking only of Military fleet designs and numbers, and forgets that for every military vessel of any type or class, there are literally dozens of freighters plying their trade amongst the stars. Just a few thoughts.
I do find the subject of civilian ships in Star Trek to be a sorely under-discussed one. Thanks for this video. I'd be curious to see what one of these ships would look like in a different color than turd-brown.
You're right, we don't see enough ships that don't belong to the Federation. I even believe that there must be private exploration vessels. I don't believe Starfleet has a monopoly on exploration.I would like to make a scenario or I would like to see one day a series that deals with the daily life of a citizen of the federation. I would like us to follow the adventures of ordinary citizens across the galaxy on the territory of the federation. The series will be episodic so that we will have the chance to see the point of view of each protagonist. I already imagine the title, Star Trek Universe. What do you think? :)
The way I rationalize re-used designs, is that they are ancient blueprints, spread across quadrants over time, manufactured by many different species. Perhaps the scale difference then can be explained as several designs in the same lineage; originally made by the same species.
I cant wait to find out what ship is star trek's version of the "Battle Cow". For those who don't know battle cows are civilian cargo ships refitted to be gunboats/heavy fighters.
I always heard of them as either: 1) Q-ships; 2) Merchant Cruisers. Venom ask Drac about them. They were relatively not uncommon during WWI & WWII. Q-ships were used by the Royal & U.S. Navies, while Merchant Cruisers were used by Germany (for both wars).
The Vidian's could have got a hold of it by way of the unstable Barzan wormhole. We know eventually the Barzan end of the wormhole was eventually going to shift to another point in space but I could see some ambitious trader or escaped prisoner using it to leave the alpha quadrant, the ship pops up in the Delta Quadrant and a day latter a Vidian cruiser finds it and well...bye bye crew thanks for the new liver. Vidians now have a perfectly working ship that can be used for courier runs and scouting.
Recently discovered this amazing channel and love your work, especially ship chat! Your ability to read between the lines of Star Trek with regards to ships, their role and tech is quite frankly, God tier. Taking into account the huge amount of plot holes and inconsistencies that Trek is guilty of with regards to ships and what we see on screen 😂
Other possibility: Reverse engineering of captured/found vessel, then possibly rescaled for new purposes, Design stolen and then modified to fit needs. I seriously doubt they are licensed copies. LOL
You could possibly do one space station of the week. The station in the TNG season 1 episode "Justice" is the same model as the TNG season 5 episode "Conundrum"
@@weldonwin I would imagine there being alot of classifications based on old sailing ship types but all are identical designs with additional modifications to suite any role and can come in various shapes.
the way the Shillyack treated the Enterprise as Federation creatures, makes me believe they won't deal with any outside groups as they view themselves as superior, just say they had ships that looked like a low class freighter. Many ships in star trek had exhaust that say we're sublight and not above light speed ships and I've always viewed it as a mistake on the designers for the show, But I also know they were on a dead line to put something on.
Instead of the physical ship being displaced to the Delta Quadrant...its also possible the blueprints were traded extensively and made it out there via subspace
I don't believe that the Sheliak ship was a warship, but rather a cargo/colony ship. This would make sense, sending freighters, with those pontoon attachments added on for extra cargo, or passenger carrying ability.
Sheliak ship was retconned to be a Colony ship I dont think it was ever meant to really be thought of as a war ship by the writers since it was diplomatic story. For the purpose of setting up a colony and transporting people, I can imagine they bought the license to the plans and added on upgrades that their people would need. The way the ship was used fits in with the idea that a lot of designs like the Maquis raider and Klingon Birds of prey are scalable designs. The overall frames and systems can be made larger if you want to fit bigger engines, weapons, cargo pods etc. And they get used a lot in the universe because they are well tried and tested systems. I imagine the merchant man ship frame has been around for centuries and a lot of the poorer worlds or poorer nations like the cardassians buy them up in bulk. There were many worlds in TNG that did things that got them excluded from being in the Federation that would need something like the merchant man since they dont have the production ability to make their own ships fast enough.
I am onboard with everything you have in this video except for the Vidiians. That pushes things too far. Better to leave it as a stand-in place holder until a new design can be mated to the role and that the new design can take queues from the Merchantman as mere "convergent evolution" of design.
I'm not sure your argument holds water about weapons of terror and war. I think the bay technology was actually fragile in battle. Often captains target weapons and propulsion on enemies. Tubes are much more robust and if one goes down others can keep the ship. In the fight. If the bay fields are hit then you lose the entire capability.
Cool Idea for a Series. It'll be good to see more. I can see it being an independent design sold off to multiple factions around the Alpha/Beta Quadrant. But the Sheliak were extremely Xenophobic. They considered humans an "Infestation" So I don't think they'd be buying a ship off Non-Sheliak company. I guess maybe the caretaker swept one up and the crew got harvested by the Vidiians but it's pretty unlikely. Also shocking that Voyager didn't recognize a Clearly Alpha Quadrant design and question it a bit. At least the Vidiian ship isn't as egregious as the Breen showing up in Voyager.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I guess I don't think the Appearance merits explanation. It's a TV show, on a budget and deadline, and they reused the prop. Modifying it as they could, and doing a damn good job of it too. It could be a Sheliak Manufacturer. They'd be selling a product to what is in their view, an Insect. Which is a bit unusual, give how reluctant they are to even deal with the Federation.
I wonder about the utility of the design, if it could actually enter a planetary atmosphere? More likely to work in space only? If so, that would reduce its fit as a ship used for colonizing and some other activities.
Space mostly. It could probably enter thr atmosphere but it wouldnt be pretty. Given the size of the sheliak ship it probably has plenty of shuttles. And transporters of course.
I always thought the original merchantman in ST-III was more Runabout sized, and I really didn't see an issue with that. Scale has always been one of the hardest things to nail down, as obviously the art department wasn't super worried about making the images just so...
I absolutely believe this is a old Feringi ship that they've been all too happy to sell off to not so sophisticated races for some kind of obscene profit all across the galaxy. Races like the sheliak got ahold of them, copied them, and scaled them up.
My vote cheap. More reusable than not, kassidy's ship was a T'pau, a ship after NX-01 was half a warbird, talarian stood in for another, K & R mentioned at least with an explanation.
What do you think the wings on the side of the vessel are for? Do they have a conveyor system or piping for unloading bulk cargo like grains, or are they nozzles for quickly refueling at alpha quadrant truck stops?
There's no reason to think straightforward travel across the galaxy hasn't been happening for a long time. Just because 80 ish years is a hard time for the Viyager crew doesn't mean that people haven't been crawling their way across space for hundreds or thousands of years. A ship averaging warp 6 could cover 21,000 lightyears in a century, races like the Vulcans have been warp capable for a thousand years or more. What if the merchantman is a common ship from a previous epoch of galactic civilization that peaked a thousand plus years ago, a common design built in the tens of thousands that still exists in contemporary times even being built new from long tradition? Just because a thousand years ago travel was slower doesn't mean it didn't happen on a galactic scale, Imagine entire civilizations of merchantmen fleets crawling across the galaxy, spread out across lightyears as they trade and remain just close enough to continue as a coherent civilization.
I always liked the pseudo manta ray look of this ship. I think it's a shame they didn't use a modified version of this ship more in the service of the Cardasian union where it would have totally fit in.
A merchant man merged with a U-boat, what an unlikely romance
A forbidden romance to rival Romeo and Juliet
Ah, yes, armed merchant cruiser/raider
@@Jfk2Mr I want to see someone use the same Merchantmen kitbash with the type vii u-boat being replaced with a I-400 model.
In FASA lore, the Merchantman was known as the "Monarch class" and was originally a very old Klingon design.
Interesting... possibly definitely has that very rugged look.
It is an old Klingon tanker.
@@davidmaestas2915 an old Tanker that seems to mock the time regardless of the era.
Licensing makes sense in a sci-fi universe. With space so big, with so many customers and enough places to make counterfeit variants to sell, it makes sense to just sell the rights to build your design to other shipyards or governments
Presumably when you have a shipyard with giant industrial replicators and 3D printers, if someone pics a model from the line-up you could ask for a up or downscale within reason with a button press.
ILM smiles as their first stage of invasion is now complete!!! 🤠👍
I like the new effect on the logo, also I LOLed at how out of tune the intro music was XD
Ah the Corillean Corvette of Star Wars. Next one better be the command deckless Star Destroyer
The original ship looks rather like a primitive Cardassian ship to me.
Additionally, I like the idea that there was some civilization out there that made the starship equivalent of the Jeep a few centuries back and the ships we see scattered across the galaxy are just old military surplus tossed off to anyone with something of value to give and have slowly spread throughout the galaxy in the hands of various long-haul traders that would eventually change hands over and over again until you see them as an ubiquitous trait of all galactic civilizations.
I'd think that some of these ships could be "lent" to someone for a time.
During that time said someone would perform certain missions and/or give a part of what they transport as payment for the ship.
Then they get to keep it. It would also be a way to show that a captain can handle themselves when running a ship.
It might make sense too in the context of post-scracity civs.
Another option is that it's simply just *parallel evolution.*
Like how a dolphin and a shark look similar on the outside just because they're both dealing with the same environment and 'coming up' with the same basic solution.
And yes you have the Toyota Hilux everywhere, but you also have Ford F100's and even VW Amaroks.
And the basic layout of the utility pickup has even been around since at least _1937,_ no doubt with many bespoke versions even before the first mass produced pickup/ute, and some of them would have had nothing to do with a Hilux.
I am suprised however that no one's ever stuck highlighter pens on a Merchantman…
I was about to say "you have 2 hours and the budget of a ham sandwich build us a new ship."
"Get the highlighters!"
Mainly the aliens couldn't grab every pickup back in '37.
There is Harry Mudd's ship and Cyrano Jones' ship. If you count Enterprise, there is the boomer ships. There is the Kobayashi Maru (which nobody knows exactly what they look like, though I like FASA's design). There are the Tugs in the Star Fleet Technical Manual though they are essentially military tugs. I do like this design, maybe a stretch to say they're all really the same ship but fun.
It would not surprise me it was a Tellar ship.
And when you're at it I know I'm not part of your discord channel or anything like that but kind of interesting to take your opinion on the wasp in some of the much-older United earthships
The idea of independent multinational civilian companies creating freighters for different civilization is an interesting thought. And one that does make sense, as freighter captains or worlds with little domestic ship manufacturing would want the most bang for their buck. I also find it interesting that nearly all freighters in Trek are just some variant of a blocky rectangle.
The theory behind the merchantman itself seems coherent enough. I'd be curious more videos on reused background designs.
If the design was Klingon origin, it would make even more sense, as it was used by them, and races in the surrounding vicinity. We know that they traded warship hulls to the Romulans, so trading freighters to other species makes sense.
Yeah nacelles are a little bit funny on many of these. My guess is that the wings probably contain the warp coils.
A big boxy rectangle is the easiest way to store things. Palets in boxes is just the most efficeient way to do things storage space wise if we presumme its cargo is non replicatable or too big to be replicated eaily. It makes sense that a freighter is just going to be engines, as little crew quarters life support etc as you can get away with for keeping the ship going and maintainance plus a bridge/control centre. Then you just go up or down in size based on customer needs possibly using it in a modular way like an airliner will add or take away sections depending on the number of passengers the company wants to carry. Then you add weaponry shields etc depending on the products carried. All highly illegal of course but the miranda captain on patrol is probably not going to board the 12th identical merchantmant in the system, or at least thats what your Ferengi contact told you.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Yeah, that might be in line with the methodology in the Hayne's Klingon Bird of Prey manual, by Rick Sternbach, where it's noted warp coils can be flattened into 'tiles' or plates, within the wing of the Bird of Prey.
So there may be a variety of configurations. Heck, you might even get some sort of 'liner of flux' out of it, or a Tr-3b, ahem (ask Quark last time he was at area 51, wink)
But it does allow quite a bit of flexibility for the model makers, for sure.
I'd also doubt the Merchantman has to be 150 m, meantime. 40 to 61 might do?
@@chrissonofpear1384 yeah although I'm not so keen on the idea of 'warp wings' there needs to be a open space between warp coils.
One ship but many faces
Hello Venom.
I agree that the 'Merchantman' is a design that is seen all over the place, and often with 'griblies' added to the general design.
To me, at least, this is a sign that the basic Merchantman is probably a civilian made design, that is produced in bulk numbers and sold to as many races as can afford them. Given that a lot of the smaller, single star governments cannot afford the R&D to build and design their own ships, it makes sense that they would buy an already available design that is proven to be reliable, plentiful, and as cost-effective as possible.
Unlike your example, I tend to associate this in my head with the VW 'van', or VW 'bus' design. Again, reliable, cheap, effective, and not very fast, but well-built, and having obtainable parts in plentiful supply. For over 30 years, the VW, in its various subtypes, was readily available, and cost-effective, but lacked the performance that Americans were used to with the various 'muscle' car designs. For everyone else, though, the VW Van and VW Bus were a cheap alternative to more expensive models with higher performance.
In the case of the Vidian ship, it is a case of: want more crew space? Want more internal cargo capacity? Want more passenger space? Just add on to the existing design. Which, could probably be done at a 'local' shipyard.
As for the Shelliak? Well, they just upscaled the design's specs and produced a licensed variation of the basic Merchantman, and then added the carrier pods for their colonists (the submarine hulls).
All of this 'makes sense' for the most part. Allowing for how aliens will be 'alien'.
Minor things, like controls, displays, environmental systems, etc, would all be alterable to fit with the buyer's species preferences. But the general hull would remain the same, for the most part, for all races using the design... barring the previous examples.
There is no reason, that I can see, why many races would not have Merchant fleets of this design, moving their freight between star systems for their economic benefit. One gets used to thinking only of Military fleet designs and numbers, and forgets that for every military vessel of any type or class, there are literally dozens of freighters plying their trade amongst the stars.
Just a few thoughts.
I do find the subject of civilian ships in Star Trek to be a sorely under-discussed one. Thanks for this video. I'd be curious to see what one of these ships would look like in a different color than turd-brown.
Very nice video, well scripted and thorough on this boat. I rnjoyed it!
You're right, we don't see enough ships that don't belong to the Federation. I even believe that there must be private exploration vessels. I don't believe Starfleet has a monopoly on exploration.I would like to make a scenario or I would like to see one day a series that deals with the daily life of a citizen of the federation. I would like us to follow the adventures of ordinary citizens across the galaxy on the territory of the federation. The series will be episodic so that we will have the chance to see the point of view of each protagonist. I already imagine the title, Star Trek Universe. What do you think? :)
The way I rationalize re-used designs, is that they are ancient blueprints, spread across quadrants over time, manufactured by many different species. Perhaps the scale difference then can be explained as several designs in the same lineage; originally made by the same species.
Hmm like an open source design. Interesting
I cant wait to find out what ship is star trek's version of the "Battle Cow".
For those who don't know battle cows are civilian cargo ships refitted to be gunboats/heavy fighters.
Can't think of it off the top of my head.
I always heard of them as either:
1) Q-ships;
2) Merchant Cruisers.
Venom ask Drac about them. They were relatively not uncommon during WWI & WWII. Q-ships were used by the Royal & U.S. Navies, while Merchant Cruisers were used by Germany (for both wars).
Condor class light freighter/ Maquis raider. & Peregrine courier.
The Vidian's could have got a hold of it by way of the unstable Barzan wormhole. We know eventually the Barzan end of the wormhole was eventually going to shift to another point in space but I could see some ambitious trader or escaped prisoner using it to leave the alpha quadrant, the ship pops up in the Delta Quadrant and a day latter a Vidian cruiser finds it and well...bye bye crew thanks for the new liver. Vidians now have a perfectly working ship that can be used for courier runs and scouting.
Csme here to say this myself. Seems a very good possibility of how it got to the delta.
Recently discovered this amazing channel and love your work, especially ship chat!
Your ability to read between the lines of Star Trek with regards to ships, their role and tech is quite frankly, God tier. Taking into account the huge amount of plot holes and inconsistencies that Trek is guilty of with regards to ships and what we see on screen 😂
Other possibility:
Reverse engineering of captured/found vessel, then possibly rescaled for new purposes,
Design stolen and then modified to fit needs.
I seriously doubt they are licensed copies. LOL
You could possibly do one space station of the week. The station in the TNG season 1 episode "Justice" is the same model as the TNG season 5 episode "Conundrum"
Ah the "god" it's a cool design especially I justice where its quite Ghostly.
I wonder if we're going to get the East Indiaman version of the Merchantmen for Star Trek.
That would be the Sheliac ship, taking a freighter, scaling it up and up-gunning it
@@weldonwin I would imagine there being alot of classifications based on old sailing ship types but all are identical designs with additional modifications to suite any role and can come in various shapes.
All of the Non-Aligned Ships in the old decipher Stat Trek Card Game.
Just saw the first part of the title and knew it was the merchantman before seeing that part of the title 😂
The Sheliak are in the Sheliak Corporate. Is it strange that they'd be the ones building and selling Merchantman ships?
Quite possibly they were in contact with the federation in the 23rd century
YAY New series... even without temperature measurements :(
The breen ship from DS9 battle scenes made more then a few appearances in voyager.
Shelia in tng they supposedly had equivalent fire power to the enterprise from what I Remer from episode
This has been part of my head canon for a long time. Glad to see you delving into it!
the way the Shillyack treated the Enterprise as Federation creatures, makes me believe they won't deal with any outside groups as they view themselves as superior, just say they had ships that looked like a low class freighter. Many ships in star trek had exhaust that say we're sublight and not above light speed ships and I've always viewed it as a mistake on the designers for the show, But I also know they were on a dead line to put something on.
Instead of the physical ship being displaced to the Delta Quadrant...its also possible the blueprints were traded extensively and made it out there via subspace
Show me my HUSNOCK WARSHIP !!!
That was really interesting. I would definately like to see more of this series. :)
I don't believe that the Sheliak ship was a warship, but rather a cargo/colony ship. This would make sense, sending freighters, with those pontoon attachments added on for extra cargo, or passenger carrying ability.
Pretty fierce looking transport. But your saying its merely incidental...
I think this could be a fun series. Like the warship used by the Talarians, that appeared over and over again.
Definitely on the list
It worked well enough for Endar!
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 and others.
Sheliak ship was retconned to be a Colony ship I dont think it was ever meant to really be thought of as a war ship by the writers since it was diplomatic story.
For the purpose of setting up a colony and transporting people, I can imagine they bought the license to the plans and added on upgrades that their people would need. The way the ship was used fits in with the idea that a lot of designs like the Maquis raider and Klingon Birds of prey are scalable designs. The overall frames and systems can be made larger if you want to fit bigger engines, weapons, cargo pods etc. And they get used a lot in the universe because they are well tried and tested systems. I imagine the merchant man ship frame has been around for centuries and a lot of the poorer worlds or poorer nations like the cardassians buy them up in bulk. There were many worlds in TNG that did things that got them excluded from being in the Federation that would need something like the merchant man since they dont have the production ability to make their own ships fast enough.
This is a wonderful idea (to feature a ship of the week). Thank you for this great video!
I am onboard with everything you have in this video except for the Vidiians. That pushes things too far. Better to leave it as a stand-in place holder until a new design can be mated to the role and that the new design can take queues from the Merchantman as mere "convergent evolution" of design.
Cheers
Looking forward to the Husnock warship 😄
Yeah that goes through quite a few changes
I'm not sure your argument holds water about weapons of terror and war. I think the bay technology was actually fragile in battle. Often captains target weapons and propulsion on enemies. Tubes are much more robust and if one goes down others can keep the ship. In the fight. If the bay fields are hit then you lose the entire capability.
Built by Trotters Intergalactic Traders.
Cool Idea for a Series. It'll be good to see more.
I can see it being an independent design sold off to multiple factions around the Alpha/Beta Quadrant.
But the Sheliak were extremely Xenophobic. They considered humans an "Infestation" So I don't think they'd be buying a ship off Non-Sheliak company.
I guess maybe the caretaker swept one up and the crew got harvested by the Vidiians but it's pretty unlikely.
Also shocking that Voyager didn't recognize a Clearly Alpha Quadrant design and question it a bit.
At least the Vidiian ship isn't as egregious as the Breen showing up in Voyager.
We don't know that the manufacturer wasn't sheliak how else would you explain its appearance. Convergent evolution?
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I guess I don't think the Appearance merits explanation.
It's a TV show, on a budget and deadline, and they reused the prop. Modifying it as they could, and doing a damn good job of it too.
It could be a Sheliak Manufacturer. They'd be selling a product to what is in their view, an Insect. Which is a bit unusual, give how reluctant they are to even deal with the Federation.
I wonder about the utility of the design, if it could actually enter a planetary atmosphere? More likely to work in space only? If so, that would reduce its fit as a ship used for colonizing and some other activities.
Space mostly. It could probably enter thr atmosphere but it wouldnt be pretty. Given the size of the sheliak ship it probably has plenty of shuttles. And transporters of course.
We need a review of the Quomar ships of Star trek Voyager.
I always thought the original merchantman in ST-III was more Runabout sized, and I really didn't see an issue with that. Scale has always been one of the hardest things to nail down, as obviously the art department wasn't super worried about making the images just so...
NICE!
Wasn't thr Sheliak ship a colony ship, not a warship?
Does the D-7 count as ship of the week. Many many races used them in canon once the Klingons moved on. The romulans had them at the same time.
Not quite given that the model generally stayed the same
I absolutely believe this is a old Feringi ship that they've been all too happy to sell off to not so sophisticated races for some kind of obscene profit all across the galaxy.
Races like the sheliak got ahold of them, copied them, and scaled them up.
It does have some similar lines to a Ferengi ship and that would make sense
This video is super awesome
My explanation: The Star Trek production staff ran out of creativity and/or money and/or time to produce more unique ships.
Mostly time was a constraint.
My vote cheap. More reusable than not, kassidy's ship was a T'pau, a ship after NX-01 was half a warbird, talarian stood in for another, K & R mentioned at least with an explanation.
What do you think the wings on the side of the vessel are for? Do they have a conveyor system or piping for unloading bulk cargo like grains, or are they nozzles for quickly refueling at alpha quadrant truck stops?
I think the tips are nozzles and the wings themselves are the nacelles.
When do I get paid off?
Yup more ships
Wished they would've used the boob ship from BBS!
There's no reason to think straightforward travel across the galaxy hasn't been happening for a long time. Just because 80 ish years is a hard time for the Viyager crew doesn't mean that people haven't been crawling their way across space for hundreds or thousands of years. A ship averaging warp 6 could cover 21,000 lightyears in a century, races like the Vulcans have been warp capable for a thousand years or more.
What if the merchantman is a common ship from a previous epoch of galactic civilization that peaked a thousand plus years ago, a common design built in the tens of thousands that still exists in contemporary times even being built new from long tradition?
Just because a thousand years ago travel was slower doesn't mean it didn't happen on a galactic scale,
Imagine entire civilizations of merchantmen fleets crawling across the galaxy, spread out across lightyears as they trade and remain just close enough to continue as a coherent civilization.
🙂
they did not care for scaling in ds 9 as well so
I always liked the pseudo manta ray look of this ship. I think it's a shame they didn't use a modified version of this ship more in the service of the Cardasian union where it would have totally fit in.
Definitely perhaps it has a similar method of propulsion