Who builds vessels for the Federation?

This is one I've had bouncing around recently, as I finish up the first season of DS9 for the first time. I've also just finished Star Trek: Legacy for the Xbox 360, and despite it's reviews, I really like flying the various Enterprises.

Anyway, my question is this: If NX-01 already had the saucer-shaped primary hull, that basic Starfleet design predated the Federation, right? I understand Enterprise is retconning the original canon, but it led me to ask the question: who builds vessels for Starfleet?

Even the Enterprise-E has roughly the same basic layout as the NX-01, even though they don't belong to the same "faction." Are all of Starfleet's ships designed by human engineers? We never see any real Vulcan influence in the ships, nor do we see any other foreign architecture. All of the Federation vessels have essentially the same layout; saucer-shaped (or spherical) primary hull, (optional) secondary hull, and x number of warp nacelles.

I just thought it was interesting, considering all the influences there'd be in such a Federation., that all the ships look essentially the same. They're not all built in one place, but they all share characteristics. Who pays for the ships? The resources have to come from somewhere, unless they have giant replicators somewhere.

What do you think?

Yoyodyne propulsion builds them.

They're built at the Starfleet Ship Yards by the hard-working sentient beings in Ship Builder's Local # 2814!

Starfleet ships are built by Starfleet at Utopia Planica orbiting Mars (plenty of canon for this).
Non-Starfleet Federation ships are different. Some are built by Starfleet, others are built by individual companies or member worlds.

Right, I knew about Utopia Planica from TNG. So Starfleet is not the only Federation war-force?

It always bugged me that Enterprise (NX 01) already had the saucer. Would have been nice if Earth designs had been different (Deadalus, anyone?). Then we could have had the pleasure of seeing Human, Vulcan (and maybe even Andorian) design influences all leading to a United Federation/Starfleet look.

Another explanation would be that, while Human design ideas proved really popular for the hulls and lasted for ages, maybe other races had more influence in other areas: Vulcan designed engine, perhaps? Maybe the Andorians designed the LCARS system?

Jm419 said:

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Right, I knew about Utopia Planica from TNG. So Starfleet is not the only Federation war-force?

There are other vessels other than "starships". Science vessels (Such as the Oberth class), Research Vessels (such as The Raven), Civilian passenger transports, non-Starfleet diplomatic ships (though that's typically handled by Starfleet)... The list goes on.

You don't want to touch the "Starfleet as a military organization" topic with a ten foot pole (TRUST me...), suffice to say that Starfleet builds both Starfleet and non-Starfleet vessels. Non-Starfleet vessels can also come from a variety of sources (including the Vulcan Science Institute). I doubt Starfleet would use non-Starfleet vessels (unless mission-specific).

Well, one could I suppose use a little temporal logic and say that the classic Enterprise's visit to Earth in the 1960s ("Tomorrow is Yesterday")and the Enterprise E's visit to Earth in the late 21st century to help Zephram Cochrane fly his warp ship ("First Contact")planted the seed for a saucer and two nacelles as they were seen in the sky.

They became a self fulfilling prophecy.

What, like Starfleet (even in it's early days) wouldn't know about Area 51 and the "flying saucers" being researched there? If it ain't broke, don't waste time redesigning it--just slap some warp engines on it and let's go cruisin'.

I think it's even easier than that - I bet Enterprise (NX-01) was designed for atmospheric entry (landing) so they had to consider atmospheric flow, etc. Given that, the Saucer was probably a natural fit.

Demet! Et ez not Vessels et ez WESSLES!



Doug

Re: Who builds vessels for the Federation?

Steve Neill

The reason Starfleet ships look like that is, according to Matt Jeffries, because he imagined that the warp nacelles were, due to their immense power, immensely dangerous and kept clear of the rest of the ship. He originally wanted a sphere instead of a saucer, but felt that the saucer was more aerodynamic and thus implied speed.

It is sort of odd that NX-1 looked so "modern" with its saucer and nacelle arrangement, but it was planned to be upgraded in season five to have a separate engineering section added underneath the ship, but of course, there was no fifth season, so that never happened.