Scale and Size: a Discussion
Scale and Size: a Discussion
There is quite a lot of debate and vitriol online of late regarding size and scale of starships in Star Trek.
In an attempt to quell the fan debate SNW season 3s "What Is Starfleet?" documentary establishes a length of 442.6 meters for the constitution class USS Enterprise. This numbers fails for several reasons. As pointed out by VenomGeekMedia on a recent video discussion about starship scale and perspective, this size fails for several reasons. 1: with a crew compliment of 203 (during Pikes time) or even 430 (in Kirk's time) the accepted 289m length (TOS era) or 305m (Movies refit) is plenty big enough for the crew. Despite what J.J. Abrams and Alex Kurtzman may think, 289m is actually quite large. To be frank J.J. Abrams blatant upscaling of the Kelvin Enterprise to around 750 meters long simply doesn't work. For one, the bridge, with a window viewscreen through which we can see from the outside people standing on the bridge becomes the "ruler" by which rest of the ship must be measured (a 6 foot tall person is still 6 feet tall). Second, Abrams thinks in terms of Star Wars, a franchise that by and large only thinks bigger is better period. As pointed out by Bernd Schneider on Ex-Astris-Scientia.org a length of 360m is much more realistic. Applying this thinking to Star Trek has lead to not only the unnecessary upscaling of ships in the Kelvin movies, but in all of new trek, starting with Discovery and leading to Strange New Worlds. VenomGeekMedia made the point in his recent video that this unnecessary upscaling comes at the cost of realism and believability. Looking at the SNW Enterprise, if TPTB were insistent on upscaling it and establishing a new canon size for the ship, a length of perhaps 342m would have been much more palatable to the fans. VenomGeekMedia also pointed out quite correctly that scaling the Constitution class enterprise up to 442m is also problematic in that given previously seen on scree evidence (see the end of Star Trek VI, the Enterprise-A and the Excelsior flying together) The Excelsior and all other ships going forward would have to be scaled up a well. Does anyone really want to open that can of worms? I think not.
On the question of scale of the original NCC-1701 and room for her crew, a thought had I. Since the Enterprise logically underwent a significant refit between Pike stepping down and Kirk taking command and beginning his historic 5 year mission, both to upgrade the ship's systems and to outfit her for the upcoming 5 year mission, a part of that refit would be outfitting her to accommodate the larger 430 person crew the ship would carry under Kirk (up from 203). Internal layouts would change, large spaces like Pikes huge quarters and the giant port galley would be reduced to make room for more smaller crew quarters and other facilities. Notice how much small all the crew quarters and facilities (lounges, rec rooms, etc.) were during Kirks time. Also Captain Pikes huge "bachelor pad" quarters had a full kitchen, something that Kirk may not have even wanted or needed. Even sickbay was noticeably smaller during Kirk's command, though thanks to Dr. McCoy and Nurse Chapel, no less capable in emergencies. Thus the Enterprise may have seemed luxuriously large during Pikes time, while under Kirk's command she would have felt noticeably more crowded.
My point here is, as VenomGeekMedias video also pointed out, despite common opinions to the contrary the Enterprise at 289m long in TOS (or even 305m in the movies) is not too small for the crew. 289m is big. When seen in scale with 430 people (see Venoms video) is still plenty large.
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