Do we know anything about the tech specs of the Walker-class U.S.S. Shenzhou?

[Konundrum]

I'm afraid the Discovery's really not doing it for me so far but I'm incredibly interested in the Shenzhou.

Many years ago I helped write tech specs that were used in Trek sims all across the internet so I've always had a taste for it.

I know that she has anywhere from 10-16 decks, but that seems to be all. Is there any solid or reasonably speculative numbers on her dimensions?

 

[fireproof78]

Maybe it will be released with the Eaglemoss model?

Better yet, get some technical manuals for Discovery, please!

Also, hopefully there is another ship in the same class, known as the Texas Ranger

 

[Michael]

I know that she has anywhere from 10-16 decks

According to this turbolift graphic she has ten decks.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

We know she has 10 or so decks, has outdated transporters, uses phase canons and is likely a 22nd century design.

 

[Timo]

Actually, we know she has something like 15 decks at a minimum, because Deck 15 scores damage in the fight.

It also seems the damage is actually on the saucer bottom, not the lower parts of the ship, so the full total might be more like 20 decks. But Burnham is locked in a cell on Deck 9, and it looks like the second-to-lowermost deck on the saucer. So 15 is still possible.

(The ten-deck diagram seems to have been ditched in favor of a more complicated one in the turbolift, so not applicable.)

The main weapons are called "phase cannon" and "phasers" alternatively, so the two designations probably refer to one and the same weapon. It's just that, being a relic, the ship has old-fashioned labels on the triggers, so the users sometimes slip back to old-fashioned terminology themselves.

We don't exactly see where the guns are - fire comes from just beneath the rim of the saucer, but it's difficult to spot emitters there. Perhaps they are of the retractable type familiar from ENT and implied for TOS? Or then we see examples of them when Burnham emerges from the airlock lift next to some greeblies - there's a pair of balls-with-optical-surfaces behind her, possibly a twin phaser turret.

Also, torpedo launchers somewhere. Again, perhaps those dark openings next to the airlock?

Nine transporter platforms in that one room, neat. A shuttlebay aft, supposedly with multiple types including the "workerbee" we saw. Landing jets of Kelvinverse type, eight on the aft structures and six on the saucer. Shields, emergency forcefields, navigational deflector dish in front, the usual works. No mention of propulsive performance, although I'm sure there's a speedometer in some corner of some display we might spy upon.

She's old, but not even the dedication plaque tells how old exactly. Oddly enough, her registry is quite a bit higher than that of the "new" Discovery. No doubt there has been an interior refit, even if a minor one, to explain the great commonality with the other hero ship.

Exact dimensions are still unknown, but with a saucer 10 decks thick, she'd be a generic 22nd-23rd century vessel, about 300 meters long and 150 wide, give or take.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mirror Mirror]

Registration numbers never make sense. Never. Blame TOS for starting than and the movies keep it going. we have ships Newer than the Enterprise have a number in the 600's and one of the same class 700 lower.

Edit: and she has 10 decks, but they might be counting some of those slops and half decks as decks.

 

[Timo]

...No, she does not have just ten decks. That's outdated information - the diagram with ten decks is not part of the show.

(And no, there's no good reason to think NCC-956 would be one of the classmates of Enterprise...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mirror Mirror]

...No, she does not have just ten decks. That's outdated information - the diagram with ten decks is not part of the show.

(And no, there's no good reason to think NCC-956 would be one of the classmates of Enterprise...)



Timo Saloniemi

That diagram got used on the show. Really, if you start counting some of the half decks it can work. But I agree it might be outdated. And the Enterprise did have a class mate of 1017, The USS Constellation NCC-1017, it was a Constitution class ship. Which was near 700 lower than the Enterprise ( gotta love cheap kitbashes)

 

[Timo]

Where was that diagram used? It was supposed to be in the turbolift - it is not there, having been replaced by two far more complex displays high up.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mirror Mirror]

Where was that diagram used? It was supposed to be in the turbolift - it is not there, having been replaced by two far more complex displays high up.

Timo Saloniemi

You could be right, I thought it was used on screen but could be wrong. I really need to go back and look. Humm looking over two images here.
1: Here we look to have six, maybe 7 decks?

2: And here we have what looks to be 8 decks with the bridge?

That would give us 15. I am just counting the windows here. But do you get the same count?

 

[tenmei]

The only turbo lift diagram I saw was the older one with the lower deck number

 

[Tuskin38]

Apparently that turbolift deck plan on Ted Sullivan's twitter was outdated.

 

[Michael]

Either it was outdated or there are a couple of decks that can't be reached via turbolift.

 

[Tuskin38]

Is there a good shot in the first two episodes to compare with?

 

[Kemaiku]

The Walker class was considered to be an "old" ship by 2249, implying being built at the beginning of the 23rd century.

It has a maximum speed of warp 6.

It has at least 15 decks, with the brig being on deck 9 approximately 1-2 decks above the saucers lowest point, making the bridge and main engineering deck 11 or so.

She is equipped with mechnically loaded phase cannons for lower level engagement. But also primary phasers which require more power. Main phasers fire in the burst pattern from "Balance of Terror", we've seen no sign that either fire a beam.

She has standard primary Federation shields, internal forcefields, kinetic protection forcefields for the shuttle bay and hull breaches, as well as smaller protective ones around the bridge.

She has standard impulse engines and warp drive for the earl 23rd century, atmospheric flight and hover, but no landing ability. Thrusters and RCS seem to be arranged around the hull.

She presumably has the same tractor beams as the Europa and Discovery.

She has oudated, large, and power hungry "lateral vector" transporters that need a large single unit for each person. They are more advanced than the NX-01 variety but have the same antenna dish as when the NX class wall panels were taken off, but out on full display with no filtering crystal panel. But far less advanced than the Enterprise and Discovery models.

Her deflector dish is large, with two protruding antenna like the NX-02, with glowing sections implying an intergration of the glowing portions behind the dish from the NX class into the dish itself. The ship is extremely streamlined, implying the dish has a more limited ability to protect her at warp, requiring the ship to present as little profile as possible, that with her lower top warp speed means a less powerful drive. That and aerodynamic fins on the dorsal hull mean she was built with warp and atmospheres as a typical range of flight modes.

She has two forward photon torpedo tubes, from the readouts they might be the only ones. Her torpedoes are the up to date 2250's type that Discovery and the rest of the fleet also fire.

She's made of typical alloys, has matter and protein sequencers for material and food. Internal bulkheads look similar to Discovery so the style of construction hasn't changed much from about 2210's to 2250's or so.

There are holographic projection systems around the ship for long range subspace communication and ship to ship conferencing with little power or bandwidth consideration. She has basic sensors, passive and active, long range and short, high speed subspace antenna etc

A fairly ordinary shuttlebay, high speed escape pods, Jefferies tubes, we never get to see engineering but there's a 3D wireframe of her reactor that looks pretty normal, they imply antimatter pods like most ships too.

The Computer is a lot more "personable" than the Enterprise version and has more fluid conversations in real time with humans onboard. And has ethical programming that can be engaged or disengaged in specific locations.

 

[Tuskin38]

but have the same antenna dish as when the NX class wall panels were taken off,

Which episode was this seen in?

 

[Kemaiku]

Which episode was this seen in?

I remember the scene itself, someone else mentioned it in another thread yesterday or the day before. I don't know what episode but they did have a lot of the panels off, check Trekcore for the caps of the episode it's inventor comes aboard. That might well be it.

Hang on:

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x10/Daedalus_320.JPG

Not quite the antenna but there are projectors with a round plate behind. If the Shenzhou has decade of progress then those little projectors could be bigger and more powerful.

Discovery's transporter pad from the publicity shots looks a lot more like the TNG ones though.

 

[KirkusOveractus]

The Walker class was considered to be an "old" ship by 2249, implying being built at the beginning of the 23rd century.

It has a maximum speed of warp 6.

It has at least 15 decks, with the brig being on deck 9 approximately 1-2 decks above the saucers lowest point, making the bridge and main engineering deck 11 or so.

She is equipped with mechnically loaded phase cannons for lower level engagement. But also primary phasers which require more power. Main phasers fire in the burst pattern from "Balance of Terror", we've seen no sign that either fire a beam.

She has standard primary Federation shields, internal forcefields, kinetic protection forcefields for the shuttle bay and hull breaches, as well as smaller protective ones around the bridge.

She has standard impulse engines and warp drive for the earl 23rd century, atmospheric flight and hover, but no landing ability. Thrusters and RCS seem to be arranged around the hull.

She presumably has the same tractor beams as the Europa and Discovery.

She has oudated, large, and power hungry "lateral vector" transporters that need a large single unit for each person. They are more advanced than the NX-01 variety but have the same antenna dish as when the NX class wall panels were taken off, but out on full display with no filtering crystal panel. But far less advanced than the Enterprise and Discovery models.

Her deflector dish is large, with two protruding antenna like the NX-02, with glowing sections implying an intergration of the glowing portions behind the dish from the NX class into the dish itself. The ship is extremely streamlined, implying the dish has a more limited ability to protect her at warp, requiring the ship to present as little profile as possible, that with her lower top warp speed means a less powerful drive. That and aerodynamic fins on the dorsal hull mean she was built with warp and atmospheres as a typical range of flight modes.

She has two forward photon torpedo tubes, from the readouts they might be the only ones. Her torpedoes are the up to date 2250's type that Discovery and the rest of the fleet also fire.

She's made of typical alloys, has matter and protein sequencers for material and food. Internal bulkheads look similar to Discovery so the style of construction hasn't changed much from about 2210's to 2250's or so.

There are holographic projection systems around the ship for long range subspace communication and ship to ship conferencing with little power or bandwidth consideration. She has basic sensors, passive and active, long range and short, high speed subspace antenna etc

A fairly ordinary shuttlebay, high speed escape pods, Jefferies tubes, we never get to see engineering but there's a 3D wireframe of her reactor that looks pretty normal, they imply antimatter pods like most ships too.

The Computer is a lot more "personable" than the Enterprise version and has more fluid conversations in real time with humans onboard. And has ethical programming that can be engaged or disengaged in specific locations.

Where is all this from?

 

[Kemaiku]

Where is all this from?

Dialogue, some of the closeups of the readouts on twitter they leaked in the days leading up to the episode, things that simply happened during it.

 

[Timo]

The Walker class was considered to be an "old" ship by 2249, implying being built at the beginning of the 23rd century.

Might be even older, with multiple life-prolonging refits. Pure speculation - but perhaps fitting of her very ENT-like looks?

It has a maximum speed of warp 6.

We don't appear to see a tachometer...

She is equipped with mechnically loaded phase cannons for lower level engagement. But also primary phasers which require more power. Main phasers fire in the burst pattern from "Balance of Terror", we've seen no sign that either fire a beam.

Or then there's just one gun type, as only one is seen firing. And using "low level" would go contrary to what Burnham really wants when she issues commands to phase cannons.

We don't see any "bursting" at impact (let alone at miss), do we?

She has standard impulse engines and warp drive for the earl 23rd century, atmospheric flight and hover, but no landing ability.

Why no landing ability? It's not as if landing would have been a good idea when a hover would do in the teaser. But if one can hover, one can also land. And in a ship as tough as a starship must be, this wouldn't even call for landing gear!

It's a common misconception that landing of starships would be a rare or novel thing in VOY. Such a claim is never made in the episodes or movies. Indeed, the one time a character expresses reservations about atmospheric ops and takeoffs, in ST Beyond, the ship in question performs like a dream on both counts, not to mention her having made a smooth and level landing before the events.

The ship is extremely streamlined

She's extremely bumpy. Is that the same as streamlined?

She has some fins. So did the Intrepid from ENT. Would these be for aerodynamics in either case?

She has two forward photon torpedo tubes, from the readouts they might be the only ones.

Where do we see the telltale display for the tube count?

...And where might the tubes be located? We don't see any firing in the battle, I think. Burnham's spacewalk scene shows lots of greeblies that could be torpedo tubes or phaser banks, but neither get a confirmation.

Her torpedoes are the up to date 2250's type that Discovery and the rest of the fleet also fire.

Based on what?

Internal bulkheads look similar to Discovery so the style of construction hasn't changed much from about 2210's to 2250's or so.

Or then it's a brand new style, as the cons (with sentences of unknown length) are impressed by the newness of the Discovery interiors. Perhaps it was the hottest news in 2249 when the Shenzhou began crumbling internally and needed a total interior revamp?

A fairly ordinary shuttlebay

Or perhaps extraordinary, as it was not seen. Possibly her "worker bee" carrying capability got her selected for the relay buoy repair job?

Timo Saloniemi