Introducing the Sheliak Colonizer!

[Atrahasis]

I give everyone full permission to criticize the design of this ship.

It's basically the merchantman with what are in all probability submarine model kit parts attached to it (and that's not the first time they did that with submarine model kit parts).

I haven't even done the write-up for it yet....but to tell you the truth I have wanted to have this ship in-game for a long time. The Sheliak appeared to be quite advanced, and yet they have a ship that is basically a 400-meter long merchantman? Hmmm. There's a history behind this, and if we're creative enough we can think of one. That's basically why I found this race and this ship fascinating. An interesting tidbit is that first contact with them was in 2306, so we're talking between the Enterprise-B and C era. What factors could possibly have made the design of their ship so like the merchantman? It's interesting to speculate, don't yo think?

....and no party poopers saying that the reason is they were cheapos on the FX, because I've already mentioned they used submarine model kit parts!

[Parislord]

The Sheliak as portrayed in TNG were terribly Xenophobic, perhaps they did not consider the soil of a world that had been occupied by Humans worthy to sully the landing gear of one of their ships and so bought a used freighter.

Notice that the alien is completely covered when on-screen. Perhaps their xenophobia does not allow them to reveal anything about them they can avoid, so that they use non-Sheliak built starships in order to avoid revealing anything that might allow other races to speculate on them.

Maybe the Monarch was a spoil from previous conflict and they decided to get some use out the heap?

They use Apha-built hulls to avoid drawing attention to themselves and their movements (who pays attention to a beat-up old merchie-hull?).

I got the impression that there was limited contact between they and the Fed, maybe there is a certain amount of trade? Perhaps, like the sublight Rom peace treaty, trade with the hyper-xenophobic Sheliak is conducted entirely by robot-piloted freighters and so they send them back-and-forth and just happened to have one handy for the colonization mission.

[CptSavage]

parislord said:

The Sheliak as portrayed in TNG were terribly Xenophobic, perhaps they did not consider the soil of a world that had been occupied by Humans worthy to sully the landing gear of one of their ships and so bought a used freighter.

Notice that the alien is completely covered when on-screen. Perhaps their xenophobia does not allow them to reveal anything about them they can avoid, so that they use non-Sheliak built starships in order to avoid revealing anything that might allow other races to speculate on them.

Maybe the Monarch was a spoil from previous conflict and they decided to get some use out the heap?

They use Apha-built hulls to avoid drawing attention to themselves and their movements (who pays attention to a beat-up old merchie-hull?).

I got the impression that there was limited contact between they and the Fed, maybe there is a certain amount of trade? Perhaps, like the sublight Rom peace treaty, trade with the hyper-xenophobic Sheliak is conducted entirely by robot-piloted freighters and so they send them back-and-forth and just happened to have one handy for the colonization mission.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[Atrahasis]

I like that train of thought....so paranoid and xenophobic that they use the hulls of other races to keep their true capabilities hidden. Or at the very least they do this with their ships that operate on the outer rims of their territories. Seeing as how the merchantman is the most popular freighter design around, it wouldn't be too surprising that they chose it as a basis.

Dude, you get full stars for creativity!

[Atrahasis]

Hey, if they really bought a "used freighter", that would mean there would be other races employing this same design, or just bout the same design. That's an interesting thought...

This ship is over 400 meters long....much larger than the original Monarch, or even the original Enterprise and Voyager (although in TNG terms this doesn't mean much). In my book, that's "warship size" because if you look at the typical freighters in TNG they are quite dinky (an example would be the Antares class).

But then again, a "colonizer" would have an excuse to be large...

What do you all say? Is this a unique Sheliak design or a design that can be bought at your local starship dealers?

[USS Mariner]

It's possible that transporters and replicators are able to make a "scaled-up" version of the Monarch, or atleast one very close to it (from a distance.)

[Lord Schtupp]

Great work, many bows. Textures, mesh etc etc lol ;D

I really like the shape of the hull aesthetically speaking, but it doesnt look to be a 400 meter ship, I suppose its the comparative lack of windows since that is really the only thing that one can judge scale by without knowing anything about the race that constructed it. It looks to be 100-150 meters to my eyeball, but this is really nitpicking.

Its a colony ship so more windows are in order IMO..

[Lord Schtupp]

lol i just read the part about them being xenophobes, so I guess that more windows might not be in order

[Atrahasis]

Mariner said:

It's possible that transporters and replicators are able to make a "scaled-up" version of the Monarch, or atleast one very close to it (from a distance.)

Yeah, and in fact I imagine that's how ships get constrcuted in general...replicators and probably nanite tech too.

Ever wonder how a ship like the Constitution gets "uprated" to the Enterprise class? I think it's less "parts being substituted", but more along the lines of parts being broken down to seperate elements and molecules by use of transporter/replicator/nanite tech and re-built and re-shaped into new componets from the basic elements already there. It would be a lot more efficient than building a new ship from scratch, and it's a kind of recycling, whcih I imagine the advanced peoples of the 23rd/24th century have mastered.

[Parislord]

I think in the case of the TMP refit, we're talking stripped to the keel and frames, then rebuilt, the space-frame being the only part left of the original connie-class hull in the refit program...

[Parislord]

Btw, if that model's 400 meters long, those are some seriously panoramic portholes...

Personally, I like the trade by robot-piloted freighter explanation. Remember in the ep. how much emphasis was put on the imprecise nature of human language as being offensive to the Sheliak? Maybe they're used to dealing with other races soley through computers, what language could be more precise than machine code?

Also, let's not forget that the title "Colonizer" doesn't actually mean anything. The ship may have been carrying nothing more than the necessary parts and personnel for an initial surveying expedition and therefore need not be any larger than the Monarch. In most hard science-fiction, the colony ships are purpose-built devices that are meant to be stripped to the bones with each componant having a function in the colony after the ship makes planetfall. In this case it wouldn't seem practical to use a common freighter as a colony ship, but might if it were not delivering the colony's population, but a few critical supplies or personnel required on the ground prior to the colony-ship's arrival. Say, a ground-based navigation beacon or some such to assist in the landing evolution. Maybe a team of engineers and some heavy equipment to carve an LZ out of the native terrain? A team of scientists to make last-minute tests of the of the local water and the fertility of the soil around the chosen location for the colony? Maybe the colonizer is actually a ship used to scout potential colony-worlds? I've seen the ep. a few times, but I don't specifically remember whether or not it was stated that the ship was actually standing-by to move colonists onto the planet or what (although that's the way I seem to recall).

[Atrahasis]

All very true...we have no real info about how many Sheliak it was carrying (well, it was at least one) and whether it was a real colonizer or some kind of scout.

The impression I get was that it was a warship. What would a colonizer need with weapons that can level a city?

Maybe it was more of a "sterilzer" than a colonizer?

Which brings up the question of what kind of weapons to give it. Personally, I think if one plans to sterilize a planet, there's nothing like Photon Torpedoes.

[Parislord]

There's another bizarre twist. Are they xenophobic to such a degree that they must sterilize a potential homeworld of all local life (plants, bacta, etc.)? Or was Data merely referring to a degree of technological advancement that whatever weapons the ship might carry would be so capable?

Maybe it's carries weapons that carve-out a landing site, like an orbitally deployed Daisy-Cutter.

[The Half Monte]

Atrahasis said:

All very true...we have no real info about how many Sheliak it was carrying (well, it was at least one) and whether it was a real colonizer or some kind of scout.

The impression I get was that it was a warship. What would a colonizer need with weapons that can level a city?

I agree. My presumption is also due to the frightfully firm and unyielding stance the Sheliak took despite the presence of the Federation flagship of all vessels. Sure, some commanders were crazy enough to give aggressive decrees despite possessing vessels that couldn't back them without some form of divine intervention, (i.e., The Outrageous Okona)[i/] but I received the strong impression that the Sheliak were capable of unilaterally enforcing treaty...