Klingon ship design really puts its neck out there

[@Gordon519]

HONK QUAPLA

[@SledgeOfHouseHammer]

"roj" was never an option.

[@DanteYuy]

@@SledgeOfHouseHammer Experience HONK

[@wojtek1274]

I legit guffawed at this.

[@nerowulfee9210]

SS13\barotrauma, but with klingons.

[@tsamoka6496]

Wait, that robot giving a thumbs up at 3:28, is that... Holy crap, did we just get a face reveal from the Dockmaster?! 🤣 =^x^=

[@kentlindal5422]

Interesting cultural difference. The Klingons must have taken one look at the Enterprise and thought "How top heavy is their command?"

[@torinnbalasar6774]

They might be right, ever seen anybody lower rank than an ensign?😅

[@warsprite1888]

@@torinnbalasar6774 Yes, the ever present Red Shirts, who all seem to die messily except in TNG. All of whom appear to be noteworthy enough to be listed as Engineering or Security Specialists who all appear to have the rank of Sergeant (alright, to whom do we blame the Sergeant hate in Star Trek? JW?).

[@torinnbalasar6774]

@@warsprite1888 did they ever refer to any of them as sergeants? Pretty sure at a minimum anytime they interacted with crew outside of the command staff on the Enterprise in TOS, they were still ensigns.

[@nightrunnerxm393]

@@torinnbalasar6774 Sure. Senior Chief Petty Officer Miles Edward O'Brien of Deep Space Nine, for one. He's an Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO). Even joked about having to call then-Cadet Nog "sir" when he graduated Starfleet Acadamy. Not to mention a number of "crewmen" aboard Voyager who apparently don't actually _have_ a rank, as such. They tended to die a lot, for some reason. The trouble is that we mostly follow the senior/command staff in the shows, and they're all career officers, so we _rarely_ see the NCOs or enlisted personnel that make the whole organization actually _function_ get featured all that prominently...they usually just get a nod from time to time, at best. My guess is that somebody wanted to "streamline" the organizational structure of Starfleet at one point, and everyone became an "officer" for a while--whether they actually held an officer's commission and rank or not.

[@warsprite1888]

@@torinnbalasar6774 Yep, usually during services for them or in mentioning them afterwords. I'm thinking old star trek episodes here. But even if they didn't, a Specialist in the Military is usually one and I know they called them that on several different occasions which Implies one in the very least plus Star Fleet has always (supposedly) had non-coms (Non-Commissioned). Yep, Chief Petty Officer (CPO) or Petty Officer (PO) Is A Non-Com, usually in the Navy but in this case, a Space Navy so nightrunnerxm393 is right. Armies and Navy's also have Warrant Officers, a rank between True Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCO's).

[@ArcturusMinsk]

Anyone who has gone toe to toe with a Canada Goose knows that it is a ferocious and relentless opponent. Any pink blooded Klingon will tell you they'd be honored to have their ships resemble them.

[@attila535]

You just need the right tool to deal with them, usually a leaf rake will do the job.

[@nicholashodges201]

@@attila535 a foot works too in a pinch. Geese are @$$holes. But at least they aren't swans. Those suckers can actually kill a man...

[@argokarrus2731]

Honestly true

[@canadianbakin1304]

@@nicholashodges201 they hang out with the swans at toronto island as a team 🤣

[@nicholashodges201]

@@canadianbakin1304 fortunately here the bodies of water are small enough you either get swans or geese, but not both

[@harbl99]

Of course the Klingons put the bridge forward on an extended neck. That means the officers get first swing at the enemy that way. Makes perfect sense for a hierarchical warrior culture.

[@robertb7293]

Drive me closer! I want to hit them with my bat'leth!

[@AlanGChenery]

Taking "drive me closer I want to hit them with my sword" to a whole new frontier.

[@doctortimetv1577]

plus its overcompensating at its best if you follow the freudian model.

[@Joe-Dead]

leading from the front as every leader should! (and making sure their rear is well protected too)

[@KertaDrake]

First to battle, first to die gloriously in a last ditch ramming.

[@atigerclaw]

"It's not meant for human habitation." Klingon Officer: "I should hope not... We're Klingon."

[@fuzzwork]

Apparently Matt Jeffries labelled quite a few items in his tube and on the engineering set as "GNDN" which actually stood for "Goes nowhere, does nothing"

[@vp21ct]

It should be noted, the long neck isn't so much of a weakness for a variety of reasons. 1) The ship's weapons are concentrated on it's forward arc. So the neck will seldom be presented. 2) Shields are really the primary 'armor' of the ship, so the neck isn't THAT much more vulnerable. In fact, its' smaller area might make the shields there stronger.

[@Messametti]

I would add an third point. If the enemy can destroy the neck the ship is done anyway because the shields are gone. It makes no real difference if the enemy is shooting at the neck or the reactor core.

[@DrewLSsix]

I keep pointing this out, we see consistently that when shields are down contemporary weapons amd even natural forces simply tear through these ships. Things have changed a bit with the armor introduced post TNG but for the vast majority of the fights we see the shield countdown is literally a timer that ends in death. Without shields a torpedo could penetrate several decks into any portion of that ship, so it's just not feasible to lay it out in a way that tries to protect itself with metal at the expense of whatever other concerns dictate the shape of the hull. We have seen a similar development in wet navies, ships steadily upped their armor for well over a century, from heavy wood ro iron cladding to WWII belted battleships and armored cruisers. But post WWII this all went away, weapons became accurate and powerful, we couldn't plausibly armor a ship enough to shake off cruise missiles and torpedoes. So we went to active defenses and electronic warfare, and our ships are practically paper thin now, favoring efficiency speed and range and depending entirely on modern technology.

[@ThubanDraconis]

Agreed. If your materials technology does not let you make things that can resist a hit from a 20 megaton antimatter torpedo then it doesn't make any sense to try to armor against that torpedo. You get hit anywhere and you are dead. And, On a real life Iowa class battleship they extended the bow our a couple hundred feet. You can see it in top down views. The front section in front of the guns is long and thin. There were a lot of downsides to this design decision but it was considered worth it because longer ships can go faster and they wanted that class of battleship to keep pace with the carriers. (Look up hull speed theory for more details.) We don't know how the technology of warp drive, particularly Klingon warp drives would work. It could be that this general outline made the Klingon ships better when traveling at warp. Magnetic fields get concentrated in a ferrite core, maybe warp fields get concentrated in matter somehow and so a boom was needed to get the warp field to form properly. Federation designs might also structure their warp fields so that saucer section was needed for maximum efficiency. (It's all fiction so we can make up whatever we like.)

[@TarsonTalon]

This is a stealth ship, no? Therefor, having a spindly design means you are harder to hit.

[@sh4d0wfl4re]

@@DrewLSsix honestly, it wasn't even that the ship armor shown in most star trek ships was weak prior to ablative armor's invention... it's just that even the tritanium alloys that the Borg used could have square kilometer sized chunks phasered away in seconds (tritanium resist's nadion radiation preventing the whole ship from being erased, and is notable amongst fantasy/scifi supermetals being in the upper third of them). As much as I like making fun of Star Wars ships for being as massive as they are compared to Star Trek, most of that bulk is so that they can endure space flight speeds even after shields go down for a moment. Star Trek hulls can endure speeds close to C, with impulse drives often going well above .2C, even atoms can cripple a ship at those speeds, yet Star Trek ships don't need particularly thick armor even when colliding with meter sized objects at "high impulse." Star Trek Armor is probably the main reason we know their phasers are bonkers levels of OP, as shielding is mostly kept relative to the phasers. www.quora.com/In-Star-Trek-just-how-fragile-are-the-Federation’s-starships-if-they-don’t-have-shields-After-all-their-hulls-are-aluminum arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/could-breakthrough-starshots-ships-survive-the-trip/

[@jefferydaniels6717]

The old cannon was simple, they needed to get away from the radiation of the engine decks hence the long neck. Most modern naval warships are actually glass cannons as well.

[@90lancaster]

They are Klingons not Romulans so they might not feel the need to kill themselves and as such they could push the from section away as an escape pod and the back part as a "big bomb". & Klingons wouldn't really want to die due to an engineering accident that won't be very honorable way to die. So yeah "escape pod"

[@TheSuperhomosapien]

That neck is one hell of a defendable choke point if the ship is boarded.

[@andrewszigeti2174]

Of course, with transporters it can work both ways. Transport into the area on the bridge side of the choke point and take it, now you can prevent marine reinforcements from coming to the bridge to contest your control.

[@TheSuperhomosapien]

@@andrewszigeti2174 In Klingon culture, your command crew will typically be your greatest warriors. They would have had to defend their positions at some time and be victorious to keep them, and would probably have to challenge a superior to gain their promotions. Forcing your enemies to attack your strongest warriors to gain control of the ship seems a very Klingon tactic.

[@entropy11]

@@andrewszigeti2174 Aside from a couple of officers to maintain control, the Klingon "lower decks" as it were, aren't going to be combat troops (moreso than average for the KDF) and aren't going to have more than a few disruptor pistols for keeping order. The Warriors and Officers are the ones quartered up in the command bulb, and boarding the engineering section isn't going to do you much good if the bastards up front can just turn off the power, lifesupport, and gravity before disabling the radiation screens and laughing at you.

[@CptJistuce]

If the ship's being boarded, I think it is safe to say transporter countermeasures are no longer active. Boarding operations on Star Trek are very rarely done the old-fashioned way. Wasn't there something in that blueprint about a 5x21-person transporter room in the rear of the D7? I think two hundred transporter plates means they can put as many marines as they need into the head under those circumstances.

[@thatstarwarsnerd6641]

As well as the reasons you stated, I’ve heard the boom was to keep the officers away from the warp nacelles spewing radiation everywhere, something that still works on the ships with thicker necks

[@barrybend7189]

Actually thanks to the Khitomer accords that issue was solved. The K'tinga even got refits for those upgrades.

[@39KHall]

@@barrybend7189 That's interesting about Khitomer; I didn't know that. In the great John M. Ford (of happy memory) novel _The Final Reflection_ the problem had been solved much earlier. The protagonist (Cadet Vrenn tai-Khemara, later Captain Krenn tai-Rustazh) was jawing with his roommate, Engineering cadet Ruzhe Avell, during their cadet cruise into Romulan space. As Vrenn was beating the daylights out of Ruzhe in a game of _klin zha_ , Ruzhe said something like, "Sure you don't want to transfer to Engineering, do something with honest metal and current?" "No thanks," Vrenn replied, "I'd just as soon stay up here, away from the radiation." "There's no radiation! We just keep the Drell design* because it works!" "Okay, then, up here away from the Marines." 😁 *I assume the Drell design refers to the command and accommodation decks being up at the end of the boom, and also provides the "D" used in the ship classes back in the day (D6, D7 at the time of The Original Series; in the era of _The Final Reflection_ , the primary line cruiser was the D4).

[@spacat1]

@@39KHall I loved that book!

[@davebignell773]

The old StarFleet Battles tabletop game had an interesting bit of lore - in their version the Klingon Empire used a lot of non-Klingon conscripts as crew members on their ships. As they weren't actual Klingons, they were viewed as expendable - and the Klingons had no compunctions about making this very clear to the conscripts. Hence the internal defences protecting the bridge and other critical sections of the ship against the inevitable mutinies by the conscripts, and the presence of the ships main armoury in the head section, along with quarters for both the officers and the internal security personnel/permanently assigned troops.

[@jonguilt7789]

Whenever I think of separating/combining machines of this scale, all I can think of are all the tiny little clasps and seals that have to work perfectly every time, without fail.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

LEETLE FIDDLY BITS. So many points of failure. And so much stress imposed upon them even when they aren't actually, y'know, operating.

[@alexanderglass2057]

@@SacredCowShipyards I could see the usefulness for doing that on medium scale craft, (KSP has taught me it's a really good design choice if you're trying to not kill anyone and have a janky untested craft, or you're going into regions of unpredictable physics), and just having structural breakaway points and vacuum sealing for the larger craft where rooms just become escape pods by themselves if the ship is hit with something strong enough to break the superstructure. Honestly settings where you have time manipulation or stasis of a sort, it would make sense to have every room be able to freeze time or activate a form of stasis for anyone occupying it in the case of a ship breakup. Have a beacon on every room, boom couple 100 year life pod. It would be like waking up from a coma, into a new economy, when rescued but hey at least they're alive.

[@ravenkk4816]

@@SacredCowShipyards correct me if i am wrong, but i think Klingon use to have a Clan base military increase chance of this sort of things, the centralized professional military force of KDF exist only sorts after the original series. (And after the moon got blow up)

[@kagato3]

@@SacredCowShipyards I'm fairly sure the separations on most of the ships were one time use only and if you need to use it well you were screwed anyway.

[@KertaDrake]

Honestly, even if it was one-time use separation with no recombining, it's really just adding weak points to your craft. A shot in the wrongs spot and you could have a partial disconnect where one section folds back and crashes into the other or starts rattling around violently.

[@dragon1011dk]

"He has to be incompetent. He has to have shown cowardice in the face of the enemies. He has to be a significant problem on the ship" You just described 100% of all the people I have hade so bosses....Weird, shit really float to the top.

[@AquaticIdealist]

"kicked upstairs", as the saying goes

[@SacredCowShipyards]

I believe your planet has referred to that as the "Peter Principle".

[@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462]

​@@SacredCowShipyards Which Scott Adam's lampooned with the Dilbert Principle: "The basic concept of the Dilbert Principle is that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage; management."

[@randlebrowne2048]

@@SacredCowShipyards Could you have learned about the reason for the Klingon design from Starfleet Battles sourcebooks? I definitely remember reading this in one of their tabletop game sourcebooks years ago.

[@waynecampeau4566]

I always assumed that the design was because the Klingon engineering section was not as well radiation shielded as the Federation and that it was largely unmanned. They were warships with over power reactors and the warp nacelles were too close for comfort or safety. Also that the crew compliment was smaller (about 1/5th?) that of a comparable sized Federation ship.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Amusingly they were about as long as a Constitution-class and had about the same crew compliment.

[@waynecampeau4566]

@@SacredCowShipyards I never really had a good idea of the crew compliment of the Klingon ships. The only time I can recall it being mentioned was in "Dave of the Dove" where they said mos of the Enterprises crew was trapped and not involved in the fighting. Kang said most of his crew was killed so we only saw a dozen or so Klingon's.

[@glrasshopper]

"Seems like having your ship falling apart is a bad thing." I just love the way you word things.

[@phluphie]

Re: Mirror Universe, Chekhov did say nobody would question the death of a captain that disobeyed orders from Star Fleet. That kinda indicates, IMAO, that even in the Mirror Universe, you couldn’t just randomly kill superior officers.

[@dolomaticus1180]

He has never met a Canadian Goose, cause IF the Dock-master had... the word stupid and that biological weapon would have never been in the same sentence. Those things are actual menaces to living being, including sometimes themselves!

[@travisfoster1071]

Especially, when the goose has gosling, absolutely vicious...

[@mandolinic]

Not forgetting that a typical Canada goose craps a crap-load of the slimiest (er) crap each and every day. Far more effective than any banana skin for the unwary hiker. Really should be banned under some international bio-war convention.

[@Reddotzebra]

That is literally a decent description for how human memory works, yes. Not to mention that us squishy meatbags delete and then rewrite our memories every time we recall them, so it gets even more confusing.

[@graylinshowell7051]

An evening of discussing ships and drinking with Lazerpig and the Dockmaster from SCS would probably be great for my brain and terrifying for my liver.

[@franksmedley7372]

Hello SCS Yes, I too have that memory that is not really a memory. And I too 'knew' about the whole 'defensible against mutiny' reasoning, as well as the fact that the boom and command module were detachable. I also knew that the Constitution class saucer was designed to detach to become a 'lifeboat' as well. At least with the 'Connie', when the saucer detached, it still had its primary Impulse Drives attached. And, like so many other kids that watched the show, my brother and I had models of the D7 and the Constitution class hanging from the ceiling of our bedroom, along with the obligatory posters and pictures of various members of the crew of the Enterprise.

[@TycoonTitian01]

Honestly pretty funny situation that I already watched both this channel and Lazerpig when he made that video

[@brentwalker9576]

“Like gunning down mutineers (in a command hallway)”, a Klingon expression for an action one wishes hadn’t been necessary, but that refusing to do would have ended in dishonorable death. Often used instead of the expression “like slaughtering the Targ for the feast” to indicate an outcome resulting from oversight rather than intentional planning.

[@TheBigExclusive]

In Star Trek Enterprise, they say the Klingon ship design is deceptive. That the front area (head/neck) of a Klingon ship is actually most armored and shielded.

[@entropy11]

The neck is all strucural keel and armor, with enough space in the middle for a walkway. It's absolutely one of the toughest parts of the ship. You're not taking the command area of the ship by force if you're starting back in engineering. You're just not. This is essential given the KDF's use of impressed crew.

[@radishdalek]

I read somewhere that the whole extended neck and head section was sold to the Klingon people as "Commanders lead from the front". So when later designs had lower mutiny risk, the "command at the front" had become so ingrained, they still implemented keck and bridge head even when not needed. Another impact of "commanders lead from the front" was that later ships moved the captain's chair in front of all other consoles. All the captain can see is the viewscreen.

[@randlebrowne2048]

At least in the old Starfleet Battles tabletop game, the Klingon Empire actually had large crews composed of various client races (effectively drafted slaves). This alien slave crew was prone to mutiny.

[@krakenpots5693]

I was very happy LP chose to promote you!!!

[@spaceengineeringempire4086]

So to sum up the reasons for the Klingon ship design. 1: the command crew is in the head with a neck away from the body to protect against mutiny’s 2: it protects the command crew from the warp core and the radiation it emits. 3: it is ment to make your subordinates to trust you and to follow you cause your the first in battle and the first to die. 4: you are forced to be smart in your ships placement cause forward facing weapon. 5: if the engineering deck is destroyed the bridge can be used as a life boat.

[@michaelblackwell7408]

My good man, that is the plans by Michael McMaster (rest his soul) for the original Klingon battlecruiser from TOS. Most can tell this by the impulse engines mounted just below the small hanger. A good design and goes with the original internal sets.

[@tenchraven]

This actually makes a huge amount of sense. One of my What-Ifs is this: the Klingon Empire has hundreds of worlds, just like the UFP, so it must have many vassal races. So if on many ships you've got a crew that is mostly these vassals with a command crew of Klingons, you'd have rebellions. It may even be that the more loyal worlds along the the DMZ... I mean the Neutral Zone fielded ships with their own crews. They would have been export models with not quite cutting edge weapons and electronics, but the same hull and engines. The could have been Klingon officers, in the uniforms of their vassals and possibly even with cosmetic surgery, with these vessels. It explains the "we don't talk about it" brow ridges and why the great Klingon generals who'd danced with Kirk and came out of retirement for the Domionion war, now doesn't it. It also fits the Cold War paradigm.

[@not_even_known_yet3167]

I really love that explanation.

[@Ni999]

Or you could just go with the explanation in _Enterprise_ about the changes in appearances.

[@weldonwin]

This wasn't really a What-If, I think this more or less was cannon, that the Klingons had enslaved many other races and made use of them aboard their warships, typically as menial laborers to do all the crap-work aboard their ships while the actual warriors just focused on bashing one another's heads in and sticking a knife into the first back that's turned to them, while composing epic songs to boast about all the unarmed men women and children they so bravely slaughtered.

[@Ni999]

@@weldonwin I think that was introduced in an old game.

[@randlebrowne2048]

@@Ni999 Starfleet Battles tabletop game.

[@larryfontenot9018]

IIRC, the idea that the neck on Klingon ships was a choke point for stopping mutineers was from one of the old pen-and-paper games. In that alternate version of Trek history, Klingon ships were crewed by subject races. The actual Klingons were the officers and made up a small percentage of the total crew. They stayed in the boom which could separate and had a sublight engine. In the case of a mutiny, the officers could escape in the boom and remotely detonate the primary hull.

[@EGRJ]

I like how the Space Marine book cover looks like something airbrushed in the 80s.

[@vancescott3015]

Starfleet battles was the game I was played in the late 80's, and in one of the nexus magazines there was a story about the Klingon D7 and how the neck was designed to stop mutinies. the story was a bout the crew getting the aft part of the ship and escaping, came with an SSD of a D7 Boby with an Orion command control section. good story couldn't tell you the year.

[@muninrob]

I think your "missing" source material is either the Star Fleet Battles board game by Amarrillo Design Bureau (particularly the parts about boarding actions), or the Star Fleet Battles video games based on it. Klingon warships are crewed by prisoners and conscripts, with the officers & marines being Klingons. The Klingon detachable bridge actually had a VERY good reason - all of the communications, navigation, life support controls and computers are in the bridge. In the case of losing the ship in a mutiny, the Klingons would kill the main section's life support and fly off for a few days while the slaves & conscripts die off - then re-attach & limp back home for a new crew of slaves, prisoners and conscripts.

[@pvtnum11]

Star Fleet Battles runs with the "officers at the front, crew in the back" thing, complete with detachable boom and head bit. Also have a lot of security stations to keep the crew in line. However, SFB is non-canon as far as sources are concerned. Excellent vid and I paused several times to gawk at the blueprints....!

[@Calaban619]

No mention I see, of the 'superior fire arcs' from the bow section, or the fact that only 70% of the weapons shoot forward, but by design 100% shot straight backward. Coupled with the boarding transporters rearward- this showed their favored ship to ship tactic; racking pass, veer away at speed, alpha steike rearward to drop shields, boom surprise! 105 Klingons onboard. Lucky for me I still know where I know this from: OG SFB (Star Fleet Battles)

[@76TomD]

Old tech manuals stated the fore section after the boom was in case of emergenices could be jettisoned. Also kept the officers away from the engineering section that supposedly had less shielding from the engines. Lesser officers spent most of their time in the after engineering section

[@omganotherun]

3:15 Having already been a subscriber to you AND Laserpig, you two seem like kindred spirits. Cousins even.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

"Attitude" is a universal constant.

[@Cheshire020]

Never underestimate a Canada Goose. They'll mess you up if they get the chance.

[@ricardokowalski1579]

lazerpig has started a chain reaction of goodwill that gives me hope👍

[@jacobbronsky464]

Thanks to him I know League of Pigs now and my life is way better for it.

[@warblerblue]

Bumper sticker on the back of the Klingon Cruiser: I honk for Canadian Geese.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

"And they honk back."

[@moknbyrd]

The idea about the boom design being a mutiny deterrent came from a ST: The Motion Picture era novel. It might have been "Klingon Gambit" or "Entropy Effect"..... But I could be wrong. It's been so long since I read those.

[@mowgli2071]

This episode's sponsor is one of the best sponsors

[@themcchuck8400]

All this is canon in Star Fleet Battles. Larger Klingon ships even have security stations in the aft hull, and if they are taken out in battle, there is a chance the crew will mutiny.

[@Ithirahad]

I'd be willing to bet a big brick of Latinum that the Jeffries tubes on the Vor'cha and Negh'var are still set up the same way, though there might be more normal rooms and bulkheads and one or two big corridors running through the centre. I'd also bet that those one-man squeeze exits are set up so that anyone guarding the command end of the main corridors is going to have a good view of them at all times too.

[@derekburge5294]

I love the Jungle Tactics room. Very important use of space.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Gotta have backup atmo systems.

[@mikehenthorn1778]

Every time i see the cuber in the imtro i can hear Ellie from borderlands saying " i tuned up the crusher i think it can crush a star into a black hole now "

[@KertaDrake]

I could also see the whole thing being designed like like that explosive nose thing on the Defiant where you separate the boom and send the drive section flying into the enemy as a last-ditch attempt to win. Probably got phased out because Klingons are gonna Klingon and prefer just plunging the whole ship into the enemy rather than watching the fireworks from a distance.

[@BOBXFILES2374a]

"We want to see it up close, just before we go to Stovalkorr....."

[@spanners7343]

There is another reason for this design which has been hinted at in a couple of TOS episodes. Kingon warp core shielding was far inferior to other space fairing races especially in the early days. Additionally in their early years of space expansion ships officer were made up of members of Noble Kingon houses, this design helped protect them from the radiation leaking from their warp cores. This of course has been corrected in later designs but the over all shapes were kept.

[@PsychedelicChameleon]

I have a vague memory of reading in the late '70s or early '80s that the Klingons' overall technology was slightly behind the Federation and Romulans (because they are not particularly interested in science), but that their empire made up for that with lots of adaptations: their engines produced some radiation that was dangerous in the long run, and the long neck of the ship is to keep the officers' exposures to radiation minimal. The crew can suck it. Also, those large diagonal things within the ship that look like shock absorbers are actual shock absorbers to reduce the structural stress and damage when their ships are hit in combat.

[@karistasogare]

the reference you were looking for, is from the game Star Fleet Battles (circa 1970s) in it, the Klingons used 'servator' (slave) races as enlisted crew. they were confined to the 'engineering' section (much like those on British sailing ships were to the lower decks) Thus (as you surmised) the 'long neck' was to prevent officers being 'bothered' by crew men. also since 'Engine shielding' was minimal, it helped make sure those officers didn't suffer Rad poisoning. as for 'separation' that was as much for 'escaping' mutinous crew as it was for 'acting as a life boat' Oh BTW, re the Canada goose thing, funny thing if you watch the shadow of one landing, it looks almost exactly like a BoP on an attack run

[@BOBXFILES2374a]

Klingon Science Officer: "What is Engine Shielding?"

[@guaposneeze]

"Inspirational Media Room" and "Chart Room" as such amusing little things to stick in there. Sure, it's a warship in the 23rd century. But it's gotta have a theater dedicated to... Inspiration, and a room for storing and reviewing paper maps out outer space. Anyhow, my head-canon has always been that the shape of the "head and neck" of a starship is mainly dictated by some warp field geometry stuff related to the engines. And the long neck of a Klingon ship is mainly some sort of linear particle accelerator used for the weapons or the engines. In TOS, one of the original ideas was that everybody on a star ship is an "astronaut" and therefore they are all officers. Would you trust an antimatter reactor designed to warp spacetime to an enlisted recruit who did a six week A-School program right after boot camp? Even the Klingons aren't that brave.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Given their martial, hierarchical society, I'm almost surprised they don't have actual commissars onboard.

[@KellAnderson]

Seeing you get a shoutout from the Pig was amazing. Congrats on that, dude. Well deserved.

[@doomspud6302]

Mutiny defense does make perfect sense. But I always figured the long neck was so you could wield the ship like a giant battleaxe. You know, in case you run out of torpedoes. At least, that's what I used to do with the toy Vor'cha I had as a kid.

[@barkingmonkee]

The story I always heard as to why the engineering section of the D7 looked the way it did was the art director thought the ship would look more imposing if it looked like a manta ray.

[@DBresien]

If memory serves. . . D-6/7 was designed to separate as stated in the video. Con class ships could separate the saucer by shearing the connecting structure. The saucer could house all of the crew and the impulse engines and auxiliary power reactors were housed in the saucer. Btw. Klingons did not have Klingon cloaking devices on the D-6/7 class. They had a handful Romulan cloaking devices which were presumably later reverse engineered and added to later ship classes. In return the Romulans got a few warp capable D-6 hulls, and again reverse engineered warp tech.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Interestingly, there was a tech exchange of the D-7 to the Romulan empire that included the latter providing cloaks to the Klingons which were eventually mounted on their D-7s.

[@m3w]

This is great - thank you for the (future?) history and thoughtful ideas!

[@adam346]

she donned the black carapace of the legal system, the ceramite power armor of a lawyer, the Bolter of legal motions and took down the floating Space Hulk that is Warhammer Studios.

[@mowgli2071]

My big question over the years has been why they don't put cargo clamps on the "neck". They could haul around a lot of supplies that way. "...professionals talk about logistics", etc.

[@enterprise-h312]

I heard that they would use the boom separation to turn the front section around and fire on the back in case of a mutiny. I believe that was from "Star Fleet Battles". I don't know if there is other material out there that confirms this but Klingons do seem like the types to use a "life boat" more offensively.

[@MrQuantumInc]

Now I want to see an episode where the crew of the Enterprize somehow have to help the enlisted Klingons mutiny and overthrow the officer Kingons. Picard gets held hostage, but only the klingon officers are in on the plot. Eventually they hotwire the boarding transporter beams to move people to the head on a one way trip.

[@unclestone8406]

The Klingon design ethos has always fascinated me since I was young. Everything screams THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY like giant spacefaring Claymores. *_Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!_*

[@accywacky2699]

I would imagine the main reason to have the ships able to split like that is that it can be a Very useful feature to be able to turn your big, damaged/broken ship that's not going anywhere into a useless half and a functioning, smaller half that can go places and save (all/most/some?) of the crew. Mebeh?

[@NomadShadow1]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that (one of) the explanations for the spindly neck thing on the D7 was that the main weapon on the head had some sort of radiation or was otherwise was dangerous to the ship or crew (in addition to the enemy) and thus needed to be separated from the rest of the ship. I think the mutiny mitigation explanation works better in universe though. I also find it telling that both explanations involve the Klingons needing more d’aqa d’aqa. Typical Klingons.

[@williammagoffin9324]

I think this comes from either Starfleet Battles or the old FASA RPG. Starfleet Battles had a mechanic where a mutiny could happen if a Klingon warship got damaged enough.

[@davidfinch7407]

I've always said that Federation ships are unable to shoot the neck of a Klingon Battlecruiser. That's because these ships have shields. You can shoot AT the neck, but the shield will block it. Once the shields are gone, any part of the ship can be punched through- the bridge, the engines, whatnot- so the ship is pretty much done by them, kill it any way you want, it's dead, Jim. OK, in canon, there are a lot of times when individual systems are aimed at while the shields are up, more then likely overloading the shields and disabling the systems underneath, without necessarily doing severe structural damage. Additionally, the long neck is an obvious structural target, so the shields here are probably more robust then they are around the cargo storage section is for instance.

[@molybdaen11]

This only works if no one on the bridge is rebelling and they have to know that the crew is comming. Usually you dont scream your intentions into the next microphone ...

[@mrtrek2117]

Always get the urge to get my scissors out and snip the Klingon ship at the thinnest part.

[@imaginaryfriend4512]

Jungle Tactics Room?! Aww, the Klinks have arboretums!

[@TheWilkReport]

Why do sea ships have sealing compartments in the event of a hull breach? In case the hull is breached and you want to maintain some spaces on board that passengers and crew can be in to avoid drowning and help try and keep the ship buoyant by closing off the part taking on water. Likewise, if the extremely powerful engineering section responsible for moving the ship faster than light for interstellar travel were to ever become compromised and go BOOM, you want a detachable section of the vessel that can get survivors more or less (preferably more) safely to the nearest habitable planet or other area where help may be called for. It's not that difficult to figure out. Oh, and that applies as well to the D7 cruiser and its TMP-era counterpart. Plus, that mutiny thing you mentioned, if somehow the mutineers weren't able to be contained to the aft section, the officers can detach that part and call for backup. Kind of hard to pilot a ship section that has no control system in place to actually move it or fire weapons at the other, because all that stuff is located at the front of the vessel. Bear in mind that when designing the model ship props for the show, the design team consulted actual aeronautics and space experts for input, as they wanted enough real-world science governing their construct designs to make them seem more believable to the audience. Unlike today, where few ever actually bother to care about the limits of suspension of disbelief or avoiding insulting the intelligence of the audience at ever opportunity, the creators of real Star Trek and real Star Wars grounded their model spaceship designs enough in the real world that the audience would have an easier time involving itself in the story instead of asking a bunch of questions and getting distracted from the tale being told. Ah, the good old days... Anyway, good points made in your video. I look forward to seeing your video on the TOS Constitution-class.

[@3Rayfire]

It was probably something from the FASA books that are hard to find nowadays. Roddenberry did try to erase them from existence.

[@bh24x]

"Seems like your ship falling apart is a bad thing" I mean if it is meant to do that then it ain't that big of a problem till you wanna put it back together. Docking that is a pain in the ass and the joints are something we all jave to worry about failing so twice as many inspections, lower rated speeds, the need for even more redundent life support systems... (That one may have actually saved us on one occasion) It all ends up being too much sacrifice and expense when much smaller transport ships do pretty much any reasonable task much better. Glad our crew upgraded... I mean they would be really inconvenient if they existed.

[@robertcampbell6042]

I believe that early Taskforce Starfleet Battles game Klingon supplements may have been the source of both the anti-mutiny and escape pod lore.

[@anathardayaldar]

I thought the front part could detach, as the rear part was most likely to go BOOM.

[@reecewestmoreland6137]

i mean on the D7 it makes prefect sense to detach the boom from the main hull, as if the mutineers try do to the very Klingon thing of "If i can't have it neither can you, and I'm going to take you with me" and i don't know detonate the wrap core then being able to get the hull out of their makes sense.

[@joshuamueller3206]

"Doors and Corners" Flashes Detective Miller on the Screen. Yes.

[@jlvfr]

Klingon BOP and the D7 are my favourite ST ships. I've allways found their designs to be awesome: a true "in your face" model.

[@giladpellaeon1691]

I saw that LazerPig vid and was thrilled when he recommended you. (In the voice of Dr. Zoidberg) "Maybe you guys should do a crossover?"

[@teddyd633]

LazerPig and a Sacred Cow colab, oh how my worlds collide!!

[@RobTheSquire]

Well since Space Marines from a certain company they're just in a mood because they don't have balls and other bits too in regards to taking down that book for a short while and i'm glad it got put back up.

[@NotaVampyre111]

Way way cack in the day, I saw a similar theory about this. The officers occupied the front as you stated. The crew was in the back but was often made up of conquered races that were slaves. As time goes on the ship designs changed and slaves were no longer used as crew.

[@JeffDrennen]

This is my first episode, I have stumbled across. Love it, it feels like a a TV show from the 1990's, something like from early Scifi channel.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Welcome to the mad house.

[@StarkeRealm]

When you think about the consequences of a warp core popping, the ability to eject the crew module makes a little sense. The part where the Klingons just dump the enlisted as the officers limp off is also amusingly on brand for them, come to think of it. Though that does raise the question of why the warp cores aren't designed for ejection, and why the priority is to just deep six the entire star drive section instead of dropping the core.

[@neogoterra]

I know another reason why the Klingon cruisers have the long neck is they basically use it to mount a massive spinal weapon system either a advanced torpedo launcher that uses the length of the neck as a launch tube to build a photon torpedo up to ludicrous speeds or for a massive fuck off disrupter array meant for bombardment.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

So there's a lot of belief that this is the case, but I couldn't find any hard data to support it. In fact, the "photon torpedo launcher" that's on the front of the head section of the D7 was initially some kind of weird stasis field and/or magnetic pulse launcher.

[@neogoterra]

@@SacredCowShipyards yeah doesn't seem like the model department and special effects guys really talked to each other much, if they did the romulan d'deridex would of had laser coming from the "eyes" on the head thing from what I've heard. It makes it a chore to try and find any sort of consistent explanation about ships in star trek.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Correct.

[@Tomyironmane]

No, no, you didn't imagine it. I saw the picture and remembered the chokepoint. And they might have kept the chokepoint, just surrounded by more stuff. I mean, a thicker neck is fine for that as long as you have a couple armored bulkheads in it.

[@Lemurion287]

I don't know where it comes from, but that's been my understanding for at least a couple of decades.

[@onerimeuse]

I can't help but love that the shit has a canonical "Jungle Tactics Room"

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Goes to show the type of planet Klingons would like to invade, I guess.

[@panelvixen]

Weird thought, D7 looks like an ax. A big enough person like Galactus or Unicron can grab the neck and swing it around or strum it like a guitar.

[@ColonelSandersLite]

"I imagine you're constantly forgetting everything you know and then trying to figure out how you knew it in the first place." Nah, we mostly don't bother. We just roll with it and if we're called out on it, we just cover our tracks with a few personal insults.

[@Reddotzebra]

The disruptors do have lethal settings below disintegration, but in that situation the officers probably wouldn't be using them.

[@iselmon]

It's from the Star Fleet Battles Command Rulebook. Rule G6.0 - Security Stations and Klingon Mutiny. According to this, more than half the crew were "subject races" who were considered politically unreliable. Rule G12 - Ship separation. According to this, dreadnought booms and saucers were warp capable.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Well, dreadnoughts basically turn into frigates when they separate, so that tracks.

[@Krahazik]

as to a modular design (not necessarily separable in flight), can make replacing parts (like whole nacelle assemblies) a lot easier when you can just detach the module and attach the new one. As to your reasoning behind the Klingon necks, it does make a lot of sense considering the nature of the culture. As to the separating head, also makes a bit of sense, propulsion system (at the back) is critically damaged, crew is mad, eject the whole darn nose and your good, assuming the circumstances are just right so the action is not considered cowardly. Klingons are a bit finicky about that.

[@EarthenDam]

“You can’t miss!” Storm Trooper: Hold my blue milk.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

* proceeds to vent the bow to space *

[@cyphi474]

One good hit into the neck, and ship is crippled. We could argue that federation habbit of placing bridge to vulnerable and easy to find position is pretty bad idea too. Like example, aircraft carriers got most crucial command rooms deep inside, so they are protected even if ship is under attack. There is no point to place bridge on top of the saucer section, if its only protected by the ship shield... that doesnt always work and can be put down by fire. One torpedo and booom... entire ship command is dead. Luckilly, for some reason no Federation enemy ever exploit such obvious weakness... Funny enough they have backup bridge in hull section, which is way better place to put it.

[@davidedens6353]

The corroboration you are looking for is from both Starfleet Battles and the Fasa RPG. Both were once considered to be way more cannon back in their day then they are today. There may have also been references to this during the golden age of trek novels but I can't quite recall any specifics. Oh and the D7 is based on a Manta Ray; hence the 2 tone paint job. Later Romulan ships are the ones based on Canardian Geese.

[@DarthBoolean]

Just found a year old comment on the D7 video from Spacedock saying the same theory and citing Starfleet Battles.

[@davidedens6353]

@@DarthBoolean Its not a theory. Both game systems list security stations through out the ship who's stated purpose is to prevent or put down mutinies. Starfleet Battles also has mixed race crews on Klingon ships made up of Klingons and their subject races. I don't remember if Fasa has mixed race crews. I own a considerable amount of SFBs and Fasa source material.

[@timfurnier7061]

Yes, you don't hear if said very many times, but the original Kirk ship was supposed to be able to separate. I knew that for a long time. I think it was in "The Making of Star Trek" book from the seventies.

[@00Klingon]

I like to think of the Klingon design to be analogous with the Mott and Bailey castle designs from the dark ages. It makes sense that the bridge module would be almost completely independent and separable with independent shields to prevent transporting and enough power to withstand a siege situation and detachable in order to escape a core breach situation should the cowardly mutineers decide that suicide was the honorable way out. It also makes me wonder if capturing a bridge module would be a valued prize to hold for ransom from the wealthy and powerful families? But such behavior is probably dishonorable, something that Romulans or Humans might try.

[@agentbullwinkle991]

My first assumption when you said "mutiny" was that the birdhead of the ship was the bridge AND detachable. Imagine someone carjacking you, but when you get out of the car, you remove the whole dashboard with you.

[@SacredCowShipyards]

Oh it is.

[@andrewszigeti2174]

In Star Fleet Battles, the KIingons commonly use slave labor on their ships. Naturally, the slaves are kept in the back for security, along with the marine and naval low ranks. In case of a slave rebellion, the marines and naval ratings should be able to put it down, but if they can't they'll at least delay the rebelling slaves long enough for the boom to separate, get some distance... and send a destruct signal to the main hull.

[@TrollOfReason]

If you've done STOnline designs already, may I request you look at the Avenger? It's a lil' jackass of a ship in that it's small, tough & stubborn. It's one of the best designs, I think, in the game & I love it. It's got recessed windows in a thick, reinforced saucer section that seem to incorporate at least some of the technology brought back by Voyager. Because almost all windows *& the nacelle field projectors* get covered in thick shutters when the ship goes to red alert. It's like Federation ship designers finally took their heads out of their exhaust ports long enough to see that the Fleet needed a ship that wasn't made out of explodium.

[@entropy11]

Avenger/Arbiter are definitely, so far as Starfleet goes, well thought out pocket battlecruisers. Compact little lumps of armor and guns. I'm actually a bit disappointed the Inquiry class, which was retconned to be their predecessor, ended up so very large.

[@kamaeq]

Yes, between that was a short time frame where GW was getting its arse handed to it repeatedly in court over its claimed IP (virtually all of which is "inspired by" real copyrighted IP), including Hogarth's screenplay. I claim minor fun as one who piled in on Amazon pointing out how GW didn't originate the term "space marine". The end result of the period of GW cheek clapping? Primaris Astartes (stopped calling them "space" marines) and the mass renaming of factions (Eldar -> Aeldari).

[@corpsimmons575]

So basically, at 11:30 They are the same as the raceway on a rocket (tre weird tube thing that sticks out from the fuel tank on the rocket) but you can crawl through them.