IMO, the Excalibur class is one of the coolest ship designs Cryptic has made to date:
So cool, in fact, that they made it the most prominent ship on the game's box art:
Unfortunately, it is also one of the most useless ships in the game. Why? Because they decided to tie it to the Constitution class, and CBS said there can be no end game level constitution class ship. Well, regardless of how you feel about the CBS decision, I say it is time to stop wasting this awesome ship design on a low level ship.
Long story short:
Make a T6 Excalibur.
Lock out the Constitution parts to remain obedient to CBS.
Make money.
I never really clicked with any of the post Nemesis/pre-2409 ships in STO (with the exceptions of the Monarch and Typhoon). The Excalibur just seems too over designed to me, all that chamfering along the saucer and hull just doesn't do it for me.
Still, this, the Vesper, and the Exeter, could still be a T5 or 6 ship, I just would't get it.
Also, we all know full well the CBS edict is about the Constitution's status as Kirk's iconic ship, not because it's too old. Pointing at T'Varos and D'ykar means nothing as that's not the reason for its exclusion.
Still, if CBS bend for the 50th then we may see a T5 or 6 TMP era Conni as I'd argue it's only about as well known as the Galaxy. But I can't ever see a endgame TOS era Conni.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
The Excalibur and Vesper designs don't strike me as particularly desireable, I'm with @artan42 on this one - but it's the same for almost all Cryptic designs that are not Type-6 refits. Those are "new" ships, though. Vesper and Excalibur are 24th century variants and the Exeter refits all of them into the 25th century.
But a T6 version can only be justified when we accept that there is absolutely no logical basis for ship performance in STO, it's just vanity skins we switch. Because there is no halfway sensible explanation why a Exeter should be equal if not superior to a Venture or Andromeda.
The only thing this can make any sense is to introduce a T6 "light cruiser" which is to cruisers what the Aquarius "light escort" is to other escorts. Fewer weapons, fewer hull but universal boffs and maybe flanking bonus, but it cannot logically play in the same weightclass as "heavier" ships.
Ship tiers in STO make no sense in terms of ship age. We have type-6 refits in all ship tiers, those are modern refits. A "real" STO fleet going into battle would not be made up of only T6s - they would have all tiers present, as a Gladius escort just cannot be as powerful as a battle cruiser - the lower tiers just have fewer weapons, it's the limit of their classification. Promoting those to T5/T6 really makes no sense - see the "escort retrofit". The escort (Sabre/Gladius) is a frigate like ship with 3/1 weapon slots etc - it doesn't make sense to "retrofit" that to have 4/2 weapons (where do those go?) and improved hull points (how is this possible?) - so the modern 25th century "cruiser" is already in-game - you would have to use the T2 ship at end-game. That is it's "realistic" performance.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
That's never going to happen. At least, not unless someone happens to be friends with someone at CBS. But realistically speaking, we have to accept what the devs say. And while I have certainly read/heard them say that CBS said 'no end game connie', I have not read/heard them say what CBS said about the Excalibur or variants. But again, if someone has a link to quote or interview that actually addresses that, please share.
Believe me, I'm fully aware that there's like 0.1% chance of that happening. I'm just saying that I'm maintaining my right to have doubts about the source of the "Connie prohibition" until I hear it from the one real authority on the matter, if that ever happens.
Different devs have said a lot of different things throughout the years, I've also certainly heard/read them say that CBS explicitly wants to restrict alien (non-faction) ships to a small minority of players as premium prizes in order to keep things thematic, but then a couple of months later it was a free Breen ship for everyone. You get a Breen ship, I get a Breen ship, everyone gets a Breen ship!!!
I just find it funny and even confusing as to why would CBS be so adamant against that in this game, while they've obviously allowed it to happen in other, far worse and lower profile games they've licensed. And if the theory of "they don't want every nincompoop commanding and blowing Kirk's legendary ship into smithereens" is to hold any water, then why even allow a T1 Connie in the first place, which "fanatical TOS fans" can take into end-game content and get their posteriors handed to them over and over and over again anyway? It's still Kirk's iconic ship and it's an even worse portrayal of her.
I'd like to call BS on this too, but....it's probably a safe bet that if they did, they'd make very good return in sales for a end game Connie. So why would Cryptic not want to capitalize on that?
Well, one thing I have in the back of my mind in regards to this is what @ltminns already mentioned. It's just a fringe theory and I'm probably off the mark with it, but ever since the Galaxy Class issue I have this doubt about Cryptic actually being reluctant to release the most iconic ships with stats that'd be relevant for the end-game because they're afraid it would kill sales on other ships and because they think that after players get their fanboy dream ship, they won't need to buy another ship. This is not true, ofcourse, and I hope that now at Tier 6 they're finally realizing that - and if not, they've at least made a mechanism against that happening via the ship traits which would make other ship purchases necessary. I mean, look at the old Galaxy Class - it's one of the most iconic pieces of Star Trek and it was hands down the worst cruiser in the history of the game. It took 3 years, half a dozen of threadnoughts, a dozen more angry/rant threads and in-game & forum campaigns to make the T6 Galaxy with relevant stats happen.
I'm hoping that the coming 50th Anniversary of The Original Series, is gonna change the status-quo and we are going to see some form of that iconic ship made into an end-game element.
I know it's not likely, but logic be damned!
Heh Somewhere in the back of my head, I've also thought the same thing and hold my hopes on that. I certainly hope you're right on this one.
But in terms of what the Nagus has proposed here, I really see no issues with making this happen, at least. Cryptic tied this particular design (and a couple of others) to the TMP Constitution Class and they could just as easily break them apart at end-game if they wanted to. Call it a T6 Light Cruiser, restrict the use of Connie parts and voila.
I really do disagree with people saying it's a derivative of the Constitution design and therefore if off limits at end-game, because if we start restricting derivatives from the old Connie design we should probably ban like 90% of the Starfleet ship roster as the vast majority of designs have evolved from that old design and carry the same basic design elements. Now, if CBS is supposed to have a thing against ships even resembling a Constitution Class I'm afraid that's beyond my comprehension skills about the sanity behind those decisions.
Call it a T6 Light Cruiser, restrict the use of Connie parts and voila.
and it's not like they haven't done it before...they weren't allowed to use JJs "Vengeance", so they created a ship that was heavily inspired by it and called it the "Avenger". You can clearly see the resemblance in name, role and appearance, which is about as far apart as the Excalibur from the Constitution.
Call it a T6 Light Cruiser, restrict the use of Connie parts and voila.
and it's not like they haven't done it before...they weren't allowed to use JJs "Vengeance", so they created a ship that was heavily inspired by it and called it the "Avenger". You can clearly see the resemblance in name, role and appearance, which is about as far apart as the Excalibur from the Constitution.
There is nothing Vengeance about the Avenger aside from the name.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
I never bought the jambalaya it's too old for endgame ship, so is B'Rel, K'T'inga, Ambassador, Excelsior, T'liss blabla, yet we do have them in game, and all of them are end game in some form or another (not all are T6 but all are T5 atleast), yes Excalibur is a newer design, yes it should be a T5 (atleast) ship in it's own right, yes the design is really good a cross of classic Fed design with newer shipbuilding breakthroughs, no sadly it will never be in game as a separate ship because the Devs tied it to Connie.
The reason why Connie will never get T5/T6 version is because it's too iconic, and they (CBS) want to keep it an undiscovered country of sorts.
There is nothing Vengeance about the Avenger aside from the name.
Agreed completely, there is absolutely no way anyone can think the Avenger or Arbiter were, in any way, modeled after the Vengeance outside of the name.
If you want to point out an instance of a JJ Series ship being renamed and put into STO then look at the Tal'Shiar Adapted Battle Cruiser and it's 'similarities' to Nero's ship the Narada. That argument has merit, but comparing the Avenger and the Vengeance is like comparing the Defiant to a Runabout.
Honestly, I think the design is ugly. (Though I never really like most of the starfleet ship designs.) It looks like if it entered atmosphere (this includes things like nebulae), drag forces would rip it apart.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
This is a very strange argument here, becuase, to me, ALL the federation ships look pretty much "like a connie". Theres a reason my ship slots are full of D'Kyr, Herald, Atrox, any "alien" variant ship I can find at all...
I do have a Intel Eclipse Cruiser that I purchased and as soon as I launched it I realized it was yet-another differently squashed variant of saucer, cigar body and nacelles.
Back on topic. How come nobody ever makes as big a stink over the Miranda, or the Oberth? For those of you, that even at this point, still can't figure it out, here's the deal. The Sovereign class is the evolutionary, next step of the Starfleet cruiser, as detailed below.
Constitution
Constitution refit
Excelsior
Excelsior refit
Ambassador (traditionally regarded as the first of the "modern era" cruisers)
Galaxy (traditionally regarded as the most expensive of the Starfleet vessels, whatever that means)
Sovereign (designed specifically to combat the Borg threat)
Any conjectural starship beyond this point would most certainly NOT be a 300 year step backwards.
Imagine the U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) trying to remain effective on a battlefield of Aegis cruisers, Lassen destroyers, and super carriers. Sure, you could mount radar, a nuclear reactor, modern weapons, and modern living quarters on it, but why would you want to? Unless you build a completely new ship, from the ground up, It's just a waste of time, resources, and effort. In the case of the TOS Enterprise, you have a ship that has been enduring warp stresses and metal fatigue for 300 years.
I hope that I have presented a more thorough explanation to proponents of this argument, other than "Because CBS said so."
Try to think logically, as Spock would say.
That's a great argument, except for 1 tiny problem: T6 Excelsior, which torpedoes your entire line of reasoning about not going backwards. That said, I'm not asking for a T6 Constitution. I'm asking for a T6 Excalibur, which is a modern ship in STO's time period.
If there was ANY year Cryptic and CBS could allow for a T6 Excalibur (or, gasp, the T6 Connie)... it would be this year.
While Cryptic swears the decision is "final," I don't buy that... given the right situation. Cryptic loves exclusivity these days, after all.
If it don't happen this year, I doubt it ever will.
I have a pet theory, with no real basis, but here it goes: when STO launched, Cryptic begged and begged and begged whoever their contact with CBS is to let them do an end game connie. And they begged so much they pissed him off, and he told them NOT to ask again.
Like I said, I have no real basis for this. But it would explain why this is such a sore issue. And it would also explain why they might be afraid to ask about things like the Excalibur. It would also explain why Cryptic *hasn't* said that CBS said "no" to the connie variants, since under my theory they actually didn't.
If there was ANY year Cryptic and CBS could allow for a T6 Excalibur (or, gasp, the T6 Connie)... it would be this year.
While Cryptic swears the decision is "final," I don't buy that... given the right situation. Cryptic loves exclusivity these days, after all.
If it don't happen this year, I doubt it ever will.
I have a pet theory, with no real basis, but here it goes: when STO launched, Cryptic begged and begged and begged whoever their contact with CBS is to let them do an end game connie. And they begged so much they pissed him off, and he told them NOT to ask again.
Like I said, I have no real basis for this. But it would explain why this is such a sore issue. And it would also explain why they might be afraid to ask about things like the Excalibur.
Probably true. Things have changed so much since then. The system for ship distribution has changed, it's the 50th anniversary of The Original Series this year, there's a new show coming for CBS (that alone could alter their stance on a ton of stuff)... shoot, we're dealing with time travel for most of the year, in terms of storyline content.
And, to be clear, I'm not saying a T6 Connie/Excalibur would be released in the C-Store, necessarily. Hold a special 50th Anniversary event, and grind for a one-time-only T6 TOS-era ship. Such a move would be just as effective, if not more, than the Delta Recruit event... imagine the in-game excitement, and draw of new players.
I'm pretty sure it's simply a case of them seeing the TNG era as the "real Trek" and considering how much they've tried to distance themselves from TOS visually since the 80s I'd be surprised if it wasn't just this.
Which I can give them because, aside from the hairstyles and bulkiness of the Padds, 90s Trek designs seem pretty timeless to me. Just turn off the lights and and add a few pipes and any of the bridges would fit in with a 2016 SF show.
Some of the great WW II naval movies were set on support ships - The Caine Mutiny (Destroyer Minesweeper), Mr. Roberts (Cargo Ship). The forgotten backbone (slight exaggeration).
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Honestly, I think the design is ugly. (Though I never really like most of the starfleet ship designs.) It looks like if it entered atmosphere (this includes things like nebulae), drag forces would rip it apart.
Tastes differ, but I did want to point out that this is exactly what a lot of old fans love about the Connie design: it was one of the first ships in pop SF that looked like it was built for deep space (see also: the Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey).
In fact, here's a line I love from an actual expert in sagging nacelles:
The charm of the Enterprise design is that it instantly looks like it wouldn't well in gravity. It looks like something that needs to float in a weightless environment.
Also, I just had to be "that guy" and point out that a really, really dense interstellar nebula has a particle density of 10^4 particles per cubic centimeter, which is still practically nothing. Okay, I had to look it up. But, anyway, compare that to the density of Earth's atmosphere at sea level, which is 10^19 per cubic cm. So, no, there's no real atmospheric drag in a nebula.
But you're right that a Connie would need magical science--force fields and gravity projectors and stuff--not to break up in Earth atmos! Ain't it great! She was born in space and she'll spend her whole life there!
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Comments
I never really clicked with any of the post Nemesis/pre-2409 ships in STO (with the exceptions of the Monarch and Typhoon). The Excalibur just seems too over designed to me, all that chamfering along the saucer and hull just doesn't do it for me.
Still, this, the Vesper, and the Exeter, could still be a T5 or 6 ship, I just would't get it.
Also, we all know full well the CBS edict is about the Constitution's status as Kirk's iconic ship, not because it's too old. Pointing at T'Varos and D'ykar means nothing as that's not the reason for its exclusion.
Still, if CBS bend for the 50th then we may see a T5 or 6 TMP era Conni as I'd argue it's only about as well known as the Galaxy. But I can't ever see a endgame TOS era Conni.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
But a T6 version can only be justified when we accept that there is absolutely no logical basis for ship performance in STO, it's just vanity skins we switch. Because there is no halfway sensible explanation why a Exeter should be equal if not superior to a Venture or Andromeda.
The only thing this can make any sense is to introduce a T6 "light cruiser" which is to cruisers what the Aquarius "light escort" is to other escorts. Fewer weapons, fewer hull but universal boffs and maybe flanking bonus, but it cannot logically play in the same weightclass as "heavier" ships.
Ship tiers in STO make no sense in terms of ship age. We have type-6 refits in all ship tiers, those are modern refits. A "real" STO fleet going into battle would not be made up of only T6s - they would have all tiers present, as a Gladius escort just cannot be as powerful as a battle cruiser - the lower tiers just have fewer weapons, it's the limit of their classification. Promoting those to T5/T6 really makes no sense - see the "escort retrofit". The escort (Sabre/Gladius) is a frigate like ship with 3/1 weapon slots etc - it doesn't make sense to "retrofit" that to have 4/2 weapons (where do those go?) and improved hull points (how is this possible?) - so the modern 25th century "cruiser" is already in-game - you would have to use the T2 ship at end-game. That is it's "realistic" performance.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Believe me, I'm fully aware that there's like 0.1% chance of that happening. I'm just saying that I'm maintaining my right to have doubts about the source of the "Connie prohibition"
Different devs have said a lot of different things throughout the years, I've also certainly heard/read them say that CBS explicitly wants to restrict alien (non-faction) ships to a small minority of players as premium prizes in order to keep things thematic, but then a couple of months later it was a free Breen ship for everyone. You get a Breen ship, I get a Breen ship, everyone gets a Breen ship!!!
I just find it funny and even confusing as to why would CBS be so adamant against that in this game, while they've obviously allowed it to happen in other, far worse and lower profile games they've licensed. And if the theory of "they don't want every nincompoop commanding and blowing Kirk's legendary ship into smithereens" is to hold any water, then why even allow a T1 Connie in the first place, which "fanatical TOS fans" can take into end-game content and get their posteriors handed to them over and over and over again anyway? It's still Kirk's iconic ship and it's an even worse portrayal of her.
Well, one thing I have in the back of my mind in regards to this is what @ltminns already mentioned. It's just a fringe theory and I'm probably off the mark with it, but ever since the Galaxy Class issue I have this doubt about Cryptic actually being reluctant to release the most iconic ships with stats that'd be relevant for the end-game because they're afraid it would kill sales on other ships and because they think that after players get their fanboy dream ship, they won't need to buy another ship. This is not true, ofcourse, and I hope that now at Tier 6 they're finally realizing that - and if not, they've at least made a mechanism against that happening via the ship traits which would make other ship purchases necessary. I mean, look at the old Galaxy Class - it's one of the most iconic pieces of Star Trek and it was hands down the worst cruiser in the history of the game. It took 3 years, half a dozen of threadnoughts, a dozen more angry/rant threads and in-game & forum campaigns to make the T6 Galaxy with relevant stats happen.
Heh
But in terms of what the Nagus has proposed here, I really see no issues with making this happen, at least. Cryptic tied this particular design (and a couple of others) to the TMP Constitution Class and they could just as easily break them apart at end-game if they wanted to. Call it a T6 Light Cruiser, restrict the use of Connie parts and voila.
I really do disagree with people saying it's a derivative of the Constitution design and therefore if off limits at end-game, because if we start restricting derivatives from the old Connie design we should probably ban like 90% of the Starfleet ship roster as the vast majority of designs have evolved from that old design and carry the same basic design elements. Now, if CBS is supposed to have a thing against ships even resembling a Constitution Class I'm afraid that's beyond my comprehension skills about the sanity behind those decisions.
and it's not like they haven't done it before...they weren't allowed to use JJs "Vengeance", so they created a ship that was heavily inspired by it and called it the "Avenger". You can clearly see the resemblance in name, role and appearance, which is about as far apart as the Excalibur from the Constitution.
There is nothing Vengeance about the Avenger aside from the name.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
The reason why Connie will never get T5/T6 version is because it's too iconic, and they (CBS) want to keep it an undiscovered country of sorts.
Agreed completely, there is absolutely no way anyone can think the Avenger or Arbiter were, in any way, modeled after the Vengeance outside of the name.
If you want to point out an instance of a JJ Series ship being renamed and put into STO then look at the Tal'Shiar Adapted Battle Cruiser and it's 'similarities' to Nero's ship the Narada. That argument has merit, but comparing the Avenger and the Vengeance is like comparing the Defiant to a Runabout.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
I do have a Intel Eclipse Cruiser that I purchased and as soon as I launched it I realized it was yet-another differently squashed variant of saucer, cigar body and nacelles.
That's a great argument, except for 1 tiny problem: T6 Excelsior, which torpedoes your entire line of reasoning about not going backwards. That said, I'm not asking for a T6 Constitution. I'm asking for a T6 Excalibur, which is a modern ship in STO's time period.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
While Cryptic swears the decision is "final," I don't buy that... given the right situation. Cryptic loves exclusivity these days, after all.
If it don't happen this year, I doubt it ever will.
I have a pet theory, with no real basis, but here it goes: when STO launched, Cryptic begged and begged and begged whoever their contact with CBS is to let them do an end game connie. And they begged so much they pissed him off, and he told them NOT to ask again.
Like I said, I have no real basis for this. But it would explain why this is such a sore issue. And it would also explain why they might be afraid to ask about things like the Excalibur. It would also explain why Cryptic *hasn't* said that CBS said "no" to the connie variants, since under my theory they actually didn't.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Probably true. Things have changed so much since then. The system for ship distribution has changed, it's the 50th anniversary of The Original Series this year, there's a new show coming for CBS (that alone could alter their stance on a ton of stuff)... shoot, we're dealing with time travel for most of the year, in terms of storyline content.
And, to be clear, I'm not saying a T6 Connie/Excalibur would be released in the C-Store, necessarily. Hold a special 50th Anniversary event, and grind for a one-time-only T6 TOS-era ship. Such a move would be just as effective, if not more, than the Delta Recruit event... imagine the in-game excitement, and draw of new players.
Crazier things have happened!
Which I can give them because, aside from the hairstyles and bulkiness of the Padds, 90s Trek designs seem pretty timeless to me. Just turn off the lights and and add a few pipes and any of the bridges would fit in with a 2016 SF show.
Make the Excalibur, Vesper, and Exeter all Sovreign skins. Boom. Done.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Tastes differ, but I did want to point out that this is exactly what a lot of old fans love about the Connie design: it was one of the first ships in pop SF that looked like it was built for deep space (see also: the Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey).
In fact, here's a line I love from an actual expert in sagging nacelles:
That's Dr. Margaret Weitekamp, who was heading up the Smithsonian's restoration efforts last year (in a great interview you can read here).
Also, I just had to be "that guy" and point out that a really, really dense interstellar nebula has a particle density of 10^4 particles per cubic centimeter, which is still practically nothing. Okay, I had to look it up. But, anyway, compare that to the density of Earth's atmosphere at sea level, which is 10^19 per cubic cm. So, no, there's no real atmospheric drag in a nebula.
But you're right that a Connie would need magical science--force fields and gravity projectors and stuff--not to break up in Earth atmos! Ain't it great! She was born in space and she'll spend her whole life there!
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'