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Description

Ported to OBJ and further tweaked by me from the model created by Taldren Studios and included with the video game Starfleet Command 3 (SFC3). Based on the original filming miniature created by Greg Jein for the Wolf 359 battle wreckage scene in TNG "The Best of Both Worlds (Part 2)." Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. While I'm not making my port of the old SFC3 model available for public download, master fan CG modeler Dave "First Fleet" Metlesitis has done his own superior higher poly CG recreation you can get for free from his First Fleet website. Here's the link:

NOTICE: While this is technically a late post-TMP era starship design (in my book - ed.), I'm putting it in my Feddie TNG/DS9/VOY gallery because it's featured in Franchise productions for that later era. Read on for more info.

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Niagra is one of those TNG kitbash classes from "The Best of Both Worlds" that makes no sense designwise and got created simply because the TNG team needed a lot of recognizable but wrecked different Feddie starships on screen for the Wolf 359 battle wreckage scene. There, I said it and it needed saying, because most Trek fans being what they are they have done quite a lot with this in the past three decades given their fertile imaginations. Been there, done that, know from where you're coming even if I don't agree with most of you for the most part given my own Trek design sensibilities and wetwater Navy background. XD It's the placement of that third warp engine that makes no sense, given what I know how of how Feddie starships are supposedly built. Mounting it in the "scoop" under the hangar deck is structurally suspect, but that's how the model was built and that's how it appears on screen so there you go. We're struck with it "for life." So how do we get around this and make some sense out of the Niagara class -- leastways in my own personal thread of the Trek multiverse?

I agree with most of Trek fandom who claim the TNG/DS9/VOY era as their own in the general sense that Niagara was most likely an upgrade of an older starship class. Many favor Ambassador and that's understandable given the overall shape of Niagara's primary and secondary hulls even if there are notable differences. I'm going to bump it one notch up in my take and suggest that Niagara started out life as part of the short-lived and so-called New Orleans generation of starships that came between Ambassador and Galaxy in my book, most likely as a New Orleans precursor, alternative, derivative, spin-off, or whatever. Take your pick. Like New Orleans it was one of the early testbeds for "stuff" that eventually went into the subsequent Galaxy generation, but being derived more from the older Ambassador it favors it more while mixing and matching elements of both. I also further suggest, and here's where I'm going to go against the pack, that Niagara only had two (2) warp engines in her original form. That's standard for many Feddie starships along these lines and that's the configuration I show in my preview piccy above. That's one way to look at it. Another sensible approach is that Niagara is nothing more than a first ESLP-refit form of Ambassador partially rebuilt and upgraded with Galaxy generation warp engines and other technologies to make the class more viable in the TNG/DS9/VOY era. That too is another approach that makes sense. As for me personally I'll take either of those over of any of this "fast cruiser" or "fast light cruiser" Galaxy generation nonsense any day ... but that's just me. XD All of you have your opinions, of course, and you're entitled to them. After all, Trek is a multiverse.

So from where did the weird three-warp-engine version of Niagara come as shown on screen (see preview piccy upper left)? Easy. In my own thread of the Trek multiverse, USS Princeton (NCC-59804) was pulled from active duty for experimental purposes at some point and fitted with the third warp engine as shown on screen, and then got pressed back into active duty service to fight the Borg and was subsequently lost in action with all hands at Wolf 359. Mind you that plus her battle wreck in the Starfleet boneyard at Qualor II (TNG "Unification I") were the only times (so far) we've ever seen a three warp engine Niagara class starship on screen. That may change in the future but was valid when I wrote this. This doesn't mean that the USS Wellington (registry number varies with reference source), which was later described as belonging to the Niagara class, had three warp engines too as she's never seen on screen at any time. All we know is that she's a Niagara class starship ship either from dialogue or from LCARS readouts and that's it. We never see Wellington herself at any time in TNG. Anyway, going back to Princeton. As I said it's my theory that she was given that third warp engine for experimental purposes and I further theorize that she was unique at the time in that regard, with the rest of the "normal" Niagaras having only two warp engines, Wellington included. Why was that third warp engine mounted where it was and the way it was? I don't know. Go ask Greg Jein on his blog. It was his filming model in the first place (grin). There are at least three other places on both the primary and secondary hulls where it could have been mounted so that it would have made more sense, but he built the filming model and I didn't. All I can do is note that Starfleet didn't normally mount warp engines in that position in the past. So why start now? I don't know. Was it an experimental mod? Most likely IMHO but I don't know for certain. All I know is that it doesn't make sense and I can't accept that as the "normal" configuration for Niagara regardless of how many Eaglemoss miniatures of Niagara there are out there (chuckle). Maybe you can and most of you probably do, but I don't. I'd rather stick to what makes sense and allow for the design oddity here and there than make the oddity the rule.

This is canon, given its single on screen appearance to date in TNG "The Best of Both Worlds" (Part 2).

Live long and prosper.

P.S. - If you folks insist on a three-engined Niagara, then I say whatever works for you. Remember, Trek's a multiverse.

Description

Ported to OBJ and further tweaked by me from the model created by Taldren Studios and included with the video game Starfleet Command 3 (SFC3). Based on the original filming miniature created by Greg Jein for the Wolf 359 battle wreckage scene in TNG "The Best of Both Worlds (Part 2)." Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. While I'm not making my port of the old SFC3 model available for public download, master fan CG modeler Dave "First Fleet" Metlesitis has done his own superior higher poly CG recreation you can get for free from his First Fleet website. Here's the link:

NOTICE: While this is technically a late post-TMP era starship design (in my book - ed.), I'm putting it in my Feddie TNG/DS9/VOY gallery because it's featured in Franchise productions for that later era. Read on for more info.

--------------------

Niagra is one of those TNG kitbash classes from "The Best of Both Worlds" that makes no sense designwise and got created simply because the TNG team needed a lot of recognizable but wrecked different Feddie starships on screen for the Wolf 359 battle wreckage scene. There, I said it and it needed saying, because most Trek fans being what they are they have done quite a lot with this in the past three decades given their fertile imaginations. Been there, done that, know from where you're coming even if I don't agree with most of you for the most part given my own Trek design sensibilities and wetwater Navy background. XD It's the placement of that third warp engine that makes no sense, given what I know how of how Feddie starships are supposedly built. Mounting it in the "scoop" under the hangar deck is structurally suspect, but that's how the model was built and that's how it appears on screen so there you go. We're struck with it "for life." So how do we get around this and make some sense out of the Niagara class -- leastways in my own personal thread of the Trek multiverse?

I agree with most of Trek fandom who claim the TNG/DS9/VOY era as their own in the general sense that Niagara was most likely an upgrade of an older starship class. Many favor Ambassador and that's understandable given the overall shape of Niagara's primary and secondary hulls even if there are notable differences. I'm going to bump it one notch up in my take and suggest that Niagara started out life as part of the short-lived and so-called New Orleans generation of starships that came between Ambassador and Galaxy in my book, most likely as a New Orleans precursor, alternative, derivative, spin-off, or whatever. Take your pick. Like New Orleans it was one of the early testbeds for "stuff" that eventually went into the subsequent Galaxy generation, but being derived more from the older Ambassador it favors it more while mixing and matching elements of both. I also further suggest, and here's where I'm going to go against the pack, that Niagara only had two (2) warp engines in her original form. That's standard for many Feddie starships along these lines and that's the configuration I show in my preview piccy above. That's one way to look at it. Another sensible approach is that Niagara is nothing more than a first ESLP-refit form of Ambassador partially rebuilt and upgraded with Galaxy generation warp engines and other technologies to make the class more viable in the TNG/DS9/VOY era. That too is another approach that makes sense. As for me personally I'll take either of those over of any of this "fast cruiser" or "fast light cruiser" Galaxy generation nonsense any day ... but that's just me. XD All of you have your opinions, of course, and you're entitled to them. After all, Trek is a multiverse.

So from where did the weird three-warp-engine version of Niagara come as shown on screen (see preview piccy upper left)? Easy. In my own thread of the Trek multiverse, USS Princeton (NCC-59804) was pulled from active duty for experimental purposes at some point and fitted with the third warp engine as shown on screen, and then got pressed back into active duty service to fight the Borg and was subsequently lost in action with all hands at Wolf 359. Mind you that plus her battle wreck in the Starfleet boneyard at Qualor II (TNG "Unification I") were the only times (so far) we've ever seen a three warp engine Niagara class starship on screen. That may change in the future but was valid when I wrote this. This doesn't mean that the USS Wellington (registry number varies with reference source), which was later described as belonging to the Niagara class, had three warp engines too as she's never seen on screen at any time. All we know is that she's a Niagara class starship ship either from dialogue or from LCARS readouts and that's it. We never see Wellington herself at any time in TNG. Anyway, going back to Princeton. As I said it's my theory that she was given that third warp engine for experimental purposes and I further theorize that she was unique at the time in that regard, with the rest of the "normal" Niagaras having only two warp engines, Wellington included. Why was that third warp engine mounted where it was and the way it was? I don't know. Go ask Greg Jein on his blog. It was his filming model in the first place (grin). There are at least three other places on both the primary and secondary hulls where it could have been mounted so that it would have made more sense, but he built the filming model and I didn't. All I can do is note that Starfleet didn't normally mount warp engines in that position in the past. So why start now? I don't know. Was it an experimental mod? Most likely IMHO but I don't know for certain. All I know is that it doesn't make sense and I can't accept that as the "normal" configuration for Niagara regardless of how many Eaglemoss miniatures of Niagara there are out there (chuckle). Maybe you can and most of you probably do, but I don't. I'd rather stick to what makes sense and allow for the design oddity here and there than make the oddity the rule.

This is canon, given its single on screen appearance to date in TNG "The Best of Both Worlds" (Part 2).

Live long and prosper.

P.S. - If you folks insist on a three-engined Niagara, then I say whatever works for you. Remember, Trek's a multiverse.