USS Reliant |
| By Jay Smith |
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This is the USS Reliant, an Endeavour class starship. Concieved of at the same time as the Sovereign class, the Endeavour and her sister ships where designed to take on a scientific research role which had been filled for the last century by the Miranda and Oberth class starships, which where now being slowly phased out of duty. Much like the Sovereign, she was designed to be more sleak and more maneuverable than other starfleet vessels of the time. Also, like the Sovereign, she was outfitted with the Federation's most powerfull new weapons systems and defences. With the Galaxy class giving way to the Sovereign, so to does the Nebula to the Endeavour. Many of the Nebula class, which were launched nearly twenty years before had now been brough back to spacedock to undergo refit or to be decommissioned. The designers of the Endeavour felt that the combined weapons and sensory platform of the Nebula suited their new starship and so incorporated this element into their design, though with a much more modern, better system. The Reliant is the second Endeavour class starship and was launched on the 17 October 2380, exactly one hundred years after her predecessor. She is commanded by Captain William F. Rice and assigned to the third fleet, exploring beyond the Taurus Dark Cloud. |
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My original intension when I ordered this model was to build a ship which would be a Sovereign-styled Nebula design, that is too say I wanted to have the pod on one strut which would come from the rear end of the engineering hull, which itself would have been moved further forward so that not much more than the shuttlebay would have been showing from the back. The pylons where to have come out of either side of the engineering hull just behind the deflector dish. Once I had the model I figured it would be more interesting to attempt a Miranda style design. A large part of the upper rear saucer was chopped off and then placed together with the lower half. Using styrene I built up a new rear section incorporating the impulse engines which had been removed. I did at one point think about using these as a pair of shuttlebays,similar to though's of the Miranda type, though I figured they would give a better link to the Enterprise-E if left as originally intended. the upper curve of the hull was achieved using modeling clay that was blended into the plastic of the kit. To cover over the seem line between the two sections I used a thin sheet of styrene to create two triangular pieces similar to those seen on the Enterprise model. I cut two trenches at the rear sides of the model to place the pylons in and then seperately built a set of struts for the weapons pod. The pylons and struts where puttied and sanded to blend them together and the pod was placed between them. The pod itself was built using two lower half's from the ERTL Excelsior stand. I cut several shapes into the upper piece and then a ribbed plastic backing was put into place to give a look similar to that of the Nebula pod. A thick piece of styrene was added to give a split between the two halfs and then the lower part was put into place. The most dificult part of the model was trying to make sure the weapon pod struts where curved equally on both sides. Unfortunately this didnt quite go to plan, and one side didnt quite bend into the shape I wanted. After a while it became something that I figured I could live with or it would drive me crazy! |
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