U.S.S. Cao Mengde / Akira-class

Last crawled date: 1 year, 10 months ago

U.S.S. Cao Mengde, NCC-86160 Akira-class Type: heavy cruiser Operator: UFP Starfleet Active: 2372-Present Decks: 24 Length: 528.08m Capacity: 2,400 humanoids Max. Speed: warp 9.98 Max. Cruising speed: warp 9.6 Armament: phasers (x7 phaser arrays); photon torpedoes (x15 launchers); quantum torpedoes )x8 launchers) Defenses: deflector shields; ablative armor (partial) ======================================== If you're unable to download this model, you can see images of all of the SketchUp scenes at my Imgur Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/H6EcH You can also view the model in 3D using the SketchUp website, although you will be unable to see the interior components. Note: Cao Mengde (曹孟德) is pronounced 'ts'ao mueng'duh.' You can hear the exact pronunciation using Google Translate link below: https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E6%9B%B9%E5%AD%9F%E5%BE%B7 ======================================== Service History The U.S.S. Cao Mengde was launched in mid-2372 during the early weeks of the Second Federation-Klingon War. In her first combat engagement, the Cao Mengde defeated a squadron of Klingon birds-of-prey that had infiltrated deep into Federation space while cloaked. During the Dominion War, the Cao Mengde was assigned to the Federations 7th Fleet. In 2374, she fought at the Battle of Tyra, and was one of only fourteen ships to survive (out of 112). Ultimately the Cao Mengde seemed to be favored by Lady Fortune, or perhaps the God of War, and survived many battles in both victory and defeat, earning the rare distinction of surviving many of the most perilous battles of the era. Of particular note is the face that the Cao Mengde was present at three of the most important battles of the 24th century: the Second Battle of Deep Space Nine; The Battle of Cardassia; and the apocalyptic Battle of the Azure Nebula. After the Dominion War, the Cao Mengde was assigned to Cardassian space, where she helped foster the development of the new Cardassian Republic and the rebuilding effort underway throughout Cardassian space as a result of the Dominion's 'Genocide Order,' issued in the final hours of the conflict. During the Borg War, the Cao Megnde fought alongside the Cardassian Guard, and continued to serve in Cardassian space for several years afterward as tensions with the Typhon Pact escalated. In 2388 the U.S.S. Cao Mengde, alongside several other Federation and Cardassian vessels, participated in a joint-exploration mission of the Herakles Cluster, located beyond the far side of the volatile region of space known as the Badlands. Starship Background The Akira-class starship served as the mainstay of the UFP Starfleet during the late-24th and 25th centuries. Intended to be a successor to the venerable Excelsior-class, the Akira was a warship in all-but-name, designed to defend the UFP against the mighty enemies who threatened to destroy Federation entirely. The U.S.S. Akira, the first of her line, was launched in 2371, and within five years she, and all her sister vessels, saw sustained, heavy combat against the mightiest the Klingons, Borg and Dominion had to offer. By the end of the 24th century the Akira-class had more than proven itself as one of the premier warships of its era, but it also proved ideally suited for a number of other roles. It's powerful sensors and shielding were optimal for exploratory missions in hostile environments, and its enormous flight deck and capacity for secondary craft was invaluable in disaster-relief and emergency transport missions. Thanks to its versatile, modular design, the Akira could consistently be upgraded with the most advanced modern technologies, ensuring that even by the 25th century she was a common presence in the most important missions of the day. Model Background The Akira-class is one of my favorite starship designs, period, and to be perfectly honest modeling on Akira-class was probably too ambitious of a task for me to ever undertake in the first place. There are just too many curves! Too many lines that need to be -just- right! I've been working on this model for about 7 months, off-and-on, and it is finally done! There's a lot I could say about the construction of this model, most of which I've probably forgotten by now, but there are a few specific items I'd like to comment on, if you'll indulge me: ... <> It's done! It's finally, finally done! <> I built this model while using the U.S.S. Thunderchild die-cast miniature from Eaglemoss' Star Trek Starships Collection as a reference. <> Some background on the name: Cao Mengde is the 'style' name of Cao Cao, a Chinese warlord and chancellor of the Han Dynasty during the 3rd Century. A genius tactician and strategist, during the period of civil war known as the Three Kingdoms Era Cao Cao supported the last Han Emperor while other warlords declared themselves the rightful Emperor Xian of China and established their own kingdoms. Ultimately Cao Cao's son, Cao Pi, would depose Emperor Xian and declare himself the emperor of the new Kingdom of Cao Wei after Cao Cao's death. Cao Wei dominated the Three Kingdoms era, but the Cao family lost control of Cao Wei rather abruptly following a coup d'etat by one of Cao Cao's (now very elderly) retainers, the master strategist Sima Yi. Sima Yi's grandson, Sima Yan, would finally end the Three Kingdoms era by uniting China and founding the Jin Dynasty. Cao Pi was a retainer of the Han Emperor who betrayed him, and the Cao family was ultimately defeated by their retainers, the Sima clan. As a result, Cao Wei—and Cao Cao by extension—are perceived as 'disloyal' as a whole. And in popular culture, thanks in large part to the 14th century novel 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' (a work of historical fiction) which portrays Cao Cao as a traitorous villain, that is the predominant view. I find this unfortunate, as in life Cao Cao was always loyal to the Han Dynasty. To his death, Cao Cao supported the Han, even though he could have easily usurped the throne at any time. Maybe he secretly harbored imperial ambitions, maybe he did not. Judged solely by his actions, I would consider him a virtuous man (relative to his era) worthy of being a Federation starship's namesake. <> The weirdest thing about this model? What I thought would be the hardest parts to model—the bulging secondary hull, the gently-sloping catamaran hulls—ended up being the easiest. I had the basic hull shape finished after only one or two weeks. But what I initially thought would be easy to model ended up being incredibly difficult—the pylons, the nacelles, the bridge dome. Nearly every external component went through 4-6 different iterations, with the sole exception of the saucer, secondary hull and catamaran hulls, which only took about 2 iterations each. <> I'm a big Romance of the Three Kingdoms fan (Wei 4 Life, yo) so I was never NOT going to name a ship after Cao Cao. Expect Zhuge Liang to get a ship, too, by the way. But in retrospect maybe an Akira-class wasn't the best design to use? I hope it's not misconstrued as belonging to that kinda-sorta-racist 'pan-Asian' worldview. It's a pretty common (kinda-sorta-actually-racist) view in the West that 'all of Asia is pretty much Exactly The Same.' So I wonder if it's problematic to name a starship whose design name is of Japanese origin after a Chinese historical figure. I'm probably thinking about it too much, but... it's just kinda-sorta-weird. <> Oh my god, the windows. The windows. The windows. I must have fully applied and then removed the windows a half-dozen times, at least. They were so troublesome! It was very hard to get them to look right! Most 'official' designs have really half-assed windows. Basically, the designers take a parallel-projection view of the ship, and make all windows the same height and width (and then add skylights on top to make it look like there are more decks, and do other nonsense I won't get into)... which works great for vertical surfaces. And this is an approach I mimicked with my earlier models—on a 2.5m deck, every window might be 2m high at the top and 1m high at the bottom. The problem is, on a curved surface, this results in every window having a different area—the more vertical the surface, the smaller the window; the more horizontal the surface, the larger the window. On a saucer, this makes each row of windows from the center to the rim get slightly larger. It's annoying! My ultimate solution was to create two 'default' windows (identical dimensions and areas). Each window has the same height relative to its deck... but the bottom edge of the window is a different height depending on the slope of the hull. <> I'm aware that there should be more phaser arrays and torpedo launchers. There should be two torpedo launchers near the bottom rim of the saucer, and another somewhere between the bridge dome and main registry; additional phaser arrays should be present on the weapons pod, pylons and nacelles. Ultimately I decided that the saucer looked better without any more torpedo launchers, and that there was no way in hell I was going to try and apply phaser strips to the hellishly-curved surfaces of the pylons. Please assume those armaments are still present, but hidden underneath hull panels or something. And yes, all of the interior components are 100% consistent with all of the exterior components, both of which are 100% consistent with the deck plan. That's kind of my thing. <> I went through multiple iterations of hull-panels, before settling on the current effect. I'm doubling-down on my somewhat cartoonish, stylized modeling style. I'm not capable of striving for realism, and even if I were, I lack the necessary patiences for that level of detail. Hiding the panel lines and differentiating panels with slightly-different colors creates a subtle, almost 2D effect. It creates the impression of multiple panels and detail while still maintaining the smooth finish characteristic of post-TNG designs. Many thanks to the fine people of /r/StarTrek whose advice helped me to define this style. ... And that's all I want to say. Building this Akira model has been... an odyssey. I hope you'll think the finished model worth the time and effort invested in it. But, either way, if you're seeing this you've most-likely read through all my rambling text, I am very grateful. Thanks. (Starship information is derived partially from Memory Alpha and/or Memory Beta, and from my own imagination.) As always, you are free to use or modify this model however you wish, but PLEASE provide credit (simply mention my username and link to my 3D Warehouse mage) if you do so, and please post a comment on the page for the relative model if you do publish any modifications of my work, so I can see it, too. #Akira #Akiraclass #Deep_Space_Nine #DS9 #Spaceship #Star_Trek #Star_Trek_First_Contact #Starship