Star Trek: Voyager's Rick Sternbach has certainly earned his title of Senior Illustrator. Rick has helped populate the Star Trek world with many things we now take for granted: great ship designs, technical information and design ideas. Now, the award winning illustrator/designer has taken time out to provide us with some very generous answers to your questions. For some fascinating insight into behind-the-scenes design and some inspirational advice, look no further.
Question: Will there be a Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual?
JCP9382
Rick Sternbach: Tim Earls and I proposed an all-inclusive Voyager technical manual to Pocket Books some time ago, but we and the publisher have not yet come to an agreement on the project. I'm hopeful that eventually a detailed manual will come out of the seven years we've spent developing new technology and starship systems; in the meantime, we'll work up a few articles on these issues for Star Trek: The Magazine.
Q: In your 13+ years as an illustrator and technical consultant on the various Star Trek shows, you've designed lots of Starfleet ships and technology. Do you see a defined progression or evolution of the Starfleet design "style" from 1987 to 2000? Is this a trend you've noted and have exploited in coming up with new and different things for the show?
Mark N.
RS: As far as the major Starfleet ships go, yes. The trend has certainly been to design leaner, faster starships, beginning with the U.S.S. Voyager. The U.S.S. Prometheus was touted as the faster ship in the fleet (and had to split into three sleek-looking parts to boot!), and seemed to call for a more streamlined shape. While the "U.S.S. Dauntless" was an alien construct, it had to look as though it was the next step in the Starfleet lineage. A number of alien vessels have also taken on a terrific slippery organic style through the use of new CGI modeling tools. We've got the more traditional hardware-ish alien ships as well, so we've got a nice mix of styles.
Q: Where are Captain Janeway's quarters located, the holodecks, Astrometrics?
Marty R.
RS: Captain Janeway lives on Deck 3, right below the Mess Hall, in the only cabin that sports five window bays. The Holodecks are in a few places in the Primary Hull, between Decks 4 and 6. There are likely a few smaller Holodecks in the Engineering Hull, around Decks 11 or 14. Astrometrics is directly beneath the Main Computer core on Deck 8; the minimum distance for the optical fiber paths allows for more efficient sensor data processing.
Q: How is a starship class determined?
Lyrad21
RS: The writers and producers usually come up with new starship names and basic types, and we'll add a bit of input later on specific starship capabilities, specifications, and so on.
Q: What are your favorite ships and/or stations?
Shane, Canada
RS: I think my favorite ship has to be Voyager, with the Klingon Attack Cruiser a close second. Both were a joy to work on. My current favorite non-starship is the Jupiter Station; I got to make the visual suggestion that the main body was constructed from decommissioned starship hulls, mainly Ambassador class vessel parts.
Q: Are you working on a drawing of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey technical drawings for the interior of the ship? If so, how about ship specifications, length, width, propulsion, primary systems, crew, etc.?
Donna C.
RS: I'm not as familiar with the Bird-of-Prey (a Nilo Rodis creation) as I am with other vessels. I didn't design that ship exterior, so I would have to do a lot of research on the shapes and volumes. Currently there's no call for a publishable set of drawings, so that project will have to wait.
Q: How did you get into the business of creating technical manuals for Star Trek?
Renee M.
RS: The first one that I worked on, with Mike Okuda, was the Technical Manual for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The material in the book was based on the memos and art we were creating as an aid to the writers and producers, and in book form we fleshed out a lot of the systems we would not normally have heard about or seen in the TV episodes. The book was a natural cousin of the original manual created by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, based on material from the original Star Trek series.
Q: How does the Borg ship work? What makes the Borg ship fly? Richard H.
RS: The established propulsion system for Borg vessels utilizes transwarp, which we believe is the independently-developed, successful version of the failed system seen on the U.S.S. Excelsior. Some powerful energy production system, like a matter-antimatter reactor or micro-black hole or something even more exotic, feeds into a transwarp field generator, which then tunnels through the space-time continuum in different way than what Starfleet can currently achieve. It is possible that there's no main reactor, but some way for the cube to tap into the energy of the galaxy directly, like hooking two alligator clips to a battery.
Q: How does the organic warp core work since the rest of the U.S.S. Voyager is not organic? How does the Delta Flyer work?
Richard H.
RS: The warp core isn't organic, but parts of the computer core definitely are. Those are the bio-neural gelpacks, which contain synthetic neurons suspended in a gel medium and which can process information faster and more efficiently than the older isolinear chips.
The Delta Flyer operates at both impulse and warp like other standard shuttlecraft. Its warp reactor is a small assembly built into the floor between the two glowing blue nacelles.
Q: Will there be blueprints for the Enterprise-E?
Pamela P.
RS: It's unlikely, since we haven't seen enough of the ship in the feature films to warrant doing the research and the drawings. With the Enterprise-D, we saw enough of the various decks to make a good guess at all the unseen areas.
Q: Can you tell me what the area on the lower, aft side of the Enterprise-B/Excelsior is? It seems to be an open area covered by a forcefield.
Joe B.
RS: There are a few open sections in the area we call the aft hull undercut; presumably those are engineering-specific cargo bays or support bays that can open to space to allow for easy loading or swapout of warp reactor hardware.
Q: Which one of these transportation methods do you really think is more than likely going to be used if we were to travel through space? A: Warp drive or B: Space fold.
Stephen S.
RS: Not being a cosmologist or quantum physicist, I couldn't say for sure, but there are many scientists working on theoretical models for FTL (faster than light) travel, or at least FTL communication. They're seeing electromagnetic phenomena that imply that bits of information or subatomic particles can be transported at FTL speeds. Who knows where this will lead?
Q: Can we at least see a schematic of the Voyager Captain's Yacht?
Ed D.
RS: The large shuttlecraft tucked up under Voyager's forward hull is called the AeroShuttle, and while we haven't worked up the exact look of the topside, I can tell you that my initial intent was to adapt portions of the Starfleet Runabout, and basically add a pair of wings and vertical lift engines.
Q: What were the decisions in your life that led to your career in production design?
Michael C.
RS: Just to clarify, my official job title is Senior Illustrator, which is different from that of Richard James, our fearless leader Production Designer in the Star Trek: Voyager Art Department. In any case, what got me to this point was a series of events and acquaintances too lengthy to detail here. However, the short story is this: my dad was an architect, which is where I got the drawing bug; I fell in love with the 1950s Disney Man in Space films, which Star Trek producer Bob Justman helped bring to television (small world!); my space hardware mentor was the late missile engineer G. Harry Stine, who helped found the National Association of Rocketry; countless films like "Forbidden Planet,? "Destination Moon,? and "2001: A Space Odyssey? fueled my passion for space and science fiction. And there was the original Star Trek, which I watched each week for the stories or daring-do and great gizmos. I never had film or television design work as a deliberate first goal, it's just something I gravitated toward as a natural step over from space and science fiction paintings for books and magazines.
Q: I understand that "Starfleet" guidelines play a part in new Federation ships, but what guides the development of an alien vessel?
Gary A.
Rick Sternbach: The flippant answer is that they have to look alien. Exactly what this means has always been hard to describe, but I've always tried to use shapes and colors different from Starfleet, and then different among the aliens we've seen. It's easier with established cultures like Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, and so on, but pulling ship-of-the-week designs out of the hat requires a bit more doodling and color choices. Thankfully, we have the computer to help push and pull shapes, cut and paste hull pieces, and assemble interesting craft when necessary. I'll do low-res CGI "sketches" for folks like Foundation Imaging and EdenFX, and make suggestions on details and colors to our VFX supervisors like Ron B. Moore and Mitch Suskin.
Q: How does one go about getting into your line of work?
Patrick M.
RS: Draw like mad. Paint. Take drafting classes. Read up on visual effects. Watch lots of SF films and read SF books. Learn the computer. Do everything you can to hone your craft in lots of different media, not just the computer, which many artists lean on as their sole tool. I can't say I'm good at watercolor or charcoal sketching, but I've tried them and understand what those media can do. Push and pull some clay or Sculpy modeling compound around and make real solid objects. Build plastic kits. In the space hardware arena specifically, talk to engineers. Read about the wondrous efforts of the Apollo program (I was fortunate enough to see three real live Saturn V boosters leave for the moon). Study planetary geology. Look through a telescope with your own eyes. Play with science and mechanical toys. Learn the way the universe works.
You don't have to do all this to draw sets and props and spaceships, but if you are passionate about creating things no one has ever seen before and understand how they function, you'll do it anyway. And then make contact with film and television studios and art directors, take your portfolio around, hang out with CGI artists, screen your show reel, and maybe get hired on to do a feature or a series.
Q: In the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual,? why were the Starfleet attack fighters ("The Sacrifice of Angels?) not covered?
Mike
RS: Doug Drexler and I didn't have time to research, illustrate, and compile tech data on every craft we've used or heard about on DS9, so the fighter was one that slipped through the cracks.
Q: Any plans for any more interactive technical manuals?
Edgar P.
RS: The interactive products are the domain of Simon & Schuster Interactive, cousins of Pocket Books, so it would be up to them to bring them out. Haven't heard of any plans so far.
Q: I read in one of the magazines the technical briefing for the Phoenix and in all the pages it does not explain how the ship returned to Earth. Please tell me how it returned.
Extremesubml
RS: Good question! I've talked with John Eaves, designer of the Phoenix, about this, and we're pretty much agreed that the main body of that first warp ship returned to Earth, fired thrusters to brake into a stable orbit, and the cabin section descended much like the Space Shuttle does today, with the possible addition of a terminal descent event like the Russian Soyuz capsule, which fires retro-rockets just as it touches down on parachutes.
Q: I was wondering, have you ever designed your ultimate 'dream' ship, and if you have, why is it your 'dream' ship?
strodorp1
RS: I don't really have a dream ship, since that sort of concept changes for me every few months! I suppose the only ship that I'd like to spend time designing would be a real Mars ship for the first landing on the Red Planet. Like the designers who have tackled this question for the last fifty years, I have a few sketches based on discussions with propulsion and structural engineers, and I might even get it finished before we actually go there.
Q: Where did you come up with the design for the Type 12 shuttles from Voyager?
Hoody
RS: The producers sent a memo around asking that we come up with a sleek new shuttle for an upcoming season. This was a true team effort, integrating interior set and exterior model shapes to make the shuttle work. Set designer John Chichester and I bounced ideas back and forth; I produced a generalized hull shape, he worked up a lot of the flight deck architecture, I applied his window and wall details to the model plans, and so on. The concept was a smoother variation of the earlier, boxy Type 6. The Type 12 has also been labeled a Type 9, and later a "Class 2" shuttle.
Q: What's your favorite Enterprise?
Harvey D.
RS: I suppose it would have to be the original, though the 1701 refit/1701-A would be a second choice.
Q: As an illustrator, did you dream of working for Paramount on the Star Trek series?
Ken S.
RS: I always liked the show, but when I began working professionally as an astronomical and science fiction illustrator, Star Trek had already been off the air for three or four years and there were only rumors of it coming back. I didn't consider the possibility seriously, especially since I lived in Connecticut. I met with Gene Roddenberry in 1974 after a college showing of "The Cage" in New Haven, and we mainly talked about science fiction and the future of space exploration.
When again we met in 1978, I had just been hired on as an illustrator for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture,? having moved to California a year earlier to prepare for work on Carl Sagan's PBS series COSMOS (which, lucky for me, had been delayed until after my TMP job was done). I had interviewed with production designer Joe Jennings when TMP was still the TV series Star Trek II, but wasn't brought on board until the project became a feature film. That was really the start of my involvement with the Trek universe, which later led to being hired back for TNG. Fourteen years later it is a bit boggling to think back on all we've done. Admittedly, I do get a sense of "Whodathunkit?"
Q: Do you think that your designs change with current styles or trends, or do storylines of the episode or film on which you are working?
Douglas F.
RS: I think it works in a few different directions. Sure, the story drives the general types of ships or props or sets that will appear, but we definitely have changed the design styles over the years. Compare the Enterprise-D bridge with Voyager's. Compare the look of the hand props. We learn from current industrial and interior design, but at the same time, we're having an affect on that same design world. We're all going to the future together.
Q: Where do you derive the inspiration for your work?
Benny
RS: That's easy and tough at the same time. I look at the world, I see forms and colors. I study both machinery and biology. You can't go wrong "growing" spacecraft or architectural shapes in your mind from natural forms. We can't always explain it; some shapes and colors and textures are pleasing or powerful or thought-provoking, and we try to use them to the best effect. Certainly previous efforts in space or science fiction art and films have made an impact; while I never lift an existing design, I always appreciate and acknowledge another artist's inventions.
Q: When you design a ship, how do you know what a certain part does and where to put it?
Brandon Y.
RS: With Starfleet, that's particularly easy, though I have changed some shapes like the phasers over time. The functions are pretty stable and will remain so until the writers come up with some radically new scheme. Alien vessels and hardware can be a bit more arcane, and that's half the fun. I love it when we can invent a device or ship that is so bizarre that we can't immediately tell which end is which or what it does!
Q: Why didn't they design the Voyager to separate like the Enterprise?
Evan H.
RS: The producers decided fairly early on that Voyager would be a smaller vessel, able to land intact on a planet and take off again, there would be no deliberate inclusion of families, so the thought of hull separation was somewhat unnecessary. Possibly even a duplication of what we did on TNG, so this gave us a chance to do something new.
Q: Do you often get remarks by real scientists about the Star Trek based Technical Manuals?
Stephane G.
RS: When Mike and I did the "Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual,? we consulted with a few scientists and engineers over issues like warp drive, spacecraft structures, terminology, measurements like temperatures and pressures, and so on. While we had a bit of leeway in the 24th century technology, we didn't want to trip over any real science that we might have been unsure of when writing the manuscript. We've had a lot of positive reaction over the years the book has been in print.
Q: Do you like what you do?
Guy
RS: As vague as that question sounds, I'll apply it to what I do here at the studio, and that is mostly to create new spacecraft designs, ideas on new technologies and materials, speculate on future history (both within the Trek world and elsewhere), and produce artwork depicting those strange, new worlds and new civilizations—and how to get there.
Q: I would like to know why the impulse engines of the Voyager are set closer to the ship than in past ships?
Anthony D.
RS: The impulse engines can really be just about anywhere, since they're much lower power devices than the warp nacelles, which in the Starfleet way of doing things, are set away from the main hulls. Mostly it was an aesthetic decision to place the Voyager nacelles where they are on the wing pylons, and if they seem close to the hull, I might argue that they have better shielding than before.
Q: What are the fish tanks, or as had called them, "Cetacean Navigation Labs" doing on the Enterprise-D, Decks 13-14?
JBrown
RS: Shame on you for calling the cetaceans "fish." They'd be highly insulted being compared to their food. Actually, according to what we wrote in the tech manual, the whales and dolphins carried by the Enterprise-D are the three-dimensional navigation experts. I like to think they're also really good at developing alien language translation subroutines.
Q: Has anything from your work with Voyager carried over into the real world? Have you ever helped design vehicles or living areas for anyone using the Star Trek universe for inspiration?
Angelique M.
RS: Personally, I haven't worked on any "real world" applications of our current design schemes. We do know that other architectural and industrial designers have inquired about room layouts like the starship bridges, including some from the military. We do try to keep looking ahead, though the world seems to be catching up rather quickly.
Q: In the series premiere for Star Trek: Voyager, we see that the warp core glows in different colors, mostly purples and oranges. Why does it suddenly turn to blue after several episodes?
ASDBChief
RS: More efficient antimatter distribution from a set of enhanced biaxial micro-magnetic pressure-fed injectors? If not, then more like a stylistic decision from the producers or director of photography.
Q: How do you perceive 3D rendering tools as opposed to hand-held devices torepresent a creative current? Does the "new medium" simplify your work?
Sylvian P.
RS: I use a combination of both in my daily drawing tasks. Since we are sometimes in a time crunch, I can fax a pen doodle to our Visual Effect supervisors to make a point about a ship part or space phenomenon. I make use of the 3-D applications on the Mac to quickly build rough models of ships and stations, throw textures on them and offer a good idea what they'll look like. Some set sketches benefit from simple line art and a little marker color. All depends on which technique gets the idea across best in the time allowed. If I have a bit of time, as I did on "Memorial," I can even composite scanned photos of a location shoot, add architecture and people, do a little effect airbrushing in Photoshop, and pop out a glossy color print of a scene we haven't done yet.
Q: Why aren't the shuttlecraft that have appeared in recent projects been more standardized?
Jazz
RS: Like our producers, I love to see new designs. Seeing the same shuttle over and over does get to be a bit boring, so I welcome the occasional chance to reinvent Starfleet hardware. You might as well ask why computer design or car design isn't more standardized. It's style. It might be different in the future of real spacecraft, but for us in the TV world it's a mix of what's plausible and cool.
Q: I was curious about the Galaxy-class starship and its role now. According to the "Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual? the Galaxy-class space-frame was projected to have a 100 year life expectancy with various projected refits etc. With the introduction of the Sovereign class it would appear that the Sovereign-class vessel has replaced the Galaxy class as the primary instrument of Starfleet's exploration programs." Is this so? Wouldn't, in a theoretical way, it have been easier to refit the Galaxy class then design from scratch the Sovereign class if there was an need for something? I realize, more than likely, the bosses wanted something new for "Star Trek: First Contact,? but I am interested in what they have in store for the awesome Galaxy class. In my opinion, the Galaxy class is the most attractive of the various designs of starships in quite some time. BIG and beautiful...With the exception, maybe, of the U.S.S. Enterprise from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture.? Thank you for your time.
Michael F.
RS: In the fictional world of Star Trek, yes, it might have been easier to refit the Galaxy class and keep producing hulls with known tooling. Similar questions come up in the real world all the time; refit/upgrade an existing aircraft carrier or fighter-bomber, or spend the money for a new design? True, we like creating new designs for the Trek world, and it may provoke questions about the "canon" history, but I find the questions and discussions very interesting, especially the cutting-edge tech issues. That, to me, is far better than having the audience yawn and hit the channel-changer.
STARTREK.COM: Thanks again to Rick Sternbach for his informative answers to some very thought-provoking questions.
