Scale: 1/1000
It is 3187, over 100 years after "The Burn" (and a year before the USS Discovery arrives). The Federation has all but crumbled, taking Starfleet with it. Just when hope was nearly gone, a mysterious space-time event occurred, close to Starfleet's new headquarters, and a small, damaged, repair drone dropped out of a spatial anomaly. Starfleet were able to retrieve the drone before it fell back into the closing anomaly, and found it to be an "Astromech droid", designated J3D1. Scans of the drone seemed to suggest that it came from a long time ago, and a galaxy far far away.
Its memory banks were inspected, and although the data was seriously fragmented, Starfleet's engineers were able to piece together plans for a new "faster than light" propulsion system - a Hyperspace drive - a credible alternative to warp drive (which can no longer be relied upon).
Starfleet used the data to create their version of "repulsorlift" - a gravity-based propulsion system that replaced RCS thrusters, to provide manoeuvring and vector control. Other technological and design features were gleaned from the data, and a whole new class of starship was created - the Skywalker Class. Maybe this "fast response cruiser" will be Starfleet's (and the Federation's) new hope? Only time will tell.
This is the prototype - the USS Skywalker - NH 0001.
Image: Work in progress
I had an idea for using a Naboo Starfighter as a "Trek" secondary hull, for quite a while, and this contest gave me the push I needed to actually do it.
The first thing to do was to take off the Naboo engines and cut off the tail and cockpit, to get something that looked vaguely like a Federation secondary hull.
A small travel size shampoo bottle was cut and shaped, and the clear Nav-Deflector insert from an Ent-D model was inserted, and filler used to fill any gaps. This was then attached to the secondary hull, and card and filler used to blend the pieces together.
I decided to use the saucer from a Playmates Ent-E (the inaccurate version) as my primary hull. I just love the shape of it, and the fact that it is different from "the real thing". I only wanted to use the top half of the toy's saucer, as the full saucer would have been too thick.
I removed the bridge section (later replaced by the top half of a small Thunderbird 2 - movie version), and used card to give the saucer a bottom. The bottom part of a Ent-E (1:2500 scale) was thickened using sheet craft foam and card, and used to give the underside of my saucer some detail. Some other foam and card was used in a similar way, to add a bit more shape and substance to the underside of the saucer.
Lego parts were used to create a "neck" of sorts, and this was extended down along the spine of the secondary hull, using craft foam and card (again).
The underside of the "wings" were recessed/hollow, so I used the foam and card technique again, to fill them, padding out the pylons.
The warp nacelles from a Playmates "Kelvin Enterprise" were removed from the toy, and using other Lego pieces to provide support, they were attached to the pylons, with filler used to plug any holes.
Once the primary and secondary hull sub-assemblies were painted in "duck egg blue", and then covered with some thin coats of pearlised white. They were attached/combined, and the finer details were painted (bussard collectors, hyperdrive "glows", impulse "glow", navigation deflector, windows in the saucer).
From what we have seen, the new Starfleet doesn't go in for too much decoration in the 32nd century. So, similar to the NX01, hull decorations were functional and not elaborate. There also do not seem to be many visible technical flourishes, such as visible "phaser strips", "transporter emitters" or RCS thrusters on 32nd century ships, thereby reducing the need for these to be included as decals. I designed the decals in Powerpoint, and printed them on decal paper, and then applied them.
