USS GRAND ALLIANCE NCC-72800

My second major kitbash, dating from around 1990 or so. I'd gotten frustrated that so many Next Generation episodes involved shuttling diplomats around the Federation discussing interstellar politics, rather than exploring and finding strange new worlds. So I devised a ship that would be strictly a diplomatic transport. A giant limo for the Federation President. A traveling embassy that would fly from planet to planet picking up ambassadors, quartering them in hotel-like luxury, and driving them to Babel for conferences. The key feature would be four engines for extra speed - with all those VIPs aboard, it would insane to stand and fight, so the ship's primary defense would be to run like hell at warp 9.9 for as long as possible (back when I designed this thing, 9.9 was incredibly fast. The Enterprise could only do 9.7 max, and Voyager hadn't raised the bar to the ridiculous 9.975 yet). You'd need lots of hangar space for visitors, so I figured the whole aft end of the ship would be nothing but parking garage.

To create the hull additon I cut the overall shape (as seen from above) from a piece of Evergreen sheet plastic, roughly the thickness of the sensor groove around the saucer. I sandwiched that between the saucer halves to make the "floor" of the aft section. Then on top and bottom of that I added another piece the thickness of the saucer edges above and below the groove. These plates had to be a bit wider, so the central piece would be recessed like the rest of the groove. I cut a vertical wall where the hangar door would be, and fitted the long thin top of the hull between the existing hangar door on the saucer, and that wall. The side panel shapes were trial and error. I used pieces of paper, cut, fit, cut, fit, etc, until they fit, then cut them from plastic. Same for the underside.

I sliced the engine supports off where they started to arc upward and made a new flat piece between them. Gluing them 90-degrees from normal was more a result of the way the "landing deck" turned out than a pre-planned feature.

I made the major markings (name, number and Federation Seals) myself on my Alps printer, and used JTGraphics' beautiful Enterprise-D decal sheet, with it's 500 individually numbered lifeboats, for all the other markings. Click on a thumbnail below to enlarge the detail pictures.


Aft upper view showing quad nacelle arrangement

Underside

Side view. The stand was refurbished and repainted Model Master bright brass

The landing deck, shuttl control "tower" and hard docking doors

Aft closeup of shuttle landing deck. The Federation seal is printed with silver and gold metallics.

The starbase hard docking bay doors with warning markings

The bow showing the Federation seal, accent stripe, and the forward windows of the ship's conference room and huge main ballroom

Closeup of the flush radome covering the deflector under the chin

The stern from below showing the wearp plasma conduit tunnel and heat exchangers

A wider shot showing the lower hull and lifeboats

General bottom view

General top view

Closeup of the Federation seal with its lovely Alps metallic inks

Star Trek, Starfleet etc. etc. copyright © and trademark ™ Paramount Pictures. These models are works of my imagination, and are posted on this site to share with other fans in a just-for-fun, non-profit fannish spirit in the same way as fan fiction might be. Please don't hurt me.

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