In November, I will be returning to my favorite place on Earth, NYC, in an attempt to make a life for myself in the city, as I search for first a job, and then stable accommodations. I will have very little money, and it will be a huge and daunting challenge, but it is one I enthusiastically embrace. I have always loved NYC, and I truly do not want to live anywhere else. This thread will serve as my journal, recording the day-to-day activities and the progress that I make towards my goals. It is my wish that if I am successful, that this journal will serve as a how-to guide for anyone who moves to NYC on a budget. I will be including either photos or video with most, if not all of my updates. I will also be using these journal posts as the basis for an NYC tour book that I will be writing. Please feel free to post any questions or comments.

Project Gemini

 

Project Gemini is my attempt to reconcile and fully develop the fan-created TOS-era Surya-Class starship for use as the U.S.S. Gemini, the hero ship in a TOS-era Star Trek story I am writing. The Surya-Class ship was created by Aridas Sofia, and many other fans have created their own plans of the ship, but almost every set is different in one respect or the other. Further confusing things, is the fact that there are many variants of “TOS Miranda” out there, such as the Coventry or Anton classes of ship. Because of these many variations, and conflicting plans, I wanted to attempt to create a single standard, and take the elements of the original Surya-Class design that work best, and combine those with the known look and details of the original TOS Constitution-Class ship, to fill in the blanks. This way, I could create a truly TOS-native class of ship, that would be truly believable as a functioning vessel, with both exterior and interior features and arrangements that make practical operating sense, and are 100% faithful to established TOS design, both inside and out.

 

Once I have completed the full set of exterior plans, I will begin work on a full set of interior deck plans. I will also attempt to detail as many pieces of individual equipment as I can, if at all possible. If I have a good set of references from which to work, I shall do my best to create detail sheets for those items. I will also be fully exploring the TOS-era Class-F Shuttlecraft. For the shuttles, I will be doing a full set of both exterior and interior plans. Once the entire full set of plans is completed, I will post them online for all to see and enjoy. I will also post a link to the final product here.

 

I will then begin work on the story for the Starship Gemini itself, beginning with the “pilot episode”, and moving onward from there. The U.S.S. Gemini is a Surya-Class starship (frigate), Starfleet registry NCC-1604. The ship is under the command of Captain Sam McCord. I am still working on the rest of the details for ship and crew, and will post all pertinent information here, in this thread. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments.

 

To assist me in my efforts, I have enlisted the help of the Surya’s designer, Aridas Sofia, as well as Tallguy, who has been working on a 3D CGI model of the Surya-Class ship in Blender. The Alan Sinclair Enterprise blueprints are helping me fill in the blanks, detail-wise, as are the Enterprise Blueprints of Charles Casimiro. Shaw and havoc92 have been creating deck-by-deck plans of the TOS Enterprise in both 2D and 3D, and their work has been a huge inspiration for me to begin this project. Finally, Cory McDaniels has sold me one of his TOS-era Surya model kits, and I will be using the build of that model as a part of this project. Updates to follow.