‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Ship Design Based On Cancelled Time Travel Movie Concept Art, Bolsters Klingon Rumors

The Star Trek 50th Anniversary panel at Comic-Con 2016 in San Diego was widely expected to reveal new information about the upcoming Star Trek TV series coming to CBS’ streaming service (yes, the streaming fragmentation will continue until the combined subscription prices return us to the days of expensive cable packages). But for the most part the panel stuck to discussions of Star Trek ’s thematic legacy, leaving us with only a title, Star Trek: Discovery, and the reveal of the titular ship, the U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031.

Here is the Discovery in all its angular glory (or you could watch the ship reveal video, above):

Viewers quickly picked up on the similarities between the Discovery and concept art produced by Ralph McQuarrie (most famous for his contributions to Star Wars) for Star Trek: Planet of the Titans, an aborted Star Trek movie in development two years before Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Bryan Fuller acknowledged the influence to io9, describing the similarities at a post-panel press conference as “to a point that we can’t legally comment on it until [our legal team] figures out some things.”

But does Star Trek: Planet of the Titans and this ship design (originally intended as a replacement Enterprise) have anything to tell us about the setting of Star Trek: Discovery?

Well, the first lesson is that it’s a great thing Planet of the Titans never got made. Man, is this plot stupid. Memory Alpha describes the Enterprise falling into a black hole that throws them back in time to ancient Earth where — dumb twist time — the Enterprise crew become the gods that first brought mankind fire.

But what matters to Star Trek: Discovery is the presence of the Klingons, who are competing with the Federation for control of the Titans’ planet in this cancelled Trek movie.

And indeed many people have pointed out that the angular secondary hull (as opposed to the saucer section primary hull) bears a close resemblance to the angular wings of the Klingon Bird-Of-Prey starships.

Nothing is known for sure about the chronology of Star Trek: Discovery, but a long-running rumor, first sourced by Birth.Movies.Death, holds that Discovery will take place in the tumultuous years after the Khitomer Accords, a peace treaty between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. Bryan Fuller has since denied this rumor in an interview with Moviefone.

Still, the design of this ship and its origins in a Klingon-centered The Original Series timeline movie suggest there may indeed be something to the persistent rumors that conflict with the Klingons will be a central element of Star Trek: Discovery.