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It seems like every starship we have ever seen in Trek has at least two warp nacelles, with a few exceptions having three or four. Is there any explanation for why this is, or why the USS Kelvin (the ship at the beginning of the 2009 Star Trek) only had one? What conclusions about the Kelvin's relative performance, if any, can we draw from this?

I do not believe the Kelvin was the only ship in ST lore to have one nacelle. Freedom, Saladin, and Hermes Class starships were all one nacelle types (Freedom from the TNG era while the other two were from the TOS era.).

Yes, those really well known ships only seen as debris and on background computer displays.

I read somewhere the Kelvin actually has two nacelles side by side in that case, so it technically had two. Can't remember if that was officially or just a fanon explain away.

One assumes the single nacelle design though should be slower or have less stamina or be less energy efficient or something.

Crazedwraith wrote:Yes, those really well known ships only seen as debris and on background computer displays.

I read somewhere the Kelvin actually has two nacelles side by side in that case, so it technically had two. Can't remember if that was officially or just a fanon explain away.

One assumes the single nacelle design though should be slower or have less stamina or be less energy efficient or something.

Memory Alpha also states that the Kelvin Class were of a one nacelle design.

Pics of it clearly show one nacelle. The primary hull makes it look like it has two nacelles.

Sorry, I was unclear. I meant that I'd read somewhere that the structure that contains the nacelle. The one hanging down from the saucer contained two warp engines inside it. So although its looks like one nacelle design it still gets the advantages of the two nacelle design.

Ah reading through memory alpha's page on the 'Kelvin-type star ship' it has this in the apocrapha section:

According to Intel Corporation's Starfleet Shipyard sitewbm (β), the Kelvin's impulse engines were powered by four deuterium fusion reactors and the inside of the warp nacelle contained two rows of massive semi-circular warp coils.

Which is probably what I was thinking of.

So basically two nacelles in one.

I believe Roddenberry always claimed that a starship required an even number of nacelles. That didn't keep the designers of Star Fleet Battles from coming up with a variety of odd-nacelle designs, including single-nacelle designs.

The only canon odd-nacelle design I can think of prior to the 2009 movie is the future Enterprise from "All Good Things".

As mentioned, there were a few on background computer screens and in the TNG/DS9 Wolf 359 debris field scenes. IIRC it was that Rodenberry wanted paired Warp nacelles for some reason, and when the single/uneven nacelle number designs showed up, they tried to wiggle their way out of it by claiming it was actually paired Warp Coils that was important, so as long as you had two Coils in every nacelle that was cool. Mind you, I don't think any of this (either the need for doubled nacelles nor the doubled coils workaround) is ever actually stated onscreen, all of this (assuming I'm even remembering correctly) is out of universe information.

I'm pretty sure there were a few single-nacelle designs in TOS, though I believe they were mostly freighters and civilian ships.

Then you also get ship designs like the Tholian vessel and the Klingon BoP which have NO visible nacelles (though at least the BoP has a visible engine) - every other Klingon ship has the same "two nacelle" principle as Starfleet ships - so do Romulan and Dominion starships.

Since numerous alien starships have no visible nacelles in Star Trek (ranging from the Borg Cube to a giant freakin' sphere in TOS' "The Corbomite Maneuver"), its clearly possible to get away with one, or something else. I guess, I'd just say Starfleet engineers (not to mention most other civilizations at their technical level) have just found two nacelles to be the most efficient method of designing warp drive, and every once in awhile one or three nacelles gets played around with.

With the Tholian ship, I think it's the ridgey part of the triangle shape (the ones glowing here that serve as nacelles. With the Klingons, I think they mount both weapons and nacelles on the ends of their wings.

I guess you could say that Starfleet's nacelle philosophy is more efficient, and that's why they're a lot more ubiquitous than other more exotically designed alien of the week ships.

Thanks for the replies, folks. The 'efficiency-at-tech-level' explanation makes a good bit of sense. Maybe old USS Kelvin is just a gas guzzler compared to the new low-emission USS Enterprise

Ted C wrote:I believe Roddenberry always claimed that a starship required an even number of nacelles. That didn't keep the designers of Star Fleet Battles from coming up with a variety of odd-nacelle designs, including single-nacelle designs.

The only canon odd-nacelle design I can think of prior to the 2009 movie is the future Enterprise from "All Good Things".

I wouldn't say "always". The odd-nacelle designs originated with Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual, which at the time (1975) was an officially licensed product on which Roddenberry was given ample opportunity to comment, critique, and even veto. He could easily have piped up and said "nope, nacelles in pairs only."

Srelex wrote:With the Tholian ship, I think it's the ridgey part of the triangle shape (the ones glowing here that serve as nacelles.

True, those are quite probably warp engines. I defaulted my mental image to the way they looked in the original broadcast version - not Enterprise and the remastered version of "The Tholian Web" - http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/ ... in_web.jpg

I actually like the oddly alien quality that is brought on by less surface detail on the ship. Like the Tholians crystal form, the ship itself in the original episode is more like a flying crystal or gem.

You can clearly see the Kelvin has a warp nacelle above the saucer and the engineering hull below. Except when it rams the Narada the back of the engineering hull lights up like the nacelle above it.

Ahriman238 wrote:You can clearly see the Kelvin has a warp nacelle above the saucer and the engineering hull below. Except when it rams the Narada the back of the engineering hull lights up like the nacelle above it.

Umm... no.

Nacelles the bottom one. Engineering hull's on top. You can tell because thats where all the shuttles leave from. lt's also not lit up. At least not in that screenshot

However, in the front shot, both the top and bottom hulls have navigational deflectors. Maybe both are nacelles, but the bottom one has the impulse drive?

What has it also apparently having a navigational deflector got to do with wether or not it's a Warp nacelle? Federation ships typically have those on the engineering hull, not the nacelles, and Defiant had hers on her nose.

Are you sure the lower one is a deflector and not a Bussard collector?

Is it so hard to believe that paired engines came from trial and error? So they made some single engine ships for what ever reason, and in the long run decided dual engines work better. Hence, back in the day when they were experimenting with new big ships, they had all sorts of configurations, later not so much.

Non-canon, but the novel Federation briefly features a triple-nacelled luxury liner, which IIRC Kirk remarks on as somewhat more powerful but not as much as you'd think (nowhere near half-again) and way less power-efficient. And you'll notice all the alien ships in the show seem to have two nacelles as well (outriggers on Jem'Hadar capital ships for starters). So yeah, I think Knife has the right of it.