Federation civilian craft (mostly human)

[FarShot]

In Star Trek, pretty much every single human-designed ship we've seen is a Starfleet ship.  As such, I assume they all have standards, go through essentially the same review process, and probably see much of the same designers working on them throughout the years, hence why through each era, ship designs look at least halfway the same.

In the civilian market, however, I can see competing manufacturers designing their own breed of ships, though they still have the futuristic, largely human designed, ship designs.  Though Picard said there was no money in the future, this seems to be contradicted by DS9 and such, so I'm making the assumption that the civilian economy is still market capitalism based.

So, if you guys have ideas for civilian human ships, any era, I'd be interested in seeing them, because civilian life is something that can be greatly expanded upon in the Star Trek universe.

I'm going to focus on TNG/Nem era mostly, and I'll probably have some ideas up soon.

[King Class Scout]

and, of course, ther'll still be a "big three"...

imagine there's stll a Ford f series  F-2050...
imagine the size of the Mercedes starships!

wonder what the likes of  Boeing, BAE, and MiG would do (aerospace is aerospace)

*pictures a deflector dish hideden behind a Ford blue oval*

[FarShot]

Actually, I imagine that most major companies would be severely weakened or destroyed by the effects of WW3, and new companies would rise, either replacing or incorporating those other companies.

Imagine, Seattle is nuked during WW3, and the only remnants of Boeing are the planes defending North America.  A skeleton of the former company remains to handle decommissions and repairs of the remaining Boeing aircraft fleet, but business-wise, Boeing is done for.

After Cochrane's warp flight, human imagination is resparked, and new pioneers and innovators arise, becoming the Cochranes of their respective fields.  For instance, engineers specializing in defense from ballistics by utilizing powerful but localized magnetic fields to alter a projectile's trajectory enough might hop on the deflector dish bandwagon.

A devastating world war is sort of like declaring bankruptcy for the world, allowing a fresh start - one that spawned the relative peace for Earth and unity of the human people.

EDIT- Finished my sketch of Firefly type interstellar courier.  No warp capability, but with impulse engines, flights within the Sol System are short, as impulse engines get pretty close to light speed as I recall.  Design inspired by the Argo in Nemesis.

[King Class Scout]

depends on what book you read as to what the "official" speed of "full impulse" is.  every author, every guidebook, even Gene Himself, had different notions.  one I've seen gives full impulse as .25 c

I haven't gotten the impression that during the ST verse's WW3 they went nuke happy. i think they might have gone more "BC" instead.  "biological and chemical".  don't forget, since there's genetic engineering involved and the "colonel Green" thing, the nuclear part might have been gone around.

[FarShot]

You're confusing the Eugenics Wars and World War III regarding genetic engineering.  Also, it is true that Green did use chemical warfare, but he was a terrorist, not an entire warring nation.  Also, episodes of TNG mention a series of nuclear winters following the war, and in First Contact, Data said that the atmosphere was full of radioactive isotopes, which he said was an indicator that they were in a time soon after WW3.

[Psyco Diver]

well there was the SS Raven......