Okay, so a little background first: I follow a YouTube channel called Trekyards that does videos reviewing spacecraft from various science fiction universe, primarily
Star Trek (as the name kind of implies).
One of their recent videos covered what is probably one of my favourite ships in all of Sci-fi, the
Liberator from the cult British 70's series
Blakes 7.
During the video, one of the commentators remarks how much more unique it would have looked had it been flying the other way round, with the spherical section at the front. This triggered a memory of another of their videos, this one about Federation Dreadnoughts in the
Star Trek universe, and those wheels started turning, until I came to the decision that I was going to have to kit-bash my own
Liberator class Dreadnought.
The obvious place to start was with one of the old Corgi die-cast toys that I have used in the past, but a quick look on eBay showed that incomplete ones were still a little on the expensive side (and I refused to even consider using a pristine one that should be sitting in someone's collection), but fortunately, as often happens, my local send-hand toy and collectable shop came to the rescue, and I was able to pick up a somewhat worse for ware
Liberator for just £1.50. But this only gave me the primary hull and the bulk of the three warp nacelles I would need. Fortunately, I never seem to throw anything away, and I still have the MicroMachines
Enterprise A I had gotten as a kid that had gotten snapped in two at one point, giving me a neck and saucer section. A quick look on Shapeways (god, am I falling in love with that place) provided a quartet of warp nacelles that I can easily trim down to provide the aft section of the nacelles and the rear of my primary hull. I believe I have something in my parts box that should serve as a deflector dish, but I have yet to fish it out.
Parts to date:
Rough layout idea:
Close up of nacelle (pre trimming):
As you can tell from the photos, unlike most Federation Dreadnoughts, the
Liberator class will have the third nacelle descending below the primary hull, which will unfortunately mean that, in the event of an emergency saucer separation, the saucer will be limited to sub-light speeds.
Updates will be posted as and when appropriate.
