An update on starship modularity in the 32nd century

This is a follow-up of sorts to this post.

This morning, I woke up and opened Twitter. To my surprise, Star Trek on Twitter posted some much clearer concept art of the new ships!

Their tweet can be found here and it features the following ships:

U.S.S Nog, NCC-325070, Eisenberg class

U.S.S Le Guin, NCC-325060, Mars class

U.S.S Maathai, NCC-325023, Angelou class

U.S.S Annan, NCC-325051, Saturn class

U.S.S Jubayr, NCC-325068, Courage class

U.S.S Voyager-J, NCC-74657-J, Intrepid class

Thanks to this much better look at these modern ships, Twitter user gaghyogi49 (Jörg Hillebrand) was able to make a great image showing the different ships at Starfleet HQ.

His image also provides us with some better angles from earlier episodes for certain ships, like the Mars class.

Something that throws a little wrench in my last post is nacelles, which were a fairly big point. Looking at all this imagery, they don't appear to have a uniform design. The Saturn-class' nacelles are attached and also contain a spiral shape of some kind.

The Courage class doesn't appear to have any nacelles at all, although it is possible this is because they are currently at Starfleet HQ and not actively going on missions. They might be functioning as a defense. There is some evidence of this, as the U.S.S Song (a Courage-class) was the first to show up when an Osyraa-controlled Discovery infiltrated Starfleet HQ.

The Mars-class does have nacelles, although they're almost round. It's possible the Mars class can recall them to form a whole with its saucer.

The 'type 7' also has nacelles, though they are much taller and blocker than Voyager's.

The Maathai (or the Angelou class, better known as the 'forest ship') also does not appear to have any nacelles. It does appear to have an exhaust as its back, though I suppose it's possible that's a shuttle bay or some kind of viewing area.

Discovery's new detached nacelles also don't appear to match any of the other nacelle designs, and those are state-of-the-art.

The Constitution-class is essentially still that: a Constitution-class. Its nacelles are still attached through 2 beams. Image thanks to the Twitter user gaghyogi49 (Jörg Hillebrand) once again (from this tweet).

Now, it's possible many of these ships don't have nacelles because they don't require FTL travel. It's very possible the Maathai just stays at Starfleet HQ all the time and is only in a ship because Starfleet didn't want to cloak an entire planet. The same applies to the Courage-class: it's possible they stay at Starfleet HQ for defense purposes, or have their nacelles stored elsewhere.

None of these things discount my "component swapping" theory, though it does mean there isn't a "one size fits all" nacelle design — which I think would've been cool.

Of course, it's also possible there's component swapping with more than the nacelles: I just don't think there's a lot of evidence this is the case, other than Voyager's separated hulls.