Olympic Class idea
Had a (non-canon) idea about the Olympic class - what if it could saucer separate...
The two parts of the ship
Sphere - holds the warp core & associated systems, nacelles, general engineering, bridge, crew quarters, and crew facilities
Module - Hospital that can be sealed off from the main ship (in case of contagions). It has a shuttlebay to receive medical shuttles, docking ports for ships. Also probably a lot of transporters.
Why separate? Sometimes a hospital must remain in orbit of a planet for quite a long time. Why not have the drive do something else in the mean time.
The Sphere could dock with other modules
- Colony Module - carries all the colonists, supplies, construction material etc. When delivered to site, the module becomes an orbiting space station, providing docking and transporter systems for supply ships.
- Cargo Module - either bulk freight, or specialised hazardous material such as Neutronic Fuel. Ships going "where no one has gone before" need resupply now and again in the field rather than turn around and head back home for supplies.
- Science Stations - manned or unmanned, easier to build at a construction facility than on-site near that black hole you want to study
- Sensor Pods - the Olympic sphere could accompany science ships with large mission specific sensor pods. Planet scanning MRI machines for example. [side note: this is what I think the Oberth has - a large uninhabited sensor pod. Held away from the ship due to dangerous emissions. It was meant to be scanning the entire planet, not just surface scans.]
With separation, the Olympic goes from a single purpose to a flexible multi-purpose support ship.
In these pictures, it looks as if the mount for the nacelles struts is resting on top of the long body module.
The original model blueprints for the ship model had different nacelles - perhaps the sphere section had an in-universe refit.
If you wanted to modernise / refit an Olympic ship, taking out the one ship does not prevent the modules beings used by another Olympic in the meantime.
