Star Trek - The relief of Velend Haas

[maestros]

“We’re approaching Velend Haas, Captain.” Lieutenant Iron looked up from the conn station momentarily, the tone of his voice vibrating in synch to the shuddering decks of the U.S.S. Avery. Quantum slipstream, whilst much faster than conventional warp drive, wasn’t without its fair share of difficulties, and the Avery’s slipstream drive hadn’t yet been fully calibrated.

“Acknowledged,” Captain Cameron Dalkeiri confirmed the helm’s readings from his console with approval. “Take us to impulse, Lieutenant. Standard orbit, approach vector on screen.”

The vessel lurched slightly as the subspace envelope collapsed, ejecting the starship from the slipstream and back into the realm of Newtonian physics. Residual energy shimmered across the Avery’s hull, manifesting as a wavering blue sheen. Scorch marks pocked the pristine ships new frame – an unexpected side effect from her untested drives. Never-the-less, she glided on towards the vast world of Velend Haas – its atmosphere alight from whatever tragic accident they had brought upon themselves. On the bridge Commander Kalri Hannigan rose from her seat slowly eying the scene.

“Good god,” she finally uttered. “What the hell is that…”

Lieutenant Muhal Umgal danced her fingers across her science console and raised one of her heavily tattooed eyebrows.

“That,” she said with empthasis. “Is one of the planetary climate control satellites. At least is was.” Muhal continued to analyze the sensor readings.

“Explain Lieutenant,” Kalri turned away from the binding light on the view screen to face the science station, and squinted as her eyes took a moment to adjust. “What do you mean it was a control satellite.” She motioned at the screen with an emphatic gesture. “It looks pretty intact to me.”

“The satellite appears to have been heavily modified, to a point where its configuration is only barely recognizable.” After entering a few commands Muhal overlaid her scans of the satellite onto the main screen, and juxtaposed them with the schematics of a conventional climate control satellite. “The satellite appears to have undergone significant modifications. If I were asked to speculate, I would conclude this platform had been weaponized.”

“Weaponized?” Captain Dalkeiri now stood. “In what way?”

“It would appear that the satellite has been modified to emit metreon isotopes in a narrowly focused pulse.” Lieutenant Umgal leaned forward on her console. “The only conclusion I can draw Captain is that the Haasians were attempting to develop some type of metreon cascade device, which malfunctioned and resulted in what we see here.” Muhal cleared the scan overlay from the view screen, reverting the image back to the previous chaotic scene.

For several moments the entire bridge crew gawked in awe at the view screen, bathed in crackling light. A beam emanating from an orbital device was tearing through the atmosphere of the planet below, triggering a storm that encompassed thousands of square miles. Energetic discharges snapped from the beams source like lightning, illuminating the swirling clouds.

A distant bleeping finally drew the ops duty officer’s attention from the disturbing scene.
“Incoming hail,” the ops officer declared. “It’s Captain Danté, U.S.S. Atlantis.”
“On screen.” Cameron stood and straightened his uniform tunic. The scene of Velend Haas was replaced with the stern expression of Captain Coris Danté. The Atlantis and Damocles has already arrived ahead of them and begun coordinating relief efforts from the planet’s primary orbital station. Behind her the crew of the Atlantis hurriedly carried out their duties with an air of urgency.

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Another image with the wonderful Insignia Class mesh by Mark Kingsnorth, and my first in quite some time. My wife and I recently started watching Voyager (determined to turn her into a trekkie!) and the episode "Jetrel" inspired this. Comments and constructive criticisms welcome as always.

[3D_CG]

nice one

[JackN]

aaaaaahhhh!

[SG_Stargazers]

A truly stunning creation, which is now my new desktop background. Well done indeed sir.

[BillS]

Nice to see an image that doesn't have everything in a nice 2D plane to the planet. Love the colour pallet and the whole composition.


And I don't normally pay attention to trek images.

[lonewriter]

Nice pic and story.

[Tenement 01]

Ooooh, me like!

[Phoenix]

Love it.

[Davide_sd]

In my opinion, one of the best picture i've seen on this site!
really wonderful composition!!! =D

[bmckain]

That is very well done. I like everything about it.

[Treybor]

This is really quirte good Maestros

[Eden]

Superb....wonderfully composition and colours

[maestros]

Thanks for all the positive feedback guys. Composition was definitely my focus in here - originally I had another ship dotted in around the top right but found it was distracting to the eye.

If I have the time a little later I'll post the background image (sans the lightning satellite malarkey) for anyone who may care to make use of it. Something I generally do for all images I put together.

Thanks again guys.

[tangster]

That's really well done.

[GrahamTG]

Wow lovely work.

[starship]

Epic rendering!

[nightfever]

Pretty cool scene. I really like the special effect on the planet.

[bmckain]

Congrats on the front-page slot. It was a tough decision between this, and two other images for the feature image. It was worthy but in the end formatting took precedence.

[Nays]

Gorgeous. I love everything about this.

[tangster]

Originally Posted by bmckain

Congrats on the front-page slot. It was a tough decision between this, and two other images for the feature image. It was worthy but in the end formatting took precedence.

I can imagine. Some seriously impressive front page images this month.

[maestros]

Wow, thanks for all the positive feedback guys. Always good for motivation to advance and work on more.

And thanks for the front page slot!

[Zippy]

Quite epic! I wish they did visuals like that for the series .

[Marty Miller]

This is really cool man. Love the work you have put into it and especially the cloud formation thingy. Impressive stuff.

[Eden]

Another well deserved front page slot, super quality image!!

[tonycelliers]

Very nice render and models, its really awesome, congrats on the front page slot.
And as I always ask artist's, what software are you using?

[maestros]

Thanks guys )

Tony - this was done in 3DSMax 2010 and Photoshop CS5. The 'metryon cascade' effect on the planet is actually a couple of shots of dripping water blended together with some tweaks and effects. It almost didn't make it into the final picture as I was having trouble achieving an effect I was satisfied with.

[vitruvian]

Superb Work ! Congrats on the front page slot.
How did you made the electric arcs ?

[maestros]

The electric arcs where made by a combination of freehand pencil drawing in Photoshop, and 'lightning' brushes that are freely available.

[lonewriter]

Originally Posted by maestros

The electric arcs where made by a combination of freehand pencil drawing in Photoshop, and 'lightning' brushes that are freely available.

I'll have to try that sometime.

[maestros]

Too add to that - the points at which they 'connect' with the atmosphere are basic PS lens flares with a slight motion blur, set to liner dodge.