Xindi Aquatic ship (24th Century) (Manta Class)

NOTE:  You can click on most pictures to get a larger view of them.

Rewrites: May 2019

There was a discussion in one of the modeling groups I follow on FaceBook about converting submarines into starships.  And so, I decided to give it a try as well.

And this is the story about this model...

In-Universe Notes:

Xindi Aquatic Ship (24th Century)
Manta Class
Scale Unknown Larson Designs Kitbash

 

 

 

 

After the incident involving Earth, the Xindi withdrew from the rest of the galaxy. Eventually, in the 26th century, they would join the Federation, however, during the 24th century, they choose to live a peaceful neutral existence. Realizing that their Vortex Drive system was a bit unstable, they have worked over the last two centuries to crate a new and improved type of faster than light drive system.  This new drive system is evident by the rings on the sides of the vessel.  The ship is also designed to be able to enter a planet's atmosphere and make water based landings, hence the large wings.

Real World Notes:

After revamping my Eaglemoss reviews for the other Xindi ships, I found that Memory Beta had actually given the 22nd century ships a classification name.  So, in order to keep with the theme, I dubbed this type of ship a Manta Class.

Made From: Larson Design's Seaquest DSV 4600 Resin Kit, Sheet Styrene, Super Glue Safety Rings

I can't guess at the scale of the ship.  The actual size of the resin model resin ship is 5" long.  

This turned out to be a rather quick build, but I really like it. It adds something very unique to my fleet collection.

This is not an actual model made by anyone.  I built it by kitbashing a Larson Designs Seaquest DSV 4600 resin model with some scratchbuilt parts and 4 safety rings off of my super glue tubes.

 

My original plan was to make some sort of Star Trek kitbash from a submarine.  The Larson Designs Seaquest was the only small scale ship I could find that wasn't going to break the bank for me. He sells stuff on eBay every other week, so check back often to see what he has.

My plans called for mounting four small warp ring nacelles to the ship and go from there.  I used the safety rings off of four old tubes of super glue.

After I got them mounted, I was not feeling a Starfleet vibe from the ship and it really didn't look Vulcan either.  I also felt that it just looked kind of plain.  It just looked like I stuck 4 rings on a model.  The ship did have an aquatic look to it thanks to Seaquest's squid-like appearance.  So I began researching the Memory Alpha and Memory Beta databases to see what species I could copy from.   I then remembered the Xindi Aquatic race from Star Trek enterprise's third season.  I found several pictures of their ship and lucky me, it sort of looked like Seaquest with wings.

Since I already had the rings mounted, I decided to go with a variation of the ship from what we saw in the TV series.  Hence the reason I chose to make it a 24th century version.  This worked well with already established canon Star Trek as apparently, the Xindi race went into hiding after the weapon incident and did not re-appear and join the Federation until the 26th century.  This allowed me to make mine different, yet somewhat the same as that ship.

Overall, it was a relatively easy build.  I did need to do some grinding out of resin for the rings and wings.  Larson Design's resin is very unique and generates TONS of dust when you are grinding it down.

That shirt is SUPPOSED to be black, not powder gray.  Make sure you wear some sort of breathing protection.

As always, I hope you found this article useful and informative.  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment below.

So for now, "Live long and prosper!!!"



Additional Links To Photos Of My Collection:

The Model     Work In Progress Pictures