Federation holoship model The idea of surreptitiously transplanting an indigenous people by use of the holodeck had already been explored in ' s episode when a group of Boraalan s were transplanted in the holodeck of the without their knowledge to their new homeworld as their own world became uninhabitable . The concept of the holoship might have stemmed from this incident . The Federation holoship was one of the very few major specialty Federation starships , if not the only one , ever shown in the " Star Trek " franchise and as such presented its unique problems when it came to designing the ship . According to John Eaves , the ship was redesigned to appear more like an oil tanker or storage ship and given a shape that would easily fit into the Ba ' ku lake . ( " " , p . 96 ) . Design . The Federation holoship was designed by John Eaves . Early sketches of the holoship featured a more typical Starfleet configuration with a saucer section and warp nacelle s and the registry NX - 75115 . Eaves commented on his design process , " " The holoship went through a lot of changes . Originally it was a traditional Federation design , so I started out with a saucer section . The way the village was designed , it lent itself well to that [ shape ] - a saucer would be the best place to encase that holodeck image . " " ( ) , and , " " Also , a dish section seemed as if it would be capable of capturing not only just the village , which has a circular pattern , but some of the surrounding area too . " " ( " " , p . 95 ) Rejected by Director Jonathan Frakes and Producer Rick Berman , who wanted a more industrial look , Eaves returned to his drawing board and came up with a " " - like design , one Eaves himself took a shine on , " " They wanted to go with something more freighter - looking . So I went through another stage where it looked like a Guppy , one of those old 1950s cargo planes . That was my favorite one . " " No matter what Eaves ' personal preferences were , " " They felt it still looked too ' starshippy , ' so we got rid of that and then moved onto the ' flying brick . ' They wanted something very tankerish , like an oil tanker . I kind of beveled the sides , and at one point the cockpit was at the very back of the ship , just like a tanker . So that went for a while , and then they had it moved to the front . That was the shape that Berman really liked . " " ( ) Eaves later recalled on his : " In Star trek " Insurrection " A Massive Federation Holo - ship was called for and the following sketches show the process of how this one came to be . The early designs featured a saucer style ship , then transformed into a pufferfish , and finally a flying shoe box . The first two were my favorites and I didn ' t really care for the flying brick , but it was what was chosen so I took most of the inspiration from Giant Oil tankers . In the first pass there was a bridge at the front of the ship and by the final design the bridge moves to the rear of the vessel . Jerry Goldsmith Composed the score for this one and I liked the metallic theme he wrote for it much more than the final design . I also included the orthos but to achieve the same look simply get a shoe box , spray it completely with super 77 , and then roll it thru a pile of legos and old model parts ! ! ! HAAA ! I am not really cranky if that is how your reading this , I was laughing and remembering all the silly horrors that came from this movie in regards to one of our supervisors . . . He was always changing the direction on which way things were to fly after the fact that they were approved renderings being built and lit in CG . This unnamed guy was really something ! ! ( . . . ) OH yeah and the unnamed guy also changed the scale of the ships from shot to shot ! ! ! I can ’ t even remember how many times I would have to run over to his office to try and correct all the insanity ! ! ! It was during this film in particular that scale charts and directional arrows were attached to EVERY drawing . There is a shot in the film where all the vessels fly under the camera to take orbit , that is the closest to all the accurate scales . " Began in January , Eaves finished up in February 1998 on the design , and produced a set of orthographic views of his designs for the modelers at Blue Sky / VIFX . Eaves intended his final design to be 810 feet ( 247 meters ) long . Study model . For , the producers decided to complete the transition into the digital realm and that this feature would be the first movie completely without the time honored . However , in this stage of the technique , that meant that the CGI - workload had to be divided between two VFX - houses , Santa Barbara Studios for the outer space shots , and Blue Sky / VIFX for the planet bound effects . As the holoship featured prominently on the surface of the Ba ' ku planet , the task of modeling the ship fell at first to Blue Sky . For expedience sake , a thirty - inch scanning model of the upper half of the model was constructed by Mykel Denis , Tom Griep , and Tamara Waters , thereby saving the CGI modelers at Blue Sky the time to construct the corresponding freehand . ( " Sci - Fi & Fantasy Models " , issue 34 , p . 26 ) It was only when this model was sent to the producers for approval that they realized that , despite their scrutiny , they had made an error in judgment . Eaves had positioned the bridge on the back of the vessel , reminiscent of the bridge on a 20th century supertanker . This presented them with some unexpected headaches , as Blue Sky ' s Model Shop Supervisor Carlyle Livingston explained , " " This caused some concerns about logistics . Keeping the bridge positioned as it was in John ' s sketch meant there would be an expanse of ship seen out of the window every time you looked forward – which would be both tougher and pricier than just seeing the usual starfield . We moved it up front , then built a few different bridge conning towers before they signed off on it . " " ( " Cinefex " , issue 77 , p . 83 ) He further added , " " When Rick Berman and Peter Lauritson and everyone else involved looked at John ' s drawings , what appeared to be the front was , unknowingly , the rear view . So , when this was pointed out , they had a hard time visualizing the ship any other way than what their original perception was . Therefore , because of that presumption and the shots needed , the ship was turned around 180 degrees , forcing revisions to the engine nacelles and the location of the conning tower . And because the " Holoship " had to look like it was holding an entire village inside , perception of Human scale was important . Rick and Peter commented on the hatch needing to be bigger . So there changes were made . It ' s part of the process of finding out just what ' s right . " " ( " Sci - Fi & Fantasy Models " , issue 34 , p . 29 ) The revisions were done in April after Eaves revisited his design and modified it by adding an articulated bridge module on front of the ship , annotating on his sketch " The ever so modified Holo Ship Drawing " . CGI models . Yet , Eaves ' efforts notwithstanding , his revised holoship design was eventually not followed by the modeler at Blue Sky / VIFX , most likely out of time and costs considerations . Instead it was decided to merely reverse the flight direction of the model ( resulting in that , what Eaves intended to be , the impulse engine s were consequently forward facing ) , which was constructed as a CGI model by Digital Modeler Robert Rioux , who constructed and mapped the wire - frame model , and Digital Effects Supervisor Mark Rodahl , and Compositing Supervisor Edwin Rivera , who rendered , lighted and animated the model . ( " Cinefex " , issue 77 , pp . 83 - 84 ) Since Blue Sky was only responsible for the planet - bound effects , where the ship would merely be seen sitting in the water , only the top part of the model was constructed , as was with the scanning model . After Blue Sky was finished with their part of the ship , they would turn over the data files of the model over to Santa Barbara studios for their part of the work . However , it was not only the visible part they had to visualize , but also the invisible part , which did not go off without a hitch as Digital Artist David Stephens remembered , " " I was the R & D supervisor at VFIX working on the ST9 holoship digital water effects . I do remember a physical mock - up being around the office at one time , but all of our digital work was done with a CG model supplied by another company . . . not sure though if it was from Blue Sky ( which was our sister company at the time ) or from Santa Barbara Studios . I will mention that we internally finaled a far better version of the " invisible " holoship effect than was eventually in the film . Originally we had standing pools of water on the top of the ship reflecting the mountains , rivers streaming off the sides , and a lot more foam and wave interaction . Unfortunately one of the film ' s producers felt that the image was " too sophisticated " for " Trek " audiences . Imagine my shock and dismay . Ultimately , what was asked for was " an inverted ash tray in the water " with little or no interaction . Fortunately the finished imagery wasn ' t that simplistic , but it was disappointing compared to our original work . " " Rodahl elaborated , " " It was decided that the cloaked look would , in part , resemble one of those old glass ashtrays being dipped in a tub of water . Adding reflective glistenings of water dripping off the above - water section of hull helped bring out the ship ' s stealth - like nature , while the scale of the vessel was enhanced by adding a refractive element , as well as CG foam on the surrounding water to indicate the ship ' s " footprint " in liquid – the measure of displacement its presence created in the lake . " " Visual Effects Supervisor Jim Rygiel added , " " Decloaking the ship in broad daylight meant matching the caustic ripple lighting , reflections and shadows present in the plate . The holoship reveal was an image - warping look that maintained the established Federation style " " ( " Cinefex " , issue 77 , pp . 83 - 84 ) After receiving the digital data files , Santa Barbara Studios revised the model for its scenes in outer space by modifying the animation and rendering , as well as constructing the missing lower half of the ship . It is one the very few models in the franchise that was co - constructed by two different companies . The model was built , rendered , and animated in the CGI software . ( " Sci - Fi & Fantasy Models " , issue 34 , p . 29 ) The holoship was never again featured in later later representation , beit on - screen or in print . There actually was a reason for this , as " " project manager Ben Robinson has indicated in 2015 that the original model computer files were no longer in existence , due to Paramount Pictures ' s failure to maintain ownership over these , as well as due to Blue Sky / VIFX ' own demise , " " Never found the CG models from Insurrection . . . so we ' re rebuilding them ! Makes me feel like Dan Curry . " " , he explained , " " I ' m working on this " [ remark : Son ' a ships for the " Collection " ] " at the moment . It ' s tricky because the company that made the CG - Santa Barbara Studios didn ' t archive them and used their own software . Nothing is impossible though and I do have perfect reference " [ remark : referring to renders he had received for the " Fact Files " years earlier ] " . " " Still , Robinson had slated the holoship to become one the first " Insurrection " outings in his collection , based on newly reconstructed CGI models . True to his word , the issue for the holoship was released on 9 November 2016 , with the CGI model constructed by Fabio Passaro , becoming the third one of the " Insurrection " ships thus released .