Son ' a shuttle model Until the re - invented " Star Trek " film of 2009 , , tied with , and , has been , after , which holds the record with nine introductions , the " Star Trek " live - action production that introduced the most new spacefaring designs at once , eight each , the Son ' a shuttle being one of them . As with the other , no description of the Son ' a shuttle was given in the script when they appeared for the first time in , merely mentioned as " Son ' a shuttlecraft roar overhead . . . " That left Illustrator John Eaves with considerable freedom to come up with his own designs for the vessels of a race that has not before been referenced to in the " Star Trek " universe , as was envisioned by his supervisor Herman Zimmerman , " " John is such a talented man , I normally give him first crack at whatever the idea is that we ' ve discussed with the director . He pretty much comes up with what he thinks that is , then we talk about it . The idea was to bring a kind of art nouveau sense into the Son ' a ships , as if they were extensions of the organic Ba ' ku culture that they have left , and , without actually giving that part of the plot away , give the subliminal feeling that these cultures were connected . That was really where we started with those designs , and I think John just did a wonderful job . " " ( ) Design . In a very early concept , the Son ' a shuttles were originally conceived as " stand - up jet bikes " . That notion , however , was abandoned for two reasons : firstly , the cost involved ; animating the Son ' a figures aboard each unit was technically challenging , and thus cost - prohibitive , and secondly ; the producers wanted to avoid any comparison with the " speeder - bike chase " in " Star Wars " s " Return of the Jedi " . ( " Cinefex " , issue 77 , p . 84 ) As with his other Son ' a starship designs , Eaves based the design of his Son ' a shuttle on " " ( . . . ) activity games I found out in the backyard . I wanted to give a whole different kind of look to their architecture , so I kind of went with yard toys - Ru ' afo ' s ship is based on a horseshoe , the battleship is based on a boomerang , the shuttle is a yard dart , and the science vessel . . . well , the front of it is sort of a badminton shuttlecock turned inside out . " " ( ) Eaves later elaborated , " " One of the favorite designs I worked on , was the Son ' a scoutships . And that was kind of based , again , on the boomerang , but with more of aggressive angles on it . It was primarily written to be seen at night , with just the lights flying by , and they actually did a lot of daylight shots with it . And kind of the entire film , that was my favorite of the ships that was produced for the show . " " ( special feature , " The Art of Insurrection " ) , adding on a later occasion , " " This was a very fun little ship from " ST Insurrection " , It ' s shape is lightly based on it ' s DS9 predecessor the Jem Hedar battle cruiser . This was a quick and dirty little design that wound up being my fav from the movie , It had sleek look in the flying sequences designed by the boys over at Santa Barbara studios and the folks at Blue Sky made a great model to use as CG reference . " " Working throughout April 1998 on his design , it apparently escaped Peter Lauritson ' s predilection of having the Son ' a ships fly with the forked appendices backward swept , as was exceptionally evident on the ( re - ) design of Ru ' afo ' s flagship , soliciting a gleeful remark of Eaves on his years later , " " HAAAA ! this one fell thru the cracks so no which way did she go ' s here ! ! ! " " , making the shuttle the only Son ' a ship that flew with the forks forward facing , as Eaves had initially intended for all his Son ' a ships . Study and scanning models . The movie " Insurrection " , was the first feature film were it was conceived that all the visual effects would be executed as computer - generated imagery ( CGI ) . At that point in time , the technique was still relatively new , and the workload entailed in creating these effects was such that it was decided to employ two effects houses for their creation ; Blue Sky / VIFX , was contracted to provide all planet bound effects , as well as the interior Son ' a collector visuals ( and , as it turned out during production , its destruction as well ) , whereas Santa Barbara Studios ( SBS ) would be responsible for all the space bound visuals . The construction of the Son ' a shuttle CGI model , as it was only featured in in - atmospheric scenes , therefore fell to Blue Sky . Nevertheless , though the usage of CGI had become commonplace for television productions in that time - frame , both SBS and Blue Sky were very conscious of their perceived limitations of providing such for the big - screen . at the time . Not only did Blue Sky require more detailed orthographic views , which Eaves dutifully provided , but they also commissioned a three - dimensional study model , eventually built by Greg Jein . Blue Sky ' s Carlyle Livingston reiterated , " " Our work on the shuttle began with an examination of Greg Jein ' s sculpture . And then Dave Chamberlain did a foam sculpture based on that and John Eaves ' artwork . John always tells you his drawings are just a guide that you can add to or subtract from as needed – which is a very generous attitude – but we tried to stay with his design anyway , only adding some thruster s . " " ( " Cinefex " , issue 77 , p . 84 ) Jim Key described the construction of the scanning model as follows , " " Assigned to complete this scanning model was Dave Chamberlain . Provided with several color sketches and a 3D maquette built by Greg Jein , he began the carving process , From dense yellow foam , the ship was produced out of five main parts – the left and right wings , the center horseshoe body , and the left and right wing gun pods . Once glued together , the pieces were then covered with urethane casting resin to firm up the surfaces . After curing , these surfaces could be sanded smooth , gray primered , and detailed with pencil panel lines . Only tiny details would need to be added to indicate exhaust ports , vents sand gun barrel tubes . " " ( " Sci - Fi & Fantasy Models " , issue 34 , p . 30 ) CGI model . Once the scanning model was constructed , the final CGI model , for use in the feature , followed suit very quickly afterwards . Constructed in the software , as was every other CGI effect in the feature , the model went on to perform quite satisfactorily in the role it was endowed with . The basic model , once digitized , was constructed in full as a wire - frame model , or mesh , at Blue Sky / VIFX by Robert Rioux , whereas the fine - tuning of the model in the form of rendering and animation was performed by Blue Sky / VIFX ' s Compositing Supervisor Edwin Rivera and Digital Supervisor Mark Rohdal . ( " Cinefex " , issue 77 , p . 84 ) Though later mentioned in the television series , as well as in , the Son ' a was never again featured , nor were any of their ships ever called upon to make another in - universe appearance , so none of the Son ' a starship CGI models were upgraded in the CGI software for later representation . Rendered in Maya , and not reprogrammed , the design , like the other Sona ' a designs , was never officially seen again , be it on - screen or on or in licensed print products .