Star Trek: 10 Controversies Behind Discovery’s Troubled Early Seasons

Though many of his storylines were discarded after his departure, Bryan Fuller's stamp has remained on Star Trek: Discovery; not just in the opening credits which still bear his name, but in many of his stylistic and aesthetic choices.

For the titular Starship Discovery, Fuller dictated that the ship must have a flat, elongated, pointy appearance contrasting her more curvaceous predecessors.

According to The Art of Star Trek: Discovery by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann, the directive "puzzled" Discovery's art department, including illustrator John Eaves, who believed the ship should more closely resemble Star Trek: The Original Series' USS Enterprise.

Fuller, though, apparently had his reasons for why Discovery looked the way it did. According to Block and Erdmann, in Fuller's ultimately aborted first season storyline, the USS Discovery would have crossed enemy lines and was designed to blend-in with the previously established look of Star Trek's Klingon vessels.

In Fuller's own words:

It wasn't because I hated round nacelles. I felt Discovery's nacelles had lot look more in line with the nacelles of Klingon D7-class cruiser, which are boxier. That's what we were working on when I left.

Nevertheless, Discovery's engines became a sticking point between the producers and the art department. In his own book, Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves, Eaves recalled that the look of the ship "became a huge concern":

We were probably 90% of the way there in the first month or so, but the nacelles became a big holdup. It ended up being a battle for easily five months...