Please prove or disprove this theory, and tell why you have sided
 

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[This message was edited by The Shadow on March 22, 1999.]
 

The following is a list of possible classes for the Centaur, based on the design style
-Apollo
-Hokule'a
-Istanbul
-Surak
-Wambundu

I have based this list on the design style of the Centaur and the registries of the ships in the classes, assuming that the class the Centaur belongs to is a fairly old class.

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"They must thinks there's still Romulans on board!"
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[This message was edited by Fabrux on March 22, 1999.]
 

It is possible that this ship includes the major assembly of a named class, and it is possible that assembly may be from a Wambundu-class starship, but it's just as possible the majority of the assembly could have been taken from a previously unknown class or that the ship is actually taken from reassembled Excelsior saucer, Miranda roll bar, Excelsior nacelles, and Constellation saucer bumps (that last being less than serious.)

All evidence indicates a scrap yard mesh of two or more starships, a hybrid with remote ties to any vessel described before the war.
 

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Personally I don't believe in the "hastily assembled" theory in the DS9TM. I won't repeat my arguments again, but why do the authors need such an explanation? Why can't the Centaur just be a Wambundu class or rather one of the other mentioned but useen classes?

Possible candidates:
Hokule'a, Mediterranean, Merced, Surak

Apollo? There are already two other theories for this class.

Istanbul? That's some kind of transport ship.

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-->Identity Crisis<--

 

I don't like the Leavenworth much. I do like the Heavy Frigate equivalent, the Joshua Paul class, but that looks even less like the Centaur.

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-->Identity Crisis<--

 

The Miranda was perhaps designed as an all purpose ship, for science missions, battle, and perhaps as a medical transport. Why not have something similar to the Miranda in that sense?

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I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation
 

As for the theory that SF has been kitbashing w/ their damaged ships... First off, it would probably be more trouble that it's worth to get the parts to go together and work right. Secondly, the Centaur and Curry were both kitbashed from models at different scales, making the Miranda pieces much larger (in comparison to the Ex. parts) than they would be if the ships had been Frankensteined from damaged ships.

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I'm still not sure about the Curry nacelles. The screenshots suggest a size in between the Ertl Miranda and the size in scale with the Excelsior. Of course, I like the latter theory much more, although I don't know how they did it.
 

Well, maybe, maybe not. This is under debate again on rast.tech and the conclusion so far is that there's no actual evidence that the ships seen at the end are Apollo class. We don't actually know that the T'Pau is one of them. That info comes from the Encyclopedia and therefore isn't canon. Remember that at least the deflector array of the T'Pau turned up in wreckage earlier in the story....

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-->Identity Crisis<--

 

If the Encyclopedia is not canon, then at least half of our commonly agreed class names and registries are not canon, for they have never explicitly been mentioned or shown in the series.
 

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Blitzwing: "If I want to know what's on your mind, I'll splatter it on the wall and see for myself!"
 

Aren't Vulcans part of the Federation thus making the Apollo Class and the T'Pau a Federation Ship

[This message was edited by Brown_supahero on March 24, 1999.]
 

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Space Corps Directive #723: Terraformers are expressly forbidden from recreating Swindon.
 

1) There is no visibile deflector dish, so where did they get deflector componants from? If there is no deflector, it can't be T'Pau

2) Why would a Vulcan starship design and constructed ship be named after a Roman God? And why would all the other ships in the class also be Greek/Roman (with the exception of Gage)?

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It's not necessarily a Vulcan design, and even if it were, it could have been named by humans anyway.

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And deflectors don't have to glow. Impulse engines don't always (e.g. Defiant).

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-John Cleese, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
 

Unless someone proves me I'm wrong (maybe with an Apollo class USS Gage kitbash from "Emissary"), I believe what is written in the Encyclopedia II. The Vulcan ship is actually of the Apollo class.

I think the ship is an originally Vulcan design, that was later adopted for Starfleet. The first Starfleet vessel of this class being the USS Apollo, it was called Apollo class. There could be a civilian name for this class as well, in this case the Encyclopedia II would be inaccurate but not wrong to call the T'Pau an Apollo class ship.

There could be a little deflector beneath the hull.
 

As far as I can see, most of the parts in their new configuration connect at the the same points they connected to in their old configuration, so we know these parts are structurally able to hold at those points; it's not like Starfleet had to retrofit new connect points into the parts.

It doesn't seem like too difficult a chore for a construction yard to make small hull sections to act as bridges between melded assemblies. Structural integrity fields are insurance policies that help keep the parts together.

I imagine the most difficult part would be in mounting the warp nacelles for correct warp field geometry, and I'm sure computer models helped there. It's not like these ships have to be overly efficient at warp anyway, just able to fire at hostiles without ripping themselves to shreds.

This process seems faster than trying to build brand new ships, though admittedly, it would be a pain in the rear, and I'm sure most of the crews of these ships are spending a lot of their time praying to whatever gods they believe in (though a lot of them may also be cursing the ugly stick that overrode the shields).

Regarding scale problems being the proof that the ships cannot be made from previous assemblies, there is a flaw in that thinking: whether these ships are melds or not, they still have out-of-scale parts. If these ships are not melds but are original assemblies, and if I were to take them apart and make melds, we're going to have out-of-scale melds, just like these. Basically, if out-of-scale parts exist at all, they can be used in original assemblies, or they can be used in melds of two or more ships.
 

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Think about this: If the Curry was made out of pieces of a damaged Ex. or two, and a damaged Mir., where's the warp core? In an Ex., it apparently extends from the back of the saucer down through the neck, to a spot above the deflector. W/ the saucer moved back, they would have to find a new space inside the ship to put the core, then they would have to reroute all the EPS conduits to feed out of it, and put in new warp plasma conduits to go to the nacelles in their new positions... This would be much more trouble that it's worth. However, if it was a new design, the core and conduits and such would be put in the right places upon construction, and things wouldn't have to get all shifted around.

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"I fart in your general direction!"
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TSN: You said "making the Miranda pieces much larger (in comparison to the Ex. parts) than they would be if the ships had been Frankensteined from damaged ships." Should I take this to mean "Making the Miranda pieces much larger (. . .) than they would be if the ships had been Frankensteined from [Exclesiors and Mirandas]? If this is what you meant, than we're not necessarily dealing with Excelsiors and Mirandas (Since Excelsiors and Mirandas have different scales to the parts we're working with, the parts must have come from other classes of ships, right?), so we can only assume these ships would not have all of the parts where we would expect to find them.

To sumarize (though looking this post over, it seems the summary is larger than my original point): the parts in question are not to scale, therefore they cannot have totally come from our familiar ships (I.e. saucer from Excelsior, nacelles from Miranda, rollbar from Miranda, Constellation saucer bumps). The biggest proof of this is the ship in the DS9TM that appears to have a runabout "wing." No one is going to convince me that was salvaged from a runabout. It is probably one of the custom assemblies. It is possible that the Curry does use parts taken directly from a Miranda, but then it cannot have an Excelsior saucer/body. The body must have come from some other class (and any variation of familiar/new parts).
If there is absolutely no way an Excelsior nacelle pylon can attach to your ship's hardpoint for nacelle pylon connection, a custom pylon can be quickly made that marries the two foreign assemblies; you're splicing a part into the new shape the same way you use male/female connection in electronics (Don't modify the original part, just put a bridge bewteen them).

TSN: You made an excellent point with the warp core example, but when we decided the pieces were out of scale to one or more of the ships we thought they took the parts from, we in essence proved the parts cannot all come from the ships we thought they came from, so we cannot use these ships (and the arrangement of important systems) as examples with much accuracy. So, instead of an Excelsior with the warp core in the saucer/neck/body, it came from (I don't know) the Patriot-class starship, an Excelsior variant with the warp core in the primary hull only. Having lost its original nacelles, Miranda nacelles were reclaimed and attached at the saucer where the Patriot always mounted its nacelles. To its final stage, this example could be that the Miranda-style nacelles could have come from (again, I don't know, the Nyota-class) and its nacelles might be larger or smaller than the Miranda's.
 

Sorry for the brain farts on exact diologue, I might be able to check it in the morning after I get off work, but this post is in case I forget.

Starfleet has destroyers just as it has frigates I suppose. It's not definite, but I've always allowed that Sisko could be ordering the Destroyer Wings and telling two specific captains (Diego and Reynolds) of that wing orders for their part in the wing's attack. Knowing that Reynolds could be Captain Charlie Reynolds of the Centaur, it's possible that the Centaur is classified in television context as a destroyer, though that would mess up the light cruiser (or whatever) classification in the DS9TM. Or it could be another Captain Reynolds.
 

As for the theory of the ship parts: Granyed, they didn't necessarily come from the Ex. and Mir. They could be from ships that use the same parts at different sizes. But, if we are assuming that SF makes ships w/ the smae parts at different sizes, why make it more complicated than it already is? Just assume that the Centaur and Curry are those ships, not that they were assembled from others. Occam's Razor.

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"I fart in your general direction!"
-John Cleese, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
 

I'll have to go off on three or four tangents of "but if you're saying . . ." with their three or four different rebuttals if I don't find out now.

Also, we only have proof that a Captain Reynolds was in Operation Return. We don't have any proof Captain Charlie Reynolds of the U.S.S. Centaur was even at the battle. For all we know, Centaur might have still been running from Jem'Hadar when this episode took place. There may only have been Captain Barbara Reynolds of the U.S.S. Polynesia, so Sisko might only have been able to address this on Reynolds.
 

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"I fart in your general direction!"
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I let one important piece of information slip my mind.

The DS9TM specifically says EXCELSIOR/CONSTITUTION-CLASS STARSHIP VARIANT, so I can't have my different classes without saying almost what you're saying above: discount the manual. So, as far as that information goes, we will, as you said, have to rearrange the internal contents of these vessels.
Since the Excelsior/Constitution are specifically mentioned, we must also look at the fact that the parts are out of scale to each other, so they do not fit the comparible sizes for these two ships. This ship can't have a Constitution nacelle because the nacelle is too big compared to the Exclesior body; the ship on page 157 can't be a Constitution variant because it is too large; a Constitution without a body (in that arrangement) cannot be larger than a Constitution with a body (in it's usual arrangement), etc. . . .

Hmm, answers.
First, I'm assuming the Curry is made up thusly: Excelsior saucer, custom assembly of some sort connecting the saucer and secondary hull, Excelsior secondary hull, custom assembly holding the Constitution nacelles.

The internal configuration problem isn't as bad as anyone might think. Transporters can beam out the habitat modules until the saucer is just a shell, but it doesn't have to do so. Transport of enough modules to allow a new warp core to be put in and allow power transfer conduits to be run through the saucer are all that is needed. If we didn't have transporters and habitat modules loosely secured to vessels, this type of modification would be a problem.

As far as size comparisons go, yes we may have to say someone made a mistake. But as far as the simplest answer being the most likely, which is more likely, that a couple of numbers and size comparisons are going to change to fit the idea behind the construction of these vessels (our steady volume of complaints hold that these things change more often than we'd like), or that the idea is going to change to fit a number of internally inconsistent numbers and ships.
It's much more plausible that F/X people, and Doug Drexler modified parts to look better when rearranged than it is to say Sternbach's idea of the construction of the ships is flawed. Drexler and the F/X people were taking the artistic approach, not the technical approach. People largely agree that there is only one NX-74205, yet it changes size on a regular basis.

The modifications seem possible to me; the only problems (those being size) can be explained away without being too extreme, so I see no problem with these ships being yard bashes, and if the origin of these ships are ever mentioned in the show, they will be described as yard bashes of different ships, because people think the idea is "neat"--that is people unlike us who see every technical flaw.
 

"It's much more plausible that F/X people, and Doug Drexler modified parts to look better when rearranged than it is to say Sternbach's idea of the construction of the ships is flawed."

You mean (Doug Drexler thinks that) this one

http://www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/schematis/excelsior-variant1-official.jpg

looks better than this one:

http://www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/schematics/excelsior-variant1.jpg

I like the technical approach much more.
 

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"I fart in your general direction!"
-John Cleese, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
 

Sorry Bernd, I meant Dan Curry--not Doug Drexler. In the initial construction of the ships for the episode, artistic license ruled over technical accuracy, hence the out-of-scale parts. The F/X people said "Sure, the nacelle is supposed to be this long, but it would look better if we extended it to this length.

Thanks TSN for looking over the Curry again (I know I'm keeping the Manual right here beside me for reference, hopefully fewer mistakes this way. Looking at the Manual, the Centaur's information only says EXCELSIOR-CLASS STARSHIP VARIANT. Thanks to the fact Miranda wasn't mentioned, Centaur's roll bar may be a custom assembly or from another class.

I've been trying to support my opinion (for it is an opinion, nothing more, and I feel the Technical Consultant and author of the TNGTM deserves an advocate) without too much extra, so I came up with an entirely different argument (yes, I'm a tad anal, but I am just trying to answer the question to the best of my ability).

It is higly unlikely the Wambundu-class starship (or any other class metioned above) will ever be matched with a picture, so fan designers whip out your pencils and start drawing. However, it's highly LIKELY that the Centaur will be included in the updated Trade Paper Back Encyclopedia that will come out as early as May. Since Okuda only has to come up with a class (given the Technical Manual's explanation, he is most likely to say *Centaur), it's a good bet he will inlcude some class label (unless he doesn't give us class and registry information for the new, Sixth- and Seventh-season ships, then we rip him a new one), but he will keep in mind the Technical Manual. So, as recently as May, we will probably have to go out of our way to take the class designation away from a "non-canon" starship if we want to name it "Wambundu" instead. So, even if the Encyclopedia doesn't reference the yard bash thing (our biggest disagreement), Okuda will still think of this explanation when he names the ship's class, so the name won't match any class we've seen previously.

* Yes, regarding the naming of these yard bashes, the Manual says "Some temporary designations for surviving vessels have passed through the formal review process since the operation and may be added to the official ship inventory." Given the above, and the fact that Centaur was probably the only ship with that arrangement, it will probably have Centaur-class attached to it.

If you ask me, Sternbach was writing this book so soon after the episodes were aired, the producers hadn't given the okay to class designations and registries. Sternbach looked at some obvious kitbashes, and worked a theory about reclaimed hulls.

Anyway, I'm probably done now. I doubt I'll do any more on this thread than lurk to see people tie it up.
 

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"I fart in your general direction!"
-John Cleese, Monty Python and the Holy Grail