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Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

PsiPhi's Books

Er....
What's this?

Some freakish product of a union betwixt Constitution and fruit-bat?

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Classmate: "Wha? What does that mean?"
Monty: "Which word?"
Classmate: "Any of 'em!"

Posted by Mythril (Member # 286) on :

A very disturbing image

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I am not responsible for the stupidity of other people.

Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :

Why in the world are the Nacelles and Neck different colors then the rest of the ship? And, I hope that isn't what they want the Challenger class to look like....

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Posted by Dane Simri (Member # 272) on :

If you read PsiPhi's spoiler for the book, it would appear that the cover art IS INDEED the USS Challenger. To which I can say only one word: Ick.

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Dane

"Mathematicians have long held that a million monkeys banging on a million keyboards would eventually reproduce the collected wisdom of the human race. Now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true." -- Robert Silensky

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Well, its only the Challenger in the book mutant world.

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"Who wouldn't be the one you love
Who wouldn't stand inside your love." - Stand Inside Your Love, The Smashing Pumpkins

Posted by Laz1701 on :

What's the point to attaching the nacelles that way? Gee, let's see how many variants we can come up with by sticking nacelles on every possible location we can think of.

And y'all thought the FF Niagara was ugly.

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The Starship Encyclopedia

Posted by Laz1701 on :

I think I know the reason for the discrepancy in colors. The saucer and secondary hull are obviously a regular Constitution refit. Both the neck and the nacelles are different, though. Perhaps the original artwork depicted a Constitution II, and then the neck was changed and the new nacelles added.

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The Starship Encyclopedia

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Well, since it's mostly just a C-II, it wouldn't be undigestibly horrible if it didn't have those funky forked pylons. And, of course, if the color scheme were consistent.

As for its being the Challenger class, we know it isn't, since that was made of Galaxy parts. This would have to be the USS Challenger, NCC-2032. At least, it had better be the 2032, or somebody's got a problem...

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

$$$$$$(yet another impractical spoiler warning)

The beastie sure ain't related to the Challenger class ships of the TNG era. I'm not even sure it would be NCC-2032, considering the timeline of the books. NCC-2032 is from the time of STVI, in 2293, while the books take place in...

$$$$$$(Spoilers for New Earth)$$$$$$$

...take place in the aftermath of ST:TMP. The Challenger is a ship sent to relieve the Enterprise from guarding a newly established frontier colony (which is what this six-book series is all about), but is blown to bits. Scotty patches the poor thing together the best he can, and the results are less than beauteous...

I'm not sure if I'm eager to see Diane Carey do a comedy - but I think there is at least potential here. And the entire New Earth series sounds *extremely* promising, with top-notch writers and nifty concepts. Not to forget superb cover art! (Although I don't like the idea that travel pods have atmospheric capabilities..)

In any case, NCC-2032 was probably built as replacement for the poor bastard that gets destroyed and rebuilt in this book. I guess the 2032 was an Excelsior class ship or something.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Mikey T (Member # 144) on :

Looks like Scotty was drinking on the job again...

Anyway, 2032 seems to be a familliar Excelsior Class registry I've seen in DS9. That or is it the registry of that Excelsior in the Utopia Planitia Fleetyards scene from "Relativity?"

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Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Whoever painted this freak ship obviously based it on an AMT model. Notice the too small sensor dome?

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"A few more calculations"

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Should we perhaps accept that sensor dome configuration as an existing variant of the standard model? It's bound to pop up in many places (it already has in the hastily assembled Constitution models seen in a couple of TNG episodes!)...

There's no fanfic Constitution by the name Challenger, now is there? Let's see what Carey decides to tell us about this ship. Hopefully she's finally off FASA.

In fact, I don't remember any prominent fanfic starship named Challenger from the TOS movie era. Sounds like a perfectly okay name for a Constitution (as would Independence and Ranger, which also seem to be missing from SotSF and related works). One could say there were more Constitutions than SotSF tells us, or that the ones that weren't completed by the time that book went to press (2291) were actually renamed during final construction. Whatever works best - from what I've seen so far, I do want to fit "New Earth" to the continuity of cool-enough-to-be-canon Trek.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

The idea that the ship was patched together explains it a little bit. Now while I hate the design (obviously) the painting is actually pretty good. Better than alot of the one's I've seen anyway...

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Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

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Posted by Marko Latin on :

I think it looks weird....but kind of interesting....

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Dream on...in the end...dreams are everything...

Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

I like it, actually, aside from the odd colours.

Posted by Delta Vega (Member # 283) on :

I am compelled to agree with Garek.

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Star Trek: Insurrection

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Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :

I like just about every Constitution II variant...

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Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

Um...
If the Challenger was rebuilt like that due to battle damage, why the heck didn't Scotty just put the engines back where they came from, or attach them at the same point on the hull?
Seems like they are currently attached near the bottom, which would require the entire matter/antimatter intermix system to be stripped down and rebuilt, Main Engineering to be relocated, and all sorts of other stuff.
Maybe the battle-damaged ship needed its nacelles repositioning due to warp field stress on the hull, but when you jury-rig a repair you don't do something that means the rest of the ship has to be practically rebuilt!!!
And besides, it would take a lot more resources than the average Federation starship has available to perform this...

However the design is nice, might base a kitbash on it

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

I'm not sure if the repairs will be explained in detail in the book. If it was written by J&G Reeves-Stevens, then we would get all the gory details of rerouting the plasma conduits, and I would probalby disagree with everything they say. But Diane Carey is unlikely to go too deeply into such details.

Perhaps the ship lost her original pylons, but the nacelles survived. Rather than leave them floating around, the engineers decided to bolt them inert onto their now impulse-only ship so that the whole package could be more easily towed to safety by a warp tug?

I'm definitely looking forward to the New Earth books.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

I think maybe those aren't the original nacelles, either.

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Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :

A response to Timo asking about fandom USS Challengers. The only one I can find was a proposed but never built Archon class.

FASA had a Constitution class USS Challenger, NCC-1715. Commissioned as a Mk II in 2/00 (roughly equiv to ~2257), upgraded to a Mk III in 2/05. upgraded to Enterprise class in 2/17, scrapped in 2/35 (~2300). Replaced by the Excelsior class USS Challenger II, NCC-2023 (close!) in 2/36.

NCC-2032 in FASA is the Excelsior class USS Thunderer II.

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-->Identity Crisis<--

Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :

Identity crisis: This doesn�t really belong in this forum, but I�ll ask anyway, do you have pics from FASA of the Lotus flower class neutronic fuel carrier and the orion wanderer class blockade runner? The only pics I have are b&w of the Lotus.

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Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :

Yes I have both. FASA published nearly all their ships with pics in the same format: Black and White, three views.
The Lotus Flower should be in the Ship Schematics Database.
The Orion Wanderer isn't because Jim hasn't included Orions as yet. I don't think I've ever scanned it in myself. I could do so but not until next week. There's a small, poor quality scan at http://izan.simplenet.com/orions.htm

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-->Identity Crisis<--

Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :

Identity crisis: Yeah, the Lotus is at ships schematics. I got permission to use it on my page and I have. I had only hoped that the scans were in colour. If you could post the orion so that I can post it on my page, I would be extremely grateful.
BTW: since you are familiar with FASA, recognise this ship? http://w1.314.telia.com/~u31412332/star-trek/conunknown1.JPG
I know the quality sucks, but it was the best I could capture. It could be a FASA ship, the two other ships shown in the same scene were the orion and the lotus.

Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :

As I told you a few weeks ago that looks a little like a Romulan Nova class Battleship. But it could be a Gorn Destroyer. Very hard to tell.

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-->Identity Crisis<--

Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :

Identity crisis: So you did, sorry, forgot about that...