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Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

When I browsed through James Dixon's Fandom Chronology, I found something of a Galaxy Class in service around 2286. The entry said that it came from the ST:TMP novelization, written by Gene Roddenberry. This would make it (semi-)canon. Could it be that JD was mistaken in the source, or are we really facing a new class?

(BTW: there were supposed to be 4 Galaxy class ships in service, namely USS Andromeda, USS M-31, USS Magellan and USS Magellanic Clouds. No class ship! Although the ship names are all derived from existing galaxies.)

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"Alpha Centauri is a beautiful place to visit, you ought to see it" - Kirk to 1969 USAF officer Fellini, "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (TOS)

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

The key words here are "Fandom Chronology" This would not even be close to canon. Any adherance to naval tradition would totally preclude the idea of having more than one class of ship with the same name. You may have several U.S.S. Galaxys but only one of them is Galaxy Class. The whole point of having different classes is to differentiate ships.

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Well, it's not as if Roddenberry would have refused to use the name Galaxy class for the E-D just because he once happened to write (co-write?) some stuff that featured a Galaxy class already. Roddenberry was probably the person least concerned with continuity in the entire Star Trek staff. Put him and Dixon in the same room and be assured that only one of them will step out, raving "I had to do it - can you BELIEVE this guy?!"...

The novelizations of the TOS movies don't seem to be of very high quality in general. The TNG ones more or less reproduce the early versions of the scripts without adding much, but the TOS ones seem to "flesh out" weird details and leave the main story and character interaction rather thin. I guess I'm biased because I have actually seen the TOS movies before I read the novelizations, while it's vice versa for the TNG stuff.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

The [TOS #1] entry is a mistake - I read the TMP novelization recently, and would have noticed something that interesting. Furthermore, a later chronology entry featuring Mandala Flynn, commander of that Galaxy-class starship is given the code [ST III] (even though the captain doesn't appear in the movie). Dixon probably meant the ST III novelization, which should be labeled [TOS #17].

Boris

Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

Yeah, I already kinda had the idea that Dixon was wrong. If the class would exist in the TMP novelization, I would have found at least some mentions of it on the Internet. But I don't have that book, so I just asked.

Anyway, my opinion is that things Roddenberry said carries at least some grade of weight, making it at least semi-canon to me. The fact that I found the mention of the 'early Galaxy class' in a fandom work, Aban, does not mean that ALL info in it has to be ignored. The Fandom Chronology is nothing more than a timeline of Star Trek to which also fandom stuff is added. It also contains info from canon sources.

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"...he is the incorporation of evil and knowledge in one organic lifeform..."
- Bible of Alpha Centauri , page 2763

"...if you discontinue worshipping him, you will be tortured by the guardians of his Holy Empire... You won't survive..."
- page 67834

Posted by The Vorlon (Member # 52) on :

The reference is from the ST II novelization. Sulu is commenting on his upcomming command of the Excelsior, and the reference to these new ships comes up... It most definitly is NOT canon, as the afformentioned ships are capable to travelling to nearby galaxies, which is not true given current ST technology and history...

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Kosh: "Good."
Sheridan: "I REALLY hate it when you do that..."
Kosh: "Good."

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http://sapphireeclipse.virtualave.net/

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Several sources suggest that the TMP novelization was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster, not Roddenberry. Which still makes it important because Foster wrote the story for TMP (on which the teleplay was based).

Boris

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

Heh...I also remember a reference to "Galaxy-class explorers" in the FASA ST4 sourcebook. The names were exactly the same, except that it wasn't the Magellan & the Magellanic Cloud, it was the Greater Magellanic Cloud & Lesser Magellanic Cloud. Both are great names for science vessels & tankers....I think I might've used them for Oberths in my J-Project.

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"Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs. THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..." --Spike Spiegel

[This message has been edited by Shik (edited June 21, 2000).]

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I did really like the snarks and boojums from the ST II novel, though.

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It's not my birthday
It's not today
It's not my birthday so why do you lunge out at me?
--
They Might Be Giants
****
Read chapter one of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! I'll give you a cookie.

Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

Throwing in for fun: some interesting calculations about intergalactic travel

To Great Magellanic Cloud (distance: 169,000 ly)
Average speed of warp 6.0 (392c): 431 years
Average speed of warp 8.0 (1024c): 165 years
Average speed of warp 9.6 (1909c): 88 years
Boosted subspace radio (warp 9.9999 = 199,516c): 10 months

To Small Magellanic Cloud (285,000 ly)
Warp 6.0: 727 years
Warp 8.0: 278 years
Warp 9.6: 149 years
Subspace radio: 1 year 5 months

To M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) (2,200,000 ly)
Warp 6.0: 5612 years
Warp 8.0: 2148 years
Warp 9.6: 1152 years
Subspace radio: 11 years

To center of the Virgo Cluster (60,000,000 ly)
Warp 6.0: 153,061 years
Warp 8.0: 58,593 years
Warp 9.6: 31,430 years
Subspace radio: 300 years

To center of Coma Berenices Cluster (400,000,000 ly)
Warp 6.0: 1,020,408 years
Warp 8.0: 390,625 years
Warp 9.6: 209,533 years
Subspace radio: 2004 years

Maybe I'll post next time some travel times to other destinations (quasar 3C273, for instance).

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"...he is the incorporation of evil and knowledge in one organic lifeform..."
- Bible of Alpha Centauri , page 2763

"...if you discontinue worshipping him, you will be tortured by the guardians of his Holy Empire... You won't survive..."
- page 67834

Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :

So, if it takes 1100+ years to reach M31 at warp 9.6, how come the Enterprise-D could cover that distance in "only" 300 years?

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"Cry havoc and let's slip the dogs of Evil"

Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :

The Enterprise-D wasn't flung to M31; it was flung to M33.

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"When you realized that your website is your business and your software can't handle the traffic, that was an epiphany."
-Avery Brooks, IBM commercial

Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

The Enterprise-D was thrown to M33, indeed. Which is located 2.4 million lightyears from Earth, and 500,000 lightyears from M31.
The original Enterprise, on the other hand, was in an episode (can't remember the name) hijacked by the Kelvans from the M31 galaxy. They modified the Enterprises's engines so that it could be taken to M31. The engines were boosted so that they could maintain a velocity of TOS warp 14.1. It was stated that at that speed, it would take a 300 years to travel that distance. Unfortunately, TOS warp 14.1 is 2803.221c (approx. equivalent to TNG/DS9/VOY warp 9.7), so a trip to M31 would take 784 years, 9 months, 22 days, 3 hours, 7 minutes and 12.28571443 seconds. So, writer's error, I would say.

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"...he is the incorporation of evil and knowledge in one organic lifeform..."
- Bible of Alpha Centauri , page 2763

"...if you discontinue worshipping him, you will be tortured by the guardians of his Holy Empire... You won't survive..."
- page 67834

Posted by Fructose (Member # 309) on :

But not a bad guess considering that they were just making stuff up.

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It doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing as long as you look good doing it.

Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

Yes, but with a calculator they could have devised a reasonable well figure within seconds.
But whatever... Even if it was 300 years, that's still a whole lot of time!

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"...he is the incorporation of evil and knowledge in one organic lifeform..."
- Bible of Alpha Centauri , page 2763

"...if you discontinue worshipping him, you will be tortured by the guardians of his Holy Empire... You won't survive..."
- page 67834

Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :

Actually, Aban Rune's "naval tradition" is in error.

For instance, there have been multiple instances of repeat names for Battleship classes. Case in point:

USS Maine ACR-1, Maine Second Class Battleship (1895 - 1898)
USS Maine BB-10, Maine Class Battleship (1902 - 1922)

USS Iowa B-4, Iowa Class Battleship (1897 - 1919)
USS Iowa BB-61, Iowa Class Battleship (1943 - Now)

USS South Dakota BB-49, South Dakota Class (Cancelled during construction)
USS South Dakota BB-57, South Dakota Class (1942 - 1947)

Note, these classes are all seperate. Though technically they didn't exist at the same time, they definatly existed as seperate classes with the same name.

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"The things hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" -David Bowman's last transmission back to Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

Iowa hasn't been in commission since 1994 or so.

The "reused class name" thing has come up again recently. In the mid-70s, the USN commissioned the Virginia-class nuclear guided-missile cruisers--Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, & Arkansas; they were all decommissioned & stricken from the Navy list in the early & mid-90s.

Now, EB has gotten the contracts to build the NSSN, also called the SSN-774 class. The lead boats in the class are--you guessed it--SSN-774 Virginia & SSN-775 Texas, with SSN-776 Hawaii & an as-yet-unnamed SSN-777 following on.

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"Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs. THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..." --Spike Spiegel

[This message has been edited by Shik (edited June 22, 2000).]

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Hang on, OK you've worked out the equivalent warp speeds between 'generations' but wasn't the TOS warp speed based on squaring the number before it or cubing it?

The scaling problem might be what they were talking about in "The Cage" maybe they could only go to the TOS equivalent of warp 4 wereas the TOS ships could only go to the TNG equivalent of warp 8?? safely...

Maybe also the Kelvans were a long lived race who didn't mind the long span of time. Or maybe they only were sophisticated enough to upgrade to warp 9.7 equivalency. It would be interesting to see them 'now' i.e. in the 24th century... are they still roughly 100 years ahead of the Federation? Are they similar in nature to the Caretakers?? the sporocistecine lifeforms from Voyager?

Andrew

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"chocolate cherries allamanda" - Datura, Tori Amos

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

They seemed to be "making stuff up" in TNG likewise. Geordi estimates 300 years to go back from M33, and the stated distance is 2,700,000 ly. That's 9000c.

Similarily, Subspace radio is somehow uncapable of degradation here, as 51 years are enough to travel the same distance according to Data even though no relay stations exist. Voyager should've been able to communicate with the AQ a long time ago going by that Episode.

Boris

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I'm pretty sure that, like in the encyclopedia, it isn't meant to suggest that subspace signals will travel that far, but that if they could, that is how long it would take them, all things being equal.

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

If I were Picard (and especially the serious Picard of those early days), I'd probably say something like "Mr. La Forge, our maximum sustainable speed is Warp 9.2 and not Warp 9.99, please restrict your calculations to that range. Mr. Data, wouldn't you agree that calculating subspace radio time is largely irrelevant because there are no relay stations in the vicinity?" "Uh, yes sir, I was just trying to depress you more..."

Boris

Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

Correction of a minor error: The E-nil wasn't upgraded to warp 14.1 by the Kelvans, but 'only' to warp 11 (1331c). So a trip to M31 would take 1652.892561983 years. And the episode is named "By Any Other Name".

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Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Something in response to the Miranda sig line

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INT. U.S.S. MARTHA - TRANSPORTER PAD

as two Johann, Martha, and two little kids beam aboard. The room is empty like the entire ship, having been in storage for seventy years. Broken consoles and dust are all over the place.

MARTHA
(terribly scared)
Johnny...where did you bring us to?

JOHANN
(excited)
The Martha! NCC-1860. So wie Achtzehn-hundert-sechzig, Muenchen. And I mean really, a thousand bucks gets you a five-room apartment on Earth, but how about five HUNDRED ABOVE Earth?

MARTHA
OH MY GOD, Johnny...WHY, WHY...It's all dirty and dark and empty...what about our guests...How're they going to come to visit? What if we run into an asteroid?

JOHANN
NO WE WON'T. What're you talking about? We'll paint her with lotsa flowers and pretty colors, gonna be a real girl. We're gonna be pioneers for a great future...a sky full of cute flowery Mirandas orbiting Paradise, all Private Property.

MARTHA
Shh..don't say that...here...y'know
they caught the Barneys for that...

JOHANN
Oops...Ok, but anyway, the kids are gonna
have lot of fun playing hide-and-seek.
Speaking of which, where are they? Billy!

as we hear from the distance...

A CHILD'S VOICE
Eeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

JOHANN
Kid's gone down a turboshaft..

MARTHA
(begins to sob real loud)
What? OH NO, BILLY, BILLY...

JOHANN
It's only a quarter G.

MARTHA
Oh, yes...right.

JOHANN
Or is it? Wait, BILLY! BILLY!

as they run out into the corridor.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Boris

Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

Martha NCC-1860: Part II

*Johann and Martha, seeking for Billy*

*BOOM*

JOHANN
Looks like we fell into the elevator shaft... Lucky
that we're on the lower decks...

MARTHA
This is getting worse every time! Oh Johann, you son of a b*tch, are you trying to enforce a divorcement?

BILLY
...?

JOHANN
[to Martha] Shhhht... don't say that where the little boy is near! Hey, is that a door, or am I hallucinating?

MARTHA
I remain here with little Billy! Find it all out for yourself, I'm gettin' outta here!

JOHANN
[walks through the door]
I haven't had much luck with women over the past few years... Hey, that's the deuterium tank. Wonder if there's still a bit of fuel left?

[climbs into the tank, which shows some holes after all its endurances over the past 100 years]
Yes! 2 grams of deuterium! Hope that's enough.
[executes a side-to-side transport to the bridge]

[wipes off dust from the engineering console]
It's broken! Damn!
[kicks console out of frustration]
[thrusters turn on]
Ahhh, hear that little baby spinnin'!

COMPUTER VOICE
Krrrrrkkkkk.... Wrnin: ngin ovrld ...

JOHANN
Hmmm... That lady sounds like my grandma...

COMPUTER
... Cntnment falure... Xplzhn in thrr mntes...

Will Johann survive? Will there be a divorcement?
You'll see it, after the commercial breaks...

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Advertisement in the United Federation NewsPADD, SD 53672:

Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

Boris wrote: "So wie Achtzehn-hundert-sechzig, Muenchen."

Na ob das jemand hier verstehen wird...

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

ACT THREE

EXT. SPACE - OPTICAL

The Martha explodes in a giant fireball.

FADE OUT

FADE IN

INT. U.S.S. MARTHA - TRANSPORTER PAD

as Johann, Martha, and two little kids beam aboard. The room is empty like the entire ship, having been in storage for seventy years....

MARTHA
(terribly scared)
Johnny...where did you bring us to?

JOHANN
(excited)
The Martha! NCC-1860. So wie Achtzehn-hundert-sechzig, Muenchen. And I mean really, a thousand bucks gets you a five-room apartment on Earth, but how about five HUNDRED ABOVE Earth?

MARTHA
OH MY GOD, Johnny...WHY, WHY...It's all dirty and dark and empty...what about our guests...How're they going to come to visit? What if we run into an...an...

JOHANN
Asteroid?

MARTHA
Yes, how did you...

MARTHA
Shh..don't say that...here...y'know
they caught the Barneys for that...

JOHANN
Oops...Ok, but anyway, the kids are gonna
have lot of fun playing hide-and-seek.
Speaking of which, where are they? Billy!

as we hear from the distance...

A CHILD'S VOICE
Eeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

JOHANN
Kid's gone down a turboshaft..

MARTHA
(begins to sob real loud)
What? OH NO, BILLY, BILLY...But wait, it's only a
quarter-G..

JOHANN
It IS only a quarter G. How did you...

MARTHA
I...

JOHANN
Or is it? Wait, BILLY! BILLY!

as they run out into the corridor.

TO BE CONTINUED....AGAIN

Boris

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited June 24, 2000).]

Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

Aha, jetzt sieh' ich es... 1860 Muenchen! Die Fussballvereinigung!

BTW: Feyenoord Rotterdam rules!

But this is all getting a bit off-topic....

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

FINISH IT! please!

part four please!!

Andrew

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"chocolate cherries allamanda" - Datura, Tori Amos

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Ye gods! It's "Cause and Effect" all over again! AHHH!!!

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"How many Libraries of Congress per second can your software handle?"
-Avery Brooks, IBM commercial

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Ok, if you don't like it, I'm decanonizing Act Three...we're getting way off topic, but wait, just one more...

A few minutes before Johann turns on the self-destruct...

INT. ROLLBAR

A dark room like any other. Heinz (the other kid) is looking around, having just climbed up a ladder from the lower decks.

HEINZ
Let's see if Billy thinks of going up here. Wow, that's some room. I know, I'll hide in one of these oval shaped boxes.

*Heinz enters an open box and closes the lid. The box is mounted on some kind of railing, and as soon as the lid closes, it starts to move slowly*

HEINZ
Wait a second. Hey, what's going on? HELP!!
HELP!!!

FADE OUT as the box slides into a tube.

A couple of seconds later....

TAH-YAW.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Boris

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited June 25, 2000).]