This subject was brought up in the recent Wolf 359 thread and it piqued my interest, so I went digging through the old threads and found where it originally cropped up. It concerns the U.S.S. Bozeman (NCC-1941) from TNG "Cause and Effect". As we all know, it was an old Soyuz-class vessel that was pulled through a temporal rift into the 24th century. The ship was supposedly thereafter re-certified for SF service, an we heard of it again three times. In TNG "All Good Things..."; in Generations, and again in First Contact.
This theory goes that the Bozeman could have been refitted to Miranda-class specifications, (possibly to correct a design flaw that could have been the reason for the retiring of the Soyuz-class) and that it was in fact the third ship seen at the end of Generations, and the ship seen fighting alongside the Defiant in First Contact. (That would even fit with the dialogue from the comm chatter, directing that the Defiant and Bozeman execute attack maneuvers together.)
For some reason, this theory seems to stick in my mind. I'm not sure what can really be said in the way of evidence for it, (except for the comm chatter) but it's a very interesting idea. It makes me wonder if perhaps the Mirandas were labeled as the Bozeman...
IIRC, they did both look to have 4-digit registries, though it wasn't possible to tell anything more...
Anyway, here's the thread from way-back-when, where this was originally discussed:
Well, I'm sticking with the notion that the Bozeman in the movies was the unaltered Soyuz edition, or a replacement ship of an entirely different class.
Mark
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
Seems kinda silly that Starfleet would keep the Bozeman around, even if she was fresh out of a temperoral thinginmajigg. I believe the Bozeman in FC was a completely different ship.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Here's a thought...Perhaps the Soyuz-Class wasn't an unsucessful development of the Miranda but the Miranda was the successor to the Soyuz.
This would mean that the original Soyuz was around in the TOS era and the Miranda was infact an advancement of that design, a less bulky, more streamlined ship. So by the time the Bozeman was around the class was already about 40 years old and so it was replaced by the newer and better Miranda. This seams more likely than building a new ship and then decommissioning it only a few years later...but I suppose since there was no evidence either way, both theories are just as likely.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
A very interesting point, Reverend. What I'm wondering is why they would name a variant of the Soyuz class "Miranda" (or vice versa) and not give, say, the Ent-B Excelsior Variant a new name instead of just "variant." Oh well.
I still like the idea that the Bozeman is hanging around in it's regular form somewhere in the Galaxy.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Why would it make sense to have a 23rd-century starship still operating more than 90 years out of date? The Bozeman might have been top-of-the-line in 2278, but the second it arrived in the TNG era, it was hopelessly obsolete.
The only option would be to totally refit and upgrade the entire ship, but that would require a reconstruction project probably even more massive than the redesign of the original Enterprise for TMP. (The original Enterprise still had contemporary technology that necessitated a relatively small upgrade, while the Bozeman would need to catch up 90 YEARS worth of advancements.)
The Bozeman from AGT, GEN, and FC must be a new ship.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Well, let's think about what would need to be upgraded. The hull, warp coils and core would probably have less wear and tear on them than the average Miranda of the TNG era, constructed decades later. Sensors and such would be obsolete, but they tend to be mounted on palets for easy swapping even back in the TOS era (even easier if they were those pods we see on the Bozeman). Ditto for the weapons and impulse drives - furthermore, we saw that they were able to refit an old Excelsior like the USS Lakota in a matter of days or a couple weeks.
I'm sure that if you give Starfleet engineers a couple months in spacedock, they can figure out how to up the Bozeman to spec. A few months of Academy refresher courses (and a couple sessions with a counsellor) will likewise get the crew current, and those that wish to stay with Starfleet would likely have first choice to stay ont he Bozeman. She probably won't be any faster than a standard TNG Miranda, and may not have any more firepower, but with all that extra space she'd make a great ECM or science platform. Extra interior space could be handed over to extra amenities, like a holodeck or bigger quarters.
Mark
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
The theory I posed on the Soyuz Class was that it was a variant of the Mirnada family, similar to how the Constitution had variants at the time (Ptolemy and so forth).
I had said it was perhaps a Destroyer, and Miranda was a lesser armed Light Cruiser, with the Soyuz perhaps coming first. As peace began to settle Explorer ships became the favourable choice, and the warships declined.
But I believe the Bozeman heard in comm chatter in First Contact et al, was another ship of a later class. But then again, Kelsey Grammer's voice was heard in that comm chatter, (Captain Bateson of the original Soyuz Bozeman), so that's another point to consider.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Why would it make sense to have a 23rd-century starship still operating more than 90 years out of date? The Bozeman might have been top-of-the-line in 2278, but the second it arrived in the TNG era, it was hopelessly obsolete.
The only option would be to totally refit and upgrade the entire ship, but that would require a reconstruction project probably even more massive than the redesign of the original Enterprise for TMP. (The original Enterprise still had contemporary technology that necessitated a relatively small upgrade, while the Bozeman would need to catch up 90 YEARS worth of advancements.)
The Bozeman from AGT, GEN, and FC must be a new ship.
All that is fine but they still have the USS Constellation, USS Excelsior and all the older Excelsiors and Mirandas in service. Granted they've all had upgrades but they're 90+ years old. It would probably be cheaper to refit the Soyuz than to build a totally new ship me thinks as if it were fresh out of drydock then the hull would be sound.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I know, it's so funny the way so many people think that old ships can't still be around and getting along just fine. I thought there was a discussion of this isssue way back in TNG "Relics", where Geordi specifically said that theoretically there's no reason why a 23rd century ship couldn't operate in the 24th, so long as it had some systems upgrades. Why does this never seem to sink in? STARSHIPS LAST A LONG TIME. Except when you're dealing with the Dominion, of course...
-MMoM Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
My theory is that the Soyuz was a prototype to the Miranda and the whole Refit-Connie family. They built them to test the radical new systems, components, and designs. The Soyuz as a class was always intended to be a semi-haphazard and imperfect collection of these new systems. The Miranda was the final product, the streamlined design. As to whether the Bozeman was a different one or not, I would just assume to say that Starfleet gave 'em a new ship. And as I like Diane Carey's "Ship of the Line" very much, I will go with those set of events unless presented with another.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Including the parts about Picard being tortured by the Cardassians several years before being assimilated by the Borg?
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