I hate this ship, and whilst very bored and tired at work this morning bizarre theories on the Yeager came to mind. It's a real ship, so there has to be an explanation somewhere. And I know we're flogging a dead horse here, but I like closure damn it! And this Frankenstein won't go away.
So here goes, if you have the patience see if you can get your head around all this. I'm still trying...
This is a kitbash. It has to be. You can clearly see a conventional Intrepid, but with something entirely unconventional, almost alien sitting beneath the saucer. It's one type of ship fused onto another. The question is what, and why??
I call both the Yeager and Elkins 'Intrepid Class'. They are Intrepid Class ships, variants thereof, like the multiple (and in some ways quite different) Nebula variants, but those are all still called Nebula Class.
Perhaps the Yeager and Elkins were only one-off ships, experimental Cruisers, kind of proto-Intrepids that were rushed into service during the Dominion war campaign (as the DS9 TM says). They obviously have their own special area of expertise in the fleet, I have no idea what, but there are elements with both of these ships that are unorthodox and atypical of regular starships. Ignoring the actual 'kit components' combined for the models, the actual Starfleet ships must have a purpose behind how and why they exist...
Going by the registry number of the Yeager, being NCC-65674 it implies that it is older than the Voyager and indeed, the class prototype, USS Intrepid. This could have interesting ramifications. Being chiefly an Intrepid Class ship, the Yeager was most likely around some time before the USS Intrepid, perhaps by a 7 or 8 years, for instance. There are two possibilities why, as I see it:
1. The Yeager is a pre-Intrepid prototype study-model starship, built only once as one possible direction for the Planform SV-65 Intrepid Program to take. It failed, for whatever reason, and its evolution moved along a different path - and maybe that's where the Elkins would come in, which might have carried the provisional registry number of NX-74121, (later NCC 74121).
2. The Yeager is older starship class from the 2350's. Let's call it 'XYZ Class'. During the Dominion war Starfleet investigated what older starships they could recommission to help with the war effort. Starship production was split 50/50- on both new ships currently under construction, and the refurbishing, and weapons upgrades of already existing ships. A good number were tried and trusted starships, such as Miranda Class, that had existed in great numbers, but served today only as Training Vessels, or lay inert at starbases and surplus depots. These, and some other ships were recommissioned (some with their original names, which clashed with newer starships that had taken their names, such as the Excelsior and Nebula Class Lexingtons). With weapons upgraded as best as could be done, with the time and resources available, and skeleton crews installed, these recommissioned ships rushed to the frontline to replenish fleet numbers. (This is perhaps in the same vein as the Constellation Class Hathaway - decommissioned, inert, virtually obsolete, but still space-worthy, and with some effort and time could have been recommissioned, but it was peace time at this point in TNG, and there was no need -although they were beginning to prepare for possible Borg incursions).
So, XYZ Class, being an older class of ship, and damaged to a certain degree (but with Starfleet desperate to salvage any ship they could), was reconstituted with the spaceframe of an existing half-built Intrepid saucer, perhaps one of a discarded prototype saucer left over from the Intrepid program, but was still deemed useful and space-worthy. With no chance of being constructed as a fully operational Intrepid Class in itself, an operational, but jury-rigged secondary hull structure was installed, simply to get another warp-capable, phaser firing ship into service to take its place in the fleet. So the one-off USS Yeager and USS Elkins were born.
I wonder what awaits me at work tomorrow.... ah yes, the Curry. I'll turn my attention to that during my tea break.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, since half the ship is the Maquis raider, it makes just as much sense to say that the raider is the "real" part, and that the Intrepid bit must be something else, if we're going to take that road.
It is a popular (though of course unfounded) notion that the Bradbury class was a sort of pre-Intrepid, ala your Challengers or your Springfields. Maybe she's really a Bradbury.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
God I hope not. I have the Bradbury as actually starting the Intrepid family, of which the Intrepid, and possibly the Prometheus belong.
As with the scaling problem of the Miranda rollbar on the Centaur, I tend to reject the actual modelling issues in these kitbashes. It obviously can't really be a Maquis raider on the Yeager because of the Intrepid saucer- it has to be something similar, but on a much larger scale. eg. the Galaxy saucer is very similar to a New Orleans saucer, it's the same shape. From a distance is may appear to be the same saucer exactly, but it isn't. Just a smaller variation, down-scaled, and with less decks, etc.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
From a distance, the "Yeager" "saucer" looks a lot like the Intrepid's. That doesn't mean it is, and it seems to me to be just as reasonable that it is a raider attached to some dagger-like front end as it is an Intrepid attached to some weirdo rear. Or, just as reasonable that both pieces are something else altogether, and ship always looked like it looks now. Or anything inbetween.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
If only the ship wasn't seen in the background, behind DS9 - or else we could have said it was a Maquis raider with a scaled-down Inrepid saucer for, say, warp-topology testbed purposes. . .
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: From a distance, the "Yeager" "saucer" looks a lot like the Intrepid's. That doesn't mean it is, and it seems to me to be just as reasonable that it is a raider attached to some dagger-like front end as it is an Intrepid attached to some weirdo rear. Or, just as reasonable that both pieces are something else altogether, and ship always looked like it looks now. Or anything inbetween.
Except for the fact that the studio model close ups show that the Intrepid saucer is complete with all its properly-scaled features. (Bridge, windows, et. al.)
This thread is a bit of a coincidence as I was just going to start one about the Yeager myself. What I wanted to know is who was our original source at Paramount that told us the ship was designated as "Yeager." I don't seem to remember it as being Mike Okuda, though he later commented on the fact that it clashed with the Saber-class Yeager. Did that source call it a Yeager-class vessel? How did we get "Yeager-class" as a designation for the design? We now know that the individual ship is called the Yeager, and the DS9 TM says it's an Intrepid variant, but did a Paramount source also call it Yeager-class or was that just a misunderstanding on our part?
-MMoM Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
The name came from Drexler or someone similar. Maybe even related via Moore, back when he had his AOL chat/board thing. And people took to calling it Yeager class for the some reason people have talked about the Centaur class or Curry/Shelly class. Because they wanted to.
And I never once saw a closeup shot of the Yeager. Surely you aren't suggesting we retreat to noncanon sources, are you?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I for one have never understood the downside of mating two hull elements of seemingly different design philosophy together. After all, that's how the Reliant was created.
The harshly angular aft half of NCC-1864 is as alien to the rounded shapes of the saucer as the greeblie-rich aft half of the Yeager is to the Intrepid design philosophy. In neither case do I have the slightest problem or complaint, aesthetically or in the pseudo-engineering sense.
The Yeager could easily be to the Voyager what the Reliant was to the Enterprise. She's just barely smaller, seems to have dedicated less of the budget to aesthetics, and carries a different balance of equipment. Like the Reliant, the Yeager increases the number of torpedo launchers while omitting the big deflector dish. Like the Reliant, she seems to have larger and somewhat clumsier impulse engines. And like the Reliant, she seems to have two side-by-side, rectangular-door shuttlebays instead of the central clamshell-door one (and like the Reliant, she never shows the shuttlebays in action, thus failing to prove they are shuttlebays at all).
The only minor downside of the Yeager is that her butt resembles a scaled-up Maquis vessel. But altered-scale hull components are standard fare in starship design anyway. And as long as the individual greeblies are at least painted differently, turning "warp grilles" to hull paneling and wise versa, I don't have that much of a problem with it.
The Yeager is a beauty compared with most of the stuff Eaves has come up with. I'm treating her as a real ship class, the justful companion to the Intrepids. And stealing the name "Griffin class" for her for the time being...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Wasn't there a thread about this last year, or maybe the year before. My suggestion to explain away things like the Yeager was something like...
It is a one-off ship, brought into service during the Dominion Wars... It was probably a moth-balled test ship for Intrepid saucers, in a lead up to the Intrepid Class production. Maybe one way they did it - instead of having whole new ships like the Galaxy Class lineage - is to gamma-weld older "parts" lying around.
Or these "parts" are actually for the purpose of being able to be used on various new ship designs/hull designs - without the need to develop and ENTIRE new ship each time... i.e. they want to just deal with the saucer section and it's warp-field geometry performance.
They were in desparate need for ships - and this is a WORKING ship - so they used it.
The Elkins and the Yeager might be 'sister ships'... maybe each testing a different secondary hull/nacelle configuration. Maybe there is another one out there somewhere that has an Intrepid Saucer section and a wierd-arsed engineering section that looks closer in shape to the final look of the Intrepid Class.
Maybe the Yeager was a test-bed for using articulating nacelles... on a new/larger saucer section. (Before that it might have only been the "Maquis Raider" type ships that had that ability to articulate their 'wings'.
This also leads to the possibility that they had already designed a class of ship with the Intrepid Saucer in it's final design, but along came Geordie's and those alien's revelation about the damaging effects of Warp on the fabric of space... and they had to go back to the drawing-board and they tested the idea of variable warp-field geometry. As a stop-gap they too the final saucer and nacelle designs and used an existing ship that had articulating pylons - the Marquis Raider type ship - and tested it out. It worked... they mothballed the ship and started producing the Voyager versions...
What episode had Geordie talking about the Intrepid - it was season 7... maybe the "Intrepid" originally had the non-moving nacelles... and it was out and about before Voyager came along/was finished. It had to go back and be refitted. (Only if the Intrepid mention occured before "Force of Nature" that is.
Andrew
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
All good and well... But I think there could also be a definite demand for a Yeager-style ship in regular Fleet service. Just being ugly is not reason enough for a ship to be declared a one-off oddity, as we've seen with the ST:FC vessels...
Now the Elkins is a bit more objectionable, because her nacelles come from a completely wrong era. Her secondary hull is such an extensive and finished-looking undertaking that I can't believe it would be a hasty wartime construction done to complete a half-built Intrepid as cheaply as possible.
She doesn't look like a testbed for advanced technology, either. Her engines are outdated, so those can't be the test articles. And if the intent was to test the Intrepid primary hull, why build the very extensive and streamlined secondary hull? Why not something like the Yeager stern?
Add to that the sad fact that the model is really crappy, with the primary hull out of alignment with the nacelles or the secondary hull... If that's the result of combat damage, why wasn't it fixed first, before applying those LN-64 nacelles in place of whatever nacelles the ship lost in combat?
I could just barely believe in this being a TOS movie era vessel up to her neck (with the LN-64s and the rounded deflectors defining the era). A structurally compromised and discarded Intrepid primary hull would be mated to her at a later stage for use as an inert dockside depot ship or barracks ship. Then comes the call to arms, and the harbormaster hands over his list of ships that are theoretically capable of warp drive...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Hey... Wait a minute. The secondary hull of the Elkins looks a bit like one of those Mars Defense Perimeter ships. That could possibly make this a two-stage 'kitbash':
1) Nacelles of "defense probe" replaced by LN-64s, possibly because of combat damage. 2) Mating of an Intrepid saucer (of the Intrepid class U.S.S. Elkins!?) to the defense probe. The yardmaster wants to make it look good and even bothers to paint the registy number on the second-hand nacelles.
But ignoring the similarities to the raider, the Yeager class looks much more 'final' than the Elkins. The connection of the saucer is better, and the aft hull has registy numbers on it. I believe this could indeed be an advanced Intrepid prototype, probably for testing the folding pylons. Especially if we imagine those guns on top of the nacelles to be Soyuz-like sensors.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
The Elkin's secondary hull could be a SCE warp sled test module.
i.e. it can be hobbled together with anything - it's original intent is to attach to basically any (in this case - saucer section) and allow it to be warp-tested. It doesn't matter if it has old-style nacelles. Maybe these 'sleds' were attached to a number of unused saucer sections to make new ships.
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
I actually like the Elkins, though I think the "real" nacelles are more like upside-down Sovereign nacelles than the existing Constitutions. The Yeager I think, would be fine if we say that it had all of it's hull plating in the shop for repair every time we saw it. Put some traditional-looking hull over the raider greeblies and it's fine. We never saw it close enough to tell the difference.
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
Hehe, I wonder if the ship is an Intrepid saucer with a scaled up Maquis raider or a Maquis raider with a scaled down Intrepid saucer...
Anyway, I think Elkins and Yeager are two entirely different things.
Yeager: Mim, I asked exactly this question when I started coming here, but obviously, the Yeager's origins are more mysterious than the class itself. Maybe it was Moore, but I have the feeling that the information cloud have the same source as the name 'Curry'.
The entire varible warp geometry thing isn't something you come up with today and start building tomorrow. If it was tht easy, Kirk's Enterprise would have had varible geometry nacelles, too. So I guess the vessel was indeed some sort of testbed. Janeway said Voyager ('s class) was the only Starfleet ship being able to navigate through the Badlands. But we already know that smaller hips like the Raider can navigte there without any problem. Next locical step? Take a rider (which is designed for these operation - hull structure, sublight engines and stuff) and put the newly designed "aerodynamic" highspeed saucer and the subspace-friendly nacelles on it, and you have a first testbed for field studies and stuff. In connection with this, I don't think the Intrepid-project was similar to the Galaxy-project for example (take mission objective and design a vessel) but rather an engineer-friendly ship to test various new systems and engines and things like that. What is Intrepids designation? Explorer? Scout? Cruiser? There isn't a single task other ships couldn't handle too, but this one got all the latest tech, many never-before seen things like biopacks, EMH, the engines or speedboat-shuttles. Same reason I think Intrepid didn't look identical to Voyager, and the reason I think Yeager, Elkins and other ships were assembled in a different way just for testing purposes because the ship was very modular, user-friendly. (Of course, you have some basic ships like Bellerophon, but who knows what gimmicks they installed on tht ship? Do you really think an Admiral would take such a vessel to romulus instead of something more powerful like a Galaxy?)
Elkins: AWACS-cruiser, bouy tender, tug, don't know. The two jet engines (sorry, 'deflectors') could be something else instead. Like tractor beam emitters or removable antimatter tanks. Or the ship was assembled with parts of old vessel (engines).
Of course, the fact that there are several ships flying around with Intrepid saucers leads to another theory: Maybe Intrepid saucers and seconary hulls are assembled in different yards and the one producing the hulls had to cancel that or was destroyed. They'd have some saucers sitting around. And instead of just throwing them away, they made something out of it. Creative minds, those engineers. Imagine the war would have lasted some years longer. I wonder what Frankenstein's we'd have gotten then. Of course, this doesn't work for the low-registry Yeager. But maybe the ship's original configuration was a Maquis-Raider hull with an Ambassador-class saucer! *double- * (I could do this stuff for hours) What if Yeager's Maquis-part was the hull of another Starfleet ship-class, and at one point that class was rendered useless in terms of reliablilty, effectivity or whatever. They threw them away, built some good-looking secondary-hulls for the lonely Ambassador-saucers and that's it. Maquis' stole the hulls from the junkyard and used them as Raiders (they also used Starfleet attack fighters, so the fact that those Raiders aren't civilian vessels shouldn't be a problem here). Later, during the war, wher the old class was our of service or whatever, Starfleet noticed how good the hulls are for fighting. They pulled out the Intrepid-saucers (see above ) �t voil�: a new kitbash was born.
Posted by Captain... Mike (Member # 709) on :
i myself have no problem with both ships being classes with an as yet unspecified mission profile that requires different hardware.. im sure that if someone did a nice 3d render of them, theyd look a lot morerealistic that the Amazing Technicolor Kitbash Dreamshow we went through.
I mean ,there are lots of ships that are specifically modified for different missions (aforementioned buoy tenders, minelayers, escorts, whatever) and might not be as pretty as a ship of the line.and we know and accept that Starfleet can and will reuse components Connie-refit-->Miranda-->Constellation and it seems to make sense. Are we changing our mind on THAT now?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I'm scared to ask, but what on earth are LN-64s?
Posted by Captain... Mike (Member # 709) on :
according to non-canon treknical publications, thats the nacelle type used on the refit Enterprise, i believe
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
All very interesting theories. I'm more resolved to say we're getting somewhere with the Yeager at last. But as far as the Elkins is concerned, critics of the ship need not accept it as canon at all, as it hasn't been identified on screen, ever. The Yeager, yes, many times, but not the Elkins. The existence of a studio model a canon ship does not make. Much like the 'Medusa Class', although I'm more comfortable with its existence than the Elkins.
I think the general concensus seems to be that the Yeager was some kind of Intrepid prototype, maybe a testbed, maybe a hastily commisioned vessel utilizing various welded together parts around the superstructure of an old saucer left over from the Intrepid program. Either way, I still have to believe it is a unique vessel, jury-rigged, and never repeated. If it had been peace time, the Yeager would never have been built, and its parts would be floating around a surplus depot somewhere. The safest, most likely classification: Intrepid Class - Yeager-Type.
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
But, and this may not be terribly important, I don't know, it's not an Intrepid Class. At all. In any way.
Posted by Captain... Mike (Member # 709) on :
its as much Intrepid class as the Nebula is Galaxy class though. we outnumber you on this, Admiral. Bes' recognize, G.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Well it all depends how one measures the classification system, and I've beaten on this drum for long enough about the Nebulas - ie being signicantly different in many areas, yet all Nebula Class. I tried to lobby to get the Proto-Nebula into its own classification some while back, possibly Rigel Class.
If the Yeager is not generally accepted to be Intrepid Class, then I suppose Intrepid Variant - Yeager-Type, will have to do...
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
If we are going to stick to strictly canon Nebulas (ie, the Pheonix, the Sutherland, and the CGI), they are certainly a lot more similar than the Intrepid and the Yeager class are.
On the other hand, if you want to bring in the desktop models as examples, you're an idiot. And they are still more similar.
Posted by Captain... Mike (Member # 709) on :
well we dont call the Nebula a Galaxy-variant do we?
Yeager is a completely different configuration.
look: Constitution-->Constitution refit. Same parts, same configuration, same class
Constitution-->Miranda. Galaxy-->Nebula Intrepid-->Yeager Same parts, set up completely differently, different class. By adding all the freaking greeble type shit and subtracting all notions of the lower secondary hull, the ships Intrepidity is lost.
Fixing up the rollbar things on Nebulas and Mirandas makes them same class variants. But if you add a whole bangin secondary hull, you change the class. like the Soyuz or Constitution arent Mirandas.
Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
As far as I'm concerned, the Yeager is some sort of new class. Maybe it didn't even get a name. What if there have been more thn one prototypes of the "Intrepid-class" until they got it right? If this one would have been what SFC wanted, maybe Voyagers dedication plaque would list the vessel as a Yeager-class (Aside from having to explain why the heck the secondary hull of the ship looks like a Maquis ship. )
So what's the definition for canon in this case? We have an official model, confirmed and everything, we all have it in our ship lists (well, many of us if not all) but we can't concider it totly canon yet because it hasn't been identified for sure yet (allthough I for one still assume the hip was seen flying next to another unknown ship in season six's opener)?
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
quote:Originally posted by Captain... Mike: Constitution-->Constitution refit.
*points to his marvellous little sig*
Not everyone would agree with you. Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
But they'd be complete Retards not to.
Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
yes im well aware of your moronic signature. thank you.
I'm still tempted to call it Enterprise-subclass or the like, just for convenience sake, but this isnt the argument here.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Wondering out loud, do we know that the NCC-1701 was the first ship to be refit to look like that? Is there anything to say that there weren't Connies built in, say, 2270 that looked like that?
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Wondering out loud, do we know that the NCC-1701 was the first ship to be refit to look like that? Is there anything to say that there weren't Connies built in, say, 2270 that looked like that?
The answer is, most pointedly, no.
Take a drink every time someone uses the term "sub-class."
I'm inclined to call the Yeager an Intrepid-class variant for the same reason I'm inclined to call the Centaur an Excelsior-class variant: It's the only "official" designation it's ever been given. (That is, of course, providing that "Yeager-class" is a fan-originated term, as Sol System said.)
Of course, that designation does screw a lot with the Intrepid being NCC-74600. Oh, well...
-MMoM Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
with the Intrepid being NCC-74600
How can you mess it up, when it isn't?
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
*sigh*
Must we go over this again? Sternbach confirmed on the TrekBBS (in spite of the whole newsgroup post thing that went down much earlier) that he believes the Intrepid to be NCC-74600. Not really canon per se, I know, but it's from a fairly reliable source and if there are ever to be more technical articles in ST: The Magazine, that's probably the number they would use...
-MMoM Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
Not really canon per se, I know.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
But something at least resembling it. It's just a question of finally getting it in print in the mag or some other reference.
Posted by Boris (Member # 713) on :
"Wondering out loud, do we know that the NCC-1701 was the first ship to be refit to look like that? Is there anything to say that there weren't Connies built in, say, 2270 that looked like that?"
From memory:
"We've just spent 18 months *redesigning* and refitting the Enterprise"
"The engines haven't even been tested at warp power."
Plus, the Enterprise-class label in STII. Plus, the fact that ships with seemingly minor variations can change class (Soyuz/Miranda, Danube/Yellowstone). Plus, the fact that like the Yellowstone, the Ent-A had a different warp drive system, and could well have been preceded by the Constitution that first incorporated the new warp-drive system (of course, it could've just as well been something other than warp drive).
Okuda's system is too simplistic, inconsistent with both established onscreen facts as well as production realities requiring that the same models represent different classes. Still, even if he names 200 ships Nebula-class, the 201st need not be.
Starfleet probably chose the Enterprise, being the most famous Constitution-class ship, for the TMP refit. Then, it might have decided to honor the Constitution likewise (and at the same time reduce some classification confusion that resulted because of its initial move).
It's also possible that the Constitution (refit) designation was merely a later policy move because the original Enterprise was technically the same ship even after the refit. However, I'm against ignoring the fact in normal cases, minor differences count as a class distinction, because of aforementioned evidence.
Boris
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
quote: I've been considering offering 74600 as the Intrepid's number, though this may turn out to be official disinformation.
Hardly the most ringingest of endorsements, I think.
Especially given that, at the time, he had as much to do with official Trekdom as Jimmy The Legless Hobo who lives down by the pond.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, don't get me wrong, were he to make some sort of firm decision I would be the first of my sad, pale cadre to add it to the list. I'm just saying it isn't quite there, yet.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
I was positive Sternbach said the Intrepid registry was NCC-74450... But is 74600 the actual correct one...?
quote:On the other hand, if you want to bring in the desktop models as examples, you're an idiot
I'm an idiot am I? I take it you refute the existence of the Melbourne, that which was one of those desk models...?
I for one believe that desk models we've seen in the show represent actual ships that existed. Do you believe for a minute that the likes of Picard and Sisko sit there at their desks playing with starship model kits, inventing various designs for fun?
*******
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Yeager, utilizing the Intrepid Class is changed into a variant of Intrepid Class, and as a one-of-a-kind ship would probably be called Yeager-Type, not an individual class of any kind. Because as I see it, you need more than one ship of the same kind to make a new class. And I can't see how this ship, with this configuration went into mass production.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Boris: From memory:
"We've just spent 18 months *redesigning* and refitting the Enterprise"
"The engines haven't even been tested at warp power."
Failing to see how those quotes prove that there wasn't a Movie-design Connie in service before the Enterprise. All they say is that they haven't tested the Enterprise's warp engines (specific to that ship), and they have bene redesigning the whole ship (again, specific to the Enterprise).
Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
quote:I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Yeager, utilizing the Intrepid Class is changed into a variant of Intrepid Class, and as a one-of-a-kind ship would probably be called Yeager-Type, not an individual class of any kind. Because as I see it, you need more than one ship of the same kind to make a new class. And I can't see how this ship, with this configuration went into mass production.
And what we are trying to say, bringing this back and forth to one more pointless reverberation, is that we all think you are wrong, the Yeager is a design which has a class designation, may be more than one of it, and is certainly not bogged down by any variant status because it is simply FAR TOO DIFFERENT from the Intrepid to recieve that kind of designation.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
If you think that the Yeager is a class of ship that's fine. I don't think for one minute you'd be in the majority, speak for yourself, not make sweeping statements that that's what everyone else thinks.
And if you think that the Yeager is 'TOO FAR DIFFERENT' from the Intrepid, then you must be thinking about a different Yeager. I see an Intrepid Class, restructured and modified for a different fleet application. It is, in my opinion, a variant of Intrepid Class. If you think I'm wrong, fine, that's your opinion.
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
It's "FAR TOO DIFFERENT", actually. And it is. Even moreso than a Nebula to a Galaxy. But, now that you mention it, I see that it is an Intrepid class, no difference in any way, at all. Identical.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Sarcasm does not become you. There seems to be a mental block occurring when the ambiguous word 'varaint' is mentioned. So yet again, I shall explain it in plainer English.
The Yeager is a variation, a differing alternative if you will, to the Intrepid design, much like the Nebula is a differing variation of the Galaxy design. I did not mean 'Intrepid Variant' as a designation, but as an observation. Do you understand me now?
..And one is welcome to believe its a mass produced class if one wishes, it bothers me not.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Mark, I think it's just a case of that, around here, when someone calls a ship a variant of another, there are only minor differences between the two. So, in the language of the land, an Intrepid variant would have static nacelles or something, not much else different.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Yeh I see that and appreciate it, but the term is ambiguous and often used rather loosely. For instance some may call the Saladin a Constitution variant as a passing comment. We need another term that sets the two meanings apart.
Perhaps 'variant' to mean the same class, only minor differences, and 'variation' - different/or unknown class, significant differences but of from the same family.
ie.
USS Rhode Island - Nova Variant USS Curry - Excelsior variation.
Heck I don't know...I'm confused already Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
^too subtle; how about derivative for the latter? So the Yeager would be an Intrepid derivative.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
The problem with trying to place the Yeager in the same class designation as the Intrepid, is that the Nebula-class ships would all then have to be referred to as Galaxy-class, Nebula-variant starships instead.
Highly illogical. Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
And because of reasons like that, even the US Navy calls ships, with no sisters, their own class, whether or not the ship was based off another design or not. Such was the case of the first American carrier, the USS Langley. She was modified from the USS Neptune, a Jupiter class collier. She also had no sisters, but still the Navy called it a Langley class carrier.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
USS Jupiter. Not Neptune.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
Okay, so I had it backwards. My point still stands though.
Posted by Cherry Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Sorry I'm coming into this post very late; I was away for a week on vacation in Myrtle Beach working on tan maintenance.
Anyway...
According to the gist I got from DD's emails, these kitbashes (including the Yeager) were never supposed to be taken seriously. They were only supposed to be seen at an extreme far-away distance, so that the overall shapes & parts used would not be identifiable on screen. How the Centaur got so close to the screen is a mystery to me.
As far as the "Yeager: Intrepid variant or separate class?" debate is concerned, let's look at this from another angle. This model, like all the others, was not meant to be taken seriously as a Starfleet vessel. One might even say that the ship was built as a joke. The sticking point here is that two separate Star Trek ships were used to make the model. What if that were not the case? Let's just say that instead of using a Maquis raider as a secondary hull, they used, say, a model kit of a Volkswagon Bug. I really doubt that anyone here would be seriously debating the class/variant issue, because it would just be too stupid to ponder. But that's basically what's going on here. Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
I feel the same way regarding the Elkins and Yeager. But as far as the latter goes, joke or not, it cannot really be ignored as it has been clearly identified on screen. I guess what we're trying to do is explain how such a vessel might exist, and how it would fit into the fleet.
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Of course, this doesn't work for the low-registry Yeager. But maybe the ship's original configuration was a Maquis-Raider hull with an Ambassador-class saucer! *double- ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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