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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
 
If the E-A was launched in 2286, and was scheduled for decommission in shortly after the talks at Kitomer, in 2293, what was the political climate like then??? Why only a 7 or 8 years of operational life before decommissioning???
 
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
 
From my J-Project FAQ...

What about the Enterprise-A? That was supposed to be the Yorktown!

No, it was supposed to be A Yorktown, not necessarily THE Yorktown. I've decided to utilize a theory recently put forth by Steve Pugh:

"The E-A was a newbuild Constitution from the 2270s
which was never quite completed. Either she suffered some accident
during production or the budget ran out. She sat around a dockyard for
a dozen years until Starfleet decided to give Kirk a prezzie for
saving their ass. Hastily outfitted and brought up to date and with a
dodgy registry number slapped on her (her original planned registry
might have been reassigned in the intervening years) she was taken
over to Spacedock for the end of ST IV. No wonder she was in a right
state during ST V. Add all the above mentioned stress and damage to a
botched job of refitting done to an hull that had been left untended
for a decade and you get a ship that's ripe for early retirement."


Using that line of reasoning, my universe states that the Enterprise-A was a remaindered hull from 2272, formerly intended to be a newbuild, USS Wasp (NCC-1831), the first of a planned 12-vessel run of new ships. However, the job was cancelled & the hull placed into storage. Fast-forward 14 years to the "Whalesong" incident. Kirk is "punished" by being demoted to the only rank he was happy at & is given a new ship. The old Wasp is hauled out of the mothball yards, shoved up to spec for the time (or as much as they could handle) & formally christened Enterprise.
 
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
 
Works for me, thanks.....
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Sounds interesting. However, I'm not sure there needs to be any special reason behind the pre-Enterprise A's relative decrepitness. In other words, the idea that the ship was any Yorktown seems unnecessary.
 
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
Why does it have to be such a rush between the time they arrive with the whales until they get the E-A?

They would have had to have recovered (remember they'd all been through in II and III) Then the completion of the trial... deliberations... then bringing them in for sentencing. On top of that there was probably a delay between them leaving the court room and being on the spacedock pod... from a minute to months!
 
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
 
Why does it seem hard to believe? The Yorktown could have been just like the E-nil, upgraded and all. After being his the by the giant tootsi roll, fried her systems and was brought into spacedock. The Yorktown could have been renamed E-A because another Yorktown could have been building. Also Connie refits could have been a failed class fo starship, so they were rapidly being decomissioned. To punish Kirk, they renamed Yorktown that was going to be decommissioned, the Enterprise. Less that ten years later, with a E-B almost finished, it's time for the last Connie refit to be decommissioned.

This works for me. But I like the other theory as well.
 
Posted by Boris (Member # 713) on :
 
Let's look at the facts:

1) The highest registry number ever seen for a refit Constitution is 1895, while the lowest is 956. This suggests that few, if any, ships were built after the 2260s (the Entente, operational in 2272, is NCC-2120), and that some might be as old as 2196, when the Daedalus-class was decomissioned (remember that "The Making of Star Trek" includes the Valiant in their list of ships like the Enterprise, which probably wasn't a new Valiant as the ship on the list was destroyed likewise, else the list wouldn't intend to list twelve ships like the Enterprise and end up with thirteen. The book also says that some of these ships are as much as 40 years old.)

2) The day of the refitted Enterprise is *surprisingly* over in Star Trek III (2282), despite its being "almost totally new" only ten years ago, despite the fact that most of its technology remained in use for more than 90 years later, despite the fact that a two-week repair would've made the ship spaceworthy again.

2) Another such ship (Ent-A) was decomissioned only ten years later, again, despite all the reasons mentioned above.

3) No such ships were ever seen in the 23rd Century (the hull in BOBW is no proof as it could've easily been another kitbash).

The evidence suggests that:

A) Starfleet had a problem with the Constitution-class as a long time ago and stopped building them, going by the highest seen registry. However, something accelerated their decomissioning in 2282. Since many other Constitutions could've easily been damaged like the Enterprise was in 2282, it follows that quite a few would've been decomissioned in the 2280s already. After all, why wouldn't *their* day be over too?

B) That wasn't merely a technical flaw because the Mirandas and Constellations survived, while the refit Constitutions were mostly new ships. If it were one, nobody would've been surprised about the 2282 decomissioning.

C) Something delayed this decision after 2282; although there is no evidence that other ships were built afterwards, they would not be retired until 2292.

The Excelsior-class is almost certainly the answer; it clearly replaced the Constitution-class as a flagship class in 2292, and was probably intended to do so as early as the 2260s, when it was being planned. It's only that the promise of transwarp drive, probably a surprise development, was so high that Starfleet considered replacing all the Constitutions with the Excelsiors much earlier than scheduled, in 2282 or so. The failure of transwarp drive merely meant that the replacement would be postponed until the original date: 2292.

Why? The refit Constitutions still reused components from the old ships, some of which are refits of refits of refits. However, the main issue may not so much be the age of the compoments (which would've been replaced quite a few times over the years), but probably that the basic arrangement/crew size/profile is as old as 2196. Going by the registry numbers as well as the 40-year age for some given in "The Making of Star Trek", all this would've been quite outdated by 2292.

It's also possible to argue that the Constellations were another such improvement, although they clearly are smaller and not quite as obvious a replacement as the Excelsior.

[ April 21, 2002, 19:56: Message edited by: Boris ]
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
One can quote *two* major and somewhat unexpected developments that hit Starfleet at the time the Constitutions began so mysteriously disappearing. Both of them appear to be "bipolar", with a major up followed by a major down:

1)The Excelsior introduction and the transwarp fiasco
2)The ramping up of the Klingon conflict and the sudden Khitomer peace

Development 1 might prompt a gradual phasing-out of the older ships, but I have hard time believing that Starfleet would switch over to the Excelsiors within a decade or two of ST3. Perhaps the Constellations were a stopgap development created when Starfleet realized the Excelsiors wouldn't be ready in time and couldn't be relied on to succeed? Much like the simpler Kynda class cruisers the Soviets built in case the complex Kirov battlecruisers would fail...

Development 2 could offer an easy explanation to the retiring of the E-A. Starfleet could have become overbloated during the escalation to the feared war. With the Klingon threat gone, Starfleet would obtain major savings by retiring all older ships, even if they were still operable - there would be all those "war-surplus" ships with far less hours on their spaceframes, and it would make even less sense to retire THOSE.

Also, the peace treaty may have come with a price: Starfleet may have been asked to cut down the number of ships (or cruisers specifically), and scrapping a Constitution would save an Excelsior.

The 2270s-2290s weren't "normal times" for Starfleet by any measure. It seems only fitting to have something odd and drastic happen there to these prominent starship classes and their retirement or procurement policies.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
could be that the Enterprise-A was still new and good as a ship, but Starfleet made the move on a purely political basis for getting the new E-B out as their flagship.

The novel "Ashes of Eden" says that the E-A was stripped and sold as a patrol vessel to a politically neutral government on Chal (this fits with the USN's current practice of disposing of still useful vessels to smaller countries' navies) It could be that newer-build Constitutions were still servicable, but didnt meet the standard that SF needed for its frontlines and were considered 'surplus'..

Its also possible that many other Constitutions that were possibly built in the 2270s/80s continued in service on 20-30 year lifetimes and we didnt see them, and the decommissioning of the E-A was an exception, not a rule.
 
Posted by CaptAlabin (Member # 733) on :
 
I like #2 of Timo's post. The ending of such hositilities certainly downsized Starfleet as mentioned into the briefing at Starfleet HQ in TUC. Combine it with Captain Mike's idea, that would seem more plausible. Starfleet possibly wanted the Enterprise name to be freed up for the new Excelsior Class. The name Enterprise and the man Kirk seemed to ring through the eyes and ears of the Klingons, Starfleet wanted to use the name Enterprise best to the advantage of themselves, especially with the big fanfare at the launching of the Enterprise-B. So it could be a symbolic triumph over the Klingons.
 
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
 
I'm thinking that the moth-balling the fleet was mentioned early on in the movie so it could be acted out at the end. You'd have to ask the writers, but it seems like the intention was to show the Enterprise crew standing down as a responce to the treaty that had just been signed.

However, the decommissioning of the ship was only mentioned at the end of the movie, which is odd. Before that, it as only the crew that was due to stand down. In fact, Spock's line to Valeris about taking his place as science officer implies that the ship was going to continue in service.

The decommissionig of the ship seems to be a direct responce to the signing of the treay.
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Good point, Aban. I think it indeed was intentional...

Symbolically, it would mean a great deal to the treaty if the ships that had last faced each other in hostile terms would be the first to be retired, “punished for their naughtiness”. This symbolic hand-washing would cost Starfleet very little, if it didn’t need the E-A (assuming it had too many ships to begin with) and didn’t want to pay for the repairs, however minor. Retiring Kirk and his warmonging (from the Klingon POV anyway) crew would also be a smart move.

I'm still personally a proponent of the idea that the E-A was a refit of an older Constitution, so that an additional reason is offered for the seemingly low operational value of the vessel to Starfleet. And as long as I believe that, I'm willing to buy the Paramount idea that the ship used to be the Yorktown. This isn't impossible to believe (even if it takes a grain of salt or two), and it's what is believed by some nice people who do a good job at keeping us Trekked up.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
What I've never liked about the "Yorktown" theory was that there was a Yorktown already in STIV. Are we suppossed to assume Starfleet flew out and got the dead vessel, flushed out the bodies, flew it home and repainted it in time for Kirk? Seems a bit of an insult to the memory of those who served on it.
 
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
Here's a thought: what if the reason that 'Fleet wanted to retire the Enterprise in ST3 was that the entirely new "A" was already built? They wanted to surprise Kirk with a new ship. Presumably the ship would have been built elsewhere, so Kirk wouldn't have seen it while docking in Spacedock...
 
Posted by Malnurtured Snayer (Member # 411) on :
 
Yeah, but, Omega, it COULDN'T be a "new" (as in, it had to be a previously registered & named) ship, no matter the case. Well, it could've been but then you have to wonder why it was decomissioned after such a short life span.

And, no, I don't think that's a likely scenario -- Kirk was from all account a senior Admiral, I doubt he could've been kept out of the loop. And why would they surprise Kirk? If this was in the works, it would've been for a great deal of time before Star Trek II ...

... meaning it would've been a surprise for Spock. Personally, I've always felt a lot of the reasons for the ship's decomissioning was the damage it took during the battle with the Reliant. So, they'd've had to take the USS Whatever back to Spacedock in a hurry before Enterprise arrived ...
 
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
I think the E-A was new, and just was decommissioned to make room for a newer type ship.. just because other Connies were milked to the end of their operational lifetimes doesnt mean that Starfleet would still try to give it a long run.. obviously it would still be useful, but as a stripped ship sold to a different government for the rest of its lifetime..
 
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
It's been years, and I'm still amazed at the assumptions made by so many people about the end of Star Trek IV... Why is it so hard to think that the Yorktown and Saratoga revived when the Probe left the same way Spacedock and Earth did? Why does it seem everyone thinks that the sentencing of Kirk and his command crew took place immediately after they were plucked from the waters of San Francisco Bay?

I see nothing wrong with the notion that the disabled ships powered back up after the Probe left, that the Yorktown returned to Spacedock for decommissioning, that her crew was already slated to move on to a new Excelsior-class Yorktown (whatever class it was, this was the ship Tuvok's parents served on later on toward the turn of the century), that Kirk and Company were thoroughly debriefed and the Klingon BoP was salvaged -- taking a few days, and that the Federation Council's deliberations took several days more before the sentencing scene we saw.

--Jonah
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
I have no problem with most of those things, but I do think the Yorktown was offed for good. Spacedock got power restored immediately after the Probe left; "Captain Vijay" reported his ship dead in space several hours after the Probe had passed. And I saw no reason to think that the Probe would actively assist the humans it had harmed - at most, it would cease to actively jam Spacedock.

It's unclear whether the Probe ever paid a thought to humans at any point. Had it done so, it would probably have killed every last human after having had that short chat with George and Gracie... Ignoring us was probably the most humane thing the Probe could do. And thus the Yorktown would only regain power when Starfleet engineers restored it for her.

Also, I see no problem with half the crew of a ship being told "move on to a garbage scow" and the other half "haul your butts to Starbase 123", without this being an insult or a commendation to the crew. Theirs is not to ask why. If Starfleet wants to give Kirk an empty ship, it gives Kirk that ship and sends the former crew away, and that's that. It's pretty silly that a single crew would cling on to a certain ship for any length of time anyway.

Not that I think Starfleet gave Kirk an empty ship, anyway. Probably he got an existing crew, with just his famous top officers transferred along with him. Or half a crew, as ST5 makes it look like.

And the time interval between the courtroom and
the E-A test drive could have been *years* for all we know. The looks and ranks of the heroes did not change much during the later movies, so there's no way to really tell if years had passed.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
Good points, as always, Timo... I always interpreted the Probe's effect to be an active jamming -- that is, once it encountered an object under power, it automatically damped it, and kept it dampened until it relented. Short of the Probe being somehow able to alter the composition of those ships' Deuterium and/or antimatter, there's no reason why they wouldn't be able to generate power once the Probe had passed -- unless something were actively supressing onboard power transfer systems.

To invert your argument, why should the Probe continue the damping effect on those ships if it had lifted it on Spacedock, the ships in it, and the Earth herself?

--Jonah
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Good question. As the Yorktown (and supposedly at least the Shepard as well) remained powerless long after the Probe had passed, we have three explanations:

1) The Probe kept on jamming the specific ships across apparently interstellar distances.

2) The Probe delivered powerful blasts that momentarily disrupted the power nets of the targets. A spacedock had the resources to repair the damage, so the Probe had to keep on delivering the blasts. A mere starship did not, so a single blast knocked the ship out of action for good (or at least for the duration of the adventure).

3) The Probe used two different jamming systems to begin with. The ships were simply hit by the "bow shock" of the traveling vehicle, while Spacedock was actively jammed from afar.

Alternatives 1 and 2 allow for the Yorktown to recover as soon as the Probe departs. Alternatives 2 and 3 allow for a prolonged effect on the ships. All seem acceptable, although none is explicitly supported.

But only 1 requires that the Probe be actively "fighting" the ships and stations. In both 2 and 3, the deactivation of the ships could be a minor side effect of the Probe's normal operations. In 2, a brief pass by the Probe would hit the ships once, but a steady orbit would subject the Spacedock to constant bombardment. In 3, the ships could have been disabled by the Probe's equivalent of a navigational deflector, while the station (and the Excelsior and the Bounty) would have been jammed by the Whale Phone & Ocean Boiler device instead of or in addition to the nav deflector.

I think I'm a sucker for the "superior indifference" interpretation. The Probe just wouldn't stoop to actively fighting Starfleet...

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Incidently, it occurs to me that, for all the talk of TMP being the only Trek film to really grab a high concept SF idea, The Voyage Home has that beat with the Probe. A fantastically powerfully but totally alien entity, with none of this "It's just looking for God" nonsense. Motives totally nonunderstandable, as I fear any real alien's motives would be.
 
Posted by darkwing_duck1 (Member # 790) on :
 
OK, maybe this is a stupid question (I just thought of this, btw): if those ships lost all internal power, then how did Yorktown even have power for the subspace radio? Further, if all power went off line, then wouldn't the magnetic containment fields on the antimatter pods go down and...POOF?
 
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
quote:
if those ships lost all internal power, then how did Yorktown even have power for the subspace radio?
Um.. the engineer rigged a makeshift solar collector.. its what the dude was talking about on the screen.. were ya listenin'?.

And I'm sure there are some non-power failsafes on the antimatter in case the captain doesnt pay the electric bill. Possibly magnetic containment is achieved from non-powered means (i.e. the bottles are made of magneticly endowed material that doesnt require a constant charge) or possibly they could have been jettisoned..

thanks for playing
 
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
I thought the Probes motives were to find out what happened to the whales it had been in contact with, and that in it's efforts to communicate with them, it was damaging humanoid technology, most certainly because it didn't care rather than through any act of malice.

There were far too many sentences in that sentence.

And if there's so long between the court scene and Kirk getting the Ent-A, you'd think he would have had time to buy a proper Captain's jacket, rather than just changing the rank on his admiral one.
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
But they movie never needed to sit you down and explain that.
 
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
Surely that was more good story telling than anything inherantly "Sci-fi" about it? Or are you saying that sci-fi villians (such as it was) don't need to have their motives explained out as much as regular villians?
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Well, I'm suggesting that it is somehow better for a film to only hint at things and allow viewers to draw their own conclusions than to drag them through long explanations.

Which isn't to say that's what I think TMP did. Or that I think this is hard and fast rule. It's just something interesting I was thinking about due to the thread.
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
I saw ST4 as the ultimate expression of Gene's insistence that conflict results from miscommunication.

Usually, that would make for dull stories, as much of early TNG stands witness: a personified enemy turns out to be a reasonable fellow who actually teaches our heroes a thing or two. But ST4 sort of turns that around. The heroes *cannot* communicate with the villain, not even at the conclusion of the movie. They have to do all their learning by themselves, fighting the enemy known as "the human race" in order to complete their mission. Not only do they triumph over the barbarism of the 20th century mankind, they also humbly accept their own incomprehension and limitations. I agree, you don't necessarily need a sci-fi vehicle to have all this - but this sci-fi vehicle certainly works well with the story.

In ST4, the heroes are minor side players in the story of their lives. These guys save the world, and what do they get out of it? Kirk ends up with a demotion, an over-the-shoulder LJBF and a sorry little rust bucket pretending to be his old ship. And seems quite content with that for a change. His adventures may still be on the juvenile side, but he's certainly matured as a person.

And of course, ST4 is cool for showing us more of Starfleet than all of TOS did...

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by Obi Juan (Member # 90) on :
 
I see no reason why the E-A couldn't have been the Yorktown.

Why replace an old ship set for decommissioning with another ship around the same age, you ask? Well many people like to believe that the E-nil was the first Constitution to undergo the refit. A few less years on all the new components would have made the Yorktown newer in one sense. But really, they could have been the same age and slated for decommissioning at the same time.

Let's say that the Constitution class is nearing the end of its operational lifetime. The design may just not have been compatible with the latest and greatest innovations. Maybe it had become too expensive to refit these old ships again. Better to invest in a shiny new Miranda that is easier to upgrade. So SF Command decides to decommission each old Constitution when it becomes due for a refit. During ST II-IV, both the Enterprise and Yorktown could have not been due for a refit for another 10-15 years. However, the Enterprise is severely damaged in battle with the Reliant, making it necessary to either conduct expensive repairs or decommission the ship. Starfleet does the latter. By this same reasoning, the E-A's damage in ST VI could've accelerated its decommissioning too. Though the crew is set to retire, nothing is said about the ship being decommissioned until the end after it took heavy damage.
 
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
I was always slightly amazed that Starfleet managed to accuratly summerise the condition of the ship roughly 7 minutes after it arrived at Kitomer.

Okay, it might have been in orbit for a while, but still, doesn't ordering a decommisioning sound like the sort of thing that would require a more thorough inspection at a Starbase?
 
Posted by Malnurtured Snayer (Member # 411) on :
 
Maybe, just maybe, they were talking about de-comissioning the CREW.

Although it never made any sense to me why Uhura and Chekov would be leaving the service, too, since Sulu seemed happy to remain in the command chair of the Excelsior ...
 
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
 
de-commissioning the crew?

"Our audits have found that subject "Kirk"'s liver, lungs and kidneys to be in excellent condition. Reccommend reuse. Subject "Scott" appears unsalvageable. Reccommend reassignment to cadaver fleet."
 
Posted by YrdMehc (Member # 417) on :
 
forced retirement, after all the crap they had been through.....

The computer would, most likely, keep a running tab on damage, so a query by Starfleet could be answered ASAP. Making it wasy to determine if the ship should be elgible for refit or scrapping....
 
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
To paraphrase a Red Drarf line:

And what happens if the damage-reporting computer got damaged?
 
Posted by YrdMehc (Member # 417) on :
 
point noted.... it is a possibility....
 
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
"And what happens if the damage-reporting computer got damaged?"

Go to brown alert.
 
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
*resists*

*fails*

"Are you absolutly sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb."
 
Posted by Dan Stack (Member # 516) on :
 
I've never had a problem with a ship having a short operational life.

Enterprise in Star Trek VI received a pounding the likes of which I can't recall seeing a ship endure on Star Trek. When a ship comes in for repairs, the question "is this repair worth it?" must be asked. Is it worth the manpower, the energy, parts, etc. to repair this ship? Even if a ship is a month old, she could still be damaged enough to make it not worth the effort to repair.
 
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
 
Nah, I'd imagine ships that came in were far more damaged then E-A was. There was only about a dozen or so weapon scortch marks and a single hull breach.
 
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
 
Nah, I'd imagine ships that came in were far more damaged then E-A was. There was only about a dozen or so weapon scortch marks and a single hull breach.
 
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Indeed. We've seen ships mauled worse and repaired without question (the E-D after yer regular Borg chit-chat, for one). And we've seen Kirk and Scotty stunned to silence when their Swiss-cheesed ship *wasn't* going to be repaired in ST3.

When Uhura received the orders to "decommission", she looked only mildly surprised. I gather the decision was one the crew had expected all along. Yet everybody apparently considered it an insult and a punishment of sorts. Perhaps it was intended as one?

What better way to end the cold war than to get rid of the cold warriors? By putting the self-made hero back to his proper place with a few harsh orders, Starfleet would be assuring the Klingons that it did not endorse rogues who go around hating and killing Klingons. Retiring Kirk and his entire crew and the hated starship Enterprise all in one stroke would certainly send a strong message.

For orders of this kind, there could only be one response - the one Kirk gave. No amount of reasoning or arguing or logic would get the decision reversed, as Kirk must have seen where it was coming from. The actual status of the ship was unimportant: even an undamaged ship would have to go, as long as she had "USS Enterprise" painted on her. All that was left was one final gesture of defiance, and then it would be all over.

Hmm. Perhaps Starfleet later renamed and reactivated the vessel? Preserving her in a museum would probably have been politically unwise, but scrapping her might have been a bit too costly for a mere political gesture.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
this discussion is going around in circles. weve already discussed the fact that the Enterprise and its crew were mildly out of date, the fact that Starfleet might have used the ship after its lifetime as 1701-A ended, as possible reasons for an early decommissioning. I have no problem swallowing that Starfleet would recycle (as in dispensing to a foreign fleet) a fairly new but technologically obsolete ship that had minor damage. If the cost of repairing Enterprise was redirected towards procuring an Excelsior, wouldnt it make sense to simply dispense with the repairs of the older vessel?

I could have spent an extra few hundred dollars to repair my Buick, but instead i used the funds to buy a car that was five years newer, and sent a 1989 car that probably had a few more months (or years) of life in it to the junkyard, even though it still ran. It was a better decision, because, in the long run, a 1994 Ford is infinitely more useful to me than a damaged 1989 Buick. The 1701-A wasnt decommissioned because it couldnt or shouldnt be repaired, but because it was just easier to use the time/effort/imaginary-UFP-money to acquire a new Excelsior...
 
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
 
You are forgetting something CaptainMike, starships and cars do cost the amount of money to repair damages (especially under a thousand). Yes if had to have her engine rebuilt, and other vitals replaced, then yes, it would cheaper to buy a newer car. Likewise in starships. As we can see that the E-A did not have major damage to vitals parts of the ship. Sure there are scortch marks and minor denting, but that can repaired fairly easily.

Nah, I like to believe that since the retiring of the crew, and the combination of an new E-B being built and the E-A just being old herself, caused her to be decommisioned. If yoy think about it, it could be that Starfleet lfet the crew cruise around in the ship as a form of respect until they retired. But since she was damaged, Starfleet was not going to spend any amount of repairs to her so she can cruise alittle more for a few months. No, they already of a E-B being built and would be finished by 2296.
 
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
I was just trying to come up with a good analogy.. another would be, that if Congress had allocated 12 zillion dollars to ships and the last zillion could either be used to build a new Bill Clinton-class super sea destroyer, or broken up to repair the fairly new, but entirely inadequate U.S.S. Spiro Agnew, the USN might be tempted to decommission the Agnew just so they could use those funds to commission the BC-class U.S.S. East Virginia (named by Dubya of course)

Since you go on to pretty much agree with what I said, i assume you get my drift though
 
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CaptainMike:
...they could use those funds to commission the BC-class U.S.S. East Virginia (named by Dubya of course)

Surely he'd call it the U.S.S. Wales
[Big Grin]
 
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
That sounds like a perfectly good name for a ship. Noble, even.
 
Posted by Tahna Los (Member # 33) on :
 
We're talking about Starships, right? Then that's where it will go.

Shoulda seen this a LOT sooner. Gotta get my butt in here more......
 


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