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"This should provide adequate sustenance for the Doctor Who marathon"
-Fat Sarcastic Comic Book Guy
1) The Apollo-class Gage was the weird saucer thing in "Emissary" (DS9). Some people think this is correct, since the Gage is mentioned as being in that ep in the Encyclopedia, but someone actually said the Gage's name, so the saucer thing doesn't have to be the Gage. There's a passage in "The Making of DS9" that says the saucer was supposed to be the Melbourne's, anyway, I think.
2) The encyclopedia is wrong, and none of the Vulcan ships was the T'Pau, and we've never seen an Apollo.
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http://frankg.dgne.com/
"Let's get those missiles ready to destroy the universe!" - TMBG
[This message was edited by The Shadow on June 10, 1999.]
In the Okudagram from the first part, the class of the T'Pau is not given. Date of retirement (2364-41344.20), owner (Vulcan Merchant Marines, I believe), registry, and a few other trivial details are given. Throughout the episode, I saw no one pulling up the records of the T'Pau. So Riker and Geordi may not have known the T'Pau was Apollo. They both knew the ship was Vulcan and the ships they were looking at were Vulcan. So, they both jumped to assumptions-the T'Pau is among the three ships.
Further, starships of Starfleet have a starship configuration ("The Doomsday Machine")-nacelles, secondary hull (in most ships before 2365), and a primary hull. The Vulcan ships didn't hold to the starship configuration. I have never seen an official starship class of Starfleet before 2365 not hold to the starship configuration.
These are my arguments against the T'Pau being one of the three Vulcan ships.
The ship that is seen briefly in "Emissary" could not be the USS Melbourne. The USS Melbourne had 50% of its primary hull vaporized by the Borg Ship and is displaced by the Borg ship to the port of the USS Saratoga. The unidentified ship is to the USS Saratoga's starboard. To complicate matters, the USS Gage may been only in the script of "Emissary" and there may not have actually been a model. In the Deep Space Nine Collector's Edition, Issue 1, the USS Gage attacks the ship and is destroyed. Then the USS Kyushu jumps in and is destroyed. Then the USS Melbourne, the USS Bellerophon, the USS Yamaguchi, and the USS Saratoga engage the Borg ship. (I think the USS Bonestell got caught in the Battle and is trying to get out of the system. The direction she is going in that episode is parallel to the Borg ship and under the USS Saratoga.)
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Not to scale
a USS Kyushu
b Unidentified ship
c USS Melbourne
d USS Saratoga
e USS Bonestell
[This message was edited by Trinculo on June 09, 1999.]
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"I ran into Charlie Fogg.
He blacked my eye, and he kicked my dog.
My dog turned to me, and he said,
'Let's head back to Tennessee, Jed.'"
-The Grateful Dead, "Tennessee Jed"
Still, the statement in the Encyclopedia II is stronger, and the T'Pau is probably one of the three Vulcan ships, with or without deflector.
I'm aware that I could be totally wrong, and maybe Okuda just did the Encyclopedia without having the Gage saucer in mind that was probably supposed to be the "actual" Apollo class.
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http://frankg.dgne.com/
"Speak softly, drive a Sherman tank." - TMBG
Whew, that was a mouthful. Please tell me if I've missed anything or if anything is unclear.
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"This should provide adequate sustenance for the Doctor Who marathon"
-Fat Sarcastic Comic Book Guy
[This message was edited by USS Vanguard on June 14, 1999.]