Damm. I was hoping that the next Excalibur would be a Sovereign-class. Personally, I would rather take a Sovereign than a Galaxy into Thallonian space. Besides, having a large number of noncombatants aboard a ship that might possibly go into a fight is asking for trouble.
Any thoughts on this?
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I do what the voices in my head tell me to do
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"Huh. An intelligent guard. I never would have guessed."
-Preed, Titan A.E.
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The world is not enough, but it is such a perfect place to start my love
And if you're strong enough, together we can take the world apart my love
Switching to a Galaxy means the series loses some of its personality. On the other hand, the arguments about this ship type being the most suited for independent, multi-faceted operations remains. A dedicated warship (or a dedicated anything, really) would narrow down the scope of storylines too much.
Ambassador and Galaxy are basically identical in their "status", except that Ambassador is an older model, and giving that to Calhoun may have reflected Starfleet hesistancy in committing to him. A top-of-the-line ship would indicate Starfleet wants Calhoun to keep up the good work (I trust it is a spoiler to nobody that Mac will survive - PAD simply has no other choice). No radical changes in mission profile or Calhoun's instructions.
Using a big ship like a Galaxy also virtually seems to ensure that the crew will not be split up. PAD needs all his characters to fill up the ship, and may even have to add some.
Does a Galaxy differ from an Ambassador at all from the storytelling POV? Perhaps PAD will use the Captain's
Yacht. Saucer separation and reattaching capability will probably also play a role. Hopefully, PAD will also mention other differences, established or newly invented (McHenry could complain about the sublight sluggishness of the design, or Soleta could praise its superior computers, or something).
Timo Saloniemi
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This is how i prefer the borg... in pieces!!! -- Janeway in Dark Frontier
Seventhworld, the new SciFi-Project
http://members.aol.com/fallenwalls
Soon to be featured StarTrek Nemesis
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"We set sail on this new sea because their is new knowledge to be gained and new rights to be won" John F Kennedy
members.aol.com/mfwan/index.htm
The TNG TM hints that the Enterprise isn't the only ship honoured with a letter suffix. It's rare but it's not unique.
The destroyed Ambassador class is NCC-26517.
So NCC-26517-A is the first ship named in honour of the Ambassador class USS Excalibur. Perfectly okay.
The only cock-up would be if the dedication plaque says something like 'second starship to bear the name' as that would be wrong because of the Constitution class vessel (and any other, unseen Excaliburs). However, the books are very unlikely to give us a description of the dedication plaque.
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-->Identity Crisis<--
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"Huh. An intelligent guard. I never would have guessed."
-Preed, Titan A.E.
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In the last published New Frontier novel (I don't recall the name), the very last sentence in the book goes something like "...five minutes before the Excalibur blew up..." No other info.
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Captain Tenille: "Oh, Simpson, you're like the son I never had."
Homer: "And you're like the father I never visit."
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It is better to walk the path of the devil than to be in the path of the devil. Though it still might not be the right path.
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"Huh. An intelligent guard. I never would have guessed."
-Preed, Titan A.E.
The Calhoun guy is a total maverick who disregards rules whenever he can, he rarely communicates with others and has a sort of condescending attitude to everything, there's more explicit violence and sex than in Trek novels in general, and PAD seeds lots of in-jokes and surprise plot twists everywhere. Multiply all that by ten, insert half a dozen minor characters borrowed from PAD's other books or favorite TNG episodes, add a pseudo-continuous plotline throughout all the books, and you get New Frontier. *I* like the series, even though it's rather over the top.
Timo Saloniemi