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T-Negative #27 (Yes, I *found* it!)
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Peregrinus: [QB] I'm still diddling out a Class/Mark chart for the contemporary era, so that's the notation I'll be using for this... I'm not a SotSF apologist, but I do note that "Tactical Cruiser" appears there, too. I understand "Explorer" to indicate the ability to operate completely autonomously for years at a time away from base support and crew rotation. They will be commanded by a Captain skilled in diplomacy in hopes that we have no more "disasterous" first contacts. The Explorers are generally the most massive ships in the fleet, with the possible exception(s) of colonial transports and/or fuel tankers. They differ from Heavy Cruisers in that the Cruisers will be more limited in creature comforts and scientific/analytical ability. For much of TNG, the [i]Enterprise[/i] waffled back and forth between Explorer and Heavy Cruiser (in terms of missions and performance). From late first season on, they hung around Earth an awful lot for a ship that was earlier looking forward to getting out into "the great unexplored mass of the galaxy" beyond Deneb. When it comes to the [i]Ambassador[/i] class, I note the [i]Horatio[/i] wasn't seen as anything but debris. The [i]Zhukov[/i] and [i]Yamaguchi[/i] were the "modified" [i]Ambassador[/i]s, and their registries predate the [i]Excalibur[/i], seen to be of the "original" design shared by the [i]Enterprise-C[/i]. From this I (admittedly tentatively) conclude they are concurrent designs serving different mission profile needs, and not a case of a design refit like the one the [i]Constitution[/i] class went through. I say the same for the [i]Excelsior[/i]s. We know Kirk helped on the [i]Excelsior[/i] redesign that led to the [i]Enterprise-B[/i], and that its alterations point toward an improved long-range capability, and expanded long-range sensor capacity (at least that's how I interpret the secondary hull chines flanking the main long range sensor dish). Thus I conclude that that comparitively rare [i]Excelsior[/i] variant is an Explorer, probably the first ship so dubbed. Maybe even part of the PR circus surrounding the [i]Enterprise-B[/i]'s launch... And as each new Explorer comes along, it bumps the previous front-runner to second-seat status. Thus in 2380 we have something like: EXPLORERS Class I/Mark III ([i]Enterprise-D[/i]) Class II/Mark II ([i]Enterprise-C[/i]) Class III/Mark I ([i]Enterprise-B[/i]) HEAVY CRUISERS Class I/Mark XVII ([i]Sovereign[/i]) Class I/Mark XVI ([i]Nebula[/i]) Class II/Mark XIV ([i]Akira[/i]) Class II/Mark XIII (modified-style [i]Ambassador)[/i] Class III/Mark XII (or whatever the [i]Excelsior[/i]s are...) And so on. This is of course incredibly sloppy, and only intended to give a sense of how they might be looked at by Starfleet. --Jonah [/QB][/QUOTE]
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