posted
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 ...
"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."
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
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....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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And what happens if the damage-reporting computer got damaged?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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"Are you absolutly sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb."
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
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.
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
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.
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
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.
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
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.
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
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...
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Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
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.
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Registered: Jul 2000
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
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
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Registered: Sep 2001
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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
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Registered: Feb 2002
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