posted
no, in this case awesome means awesome. keep in mind that when i said "that episode is awesome!", i meant exlcluding the whole "geordi can't fuck a real woman so he goes after a fake one" stuff. so, basically cut half of the episode out of the middle. the first quarter and last quarter of the episode are awesome. i'm abig archaeology buff, so the whole promellian battlecruiser stuff rocks. as does seing picard as the helmsman.
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I might describe episodes such as 'BoBW' and 'AGT' as awesome, but not Booby Trap. It was an entertaining, and well constructed episode, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't awesome - except Brahms' lab at Utopia Planitia. It was our first glimpse at the time, and that was awesome.
Very good point about the Yellowstone. I'd forgotten that. But being a 24th century ship it counts against the original theory.
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
quote:Originally posted by The Red Admiral: I'm not saying this was an actual class at all, but it exists there in the scene for a reason.
Because whoever threw the model together mucked up/was drunk?
-------------------- 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
Because it's on screen therefor canon. Unless there's a new rule that only cool looking designs displayed on screen is considered canon, then we might was well get into a discussion on what's cool and what's not.
Sol System, aside from real world behind the scenes Star Trek special effects what's your reason for having a ship with NCC-42XXX whereas previous ships with lower registry is a standard Excelsior? Why haven't we seen the others as well?
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Registered: Jul 2000
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Eh, I'm not sure about anyone else, but when they mentioned the Lakota as being refitted, and then showed it later on as an E-B variant, I figured that it used to be a regular Excelsior class ship, and was refitted to E-B specs.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I think you're trying to over complicate it... the Lakota was built as an E-B variant... then was refit before the episode it was featured in with modern weaponry and defenses.
If Starfleet is still using the Excelsior version of the class and their aren't that many of the E-B version, the easiest explaination is that the E-B was an attempt to make the Excelsior Class better at being a "Warp Drive Ship" remember that the Excelsior Class was originally a "Transwarp Drive Ship." Unfortunately for all that work it seems that the E-B didn't make any significant improvements on the design so both were essentially kept but the Excelsior [because it takes less materials] was the prefered version. It just so happened that the "good" Admiral was able to get the Lakota, which just happened to be an E-B version, to be upgraded.
Which brings up another question, what is the difference between refit and upgrade? Is refit something as dramatic as the TOS E to the Movie E? Or is it simply the Movie E to the Movie E-A [even though they are different ships, many people seem to think, and so do I, that the E-A was a renamed ship that had just gone through a refit/upgrade, it wasn't a brand new ship]. Was the E-B a refit or an upgrade? Was the Lakota a refit or an upgrade? Did the Ambassador Class get a refit or an upgrade? What about the Galaxy Class [first the E-D's warp core, then the phaser strips on the Venture, and let's not forget that dark neck]?
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posted
I'd divide these things into overhauls, upgrades and refits, in that order of severity.
An overhaul IMHO means refurbishment of existing systems, with only minor swaps of subsystems if any. It certainly won't show on the ship's exterior.
An upgrade may feature external changes, since it can take the form of addition of major new equipment. It may also be a mere overhaul, but a mere overhaul can't be an appearance-altering upgrade, if you catch my drift.
A refit always fits something all-new into the ship. By old naval traditions, it may be that ships actually get decommissioned for the duration of a refit, and recommissioned at completion. That would explain some late commissioning stardates in elderly-looking or low-registered ships... A ship certainly wouldn't get decommissioned for a mere overhaul. Still, even a major refit need not be externally visible.
Or then these terms are interchangeable and you can forget all my ramblings...
posted
The name 'refit' already suggests taking the ship apart and literally re-fit the pieces. An upgrade would probably not involve any major work on the spaceframe. So the Venture batch of Galaxies and the darknecks (possibly some kind of ablative armor?) would be upgrades to the Galaxy class. An upgrade can also be built from scratch, while a refit means actually taking a ship and modifying it. At least, that's what I think.
posted
Timo makes an interesting point about the Navy decommissioning ships for the duration of a refit. Which might suggest that Kirk's Enterprise was decommissioned at the end of the five-year mission, and then recommissioned at the start of TMP.
I'm not up on all my naval traditions; is there some equivalent to Starfleet's dedication plaques on ships of the US Navy and other seagoing vessels? That might help set the definition of commissioning dates.
Even better... there were ships like the USS Sutherland which were commissioned only a few weeks before "Redemption, Part II" according to the set's dedication plaque. I've always assumed that the Sutherland was a newly-built ship. But what if it were actually a ship that had been decommissioned for a major refit or repair -- for instance, as a ship salvaged after Wolf 359? Heck, that might even explain the differing registry numbers of the USS Ahwahnee...
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Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
I am not sure why it is up to me to justify the Lakota. It looked like the Enterprise B just because it did works fine as far as I am concerned.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Just some minor real world terminology, from the aerospace industry anyway.
When an aircraft is upgraded with new technology, better structures, whatever, no specific term is used. I think it depends on the businessspeak of the day as to what it's called, be it upgrade, improvement, overhaul, etc. This applies only to new builds. Occasionally, so many new systems are changed that it warrants a new designation, i.e. F/A-18A to F/A-18C, or 737-200 to 737-300.
When a certain capability has to be put in all aircraft, a "retrofit" has to be performed on the one that have already been built.
I'm not sure about the current naval terminologies, but considering some of the overlap in specialties, I can't imaging it being much different, especially since many companies (Northrop being a prime example) deal with both.
quote: no, in this case awesome means awesome. keep in mind that when i said "that episode is awesome!", i meant exlcluding the whole "geordi can't fuck a real woman so he goes after a fake one" stuff. so, basically cut half of the episode out of the middle. the first quarter and last quarter of the episode are awesome.
So, it's awesome apart from 50% of the episode which was shit?
quote: Because it's on screen therefor canon. Unless there's a new rule that only cool looking designs displayed on screen is considered canon, then we might was well get into a discussion on what's cool and what's not.
Oh, this is stupid beyond all laws of god and man. Following this logic, every single runabout on DS9 had the registry of NCC-72452, Data was a Lieutenant Junior Grade just before "Encounter at Farpoint", and a parrot with Gene Roddenberry's head was involved in secret Starfleet orders.
There's paying attention to what is on screen, and then blindly believing that all mistakes are intentionally put there by TPTB to mean something.
-------------------- 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
Myself, I'm kinda fond of the idea that the E-B variant made the Excelsior into more of an exploratory cruiser, pushing Starfleet towards the explorer-type ship. The E-B was primarily on a mission of exploration. It could be that the Lakota, too, was one of these Excelsior-explorers, and that the reason we didn't see any E-B variants in TNG/DS9 because the Excelsiors we did see were all inner-Federation ferry ships, like the Hood.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Making the E-B variant a limited-production sub-class designed for a specific type of mission would also explain why we haven't seen them more often. Realistically speaking, if the E-B's specs represented a significant upgrade to the capabilites of the class, why would Starfleet have built any old-model Excelsiors after her? Having a handful of the class retooled to do one type of job while the rest of their sisters remain general-purpose vessels makes sense to me.
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Registered: Aug 2001
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