posted
In this thread, Masaki posted a link to an article on his site containing an image of the Excelsior studio model during production of "Encounter at Farpoint." The image showed the model in STIII configuration (simple bridge, single impulse deflection crystal) labeled as the U.S.S. Hood with a registry of NCC-2541. The links no longer work, however, and I was wondering if anybody had saved this picture and could post it. I thought that I had it on my HD but apparently I was mistaken. Any help is much appreciated.
Since I have now started a thread dealing with the Hood and its aberrant registry numbers, and since I was just taking screenshots from "Sacrifice of Angels" (DS9), here for the record is a clear shot of the CGI Hood mislabeled with the registry number of the U.S.S. Lakota, NCC-42768.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I admit that it would be hard if we didn't already know them from the Digital Muse people and David Stipes, but they're pretty recognizable given the prior confirmation. Additionally, you have to remember that the shot is a JPEG compression of a bitmap image taken through PowerDVD. Some resolution is inevitably lost.
-MMoM
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Since the registry is not assigned to any other ship, could the USS Hood NCC-2541 be viewed as a precursor to the later USS Hood NCC-42296 ?
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
The only reason I'd hesitate would be that NCC-2541 is already USS Sur Cha
Then again, SotSF fans also have the Repulse/Alor problem with NCC-2544...
All in all, I'd think Starfleet would order more than one Excelsior in the 2280s. However, we'd then have to assume that the "Great Experiment" title only applied to NX-2000 and not to her sister ships, since it would be idiotic to build more than one experiment of that magnitude before finding out whether it works or not. (This regardless of whether it did work or not - I'm all open to the interpretation that transwarp was a splendid success overall, and became a standard feature by the turn of the century, but that still wouldn't excuse the building of all those four-digit Excelsiors to experimental specs.)
The two-registry Hood would be our first real example of Starfleet reusing a name within a class, the Defiant being the second. No reason why they shouldn't do that, though.
posted
Or Oooga Booga for the Witchdoctor class? It's there in background of SOA (about four pixels across in for two seconds).
I just think it both odd and cool that the Excelsior has three versions that went into production.
Makes all those Miranda varinats and kitbashes a bit more palatable.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I deliberately chose to exclude the special "E" case, and did admittedly forget about the two Mirandas - although the latter weren't identical designs, like the Hoods and Defiants were.
There could be another reason to consider the Saratogas a slightly different case: the second Defiant was a successor to the first, and so far we can argue that the second Hood also replaced the first, but the second Saratoga seems to have been launched decades after the demise of the first one. That is, unless the first ship survived the ST4 calamity and continued service until well into the 24th century.
Frankly, I'm delighted that the Excelsiors show as much variety as they do, although the TNG stock footage doesn't quite let us canonically argue that the NX-2000 configuration really remained in use in the TNG era (the distinguishing features aren't visible from the stock footage shooting angles). It would have been nice to see the Miranda model "modernized" in a similar manner when it was introduced to the TNG era...
posted
It's also possible that the Excelsior was a stock "new" starship hull with special engines and systems, just one oddball variant out of a set of ships of the same general design.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I'd say that the designation "FIRST STARSHIP OF HER CLASS" on the Excelsior'sdedication plaque and the term "Excelsior-class" being used in "Family" (TNG) and on the Enterprise-B's plaque would tend to run against that reasoning.
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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