quote:Originally posted by Timo: USS Bill of Rights sounds a bit awkward. Is there a vessel of that name in USN service? Was there ever? Then again, if a USN ship can be named USS Lewis and Clark, or USS The Sullivans, I guess USS Bill of Rights is okay as well...
Timo Saloniemi
Yippee, old thread! Never too late to learn something new.
My copy of Best Destiny has a dedication to "the young men and women in the Vision Quest program, and to the crews of the Schooners New Way and Bill of Rights, who prove that troubled youth can not only be saved...they can save themselves." Presumably the Excelsior in the book is named after the schooner. It ties in with the novel's own theme about Kirk's childhood.
Best Destiny's technobabble sets my teeth on edge even more than the average Voyager episode. But as an exploration of Kirk's character I found it a fascinating read. I never would have compared Kirk to Grant, but once they did it seems perfectly apt.
Now contains entries for TOS, TNG, DS9/NF, MISC (everything from IKS Gorkon to "A Time To..." to The Lost Era to "Brave and the Bold"), and FASA.
Entries for "Prime Directive" coming soon. (although I only have one book. Anybody out there have "Star Fleet Battles?")
Then LUG, and possibly the Decipher RPG.
Still looking for shiplists from the computer games.
Haven't decided whether or not to try listing everything in Jackill's 3 volume set, SotSF and it's companion books, or the Franz Joseph book.
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: A side order for somebody already so thoroughly familiar with that much Trek lit:
What references to Starfleet fightercraft do you remember?
There are some in "Captain's Table: War Dragons" and "Dreadnought!", but what else exists? My collection of TOS books is far from complete...
Timo Saloniemi
The USS Aerfen, piloted by a Captain Hunter, appears in "The Entropy Effect." All I can remember is that I believe it's painted red, Captain Hunter was a woman, and Sulu was tempted to leave the Enterprise to serve with her.
The various Peregrine Class ships piloted by the Maquis in various books might count.
And then there are the fighters in one of Jackill's books, but I haven't gotten that far yet.
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the Aerfen was a larger-crewed vessel, analogous to the perimeter action type ships of Ships of the Star Fleet: Defiant-like: small, fast and well armed, Aerfen was a member of a patrol squadron, and saw action on a fairly regular basis. It might even have a smaller crew than an escort like the Defiant.. it'd be a fascinating picture of 23rd century non-starship Starfleet life to imagine a 10-20 people patrol craft like this..
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Gotta get "Entropy Effect", then. The Aerfen sounds like prime material for defining the Agilis class perimeter ship specs. Especially with the alliterated naming schemes of the later PA ships...
Funny that there wouldn't be more stuff on fightercraft there. One would expect the Trek writers of that era to squeeze everything they can out of the Star Wars boom.
posted
Captain Hunter and her squadron were also mentioned in Vonda McIntyre's novel Enterprise. Sulu was supposed to be assigned to Hunter out of the Academy, and that's what he wanted. He was initially really pissed when Kirk pulled rank to get him for the Enterprise instead.
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Great Minds do some things Alike, Timo.. I first tried to assign the Aerfen to the Agilis-class about ten years ago in my shiplists.
btw, heres some relevant text from the novel, which i innocently found somewhere. fans of Masao's work take note of the paint scheme comments..
quote:Originally novelzumized by Vonda "N." McIntyre: The second ship curved up from beneath the station, and with a sudden shock of perspective Kirk could see, by comparison with the tiny scarlet speck of the other craft, the sheer immense bulk of Aleph Prime. Of course the station was large, it had to be; it held half a million intelligent beings, human as well as other life-forms. Sulu magnified the approaching ship, and Kirk had a brief glimpse of a tantalizingly familiar shape, painted quite unmilitarily in the colors of a phoenix eagle, before the picture dissolved and the video portion of the communication appeared on the screen. �Hunter!� Kirk said involuntarily. �Aerfen to Enterprise,� said the other starship�s captain. �Come in, Jim, is that you?� She paused.
quote:Originally novelzumized by Vonda "N." McIntyre: The transmission faded. By now Hunter�s ship had swung far enough up the face of Aleph Prime to present its side to the Enterprise. Sulu magnified it again and gazed at it rapturously. �Captain Hunter and Aerfen,� he said in awe. He glanced back at Kirk. �You know her, Captain?� �We�.�.�. went to school together.� Kirk had never seen Sulu in quite such a state of hero-worship; Kirk did not think Sulu could have been more surprised if D�Artagnan himself, flexing his �p�e and twirling the end of his mustache, had appeared and spoken to him. And far from being amused, Kirk understood completely how Mr. Sulu felt. He felt that way himself, and with far more reason. Sulu moved the Enterprise expertly into a stable orbit around Aleph Prime. Relative to the plane of the star system, Aerfen circled Aleph in a polar orbit. Instead of choosing a vacant level and inserting the larger ship into equatorial orbit, Sulu used a bit of extra time and a bit of extra fuel to position his ship so that, from the bridge, Aerfen would remain in view as long as it kept to its present track. Sulu let its sleek lines fill his gaze. It was much smaller than the Enterprise, for it was a fighter. Its design presented the smallest possible cross-section to an enemy in head-on approach, so it appeared to be streamlined. It was painted a fierce scarlet, with points of black and silver. It looked like a swift, powerful avian predator. As he put the finishing touches on the Enterprise�s orbit, the relative orientation of the fighter to the starship changed slightly, and he could see a long bright gash in Aerfen�s side, where the paint had been vaporized by an enemy weapon. �It�s seen some action,� he said softly. Recently, too, he thought. He knew intuitively that Hunter would not let her ship stay scarred any longer than she absolutely had to.
quote:Originally novelzumized by Vonda "N." McIntyre: �You didn�t get orders to come to Aleph, did you?� Jim asked. �No. This is the only outpost in my sector that will paint Aerfen the way I want it, without throwing stupid regulations at me. And my crew likes it for liberty. Gods know they deserve some right now. How about you?�
I don't think "it was a fighter" should be taken too literally here, but should rather be read as "she was a fighting ship"...
And yes, the "small frontal profile" would suggest something similar to the Akyazi design, something flat with a single hull and in-plane nacelles. Yeah, I'm quite sold to this concept. A crew of 10-20, you say? Anything more on her? Armament? Speed? Shuttle hangar? Transporters?
posted
A TOS version of the Akyazi might be nice: I already built a DS9 version cruiser of it.THe Odanta is pretty close to that idea but may be a bit large for what you're thinking: it'd have a crew of mabye 100 in the TOS era.
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A crew of 10-20, you say? Anything more on her? Armament? Speed? Shuttle hangar? Transporters?
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