quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: [QBThe only example we have is from Ben Sisko's desktop model, and you're correct in that the later font is used. But, given Enterprise's registry typeface and the continuity it suggests between NX-01 to NCC-1701, I'd chalk that up to an error on Sisko's part, not definitive proof of any switching-back-and-forth.[/QB]
That's not enough, IMO, to use as an example of a continuity link between ENT and TOS. Keep in mind we know they go from saucer to sphere to saucer again! Why can't the hull marking font change too? If we ignore the font, we're discrediting the pictures of Trek history as shown in the Chronology Ed. I and II. I'll hold to my theory that they got it right until we see a Daedalus Class on screen. Until contradicted by an onscreen presence, Sisko's model and the Chronology pics are cannon, are they not?
posted
The chronology pics' canonicity is iffy. From the model that was on Sisko's desk, we know there was a ship in service that looked like that. From "Power Play" We know that the Essex was a Deadalus Class ship. The only connection we have between the design on Sisko's desk and the Deadalus class is the Encyclopedia and Chronology. We've never seen that design on screen represented as a Daedalus class, though that was obviously the intent.
posted
Since Starfleet seam to constantly switching uniforms, rank indicators and insignia from one decade to another then why can't they switch their typefaces around too?
The two camps have settled down to a Mexican standoff as to whether the "unique insignia for each ship" posit holds any water. There were enough instances of non-Enterprise personnel wearing the familiar delta symbol that I go with James Dixon's conclusion that the different insignia seen represent different branches of Starfleet service, with the delta being the one for what Franz Joseph called the "Star Fleet Armed Forces" -- the ones who do border patrol and respond to planetary crises and invasions by hostile vessels.
Around the time they redid the uniforms pre-Wrath of Khan (between 2271 and 2278), they then folded all the branches of Starfleet together under the umbrella of that single insignia. This might have something to do with the more militaristic feel Starfleet had in the rest of the movies... something to do with the increased hostilities with the Klingons that lasted until the Khitomer conference in 2291 (regardless of Okuda's timeline, that date fits better).
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Hmm...yet another reason to ignore the ridiculous registry number; the markings aren't even in the right format.
I had no idea that the Excelsior's pennant was so different from the Enterprise's, I think I'll be tracing that as a vector and putting it on my Starfleet markings shelf. I actually watched Generations the other day and sure enough, the E-B had exactly the same pennant as the Excelsior.
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: Hmm...yet another reason to ignore the ridiculous registry number; the markings aren't even in the right format.
Well, I personally like the higher registry myself for the Prometheus. As far as the 'other' format markings, it must've been the concoction of the CGI houses as the Delta Flyer proudly displays that same font only black outline instead of red!
I didn't realize the Excelsior's symbol was tilted upwards until a few days ago when I was watching Trek III on DVD and used the 15x zoom to see the Excelsior start up as Enterprise was backing out of spacedock.
posted
MMoM: Because I've read and understood all of the points James Dixon uses to construct his Chronology, and it makes a helluva lot more sense to me than Okuda's Chronology.
Read the appendices to Dixon's Chronology sometime (skimming the bits where he bashes Okuda and Shane Johnson), and you'll find all of his data points there.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
the only problem is that Dixon == first class fucking nutjob.. have you ever read his appendices? he's too biased against certain aspects of Trek production to ever make an informed decision about what the intention of the writers was, or to even be accurate to the source material.
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
And have you ever read the appendices without getting your buttons pushed by those vociferous biases? The latter-day retconned stuff he ignores, and rightly so when I look at the rest of the objective supporting data... That Okuda was well-intentioned doesn't make a lot of his conjectures any less wrong in light of what led to those conjectures...
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
um.. we could spend all day arguing about whether a conjecture could be right or wrong (by its very definition, a conjecture is a non-fact).. but the fact remains that Okuda's system is malleable and makes sense, while Dixon's is fueled by his celibate spite against Paramount having rightful control of their property.
Basically, Dixon really likes shitty Bantam novels and Jackill's blueprints, which suck, and tries to reshape Trek in the image of non-licensed fanboys like himself. the resulting history is a bizarre mirror image, and downright wrong. Star Fleet Battles was not meant to happen in the Star Trek timeline. nor were the Best of Trek magazine compilations.
I'll admit that Okuda's version is less than logical, and i've taken him to task in things ive written on this very board, but his version is a lot more palatable than the good Mr. Dixon's
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Oh, I happily admit Star Fleet Battles is an alternate universe at best. For my personal use, I've chopped all the SFB and "Mirror" universe and other alternate timeline stuff out of my copy of his Chronology. Aside from streamlining it immensely (as these things didn't happen in the "real" Trek universe), the stuff that's left in does support his timeline, and I applaud his efforts to include all of the novels. Especially with the DS9 relaunch, the novels are all we have left of that era after Nemesis.
One example... I wholeheartedly approve of his placement of TOS/TAS/TMP based on data points from the episodes and novels, rather than Okuda's approach of arbitrarily taking the episode airdates for TOS and adding three hundred years.
I agree that other things in there still need work, like his slavish acceptance of every single offering from every single fandom shipwright of the 70s and 80s, but even with the flaws that are still in there, it's head-and-shoulders above Okuda's conjecture- and disclaimer-filled Chronology.
And lest y'all think I'm an Okuda-basher myself, don't worry... I love what he's done on the shows, and am immensely grateful for the artistic talent with which he's filled everything from Star Trek IV on. I just want people to realize that, as with Gene himeself, his comments are not -- and should not be considered -- the Way Things Are.
The most painful thing to watch with Gene's ongoing involvement with Star Trek was his unwillingness to admit his creation had outgrown him. From TMP on, he fought what Trek was growing into, rather than working with the way things were taking shape. And Mike's reverence for Gene led him to blindly accept certain dictates Gene made during pre- and early production of TNG -- about what's canon and what isn't, about how starships should be designed... Stuff that Mike had no idea grew out of Gene's personal relationships with various writers over the years, and wasn't a carefully-reasoned-out scientific law from the Great Bird.
Mike unhesitatingly adopted Roddenberry's Rules of Starship Design, not knowing that Gene only came up with them to discredit the work of Franz Joseph, with whom Gene had had a business-related falling-out.
Mike readily accepted that the refit Enterprise was still a Constitution-class vessel, in order to quash the FASA and fandom Enterprise-class legacy -- which, ironically, had been gleaned from the production staff of the first two Trek films. Mike turned out to be invalidating the work of his predacessors.
Nor did anyone working on the ongoing development of Trek ever think of consulting the people who first created Trek for insights into what they intended, apart from Gene and Justman. To this day, I wonder what might have happened if Starfleet organizational designers -- from Franz Joseph to Mike Okuda -- had bothered to talk to Matt Jeffries before concocting their systems out of thin air...
--Jonah
P.S. Yes, MMoM, that does mean I believe in the Enterprise class.
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
