New Orleans-Class

No. It was artwork on a wall. Are you claiming the same for the B?

That was the "prime" universe C. Its entry through the fissure triggered the alternate reality, into which it promptly it found itself. If the C was alternate reality version the whole time, it could not have re-entered the prime universe and led to Sela, etc.

 

No, otherwise the USS. Stargazer would had been a Constitution class starship instead of a Constellation.

The Enterprise-C isn't the only Ambassador we had seen. We saw the USS. Zhukov, I think it was Data's Day when we saw the Zhukov. The Yamaguchi in the Emissary and the Exeter in the DS9 Tears of The Prophet. I think she was behind the Defiant when they started firing at the weapons platforms?

 

What about the Enterprise-B? In ST VII we saw the B with the added-on bumpers. Was it the first ship to feature these and what was the function of these bumpers? During events in ST VII a considerable part of the bumpers were destroyed.

Did they reconstruct these or did Starfleet get new information in the meantime that these bumpers weren't such a great thing (notice that most of the Excelsior Class Starships in the 24th Century do not have these bumpers "any more"). Maybe Starfleet decided to retro-convert the B into a standard Excelsior Class Starship? For whatever reason what we see on the conference lounge wall may just be the B in her final appearance. We simply don't have enough information (or imagination) to label the sculpture of the Enterprise-B as wrong or flawed.

That's just a conjectural assumption. "Previously" on TNG Guinan had stabbed Q's hand. And 'coincidentally' Guinan was the only one in the alternate timeline noticing something was wrong.
For all we know the whole situation could have been Q's revenge for what she did to him in "Deja Q", as Guinan is the one being put into the uncomfortable position to figure things out and persuade Captain Picard of the alternate timeline to send this Enterprise-C back in time.

Unless we have irrefutable onscreen evidence that in the "real" TNG universe the Enterprise-C did look like the one in the alternate timeline (e.g. dialogue, cross-section monitor display or the like), there is no reason not to assume that the "real" Enterprise-C looked like the one on the conference lounge's wall sculpture display.

The only thing that doesn't work, apparently, is to assume that the Enterprise-C in the "real" universe belonged to the Ambassador Class, too.

Bob

 

A minor point here, but if memory serves, the class wasnt even named until the events of YE.

If we go by that model wall, then all of the different iterations of the Enterprise were somewhat out of proportion and lacking in detail than their real-life counterparts - would you treat that as gospel too? Regardless, the studio filming miniature is the vessel that was shown consistently portraying starships referred to as Ambassador-class, not simply some set-dressing background model.

No.As has been pointed out already, the Enterprise-C from the primary timeline entered the rift, after which it emerged into the alternate future created by its own disappearance.

See above.

A point of view which ignores other flubs, such as the Ent-B depicted incorrectly as a vanilla Excelsior build. The simple fact is that the model wall, as with any other set decoration, was only legitimate until corrected onscreen by the real vessel designs.


Anyhew, going back to the New Orleans.... (sort of)

Dukhat just because refits weren't obviously portrayed in repeated movies or episodes as being de rigeur for ships in the fleet, doesn't mean they didn't happen. For example, I'd suspect that the Reliant and her sisters of similar low registries were at least partial refits (bearing in mind 1701 was commissioned in the 2240s).

It could simply be that the older designs still in service by TNG didn't need any refitting (beyond what could be accomplished by interior systems' upgrades) as they were no longer serving as frontline ships.

For later-registry vessels however, they may have reached the point in their life-cycle where a major refit had been scheduled (or perhaps more likely warranted as part of the fleet improvements post Wolf 359?)

 

Not according to canon. That wall sculpture was never referred to in dialogue or otherwise in the show as the design for the Enterprise-C or the Ambassador class. I know what the intention was, but the fact is it was never actually referred to that on screen. No one ever stated that those ships represented all the older Enterprises. They could just as easily have been random Starfleet vessels.

No. As has already been stated, the Ent-C was from the regular universe and the future only changed to an alternate universe after it entered the rift.

I have no problem rationalizing that the design is a different class of ship. Just not the Ambassador class.

As has also been stated before, the sculpture of the Enterprise-B and the actual Enterprise-B are not the same ship either. So the "proof" of the "Enterprise history wall" becomes even more dubious.

But according to your logic, that wouldn't matter. The model existed. It was meant to represent the Stargazer. It was seen for all seven seasons. We have photographic proof that the model was labeled NCC-7100 whether we could clearly see it on screen or not. There's no more justification for it not to be the Stargazer as the wall sculpture's justification not to be the Enterprise-C.

Sure, what you say is entirely possible. But here's how I interpret what I saw and heard on screen:

Starfleet sent 40 starships to combat the Borg in BoBW. They were all destroyed. The dialogue from Shelby seems to indicate that these 40 ships represented the majority of ships in Starfleet, although DS9 would later show that Starfleet has thousands of ships. She also said that the fleet would be rebuilt within a year, but most of the ships we saw in DS9 were Excelsiors and Mirandas, which were clearly not new. The vast majority of the other DS9 ships were the Akira, Saber and Steamrunner classes. If those classes weren't new either, then where are all the new ships that Shelby's talking about? So how do we justify all this?

Here's my take: Most of the Galaxy-style ship designs were relatively new as of the start of TNG. Those new ships were what Starfleet mostly used against the Borg at Wolf 359 because they represented the best that Starfleet could throw at this new powerful threat. Yes, there were lots of older ships like the Excelsior and Miranda classes, but either Starfleet didn't think they'd be much help, or they vastly underestimated the Borg threat by not using them (probably a bit of both). The destruction of 40 top-of-the-line ships while leaving older and outdated ships still functioning could have been considered a huge loss for Starfleet, justifying Shelby's comment. By the time of the Dominion War Starfleet realized that they'd need all their ships, not just the top-of-the-line ones, which is why we saw old designs along with newer ones, and considerably more than 40. By that time, Starfleet had replenished its losses from Wolf 359 with new ship classes such as the Akira, Steamrunner, Saber, Defiant and Sovereign, specifically designed to combat the Borg, which was why they were used in the Sector 001 battle in FC. YMMV.

 

That and the way registry numbers have expanded so drastically since the days of TOS and the Movies.

What dialogue are you referring to? I can recall nothing where she indicated that that was the bulk of the fleet.

Well first off, there's nothing to stop new batches of older designs being ordered (as we know happened with both Excelsior and Miranda classes at the very least, and IINM, the Nebula variants also).

Secondly, I'm going to employ the dreaded Real Life Production Reasons card, as we all know very well by now that DS9's VFX were hampered by both budget constraints and damaged/unuseable/unavailable CGI models (otherwise we'd surely have seen other classes, such as the oft-bemoaned missing Ambassador) I'll also include in this instance the unnecessary dumbing down by TIIC wherein stipulations were made not to use the Enterprise-E model on DS9 in case it caused "confusion". Dumbasses....

Third, it still doesn't prohibit mid age-range designs having been refit - designs that may have been classed as frigates and so on during the Cardassian war could have been since down-graded, and now revised upwards once again post-refit to fill noticeable gaps in fleet capabilities.

Fourth, there's nothing to say that designs such as the Intrepid, Bradbury, Yeager (even though its onscreen representation was hideous) etc, weren't created to backfill roles left empty by the decimation of the fleet. Remember, even though almost 40 ships were destroyed, they were clearly never designed as "anti-Borg vessels" to begin with, so their loss would have left gaps in regular fleet capability that needed filling.

The Nebulas had IIRC been around for a good 5-10 years, while smaller classes (such as the New Orleans) had it seems been around since the 2340s. Likewise, I'd say based on registry and appearance that the Niagara, Springfield, Challenger, Cheyenne, and Freedom classes had been around for a bit also.

Apart from some Nebulas, I see no evidence of this thus far. Was an official list ever provided, including vessel classes and reg numbers? ETA: Apologies, I just did a quick check and it seems Adml Hanson's flagship was supposed to be a Galaxy, though it remains unnamed so far as I know. Having said that though, it is only one ship!

Also, as I recall during BoBW Pt1 Starfleet was surprised that the Borg had arrived so soon after the events of "Q Who", and dialogue mentioned that they were using everything they had available (ie, in range); but not necessarily all of their best/most powerful assets - in fact I'd expect most of the newer Galaxy types to be off exploring and thus out of range, although the Nebulas I suspect were a significant presence.

I doubt SF underestimated the Borg threat, but that rather they simply didn't have the time to prepare and develop their defences they way they'd have liked (not that that would guarantee any better results! )

Again, I don't see evidence that the fleet was primarily top-of-the-line, either from the hulks shown in the aftermath, or during the scenes shown in "Emissary". And Shelby's glib attitude about having the fleet "up and running within a year" suggests it isn't a huge task to replace such a relatively small number of vessels.

I sort-of-agree with this. I imagine a lot of previously decommissioned/mothballed vessels were recalled into service after undergoing bare minimal refits - either post-Wolf 359 to fill aforementioned gaps in the fleet, or as you suggest, due to Starfleet rapidly moving to prepare for war with the Dominion. The use of those vessels may of -at first- been simply intended to bolster the fleet so as to allow newer vessels to be taken off their assigned duties temporarily and, oh, I dunno... maybe refit to a more modern spec!

YMMV indeed, as I don't accept the Akira as a new design! Rather it looks to me like something that debuted with a registry in the 55000s range, and has since been upgraded to a minor extent (lifeboats being the most noticeable change)...

 

That's correct, it had not been mentioned "on screen". But until the onscreen canon came along as a continuity error, Andrew Probert's design and classification was canon behind-the-scenes.

Including a 20th Century aircraft carrier?!? I think it was pretty obvious what that sculpture wall represented without the need to refer to it.

Inconclusive. Let's take a look at the things we do know:

Military log, Combat date 43625.2. While investigating an unusual radiation anomaly, the Enterprise has encountered what could almost be called a ghost from its own past, the Enterprise-C, the immediate predecessor to this battleship.

Obviously, the Enterprise-C was an Ambassador Class Starship in the alternate universe. "Parallels" established that in Star Trek there are several alternate universes, one where Captain Picard died as Locutus but the Borg ship was destroyed, one where the Borg ship wasn't destroyed and where they are "everywhere" etc.

We can therefore safely assume that there are alternate universes where Tasha Yar did not die in "Skin of Evil" and that there are alternate universes (two at least according to "Yesterday's Enterprise" where the Enterprise-C was an Ambassador Class Starship) where there are different C-Enterprises.

It's entirely possible that Probert's Enterprise-C from the "real" TNG universe travelled to the future of the "real" TNG universe (but one where Tasha hadn't died) and then took her back to the "real" universe where we'd later see her daughter.

Simply put: What we saw in "Yesterday's Enterprise" could be a parallel event occuring in multiple universes but with different "flavors".
As long as we don't understand the mechanics of multiple dimensions or can't exclude Q having a hand in this event, there are simply too many variables to present an assumption (the Enterprise-C is an Ambassador Class Starship in all alternate universes) as factual evidence.

Bob

 

I hear you

I'm basing my supposition on Shelby's line "We'll have the fleet back up and running in less than a year." This implies that the bulk of Starfleet consisted of those 40 ships, or else she would have said "We'll have those 40 ships replaced in less than a year" (which actually would have made way more sense, IMHO) I realize it's not the strongest of evidence, but that seemed to be the implication I got at the time.

But why construct new ships from 70 year old designs if you're trying to combat a new foe who is far more powerful than you are?

Totally on the same page with you there.

The "anit-Borg" vessels was my idea based on the designs and on-screen uses of the ships.

But there's no canon source that states when these ships were constructed. The best info we have is dedication plaque information from a few ships, almost all of which have commissioning dates in the early 2360's regardless of their registry numbers.

Not knowing even a quarter of the ships present at the battle, my supposition is no different from yours

Every vessel shown (with the exception of the Saratoga and an unnamed Oberth) was a Galaxy class contemporary (even the Excelsior class Melbourne had a high 6XXXX registry, implying that she was probably the newest Excelsior built to date). At the time, those would be considered top-of-the-line ships, as opposed to the numerous older Excelsiors and Mirandas we saw in DS9.

I'll concede about the Akira...but those nacelles and lifeboats really irk me...

That's the operative word, was. At the time, that sculpture was indicative of the Ambassador class Enterprise-C. But once the studio model was shown, it lost that classification. The closest way one could justify its existence would be to say that at best it was a poorly-made representation of the "real" ship, or that it wasn't meant to represent the Ambassador class or the Enterprise-C at all, but some other ship and class. And the appearance of the studio model was not a "continuity error" as you state, since the wall sculpture was never referred to on screen as the Ent-C.

Yes, as I said, I know what the wall was meant to represent. But several of the ships in question became invalidated later. The aircraft carrier has nothing to do with that.

There's a problem with your theory: Once everything returned to normal at the end of YE, we still saw other Ambassador class ships that looked like Sternbach's C. We also saw model representations of all the Enterprises in the TNG movies, and the Enterprise-C is still Sternbach's design.

Unless you're saying that the entire events of YE took place in some other universe (i.e. both the Ent-C, the Ent-D from the Klingon war future, and the Ent-D from the correct future have no bearing at all on the rest of TNG), but you'd still be wrong. The point of the episode is that the Enterprise-C from the "Prime" universe was pushed forward in time and inadvertently created a parallel future, in which it needed to return to its own time to correct and erase that parallel future. No "other" universes had anything to do with the story other than the one the Ent-C created and just as quickly erased. But the Ent-C itself has always been canonically the Sternbach design, just as the Ent-B has always been the John Eaves-adapted design and not the original design seen on the history wall.

 

Does it have to be just the first number? Using the first digit would limit this idea to only 9 shipyards.

 

The first digit can't be "birthplace" because we see a bunch of ships with "7" that come from different places. Voyager (74656, Earth Station McKinley says her plaque, despite the fact that "Relativity" has her being fitted out at Utopia Planitia), Yamato (71807, Utopia Planitia), Prometheus (NCC-71201, 40 Eridani Shipyards), Valiant (74210, Antares), Defiant (74205, Antares on plaque, Utopia Planitia according to Sisko) etc. etc

 

Reading "canon behind-the-scenes" actually made me shudder.

 

While 40 ships may not have been the bulk of the fleet, it could be that Shelby meant that particular "subfleet", ie, Home Defence Fleet, or some numeral as DS9 seemed to assign the various sector fleets. Alternately, she may have simply meant that fleet capacity as a whole would be restored within a year (although I still think that's a bit much for 40 ships!) Personally I'm going to chalk it up to bad script-writing. As I recall , BoBW Pt2 was a bit of a rush job so minor errors like this could be forgiven.

I'm not saying the replacements were ordered to fulfill the role of anti-Borg vessels. If you note my previous comments about standard fleet capabilities (light patrol and policing, transport, science&exploratory, etc) within Federation Space being reduced - since I suspect that standard vessels were urgently pulled from their assigned duties within FedSpace for Wolf 359 - then it would make sense that easy-to-build, smaller, well-grounded designs would be rapidly put into production, using, as Unicron rightly points out, existing infrastructure; so as to fill that void.

Sorry, you've lost me there. If you're referring to Wolf 359 ships themselves, there's nothing to support that idea. None of the vessel registries (or dedication plaques) support their having been new ships designed post "Q Who".

I vaguely recall comments from Mike Okuda, indicating that he had designed and numbered the Wolf 359 graveyard ships he built to indicate their being commissioned some years prior to the Ent-D. I don't have the info to hand, although I suspect it can be found on Bernd's site somewhere.

My supposition is based on Hanson's dialogue, citing "a fleet of 40 ships" and "everything we can muster." Bearing in mind that much of the top-of-the-line vessels would be spread throughout Federation Space and beyond, it makes it implausible that they would all arrive in time --- and since there is a whole slew of ships seen since then in the various shows that have reg numbers putting them with a commission date prior to Wolf 359 (but not be old enough to have been mothballed!), it further supports that they simply weren't in range.

To this date, there were 19 different known vessels (almost half of that armada); two of which were Excelsiors, one was a ConnieII, one was the Miranda-class Saratoga, and of course one miniscule Oberth.

A further four of the known graveyard ships were also re-used design mockups for the Excelsior and the "Planet of the Titans" Enterprise. These are clearly not Enterprise-D contemporaries. I grant you that all of these could have been testbed platforms for anti-Borg weaponry, but if such things existed you'd expect the specs to have been made available to the Ent-D crew....

You previously intimated that the Exclesiors and Mirandas seen in DS9 must be old ships. Aren't you now undermining that argument with the above? (I'm just messing, I think the registry on that Excelsior was actually just a flub)

Again with the DS9... As I think I mentioned before, at least some of the DS9 vessels may have been reactived ships brought out of mothballs.

I do agree many at Wolf 359 may have been relatively newer designs, but not necessarily top-of-the-line (with exception of the single sort-of-known Galaxy and whatever Nebulas were available).

Tell me about it.... If I had the time and the skills I'd drum up a revised 3D Akira that doesn't look so anachronistic. But then, if I could do that I'd draw up a pre-refit Steamrunner, et.al.

 

Honestly, Shelby's line and the implication I got from it always made me feel weird. It's 100 years after TOS and Starfleet only has 40 or so ships? The whole ep just made me feel that this was some sort of crushing blow to Starfleet, but as we see later, 40 ships was like nothing. And in retrospect, Hanson only being able to assemble 40 ships (and Picard in "Redemption" only able to assemble 18 ships!) seems ridiculous.

No, I was referring to the FC ships first seen battling the Borg in Sector 001. I just found it odd that we never saw any of those ship designs before, and then coincidentally after Shelby says Starfleet will be constructing new ships, we see these vessels all over the place (well, we would have seen tons of Norways as well if the mesh didn't get lost)

I was part of the whole "Wolf 359 research team" back in 2000 or so when Okuda was supplying us with info. Basically, the point of the kitbashes was to show that Starfleet had more ship designs than just the recycled movie models they were always using. He wanted to show that the Ent-D had contemporary sister ships. However, he made no mention about when these ships would have been built (unless you have information I don't). While the 5XXXX registries on some of them could indicate being older than the 2360's, keep in mind that other ships with 5XXXX registries were being constructed right around the time of the Ent-D as well, and even after (i.e. the Pegasus, the Tsiolkovsky, the Prometheus).

My supposition was the bulk of the ships we actually saw on screen, which were Galaxy contemporaries (see below).

There were only 11 (or 12) canonically seen ships, and 2 mentioned ships:

1. Yamaguchi (Ambassador) - seen on screen
2. Buran (Challenger) - seen on screen
3. Ahwahnee (Cheyenne) - seen on screen
4. Roosevelt (unknown) - mentioned in Voyager, non-canon source gives class as Excelsior but ship never seen on screen
5. Melbourne (Nebula and Excelsior) - seen on screen
6. Firebrand (Freedom) - seen on screen
7. Saratoga (Miranda) - seen on screen
8. Bellerophon (Nebula) seen on screen
9. Kyushu (New Orleans) - seen on screen
10. Princeton (Niagara) - seen on screen)
11. Bonestell (Oberth) - seen on screen
12. Chekov (Springfield) - seen on screen
13. Tolstoy (unknown) - mentioned in BoBW, non-canon source gives class as Rigel but ship never seen on screen

At least nine of those ships are Galaxy contemporaries (ten if you count the Excelsior with the super-high registry)

None of the POTT study models or Excelsior study models were seen in BoBW. Some of them were used in Unification. Furthermore, the saucer and part of the secondary hull from the STIII destroyed Enterprise NCC-1701 was used, but we have no idea in-universe if those parts were from the same ship, or even if that ship was a Connie. There was also a shuttle with "U.S.S. Liberator NCC-6XXXX" written on it, but neither the shuttle nor its mother ship were ever canonically seen on screen, so we don't know if it was ultimately used in the shot.

Well, while I agree with you that the Excelsior Melbourne should have had a different registry, it didn't, so I'm going with what I saw on screen

I'll be honest...I hate all four of those FC ships. I realize that they were just meant to be background ships, but I think they're ugly and they should have had higher registry numbers than what they had (damn you, ILM!) But that's enough ranting from me...

 

Completely incidental, but I'm really enjoying this thread!

Oh, this. Definitely this. I say we rationalise it as this having been the bulk of the "home fleet" and thus most seen and recognised by the core worlds -- with the vast majority of vessels assigned further out...

Well, the easy answer as we all know, is "there was never a story need and budget sufficient to show them" I have no problem with the FC ships having been around in some form decades prior, any more than I do with the Apollo-class having been unseen (not to mention as a sister-class to Ambassador)... but I digress.

I shall bow to your wisdom then on that! I've simply grabbed some detail from the EAS website (admittedly some of Bernd's analyses are... flawed... but the factual detail is still good).

No argument there!

I've been scrabbling around to find the source, but the life of me I can't remember where I read it, so best ignore that for now.

I would be more than hesitant to use these cited exceptions (especially those which were merely production flubs) as the rule... I'm also not sure where you got that the Pegasus was constructed around the time of the Ent-D, though. It received an interphase cloak in 2358, but that doesn't suggest a commissioning date. (let's ignore the fact that an Oberth model was used to save time/money. I've read enough crap about that class of ship for one month!)

Quickfire responses:
1) Could be because all of the smaller and older ships were blown into teeny-tiny pieces... and thus went unseen. "Boom! Chunks of Starfleet, EVERYWHERE!!"
2) I've no problem with the Encyclopedia referring to Roosevelt as an Excelsior, since they're all over the place anyway!
3) Neither Ambassador, nor Excelsior, Miranda or Connie II are contemporaries to the Galaxy - even a new build of the same design wouldn't have the same rated capabilities IMO. I lean in the same direction for New Orleans.
4) At least one of those Nebulas is a "proto-Nebula" and thus could conceivably be a different class, but that's just splitting hairs - it's still of the same design family!

You're correct, mea culpa. That's what I get for referring to one of Bernd's diagrams! Not to mention, he lists the Apollo class as being the POTT design. *shudder*

Connie contemporary then. I think my point on that still stands.

Seriously, no odds to me. It's just that it seems to fly in the face of your earlier stance on constructing new builds of old designs!

I hear you... See this is the other thing: If they were older, hurriedly refit designs with ablative armor slapped all over, I could maybe forgive how un-shapely they look. I unfortunately can't give the Ent-E the same leeway.... Good grief, that thing sucks space lemons.

 

@ Nob Akimoto

You are right. I sat down and wrote a list but the first "7" obviously does not indicate one shipyard exclusively. However, I noticed that ships build at Utopia Planitia share numbers in the last three digits which the others (of which we know they were not built there) do not.

@ QuinnTV

I'm not sure I understood correctly what you implied. For the "uncharted" areas (i.e. information we can not derive from the onscreen footage) the original creators' intentions are canon ("behind-the-scenes-canon") unless revised by onscreen footage or conflicting one another (as in the case with the Enterprise-C)? I hope you didn't imply that fans know better than the creators, because this would make me shudder.

Once it had been established that the Enterprise-C shown in the alternate reality was an Ambassador Class Starship, the sculpture on the wall could no longer be a starship of that class, I concur.

Oh no! The aircraft carrier has everything to do with it because it is an unmistakable presentation of CVN-65 and sets the theme of the sculpture wall - which is "ships named Enterprise".

The Enterprise-B (Excelsior Class) didn't became invalidated later because we do not know the final appearance of the B introduced in ST VII (which essentially is an Excelsior Class Starship).

And regarding the Enterprise-C on the sculpture wall we have no visual evidence that she did not look like that in the "real" or primeverse.
This is entirely based on the assumption that the Enterprise-C returning from the future with Tasha Yar could not have looked any other way than an Ambassador Class Starship.

Where is the problem? In the alternate reality of YE we saw the Galaxy Class Enterprise and familiar Klingon ship designs.
The Ambassador Class is a design that's not uncommon in the other realities and ours, the only difference is that in the other realities the Enterprise-C is an Ambassador Class Ship which doesn't need to be the case in ours and other realities.

You got a point with the presentation of the Sternbach-C in the movies, but here I have to use your own argument you tried to discredit the intention of the Enterprise-D sculpture wall: There is no indication (like CVN-65) that the sculpture walls of the Enterprise-E are not just representations of popular starship designs.

Besides, there is definitely more total screentime showing the Enterprise-D's sculpture wall than there has ever been and ever will for the Enterprise-E.

No offense, but I'm not aware that you are an expert for temporal or interspatial mechanics to arrive at such (IMHO premature) conclusions. This is a complicated issue which I think would be better discussed in the TNG section, definitely not this particular thread, as we can't exclude Q having a hand in this, too, because of Guinan's participation.
Suffice to say that the moment this Enterprise-C shows up in our universe something strange immediately happens. Almost looks to me like the universe, the cosmic consciousness, Q or else is correcting a paradox - which may just be that this Enterprise-C is not the one from ours and therefore "needs" to reappear elsewhere.

Bob

 

You know what? I'm going to drop this discussion with you, because no matter what evidence I provide, you've already made up your mind that you're right and the Probert design was the Enterprise-C when it never was. So please indulge yourself with your own opinions, as I'm not going to stop you anymore.

 

I've seen enough arguments on what is/isn't canon to fear threads that start getting into it. The notion of "behind the scenes" canon adds another complexity to the arguments that I find even more troublesome. I wasn't implying that the fans know better than the creators, but I think pieces of this thread are getting close to that, now that you mention it.

 

I will make only one comment:

A "fleet" need not be all the ships a service has. "The fleet" Shelby refers to could be the UFP Fourth Fleet for all we know.