Apparently the crew didn't know which ship they were going to be assigned to until they saw the new Enterprise:
Well, I feel like I need to at least mention the fact that Sulu was slated to get the Excelsior, if not go into a lot of detail about it. Hurm...
I'll have to dig it up, but there is reference in that scene to how Sulu would feel serving under Kirk on Sulu's own ship. (Right before McIntyre calls the Enterprise a Constellation class.) She also has some scenes with Kirk and Sulu during the trial where Sulu berates Kirk for trying to take all of the blame. Kirk thinks he's protecting the gang, Sulu thinks he's making them look like idiot minions. Good book. Not as good as TWOK and not even in the same league as TSFS. I know I said I wondered if McIntyre just got lucky with Sulu commanding Excelsior in TWOK, but I also wonder if the creative team of TUC take Sulu getting the Ex from her books? (Did that make sense?) EDIT: See what happens when you type slow?
I'm sure she got Sulu's command promotion out of the script from TWOK and simply ran with it. In Takei's biography he noted that the scene was shot so poorly with Shatner barely above cardboard in the takes they did, even after George talked to Bill about how he felt Kirk should be really proud that a protege of his is getting Excelsior. Since we're doing Sulucelsior quotes, what does TWOK the novel say about that scene in the travel pod as the gang were approaching the Big E? Mark
Okay, after some further consideration into the Sulu matter, I made a few revisions to the last paragraph of Chapter Six. I tried to keep it relatively ambiguous, but I might be persuaded to make things more overt. See what you think:
quick -> straightforward Styles's -> Styles' Starfleet's favored -> the preferred (to avoid repeating Starfleet in that sentence) in service as -> serving as
Didn't the Praxis wave come from the starboard (right) side of the ship and not the port? Been to long since I have seen that movie.
Thinking about it, I think visually it did come from starboard, but Valtane says it's coming from port when he gives a bearing.
That was what I was thinking, sojourner. Well, here's the next chapter, and here comes some a heavy dose of healthy speculation:
Nice touch with the Alaska. Any justification in your mind as to why Starfleet christened an Ambassador class ship as the new Enterprise instead of another Excelsior, even if by then both would be far from brand-new designs? They must have been building new Excelsiors around the 2330s anyway. There's another point to consider in Excelsior construction that may be noteworthy - we know that they seemed to be built in batches with NCC numbers close together. We know some ships were in the NCC-14xxx range, and a bunch in the NCC-42xxx range with the rest generally scattered below that. It might be worthwhile to point out other ships with distinguished or long-lived service records, for example the other early Excelsior-class ship we know - USS Repulse NCC-2544. That is if you subscribe to the loosely chronological numbering of ships by NCC, of course. Mark
"The Alaska/Enterprise-C was to be the pioneer of a new sub-type of the Ambassador-class." I'll assume that the old sub-type would be Mr. Probert's original design? A nice history overall. I think the Ambassador / Galaxy history might be a little off-topic (although interesting). I might also suggest throwing in a ship or two a) not named Enterprise b) not captained by Star Trek stars. Especially when you stress over and over how many of these ships there are and that they are the backbone of the fleet for decades to come. It takes a lot to get me to read that much fan text. Even more to convince me that this might be "the way it happened." Very nicely done.
I second that, maybe a couple capsules on some of the more famous examples... We've seen at least two on TNG captained by "somewhat" famous captains... Figure those two and two more totally made up ones. Give the green-light and I'll start the Conbabulator churning.
Interesting bit on the Ambassador. I like that you hint the name itself was intended to downplay the military aspects in the hopes that the Klingons wouldn't see the reality - that Starfleet was building a new line of massive battleships. You say Enterprise-C was a "sub-type", presumably explaining the physical differences between the 'Yesterday's Enterprise' model and the revamped 'Data's Day' version. Everyone else seems to go with Enterprise-C being the original type, and the later model being the refitted ships. Unless I'm misreading that bit. On the "other ships" plea, how about some vessels not named after American/British naval ships, something of which Trek writers have always been guilty. I know why they do it, but Starfleet has always been too dominated by Earth, and particularly north Atlantic culture to be a realistic multi-world force. Even the all-Vulcan ship was called USS Intrepid! Ed - though I've just remembered the Vucan ship in DS9's baseball episode with a suitably Vulcan name. Full marks there. That's awesome on so many levels. Firstly, "space tech" needs to be used more often with regards to Star Trek engineers - how about it, Praetor? Secondly, I don't think I've ever seen anything Trek-related being described as "jaunty". Thirdly, "travel jets". Like "space tech", it's straight out of the fifties. I think I've got this book in a box somewhere, along with the frankly mind-bogglingly strange TMP novelisation, and on this evidence, it's worth fishing it out.
Well, mostly because it's the 'biggest and best' by this point, even if it's not literally replacing the heavy cruiser per se. It might also be a way of trying to rally conservative elements in Starfleet who are fans of the legacy around the new design. A good suggestion... For the most part, yes. Aye, sir. I was thinking when writing it that perhaps the Ambassador and one or two others would have actually been built and looked like that. You'r probably right. At first, I very much downplayed their mention, but their introduction seemed to affect the mission roles that the Excelsior class was later sent on - stealing away some of the more prime exploratory and diplomatic missions. So I felt it was worth a mention. A very good idea, which gels nicely with Mark's suggestion of mentioning the Repulse. Thank you very much! I feel honored indeed. Make it so, Number One. I'm glad you noticed that bit. Well, like I said, it was partly as a reference to Mr. Probert's original design, and partly to suggest that the revamped version from Data's day wasn't necessarily a refit, perhaps just another sub-type. Indeed. Perhaps I will reference the Repulse and perhaps a ship of Andorian name? U.S.S. Shran? U.S.S. Thelev? (There was also a U.S.S. Sarek and a U.S.S. Sitak, both named after Vulcans, on DS9 FWIW.) This thing does seem to need a big more scope than it has. Hm, I'm sure I can work in 'space tech.' Nostalgia is definitely a big part of this for me. Have I mentioned that this all started after I read a book about the history of the Essex class aircraft carrier? It was where I got the approach from, although it was far more detailed, being based on a real-world craft and all. I suppose I could get super-duper detailed if I really wanted to start writing fictional stuff. I need to find the name of that book. It's a must read for those interested.
Don't get me wrong, I very much agree with documenting how the Ambassador affected the Excelsior class. I'm just not sure I'd go much more into the Ambassador history past that. Certainly not how the Galaxy affected the Ambassador. (Gotta save something for the next book!) But did the Galaxy affect the Excelsior class? - they are contemporaries. Heck, the Exies share space with the Sovereigns! But I notice you're not done yet either.