The [i]Bozeman[/i]

[Nob Akimoto]

The Bozeman

Recently read SCE's The Future Begins and was puzzled to find the Bozeman-A as being described as a Sovereign-class ship like the Enterprise.

In Diane Carey's Ship of the Line the ship is described as being the ex-Roderick described as a "destroyer". Based on the conversation where Bateson describes the ship as being "too small" for Jean-Luc Picard, and that she is a more suitable ship for his small crew of 40ish, it sounds as though the ship is implied to be something like a Saber or Defiant class ship.

I know that Christopher in DTI: Watching the Clock instead had Bozeman undergo substantial modernization and simply being the original ship.

Does anyone know how the reference came about to her being a Sovereign in the SCE book?

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: The Bozeman

I misread the relevant passage in Ship of the Line. Not sure how, but in retrospect I clearly did. I had the impression from the scene where the Roderick is first mentioned that she's a sister to the Enterprise, but you're right that it's not the case.

 

[KRAD]

And I trusted Mike & Steve's judgment when they told me that the Bozeman-A was Sovereign, as I hadn't read Ship of the Line in years, and didn't have time to re-read it.

Obviously, I'll never make that mistake again.................

 

[ATimson]

Re: The Bozeman

I misread the relevant passage in Ship of the Line. Not sure how, but in retrospect I clearly did. I had the impression from the scene where the Roderick is first mentioned that she's a sister to the Enterprise, but you're right that it's not the case.

You're certainly not the only one who misread that passage - I was under the same impression as you!

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: The Bozeman

Yeah, I remember having a discussion/argument about it on the old Psi Phi boards. Though then I held that the evidence was inconclusive, but those comments about smallness really seal the deal.

It kinda sucks for Picard that until the whole brouhaha happened, they were gonna downgrade him from a 1,000-person ship to a 40-person one.

 

[Christopher]

I don't consider Ship of the Line to be in continuity, since it inexplicably contradicted "Cause and Effect" in a couple of major ways: giving the Bozeman an all-male bridge crew when there were clearly two women on the bridge beside/behind Bateson, and claiming the Typhon Expanse was a settled and disputed region along the Federation-Klingon border in the 2270s when the episode stated at least four times that it was uncharted in the 2360s. That's why I disregarded the book in Watching the Clock and instead depicted a more screen-accurate Bozeman crew.

As for the Bozeman of WTC, that was last seen in a 2372 flashback, and I suggested that it had been subsequently replaced. This does not conflict with the portrayal of the Bozeman-A as a ship that was launched in 2373.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Silent Enemies, on the other hand, explicitly references Bateson's command of the Enterprise from Ship of the Line.

Propose a fight to the death between Christopher and David Mack to resolve this once and for all.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe there was a version of events in which Bateson commanded the Enterprise-E, but with a different bridge crew and different circumstances than postulated in SOTL.

 

[Markonian]

Silent Enemies, on the other hand, explicitly references Bateson's command of the Enterprise from Ship of the Line.

Does anybody know why Bateson moved from commanding USS Bozeman-A to USS Atlas? Why swap one Sovereign-class ship for the other?

 

[ATimson]

Does anybody know why Bateson moved from commanding USS Bozeman-A to USS Atlas? Why swap one Sovereign-class ship for the other?

The Bozeman-A was destroyed by a cheap shot from an outdated Jem'hadar vessel during the Dominion War, causing an unexpected warp core breach. The saucer section was able to escape safely, however.

 

[Nob Akimoto]

Steve,

Thanks for your response. I went back through Ship of the Line and found the line that led to the confusion. Bateson is in engineering when he says "I have to pass along these schematics to the engineers aboard the Roderick. She's being built in the other dock. They're just installing her warp core and phaser banks now and they need some numbers." which implies that something on the Enterprise-E is useful for Roderick. At the end of the book though, Bateson says: "Now that you've been made official commander of the E-E. She suits you better than she does me. And I don't think you'd fit on a destroyer." with additional lines implying Roderick is a destroyer. Gabriel Bush says: "Looking forward to duty on board the Roderick. I think that ship fits us better."

And since Steve is admitting that he misread the line, perhaps we can simply retroactively conclude that the Bozeman-A is probably a Defiant-class ship. (Size being fit for a 40-person crew, being a "destroyer", being built for combat, and being in formation with Defiant at the Typhon Sector battle would put all that together pretty well)

Christopher:
I wonder if some of the contradictions from Ship of the Line is an artifact of it being written in the 90s. I'd imagine that access to episode screen caps and details were more limited back then, particularly compared to now. That said, I think the bridge crew was being a bit too cute in general in SotL with sprinkled Hornblower references up to and including the whole "Gabriel Bush" name. There's also the whole "built at Starbase 12" thing with the Enterprise-E when it's clearly stated on her dedication plaque the ship was built at San Francisco.

 

[Nob Akimoto]

And I trusted Mike & Steve's judgment when they told me that the Bozeman-A was Sovereign, as I hadn't read Ship of the Line in years, and didn't have time to re-read it.

Obviously, I'll never make that mistake again.................

That kinda raises a separate question...there's a line in Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment where, I think it's implied Defiant is actually a more powerful tactical ship than the Enterprise-E when they're discussing what ship to take to talk to the Klingons....was that implication intentional?

 

[KRAD]

I wonder if some of the contradictions from Ship of the Line is an artifact of it being written in the 90s. I'd imagine that access to episode screen caps and details were more limited back then, particularly compared to now.

VHS tapes of every single episode of every single Star Trek series was available in the Simon & Schuster library to be loaned to writers even when Ship of the Line was being written. There's really no excuse for missing those details Christopher mentioned.

That kinda raises a separate question...there's a line in Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment where, I think it's implied Defiant is actually a more powerful tactical ship than the Enterprise-E when they're discussing what ship to take to talk to the Klingons....was that implication intentional?

Not as such -- the point is that the Defiant was purely a warship and therefore a vessel that the Klingons would respect more than a multipurpose vessel like the Enterprise. Given the delicacy of the negotiations, they were going to take every advantage they could, even a minor perceptual one.

 

[Nob Akimoto]

Ah, thanks KRAD. Good to know on both counts.

 

[Nob Akimoto]

Silent Enemies, on the other hand, explicitly references Bateson's command of the Enterprise from Ship of the Line.

Does anybody know why Bateson moved from commanding USS Bozeman-A to USS Atlas? Why swap one Sovereign-class ship for the other?

Just seems easiest to assume that Scotty was mixing up ships, perhaps he helped Morgan Bateson with shaking down the Atlas and was having one drink too many talking with Geordi. And that the Bozeman-A (if it actually exists in our current novelverse) is something Defiant sized.

 

[ronny]

I wonder if some of the contradictions from Ship of the Line is an artifact of it being written in the 90s. I'd imagine that access to episode screen caps and details were more limited back then, particularly compared to now.

VHS tapes of every single episode of every single Star Trek series was available in the Simon & Schuster library to be loaned to writers even when Ship of the Line was being written. There's really no excuse for missing those details Christopher mentioned.

I'm usually not one to complain much when details are off but in this case the whole book is a sequel to the final 3 minutes of that episode and every relevant detail is wrong. This is the book that really turned me off to Carey.

 

[F. King Daniel]

While I do agree that Carey's rewriting of "Cause and Effect" is highly suspect, I found the Bozeman's crew and backstory interesting enough to forgive it (the less said about that novel's interminable holodeck sequences, though, the better)

 

[Stevil2001]

Yeah, I like the idea that the Bozeman-A is actually Defiant-class. If only we'd had this conversation before the print edition of What's Past came out! (Are there any other 2370s new build ship classes you could call "destroyers"?)

Unlike most people (I know), I have fond memories of Ship of the Line, though I'll admit it's been many, many years. I don't think I'd seen "Cause and Effect" yet when I read it, so that aspect of the book didn't bother me. What does bother me is the completely nonsensical scene where Picard tells Madred that after he was tortured, he was assimilated by the Borg. You don't need to watch a VHS tape to know that's wrong; just look at an episode guide! (Also, if I remember right, the book somehow takes place after Worf joins the DS9 crew, but before the Klingon invasion of Cardassian space.)

Anyway, I would probably personally take a "broad strokes" approach as to whether and how Ship of the Line "took place" in the current "novelverse."

 

[ATimson]

Are there any other 2370s new build ship classes you could call "destroyers"?

Maybe one of the new classes from First Contact - Akira, Norway, or Steamrunner?

Defiant does seem most likely, though.

 

[Ethros]

What does bother me is the completely nonsensical scene where Picard tells Madred that after he was tortured, he was assimilated by the Borg. You don't need to watch a VHS tape to know that's wrong; just look at an episode guide! (Also, if I remember right, the book somehow takes place after Worf joins the DS9 crew, but before the Klingon invasion of Cardassian space.)

I've not read the book in question, but if that's true... wow.