Okay, let me explain that a little better. 
According to the Chronology, the Enterprise D was destroyed in the Earth year 2371, and the Enterprise E was launched later in the same year (which was a year prior to the 2372 date of the 24th century sections in "First Contact"). Presumably the Sovereign Class ships were already in the later stages of their development cycle by 2371, for the new Enterprise to have been launched so relatively soon after the previous model was destroyed -- no longer than a couple of months, at least. And they virtually just send the same crew back to spacedock, rebrand the newest ship available with the name 'Enterprise', and send them all back out again (which always seemed odd to me: that Kirk and co commanded two Enterprises, and Picard and co likewise -- can we assume Harriman's command crew launched the Enterprise C, then?).
Anyway. Obviously the real world reason was that the producers wanted a new ship for the movies and didn't really give much thought to the in-universe explanations. And it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that the above described events were exactly how it happened. That's the only way to explain such a quick turnaround from the destruction of the D to the launch of the E...
... but what if, in-universe, the plan was always to launch the Enterprise E anyway, and keep the former Enterprise in service under a different name? Maybe they intended to launch the Sovereign Enterprise the following year, regardless of whether her predecessor was destroyed. What if the changes made to the bridge module in "Generations" (vs the one seen in the series) were because the Enterprise had been recently refitted in preparation for it's rebranding/being handed over to a new crew, while Picard and the rest (and the Enterprise name itself, of course) were going to migrate to a more updated vessel. Under this hypothesis, the 'death' of 1701-D was an unfortunate coincidence, but not a crippling difference to the plan except fo the loss of a Galaxy from the fleet. Because maybe the new Enterprise was already on the starting blocks undergoing final tests, and the crew were readying themselves to move over to the Sovereign Enterprise anyway. The only crew who lost out in this scenario are obviously the ones who might have been intended to take over the former Enterprise-D.
Thoughts? I hope the above makes some sort of sense, as I was thinking about this at work and it suddenly made a degree more sense to me than the coincidence of one ship being destroyed and then another deployed in it's place so soon. And surely with the new Sovereign's already under construction (presumably), Starfleet would have wanted the flagship and her crew to be on one of those anyway, rather than being stuck on one of the older model Galaxies?
According to the Chronology, the Enterprise D was destroyed in the Earth year 2371, and the Enterprise E was launched later in the same year (which was a year prior to the 2372 date of the 24th century sections in "First Contact"). Presumably the Sovereign Class ships were already in the later stages of their development cycle by 2371, for the new Enterprise to have been launched so relatively soon after the previous model was destroyed -- no longer than a couple of months, at least. And they virtually just send the same crew back to spacedock, rebrand the newest ship available with the name 'Enterprise', and send them all back out again (which always seemed odd to me: that Kirk and co commanded two Enterprises, and Picard and co likewise -- can we assume Harriman's command crew launched the Enterprise C, then?).
Anyway. Obviously the real world reason was that the producers wanted a new ship for the movies and didn't really give much thought to the in-universe explanations. And it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that the above described events were exactly how it happened. That's the only way to explain such a quick turnaround from the destruction of the D to the launch of the E...
... but what if, in-universe, the plan was always to launch the Enterprise E anyway, and keep the former Enterprise in service under a different name? Maybe they intended to launch the Sovereign Enterprise the following year, regardless of whether her predecessor was destroyed. What if the changes made to the bridge module in "Generations" (vs the one seen in the series) were because the Enterprise had been recently refitted in preparation for it's rebranding/being handed over to a new crew, while Picard and the rest (and the Enterprise name itself, of course) were going to migrate to a more updated vessel. Under this hypothesis, the 'death' of 1701-D was an unfortunate coincidence, but not a crippling difference to the plan except fo the loss of a Galaxy from the fleet. Because maybe the new Enterprise was already on the starting blocks undergoing final tests, and the crew were readying themselves to move over to the Sovereign Enterprise anyway. The only crew who lost out in this scenario are obviously the ones who might have been intended to take over the former Enterprise-D.
Thoughts? I hope the above makes some sort of sense, as I was thinking about this at work and it suddenly made a degree more sense to me than the coincidence of one ship being destroyed and then another deployed in it's place so soon. And surely with the new Sovereign's already under construction (presumably), Starfleet would have wanted the flagship and her crew to be on one of those anyway, rather than being stuck on one of the older model Galaxies?
After this and Wolf359, I could see them deciding they weren't going to take any chances this time, and just authorised a full upgrade of the entire fleet.
