Enterprise-C in Lit

[Bry_Sinclair]

I got "Well of Souls", excited to read about the adventures of Rachel Garrett and her crew, and was thoroughly disappointed. I found it thick and stodgy, as well as hard to follow, so much so I gave up on it.

It was a very unsatisfying introduction to a new crew, which just grated against me.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

About Castillo's fate - I actually think he got off easy.

Spoiler: Vulcan's Heart

Sure, he was killed when he tried to intervene to save Tasha, but look at what happened to the rest of the Enterprise-C survivors. Tasha became a sex slave, and the rest of them were probably interrogated (possibly also tortured) and eventually executed.

Sela said that part of Tasha's bargain with General Volskiar was that the rest of the survivors would be spared (although even then, they'd have had to stay on Romulus for the rest of their lives, probably in some rat-hole prison, so I'd hardly call that a bonus), but when Tasha was killed trying to escape, I'm sure the Romulans welched on that deal.

When the novel first came out I held out some hope that at the end, when Charvanek became head of Romulan intelligence, she might have arranged for the Ent-C survivors to be released somehow - maybe gave them some old cargo transport and clearance codes out of Romulan space. Guess we can still hope she did that. Otherwise, those people would have been in for imprisonment, torture and death, probably.

 

[TheAlmanac]

The E-C story in Enterprise Logs (set at the very beginning of its mission) also has a completely different senior staff. Poor Garret and Castillo were the only people to stick with the ship all the way through, I guess!

This sounds very similar to the revolving door of Excelsior crewmembers in various novels and comics over the years, with Sulu and Rand standing in for Garrett and Castillo there...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Regarding Enterprises of times past, I'd just kind of like to hear an explanation as to why Starfleet waited so long between ships C and D. Has that ever been explained? (The C was lost in 2344, but the D didn't come along until 20 years after that.)

 

[Christopher]

The E-C story in Enterprise Logs (set at the very beginning of its mission) also has a completely different senior staff. Poor Garret and Castillo were the only people to stick with the ship all the way through, I guess!

This sounds very similar to the revolving door of Excelsior crewmembers in various novels and comics over the years, with Sulu and Rand standing in for Garrett and Castillo there...

Interesting, then, that pretty much all other authors have followed Michael Jan Friedman's lead where the Stargazer crew was concerned.

 

[Idran]

Regarding Enterprises of times past, I'd just kind of like to hear an explanation as to why Starfleet waited so long between ships C and D. Has that ever been explained? (The C was lost in 2344, but the D didn't come along until 20 years after that.)

I can't remember, was the Galaxy-class project on the drawing board yet in 2344? They might've been explicitly saving the name for a Galaxy-class ship if so.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I suppose so. We don't really know how long the Galaxy class had been on the books. It's very possible that Starfleet waited until one was ready before assigning the Ent-D name to it.

Or perhaps they intentionally held up the name Enterprise as a tribute to all the lives lost on the C.

I was just curious as to whether any novel has said anything about this...

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I suspect the answer may relate to the response from the Klingons. Besides any home-grown sentiment regarding respect for the dead, I imagine the immediate consequences for Federation-Klingon relations were considered too useful to risk jeopardizing. Perhaps Starfleet Command, or the Federation government, was reluctant to commission another Enterprise for fear that it would be read as cheapening the name and undercutting the impact of the sacrifice.

Federation: "Enterprise has fallen honourably in glorious battle!"

Klingons: "QAPLA'!"

Federation: "...But we got you a new Enterprise!"

Klingons: "...you're missing the point here".

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I doubt the Klingons would have cared. The sacrifice of the ship and crew is the important thing, not the ship's name.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I doubt the Klingons would have cared. The sacrifice of the ship and crew is the important thing, not the ship's name.

I don't know; Klingons can get a little funny about names. They attach a lot of meaning to symbolism. And symbolic gestures in general can easily be misread where Klingons are involved.

I think they might be sensitive to anything that could read as downplaying the sacrifice, or undercutting the meaning the Klingons have attached to it. The death of Enterprise defending Klingons forms an honour-bond of blood, and then the Federation casually launches a new Enterprise? I could see that causing concern. That, or the Federation might be overly cautious, and sensitive to anything that could potentially be read as diminishing the impact of events at Narendra. I could see this contributing to the decision to let the name lie fallow for a while.

EDIT: The novels have used Klingon sentiments as part of a justification for giving the name a break in another time period lacking an Enterprise - Rise of the Federation suggests that the Klingons' potential to get their knickers in a twist is part of the reasoning for not commissioning a replacement Enterprise in the 2160s. (Well, they get an Andorian one, admittedly, but apparently the Klingons aren't looking that closely).

 

[Idran]

Then again, something similar was used in the books as the reason why the name wasn't reused right away for a Starfleet ship after the NX-01 was decommissioned and the Federation was founded. Though in that case it was because the name was more infamous in the Klingon Empire than renown, so that might be a different situation. (And we do know that Starfleet brass never really got the Klingon psyche until the mid-23rd century anyway, so maybe they were just wrong about how much it would've mattered.)

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Then again, something similar was used in the books as the reason why the name wasn't reused right away for a Starfleet ship after the NX-01 was decommissioned and the Federation was founded.

You beat my edit, it seems.

(And we do know that Starfleet brass never really got the Klingon psyche until the mid-23rd century anyway, so maybe they were just wrong about how much it would've mattered.)

True; good point!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If Starfleet made it clear to the Klingons that it was launching an Enterprise-D precisely AS a tribute to the heroic sacrifice of the C, I think the Klingons would be OK with it.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

^ I suppose so. We don't really know how long the Galaxy class had been on the books. It's very possible that Starfleet waited until one was ready before assigning the Ent-D name to it.

Or perhaps they intentionally held up the name Enterprise as a tribute to all the lives lost on the C.

I was just curious as to whether any novel has said anything about this...

My guess is that it would be some combination of these two things that kept a new Enterprise from being put into production right away. I mean there's precedent for immediately naming a new Enterprise (the A, and they later do the same for the E), but since this was an Enterprise that did (so far as Starfleet knew) go down with all hands, they may have wanted to delay, and, by the point that Starfleet considered the 'mourning period' having passed, plans for the Galaxy class were on the table, with the ships explicitly being designed for long term exploration, which probably would make having an Enterprise one of them be a big symbolic thing.

But I don't think it's ever been explicitly said one way or another. That's just always been my take on the subject.

 

[Thrawn]

Maybe it was like the Babylon stations, and the first three planned Enterprise-Ds were destroyed and the fourth fell into a time warp before they finally finished one

 

[Kilana2]

Maybe it was like the Babylon stations, and the first three planned Enterprise-Ds were destroyed and the fourth fell into a time warp before they finally finished one

Didn't they have teething problems with the Galaxy Class ships? It took long for them to be established.

 

[TheAlmanac]

The E-C story in Enterprise Logs (set at the very beginning of its mission) also has a completely different senior staff. Poor Garret and Castillo were the only people to stick with the ship all the way through, I guess!

This sounds very similar to the revolving door of Excelsior crewmembers in various novels and comics over the years, with Sulu and Rand standing in for Garrett and Castillo there...

Interesting, then, that pretty much all other authors have followed Michael Jan Friedman's lead where the Stargazer crew was concerned.

I get the feeling most authors aren't as interested in leaving their own imprimatur on that particular crew roster.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Regarding Enterprises of times past, I'd just kind of like to hear an explanation as to why Starfleet waited so long between ships C and D. Has that ever been explained? (The C was lost in 2344, but the D didn't come along until 20 years after that.)

Or perhaps they intentionally held up the name Enterprise as a tribute to all the lives lost on the C.

I would guess this. We know that A came out right after Prime was gone, and B came out right after A was decommissioned, and E came out right after D was destroyed/scrapped, but none of those involved the death of most of the crew.

Do we know how long the gap was between B and C? Maybe the immediate replacements are more the exceptions?

(It's been a while, but I recall liking Well of Souls. The only one of the original six Lost Era novels that disappointed me was Deny Thy Father.)

 

[Christopher]

Real US Navy ships named Enterprise have had significant gaps between their service tenures. The first Navy schooner of that name was in service from 1799-1823, on and off; the second served from 1831-1844. The next US Navy ship of that name wasn't commissioned until 1877, and it served until 1909. After that, the first aircraft carrier of that name was commissioned in 1938 and decommissioned in 1947. The second served from 1961-2013, and the third is slated to be commissioned in 2025.

So the shortest interval between consecutive USS Enterprises in real life is 8 years, and the longest is 33 years. If anything, it's anomalous that the intervals between the Federation Enterprises (original/A, A/B, D/E) have so often been less than a year.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

My recollection is that most of the E-C crew in Enterprise Logs were Tuckerizations of people the author (Bob Greenberger) knew...

My copy of Enterprise Logs is not at hand, but I believe Bob's Enterprise-C crew was the roster of the New York Mets circa 2000.