Soyuz

[Wingsley]

Here's an interesting approach:

So far in this discussion, it has been assumed that the Soyuz-class is a derivative of the Miranda-class. But what if something else entirely happened? What if the Miranda was derived from a design ancestor of the Bozeman / Soyuz, originating during either the TOS or pre-TOS era? We have no idea what the Soyuz looked like (or whatever it was derived from may have looked like) back then; for all we know, it could have looked (at least a little) like Forbin's Minmus or Starscape's TOSified Orion or Tereshkova or something else.

Here's a design possibility: let's assume for a moment that, like Forbin's Minmus, this ancestor did not have the bustle-back bloated saucer like we saw with the Reliant/Saratoga. Let's consider that the saucer was unbroken, except, maybe, for a thin aft wedge, like a cross between the Bozeman's expanded tail and Forbin's Minmus. Let's call this ancestor design a pre-refit Soyuz, just for sake of argument. And let's assume that this was the original Federation saucer-over-nacelles design. Was it called Soyuz? Maybe, or maybe a different class name entirely. Soyuz, Miranda and perhaps over ships would've been derived/refitted from this old design.

The reason I suggest this is because the Soyuz-type design seems bulky; perhaps the ancestor design was bulkier, just as the Enterprise's older bridge module was bulkier pre-TOS.

 

[Timo]

The Klingon vessel being in Federation territory was not [an act of war].

Yet the later movies refer to the existence of the Klingon Neutral Zone (or, more specifically, something called a "Neutral Zone" that was in effect between the Klingon Empire and the UFP). If this were the same thing as the Romulan Neutral Zone, then any ship found on the wrong side would implicitly have committed an onscreen-enumerated act of war by getting there...

I wonder if that would in practice make the Klingons outlaws, people without any rights whatsoever? The Feds would be loathe to refer to such a barbaric legal arrangement in an argument, but might have been eager to create it originally as it would in turn sit very well with the Klingon mindset ("people submitting to being prisoners cease to have any rights whatsoever" etc).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

The Klingon vessel being in Federation territory was not [an act of war].

Yet the later movies refer to the existence of the Klingon Neutral Zone (or, more specifically, something called a "Neutral Zone" that was in effect between the Klingon Empire and the UFP). If this were the same thing as the Romulan Neutral Zone, then any ship found on the wrong side would implicitly have committed an onscreen-enumerated act of war by getting there...

I wonder if that would in practice make the Klingons outlaws, people without any rights whatsoever? The Feds would be loathe to refer to such a barbaric legal arrangement in an argument, but might have been eager to create it originally as it would in turn sit very well with the Klingon mindset ("people submitting to being prisoners cease to have any rights whatsoever" etc).

Timo Saloniemi

Also consider TNG's "The Enemy" (1989):

TOMALAK (on viewscreen): Picard, I'm approaching the Federation border and the Enterprise is not to be found. Why?

PICARD: My away team is unable to leave the surface because of the storms.

TOMALAK: And my officer?

PICARD: He is alive.

TOMALAK: His life remains in jeopardy?

PICARD: Yes.

TOMALAK: And yet you will still not permit me to cross into your precious Federation space to retrieve him?!

PICARD: If the point hasn't been made clearly, Commander, let me make it again! Romulan warships do not enter Federation space unless they are prepared to do battle!

TOMALAK: But a mission of mercy?

PICARD: A mission to recover one of your officers who has been caught on a Federation planet for reasons as yet unknown.

TOMALAK: I have already explained.

PICARD: And I have rejected your explanation!

TOMALAK: Territories! You would measure territories against a man's life?!

PICARD: Commander, I am singularly impressed by your concern for a life! Do not risk any more by leaving the Neutral Zone! Picard out!

 

[Starscape]

Here's an interesting approach:

So far in this discussion, it has been assumed that the Soyuz-class is a derivative of the Miranda-class. But what if something else entirely happened? What if the Miranda was derived from a design ancestor of the Bozeman / Soyuz, originating during either the TOS or pre-TOS era? We have no idea what the Soyuz looked like (or whatever it was derived from may have looked like) back then; for all we know, it could have looked (at least a little) like Forbin's Minmus or Starscape's TOSified Orion or Tereshkova or something else.
....

At the time I put those models together I was playing with the idea that the "refit"-Soyuz (as seen in TNG) was a testbed for ships without a deflector dish, outfitted with sensor and deflector pods instead. Then later designs incorporated these new types of deflector into the main hull leading to the seemingly deflectorless Miranda-class. Making the Soyuz a kind of missing-link in starship design.

 

[Dukhat]

The reason I suggest this is because the Soyuz-type design seems bulky; perhaps the ancestor design was bulkier, just as the Enterprise's older bridge module was bulkier pre-TOS.

My interpretation based on both visual evidence and dialogue, is that the Soyuz class came first, was superseded by the more successful and more advanced Miranda class, and simply had its production halted in favor of the more popular ship. There's really no other reason why the Soyuz class died out at the end of the 23rd century while production of the Miranda class continued well into the 24th.

 

[Timo]

The age of a class seems to be very weakly connected to how long a class can be expected to remain in service or production. Other factors, probably affordability and suitability, seem to override mere chronological concerns, especially in the case of the Miranda.

However, the Soyuz is blatantly just a Miranda variant - and it's not particularly difficult to believe that certain variants bloom and wither faster than others, even if the class on the average remains the basis for the variance. The variant represented by the second Saratoga might be another mayfly, or then a survivor introduced in the 2310s and still soldiering on; a diversion warranting its own class or subclass name, or something bolted on to a generic Miranda in two and a half hours. The naming practices are not particularly relevant: if LaForge wants to tell his pals that this specific variant was retired long ago, he needs a name for it for convenience, and may even invent one on the spot whilst starship history hobbyists everywhere in the Federation would disagree.

As for the idea that the Soyuz used to look very different and was just incidentally "streamlined" closer to the then-fashionable Miranda lineage, fandom is full of such stories regarding the Miranda class and its origins. The FASA Anton and half a dozen other independent designs or old misinterpretations are shoehorned into one class in works like Ships of the Star Fleet. Which isn't at all implausible in a Starfleet that turns ships like Kirk's TOS ride into ships like Kirk's movie steed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

Also the age of the ship based on hull number might not work either. While it might give a general indication of what ship appeared first, if the Constitutions are anything to be taken for granted, they have a range from the 900s to at least 1764, if not the 1800s. And one cannot tell is USS Enterprise was built before or after USS Intrepid or USS Defiant.

The Soyuz-class we know of has a number in the 1900s, with Reliant and some other Miranda-class ships are in the 1800s. What can we tell from this? Best guess?

 

[Timo]

...There's even that odd ambiguity about the registry number stenciled on the ventral side. What is the source of the persistent rumor that it actually says NCC-1841?

(That would of course be a godsend for those wanting to believe in traditional fandom numbers, as the range of registries from 1833 through 1842 is "untaken" by classic sources, yet features sporadic Miranda registries in the novelverse...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

The Soyuz-class we know of has a number in the 1900s, with Reliant and some other Miranda-class ships are in the 1800s. What can we tell from this? Best guess?

We can't tell anything from it, since it's impossible to gauge the age of a ship class based solely on one ship's registry number (which annoyed me to no end when I wrote an essay about trying to determine the age of the conjectural classes in the ST Encyclopedia). Plus, there are wildly fluctuating registry numbers per class. The Excelsior started at 2000 and then jumped to 4XXXX for no good reason whatsoever. The Miranda class started at 1864 and went to 3XXXX in TNG and DS9, and the Oberth (the biggest culprit) went from a measly 602 to a whopping 5XXXX. Then we also see the much more advanced Ambassador class with registry numbers only in the 2XXXX range.

(There are actually real-life reasons why the registries are so fucked up- mostly to do with mistakes made in production and the goofy ways used to rectify them.)

 

[Unicron]

FASA had that issue with the Reliant/Miranda type too, though with a more plausible reason (the Reliant class cruisers were converted from the older Anton class cruisers, which had 18xx registries. The first new build Reliants had much higher registries in the 22xxx range, presumably to indicate which builds they were). They get more odd in the TNG Officer's Manual, with many of the TNG type classes having very high registries and some odd descriptions of when specific classes entered service. The FASA version of the Ambassador, which was conjectured solely on the dialogue in "Conspiracy," is said to be the newest heavy cruiser design in the fleet even though it uses TMP era equipment. To be fair, that doesn't necessarily mean such ships weren't still being built when the TNG design aesthetics were gaining their prime. We have no way of knowing.

 

[Ithekro]

FASA did have the disadvantage of only having one season's worth of TNG material to work with.

 

[Albertese]

True, but come on... there was the Briefing room wall sculptures, from which they could have derived a more likely Ambassador-class than what they did come up with. The FASA TNG book is deeply deeply flawed.

(And yet I still kinda love it...)

--Alex

 

[Timo]

The fact that registries in canon Trek are all over the place is actually consistent with the unavoidable reality of the situation - that of "23rd century" models remaining in photographic use in the "24th century". ST2 and ST6 suggest that wear and tear keep starships from operating for more than a couple of decades, so the presence of Excelsiors, Oberths and Mirandas in the mid-to-late 24th century is indicative of new construction in the early 24th century; the registries nicely support that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

True, but come on... there was the Briefing room wall sculptures, from which they could have derived a more likely Ambassador-class than what they did come up with. The FASA TNG book is deeply deeply flawed.

(And yet I still kinda love it...)

--Alex

Same with the Paine-class frigate named after the U.S.S. Thomas Paine from "Conspiracy" that would eventually be known in a different context as the New Orleans class. It seemed that FASA's modus operandi regarding these older ships was to take a Connie saucer and Excelsior nacelles, and stick in between some crazy hand-drawn angular secondary hull that didn't match up too well between front and side views.

But as far as the FASA Ambassador class went: Keep in mind that when the TNG Officer's Manual was written, there wasn't a connection between the Ambassador class and the Enterprise-C. All they knew was that the Horatio was an Ambassador class, and the Enterprise-C was that sculpture on the wall (which they referred to as "Alaska class.")

 

[Mytran]

That Ambassador class is...interesting!

http://home.comcast.net/~ststcsolda/federation/envoy/ambassador_FASA_original.jpg

 

[Ithekro]

As they say, you work with what you got.

 

[QuinnTV]

The FASA TNG book is deeply deeply flawed.

(And yet I still kinda love it...)

*sigh* I know exactly what you mean.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Proof positive that binge drinking in the late 80s is *exactly* the same as it is right now.

The FASAmbaassador only had dialogue to go on, and it was only retroactively established as the same class the Enterprise-C beloned to; the two "frigates" also from "Conspiracy" were imagined thusly from the same source:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Thomas_Paine_class

Still, could be worse...

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Royal_Sovereign_class

Mark

 

[Ithekro]

I wonder what FASA would have done in those seven plus years had they been able to keep Star Trek the Roleplaying Game going?

 

[Unicron]

It's an interesting question, since the TNG OM represented a radical shift in the previous FASAverse setup. The OM assumed that the Klingons would be full Federation members by this point, and the description given in the book isn't really clear on what stage this process was intended to be at. It's implied that the Klingons are being assimilated as a member race and making adjustments, and yet also that their addition might render Starfleet obsolete and that the two governments are already building hybridized cruisers! For their faults, I think FASA did their best with not a whole lot of canon material to work with and not always the best support from Paramount.