>And yes, he does seem to run all the drive trials that he can - he was
>getting ready to give Defiant a test run in the second
>Symphony.

In Ad Astra, shortly before touring the IP Yards and seeing Valiant on the stocks, Utena does mention that Gryphon plans to do the same with her:

"We're doing something a little different tonight. Corwin's
gonna run me over to the IPO Yards in Zeta C and show me my ship.
She's almost ready for drive trials. Gryphon's gonna take her out
next week and run her in for me."

So Ranger's technically correct - the first time Valiant switched on internal power and left the bay where she was built, Utena wasn't aboard and Gryphon was. However, you make an important point as well; see below.

>That isn't Gryphon's tradition as head of the force, it's
>his tradition as a designer of the ship.
>
>I think of it as the starship engineer's equivalent of the lightsaber
>test. If you designed the ship, and you aren't confident enough to be
>on board as it's taken to maximum warp, then it's back to the drawing
>board.

This is a nice way of putting it; I like that. And you're right on, too. Utena's remark about Gryphon "running in" Valiant is a reference to the ship's fleet acceptance trials, for which, officially speaking, she didn't have a captain; or rather she did, but that captain wasn't aboard. Gryphon was running the show, but in his capacity as chief of the yards - he would've been documented as master and commander (what they call, in aviation circles, "pilot in command"), but not as the vessel's commanding officer.

>This does not cover the point that I was making. If the maiden voyage
>is counted as the drive trials, then it's irrelevant because this is
>clearly not a drive trial. If it's the first mission, then the fact
>that Valiant launched with Utena in the center chair and
>Gryphon on the dock makes the claim of "head of the force on the
>maiden voyage" false.

Yes - in the IPSF (and most other contemporary fleets), such things are reckoned from the first operational mission, with orders from FLEETCOM and the ship's official crew embarked, the vessel having been formally accepted from the Yard for fleet service. That way, the members of the first mission crew, rather than the engineers and technicians who handle the initial trials, are the ship's plankholders. Usually that first mission is undertaken directly after the ship's christening ceremony, so that's a useful waypoint when charting a particular ship's career. (Not that we got to see Valiant's christening, but.)

(In most, but not all, cases, the fleet acceptance process also includes changing the ship's hull number prefix from NX to NCC. Valiant's stayed NX for at least a year after she launched owing to the ship's nebulous status as an Irregular Projects Division testbed.)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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