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Forum URL: http://www.eyrie-productions.com/Forum/dcboard.cgi
Forum Name: Mini-Stories
Topic ID: 186
Message ID: 17
#17, RE: Crossroads: Out to Pasture
Posted by CdrMike on Feb-01-18 at 03:52 PM
In response to message #12
>I had to check; in Manhunt #1, Gil Grissom does describe the
>native holder of hull number NCC-1717, UGS Yorktown, as "a
>Block I Constitution-class cruiser, one of the first twelve
>made." The way that's worded, it could mean Block I was at
>least
a dozen ships, but I'm pretty sure my intent at the time was
>to imply that "the first twelve" and "Block I" were the same thing.

That's pretty much what I figured, that you'd meant the original 12 ship run. For some reason, I'd forgotten that the Connies started coming off the line way back before Starfleet officially existed.

>In the course of the original Star Trek, I can think of at
>least three other starships (not all shown on screen, IIRC, but all
>implied to be the same class as Enterprise) that were lost or
>destroyed (Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine",
>Defiant in "The Tholian Web", and Intrepid in... um...
>the one with the giant space amoeba, I forget the episode title.
>Also, I'm pretty sure at least one of the ones involved in the wargame
>in "The Ultimate Computer" was either destroyed or rendered derelict
>by the M-5, and the others were all shot up pretty bad. That's all
>just off the top of my head. It seemed at the time like anytime a
>starship other than Enterprise was mentioned in the original
>series, it was destroyed.

USS Intrepid - Lost to "space amoeba" (Think the brass probably figured Kirk was yanking their chain)
USS Defiant - "Lost" to an interphasic rift
USS Constellation - Lost to ancient alien superweapon
USS Excalibur - Total loss due to M-5 test
USS Hood - Heavy casualties due to M-5 test
USS Lexington - Major damage due to M-5 test
USS Potemkin - Unspecific damage due to M-5 test
USS Exeter - Total crew loss, ship salvagable (Doubt Starfleet would abandon a perfectly good heavy cruier)
USS Farragut - Mentioned as "destroyed" in "Obsession"

Yeah, reviewing the list from ST canon, I guess losing 12 Connies isn't that shocking anymore.

>UF-wise, we know Yorktown was destroyed 50 years before
>Manhunt "at the Battle of the Kedaris Rift." Grissom never
>specifies who the enemy was (presumably he doesn't have to, since Lt.
>Adaji would know), but 2330 was around the time the UG was falling
>apart, so there's no shortage of candidates.
>
>(I know the chronology doesn't really work there—if the original
>Constitution-class ships are that old, and Enterprise is
>one of them, a lot of things about Enterprise's appearance
>later in Manhunt and in this story don't make sense—but I'm
>not going to try and unravel that while I'm battling a sinus
>infection. I think we're going to have to chalk it up to the Exile
>existing in Weird Comic Book Time. :)
>
>Anyway, the point is, being a UGN and/or Starfleet heavy cruiser was a
>dangerous business before the brass at Starfleet got the idea
>to deploy them on multi-year long-range missions, so it doesn't strike
>me as that unlikely that only one of the first dozen survived.
>We have to assume that not all of the twelve survived long enough to
>be sent on a five-year exploration deployment in the first
>place, is all.

Agreed, I'd forgotten that the Exile was a pretty dangerous time before I factored in all the stuff that the canon Starfleet actually ran into. It's still sort of shocking that Starfleet lost heavy cruisers in the 23rd more often than they'd lose runabouts a century later.