Re: Rant Warning below

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 08:08:46 -0600 Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> 
wrote:

>> In original Trek the various fleets had the feel of a few 
individual, mighty ships, rather than large fleets of hundreds or 
thousands. There were on the order of 20 Constitution class vessels 
like Enterprise during TOS setting. <<

> In one episode, with the over-crowded planet, Kirk sez twelve... <

And again in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" -- "There are only twelve like it 
in the Fleet." Later, Roddenberry raised that to 14 -- or was that 
Franz Joseph?

> Lost three(?) in the Ultimate Computer, one to The Doomsday Machine, 
I think one to the amoeba. No clue to how many supposedly built over 
the period. <

Only one in TUC. The other 3 were damaged, but in good enough shape to 
destroy the Enterprise after the M-5 was covinced that it had killed 
humans. But yes, having 5 starships was a major concentration of 
firepower and must have left the borders a bit bare.

> Of course, Roddenberry made the connection to Hornblower, so there's 
a strong sense of 18th-19th century, and I know that stuck with me. 
Less line battles and more frigate encounters, of course. <

More to the point, the idea of being out of touch with any higher 
authority for long periods of time. It was very like Hornblower in the 
days when he commanded the Atropos and the Lydia, except that the E was 
a capital ship rather than a small one.

> I've seen where 'making up' [of naval terminology] has been done in 
sci-fi. For aliens, it sounds artificial; for humans just weird. Natch, 
in B5, where the largest ship the humans have is a 'destroyer', it's 
obvious, you can get away with fudge. I was almost surprised the Vorlon 
planetary terminator wasn't abbreviated as a PT. ;->= <

Oddly enough, it is possible to justify the B5 terminology by looking 
at naval history. Why do we talk about "destroyers"? Because it's an 
abbreviation of "torpedo boat destroyer", a new class of ship invented 
to defend capital ships from the new threat of "torpedo boats"; then 
the new ship proved so useful that it essentially took over the role of 
Napoleonic frigates as general-purpose small ships, making "frigates" 
even smaller and somewhat limited in their capabilities. These days, of 
course, destroyers have grown in size and cost to the point where they 
aren't being built much and most navies employ frigates for what 
destroyers used to do...

So an Omega could have been originally postulated as a "Sharlin 
destroyer" or a "capital ship destroyer" and the term was abbreviated 
to "destroyer" in similar fashion. It makes a certain amount of sense, 
particularly when comparing an Omega to its ancestor, the Nova DN, and 
to a Hyperion CA.

Phil
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