Just noticed something....in Steve's example pages for the D7, the hypothetical project is called:

"Leanna's Fighting Starships 2368"

2378?!?!

The 'five-year mission' of the Enterprise was 2265-2270! 2378!?!?

What year does Y175 map out to, anyway? I don't think I've ever seen that discussed...

Mayhaps this is an 'inside joke', though. That's the year ST:Nemesis was set.

Still, I don't recall seeing the 'Y###' years mapped out to 'real' years anytime. Will be useful for this product, methinks.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 02:48 am: Edit

I once asked SVC about what game year he thought Kirks fiveyear mission was. He said he didn't know. A close study of the history puts in the Y150's.

Basically, you can center it on the Orgainian treaty.

Xander, I noticed that to but forgot to mention it. Glad you did. That date is way TNG++ and would have Star Trek fan freaking out and probably get the book bad press.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 04:16 am: Edit

I always thought Y1 was the year the warp drive was invented on Earth - it reset the clocks, as it were.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 05:32 am: Edit

Doing a little digging around....

A TNG reference source lists 2245 as the launch date of the Enterprise under Robert April. The first Romulan War is stated to be around 2156 (semi-canon date, but it could be variable based on a comment in 'Balance of Terror' - 2260 or 2261 - that the last Romulan War was a century ago)

From the (A3.3) timeline, we have:
Y40 = First Romulan War
Y156 = Organian Treaty
Y157 = Encounter with Gorn, and Treaty
Y160 = Klingon ships start showing up in Romulan hands

Any Star Trek fan will be happy to inform you the Organian Treaty happened in Season 1 of TOS, and 'The Enterprise Incident' (with Romulan KRs) in Season 3. Arena (Gorn) is in Season 1, too...

So, right away we have a problem. The easiest way to make it work is to assume that each season covers the highlights of events from 2 years of the Enterprise's mission (more or less). That gives us 6 years of time covered in the series, and allows the dates to line up (IE., Y156 and Y157 are both season 1, Y158 and Y159 are season 2, Y160 and Y161 would be season 3)

If they 5-year mission started in 2260, that gives us:
Y156=2260
Y157=2261
Y158=2262
Y159=2263
Y160=2264

It's worth noting that Trek supports this - in "Day of the Dove" (season 3 - 2264), Kirk tells Kang that the Klingons and Federation have been at peace for '3 years' - not 2.

Anyway, if that's true, then the first Romulan War must have happened in 2144. That's not terribly far off from the 'best guess' of 2156 ('a century ago' could mean a lot of things, though!)

Then, 'first contact' happens in 2104. Hmmm...well, the movie 'first contact' is set in 2060. Course, that was only Vulcans. The Y1 entry states 'Orions, Vulcans, etc.' That actually meshes pretty well with the 'Enterprise' series as shortly after the foundation of a unified Earth government and colonization of Mars (date isn't exact, but REAL CLOSE)

Fine, so...that's workable.

Y120 is 2224. The General War runs from roughly 2272 to 2289. Robert April takes command of the new construction Enterprise NCC-1701 in Y141. That is....a LITTLE late. Federation CAs began construction in Y130. Guess the Enterprise could have just been 'late to the party'....

By Charles E. Leiserson, Jr. (Bester) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 10:04 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Although it is clear that a D6 cannot be converted directly to a D7--they can both be converted to the same variant (and/or the same ship, eg a D7 converted to a mauler results in the D6M)

---

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 10:07 am: Edit

All the Trek references I've seen have indicated that Enterprise was the second Constitution-class CA constructed and that she was commissioned in 2245 a couple three months after Constitution. Converting Y### dates to "real" years will probably be somewhat difficult.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 12:13 pm: Edit

Xander, I did some similar work about two years ago but not to that detail. That's a good base to start from. It probably is possible to avoid having to do pin point translations but I think it is very helpful to be in the ballpark!

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 04:29 pm: Edit

The simplest solution is to base it on the Organian Treaty year. That would roughly correspond to the end of the first season.

By Ryan Peck (Trex) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 06:18 pm: Edit

The offical word from Star Trek has been changed so many times at best you could call it 'loose cannon'.

Ignore the dates from Paramount, do what you always have and it will work.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 09:04 pm: Edit

Try this:

In the last (or close to last) episode of the first season of TNG (something about the Romulans and some Earthers frozen from the past), Riker tells them what year it is. Go forward so many seasons to the "Sarek" episode. Sarek's age is disclosed and from that his birth year can be computed. Now go back to TOS and "Journey to Babel." In that episode Sarek tells his exact age then. Add the age to his birth year and you have the year for that season (second I think). Knock back the correct number of years to the Organian Treaty and you have the (approximate) calendar year for SFB's Y156.

I don't have the episodes handy so I can't dig up the numbers given.

By John Hall (Fedf111fan) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 12:01 am: Edit

Based on the DS9 episode where the crew go back
to the tribbles era, they mention the time diffrerence. I will have to watch it again.
I thought that there was 110 years difference.
Y157=2267

By David Lang (Dlang) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 01:37 am: Edit

how much do you want to bet that the various methods posted here all end up with different answers? (and I do mean wildly different, not just a couple years off)

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 10:28 am: Edit

And any method that involves "In TNG/DS9/Voyager episode xyz, ..." will automatically be suspect/dismissed. The ADB license doesn't include that, so they can't really use that arguement.

I say stick with 1 known date & work from there (either the Fed CA intro date or the Organian treaty date).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 10:47 am: Edit

The Organian date is more centered and more readilly noticed. I'd say use that and let things land were they will to either side. At least dates will be in the same centry.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:17 pm: Edit

Y141 isn't "totally" outrageous for a launch date for the Enterprise, IF SFB history were to support that, after the 1700-series (Constitution class) design proved itself, some of the 1000-series and 1300-series were refitted BEFORE new construction was continued, to save money (don't know about the 1600-series). That would give the Feds a maximum of 8 CA's before NCC-1701:

NCC-1700 Constitution, followed by...

NCC-1017 Constellation
NCC-1018 Goeben
NCC-1019 Eximer
NCC-1020 Oriskany (training ship later?)
NCC-1371 Republic
NCC-1372 Reshadije (we KNOW this ship was in service as a CA in Y136; could've been it's first year)
NCC-1373 Ramilles

then NCC-1701 Enterprise

Don't know if ADB would support this. Even with the above as a deployment scheme, it seems like the YIS for Enterprise would have been Y138.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 07:07 pm: Edit

Call it a three year hiatus in new CA construction due to Senate procurement fighting...

By David Lang (Dlang) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 07:36 pm: Edit

or possibly something more sensible, like they actually send the brand new design out on a shakedown cruise before deciding to build a bunch more of them

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 08:16 pm: Edit

Wouldn't SOP be to give a new class of ship a shakedown trial before the first of the class is actually commisioned? I do agree that this project should only give lip service to the franchise dating because of the glaring inaccruacies and contradictions. It would probably work for us SFB'ers if the dates are close, but the rabid Trek fanboys would be put-off by "wrong" dates.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 08:22 pm: Edit

Chris, the problem is that, as near as I can tell, regardless of what date is chosen, at least some rabid Trek fanboys will think it is wrong. The problem is that you get a different answer depending on the source and method used to calculate the date...

David L, isn't that the prototype period? ie ~2 years before the YIS date, so that the first Fed CA was built in Y128...

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Thursday, March 18, 2004 - 12:05 pm: Edit

I'd also point out that, despite what I posted above, it is much more likely that the Feds refitted older CA's at about THE SAME TIME as new construction was being produced. So it would actually look something like this:

Y128 prototype CA is produced
Y130 NCC-1700 "Constitution" commissioned
Y130 NCC-1017 refurbished
Y131 NCC-1017 "Constellation" re-commissioned
Y131 NCC-1371 refurbished
Y132 NCC-1371 "Republic" re-commissioned
Y132 construction begins on NCC-1701...
Y13? ...NCC-1701 "Enterprise" commissioned

[Enterprise in SFB very likely in service before NCC-1372 Reshadije]

and so on and so forth...

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, March 18, 2004 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Is there any possibility that there were other older hulls "recommissioned" into service beyond the onew we know about?

If they were destroyed in action before the "normal" time frame of SFB? I am guessing the normal time frame to be about year 150 approximately.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Friday, April 02, 2004 - 06:44 pm: Edit

Wow. Very cool. I've been going 'what *does* that class look like' a lot lately....

Dating: handwave it. Give everything in Stardates (that compute easily to Y-years) and don't tie yourself down to an Anno Domini date that hardcore Trekkies can pick apart.

Hopefully, by the time this comes out, I'll have money to spend....

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 07:02 pm: Edit

Had a chance to page thru "Janes Fighting ships of World War II"...

One thing I noticed was at the end of the introduction, after noting that there had been some corrections to the previous years edition (1942?!? seemed like a continuity error some where) was a paragraph from the Author instructing readers to direct comments corrections or photographs to the publisher...and in the following pages, a number of entries where a photo should have appeared, was the notation "Photograph needed"...nice touch I thought.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 06:41 am: Edit

I wouldn't buy this book. Then again I'm only one person.

I find most of the art for SFB to be passable, but only just. Designs like the Fed Pol or scatter pack just look poor in my opinion. A serious full blown book with SFB designs wouldn't get dollar one from me. Unless Matt Jefferies came back from the grave and took velum and H2 pencil in hand to crank out some really cool looking stuff I don't see it worth printing for the aforementioned reasons.

A serious table top book with color layouts, hardbound, and with redrawn and redesigned schematics by someone (or group of someones) with an aeronautical or astronautical background might do well, even with mainstream sci-fi types. The ramifications of that would be very positive for SFB.

By Alan De Salvio (Alandwork) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 11:26 am: Edit

I absolutely think this is a great product idea. I believe the Franz Joseph Technical Manual to be a critical TOS-related product, and I understand it was an important developmental element of SFB. I know it was quite popular in the 70's. I believe this product is in that vein, and has the potential to be a "hook" into SFB. I've been asking for something like this for years!