Guide:A Word Or Two From The Author

A Word Or Two From The Author

Although I have already ranted at some length about the choices and methods I have used in compiling this work, the reader no doubt finds my thought processes obscure to the extreme after having read this far. Many a thing about the way I treat my source material looks arbitrary on the surface. However, I hope to convince you that nothing has been left to chance. All the implausibilities, contradictions, misspellings and bouts of utter weirdness are there by design. In anticipation of the protests, I have assembled a sort of FAQ here, so that we at least can agree on what we disagree about.

First of all, why don’t you include my favorite source here?

Probably because it is too far down the hierarchy. Of course, it may also be that I haven’t had access to that source yet.

Hierarchy?

You already know I give priority to ‘visual canon’. Material that contradicts this is ruthlessly excluded. In turn, material that speculates on and expands visual canon in a non-contradictory way is embraced. Publications that feature the greatest ratio of canonical versus original material are thus preferred when I compile this Guide, and it is canon plus the acceptable original content of these publications that then serves as ‘effective canon’ in similarly judging the suitability of the next-level publications.

For example, I have found ‘Ships of the Star Fleet’ by Todd Guenther to be an excellent compilation of fan interpretations of TOS visual canon, and other fan works also eagerly reference this publication. However, most such works, including e.g. Jackill’s manuals, feature a lower visual canon content and a higher content of original material, which places them lower in the hierarchy – even when they feature no contradictions and seamlessly and creatively expand the Trek universe. So visuals from aired material count as ‘first-order material’, SotSF and the assorted Paramount/Pocket Books technical manuals as ‘second-order material’, and most of the other works as ‘third-order material’.

But why then would you include all those FASA ships? They sure aren’t visual canon!

Well, some of them are – see e.g. Lotus Flower – but the ratio of canon to original is indeed very low. However, I will accept third-order material (usually in order of seniority and/or of popularity among fandom, these often being the same thing) when I find it necessary for maintaining ‘realism’ in this fictional universe.

There’s a somewhat insidous aspect of second-order canonicity to those third-order entries you refer to. You see, by embracing SotSF, I have also taken in its views of a 1,600-ship TOS movie era Starfleet. Table 1-1 in that publication tells me how many ships of each mission class served in the Fleet in the 2270s through 2290s. There are gaping holes in that table if only canon and SotSF classes are used. Thus, I have taken just enough FASA, SFB or similar material to fill these gaps, and ditched the rest. This I find preferable to just plain inventing ‘gapfiller classes’ out of thin air. Similar gapfilling goes on even outside the scope of SotSF, as I assume that certain aspects of the Star Trek universe will stay consistent across all eras. Third-order material allows me to populate the ENT, TNG and in-between eras with enough corvettes, destroyers and other canonically seldom mentioned mission classes to keep up a consistent Starfleet.

So what about ships from novels, eh? Trek novels aren’t illustrated!

No, they aren’t – save for the graphic novels, which sometimes feature nice ships that I count as third-order canon, or the cover art, which oftentimes doesn’t match the textual contents at all.

Which is why I extremely seldom accept a ‘novel ship’ unless I already have a canon or at least second-order visual to go with it. Fortunately, the Star Trek universe is littered with visuals that lack corresponding textual descriptions. There are numerous Paramount-solicited ‘conceptual designs’ and ‘study models’ around, some of these glimpsed in a minor uncredited role on screen, some merely faithfully reproduced in second-order publications. There are also true shooting models that were never assigned a canon identity by Paramount. Coupling these with a ship lovingly described in a nonvisual medium such as a novel is great fun.

Sometimes a captivating written description forces me to adopt or adapt a lower-order visual to go with the text. In such cases, FASA and its ilk are often of great help. In some rare cases, I’m forced to create a visual identity from scratch for a textual starship that I find irresistibly good and important to the Star Trek universe – examples include the Deneb and Chesapeake classes, rather crucial to the masterpieces of Dianes Duane and Carey.

Oookay… But what’s with ‘Spaceflight Chronology’?

Well, yes, good point. Here I give de facto ‘second-order’ status to a work that features very little canon material and lots of rather ugly graphics. This is only because there used to be no other source for the early days of Earthling starflight, not until ENT premiered. And even with the canon of ENT now available, there is no other published work that would elbow itself in and take the ‘second-order’ place from SFC. Just bear with me when I give preferential treatment to this senior publication, even when it necessitates some pretty extreme creative reinterpreting.

So, to make sure… You place no value whatsoever on whether the words ‘official’ or ‘approved by Paramount’ are included in the blurb of a publication or not?

Nope. Most of this officially approved stuff is good – but some unofficial material is better, and at times even more faithful to canon than the official books are!

Right. Moving on. Justify your excessive mass figures.

You take that back! I’m fit as a fiddle!

As for my starship mass figures, I give utmost credence to the precious few canonical datapoints we have on the issue: Scotty’s “Nearly a million gross tons” for Constitution in TOS “Mudd’s Women”, and Janeway’s “700,000 tons” for Intrepid in VOY “Phage”. Some tend to dismiss at least the former, both because most fan material contradicts this lone utterance, and because a ship of Constitution size would be inordinately dense if massing that much. I cannot dismiss canon that easily, though. Thus, I have assigned this superdense material to that part of a starship that is most alien to us – the warp engines. If a single PB-31 nacelle masses 250,000 tons apiece, then a Constitution otherwise built of realistic materials masses close to 700,000 tons and thus agrees with Scotty’s expert opinion.

Keeping those density figures for warp nacelles and starship hulls, respectively, and applying volumetrics, I can rather easily reconcile between the high-end TNG TM and DS9 TM mass figures on one hand, and the well-known low-end fan and RPG estimates on the other. The latter simply refer to hull mass sans these exotic engines! It is also rather endemic in naval history to give crucial ship statistics in oddball ways (say, ship length given only at waterline, or displacement defined differently depending on the type of cargo onboard). Thus, the idea of engineless mass figures just adds a hint of pseudorealism to this Guide…

Rest assured, I have the masses of various warp nacelles tabulated by volumetrics, using a density derived from a LN-64 mass of 300,000 tons as the basis for all post-TOS designs, and a somewhat lower density for pre-TOS ones (to honor certain fan concepts of different technologies in use, and a different percentage of coil material in given nacelle volume, in that earlier era). For an exact fit with the DS9 TM mass figures, which I generally opt to take as authoritative despite the authors’ admittance that the work was somewhat rushed, I sometimes make assumptions about the percentage of nacelle volume actually occupied with coil material. Generally, though, simple volumetrics are sufficient. Total masses thus almost always consist of the second- or third-order fan publication mass figure plus this tabulated nacelle mass.

Almost? There’s something funny about your FASA figures. And not just the masses.

Yes. FASA ships typically consist of a Constitution saucer and nacelle(s), liberally rescaled, plus an original secondary hull and pylon structure. As the artwork usually is small and of low resolution, allowing or even necessitating some creative interpreting, I have taken the liberty of ‘un-rescaling’ all the FASA ships to match either the real dimensions of the familiar saucer and nacelle, or then a putative alternate hull and engine design some 50 % the size of the original. Reducing the multitude of FASA saucer and engine sizes to just these two options strikes me as logical from the engineering standpoint. The 50 % alternative also nicely agrees with certain other canon and fan designs – such as the engines seen on USS Huron in TAS “Pirates of Orion”, or the ones moving certain RPG light cruisers around at warp speed.

This rescaling naturally affects the FASA mass figures, too. Sometimes the effect is so small that I merely assume the dimensions were ‘printing errors’ which I then correct, yet the mass was already true down to the ton. Sometimes an actual mass correction is required, though, and a scaling factor derived from the dimension corrections is used. Sometimes the FASA masses make no volumetric sense even with the original dimensions, in which case I am forced to introduce more consistent figures of my own. Usually I find creative workarounds, though (such as assuming there is a surprisingly massive piece of special equipment aboard, for example).

This scaling logic often necessarily extends to the numbers of onboard transporters, shuttlecraft, weapon systems and crew, too. Again, some workarounds are explicit in the entires, some implicit. It may in general be fun to compare the Guide to the corresponding RPG fact sheets…

So, to sum up, you just twist everything to fit your own interpretation of Star Trek?

In a nutshell, yes.

Objectively thinking, this work is another example of third-order material, and in practice a competitor to the other third-order interpretations of Star Trek. Since it excludes so much of the material on that hierarchial level, it must be considered to represent an alternate universe of its own, incompatible with the other third-order ones. Yet it strives to be fully compatible with both its second-order targets of idolatry, and its canon fundaments.

Still, respecting the letter of the second- and first-order sources does not amount to doing justice to their spirit. The authors of, say, SotSF or ST:TNG are artists who have their own well-developed interpretations of what Star Trek is about. No doubt they will find this work incompatible with their views, in part or in whole. It is my humble hope that this does not diminish their enjoyment, would they happen to stumble upon this work, nor prevent other kinds of Star Trek enthusiasts from having a fun few days disseminating, dismantling, dismissing or discussing the Hobbyist’s Guide to Starfleet.

Faithfully yours,

Timo Saloniemi