[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Saquist

...I don't like that Spock thing...he deserves a better assignment. But he has no ego so he'd accept it.

I didn't care for it myself, though such an assignment would put his considerable skills in science to great use.

Originally Posted by kevin

Now there's nothing wrong with an Oberth Class ship!

It's not how big it is, it's where you explore with it!

I actually found my copy of the series and looked over the last few pages. There's actually a bit more to the assignment. His command of the Surak was a special assignment to determine of there were any long range effects of the Genesis device. Kirk's assignment was to shake out all the bugs from the Excelsior after having broken the ship a second time. Yes that's right, he broke the ISS Excelsior in the mirror universe too. While in the Mirror univiers, Kirk had Scotty switch the circuits around before the Empire engineers came aboard to study the ship so that they could finish their own Excelsior which was kind of behind schedule. So when they engaged the ISS Excelsior and she tried to fire her weapons on full, the ISS Excelsior blew out most of her control circuits.

[kevin]

Kirk and the Excelsior just don't mix well, do they!

[Saquist]

I like that the Excelsior was the antagonist in 3 and then the calvery in 6...great move for a great ships and design.

[Akula2ssn]

For some reason the Excelsior Flight II, or what most people call the refit kind of bugged me. I do like the appearance overall, but it didn't look as streamline as the original Excelsior.

Admittedly I refuse to call ships like the Enterprise-B an Excelsior refit. The Enterprise-B was built as is and wasn't refitted to the appearance of her maiden voyage. That and it would appear that both Excelsior designs were maintained throughout the service life of the class. You might be able to call the Lakota an Excelsior Flight II refit. The USS Hood could probably be called an Excelsior Flight I refit.

[Saquist]

I've never liked the Excellsior II.
It was a bunch of add on's that served no purpose. The design was fine with out those modules. aesthicly the sign makes me gag a little.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Saquist

I've never liked the Excellsior II.
It was a bunch of add on's that served no purpose. The design was fine with out those modules. aesthicly the sign makes me gag a little.

The thing that really kind of irritated my about it was the deflector. The two side compartments kind of made the thing look odd, but it didn't bother me too much. What really bothered me was the apparent reduced size of the dish, if the AMT model kit of the ship is accurate. When I saw the small dish it just kind of made the whole thing look really bad, with or without the side compartments. Had they kept the larger deflector then I could probably rationalize to myself the existence of the side compartments a little more as housing additional components for the deflector assembly.

[kevin]

I just think the flares were a lazy attempt to make it ever so slightly reminiscient of the flares on the Galaxy to echo the design lineage of the ships.

Rather pointless, I have to say myself.

They didn't make it look better and it really wasn't required in terms of lineage. The fact it was a primary hull/secondary hull and nacelles pretty much covered it in terms of identifiable components.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

I think the reason for the changes on the Enterprise B had something to do with the look of the ship and the interaction with the Nexus.

[kevin]

Well they also did want to be able to do the damage to the ship the nexus caused without damaging the original photographic model underneath, so yeah, there was an effects reason basis for it as well in that by adding those sections they could do the damage and protect the rest of the model.

But they still didn't improve the ship.

The original Excelsior design was nice and simple and elegant I always found.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Yeah, I agree. They could have left it alone if you ask me. It was fine the way it was.