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DOING THE STATS FOR THIS SHIP
WAS A WORRISOME AFFAIR. There are no game
stats in FASA for this latest Enterprise design, and although I was tempted to
borrow stats from the Royal Sovereign (a design of FASA origin, not connected to
the real Sovereign class in any way) I quickly realized that the
Royal Sovereign is not as powerful as the Galaxy class.
And it seems quite evident from the movies that the actual Sovereign class is
superior to the Galaxy class, even if the Sovereign is smaller than the Galaxy.
So, I looked long and hard at the
Galaxy class stats from the TNG Officers Manual, and then took them one step
further. The results are a ship that is fantastically, ridiculously
powerful. This violates all my own rules of ship design! But I am
not sure what else to do? This is a class designed to take on the Jem'Hadar, the Borg, the Cardassians, Romulan
warbirds, et al. And it is the successor class
to the uber-powerful Galaxy class. By definition it is going to be one
whale of a ship! So you will pardon me if the stats below seem not just a
little outrageous.
Aesthetically, I think the Sovereign
looks a lot better than the Galaxy class, almost a fusion between the organic of
TNG-era and the industrial of Kirk-era. When ST:TNG debuted in the late
1980's I recall being shocked and very put off by the overly rounded shape of
the Galaxy class, and other similar TNG classes like the
Nebula. It took
forever for that design aesthetic to grow on me, and once the Sovereign class
was unveiled in ST:FC I found myself much better prepared to embrace the new
design, especially since it seemed to incorporate the best aspects of both the
Kirk-era aesthetic and the Picard-era aesthetic.
I'm also glad that they are not
making each new Enterprise bigger than the one before it. Past a certain
point, increasing the size truly does seem like a futile effort. Bigger is
not always better, and how much bigger does the Federation need to go? The
Romulans can have their whopper
D'deridex. So long as the USS
Enterprise can dish out as much damage as it can take, size truly does
not matter. And, from my point of view, I would think size on a warship
would be a severe disadvantage. Size almost always means less
maneuverability, and it makes you a bigger target and therefore easier for the
bad guys to hit when they shoot at you.
I have not actually play-tested this ship
yet. I imagine it would take either a ship of equally fell potential to
combat the Sovereign, or a legion of smaller ships able to bring down the mighty
ship in the same manner a pack of wolves might bring down a grizzly bear.
Those poor wolves will get the crap knocked out of them, but by numbers alone
they might accomplish what each cannot hope to do individually.
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