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Mandel's Federation Fleet Review
Part of Mandel's Fighting Starships Series
Illustrator: Richard E. Mandel
Copyright: 2015
Summary:
When I first began work on the Mandel’s Fighting Starships series back in
the early 2000s, I had in mind an entire series of books modeled after the
contempary Janes or Conway’s series of naval reference works – which by
the way also inspired similar fan efforts, such as Todd Guenther’s Ships of
the Star Fleet and Eric Kristiansen’s Jackill’s series of publications. Classic
TREK fans always loved this sort of thing, and reaction to my efforts by my
fellow fans at the time was both positive and encouraging. Thus I began to
work on what eventually became the second volume in that planned series
– Guide to the Klingon Fleet. Why did I write them in reverse? Well, there
were and still are scads of references on Federation Starfleet vessels, but
surprisingly few at the time on the Klingons. A really good “classic era”
Trek tech baseline reference work on Klingon starships (other than that
terrible FASA manual) was needed more back then by my fellow fans than
just one more “Feddie” manual. That’s why I wrote Guide to the Klingon
Fleet first. Even as that massive reference work was nearing completion,
however, I also began drafting my own vision of the Federation Starfleet for
what would eventually become this work – Federation Fleet Review, the
real first volume in the planned Mandel’s Fighting Starships series.
That was then, though and this is now. A lot happened in the decade
between my original plans and where I am now, and that is why I had
leave off where I did and go pursue other things during that time. I’ve also
reluctantly had to let part of that dream go. Guide to the Klingon Fleet and
Federation Fleet Review will be the only two volumes I intend to release in
what was originally planned to be a series of a half-a-dozen volumes or so,
covering all of the various major starships of the greater powers in the TREK
universe, circa 2290 (late TMP era). Still, I’m glad I made a point of saving
everything I had developed for Federation Fleet Review up to the point
where I had to stop and go do other things for several years. It was the
only other volume in that once-planned series which I had developed in
depth, prior to my little deade-long diversion. You see, I had always
intended to go back and do the first volume once I found the time, and
cover the Federation Starfleet in just as much depth as detail as I had for the
Klingons. I’m a big fan of Starfleet TMP-era starships, you see, and I fell in
love with the TMP Enterprise the very first moment I saw her sitting in that
spacedock above Earth, hurriedly being prepped to be launched. Even
now, decades later, that sight still makes my heart pound. Thankfully, the
time has now come to finish what I started way back then. I’m just that
kind of guy.
Here we are now, almost a full decade later, and I’m finally able to pick this
work back up once again, continue it, and this time finish it. Hopefully,
there will be no major interruptions and diversions to sidetrack me as
before. Even so, I have to concede the fact that classic TREK is pretty much
a thing of the past, what with that abomnibale J.J. Adams reboot
revisioning, and all that Enterprise series inspired fan film fanwankery, and
so on. God, but how I despise Enterprise! Not even the excellence of
Scott Bakula (one of my favorite actors, BTW) could save that show for me.
Despite those and other things, though, I was happy to learn that the
classic TREK which I still love and revere still has many fans out there who
actually wanted me to come back and finish what I had started so long ago.
I’m also happy to see that there are younger sci-fans out there who are
discovering classic TREK for themselves, and were just as intrigued as us
old coots to see this finally come about. By now, you youngsters have
learned that there is a lot of stuff out there on which you can draw in
developing your own particular view of the TREK multiverse. Perhaps, by
showing you mine, it will help you in turn in developing yours.
One final thing. If you think my data on your favorite Feddie is wrong and
needs to be fixed, or you just want to change it – go right ahead! (grin) I
won’t be offended, believe me. I’ve been out of this for a long time, and
I’m an old man now. I’m forced to admit that my mind isn’t quite as sharp
as it used to be. It’s quite possible I got things wrong, consulted the
wrong sources, or don’t have the latest and greatest take on some of the
Starfleet vessels covered in this work. Remember, this is a reference, and
not an absolute authority. Use it to guide your own vision of Starfleet in
the TMP era – but in the end, you final vision of what that might be is yours
and yours alone. I’m just glad I could help you there in my own small way.
Richard E. Mandel (2016)
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