HOME | DD

Description

Ported to OBJ from the filming quality model created by Dave Metlesits. Original design by Masao Okazaki as part of his fanon pre-TOS Starfleet Museum thread of the Trek multiverse. Revised backstory based on the efforts of the late Neale "Pixel Sagas" Davison as per his fanon publication Ships of the Baton Rouge Era. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. To download Dave's beautiful 3D model, follow the link below:

Masao Okazaki's fanon Starfleet Museum web site has fired the imaginations of Trek fans ever since he put it on the Internet years ago. He's got all kinds of original Trek multiverse starship designs there, mostly Federation but with a smattering of other powers (mainly Klingon and Romulan) covering the greater part of his unique concept of the pre-TOS era. I featured a number of these in my own Federation Spaceflight Chronology a while back (although I kept misspelling your last name, sorry Masao!) and many other Trek fans have featured their own particular faves of Masao's in their various Trek fanon efforts. One of those was the late Neale Davison, best known for those hundreds of absolutely free Trek starship schematics he put out and for which he never changed a dime. He took one of Masao's more popular late pre-TOS starship classes, the Valley Forge class cruiser, and included it as part of his old fanon effort Ships of the Baton Rouge era. I and many others like what Neale did in revising Valley Forge's backstory to make it part of the Baton Rouge era, since it makes it a better fit not only for a lot of other fanon threads in the Trek multiverse but also for the Trek starship combat gaming community as well. It's quite different from Masao's original take on his own creation, so please bear with me.

In Neale's take on Valley Forge, which I'm going to elaborate on a bit and revise somewhat while I'm at it for better continuity with everything else here at Mandel's, it's the "X-ship" of the Baton Rouge era. I know you Star Fleet Battles (SFB), Klingon Academy (KA), and Starfleet Command (SFC) series video gamers will understand that term immediately. It's the most powerful cruiser class starship built by the Federation for its time (the late pre-TOS era), and it was actually classified as a battlecruiser once it entered service. It was a somewhat simplified and more refined take on a similar proposal submitted but never approved at the start of the Baton Rouge era (Masao's Lancaster), and was only given the green light by the Federation Council after serious trouble began brewing with the Klingons. Valley Forge would also be the last Feddie starship class given the battlecruiser designation until the TMP era, but that had everything to do with politics and that's another story for another time. Anyway, moving on. Valley Forge comes at the tail end of the Baton Rouge era, for those threads of the Trek multiverse that include it, and like its counterpart Excalibur in the late TMP era it sports all kinds of newfangled and cutting-edge technologies for up-and-coming Federation starships (i.e. prototype Class I tech), which is why it is so powerful in its own time. Also because of all that, Valley Forge is the most expensive Feddie starship class of the Baton Rouge generation that actually gets built (make that second if you include Bernd Schnieder's Asia class too). Only two ever get built and enter Starfleet service out of an initial authorization of twelve in many Baton Rouge generation inclusive Trek multiverse threads. The rest were cancelled in favor of Constitution, the first and among the greatest starship classes of the Class I era, so there you go.

Again, just like the late TMP era Excalibur two generations later, the two Valley Forges that got built in this interpretation of their history - Valley Forge and Bonderenko - would go on to serve many years with Starfleet, receiving regular in-service refits and upgrades to keep them operating as long as possible. Both accounted well for themselves in numerous adventures on the far frontiers of Federation space, and also were noted for their excellent service both against the Tzenkethi (TNG, DS9, STO) and during the Four Years War (FASA) with the Klingons -- or the Axanar Crisis or whatever to you Okuda timeline groupies. Class ship Valley Forge was eventually upgraded to as close to the Class I spec as possible during its one and only Extended Service Life Program refit (ESLP) around the approximate timeframe of SNW, but at some point before that her sister ship Bonderenko was removed from active duty in order to serve as Starfleet Academy's main training cruiser and thus didn't get an ESLP refit. She was eventually retired early in part due to her increasing obsolescence and in part in favor of building more Class I starships, and Bonderenko was sent to fleet reserves as she was while the starship Republic took over for her in the Academy training ship role (ref. TOS "Court-Martial"). In the meantime Valley Forge, now reclassified as a regular heavy cruiser and looking very much like a proto-Constitution after her ESLP refit (nudge-nudge), would soldier on by herself all the way to the end of the TOS/TAS era and continue adding to her impressive service record before she too was finally decommissioned and sent to the barn, being too old and too worn out by this point in time to even seriously consider for any kind of TMP-era refit or rebuilding. Efforts to preserve Valley Forge as a museum ship were successful, and she was eventually restored over time to as close to her original launch configuration as possible using parts cannibalized from her stricken sister ship Bonderenko (with the unused rest being scrapped not long afterwards). Valley Forge still survives in the TNG/DS9/VOY era as a museum ship in many fanon threads of the Trek multiverse.

Believe it or not I got a LOT of requests to add this one to Mandel's (chuckle). That doesn't mean I'm going to start adding Masao's pre-TOS stuff wholesale, as some of you might hope. Only what fits designwise with everything else (a-hem). Valley Forge works thanks to the late Neale Davison's inventive retconning, but a lot of the rest of Masao's post-Romulan War, pre-TOS stuff remains problematic. Maybe I need to give Masao's stuff its own sub-gallery, eh? (laugh) We'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime enjoy Masao's Valley Forge, undoubtedly one of his best and most popular Feddie pre-TOS starship designs, and I hope even more of you find uses for it in your own threads of the Trek multiverse as so many before you have already done. Maybe one of you will even give her a visual overhaul with the ENT/DSC/SNW treatment, eh? We'll see

This is fanon, although it's very good fanon IMHO. What you do with it in your own thread of the Trek multiverse is up to you.

Live long and prosper.

ASIDE 1 - If you want to read Masao's original Valley Forge write-up, follow the link below. Be warned that it's way out of whack with "current canon" (god, but how I hate that term) as interpreted by the Franchise and its many flunkies and canon nazis, so just like the rest of us you may have to do some rather extensive rewriting to make it fit in your own thread of the Trek multiverse. Either that or to heck with it and just use it "as is," as it works quite well with, ahhh, uhmmm ... "original canon?" (eyes roll):

www.starfleet-museum.org/valle…

ASIDE 2 - Some fanon Trek multiverse threads have a proper Valley Forge class as in Masao's original writeup, so don't be surprised if you see images of Valley Forge class starships or their derivatives with different names and all that. Hey, Trek's a multiverse, you know.

Description

Ported to OBJ from the filming quality model created by Dave Metlesits. Original design by Masao Okazaki as part of his fanon pre-TOS Starfleet Museum thread of the Trek multiverse. Revised backstory based on the efforts of the late Neale "Pixel Sagas" Davison as per his fanon publication Ships of the Baton Rouge Era. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. To download Dave's beautiful 3D model, follow the link below:

Masao Okazaki's fanon Starfleet Museum web site has fired the imaginations of Trek fans ever since he put it on the Internet years ago. He's got all kinds of original Trek multiverse starship designs there, mostly Federation but with a smattering of other powers (mainly Klingon and Romulan) covering the greater part of his unique concept of the pre-TOS era. I featured a number of these in my own Federation Spaceflight Chronology a while back (although I kept misspelling your last name, sorry Masao!) and many other Trek fans have featured their own particular faves of Masao's in their various Trek fanon efforts. One of those was the late Neale Davison, best known for those hundreds of absolutely free Trek starship schematics he put out and for which he never changed a dime. He took one of Masao's more popular late pre-TOS starship classes, the Valley Forge class cruiser, and included it as part of his old fanon effort Ships of the Baton Rouge era. I and many others like what Neale did in revising Valley Forge's backstory to make it part of the Baton Rouge era, since it makes it a better fit not only for a lot of other fanon threads in the Trek multiverse but also for the Trek starship combat gaming community as well. It's quite different from Masao's original take on his own creation, so please bear with me.

In Neale's take on Valley Forge, which I'm going to elaborate on a bit and revise somewhat while I'm at it for better continuity with everything else here at Mandel's, it's the "X-ship" of the Baton Rouge era. I know you Star Fleet Battles (SFB), Klingon Academy (KA), and Starfleet Command (SFC) series video gamers will understand that term immediately. It's the most powerful cruiser class starship built by the Federation for its time (the late pre-TOS era), and it was actually classified as a battlecruiser once it entered service. It was a somewhat simplified and more refined take on a similar proposal submitted but never approved at the start of the Baton Rouge era (Masao's Lancaster), and was only given the green light by the Federation Council after serious trouble began brewing with the Klingons. Valley Forge would also be the last Feddie starship class given the battlecruiser designation until the TMP era, but that had everything to do with politics and that's another story for another time. Anyway, moving on. Valley Forge comes at the tail end of the Baton Rouge era, for those threads of the Trek multiverse that include it, and like its counterpart Excalibur in the late TMP era it sports all kinds of newfangled and cutting-edge technologies for up-and-coming Federation starships (i.e. prototype Class I tech), which is why it is so powerful in its own time. Also because of all that, Valley Forge is the most expensive Feddie starship class of the Baton Rouge generation that actually gets built (make that second if you include Bernd Schnieder's Asia class too). Only two ever get built and enter Starfleet service out of an initial authorization of twelve in many Baton Rouge generation inclusive Trek multiverse threads. The rest were cancelled in favor of Constitution, the first and among the greatest starship classes of the Class I era, so there you go.

Again, just like the late TMP era Excalibur two generations later, the two Valley Forges that got built in this interpretation of their history - Valley Forge and Bonderenko - would go on to serve many years with Starfleet, receiving regular in-service refits and upgrades to keep them operating as long as possible. Both accounted well for themselves in numerous adventures on the far frontiers of Federation space, and also were noted for their excellent service both against the Tzenkethi (TNG, DS9, STO) and during the Four Years War (FASA) with the Klingons -- or the Axanar Crisis or whatever to you Okuda timeline groupies. Class ship Valley Forge was eventually upgraded to as close to the Class I spec as possible during its one and only Extended Service Life Program refit (ESLP) around the approximate timeframe of SNW, but at some point before that her sister ship Bonderenko was removed from active duty in order to serve as Starfleet Academy's main training cruiser and thus didn't get an ESLP refit. She was eventually retired early in part due to her increasing obsolescence and in part in favor of building more Class I starships, and Bonderenko was sent to fleet reserves as she was while the starship Republic took over for her in the Academy training ship role (ref. TOS "Court-Martial"). In the meantime Valley Forge, now reclassified as a regular heavy cruiser and looking very much like a proto-Constitution after her ESLP refit (nudge-nudge), would soldier on by herself all the way to the end of the TOS/TAS era and continue adding to her impressive service record before she too was finally decommissioned and sent to the barn, being too old and too worn out by this point in time to even seriously consider for any kind of TMP-era refit or rebuilding. Efforts to preserve Valley Forge as a museum ship were successful, and she was eventually restored over time to as close to her original launch configuration as possible using parts cannibalized from her stricken sister ship Bonderenko (with the unused rest being scrapped not long afterwards). Valley Forge still survives in the TNG/DS9/VOY era as a museum ship in many fanon threads of the Trek multiverse.

Believe it or not I got a LOT of requests to add this one to Mandel's (chuckle). That doesn't mean I'm going to start adding Masao's pre-TOS stuff wholesale, as some of you might hope. Only what fits designwise with everything else (a-hem). Valley Forge works thanks to the late Neale Davison's inventive retconning, but a lot of the rest of Masao's post-Romulan War, pre-TOS stuff remains problematic. Maybe I need to give Masao's stuff its own sub-gallery, eh? (laugh) We'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime enjoy Masao's Valley Forge, undoubtedly one of his best and most popular Feddie pre-TOS starship designs, and I hope even more of you find uses for it in your own threads of the Trek multiverse as so many before you have already done. Maybe one of you will even give her a visual overhaul with the ENT/DSC/SNW treatment, eh? We'll see

This is fanon, although it's very good fanon IMHO. What you do with it in your own thread of the Trek multiverse is up to you.

Live long and prosper.

ASIDE 1 - If you want to read Masao's original Valley Forge write-up, follow the link below. Be warned that it's way out of whack with "current canon" (god, but how I hate that term) as interpreted by the Franchise and its many flunkies and canon nazis, so just like the rest of us you may have to do some rather extensive rewriting to make it fit in your own thread of the Trek multiverse. Either that or to heck with it and just use it "as is," as it works quite well with, ahhh, uhmmm ... "original canon?" (eyes roll):

www.starfleet-museum.org/valle…

ASIDE 2 - Some fanon Trek multiverse threads have a proper Valley Forge class as in Masao's original writeup, so don't be surprised if you see images of Valley Forge class starships or their derivatives with different names and all that. Hey, Trek's a multiverse, you know.