[aldo_14]

Maybe if the Hecate was a joint TV design, it would simply be against the NTF ideology to use one..... also, if they had one, would it have been Bosche's command ship rather than the Iceni?

[Corsair]

The simple answer is that Hecates simply do not have the proper facilities to store massive amounts of Bosch Beer. The Iceni did, and furthermore had an onboard brewery for producing more. That's why it was the command ship.

What Command never told you was that Bosch was just a bigtime bootlegger who was trying to avoid interstellar duties on beer.

[neo_hermes]

[CP5670]

Why can't they use Hecates? Sure their stuff is usually old, but that's because it's manufactured in older, backwater-ish systems. I can easily see them stealing/defecting/building some.. at least two.

The indications there all point towards the Hecate being quite new even when the FS2 campaign started. Anyway, if their stuff is manufactured in lower-tech shipyards, how are they supposed to build those? Given this along with the fac that the NTF systems were in far worse economic states than GTVA ones, most of their corvettes and destroyers would have had to come from the GTVA, who themselves didn't have a lot of Hecates.

The NTF had 10 officially referenced destroyers; five of these are confirmed Orions, one is a confirmed Hecate and the other four are undetermined, only one of which the GTVA seemed to find it hard to destroy (and for story purposes, the Hecate is supposed to be more powerful than an Orion).

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Maybe if the Hecate was a joint TV design, it would simply be against the NTF ideology to use one..... also, if they had one, would it have been Bosche's command ship rather than the Iceni?

well I'd assume the NTF used stuff like the harpoon (or was it interceptor) missles that were joint projects.. then there was the Ulysses..

Nontheless, the NTF still had Orions, which outclassed the Iceni, so I don't think Bosch was choosing his Commandship on class.

[neo_hermes]

Bosch probably choose the iceni because of Speed/manuverability. plus the forward Beam cannons can carve a whole for it to sqeeze through.

[Eishtmo]

Originally posted by aldo_14


Um...why a decade an a half, exactly?  

I would have thought the need for a new destroyer would only be addressed after the founding of the GTVA and - more specifically - the introduction of a unified Terran fleet command.

I've always felt the Hecate has somewhat of a Vasudan influence in it's appearance, too....

The GTVA was actually founded in 2345, so the timing is actually pretty good given the need to design, rebuild Terran infrastructure, and finally begin construction.  Sol was the economic and industrial center of the GTA, so building shipyards capable of producing destroyer class ships would take a while.  On top of that you have the Colossus contstuction started in 2347, which instantly zaps a lot of the resource reserves.

In any case, the date is set due to one statement, in the Orion tech room description in FS2:

For over 30 years, the GTD Orion class was the largest ship in the Terran-Vasudan armada.

The Orion had been around since before the Great War (how long is hard to pinpoint), and was the biggest ship in either fleet even back then.  Thirty years later, a bigger ship (I think the Hecate is bigger) appears.  The only other two canidates are the Colossus (not finished until 2367) and the Hatshepsut (first commissioned 2360).  So the Hecate had to replace the Orion as the biggest ship in the fleet.

From that, we have to take a guess as to when the Orion appeared.  Earliest it could have appear, via canon, is 2323, when the GTD Goliath was destroyed (assuming, of course, that the Goliath was an Orion, which is reasonable).

The only way for the Hecate to be brand spanking new is for the first Orion to make it's appearance in 2330, and thus superceded in size by the Hatshepsut instead of the Hecate.  However, the FS1 tech room description implies that the Orion had been around for the bulk of the 14 Year War:

In the course of the 14 year war, very few of these have ever been lost, making the destruction of an Orion a truly horrible defeat.

So the Hecate is the only replacement possible.  It's earliest appearance would be 2353.

Of course, as I said, given the political and economic situation on the Terran half of the Alliance, the Hecate may have been in limited construction at the time so that the term 'new' in it's tech description may have been refering to the actual age of the bulk of the class.

[StratComm]

You can do all of the deducing you want, but you've still got the problem that it says "over 30 years" rather than a specific date.  Make it whenever you see the need, but don't worry too much about what is considered canon on this.  There really isn't anything to go on.

[CP5670]

They could also be referring to the Typhon there; I'm not sure what the difference in volume between that and the Orion is, but the first one of those destroyed an Orion, and for story purposes, bigger is generally better. Or perhaps they were talking about the unfinished framework of the Colossus, knowing that this new ship would at some point dwarf the Orion.

Also, I went through the appropriate CB animations again and it looks like the Cyrene is an Orion after all.

[Eishtmo]

Yeah, the Colossus is the only other ship that would count if you assume the Orion existed for the length of the 14 Year War.  If not, you could count the Hatshepsut, meaning the first Orion appeared in about 2330, which actually makes sense given when the Typhon appeared.

As for the 'over 30 years' statement, it means at least 30 years had to pass, and from the way it's said, at best it could be 35 or so.  Any more, and it would make more sense to say 'nearly 40 years.'  Well, at least that's the most reasonable way of looking at it.

[Taristin]

Originally posted by neo_hermes
Bosch probably choose the iceni because of Speed/manuverability. plus the forward Beam cannons can carve a whole for it to sqeeze through.

Bosch designed the Iceni... buddy.

[Solatar]

Right before the first mission in the main fs2 campaign, the Bastion is being decommissioned. it says something along the lines of "now the Bastion has been decomissioned and it's squadrons are joining the newer Hecate class destroyers. We are going to rendezvous with the GTD Aquitaine".

That gives a slight hint that at least the Aquitaine was new. and the class probably wasn't much older.

[CP5670]

see, I was right.

[Eishtmo]

Originally posted by Solatar
"now the Bastion has been decomissioned and it's squadrons are joining the newer Hecate class destroyers. We are going to rendezvous with the GTD Aquitaine".

That gives a slight hint that at least the Aquitaine was new. and the class probably wasn't much older.

It's actually:  "Now Command has de-commissioned the Bastion and reassigned its squadrons to the newer Hecate destroyers. We'll be joining the GTD Aquitaine, flagship of the 3rd Fleet, Capella."

There isn't anything that says the Aquitaine itself was new, only that the class is 'newer' than the Orion, which doesn't say much in and of itself.

The better statements come from the Tech room description:  "The new GTD Hecate class of destroyers is replacing the Orion class as the flagship of Terran battle groups."

The word 'new' here seems more in line with a recently developed class than the first.  In any case, it still has to compete with the statements made reguarding the Orion, which either refers to the incomplete Colossus, the Hatshepsut which may or may not violate previous canon (it's a toss up here due to vaugeness) and the Hecate being 15 years old by then.  It would still be 'new' compared to the 45+ year old Orion.

It depends on how you define the word 'new' given the statements they're in.  It could go either way.  It makes more sense (given everything else) that it means 'new' compared to the Orion than to say they're fresh off the assembly lines.