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Ok....since we most likely figured out the fate of USS Exeter, let's move on to the luckless USS Excalibur. During the M-5 mishap, she was struck with full phasers and her crew killed. On screen, we couldn't see the amount or extent of the damage she took. All we know was the ship itself was still there, adrift. What say you, DITL forum? Did they fix her and put her back into service, or decommission her as unsalvageable and scrap her?

My guess is they repaired her. There was little visable damage, and it would probably cost less to repair a ship than build a new one.

Personally I say its impossible to tell without knowing what type of damage was sustained, to kill the crew the weapons may have just knocked out Life Support, which makes sense, M-5 was programmed to defend itself, it knows the ships can't function without a Sentient Crew so rather than trying to destroy the Hull, which would likely take more time and reduce its chances of survival it blasts Life Support and the Crew Dies...

If that were the case then the repair could be quite simple...

It didn't SEEM like there was irreparable damage. Hell, they've pout ships back together after more than it looked like she got. I'd guess repair and replace.

Connies were tough ships. I'm saying repair as well.

They could have rebuilt a new hull pretty quick and ripped out all the bits they could from the Excalibur and put them in the new hull. Sometimes its easier to start from scratch then repairing.

Teaos wrote:They could have rebuilt a new hull pretty quick and ripped out all the bits they could from the Excalibur and put them in the new hull. Sometimes its easier to start from scratch then repairing.

That sounds like it would require both new construction plus the labor equivalent of overhauling the Excalibur. Why do double work?

Cause to repair a ship you have examine it, cut out the damaged bits, build in new bits around a existing hull.

Were as building a new hull and putting in salvaged bits would be simpler. It would only be something you do with a heavily damaged ship though.

Then you still have to pick through and excise the innards of the damaged ship. I'd say the original would have to pretty f***ed-up in order to make that sort of transplant worthwhile.

Yeah as I said you'd only do it to a ship that is really screwed. Like the one hit by the Doomsday machine.

If a ship is so damaged you have to salvage it you can just cut huge chunks out of it rather than carefully remove bits.

Fair enough.

I think they repaired it. I don't think there was anything to suggest it took any serious amounts of damage that would prevent it from being spaceworthy.

I don't recall the Excallibur being shown after she was hit, at least not in the original - TOS-R might have changed that. Either way, damage sufficient to kill the entire crew is pretty severe - at best she'd have needed to be almost completely rebuilt a la RFA Sir Tristram, at worst she'd have to be scrapped, with as many salvageable components as could be found retrieved.

What type of ship was the Excalibur? If it was a Connie, then you have a point. If it was another ship, then we can't really comment on it.

Rochey wrote:What type of ship was the Excalibur? If it was a Connie, then you have a point. If it was another ship, then we can't really comment on it.

It was a Connie - we never saw any other class of ship in TOS.