I was willing to believe that the TCS Confed, TCS Concordia, and the fabled TCS Agamemnon were all built at around the same time, completed and launched in very rapid succession, and christened at seperate times. Its not like they only had ONE shipyard donated to this particular ship design. My guess is they wanted such an imposing design filling the front lines as quickly as possible.
Yes, it's quite probable that more than one drydock was dedicated to the ship. Given the five year figure for building a new spacecraft carrier we know there must be at least two docks building Bengals - since the Kipling was put to space only a year after the Tiger's Claw.
(... also, a rare double-anal correction: the TCS *Agamemnon* was a heavy cruiser mentioned in the Wing Commander IV novelization. The TCS *Armageddon* is a ship mentioned in Victory Streak that fans seem to think has to be a Confederation-class dreadnaught for some reason... in fact, we don't even know if it's a carrier.)
Yeah the whole faulty PTC always left a sour taste in my mouth. All this criticism came from Angel's statement seemed somewhat unfounded. I always thought that the PTC was a weapon that put such a strain on the power core that it took a long time to recharge and cool down. To fire it before the cool down was completed risked the ship's destruction, but I refuse to believe that the Confed class dreadnought had a weapon on it that was that much of a risk. If you fire it once, you risk losing your ship? I don't think so, Tolwyn wouldn't have used it as much as he did in the game, certainly not against a corvette.
The idea that the Phase Transit Cannon was inherently dangerous didn't enter into anyones minds until the Kilrathi Saga manual referenced their being retired... so, yeah, the modern speculation based on the Special Operations 2 scene was entirely unfounded.
(... and the obligatory note about the 'corvette' - despite what the dialogue says, the ship the Concordia blows up is actually a Fralthra *heavy cruiser*. It wasn't the last example of cut-scene ship misidentification... Super Wing Commander begins with an attack against a 'Fralthi target' which turns out to be a Snakeir!)
As for retiring the class... Loaf, was the class retired or did they just stop building it? I mean the ship was an imposing ship even without the PTC.
The Phase Transit Cannon was "retired" in 2665, according to the Kilrathi Saga manual. Since we see the Concordia in service through 2669 (using the gun through at least 2667) this must mean only that *production* of the weapon had ceased.
This also bothers me. In Standoff, we see the Concordia with a large fleet around here. In WC2, it says on his door that Tolwyn is the commander of the 7th fleet... well wheres the fleet? We have one destroyer, which seems to disappear when the Concordia is under fire, where are the other ships?
The door actually says that he's commander of the *14th Fleet*. In reality, a fleet doesn't travel in a giant mass - it's the group of ships responsible for an entire theater. The United States has a different numbered fleet (and chain of command) for each area of the world (ie, the 3rd Fleet is the north and east Pacific Ocean). Presumably the 14th Fleet is responsible for some portion of the Enigma Sector... and Tolwyn has his flag aboard the Concordia (he's also her captain). Concordia and her escort/s form some individual Task Force group (depending on mission).
Ah, thanks for the correction. I haven't read the novels, so to the degree they have anything to add about the PTC, I have no idea.
It isn't mentioned once.
Both the addition and the removal of the Phase Transit Cannon to the continuity were purely cosmological... it was created to deal with people demanding to know what happened to the Sivar's technology and removed because there's not really anything fun about having an incredible supership which scores all the hard kills for you.
