Does anyone else remember...?

[**DONOTDELETE**]

does anyone else remember the TNT advertisements for Crusade, showing Excalibur in a deep evening sky over a forest of some kind, and the subcaption "The Renegade Rangers" or something to that order? could this have been a hint at where the show was heading, or perhaps been a sign of what TNT was trying to do, turning Crusade into a sort of "Cowboys in Space" type of show? could it have been where JMS would have taken Rangers?

 

[KoshN]

It was the same header that had it as a "Limited Series." Can't find it, but I'm looking. Coulda swore I saved it. /forums/images/icons/rolleyes.gif

 

[LightNZ]

it's here:
http://jumpgates.tripod.com/crusade.htm

 

[KoshN]

Thanks! /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I remember it. I don't think that Crusade was going to turn into whatever JMS had planned for Rangers though. I think Crusade was a new story that he came up with in the course of producing S5, one with some elements in common with the Rangers concept.

JMS's descriptions of the "possible side story" in the B5 universe prior to the start of pre-production on Crusade all sounded more like Rangers than they did like the story the eventually emerged. I think JMS originally pitched something much closer to Rangers to TNT, but for various reasons the project took on a new direction. (One thing may have been a desire on TNT's part to make the series more independent B5 by introducing a new ship with a new mission, unconnected to the earlier storylines, rather than using a group like the Rangers, intimately associated with Sheridan and Delenn. TNT had a - I think legitimate - concern that viewers might believe that the series would be hard to follow if they hadn't already watched B5. I think they went too far in this direction, but I think the concern was valid.)

I would guess that JMS took his basic idea of a looser, more Trek-like story centering on a small team and a wandering ship, and combined it with story threads that he could now move out of B5 S5 since he had another series to deal with them in. (The Teep Crisis and the lingering threat of Shadow Tech being chief among them.)

The result was Crusade. However, when the TNT marketing department, now composed of people who either didn't like B5 or didn't know anything about it, wrote the "promotional" material, they probably just skimmed whatever was in the file and created the "renegade rangers" line because they didn't understand that the series had changed (from one centering on "rangers" to one centering on a "renegade starship") during the course of its development. They may even have assumed that the Excalibur crew (especially in the black uniforms) were rangers, because their knowledge of the show was so superficial. Don't forget, TNT's original plan was to air only the black uniform episodes, so maybe they never screened the others before writing the ads.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Mike G]

On the Lurkers Guide, they say that early idea for Crusade was to for the excalabur to be a Ranger ship. TNT most likely wanted to change this to an Earth Force ship.

 

[KoshN]

Well, it was an ISA ship run by Earthforce personnel. Had the Drakh not destroyed the shipyards, Rangers of the ISA would probably have been in Victory class ships.

 

[Galahad]

Well they will eventually won't they? The shipyards will eventually be reconstructed (probably somewhere else as the location is no longer secret enough to be secure). However now the rest of the Alliance are presumably aware of the project to build a destroyer class whitestar, the original shipyards for the whitestar fleet may be usable.

The big question is probably whether the end product will look anything like the Victory class, or function likewise. Will the new destroyer be more efficient if the new designer is not compromised by the Drakh or anyone else?

I don't think the main weapon difficulty will be resolved, that's a bridge too far with the tech available.

Some systems in place on the whitestar seem to be missing from the Excalibur, how much of this is due to practicality, and power distribution problems, and how much is down to wilfull neglect. The organic armour is gone, as is the minbari "curtain" style main viewer.

The Excalibur seems to be designed for rapid response missions. It is fast, and packs a punch, it's armour is enough to withstand the firepower of your average alliance vessel and it can probably take a fair bit of punishment in a fair fight. It was probably intended to be used primarily for policing Alliance territory, acting as a c&c vessel for whitestars, and being the back up in an assault.

With known malevolent forces out there, the needs for an alliance destroyer may change or adapt, they may prefer to lose the ambitious idea of incorporating vorlon weaponry, and stick with the defensive aspect of the vessel, the power necessary may also shave off some of the speed aspect of the destroyer. They would probably look in to developing a varied task force of destroyers, each with differing levels of strengths in the aspects of defence, speed, firepower and scanning.

This is all just my opinion though. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

 

[LightNZ]

If i remember right (which i might not, lol) - the Excalibur was to have an organic hull. But with the plauge and the destruction of the ship yard - it was never completed - as it would have taken too long to grow the organic hull - and the excalibur was needed right away.

The power issue would have been interesting in the ships that followed the two prototypes eh - ah well - one day we might know /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

 

[A_M_Swallow]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
If i remember right (which i might not, lol) - the Excalibur was to have an organic hull. But with the plauge and the destruction of the ship yard - it was never completed - as it would have taken too long to grow the organic hull - and the excalibur was needed right away.



[/quote]

The organic hull is not in either the book or the film. Since the Excalibur has a very thick plasteel hull it would not need an organic hull.

The enhancements after six months appears to be the addition of the science labs, a war ship would not need them.