Topic: Question about FASA Klingon Lettering like the D-7, L-9, L-24, etc..

[Magnum357]

Are there any FASA Trek fans here?  I want to ask if anyone knows why in FASA why the Klingon ships are labeled the way they are?  For example, the big L-24 Klingon Battle ship uses an "L" letter along with a few other FASA ships like the L-9 and such.  Did FASA ever give an explaination what these letters suppose to represent?  They even have a "K" sometimes to represent something else.  And even the Klingon Bird of Prey uses an "L" letter.  Does it represent a certain design beauro or something?

I ask this because I'm working on a Mod for SFC3 and I kinda want to use the letter system that FASA has for there Klingon ships, but I can't see any pattern for the letters.  I thought at first that "D" might indicate Crusiers, "K" representing Escort Vessels, and "L" Representing Frigate ships, but this doesn't seem to fit well.

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

If you can give me a day or 2 I'll look for my books. I saw them recently. I have the klink and fed ship books somewhere in the basement.  I have a few hundred dollars worth of painted miniatures. I only ever found a few to play table top many years back.

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

Found the original and updated. There is no explanation as to the lettering on the ship models, i.e.    L-24 battleship and K-23 escort.  There are references to the shipyards where they were built, but it doesn't line up with one facility building only Ls and one building Ds or Ks. (Taamar, Gnuu Re' and H'rez to name a few production facilities)

 

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

In Star Trek history, Klingon ships never had any designations whatsoever during TOS, they were only ever referred to as Klingon Battlecruisers.

During the Animated Series, while trying to identify a Klingon Battlecruiser, Spock makes reference to one of them being a Klolode class Battlecruiser with the implication that there also existed also classes of Battlecruisers. The Klolode class was considered equivalent to the Constitution class Enterprise of the Original (and Animated) series. No reference was made to any nomenclature, still, however.

The first useage of Klingon ship designations did not in fact, come from any canon source at all, but does in fact come from Starfleet Battles and fan fiction, where the term D7 Battlecruiser was used to describe the Klolode class. The term became so popular that it found its way into much Trek fiction, and was expanded upon by SFB to include D6, D5, E5, E4, and so on.

When Star Trek, the Motion Picture was released in 1979, the movie itself still made no direct reference to the class of Klingon Battlecruisers shown fighting V'ger in the beginning, but in the script and movie novelisation, they were given the name K'Tingla class.

FASA then released its version of SFB, called the Starship Combat Simulator, based on material from both the Original series and the Movies. Here, they used the same more popular designations such as D7, but also created some new ones, such L24 and so on, remaining consistant with the nomenclature. As far as I can tell, this was just purely creative differentiation or artistic license to make their product different from SFB. The FASA designations were not picked up by any other Trek fiction, nor by Paramount, to the best of my knowledge, however, Paramount did actually pick up the D7 designation and in an episode of Deep Space Nine, Sisko refers to a Klingon ship as a "D7 Battlectuiser". This has actually stood as an example of where fan created material has actually become cannon through popularity.

[Klingon Fanatic]

In Star Trek history, Klingon ships never had any designations whatsoever during TOS, they were only ever referred to as Klingon Battlecruisers.

During the Animated Series, while trying to identify a Klingon Battlecruiser, Spock makes reference to one of them being a Klolode class Battlecruiser with the implication that there also existed also classes of Battlecruisers. The Klolode class was considered equivalent to the Constitution class Enterprise of the Original (and Animated) series. No reference was made to any nomenclature, still, however.

The first useage of Klingon ship designations did not in fact, come from any canon source at all, but does in fact come from Starfleet Battles and fan fiction, where the term D7 Battlecruiser was used to describe the Klolode class. The term became so popular that it found its way into much Trek fiction, and was expanded upon by SFB to include D6, D5, E5, E4, and so on.

When Star Trek, the Motion Picture was released in 1979, the movie itself still made no direct reference to the class of Klingon Battlecruisers shown fighting V'ger in the beginning, but in the script and movie novelisation, they were given the name K'Tingla class.

FASA then released its version of SFB, called the Starship Combat Simulator, based on material from both the Original series and the Movies. Here, they used the same more popular designations such as D7, but also created some new ones, such L24 and so on, remaining consistant with the nomenclature. As far as I can tell, this was just purely creative differentiation or artistic license to make their product different from SFB. The FASA designations were not picked up by any other Trek fiction, nor by Paramount, to the best of my knowledge, however, Paramount did actually pick up the D7 designation and in an episode of Deep Space Nine, Sisko refers to a Klingon ship as a "D7 Battlectuiser". This has actually stood as an example of where fan created material has actually become cannon through popularity.

Excellent explanation Tracey! I can't thnik of anything else to add. Well done.

KF

[Magnum357]

I see, well it looks like if all these letter creations are just made up, I suppose I could do the same with my mode.  As much as I would like to keep the same Letter Designations that FASA came up with with certain models, would any on here object if I rename a L-24 Battleship to say a "B-24"?  I've always liked the way SFB did there letering system to indicate types of ships and would like to have the same consistancy in my mode. 

If "L", "K", "D", etc indicate Design Bearuos or Shipyard names, could someone give me some name examples that could logically work for the letters? 

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

From what I've read a "D"  stands for a design similar to a "Drell", a lizardlike creature from the Home Planet.  Suggests the name is more related to the hull shape than to the class size.

Also seen suggestions that "L" stands for L'ntch, I've seen L'ntch class frigates and L'ntch class dreadnaughts mentioned.  While of different sizes they might share a similar hull shape, I don't play FASA so I'm not sure.

[Magnum357]

Hmm.. that is interesting.  Never thought of Hull shapes. 

[Heavens Eagle]

Hey there Maggs.  I still have all my old FASA stuff (along with a small chunck of miniatures)  I suspect that the letters are a design bureu designation.  If I remember correctly there was even a big boxy designed battleship and it had a "B" designation.  Don't have the books here handy though so I am not sure.

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

Not sure where everyone's getting the whole 'design bureau' idea. I'm pretty sure it states somewhere in the manual that "D" ships are cruisers and destroyers, "K" ships are escorts and I think something else(been a while since I looked at the book) "L" ships are frigates, and there's a couple other letters for other types. Of course, there are some inconsistencies, first being that battleships also use the "L" designator, but for the most part it actually does work pretty well, in that with nearly all ships you can tell what type it is by the letter in the designation. Hell, make that all ships if you memorize where the inconsistencies are - and if you're a hardcore game dork like me, you probably have...

[Magnum357]

Well, although I prefer the SFB designations more then FASA, I don't mind the way FASA did there system.  Although the letters might mean "Design Bearuos", I'm more inclined to see them as ship type designations like Kieran Redux had indicated.  The only problem I really see is the L24 Battleship which seems very hard to beleive its a Frigate like the L42 Bird of Prey.  I think I remember seeing that Box like Battleship he is talking about aswell, and I think he may be right it was named with a "B" but I'm not sure.  It sure would be nice if FASA had named the L24 as "B24" or some other letter to represend battleships.   

[Lepton]

Those letter number combinations would seem to be obvious Federation designations for Klingon ships.  The preference would be to assign Klingon names to Klingon ships as became the norm from I presume TNG onward.  It's similar I assume to artificial designations given to Japanese aircraft in WWII.  I don't think the Japanese called the A6M the A6M, or the Zero.  I could be wrong though.

[Orieni]

Those letter number combinations would seem to be obvious Federation designations for Klingon ships.  The preference would be to assign Klingon names to Klingon ships as became the norm from I presume TNG onward.  It's similar I assume to artificial designations given to Japanese aircraft in WWII.  I don't think the Japanese called the A6M the A6M, or the Zero.  I could be wrong though.

The actual name was Zero-sen, IIRC.  Zeke was the US designation.

Graves

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

Forget the L is for frigates stuff. Read the ship manuals and you find examples like this:

 L-24 Ever-Victorious class Klingon battleship as I had already posted near the top of this thread. That's one very interesting frigate.   I wouldn't keep banging your head over the D, L designations. Someone might have been smoking something when they came up with this.

[TotensBurntCorpse]

The only "letter designation" of anything from TOS that I can remember was for the Trouble With Tribbles episode for the base they were at...

K-7 Deepspace station (later we have DS-9 for mr sisko)

[Julin Eurthyr]

I thought the D7 designation originated with the original set of Klingon ship deck plans...

Meanwhile, on the FASA designation system, I don't remember ever seeing any rationale as to how the ships are named.  I just checked my edition of the Klink ship recognition manual (has a D20 cutaway on the cover), and there's no explanation there.