Fifth Fleet or Fifth Battle GroupEdit

If Endurance was sent to Orinda in 13 ABY as a part of the Fifth Fleet, how was it comissioned in 16 ABY as Before the Storm indicates? Shall we work at a retcon? --SparqMan 03:45, 24 Oct 2005 (UTC)

• Was Endurance part of the Fifth Fleet? I don't recall that in any source. On a slightly related note, I also wonder if "Fifth Battle Group" is the right name for this article - I think that's only used early on in the BFC, when the unit is ramping up to full Fleet status: by TT, if not earlier, they're the Fifth Fleet, and remain so thenafter. Also, Cracken's Threat Dossier gives a slightly post-BFC structure in which taskforces form battlegroups, and battlegroups form the fleet... that needs to be cited, too. --McEwok 03:07, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)
• I was almost certain NEC cites the Fifth Fleet at Orinda. Maybe not. As far as the name, it's made pretty clear that the official name of the unit was the Fifth Battle Group, while "Fifth Fleet" is easier to say. Most people do the same thing with US Navy carrier groups. The article does mention the composition of task forces into a battle group. It's also mentioned on New Republic Defense Fleet. --SparqMan 03:30, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)
• I don't have the NEC yet, but there's no mention in the original Essential Chronology; if there is something in the new version, the obvious interpretation is that what later became the Fifth Fleet was there as a component battlegroup of one of the other Fleets. As to the name - do you have a quote for "Fifth Battle Group" as the "official name", please? It's not the grouping taskforces into battlegroups that I have a problem with; it's the fact that under normal circumstances, battlegroups and numbered Fleets are not identical: "A New Republic Fleet is composed of battlegroups, each battlegroup subdivided into task forces of about 20 ships. The Fifth Feet is more consistently organized than others--five battlegroups, each with five taskforces" (Cracken's Threat Dossier, p. 64). This may not have been what K-Mac intended (IIRC, he uses "battlegroup" and "taskforce" interchangeably), but it is what canon gives us. We have to infer, I think, that the Fifth was in the process of expanding, probably starting as a single battlegroup in one of the other Fleets, becoming an autonomous battlegroup-sized fleet in the BFC, and eventually reaching the completed 500-ship deployment of CTD. Unless you have canon evidence for "Fifth Battle Group" as the correct name for the fully-formed Fifth Feet (or "xth Battle Group" as the name for any NR numbered fleet) someone should edit both this page and the NRDF one. --McEwok 11:41, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)
  • I may be completely wrong on the Endurance concern. As far as the unit's label, first paragraph of chapter 1 in Before the Storm: "In the pristine silence of space, the Fifth Battle Group of the New Republic Defense Fleet blossomed over Bessimir...". Throughout the narration of the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, it is refered to as such, although some characters, notably non-military personnel (or military personnel conversing with non-military personnel), refer to it as the "Fifth Fleet". I believe that CTD meant to get across was that the fleet, the Defense Fleet, was composed of five battle groups, each with five task forces. --SparqMan 19:26, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)
    • That may be what someone involved in the stuff that underlies CTD meant at one point; but it's not what the canon source says: CTD is quite clear that the battlegroups are subordinate to the numbered Fleets. I don't remember many subsequent references to the Fifth Fleet as the Fifth Battle Group after that introduction, and none at all post-BFC, when we have the numbered Fleets as "nth Fleet", and briefly "Fleet Groups" in SbS. What I do think I remember from the BFC (though I could be wrong) is "battlegroup" and "taskforce" being used simultaneously. --McEwok 19:40, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)
  • Does CTD out-canon the BFC novels? Lack of consistency across the novels is nothing new for us, so certainly we can reconcile the later references to "Fifth Fleet" as the colloquial term for the unit. The term "fleet" is used loosely as a group of warships operating under a single command, rather than a formal designated unit size. That's why it mentions the commonplace use of the term at the top of the article. "Battle group" and "task force" were used simultaneously in BFC, but not interchangeably. The Fifth had five task forces, and later a number of task forces from other battle groups were dispatched to aid it. --SparqMan 20:08, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)
    • Other BGs or other Fleets? CTD has equal canon status with the BFC, and is far more specific in details and structural stuff. So if CTD says (as it does) that numbered Fleets are made up of battlegroups and battlegroups are made up of taskforces, then I think we have to accept that; if CTD says (as it does) that the Fifth Fleet soon after the BFC consisted of five battlegroups of five taskforces each, then that's canon too. Unless there is explicit indication that this is not the standard/final structure (in which case we would have a contradiction), then we have no grounds to explain evidence that doesn't fit except as anomalies within this system - ie, the only safe hypothesis is to write down the "Fifth Battle Group" designation and the four-taskforce structure as irregularities that occurred during the Fifth Fleet's working-up to its full strength as laid out in CTD. We can note the problem, the possibility of alternatives, but I don't think we should conjour alternative theories from thin air when we have a standard pattern described in a canon source - or at least, we can't prioritize them over the canon source here on Wookiee. My normal policy is to put stuff like that in a "Behind the Scenes" section. --McEwok 20:49, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)
  • This is not an alternative theory from "thin air". The CTD material was written based on K-Mac's work in BFC. He expressly states that "the Fifth Fleet is the first New Republic battle group comprised entirely of New Class vessels", and within the narrative text of the novels this is reinforced on multiple occassions. The Fifth was a battle group, the fifth one added to the New Republic Defense Fleet. So there is our contradiction. Now, without "conjouring theories", how do we reconcile this? --SparqMan 21:30, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)
    • Oh, no, I agree with you, it's not "thin air". As written in the BFC, the Fifth Fleet is a battlegroup composed of four taskforces, and has the designation "Fifth Battle Group", and that may have been how K-Mac concieved of the NR fleet, consisting of five numbered Fleets also known as Battle Groups, each composed of taskforces; however, I don't think this is stated as an explicit pattern anywhere, and in CTD, the numbered Fleets are divided into battlegroups divided into taskforces, and the Fifth Fleet's deployment strength consists of five battlegroups each composed of five taskforces. --McEwok 19:08, 26 Nov 2005 (UTC)
    • I'd argue that this is best reconicled by assuming that the Fifth Fleet was brought into being as the Fifth Battle Group of one of the other four numbered Fleets, then was seperated out so that its commander answered directly to the high command like those of the First through Fourth Fleets. Obviously, you can't turn one battlegroup into a multi-battlegroup Fleet overnight, and the Fifth's numbers are further constrained by the construction-rate of New Class designs; so I'd suggest that the Fifth went through a transitional phase where, although functionally a numbered Feet, it was only a battlegroup in strength, and still known formally as Fifth Battle Group rather than Fifth Fleet; later (perhaps during the BFC), it was redesignated, and as more New Class ships were built, it evolved to the full-sized fleet described in CTD. Does that make sense? --McEwok 19:08, 26 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Entirely New Class?Edit

When the 5th arrives just outside the Koornacht Cluster General Abaht within the first hour requests additional reinforcments, he clearly states that the single "Interdictor" with the fleet is not enough for the interdiction job assigned to the fleet. To my knowledge no New Class ships used interdiction technology. This means that either the fleet used an Immobiliser-418 class Cruiser or else another one of the "Interdiction Pickets" used in the same trilogy by the task force following the Quellan Vagabound. Which is it, was the 5th fully New Class or were additional ships attached to the fleet, which Abaht doesn't include in his own fleet? Ciphe 20:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)