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BRAD'S COMMENTS: I said before that I thought the L-24 looked like it belonged in ST:TNG. Well, with the publication of the now-apocryphal ST:TNG Officer's Manual, the guys at FASA proved me right! The KDF-2 is an obvious redressing of the L-24 Battleship (not the K'tinga D7 cruiser) with only the addition of the Excelsior-style warp nacelles and the absence of the aft 'hump' making the KDF-2 look any different from the L-24. Also like the L-24, the KDF-2 looks a hell of a lot like the ST:TNG/DS9 Vor'cha Attack Cruiser. Compare the silhouette of the KDF-2 with the silhoutte of the Vor'cha in the official Star Trek Encyclopedia by M. Okuda, and you'll find they are very similar. Perhaps Sternbach and his crew occasionally glanced at the FASA manuals after all??? Nah! That's too much to hope for.
        The overly powerful stats for the KDF-2 are as bogus as the rest of the poor TNG Officer's Manual. The writers tried as best as they could to extrapolate from the then year-old TNG television series, and make it mesh with already-printed FASA materials. But it does not hold water. There is no Transwarp revolution, hence there can be no Klingon--or Federation--Transwarp cruisers or battlecruisers. All official Trek canon suggests that Transwarp was a dismal failure, and that the only reason the Excelsior survived and thrived at all is because the spaceframe itself was sound. There should be no 'special' engine nacelles attached to the KDF-2. Also, TNG and DS9 history makes it seem as though the actual technology exchanged between the Federation and the Klingons is much, much more limited than the FASA TNG Officer's Manual states. There should be no Federation phaser weaponry installed on a Klingon battlecruiser, and there should be no attention paid to 'creature comforts' aboard a Klingon craft, as the Officer's Manual supposes.
        In the end, the KDF-2 is perhaps even more estranged from official Trek canon than its older counterparts from the 1985 2nd Ed. Klingon Ship Recognition Manual because, like just about everything else in the TNG Officer's Manual, the KDF-2 has been rubbed out by current writing. M. Okuda's brilliant Encyclopedia and Chronology, and Sternbach's NCC-1701-D Technical Manual, obliterate any notion that the KDF-2 could have a basis in Trek fact. It's really too bad, too, because the TNG Officer's Manual was a great read in it's day, sixteen years ago. Just like "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise". But that was before FASA lost its contract with Paramount, and the producers of TNG/DS9/VOY chose to chart an entirely different course; one that would NOT adhere to or support any written material that did not come directly from themselves.
        So we're left to play with the KDF-2 and imagine what it would have been like to see it gracing the small screen. During game play, the KDF-2 is a total brute, capable of delivering awful blows and absorbing terrible damage without flinching. The superstructure rating is especially over the top, and unless you stack a single KDF-2 against multiple and powerful opponents from the older KLINGON, FEDERATION, or ROMULAN manuals, the KDF-2 is going to steal the show every time. The only ships that come close to the KDF-2 are the Romulan D'Daridex Battlecruiser, the Federation Galaxy Class, and the Ferengi Marauder ships. All of which have similarly bloated and similarly bogus stats listed in the FASA TNG Officer's Manual.

From the FASA Star Trek: The Next Generation Officer's Manual, circa 1988
KDF-2 (Alliance) Class XIV Battlecruiser
Known Sphere Of Operation: Empire-wide Use
Data Reliability: A
Major Data Source: Grand Alliance Data Files
       Based on the old Imperial Klingon Navy "K'tinga" Class battlecruiser, the Alliance Class is a transwarp-drive capable fire platform of considerable firepower and durability. This firepower, which includes imported Federation technology, has not been acquired at the expense of individual crew comforts, reflecting the willingness of KDF naval designers to adapt proven Starfleet approaches to naval architecture. The largest and most formidable of all vessels currently serving the Klingon Defense Force, the Alliance Class is also proof of the mutual cooperation and trust that exists between the Free Worlds of Klinzai and the United Federation of Planets.

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