Commodore Perry

From Turtledove

The Commodore Perry is a starship built by the United States, the first in a line of starships to use faster than light propulsion that also includes the Thomas Edison. The Commodore Perry was launched in 2031 and made the ten-light-year journey to Home in five weeks. It was greeted with much alarm by the Race, whose physicists had been convinced that faster-than-light travel was impossible.

The Commodore Perry is named for Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy. Perry's mission to Japan was closely paralleled by the Commodore Perry's own mission to Home. Members of The Race knew enough of human history to understand this parallel and feel insulted by it.