Timo wrote:
"There's no reason to think that the jury would have any specific configuration. We can draw no conclusions from the configuration we see - especially as it so markedly differs from the configuration of Spock's hearing in "The Menagerie". Certainly there is no evidence against there being a dozen other Captains or starship COs at SB11 at the time."
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I disagree. Spock's hearing is at "sea", Kirk hearing is at "port". Of course there is evidence against a dozen other starship captains at Starbase 11 at the time: Why bring in starship captains with active duty (and thus immobilize their starships!) if there are other idle starship captains available at port, waiting for the end of repairs on their ships?!
The Starfleet representative who has to attend the court martial is just one officer, but Kirk makes his log entry stating "officers" which has to refer to at least another starship captain.
Timo wrote:
"I'd rather choose to interpret the "cruiser" in Scotty's rant as a pleasure cruiser, in which case "starship" would cover all the Starfleet vessels. Drawing the line between "cruiser" and "heavy cruiser" in the military sense seems awfully artificial."
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I agree, Mr. Scott isn't really working on all his thrusters during these scenes ("no bloody...C" - I doubt he has ever looked at Andrew Probert's original Ambassador Class design...
), but there seems to be a difference between a cruiser and a starship (whatever that may be).
Timo wrote:
"I'd certainly much favor all those interpretations that have the list as representing ships currently residing at SB11. But I have no great fondness for the "Nth design" model, which just plain isn't upheld by the episodes and movies of Star Trek."
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It is upheld by the TOS episodes and movies. And I rather have one "physical law" working fine than to worry about the "Grand Unified Theory" (including TNG etc.) which is next to impossible, add to this that it works once you consider the
Enterprise's creator original intentions.
Timo wrote:
"And in that model, there'd still be an alarming number of ships of the 17th design stranded at less than 100% status one way or another, out of the dozen quoted ones."
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You said yourself we do not know what the "complete" in the graphic bar means, thus we cannot conclude that it indicates "stranded" ships or a less than average performance.
As
USS Intrepid (NCC-1631) is not on this repair list (only
Enterprise happens to be there by coincidence) the list does not indicate starships "stranded" for repair work.
On the contrary, other than repairs
Intrepid is at 100% performance (and therefore not on the list),
Enterprise is not "complete", thus Commodore Stone orders repair on the
Intrepid to be stopped on behalf of
Enterprise.
Timo wrote:
"The idea of reserving the first two digits to a specific design doesn't fly if a design includes just a dozen completed hulls; Starfleet would be ridiculously short on ships in that case."
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I don't pretend to know how many starships UFP actually needs in the 23rd Century, therefore I have to rely on the producers intentions (analogy to the US Navy aircraft carriers of the 1960's) that 12 starships "like" the
Enterprise was all they had.
I take it from your comments that you disagree with this approach. But 12 starships would make sense in so far, that
Enterprise is often the only "starship" available to intercept (in the films).
Timo wrote:
"That is the system FJ ruined by giving a NCC prefix to all types of ship, meaning either that the registries suggest ship type by a subtler means, or then that the registries tell nothing of ship type."
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I concur. But bringing back Matt Jefferies' original idea adds more sense to the system than previous explanation attempts with only minimal "tweaks" ("corrections" would be the proper term), in my humble opinion.
Bob