What comes after NX class?

Daedalus was the bulk of Star Fleet before the NX (according to Enterprise novels) so what do you think comes after the NX class?

Is it Constitution class or is it still to early for that?

 

Constitution class presumably won't be until the 2240s. The Enterprise was launched in 2245. If we assume it was one of the first ones, than that leave the USS Constitution sometime between 2240 and 2245.

The Daedalus class would likely be after the NX. I don't care what is in the Enterprise novels, the TNG episode Power Play established the Daedalus class was in service in the late 22nd century, with the class being retired in the 2190s. And television episodes are canon, thus overrule books.

 

But it's also possible that the Daedalus-class may have been in service even prior to the NX-class. Maybe it was able to outlast the NX-class and be upgraded to Federation specifications because of how modular it was.

While there is some precedent for pre-Federation Earth ships to be designated only by letters (such as the various DY-series of ships), other designs could still have been given proper names from the first ship in their class, IMO.

But if we go by canonical hull registries, then the Oberth-class comes quite some time before the Constitution-class...

 

The NZ Class.

 

Indeed, in the novels, this is in fact the case.

As for what comes after the NX and Daedalus classes: It's anyone's guess. Too much time went by between then and 2245 to pin it down to anything specific. There could have been dozens of classes in the interim.

 

It wouldn't be surprising if the Daedalus far outlived the NX, considering that the latter was a testbed for a radically new propulsion technology. An audacious experiment is likely to fail, or to get outdated by a "production model", in a short period of time - whereas the Daedalus class could have been an unremarkable development from the 2130s or 40s that featured no risky or experimental technologies. Also, nobody would be eager to develop a direct replacement to the Daedalus now that the Warp Five Engine was the hottest news; Starfleet would first build successors to the experimental NX class and only then concern itself with finding a replacement to the lesser Daedalus.

As far as the canon vs. novels debate is concerned... We don't canonically know what the Daedalus class looks like. All indications are that it is unrelated to the sphere-cylinder-two-cigars tabletop model glimpsed on Sisko's table, because this model would not be well suited for housing the 228 crew that are canonically known to be aboard the sole canonically known Daedalus vessel, the Essex, at the time of her demise.

Canon is "leaky" in other ways, too. We don't really have to believe that Starfleet would never have given a "proper" name for the NX class. Instead, in all likelihood, that class was officially named the Enterprise class, just like any other.

We only hear the expression "NX class" mentioned three times in aired Star Trek - in just two episodes.

1) In "Fortunate Son", Archer uses the expression "This is an NX class Starship" as a threat to his Nausicaan adversary. That is, "NX class ship" is a descriptive term, not a class name; it establishes the nature of military threat posed by Archer's ship. Similarly, a USN skipper might threaten his enemy by saying "This is an AEGIS class ship - so your puny fighters won't ever reach missile launch range. Wanna think again about that attack of yours?".

2) Later in the same episode, Mayweather says that "There are three more NX class ships on the drawing board". Again, it would be valid to argue that NX class is a descriptive term. Also, why do these ships remain on the drawing board? Is it because they have to be drawn? Makes little sense since the blueprints are already complete - unless they are of different NX designs, being drawn to improve upon the Enterprise class...

3) Finally, in "E2", T'Pol identifies the duplicate Enterprise by saying "It's Starfleet, NX class". She does so before the ship is within visual range. Easy to argue, then, that she only identifies the general category (NX, easily discerned because the Warp Five engine has a distinct signature) rather than the exact class (Enterprise, even though at that time there would be no other NX classes, and presumably no other vessels in this particular NX class, either).

Interpreting "NX class" as a descriptive term rather than a class name would also be consistent with how the USN does things. In USN practice, the combination of letters preceding the registry number describes the type of the vessel, not the class. A DDG class ship is a guided missile destroyer, even though the USN might have three different classes of DDGs in service simultaneously.

The letters "NX" actually make rather good sense in the USN scheme of things... N indicates nuclear propulsion, a propulsion type that sets all the N ships apart from others in terms of performance (mainly range/endurance). Starfleet could well use N to denote the exceptional propulsive system of the Enterprise class, too! And X could stand for eXperimental - although considering the explicit nature of the Enterprise class, it's more likely to stand for eXplorer.

As for the fact that nobody ever says "Enterprise class" on screen, I wouldn't sweat that. Nobody ever identified the class of Kirk's TOS ship on screen, either, not during TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Quite an in-depth rationalisation Timo but what you have there are three examples of the NX-01 being specifically called "NX Class" and none of it being called anything else.

Surely a better argument is that it could be BOTH "NX" and "Enterprise" class, like the "688" or "Los Angeles" class attack subs.

 

Well, every other Fed starship we've seen sure as hell isn't "NCC Class."

 

Well, that is my argument. That is, this submarine class is the Los Angeles class officially, and "688 class" is just unofficial jargon.

NX-01 was not Starfleet's first ship. She was Starfleet's first exploration vessel, though, and it would thus be apt to refer to her as the/an NX class ship, since there would be no peers to her for the duration of ENT. Not until the next NX class was designed and fielded, at any rate. Similarly, there once was this ship class known as AEGIS class, officially the Ticonderoga class of cruisers. Today, there cannot be, since half a dozen ship classes have the AEGIS system aboard...

Also, UFP Starfleet's NCC never was a designation of ship type, at least not after TOS; Franz Joseph went and ruined that for us, so that several different ship types in ST:TMP sported the NCC prefix for their registries. But NX in ENT could still be a classic pennant code, similar to today's CVN or DDG or SSBN.

Other ship classes from the era have proper names, such as Neptune class. Commercial types have letter designations, yes - but none of the letter-designated classes were related to the UE Starfleet. That's similar to the real world precedent, too: commercial operators won't bother inventing class names for their ships, but a warship that starts life with factory designation MEKO 360 will inevitably be named something more dignified, such as Almirante Brown.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I don't think it's that far out of line to say that Starfleet just changed its class naming scheme. They used to use letters (DY, Y and J-class freighters, NX-class starships), now they use names. Seems simple enough.

 

I think the whole NCC thing comes from capacity. NX doubled as class and registry because there wasn't a lot of them at first. SO it is easy to just say NX-1, Nx-5.

 

First of all, NX isn't a Federation design, it's an Earth Starfleet design, secondly DY and J Class aren't starfleet designs, so naming them with letters doesn't really have that dramatic an impact on the discoussion unless you wanted to go into how it was typical for Earth ships to have a letter designation.
Also NX wasn't the only prefix, the Intrepid was NV, it could be argued that it would be NV class, but that is speculation. It has been estabolished that some other ships had names, like Neptune Class, but there is no way of knowing how that fits in to the naming schemes for Starfleet. Cmdr Tucker's explamation when refering to Neptune class indicates it is of far lower quality vessel, but that may be an exageration based on his condition at the time and the fact that NX was essentially the flagship and the Enterprise was the only one, but it could also be that the Neptune was from another service.
It would be fair to assume that Both NX and Enterprise were class names, NX being the registration of that class (not jargon), used for documentation purposes, and Enterprise was the name used for the class, which would be consistant with the Navy and NASA (The space shuttle isn't Orbiter or Shuttle class, it's OV class, but you don't hear anyone say that).

As for the Daedelus class, the books are NOT canon and just because it is in a book doesn't make it true. Authors of those books are fans like you and me and shouldn't be taken as anything more than speculation. From what I have learned there are three types, Canon is what is Directly seen onscreen or possibly an official comment of publication, non-canon is any speculation on the subject from unofficial soarces. There is more or less a third type, Quasi-Canon, which is basically something that either comes from an official soarce but isn't technically canon or something that comes from another soarce but an official soarce believes it to be considered truthful. An example would be TAS, it is not officially canon to the Trek universe, but most fans consider it to be canon since it came from the same production and follows that same line. Before the model was seen is DS9, it was only a picture that was unnoficially considered Daedelus class, but never truly canon, and it was never said on screen what class it was so technically that is true, but most fans believe it to be true.

The consensus among the fans is that since the Daedelus class is presumably a Federation vessel, rather than an earth one, it most likely came after the NX, around 2161 or later. As for what came after the NX in earth design there are many fan designs out there, try looking up the monarch class.

 

But that's not true - the Neptune class was mentioned as a Starfleet class that preceded Archer's ship.

That's untrue as well. The Intrepid didn't have a registry or a designation of any sort, and indeed didn't seem to have a drop of pennant paint anywhere. The only vessels in ENT that had any sort of registry markings were Archer's own ship and her sister Columbia; and no other Starfleet ship ever sported any painted names, either, even though some of the ECS freighters at least had those. The name Intrepid comes only from dialogue, and the designation NV is a fan invention that was never part of the show itself.

FWIW, in "Minefield" Reed mentions being familiar with "Triton class torpedoes". If that means torpedoes used by the Triton class of starships, then the Intrepid is a good candidate for Triton class because she's the only other Starfleet vessel known to have torpedo tubes...

Timo Saloniemi

 

You are correct, my apologies.

I did look it up here, and apparently it didn't have any pennants or markings on it at all. Intrepid was named onscreen in at least two different episodes (the expanse in S2 and twilight in S3), and Drexler refers to it as Intrepis class, though this may be just a quick name to generalise the ship rather than it being the actual name, we have no idea.

Try and keep in mind also that DY was a class most likely origianally used by NASA and/or ISA before warp and then by either those agencies or UESPA or possibly UESN (if it actually exists in trek, one of those quasi-canon things), maybe by starfleet later on, we simply don't know for sure, but it wasn't starfleet that came up with the name design for those types of ships.
J and Y class freighters were used by ECS, which is an independant organization from UESPA or starfleet.
Also we have no idea what service the Neptune class was, only that it exists. Many fans feel that the delta type starfleet ship on Enterprise was Neptune class, but again that is speculation.

Ive noticed that a lot of fans have difficulty distinguishing between Starfleet on Enterprise and Starfleet on the other shows, but they are different. Enterprise was United Earth Starfleet, possibly a division of UESPA, whereas the other was Federation Starfleet. We do not know if UE Starfleet became Federation Starfleet or if both existed simultaneously (it seems that UESPA may have still existed long after the UFP was estabolished), but they are in many ways different, NCC was a product of UFP Starfleet where all commissioned explorers carried NCC registry, UE Starfleet apparently was different in the way ships were commissioned.

 

It doesn't have to. More likely it refers to the torpedoes themselves.

 

Four. In addition to your three, there's the episode Home, where Archer is talking about a meeting he once had with Captain Jeffries, who he identifies as the engineer responsible for developing the NX class.

 

And that in itself is more than we usually hear about *any* class.

 

The NX Class was Earth Starfleet. We don't know what amalgamations and technology transfers occurred when the Federation was founded and what design practices or technologies came from Vulcan, Andor or Tellar.

The Romulan War novel series seems to be addressing these issues, though the aforesaid founding of the Federation in 2161 gives an author considerable leeway in changing the technical direction and capacity of the new Federation Starfleet from the Earth Starfleet seen on Enterprise.

 

But there's no contradiction there. The Daedalus class could have been constructed prior to the NX class and then continued up until the 2190s.

After all, the B-52 bomber is a lot older than, say, the F-117, yet it's already outlasted the F-117 and is expected to stay in service until at least 2040 -- almost 80 years after its initial production! I see no particular reason the Daedalus class can't be akin to the B-52 Stratofortress in that regard.

And I rather imagine that the Federation Starfleet would have made extensive use of Surak, D'Kahyr, and Kumari class Vulcan and Andorian ships, too.

Except that it's explicitly called an NX-class starship -- that is its proper name.

So? The NX-01 isn't a Federation starship. It's a United Earth starship. Why should we expect the United Earth Starfleet (UESF) to adhere to the same practices that the Federation Starfleet (FSF) does?

1. None of it it's true. It's all equally fictional.

2. Yes, future canon has the option of disregarding what a novel establishes. Future canon also has the option of disregarding what previous cannon establishes. The only difference between canon and non-canon is that non-canon doesn't have the option of being inconsistent with previous canon, but new canon does.

3. Just because it's non-canon doesn't mean we can't accept it in lieu of canonical information.

 

So the proper name of the DS9 hero ship is "Escort-class"? Or that of the Klingon ST3 design "Scout-class"?

Starfleet may very well refer to the ship as NX-class, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be a more systematic way of referring to it, too. The Royal Navy has traditionally been operating things like "M class" or "County class", even though systematic names for these also exist (say, "Milne class" and "Kent class"); all I am saying is that UE Starfleet in the 2150s is more likely than not to call the NX class "Enterprise class" as well, because they also speak of "Neptune class", Triton class" and possibly "Daedalus class".

Especially if Daedalus and Enterprise represent different ship categories altogether - like B-52 and F-117 do.

The single canon Daedalus so far hasn't been stated to be especially "distinct" - she was lost doing pretty much the same stuff as various Constitutions or Oberths succumb to in later Trek. The same is true of those old ships that have been assigned a Daedalus identity in, say, the Encyclopedia, and later described as such in the ENT novels. But at least one novel, Friedman's Starfleet: Year One, suggests that the Daedalus could have something of a bias towards peaceful surveys, at least against the militant 2160s standards. Perhaps not a direct predecessor of Enterprise, then - nor a direct successor? OTOH, another novel, Dave Stern's Daedalus, introduces the possibility that the first Daedalus ship might have been a high performance drive system experiment just like NX-01. So perhaps these two were in fact competing designs for the role of the ENT hero ship, in the 2140s - and Henry Archer's ship won out while Victor Brodesser's ship lost? In other respects, they might have been built for the same mission...

Timo Saloniemi