USS Copernicus, NCC-640 or 623?

[Timo]

...Perhaps it's part of a conspiracy?

Timo Saloniemi

[Dukhat]

Boris wrote:

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No, but it could've easily passed for a new design, and the Klingon battlecruiser from ENT did retain an identical exterior in the VOY era. The producers' requirement to keep Star Trek mostly the same, as well as some budget constraints here and there, simply resulted in a similar sort of "technological stasis" that is used to explain why the Star Wars galaxy had very similar technology 25,000 years ago. Yes, there is some new technology in Star Trek, but nothing radically new. As a result, Starfleet may view starship exteriors as a set of architectural shapes, some of them repeated by tradition over generations, rather than designs driven strictly by functional requirements. The interior can change, but the exterior doesn't matter as much.

While I understand what you're getting at here, the fact of the matter is that old models were reused because of budget and time constraints, not because of some in-universe explanation that Trek is in technological stasis, even right down to the TMP bridge chair design used on a ship that was apparently built almost a century after TMP. I appreciate your attempt, as a fan, to try to explain these discrepancies, but this fan just thinks it's utter bullshit.

throwback wrote:

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The Heart of Gold, a starship mentioned in a LCARS display in "Conspiracy", has a registry of NCC-42. If registries are chronological, this starship would have to be commissioned in the mid-21st century. However, another starship from the same episode torpedoes that hypothesis. The Tycho has the highest known canonical number with NCC-85103, and this starship was active in 2364. Up to now, I, and I think a few others, thought a starship with that registry would appear after Nemesis. Nope, there it is in 2364. It's Entente all over again. Sometimes I wish that we didn't know about the starships from "Conspiracy" for they confuse matters more. I don't know how to explain the HoG.

1. Actually, the earliest the Heart of Gold could have been commissioned is 2161, after the founding of the Federation, which would be the mid-to-late 22nd century.

2. If you have the registry info for all the Conspiracy ships, I'd like to know them too, especially if you have screencaps.

3. One can't explain things like this, because they were not meant to be taken seriously. They're humorous entries that will be added into my shiplist for completeness, but other than that I'm not going to lose any sleep over them. No, I don't believe Starfleet really has a ship called the Elmer Fudd; I don't think a ship from the founding of the Federation is still operating in the TNG era; and I don't think the Tycho's registry is really as high as what appears on that computer screen. They're all in-jokes and should be treated as such.

[Boris]

But where do you personally draw the analytical line? The Wolf 359 ships and the Frankenstein fleet were meant to be regular 23rd or 24th century designs, and they would've been if the needed budget was there along with the requirement to show them up-close. To what extent do you think they look like the models on the available photos? NCC-42 is an injoke, yes, but in a way so is the highly visible NCC-1941 from "Cause and Effect" (TNG), not to mention NCC-0514 for the likewise visible Kelvin and a few other numbers from the background STXI ships. The Elmer Fudd is extremely unlikely because that name is highly inconsistent with Starfleet nomenclature, but NCC-42... Depends. Maybe it's an old ship that has seen some upgrades and is restricted to very specific missions.

[throwback]

I am getting the registry info from Jorg who is diligently working on decoding those orders from "Conspiracy". When I get my set, I intend to work on those orders as well.

The Elmer Fudd has the highest known canon registry with NCC-85343.

[Dukhat]

Boris wrote:

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But where do you personally draw the analytical line?

That's a good question, deserving of a good, simple answer (with explanations). Basically, whatever things were meant to be taken seriously, should be. And whatever was not, should not. I'll use your examples:

1. The Wolf 359 ships: These should be taken seriously. The TNG producers contracted out a professional modelmaker (Ed Miarecki) to design and build six new starship classes. They could have easily just thrown together a bunch of model kits themselves, but they didn't. Okuda even went so far as to assign names, registry numbers, and class designations for these ships, and added their info in the Encyclopedia. The resulting designs (and the two ships Greg Jein built) are 100% realistic.

2. The Frankenstein fleet: These should NOT be taken seriously. In complete opposition to the Wolf 359 ships, these models were simply rushed bash jobs that in many cases make no logical sense the way they were built. They were not made by professionals, they were not given class designations, and the ones that did have names and numbers were given them by whoever slapped them together, not someone official like Okuda or Sternbach. Yes, some of them were seen on screen, but YMMV as to how much one should actually take them seriously.

3. USS Kelvin NCC-0514: Name is Abrams's granddad, and number is allegedly his birth date. This is an homage, not an in-joke, and because the number fits the time period, there's no problem. The Kelvin kitbashes were the same deal.

4. USS Bozeman NCC-1941: The registry is not a joke; again, it's an homage to something. Because the number happens to fit the age of the ship, like the Kelvin there's no problem with taking it seriously.

5. Elmer Fudd, NCC-42 et. al from Conspiracy: No one at the time would have ever guessed that this info would ever be readable, or that Trek fans would obsess over this info to the extent we do here. A lot of the info was just random jokes, and was thrown together very quickly, spelling errors and all. Nothing in it should be taken seriously. As I said before, once we get all the info, it's going in my shiplist for completeness' sake, but other than that, it's meaningless to me because it was meaningless to the people who made it up.

[throwback]

For the release of TNG on blue-ray, Mr. Okuda corrected okudagrams from the episode "The Naked Now" (refit Enterprise to TOS Enterprise) and "The Neutral Zone" (Clare Raymond's family tree). For me, the latter is telling. In the original showing, the family tree was peppered with in-jokes (Dr. Who characters, Muppets characters). If he could change the family tree, he could have change the mission orders. He didn't. Why?

[Dukhat]

throwback wrote:

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For the release of TNG on blue-ray, Mr. Okuda corrected okudagrams from the episode "The Naked Now" (refit Enterprise to TOS Enterprise) and "The Neutral Zone" (Clare Raymond's family tree). For me, the latter is telling. In the original showing, the family tree was peppered with in-jokes (Dr. Who characters, Muppets characters). If he could change the family tree, he could have change the mission orders. He didn't. Why?

Probably because he knew Raymond's family tree would be large enough to be completely legible in HD, and on the screen for quite a while, while the Conspiracy info was much smaller, not as legible, and lasted less than a second before changing to different screens. Plus, there would have been way more screens of info to change, and very little time to do it. Cut the guy a break.

IMHO, I'm glad that the information wasn't changed in any way, because now I know what ship info was really printed on those screens back in 1988.

[Robert Comsol]

Dear Sirs,

this thread just made my day as last week I just finished my study work for the Academy ("Is Oberth Class the missing design evolution link between USS Enterprise and USS Reliant?").

When I became aware that NCC-640 has been used for USS Tsiolkovsky (model) I thought "wow"!
Of the three fathers of rocket science we'd then have the Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (640) in the same company as the German Hermann Oberth (602).
Of course, someone is missing: America's father of rocket science, i.e. Robert Goddard.

According to the (Matt) 'Jefferies Rule' this class of ships would be the 6th Federation design and the first serial number / ship would become the name for the class, thus there has to be an NCC-601 which I strongly believe would have been USS Goddard.

Yes, I'm aware of the problem that Goddard Class is somewhat not compatible with the Oberth Class designation seen on screens. Unfortunately! Maybe they can still CGI fix this for the upcoming Blu-rays?

Bob

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ If you're concerned about registry numbers, don't be. You can make them anything you want. There's no rhyme or reason to them. Whatever "Jeffries rule" may have existed, doesn't have to be binding.

[Timo]

Besides, "fathers and mothers of rocketry" is a theme that would have been used in spacecraft since time immemorial, meaning that the names on 23rd century starships would be "recycled" ones. Now, the Royal Navy is fond of recycling entire thematic collections of names (for each generation of ships, there's a County class, Town class, Tribal class, Castle class, River class and/or Quality class), but the USN tends to pick and choose: only heroic examples get immortalized by a reuse of name. Thus, a famous old carrier name originally thematically applied (battle site theme) may now be the name for a destroyer (for which there is no unifying theme). In contrast, insignificant ships like minehunters get thematic or alliterative names.

We have every reason to think that Starfleet picks and chooses as well: while lesser ship types may get thematic names (runabouts are River class), bigger ones seem to get famous names (so we e.g. witness US battle site = aircraft carrier names being distributed across multiple dissimilar classes, while none of these classes uses solely the names of US battle sites or carriers).

So USS Goddard may already be in "better" use by the time the Oberth class comes along. Certainly later Oberth names appear diverse, including e.g. freedom fighters who had nothing to do with astronautics or astronomy.

Timo Saloniemi

[Robert Comsol]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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"If you're concerned about registry numbers, don't be. You can make them anything you want. There's no rhyme or reason to them. Whatever "Jeffries rule" may have existed, doesn't have to be binding."

Dear Sir,

I'm aware that a Grand Unified Theory, mind a TOE, for the Universe of Star Trek including all series is rather next to impossible than improbable.

However, if a theory that limits itself to observing the original series and its subsequent films (!) answers more questions than it's raising new ones, it should be applied (especially given all the changed premises in Star Trek where new people didn't understand what the old ones intended) rather than being thrown out like a baby with the bath water, in my humble opinion.

According to my understanding of canon, something is most definitely canon if it is what the original producers and production designers intended and if there's no substantial evidence to the contrary (i.e. screen or dialogue information), then it is canon. Therefore the 'Jefferies Rule' (creator of the Enterprise!) should be binding, unless you've arranged yourself with the permanent Retcon Maneuvers that plague or beloved Star Trek.

Bob

[Dukhat]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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According to my understanding of canon, something is most definitely canon if it is what the original producers and production designers intended and if there's no substantial evidence to the contrary (i.e. screen or dialogue information), then it is canon. Therefore the 'Jefferies Rule' (creator of the Enterprise!) should be binding, unless you've arranged yourself with the permanent Retcon Maneuvers that plague or beloved Star Trek.

That's not true at all. Canon in Star Trek is whatever the person currently in charge of Star Trek says it is. Intent by past producers is invalid if whoever presently holds the reigns says so, decides to blatantly ignore it, or especially if something else has superseded it. Case in point: Whatever Jeffries' intent with his registry scheme was went out the window when Constitution class vessels with registries other than 17XX were listed in Okudagrams, the Encyclopedia, etc. after TOS was produced.

[Timo]

Or already when a ship of that class was shown with the registry 1017...

Much of what Jeffries or Roddenberry or Coon etc. dreamed up but failed to make explicit in TOS has been rendered invalid later on, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Much has been left in limbo, too, neither confirmed nor contradicted. But the idea that the registries identify the class of the ship went out of the window before Jeffries' tenure was over, and even before the Franz Joseph tech manual made its first popular alternate interpretation.

Timo Saloniemi

[Robert Comsol]

Timo wrote:

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"Or already when a ship of that class was shown with the registry 1017...

Much of what Jeffries or Roddenberry or Coon etc. dreamed up but failed to make explicit in TOS has been rendered invalid later on, and it's not necessarily a bad thing."

So much respect for the people that created Star Trek and their intentions. I take note of that and the open appreciation of the dystopian revisionism 1984 style. Perfect excuse for people that lack the enthusiasm of doing accurate research work, first.

Timo wrote:

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"Much has been left in limbo, too, neither confirmed nor contradicted. But the idea that the registries identify the class of the ship went out of the window before Jeffries' tenure was over, and even before the Franz Joseph tech manual made its first popular alternate interpretation."

Pardon me, where exactly does the TM provide an alternate interpretation for NCC-1017???

All Franz Joseph did was to ignore the official statements in The Making of Star Trek that refer to "Enterprise Starship Class". Though he probably wasn't aware of Matt Jefferies' registry scheme, at least he did that right by assigning prefixes beginning with 17.. to Enterprise's sister ships, except for Republic and Constellation.

Since Republic was an older starship (13th design, Baton Rouge Class as envisioned by Marvel Comics and Rick Sternbach), I assume it's fair to say Joseph got that wrong.

With the USS Constellation of Matt Decker, which seems to be the exception from the rule, I find it amazing that no one ever considered the possibility that it was named and numbered in honor of its predecessor (10th design). With Captain Harriman's Excelsior Class Enterprise it's okay, other USS Yamato's appear to have had the name and registry of NCC-1305 (that's okay, too) but we can't apply that to the USS Constellation of TOS

Bob

[Dukhat]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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Since Republic was an older starship (13th design, Baton Rouge Class as envisioned by Marvel Comics and Rick Sternbach), I assume it's fair to say Joseph got that wrong.

There is no canon evidence that the Republic was an older ship. Just because her registry started with 13 means nothing. The Encyclopedia lists it as Constitution class, so until canon evidence surfaces that it is not, that's what it officially is. And comics aren't canon.

With the USS Constellation of Matt Decker, which seems to be the exception from the rule, I find it amazing that no one ever considered the possibility that it was named and numbered in honor of its predecessor...

Maybe that's because there was no "A" after the registry number?

With Captain Harriman's Excelsior Class Enterprise it's okay...

It's okay because there's a "B" there.

other USS Yamato's appear to have had the name and registry of NCC-1305 (that's okay, too)...

FWIW, that registry was a mistake. The ship's registry was fixed as 71807.

but we can't apply that to the USS Constellation of TOS

See above for the answer to that question.