Starship water landing

[Ronald Held]

How much damage did nuEnterprise sustain at the end of the movie? Maybe enough for a minor upgrade?

[Ghostface1701]

I think the consensus is that the ship hitting the water isn't Enterprise. The one rising up out of the water though is.

[Crazy Eddie]

Ronald Held wrote:

---

How much damage did nuEnterprise sustain at the end of the movie? Maybe enough for a minor upgrade?

If it did, they would have upgraded it BEFORE Kirk took command and flew off with it.

[Timo]

Much would probably depend on what Kirk is supposed to do with this ship.

Pike was supposed to use the brand-new NCC-1701 as the Fleet's "newest flagship". What does a flagship do? Is Kirk scheduled for promotion tours, or task force coordination missions, or just run-of-the-mill exploration and defense but with panache? Is his mission different from Pike's even though the ship is the same?

In TOS, much of the allure came from us watching a group of professionals who knew their job, their hardware and their colleagues well enough, even though their working environment and job challenges were beyond bizarre. In nuTrek, Kirk isn't a seasoned veteran, but rides on intuition and general superheroity. It probably doesn't matter much what sort of a ship he is given, then.

If Starfleet feels NCC-1701 needs repairs, it could decommission her for those, send Kirk out in a shuttlecraft, and expect universe-saving heroics anyway. OTOH, Starfleet would probably also feel Kirk can triumph in a ship that hasn't been properly repaired - or in a ship that has undergone untested modifications.

I doubt the actual specs or status of the new NCC-1701 will feature in any way in Kirk's quest to defeat the Cumberbatch character...

Timo Saloniemi

[jayrath]

^ The term "flagship" has been incredibly misused after TOS. The Enterprise was only a flagship in TOS, TWOK and TSF -- that is, an admiral commanded it. No admiral? No flag.

[Timo]

A ship can be built for a flagship role regardless of how or whether she is crewed, though.

No reason to think the nuship wasn't built specifically for flagship action. Indeed, the fancy bridge might specifically be designed for such things, with plenty of seeming "extra" stations in comparison with what we have seen in the TV shows and the other movies. Whether she gets used as such, remains to be seen.

Timo Saloniemi

[SalvorHardin]

"Flagship" could also just mean the latest, best, most luxurious model produced which the Enterprise seems to be.
Like a car

[Forbin]

jayrath wrote:

---

^ The term "flagship" has been incredibly misused after TOS. The Enterprise was only a flagship in TOS, TWOK and TSF -- that is, an admiral commanded it. No admiral? No flag.

Nope. She was "just another ship" in TOS, no more a flagship than any of the other 11 Constitution class starships. In TWOK she was a semi-retired training vessel - FAR from a flagship. They didn't start throwing around the flagship moniker until TNG, and even then it was used incorrectly, since a flag officer was not in command.

[Timo]

A flag officer was in command of the vessel in TOS, technically indeed making her a flagship, in both "The Deadly Years" and, arguably, "The Menagerie". We don't know if either officer physically brought his flag aboard (or had one manufactured or brought out of onboard storage), but we're talking about words here anyway, not about physical things.

Ditto for ST2. In the real world, a rusty old training barge can easily be a flagship, as can a humble destroyer if the admiral in question thinks he needs to be in the thick of things and can't afford to stay back on a clumsy battleship.

Timo Saloniemi

[jayrath]

Forbin wrote:

---

Nope. She was "just another ship" in TOS, no more a flagship than any of the other 11 Constitution class starships. In TWOK she was a semi-retired training vessel - FAR from a flagship. They didn't start throwing around the flagship moniker until TNG, and even then it was used incorrectly, since a flag officer was not in command.

I erred. I meant TMP, not TOS. You are correct.

[Timo]

Commodore Stocker was technically flying a flag when taking command of Kirk's ship in "The Deadly Years". He might even have had his flag physically with him, ready to be flown at Starbase 10.

Commodore Mendez didn't really take charge of the ship in "The Menagerie". But Commodore Decker did, in "The Doomsday Machine". Neither of these characters would have had the physical flag packed, of course.

Timo Saloniemi

[Retu]

Timo wrote:

---

Commodore Stocker was technically flying a flag when taking command of Kirk's ship in "The Deadly Years". He might even have had his flag physically with him, ready to be flown at Starbase 10.

Commodore Mendez didn't really take charge of the ship in "The Menagerie". But Commodore Decker did, in "The Doomsday Machine". Neither of these characters would have had the physical flag packed, of course.

Timo Saloniemi

There are two flags visible during the hearing/court martial: http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...gerie1_405.jpg

Maybe one of them belongs to commodore Mendez? Fabricated just for the occasion.

[Timo]

Well, one of them is the Cuban national flag in reality. Quite possibly something Mendez would keep in his pack pocket, folded extra tight of course.

Timo Saloniemi

[Forbin]

Does any of that make the Enterprise "The flagship of Starfleet"?

[Timo]

Depends.

The next apply only to evidence we are aware of, even though it is always possible that there would have been events that were never televised, filmed, or even alluded to in canon.

1) Did anybody call the ship a flagship of any sort?
2) Did anybody call the ship "the" flagship as opposed to "a" flagship?
3) Did we learn what the ship was flagship to?
4) Was the ship a flagship at any point, in the sense of flying the flag of a flag officer?
5) Was the ship a flagship at any point, in the sense of commanding a large task force?
6) Was the ship a flagship at any point, in the sense of being a symbolic showpiece vessel?

Kirk's TOS ship: no, no, no, yes, no, unknown/unlikely
Kirk's refitted ship: no, no, no, yes, no, unknown/unlikely
The E-A: no, no, no, no, no, unknown but possible considering TUC
The E-B: no, no, no, no, no, unknown but very likely considering GEN
The E-C: no, no, no, no, no, unknown but somewhat possible considering relative size
The E-D: yes, yes, yes (of the Federation), yes, yes, yes
The E-E: no, no, no, no, yes, unknown but possible
nuKirk's nuship: yes, no, no (beyond Pike's "our"), no, perhaps (at departure to Vulcan, although there's no dialogue to that end), unknown but likely considering modernity etc.

So, out of the lot only the nuship might be "The flagship of Starfleet", unless one of the others briefly acquired that status off screen and we were never told.

Timo Saloniemi