NCC = Not Constitution Class?

[blssdwlf]

A revising of my last statement: The saucer, secondary hull and nacelle configuration would appear to have been around as early as the 10th design

[RyanKCR]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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If it does work on the detail level (i.e. for TOS and the subsequent films), I fail to see why it shouldn't be addressed.

I'm well aware of that especially if you look at what happened to the Romulans and Klingons - they swapped personalities for TNG.

But that's not the issue here. The original intentions for Kirk's television ship of the producers ("Enterprise Starship Class") and the production designer ("17th design, 1st in the series") did not change throughout the series and even stayed intact for the films.
While Franz Joseph may not have been aware of the 'Jefferies Rule' he must have been aware of "Enterprise Starship Class" because The Making of Star Trek was the book his blueprints and especially his technical manual did rely upon. His work was not exactly a role model of accurate research and unbiased reproduction, so given the choice to believe him or the series' actual creators, I choose the latter.

What was there to conclude that Enterprise would be a Constitution Class starship? Scotty is reading a technical journal, not the technical manual of the Enterprise. It merely established that a starship class named "Constitution" does or did exist, too, and since we don't know if he's looking at an historic text or an update report it remains inconclusive.
If the MK IX would indicate an old Constitution Class of the 9th design, we'd finally have a nesting place for the USS Eagle (NCC-956). Admittedly a nesting place on thin ice but better than no ice at all.
Should it indicate a present Constitution Class, then we might be looking at NCC-1601 - maybe that would help - considering we (now after TOS-R) obviously have starships with a prefix of NCC-16XX that are hard to tell apart from the Enterprise starships of the 17th design. As a colloquialism the term "Constitution Class" might be okay, but that USS Enterprise belongs to this class is a myth, I for one don't buy any longer.

I never said and never will say (until the recent Blu-ray 'fix', that is) that what we saw in "The Naked Now" was wrong.
It was an accurate display of Kirk's Enterprise that began as an Enterprise Class starship and ended as a Constitution Class starship (movie version).

Star Trek has established that ship identification also relies on visual contact. Imagine a helmsman seeing the a television Enterprise-type port and a movie Enterprise-type starboard. If he were reporting to his captain "Two Constitution Class starships, one port, one starboard" his report would lack information as the two ships are substantially different.
"one Enterprise Class starship port, one Constitution Class starship port" would contain all the basic essential information his captain would need.

Bob

Both Picard and Sisko refered to the TOS Enterprise as Constitution class.

[Robert Comsol]

Christkind wrote:

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"Both Picard and Sisko refered to the TOS Enterprise as Constitution class."

Liebes Christkind, it's obvious that a debatable pet theory of Greg Jein (partially adopted by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt) - not compatible with the original creator's intentions - became a popular myth that was eventually established by retroactive continuity in real life ("Constitution Class").

In-Universe and especially after TOS-R the conjectural Constitution's registry number NCC-1700 continues to conflict with registry numbers of "Constitution Class" ships beginning with "16".

As I have repeatly suggested, the lesser evil seems to be to assign the Constitution the (creator compatible) NCC-1601, have the Enterprise Class for ships beginning with "17" and assume the Constitution to have been the first ship to undergo the TMP refit.

In such a scheme we'd have the basic TV design starting with a "Constitution Class" which you will then also have for the motion picture starships - so that 78 years later "Constitution Class" has become a colloquialism that most people will refer to (of course, nitpicky Vulcans might point out there had been an "Enterprise Class" in between ).

Bob

[ProwlAlpha]

After reading the numerous posts in this thread, So only your theory and your bias against Greg Jein counts.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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In-Universe and especially after TOS-R the conjectural Constitution's registry number NCC-1700 continues to conflict with registry numbers of "Constitution Class" ships beginning with "16".

Who determined that starship registries must be in order? Maybe they're not. Maybe there is absolutely no system whatsoever in deciding which ship gets which number.

[throwback]

Of the known canonical classes, there does appear to be a pattern. The class leader has a lower registry than its sister ships.

The Constitution probably had a registry lower than 956, and the class was probably in service on and off for over a century, maybe longer. The latest Haynes Manual, on the Rotarran, does suggest a possibility. Like the Klingons, Starfleet constantly updated the internal hardware and software of their ships. The exterior was largely kept the same, save when there was technological advances to be gained from changing the exterior.

[Albertese]

ProwlAlpha wrote:

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After reading the numerous posts in this thread, So only your theory and your bias against Greg Jein counts.

Oh, come now. We're all entitled to our own pet theories. You aren't going to convince Robert_Comsol that he's wrong any more than he's going to convince you. I don't agree with everything he says either, but his arguments are sound and well thought out.... even if most of us see the same information and interpret it differently. I've been following a couple of his other threads with great interest and he makes some thought provoking points.

IDIC and all that...

--Alex

[ProwlAlpha]

The thing is, is that his theories are no more sound than anyone elses. The 17th Cruiser classification went out the window when other ships of different types were shown.

I personally believe that the term Constitution-class means two things. The first one means the Constitution-class itself with the USS Constitution built first then the Enterprise and so on. Second term means that the Constitution-class is used as a umbrella classification that would describe older vessels being upgraded to the current technology of the Constitution to new builds of different classes (with different internals and mission requirements). Also, I think that during a certain era of Starfleet, the Federation Council didn't see a justification for a new class of ships to be built, and Starfleet Design Bureau just called any new class that is remotely similar to the Constitution-class and just called them additional units of the same class but upgraded. This type of bureaucracy is quite common when a department is depended on funds from a governing council. So the Eagle and the Constellation are Constitution-class starships in the eyes of the Council, but they should be classified in their own class.

The reason why the Enterprise went through different class names was because the ship survived different classification eras. Every navy does this and I see Starfleet should be no different.

[Spike730]

Would NCC-17101 be the 101st vessel of the 17th cruiser design or the 1st vessel of the 171st cruiser design?

[GSchnitzer]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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It's obvious that a debatable pet theory of Greg Jein (partially adopted by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt) - not compatible with the original creator's intentions - became a popular myth that was eventually established by retroactive continuity in real life ("Constitution Class").

Well, hardcore Trek fans know that it's not really Greg's "pet theory."

Scene 44 of the Second Revised Final Draft for "Space Seed," dated December 13, 1966 has the following content:

44 ANGLE ON SICK BAY VIEWER

It is covered with mathematical symbols and diagrams. CAMERA PULLS BACK to show Khan studying with great concentration. He pushes a button. Another transparency appears: a chapter heading, reading: BASIC SPECIFICATIONS, CONSTITUTION CLASS STAR SHIP.

Scenes 47 and 48 have similar content:

From 47:

...At the door, she [McGivers] turns and looks back at him. He gives her a strong, masculine, confident smile. She is about to say something, but turns and exits. Khan turns back to his studying. He pushes a button, stares back up at his screen.

48 INSERT SCREEN

A chapter heading: Basic Propulsion Systems, Constitution Class Star Ship.

Most folks know that a graphic was made expressly for this scene:



I guess it's debatable about how official it is if it's in the script or is screen visible but only to a select few or only to the Average Joe 40 years later in a DVD and HD era. But I don't think Greg was going out on some "pet theory" limb; he just had access to better official production information than most people did, and he was more knowlegedable on the subject than most people were.

More about this graphic is in Dave Tilotta's article at:

http://www.startrekhistory.com/article4.html

[blssdwlf]

That's pretty cool with the history.

So was there ever a close up of the exploded wing graphic that we can actually see "Constitution class" on it? That would definitely tie "Constitution class" to the TOS Enterprise in "Space Seed". Too bad the phaser diagram was only shown in "Trouble with Tribbles" though as it isn't as direct a tie-in.

It would appear that the only direct linkage of the TOS Enterprise to "Constitution class" comes from TNG's "Relics" and the new-FX TNG "Naked Now".

[GSchnitzer]

blssdwlf wrote:

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That's pretty cool with the history.

So was there ever a close up of the exploded wing graphic that we can actually see "Constitution class" on it? That would definitely tie "Constitution class" to the TOS Enterprise in "Space Seed". Too bad the phaser diagram was only shown in "Trouble with Tribbles" though as it isn't as direct a tie-in.

It would appear that the only direct linkage of the TOS Enterprise to "Constitution class" comes from TNG's "Relics" and the new-FX TNG "Naked Now".

Well, the Star Trek History article explains it all better than I could. (At least) three different graphics were made and filmed for the "Space Seed" scene. Something that looks to be an airplane wing is the one that ultimately made the cut and got used. But the "Primary Phaser Constitution Class" cutting room floor graphic was later dusted off, had color added to it, and was used a season later in "Tribbles." So although its first episode appearance was in "Tribbles" it was actually made for and had close-ups taken for "Space Seed." I don't know what all this does for in-universe continuity (Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz), but "Constitution Class" was actually scripted long before Greg Jein wrote his famous "The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship" article back in April of 1975. There's no reference to 1700 specifically for the Constitution, of course, but if the Enterprise was indeed a Constitution Class Star Ship at the time of "Space Seed," then attributing to the Constitution the nice, even number 1700 as seen in "Court Martial" doesn't seem implausible.

It looks like it's a battle for greater production legitimacy--between an undated MJ drawing and an actual, dated, Roddenberry-approved script.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

throwback wrote:

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The Constitution probably had a registry lower than 956

Why would you say that?

If you're referring to the Eagle from ST VI: If I interpret that scene correctly (the Operation Retrieve poster), the use of a Constitution-class-looking icon to depict that ship on the poster...is probably meaningless. As in: There's no significance in using an icon that looks like a Connie. I think it was just intended as a generic picture of a ship. The various vessels intended to be used in Operation Retrieve could have been of any class, yet for making that one poster, just one icon was used for all of them. Just a generic picture meaning "ship".

[blssdwlf]

GSchnitzer wrote:

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It looks like it's a battle for greater production legitimacy--between an undated MJ drawing and an actual, dated, Roddenberry-approved script.

Personally, I don't see any difference in legitimacy since neither of the two made it on screen as intended. No dialogue explains the Enterprise as the 1st ship of the 17th design and the Space Seed scenes were cut.

It would've been definitive as far as TOS-continuity goes if the cut scenes made it into "Space Seed" though. Still, there is enough continuity bits to show that post-ST2, future in-universe historians would label both variations "Constitution-class" regardless of the "Enterprise class" label of TWOK and "Starship class" of the bridge sign. I don't have an issue with that and gives it a real-world flavor.

[GSchnitzer]

Well, like I said: I don't know (or much care, really) what the in-universe import is of the "BASIC SPECIFICATIONS, CONSTITUTION CLASS STAR SHIP" comment in the "Space Seed" script. I only point out that Greg Jein didn't simply fabricate the Constitution-class notion out of whole cloth by himself. I think there's value to knowing that it was actually scripted. way back in 1966.

If the creator of Star Trek approved a script that indicated that the Enterprise was a Constitution-class star ship, folks might well consider him to be the ultimate authority on the subject--rather than the simple Art Director. I can understand Greg Jein and (later) Franz Joseph Schnaubelt taking The Great Bird of the Galaxy at his word.