Do you think the Enterprise D was going to be renamed anyway?

[Lance]

Okay, let me explain that a little better.

According to the Chronology, the Enterprise D was destroyed in the Earth year 2371, and the Enterprise E was launched later in the same year (which was a year prior to the 2372 date of the 24th century sections in "First Contact"). Presumably the Sovereign Class ships were already in the later stages of their development cycle by 2371, for the new Enterprise to have been launched so relatively soon after the previous model was destroyed -- no longer than a couple of months, at least. And they virtually just send the same crew back to spacedock, rebrand the newest ship available with the name 'Enterprise', and send them all back out again (which always seemed odd to me: that Kirk and co commanded two Enterprises, and Picard and co likewise -- can we assume Harriman's command crew launched the Enterprise C, then?).

Anyway. Obviously the real world reason was that the producers wanted a new ship for the movies and didn't really give much thought to the in-universe explanations. And it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that the above described events were exactly how it happened. That's the only way to explain such a quick turnaround from the destruction of the D to the launch of the E...

... but what if, in-universe, the plan was always to launch the Enterprise E anyway, and keep the former Enterprise in service under a different name? Maybe they intended to launch the Sovereign Enterprise the following year, regardless of whether her predecessor was destroyed. What if the changes made to the bridge module in "Generations" (vs the one seen in the series) were because the Enterprise had been recently refitted in preparation for it's rebranding/being handed over to a new crew, while Picard and the rest (and the Enterprise name itself, of course) were going to migrate to a more updated vessel. Under this hypothesis, the 'death' of 1701-D was an unfortunate coincidence, but not a crippling difference to the plan except fo the loss of a Galaxy from the fleet. Because maybe the new Enterprise was already on the starting blocks undergoing final tests, and the crew were readying themselves to move over to the Sovereign Enterprise anyway. The only crew who lost out in this scenario are obviously the ones who might have been intended to take over the former Enterprise-D.

Thoughts? I hope the above makes some sort of sense, as I was thinking about this at work and it suddenly made a degree more sense to me than the coincidence of one ship being destroyed and then another deployed in it's place so soon. And surely with the new Sovereign's already under construction (presumably), Starfleet would have wanted the flagship and her crew to be on one of those anyway, rather than being stuck on one of the older model Galaxies?

[Pavonis]

No.

I'm pretty sure no government or service renames ships during their operation. I've heard of ships being renamed after selling them, or after having been captured, but never in the middle of its use.

Far easier to think that the E-E was going to be named something else than to think the E-D was going to be renamed.

Frankly, I don't think the characters in-universe are as attached to the name Enterprise as we, the fans, are. Why should Starfleet care what they call their best ship? The E-E could've been named USS Pansy and it would've still been a top-of-the-line ship.

[Ar-Pharazon]

The Enterprise-A was renamed from Yorktown, Ti-Ho or Atlantis pretty quickly.

So, no surprise the Ent-E might have had another name and Starfleet decided to keep the tradition alive when Ent-D was destroyed.

[MickJo1701]

I'd always believed that the Sovereign class that became the Ent-E was nearing completion when the Ent-D bought it and Starfleet re/named it to continue the tradition. In regards to the refit the Ent-D had received prior to Generations, I assumed it was due to the seriousness of the Dominion threat after the Odyssey was so easily destroyed.

[Lance]

I know the real life explanation is obviously that they're not going to change the cast just 'cause the 1701-D got lanced, but it just always bugged me that nearly all of Picard's command staff (and most of the rest of the crew, judging by how Barclay and Ogawa popped up in "First Contact") simply got transplanted to another ship. It just seems too... convenient, somewhow. Worf moving over to DS9 felt more realistic, the kind of thing I'd assume would happen. You'd think TPTB at Starfleet would take the opportunity to at least push a few more of their up-and-comers into prominent staff roles, as well as finally telling Riker to sod off and go Captain another ship.

MickJo1701 wrote:

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I'd always believed that the Sovereign class that became the Ent-E was nearing completion when the Ent-D bought it and Starfleet re/named it to continue the tradition. In regards to the refit the Ent-D had received prior to Generations, I assumed it was due to the seriousness of the Dominion threat after the Odyssey was so easily destroyed.

I can really buy into that explanation. After this and Wolf359, I could see them deciding they weren't going to take any chances this time, and just authorised a full upgrade of the entire fleet.

[C.E. Evans]

Personally, I thought the interior upgrades the Enterprise-D had in Generations was in preparation for the ship to finally embark on a 10-15 year deep-space exploration mission after spending her first 7 years relatively close to home.

[SonOfMogh]

I think the only other issue with this theory is that the conversation on the destroyed bridge of the D between Picard and Riker made it clear they did not know anything about a new Enterprise, (do you think they'll build another? Or something to that effect).

[Cr031k]

Take it how you will but I presume the conversation between Riker and Picard at the end gave no mention to knowing they had a new ship waiting for them back home.

RIKER: I always thought I'd have a crack at this chair one day.

PICARD: You may still... somehow I doubt this will be the last ship to carry the name Enterprise.

[Kirks_Flying_Wig]

SonOfMogh wrote:

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I think the only other issue with this theory is that the conversation on the destroyed bridge of the D between Picard and Riker made it clear they did not know anything about a new Enterprise, (do you think they'll build another? Or something to that effect).

"Do you think they'll build another?" was Beverly's line in First Contact after she, Worf and Picard activated the self destruct. In Generations, Riker said he thought he'd "have a crack at this chair [the -D's captain's chair] one day". Picard replied "Somehow I doubt this will be the last ship to carry the name Enterprise."

IU, it could be interpreted that Picard already knew an existing ship would be renamed Enterprise (who knows for how long the crew were salvaging components and photo albums -- a quick chat with a friendly admiral could have lead to a new name being slapped on a Sovereign-class ship that's having the final touches put to it in spacedock). As for all of the command staff transferring to the E, surely that is the captain's prerogative?

[Pavonis]

Bah, Picard would know that another Enterprise would be around as soon as he knew his was destroyed. He was already commanding the fifth Enterprise; why would anyone think that they'd stop at -D? Of course there'd be another Big E. No need to discuss it with an admiral.

[inflatabledalek]

Considering Enterprise was retroactively made the name of Earth's first Starship it would actually made sense if it was made a tradition to try and keep a ship of that name in service at all times (with maybe the same courtesy being extended to the other ships in the NX class?), or at least as much as realistically possible allowing for outside factors where unexpected destructions crossover with not having any sufficiently prestigious ships worthy of the name ready to go from the shipyard.

Indeed, assuming the constitution class was the first to follow this tradition, the gap between C and D is the only one really long enough to not follow the idea of naming a new Enterprise as soon as possible after a previous one goes out of service. And that could easily be explained by it being a tradition that waned for a while before some Admiral decided to bring it back.

I should say, I have no idea how that idea fits with either the wider canon or real military practice (though as always with Trek, it has the get out of "It's the future! We don't do thing exactly the same" which gets used for things like the reused registration number for the various Enterprises...) but I like it and it works for me.

[GameOn]

It's entirely possible that the Enterprise-E was built and launched with a different name and wasn't renamed until Picard took command. The same thing happened when Sisko took command of the Sao Paulo and had permission to change the name to Defiant.

[heavy lids]

GameOn wrote:

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The same thing happened when Sisko took command of the Sao Paulo and had permission to change the name to Defiant.

That was so dumb though. Totally unnecessary. And I like the name Sao Paulo more than Defiant.

[Infern0]

Does anyone know what happened to the Enterprise B?

Excelsior class was still commonly in service as late as the 2370's, so unless it was destroyed it was probably still around, but maybe under another name?

[USS Firefly]

That was so dumb though. Totally unnecessary. And I like the name Sao Paulo more than Defiant.

I believe it had to do with that the FX would be too expensive to change the new name.

Excelsior class was still commonly in service as late as the 2370's, so unless it was destroyed it was probably still around, but maybe under another name?

It was never mentioned in the series or movies