Early starfleet.

[ArcherNX01]

I was always under the impression that with the exception of cargo ships the NX-01 was the first Starfleet ship.

I was always convinced that the only other ship (again with the exception of cargo ships) was the NX 02 (at that point in time).

But upon re-watch of the season 2 finale we see several Starfleet ships (not of the NX class) come to the aid of enterprise during the Klingon attack.

So where do these ships fit in to Starfleet history? And they are Starfleet ships as they were wearing the uniform.

[ChristopherPike]

Enterprise NX-01 is the first deep space exploration vessel, since Warp 5 vastly increases the number of worlds Starfleet come into contact with. Travelling hundreds of light years in as much time as it took on a cargo round trip run between a handful of systems.

Before that, they'd still have ships out patroling back and forth between human colonies, just dozens of light years in every direction away from Earth.

Archer talks about having been an XO and disagreeing with a superior officer's command style, which Reed would be more used to. "Minefield" I think. So it's not like they're the first in some respects. Just that their mission is more open-ended, more expanding horizons and less about being routine traffic.

Between 2050 and during Enterprise's timeframe - 2150, there must be other pioneers and explorers setting up home away from home. Like Proxima Colony (that would be our nearest neighbouring system right?) and Vega Colony. That's probably where the gritty space western was happening for a time, until Starfleet's Cavalry brought law and order. Then there are low warp Earth Cargo Ships having to negotiate disputed terrority further afield and still facing occasional acts of piracy, while trading with Vulcans and other worlds within relatively close range of us.

[King Daniel]

ArcherNX01 wrote:

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I was always under the impression that with the exception of cargo ships the NX-01 was the first Starfleet ship.

I was always convinced that the only other ship (again with the exception of cargo ships) was the NX 02 (at that point in time).

But upon re-watch of the season 2 finale we see several Starfleet ships (not of the NX class) come to the aid of enterprise during the Klingon attack.

So where do these ships fit in to Starfleet history? And they are Starfleet ships as they were wearing the uniform.

They're smaller, slower and older ships. IIRC, "First Flight" established they would have had a top speed of warp 1.9. The warp 5 Enterprise was the first ship that was technologically able to go on long-term, long distance exploration missions.

Weirdly, they didn't have hull numbers. I guess someome realized, "Oh shit! These are meant to be older ships but we've already started numbering at 01!"

[Timo]

IIRC, "First Flight" established they would have had a top speed of warp 1.9.

What "First Flight" did was to establish that reaching warp two with the new engine on the NX-Alpha test rig was a major breakthrough in the development of a warp five engine.

This doesn't exactly mean that other types of engine would not have already achieved, say, warp three or warp four. Their respective histories may also have involved the use of test rigs that each achieved warp two in turn, and thus marked a major milestone in the respective engine development programs.

Sure, the flight in "First Flight" has a Chuck Yeager feel to it. But that's somewhat undermined by the fact that our Yeager substitute very well knows that everybody else in the galaxy is already doing much better than warp two, and that ships capable of warp seven or so have rather frequently visited Earth, bringing diplomatic mail to the Vulcan Embassy, and apparently also carrying human passengers to Vulcan for its Earth Embassy... Reaching warp two is not a giant leap for mankind. It's just a giant leap for the Henry Archer engine development team.

As for the supposedly older ships we see, they aren't noticeably smaller than the Enterprise. They also seem to feature very potent armaments. Several possibilities exist, but it seems probable that Starfleet before ENT was a fighting force, unable to explore anything because the ships lacked the range and speed required to reach unexplored space. The older fighting ships may have featured heavy phase cannon armament for decades already, and NX-01 only lacked it because its installation was delayed by the hasty launch in "Broken Bow". Or then phase cannon were a new invention, and NX-01 was among the first ships to have it installed, but all the older ones had it retrofitted within the year, too (a fairly trivial task, considering our heroes could do it all on their own in the middle of nowhere).

We never learn anything truly interesting about the past exploits of the United Earth Starfleet. It certainly didn't appear to strike fear in the hearts of space pirates... But perhaps it had fought a few easy wars against weak opponents, just to get some respect. Or perhaps it had defeated minor attacks against Earth (say, the Kzinti ones mentioned in TAS "The Slaver Weapon"), while more powerful enemies were discouraged from challenging mankind, by its powerful Vulcan protectors.

Timo Saloniemi

[Mr. Laser Beam]

ArcherNX01 wrote:

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And they are Starfleet ships as they were wearing the uniform.

Yep.

There are at least two other United Earth Starfleet ship classes in ENT's time: the 'Delta' type and the 'Intrepid' type. We don't know how old they are, or if there are any other classes besides these.

There seems to be some disagreement, for example, on where the Daedalus class fits into all this. We don't know when it was first introduced or if it exists yet in ENT's time.

[Timo]

...Or what it looks like, for that matter. Perhaps one of the older classes we saw was it?

We have also seen the UE Starfleet operate the Sarajevo, a distinct yet vaguely "Earthlike" ship design that might not be a combat vessel but seems to be nicely capable of deep space missions. And we might argue that any ship that appears both in the welcoming fleet of "Storm Front II" and the refugee fleet of "Twilight" has high odds of being in Earth service in some capacity, perhaps even in Starfleet service.

Timo Saloniemi

[Hartzilla2007]

Timo wrote:

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As for the supposedly older ships we see, they aren't noticeably smaller than the Enterprise. They also seem to feature very potent armaments. Several possibilities exist, but it seems probable that Starfleet before ENT was a fighting force, unable to explore anything because the ships lacked the range and speed required to reach unexplored space. The older fighting ships may have featured heavy phase cannon armament for decades already, and NX-01 only lacked it because its installation was delayed by the hasty launch in "Broken Bow". Or then phase cannon were a new invention, and NX-01 was among the first ships to have it installed, but all the older ones had it retrofitted within the year, too (a fairly trivial task, considering our heroes could do it all on their own in the middle of nowhere).

Or seeing as Enterprise got weapons upgrades before heading out to the expanse they just had better weapons becuase they were closer to earth and could get the newest toys installed becuase of it whereas Enterprise had to come all the way back home so they wouldn't get anything developed in the mean time. Remember the parts for the phaser canons were already on the ship and just had to be installed the pulse canons and photonic torpedoes on the other hand had to be picked up at Earth.

[Timo]

Photonic torpedoes seemed all-new (perhaps even developed as the direct result of data Archer sent back after "Sleeping Dogs"?). Phase guns might have been old in the 2150s already; the one thing new about them in ENT would be miniaturization to sidearm size. Pulse cannon in turn were only ever mentioned to be part of the NX-02 arsenal, and possibly never seen in action.

Which leaves all sorts of possibilities open about the armaments of Starfleet vessels prior to ENT. Just spatial missiles and plasma guns? Those plus phase guns? Something that had already gone out of fashion altogether by 2151, such as railguns or lasers or glass bead clouds or microwave EMP guns?

Earth might have been forced to develop its own space guns if Vulcan considered it advantageous to maintain a trade embargo on interstellar-standard weapons. We never really heard of an actual embargo, though, so the early UESF might have bought modern armaments from the first space traders to offer them. But apparently the Boomers were in the business of buying weapons, too, and they never got anything better than plasma guns (plus hand phasers!), so perhaps nobody was selling.

One would assume Earth or its nations had starfleets early on, at least since the 2070s, and non-starfaring space fleets before that. Archer's organization might be fairly recently founded (Archer tells he was born before the founding, in "Horizon"), but that doesn't mean there wouldn't have been Earth starships operated by military organizations before this.

Timo Saloniemi

[Guy Gardener]

There's a ship in the credits that looks kind of like Enterprises dad.

In the credits.

There's later a mention of a mothball fleet, and Maywheather talks about how proud he was looking at the paintings of all the Starfleet Admirals in foyer to the main black when he was a kid studying as a cadet. Archer graduated flight school at but did he go to the Academy? That would have made him a 30 year old Ensign. Just to underline the fact that the Academy wasn't built till 2161, so whatever they were calling Starfleet Academy at this point really wasn't Starfleet Academy.

The Vulcans wouldn't let the Government out of Earth's solar system.

Civilian traffic however, the boomer fleet, were individually allowed to tell the Vulcans to screw off consequentlessly.

The Americans wouldn't let the Japanese have an offensive military force after ww2. Is it possible that the Vucans would let Earth have a military offensive or defensive because of how silly they were during WW3?

The formation of the United Earth Government in 2151 would have changed this.

Did Berman know that he started his show on the very year that the United Earth formed?

I doubt it.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Actually United Earth was formed in 2123. It wasn't until 2150 that Australia joined, though. That was the last holdout.

Timo wrote:

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...Or what it looks like, for that matter. Perhaps one of the older classes we saw was it?

Possibly, but the Daedalus supposedly had a crew of over 200, and I doubt those older ships could hold that many.

There are at least two different designs for this ship that I've seen. There's the one with the globular primary hull that most of us are aware of. Then there's the recent comic which showed that class as basically an NX, but with Abrams-1701 nacelles!

[Guy Gardener]

2123 was from Novels.

Don't scare me like that!

PICARD: But the Prytt are not. They are reclusive to the point of xenophobia.
CRUSHER: Well, think about Earth. What if one of the old nation states, say Australia, had decided not to join the World Government in twenty one fifty? Would that have disqualified us as a Federation member?
PICARD: That analogy is not exactly

Australia wasn't a problem. Crusher was constructing a hypothetical and pulled Australia out of of her ass.

(But what Australia was doing up her ass, I will never know.)

A lot of people missquote or remember that line badly, including whosoever was making up this claptrap abut 2123. From what Crusher said there is no reason to believe that all of Earth didn't unify in 2150 or that there was any staggering at all, in fact from how she phrased it there can't have been any staggering.

[Timo]

The one thing supporting staggering is that organizations with the worlds "United Earth" were in existence immediately after WWIII already. (That is, unless UESPA used to mean United Europe Space Probe Agency back when Friendship 1 was launched.)

So, we know that 2150 marked final unity. We know that there were several nations that only joined at that date and not earlier on, and Australia was one of them. And we sort of have the reason to believe that United Earth was formed in the 2060s if not earlier, perhaps with all of three nations joining and a fourth saying, "Er, umm, let's see".

We might narrow it down by listening to Picard and Q on the subject of "New United Nations": going strong in 2036, gone by 2079. "United Earth" would probably not be a parallel, competing organization.

Possibly, but the Daedalus supposedly had a crew of over 200, and I doubt those older ships could hold that many.

Dunno. Archer's ship is as large as Kirk's, and Kirk's could hold 430. The older ENT types in turn are about as large as Archer's.

The fact that Archer only had 80 people aboard could be due to most of the crew being left ashore in the hurried departure of "Broken Bow" - and then all sorts of nonessentials being dumped for the Xindi hunt. The Essex could have been a ship much like the old Intrepid but, in the postwar environment, operating with a full research staff.

Timo Saloniemi

[King Daniel]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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^ Actually United Earth was formed in 2123. It wasn't until 2150 that Australia joined, though. That was the last holdout.

Possibly, but the Daedalus supposedly had a crew of over 200, and I doubt those older ships could hold that many.

There are at least two different designs for this ship that I've seen. There's the one with the globular primary hull that most of us are aware of. Then there's the recent comic which showed that class as basically an NX, but with Abrams-1701 nacelles!

Not quite. The comic assumes Archon to be NX-class (albeit drawn to resemble the new Enterprise more), and the old Star Trek Encyclopedia assumes it to be Daedalus-class. The Archon's class was never given on-screen.

As for the era of the Daedalus-class, the novels assume they predate the NX-class by several years (and that the prototype was actually a testbed for a failed new drive system, a la Excelsior), but the unmade Romulan war movie Star Trek: The Beginning, set 2259, featured the USS Spartan (described as having a spherical primary hull) being the prototype for Starfleet's Warp 8 engine.

[Guy Gardener]

What "uniform/arm-patch" was Archer wearing in First Flight?

What sort of asshole calls itself United Earth to the point of excluding the ununited parts of Earth from it's collection of Nation States?

Oh my.

Is it possible that The "World Government" Crusher was talking about and the institution referred to as "United Earth" are completely different organizations?

United Earth could be like the UN where they all talked before and after the formation of the Wolrd Government. There would be an overlap of powers, if the United Earth was completely deballed, but it wouldn't be too difference between how the US State and US Federal Governments interact.

I remember there being a Vulcan Embassy in Canberra.

[Timo]

...the novels assume...

...And the novel backstory and class identity is a fairly nice fit overall. Sure, the sphere-and-can ship typically depicted is on the small side. But the spherical hull has a lot of volume to offer, and might well accommodate 220 people, if we compare to things like an Oberth canonically accommodating 80.

It's fun how the completely unrelated Daedalus stories from Dave Stern, MJ Friedman and the writers of the Romulan War series actually mesh together fairly well. An old rust bucket serving in the pre-Archer, pre-exploration Starfleet, hauling MACOs around as in the early ENT novels, is a fairly rational idea for a cheap mass-produced warship in the Romulan War, in the ENT novels of that era, and would indeed warrant major brainstorming as depicted by Friedman in order to become a credible postwar explorer. A humble beginning as an engine testbed that failed in competition with Henry Archer (and rather disastrously so) is as good as any.

What sort of asshole calls itself United Earth to the point of excluding the ununited parts of Earth from it's collection of Nation States?

I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if something like this happened for real...

What "uniform/arm-patch" was Archer wearing in First Flight?

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...flight_090.jpg
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...flight_104.jpg

Looks like standard UESF fare. Here's the armpatch plus the mission patch for the test flights:

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...flight_163.jpg

Like Memory Alpha sez, it seems likely that UESF as shown in ENT was founded after Archer's birth ("Horizon" mention of young Archer being unable to join SF because it didn't exist yet) but before 2136 ("Twilight" mention of Starfleet widows when Archer was 24). Other sorts of "Starfleet" might have existed prior to the UE one, of course, but perhaps by different name, because both of those references are to a generic Starfleet. Had there existed a United States Starfleet in the early 22nd century, young Archer should have been able to join that one and get what he wanted...

Timo Saloniemi