The Constellation's registry number

[blssdwlf]

BillJ wrote:

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As far as the dedication plaque goes, I take it with a grain of salt. I don't believe the Enterprise was built in San Francisco, California either.

When I watched TOS, I always thought the Enterprise was built on the ground and was flown up. When I saw those cranes in the background of Starbase 11, I imagined that those were working docks for starships that needed major work. I guess it went hand in hand with watching Starblazers/Space Battleship Yamato

And Abrams Trek later on just added to it with ships built on the planet and even at a much larger size.

[MarsWeeps]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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I believe that would be "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and you can clearly read "Starship" here.
In case there's doubt that the next word is "Class" I recommend this screencap.

It never ceases to amaze me, how the fanbase leaves no stone unturned to find ways to erase a canonical fact in favor of a myth

As Shatner once said "It's just a TV show!"

Seriously, you don't have to get your panties in a wad over it. The whole idea is that most of us love TOS Star Trek and after 45+ years, it's sort of fun to try to explain inconsistencies. Nobody is trying to erase a "canonical fact" as you put it, but technically, if the Defiant's plaque in the Enterprise episode "In A Mirror, Darkly" shows Constitution class, well that's canon also!

I hope you can somehow find it within yourself to try and live with that. You may have to take it day by day, but YOU CAN DO IT!!

[Robert Comsol]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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I mean, the term "Starship class" would require a USS Starship, and that obviously makes no sense. It seems clear that the designers of the 1701 plaque meant "starship TYPE", not class.

Please forgive, but I fail to see why "Starship Class" would have to require a "USS Starship". "Obviously" is very relative, I don't see what's obvious about that here. There's one quote from Dick Arnold I wholeheartedly agree with: Maybe they do things a little differently in the 23rd Century.

According to the Making of Star Trek there will also be a "Deytroyer Class" and then we have the "Scout Class" mentioned in and outside the movies for certain vessels.
And then there's what I remember to be probably a type designation: "Space Cruiser"

The only thing that's "obvious" to me is that some fans disagree with the original creators / producers choices and intentions.

Bob

[BillJ]

Intentions don't mean a thing. As we've seen over and over, they change over time.

[Robert Comsol]

BillJ wrote:

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As far as the dedication plaque goes, I take it with a grain of salt. I don't believe the Enterprise was built in San Francisco, California either.

Who said it was built in San Francisco, California?

However, that's where Starfleet Headquarters are located so I think it's fair to assume that you have the bulk of the orbital stations and dockyards located in a geostationary orbit over San Francisco, CA, and not on the other side of the planet.

And the addition "California" merely states that these dockyards are not in orbit over the San Francisco of Argentina, Columbia, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, the Philippines or Spain.

Bob

P.S. I'm aware of the concept of changed premises and intentions. Is there evidence that the TOS producers changed the "Starship Class" concept during the original series?

[King Daniel]

What those who designed Trek imagined in 1964 may not be what those in charge imagined years later. Fiction is mutable like that - otherwise we'd have never gotten over all those incorrect James T. Kirk references since WNMHGB. There is no one right answer - only what Matt Jefferies thought, what Gene Rodenberry thought, what Franz Joseph thought, what the ENT producers thought when they did their cute little retro episode etc.

[CorporalCaptain]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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However, that's where Starfleet Headquarters are located so I think it's fair to assume that you have the bulk of the orbital stations and dockyards located in a geostationary orbit over San Francisco, CA, and not on the other side of the planet.

Not that I agree that this is where the bulk would be either, but you mean at the same longitude as San Francisco, but over the equator, right?

[Wingsley]

If you want to get nit-picky about it, the term "Constitution class" is used in TOS, on a table-top monitor graphic in "The Trouble with Tribbles". It's not legible, but then the "Starship Class" plaque linked upthread from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" isn't really that legible either.

The back-and-forth here in this part of the thread about what "Star Ship Class" means is amusing, because any interstellar vessel, even a warp-capable shuttlecraft, would be, in essence, a "star ship". For all we know, the use of that term in the context of a dedication plaque installed on a ship's bridge would logically be a ceremonial certification that the ship is now a commissioned interstellar vessel, having been fully outfitted for flight for the very first time.

The idea of a "Starship Class" being different from a "Destroyer Class" is certainly interesting, but wouldn't that imply that the U.S.S. Saladin would not, officially, be called a starship?

I don't see how this makes any sense.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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Please forgive, but I fail to see why "Starship Class" would have to require a "USS Starship".

Because that's what 'class' means: it's named after the first ship of that class to be built.

[Timo]

The idea of a "Starship Class" being different from a "Destroyer Class" is certainly interesting, but wouldn't that imply that the U.S.S. Saladin would not, officially, be called a starship?

Yes, it would - and there's nothing in the aired material to suggest that things should be otherwise. The Columbia and the Revere are never suggested to be starships, merely scouts; had there ever been a reference to the Saladin, I'm sure it would have emphasized the destroyer identity and thus neglected to comment on the starship one.

This for the 23rd century where such things still matter. The distinction would go away by the 24th, apparently, and TNG references to older vessels might also eschew with it.

As for all spaceships being starships, well, not all warships are battleships. To the layman, it would seem stupid not to consider a corvette a battleship because obviously it's built for battle, but there you have it.

Because that's what 'class' means: it's named after the first ship of that class to be built.

Plenty of alternatives to that in the real world. We indeed speak of "destroyer class vessels" without implying the existence of any USS Destroyer. We also speak of AEGIS class ships, which in the 1980s was a specific reference to the Ticonderoga class but nowadays is a vague gesture towards about a dozen distinct ship classes equipped with AEGIS technology. Finally, the Royal Navy frequently uses thematic class names, there having been several Town, County, River, Duke and Tribal classes, but never an HMS Town, HMS County, HMS River or... You get the picture. Perhaps the Constitutions were the first ships in Starfleet to be systematically named after famous starships?

Timo Saloniemi

[Robert Comsol]

MarsWeeps wrote:

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The whole idea is that most of us love TOS Star Trek and after 45+ years, it's sort of fun to try to explain inconsistencies.

If there are inconsistencies within the context of TOS, I agree. However, I can't see why "Starship Class" for the original series should constitute (pun) such an inconsistency.

The inconsistencies came when people with the "It's just a TV show" (seriously speaking it is IRL) attitude started to create these inconsistencies, because they wouldn't or couldn't do proper research and/or felt they knew better than the original creators (I call this arrogance)

I dislike any kind of revisionism (maybe reading George Orwell's 1984 didn't do me any good) and disrespect at the expense of the great people that gave us Star Trek.

MarsWeeps wrote:

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Nobody is trying to erase a "canonical fact" as you put it, but technically, if the Defiant's plaque in the Enterprise episode "In A Mirror, Darkly" shows Constitution class, well that's canon also!

Are you paying attention to the various "flame" posts in reply to my post? Rather than to explain or rationalize the official "Starship Class" every attempt is made to ridicule it and push it over the cliff on behalf of this "Constitution Class" popularized by Franz Joseph, who took it from Greg Jein (but didn't like Jein's NCC numbering), and who wasn't even involved in the production of the original show and who wasn't even a Star Trek fan by his own admission!

IMHO, "Starship Class" is canon for the TOS Enterprise and her sister ships where "Constitution Class" for these is a retcon activity whose canon value could be put in question from a strictly TOS point of view.

I don't know why you feel the urge to resort to fecal allusions or try to state I have problems.

I can happily live with the original "Starship Class" mentioned in the The Making of Star Trek and seen every week on the Enterprise's bridge (The plague is there in plain sight and we know what's written on it).

So apparently, others do have a problem with that, not me.

Bob

[CrazyMatt]

If I were building the history of Star Fleet in reverse, I'd like the explaination that the Constitution, NCC-1700, was an upgrade on the prior class of "starship," maybe Eagle (NCC-956) and all the others on through the NCC-1600's... maybe the earlier ships have similar primary hulls to the Constitutions, with the latter having much more capable secondary hulls and warp drive systems... So maybe Star Fleet decided that instead of building a whole bunch of Constitutions, it would build some (Constitution, Enterprise, Hood, Lexingtion, Kongo, Yorktown and Defiant) and simply upgrade the others (Eagle, Constellation, Republic, Farragut, Intrepid, Potemkin, Excallibur, Exeter... did I miss any?) to Constitution class/status... What d'ya think?

[BillJ]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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P.S. I'm aware of the concept of changed premises and intentions. Is there evidence that the TOS producers changed the "Starship Class" concept during the original series?

Maybe not during TOS, because obviously they had bigger fish to fry than the minutiae of ship classes. But we do have the technical manual from the mid-70's, which elements of made it into TMP and that publication listed the Enterprise as being a Constitution-class starship. And the publication, at least at one point, had Roddenberry's blessing.

Plus, the second episode of TNG uses Constitution-class when describing the Enterprise. Roddenberry was also in charge of the production.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Defiant uses "Constitution class" on its plaque. That's canon, not a retcon. So, since it and the Enterprise are obviously of the same class, I don't see the problem here.

[BillJ]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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The Defiant uses "Constitution class" on its plaque. That's canon, not a retcon. So, since it and the Enterprise are obviously of the same class, I don't see the problem here.

I guess the question is what's the difference between the two ships? One is a 'Starship' class while the other is a 'Constitution'. But even then, the Defiant having a dedication plaque in the same spot as Enterprise is a retcon as it didn't have a plaque in The Tholian Web.