The Constellation's registry number

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

blssdwlf wrote:

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The idea that new canon overwrites old canon no longer works. Star Trek with all it's different productions is in comic book land with the different series not agreeing with each other. It's saving grace is the ever present alternate / multi-universes that is part of all the series. Even the Abrams Star Trek movie taps into that.

But it does still work like that - just ask Christopher, he writes the tie-in novels which, while non-canon themselves, are very much required by CBS to conform to the current version of the Trekverse.

You can look at TOS in isolation and argue nomenclature and different interpretations of it all day long, but I guarentee you there won't be an official Trek product now that calls the Original Series Enterprise anything but "Constitution class." Just like the first Starship Enterprise is now Jonathan Archer's ship from the Enterprise TV series, and James T. Kirk's father was first officer of the USS Kelvin as established in Star Trek.

"Starship class" is obsolete in the greater Trek universe, just like Spock being "Vulcanian" or Troi experiencing every emotion she sensed in "Encounter at Farpoint". These things happen, it's not a crime.

[Timo]

Just like the first Starship Enterprise is now Jonathan Archer's ship from the Enterprise TV series

Where does it say that?

All we ever hear is that Archer flew a starship Enterprise. Nothing indicates a dozen skippers before him didn't do the same. Some sort of a more or less arbitrary division has always existed between the early starships Enterprise and the currently six that "count" whenever our Federation heroes do the counting.

Once we thought it might be because the earlier starfaring Enterprises (assumed, now confirmed) weren't called "starships". Now we can't think that. But nothing has changed in practice.

That's not much of a case of "overwriting" anything, just like George Kirk (now there's a name that has survived well enough despite complete lack of canon status) being the XO of the Kelvin in 2233 doesn't really contradict anything written about him previously and dictates nothing about what he would have been doing in 2232, or 2234 in those universes where he survived 2233.

Timo Saloniemi

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

You're nitpicking and reconciling so hard you completely missed the point.

[Timo]

But there is no point. Star Trek keeps being written, which is different from being rewritten - because there's infinite space to write it into. It is actually extremely seldom that new writing in any way overlaps with old writing, and even on those rare occasions there's enough elbow room to put the two pieces of pseudo-information side by side rather than one atop another.

Which is why it's so easy to "nitpick" any claims of overlap: not only are the claims based on very little evidence, but the very genre allows for an infinite range of apologies, as there is no inherent need for them to "be realistic" here.

Timo Saloniemi

[blssdwlf]

King Daniel wrote:

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But it does still work like that - just ask Christopher, he writes the tie-in novels which, while non-canon themselves, are very much required by CBS to conform to the current version of the Trekverse.

Just like whatever production happens to be going on will generally conform to the current interpretation, spawning it's own continuity/universe. And when the next series production group/artists come along, their own new interpretation. Just like comic books. Which no longer overwrites itself because like comic books it is too sprawling to do so anymore.

King Daniel wrote:

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You can look at TOS in isolation and argue nomenclature and different interpretations of it all day long, but I guarentee you there won't be an official Trek product now that calls the Original Series Enterprise anything but "Constitution class."

There's a ton of "official" Trek products that gets all sorts of details wrong. So what? That's why we have a Tech Trek subforum

Now back to "Constitution Class" - it technically isn't wrong to call the TOS Enterprise that from a 24th century stand-point, even in isolation of TOS as there is some evidence to suggest that it at one time belonged to it.

King Daniel wrote:

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Just like the first Starship Enterprise is now Jonathan Archer's ship from the Enterprise TV series,

I think Timo gave a better argument, but where does it say that?

King Daniel wrote:

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and James T. Kirk's father was first officer of the USS Kelvin as established in Star Trek.

Was he ever not the first officer of a ship in other series?

King Daniel wrote:

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"Starship class" is obsolete in the greater Trek universe

You are mixing "obsolete" as in "no longer in use" with "over-writing" or "re-writing" as in "a new story alters the previous story's details". "Starship class" is obsolete in the Trek story simply because the TMP Enterprise, aka "Enterprise Class", was upgraded from it after TOS. The TUC Enterprise is a different ship from the destroyed TWOK Enterprise and it's a "Constitution Class". The 24th century stories refer to the Enterprise as "Constitution Class" based likely on it's final form. Just like most 24th century stories refer to Captain Kirk and omit his time as Admiral Kirk. There is no "over-writing" involved here.

Are there times when there is a contradiction in other details? Of course. And in the greater Trek universe, it is big enough to hold multiple universes and continuities and all it's infinite variations. Just check out "Parallels"

King Daniel wrote:

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These things happen, it's not a crime.

Why do you think it's a crime? We have a difference in interpretation.

[Nerys Myk]

Well if there is a Starship class, I hope one of the ships is the the Jefferson.

[Robert Comsol]

blssdwlf wrote:

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You are mixing "obsolete" as in "no longer in use" with "over-writing" or "re-writing" as in "a new story alters the previous story's details". "Starship class" is obsolete in the Trek story simply because the TMP Enterprise, aka "Enterprise Class", was upgraded from it after TOS. The TUC Enterprise is a different ship from the destroyed TWOK Enterprise and it's a "Constitution Class". The 24th century stories refer to the Enterprise as "Constitution Class" based likely on it's final form. Just like most 24th century stories refer to Captain Kirk and omit his time as Admiral Kirk. There is no "over-writing" involved here.

Beautiful summary in a nutshell.

Bob

@ Nerys Myk

[blssdwlf]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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Well if there is a Starship class, I hope one of the ships is the the Jefferson.

There are ten more like her in the fleet. Why not?

I wouldn't mind a Starship Class USS Journey

[BK613]

blssdwlf wrote:

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There are ten more like her in the fleet. Why not?

I wouldn't mind a Starship Class USS Journey

NVM...

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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I can't reward bad research at the expense of the original producers ("They didn't know what they were doing") by accepting it as "canon".

Remarkably, the status of anything as part of Trek canon has nothing to do with whether you "accept it" or not.

[blssdwlf]

BK613 wrote:

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NVM...

We built this starship,
We built this starship on Starbase Eleven!

Just a small town boy, born and raised in Iowa
Took the moon shuttle going anywhere...

[CorporalCaptain]

Unicron wrote:

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I think FASA originally came up with that terminology for their RPG, in which the Enterprise was the only one of the original Constitutions to survive its missions intact and Scotty's ideas for refitting and improving the ship after five years required more extensive modifications than originally thought. Hence why the ship wound up looking so different in TMP. The actual FASA rosters are a little hazier, as more than a few names were copied directly from the Constitution list to the Enterprise list without a "II" designation (USS Eagle II, for example; only the Enterprise would have been allowed letters) to suggest they were newer builds carrying the older names.

Thanks.

FWIW, in the TMP blueprints from Pocket Books, that Gene Roddenberry signed off on, the specs on the refit Enterprise say

Model: MK-IX-A
Type: HEAVY CRUISER
Class: STARSHIP II

Rather than settling anything, IMO this really supports all three competing interpretations of "Starship Class", Jein's, and FJ's. Since "MK IX" comes from the Space Seed graphic [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_...n_Doe_Starship], these specs give weight to that graphic. Maybe TPTB decided to try to make all the fans happy with the TMP blueprints?

[Timo]

...And even "Class: STARSHIP II" alone would satisfy surprisingly many schools of thought. For those who think that "Starship class" would have been a unique identifier of the design that Kirk flew in TOS, this "II" would denote the refitted version of the same. For those who think that "starship" is a broad collection of designs, this could be the second such design (now refitted), or perhaps the 11th. For those who think that the broad category "starship" must be divided somehow to be of practical use, this could mean the refitted ship falling within the second category of starships, one that perhaps includes things like Constitution class, Belknap class, and Miranda class, whereas the first category has the Federations and other big guys.

The one and only school of thought that will have to go on recess would be the one following Jeffries' original idea about the 17th design... This would be more contradicted than supported by the terminology used here.

Timo Saloniemi

[Robert Comsol]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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FWIW, in the TMP blueprints from Pocket Books, that Gene Roddenberry signed off on, the specs on the refit Enterprise say

Model: MK-IX-A
Type: HEAVY CRUISER
Class: STARSHIP II

Rather than settling anything, IMO this really supports all three competing interpretations of "Starship Class", Jein's, and FJ's. Since "MK IX" comes from the Space Seed graphic [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_...n_Doe_Starship], these specs give weight to that graphic.

And what weight would that be?

The "Trouble With Tribbles" schematic (planned for "Space Seed" but not shown in the episode) obviously doesn't show a starship, but a phaser bank of a starship of the Constitution Class. The text reads:

PRIMARY PHASER L.R.
STARSHIP MK IX/01
CONSTITUTION CLASS

Since there were no "Mark" designations for navy vessels in the 1960's, add to this that "Mark" is a designation for weapons in Star Trek (e.g. photon torpedos), the "MK IX/01" obviously refers to the type of primary phaser Scotty is looking at (the schematic is supposed to tell him what type of phaser he's looking at, especially since the other text makes it abundantly clear to which class of starships it belongs ).

Alternately, it's the primary phaser of a Starship USS MK IX/01 - Yes, sounds strange but Greg Jein interpreted the "MK IX/01" to belong to the USS Enterprise because of the "01". And further concluded that the Enterprise has to belong to the Constitution Class.
Essentially, what we have here, is a primary phaser that determined what kind of class the Enterprise belongs to, other than Starship Class.

Franz Joseph simply copied and pasted it into his materials.
He wasn't a Star Trek fan and didn't nearly do the kind of in-depth research work Greg Jein otherwise did in his article.

Apparently, David Kimble assumed the "MK-IX" business to be the product of accurate and credible research (two people saying he same thing, can't be wrong, right?).

Anyway, the TMP Blueprints do not refer to a "Constitution Class" but a "Starship Class II".

And there's more! Please go to sheet 6 of 14 (K'tinga Battlecruiser). Like with the Enterprise before there is text comment / introduction to the new Klingon ship, excerpt:

"NORMALLY, PATROLLING IN "PACKS" OF THREE, THE CRUISERS ARE DEADLY FOR A SINGLE FEDERATION STARSHIP, THE NEW ENTERPRISE CLASS, HOWEVER, PROMISES TO EVEN THOSE ODDS."

Whether this refers to "new" (opposite "old" TOS Enterprise Class) or "new" (as in not available previously) can remain a subject of speculation. But since Matt Jefferies was involved with the conception of the TMP Enterprise, I don't think it to be unlikely that the Enterprise creator showed his hand here (and I don't bite the hand that feeds me).

@ Timo

It's definitely "Starship Class II" and not "Starship Class 11".
The stardate is given in the same font as "7912.7"

And I'm unable to see where it can possibly contradict Jefferies' 17th design nomenclature. Considering the Archon was already a "starship" in "Return of the Archons", add to this that pre-TOS models (i.e. Daedalus Class) show the same TOS hull plating and tubular warp engine style, I'd rather speculate that "Starship II" refers to the new movie design, i.e. aztec hull pattering and slim warp engines.

Bob

[CorporalCaptain]