Franz Joseph Blueprints Revisited

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by ZapBrannigan, Mar 8, 2013.

  1. blssdwlf

    blssdwlf Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Or it makes perfect sense since in the span of those five years, they are performing exploration work. Perhaps you'd feel better if the statement was amended with, "and returning home periodically to do non-exploration work" ? :D

    Is that even true? Did Kirk's five year mission tie him down at all to prevent them from fulfilling their narrated mission goals and still performing routine tasks for starfleet? I think not.

    That's pretty reasonable.

    It is only at odds with the five year mission if the ship did none of the tasks set out by the narration. Since it did accomplish all of those tasks and even more mundane tasks while all out in space, "out there", then it is puzzling why you'd claim otherwise. :)
     
  2. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    Back to the secondary sub-topic of this thread, we all DO agree that the bars in the starship status chart in "Court-Martial" having nothing to do with the 5-Year-Mission (because the bar for the Enterprise reads 83% complete) ? ;)

    Bob
     
  3. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

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    I must have missed something because not for one second in all these years did that thought occur to me even remotely.
     
  4. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    Towards the end of Greg Jein's "The Case for Jonathan Doe Starship" article in Issue Number 27 of the fanzine T-Negative, the editor of T-Negative, Ruth Berman, had the following editorial comment:

    "* RB's note. Readers may recall from T-N 23 that I speculated that the chart measured where the ships were in their five-year missions, as it was numbered in percentages...."

    So that was Ruth Berman's original thought. I don't know if everybody needs to disagree with her interpretation. It's kind of a goofy idea, but I guess it's not all that bizzare. "Completion of a five year mission" is no more goofy than "Completion towards initial ship construction." An Enterprise that's 83% complete probably doesn't refer to a five year mission or construction. It's probably just repair project.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2013
  5. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    According to the new movie...
    At the start of the movie, Starfleet were selecting one ship and crew to go on an unprecidented five-year mission of exploration.

    Of course, that was another life. But I like the idea that 5YM's were not standard, as has become a recurring assumption in fandom.
     
  6. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    Completion of upgrades following initial ship construction isn't goofy, IMHO, but thanks for returning to the secondary sub-topic.

    Again, if the chart just shows the starships being repaired in orbit of Starbase 11 ("just repair projects"), how comes the Enterprise is already 83% complete before Stone gives the order to stop repairs on the Intrepid on behalf of Enterprise???

    Captain's Log, Stardate 2947.3. We have been through a severe ion storm. One crewman is dead. Ship's damage is considerable. I have ordered a non-scheduled layover on Starbase Eleven for repairs. A full report of damages was made to the commanding officer of Starbase Eleven, Commodore Stone.

    STONE: Maintenance Section 18. The section is working on the Intrepid. Reschedule. The Enterprise is on priority one. That makes three times you've read it [the full damage report], Jim. Is there an error?
    KIRK: No. But the death of the crewman.

    The whole context of this episode's beginning tells us that the Enterprise has just arrived at Starbase 11. To assume that at this point 83% of the ion storm damage have already been repaired should raise a couple of eyebrows.

    Is Stone displeased with the efficiency of Maintenance Section 17 so that for the last remaining 13% he turns the repair work over to Maintenance Section 18? :rolleyes:

    Bob
     
  7. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    If "Star Ship Status" refers to how operational the ship is at the moment, then it would appear that the Enterprise doesn't require as much work as almost all of the others.

    Taking a team off the Intrepid to put on the Enterprise would make sense, if it was to get one of them back out into space as soon as possible, especially if the Intrepid was much more heavily damaged. Maybe Stone was sweating having both heavy cruisers out of action for too long.

    Additionally, if having too many ships under repair dragged down the efficiency of the starbase at repairing all of them, by putting too much demand on some critical resource (e.g., the preparation of duranium), then that could also be a reason to get a ship off the repair list as quickly as possible.
     
  8. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    If the chart is meant to show "percent of the necessary repair job still remaining to be done," then if the Enterprise came into port already at 83% completed, I would simply speculate that much of the repair work had already been handled by the Enterprise crew themselves via work bees and space suits and such before Kirk had ordered the non-scheduled layover on Starbase Eleven. (Being out on a five year mission, I presume the crew must have some capacity to affect repairs themselves.) So the ship might have pulled into port with 83% of the total anticipated repair project (whatever that overall project might have been) already completed out in the field.

    Alternatively (and I think this the more likely scenario), the chart is probably meant to show "operational percent that the ship is currently at as a fraction of its usual, ordinary, optimal capacity." I would suppose that the Enterprise pulled into port working at only 83% of her usual self. (I suspect Kirk doesn't like getting a grade of B minus—even in his ship's operational status.) I know when I'm recovering from a cold or flu, I'll describe my health as something like "I'm feeling better, but I'm still at only about 50 percent." I generally don't mean "I am at about 50 percent of my way back from the lowest point I was at during this particular illness." What I generally do mean is "I am now functioning at about 50 percent of my usual state of health." So I think all these bar graphs simply indicate a ship's "current state of health." (And then the small green spot indicates that the ship can be discharged from the "ship hospital.") Getting a ship up to its "optimal" condition probably usually means bringing it back to the condition that is its usual steady-state condition. But I suppose "optimal" might also mean bringing the condition of a ship up to a newly-defined "normal" because of some planned upgrade or refit.

    And like I said earlier, we're not really functioning in a vacuum on what Matt Jefferies intended with the chart. The chart is meant to convey not only major maintenance, but minor maintenance as well. His intentions are pretty explicit in the "Court Martial" script:

    "INT. STONE'S OFFICE

    "FEATURING chart with legend: STAR SHIP STATUS.
    Columns lettered: Major Maintenance...Minor
    Maintenance...Ships Incoming...Ships Cleared."

    So it looks like the chart is actually meant to be a repair/maintenance chart—including, of course, minor maintenance. Of course, the whole context of this episode's beginning reinforces what Timothy says to Kirk in the Officer's Club: "I understand you're laying over for repairs," rather than "I understand you're laying over for completion of upgrades."
     
  9. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    For various reasons I mentioned before, there's sufficient reason to doubt that the final chart in the episode (opposite to intentions of the script, e.g. "ships incoming") is a repair/maintenance chart.

    Of course, the Enterprise is at Starbase 11 to repair the ion storm damage which pulls the ship from active duty for several days.
    Now, a look at the starship status chart and in particular NCC-1701, could tell Stone that in addition to the damage repair at Starbase 11 the Enterprise is still in line to receive upgrades (13%) which will pull the ship again from active duty some time in the future.

    Obviously, at some point in TOS, the ship must have spent three weeks at a shipyard to reboot the entire computer system to fix the computer's voice according to "Tomorrow Is Yesterday".

    Of course I don't know how much idle time is acceptable for a 23rd Century Starship, but Stone's decision in "Court Martial" to put the Enterprise on priority one repair service, could simply be his contribution to help to keep the idle time at a minimum (seeing that the ship will spent more time in a shipyard, soon). ;)

    Bob
     
  10. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

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    Can you imagine the writer of the episode or the art dept guy who drew that chart reading this thread thru a time warp 40 years ago? - "What are these people going ON about? It was just a little throwaway bit we whipped out to move the story along!" :lol:
     
  11. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    Well, if there are alternate interpretations of the final chart "opposite to the intentions of the script," then I guess we would agree that those alternate interpretations are, by definition, unintentional.
     
  12. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    @ Forbin

    Especially as a part of an episode with obvious "exotic" editing. The starship captains are already sitting in the Starbase Club prior to their arrival, the only times Kirk is wearing his green wraparound tunic is in Stone's office etc.

    To get back to the original topic, I think it's interesting that the "obsession" with NCC registries is owed to a large part to Franz Joseph's Technical Manual which nevertheless ignored the aforementioned starship status chart from "Court Martial" :rolleyes:

    @ GSchnitzer

    Yes. The scriptwriter may have envisioned a different kind of chart, as I don't believe any of these bars reveals an "incoming ship", but the green extra bar you mentioned could indicate a "ship cleared".
    There's also a good probability that the final chart was considered to be featured in a later scene where Kirk says "repairs almost complete" (= 83%).
    But because of the "exotic" editing of this episode, we may have gotten the chart in the opening scene for which it hadn't been designed for.

    Strictly "in-universe" speaking, the chart then became indeed unintentional but therefeore required a different interpretation, because the repair job of a ship that just arrived could hardly be already 83% complete.

    Bob
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2013
  13. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    But 83% operational makes sense, doesn't it? That's what the label "Status" suggests, anyway.

    That opens up the possibility that perhaps some of the other craft took quite a pounding.

    Maybe some of them were less capable craft caught in the same storm. Maybe even some of them faced some alien menace that really took them task, that we could only find out about in a hypothetical spin-off series.
     
  14. feek61

    feek61 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Since this was the first season perhaps the graph could have represented the percentage LEFT on the 5 year mission (which in some sort of crazy way makes sense, lol).
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2013
  15. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    I assume if it would read "% operational" we wouldn't be having the discussion. ;)

    However, it does read "% complete" and this apparently refers to something else.

    "Status" would be applicable in both cases, either as operational status or upgrade vs. repair status.

    Bob
     
  16. EliyahuQeoni

    EliyahuQeoni Commodore Commodore

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    FJ didn't ignore the chart, he just didn't interpret it to mean that all of those registry numbers represented starships of the Enterprise's class.
     
  17. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    Looks like I missed information regarding Franz Joseph's research work. Did he actually ever see the chart from "Court Martial"?

    Bob
     
  18. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, saying that FJ's work "ignored the aforementioned starship status chart" might fairly read as claiming knowledge of his research work, as in knowing that he deliberately disregarded the chart. If you missed information regarding FJ's research work, then you don't know that he deliberately disregarded the chart.

    With no starship names on the chart, what's to ignore, anyway? Plus, we already know that he got the Republic registry right (or right enough, as 1371), from that very episode, so it would be somewhat surprising if he didn't know about the chart at all.
     
  19. EliyahuQeoni

    EliyahuQeoni Commodore Commodore

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    Well, you're the one who claimed he "ignored" it. One cannot ignore something if they have never seen it.
     
  20. Mysterion

    Mysterion Vice Admiral Admiral

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    So we do not know if FJ:

    1) Saw the chart and then chose to ignore it.

    or

    2) Did not see the chart, so it had no bearing on his work whatsoever.