Given the C-57-D registration of the patrol saucer in Forbidden Planet... would there have been 100 such hyperspace saucers in the United Planets fleet? With registration numbers from C-00-D through C-99-D?
I took the prefix 'C' to indicate 'Cruiser', which it was called in the movie. In which case there would not be prefixes 'A' through 'Z'. There could be a 'B' for 'Battleship', and a 'D' for 'Destroyer'. If that system was followed, it would reduce the possible numbers. I also took the 'D' suffix to indicate a revision version.
well, you could still have a few thousand with Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates, Battleships, Tenders, maybe some kind of carriers, missile frigates or cruisers...
I have a thought. Maybe the writer of the movie just made up a number and it really doesn't have any significance at all.
Does anyone have a list of 100 ship names to propose for the United Planets curiser fleet? Like 100 Greek, Roman, Eqyptian gods?
Maybe C is the precursor to NCC and the United Planets is the precursor to the Federation. That was my idea when I was ten and TOS was the only Trek, anyway. Unfortunately, we don't know enough about the Forbidden Planet universe to do anything but speculate wildly. It would be great to see some movie sequels or a series of novels that expanded on the concept, as long as the creators were smart enough to continue the Golden Age SF ambiance.
Of course the real world reason for the 57 in the ship's registration was that the film was being shot in 1956 and would appear on movie screens in 1957.
Why would anyone stop on odd number 99? I would guess a construction contract would be for a an even 100 units. But given only a 2-digit numbering system... the first (or possbly the last) unit made would be forced to be number 00.
Maybe it was Fonzie's ship and the registry number was C-00-L. After being destroyed on a mission a refit for him was commissioned with Registry number C-00-L--AAAyyyyyyy!
Well, I figure 100 ships makes a good base to do stories on. I guess you could assume half of them on patrol, and the other half in ports for shore leave and repairs as standard conditions. So with 50 ships on patrol, and allowing some overlap of patrol zones... you could give each ship about a 7-degree arc of the surrounding space for a patrol zone. And I would guess the zone depth should be about a 100 light-years, to provide sufficient star systems for human colonies to be patrolled.
Since the characters are separated by dashes, they could be anything. C-48347-E, for instance. There's no inherent limit there.