What did the Enterprise-C look like in the real TNG universe?

I expect the most popular answer to be “like in the episode Yesterday’s Enterprise” and that’s essentially the assessment of many participants in this Trek BBS thread (starting at post # 37). One of the things I really enjoy about the Trek BBS is the inspiration I draw from the debates, good and bad, and the aforementioned one made me wonder whether the effects of the temporal and interspatial anomaly from which the Enterprise-C came out in this episode shouldn’t first be examined more thoroughly before answering the question. But first things,first.

Part I – Design Histories of the Enterprise-C

The design of the Enterprise-C in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” is noticeably different than the one on the conference lounge's sculpture wall featured visibly in many episodes during the first four seasons of TNG. Although the motif of the sculpture wall is obviously “ships named Enterprise” (because of the presence of the US Navy aircraft carrier CVN-65), it appears somewhat incomplete unless the artist wanted to limit the selection to “starships” – and what could be considered the equivalent from previous centuries.



But the spot between the Excelsior Starship Class Enterprise-B (obviously her final appearance and not the first, according to ST VII) and the Galaxy Starship Class Enterprise-D is taken by Andrew Probert’s design for the Enterprise-C, an obvious next step in design lineage from the “B” towards the “D” (Andrew Probert designed and supervised the final look of the TMP Enterprise and the TNG Enterprise-D and various other Star Trek items).



However, his design did not become “yesterday’s” Enterprise. How comes? Andrew Probert had created side views of various ships as guidance for the wall sculptor, including the Enterprise-C (above). And he had painted a visualization of the USS Fearless (below)for “Where No One Has Gone Before” to illustrate this starship class (first published and annotated in Star Trek – The Official Fan Club Magazine # 60, February 1988, in an article featuring the Star Trek Art Department and all its members), which was erroneously mislabeled in The Art of Star Trek as an early design for the Enterprise-D.



“It was done for a scene where the Enterprise was to rendezvous with this other ship. I didn’t want them to use a ship we’d already seen before (and I knew they wouldn’t spend the money to build another model) so I came up with that painting of a new design in order to establish that, parked in orbit, simply waiting for the Enterprise to get there.” (Andrew Probert)

According to the official explanation, those materials were no longer available during the pre-production of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and because of time and budget restraints a different version had to be built by Greg Jein as a VFX model which then made it into this episode.

The designer of the “new” Enterprise-C, Rick Sternbach, never expressed or hinted any desire to excise Andrew Probert’s design from Star Trek canon with malice aforethought, so couldn’t or shouldn’t this have been an invitation to explore possibilities of co-existence of two different designs for the Enterprise-C and come up with an imaginative rationalization?

The popular explanation is simplistic, doesn’t acknowledge the wall sculpture to be canon, too (although it has been featured onscreen), and dismisses Andrew Probert’s Enterprise-C “as an artistic rendition intentionally or accidentally falsifying the ship's real look.”

(While it is obviously a changed premise, at best, or a continuity error, at worst, such a rationalization comes at the expense of real people – i.e. the original artists and producers who knew very well what they were doing and why. Andrew Probert or the wall sculptor most assuredly did not “intentionally or accidentally falsify the ship’s real look”.)

It is worth noting that the author of the above quote implies to know that the “real look” of the Enterprise-C is not the sculpture on the conference lounge wall, yet fails to consider one detail:

While we have seen an Enterprise-C in an alternate reality, we have never seen her in any episode within “our” “real” “prime” TNG time line / universe on screen. Not as a VFX model, not as a screen schematic, and not as a painting, but exclusively as that sculpture on the conference lounge wall of the Enterprise-D.

I believe it’s quite possible to have cake and eat it, too, i.e. find a palatable rationalization for two co-existing designs for the Enterprise-C which ultimately would be rather uniting than dividing. And the key may be this enigmatic temporal and interspatial anomaly that gave birth to “Yesterday’s Enterprise”.

To be continued in Part II (Alternate Realities)…stay tuned

Bob

 

Wasn't the Ent-C as seen in TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise" from the 'real' timeline? Isn't implied in the aforementioned episode that the point of divergence which caused that alternate timeline opccured after the Ent-C disappeared whilst defending the Klingon colony on Narendra III?

Perhaps the representations of them are somewhat stylised and not always a 100% representation of what the ship(s) actually looked like. Our perhaps another possible rationalisation is that at somepoint in her life the Ent-C underwent a major refit similar to what the NCC-701 underwent between TOS and TMP. And what we see in the observation lounge of the Ent-D was the orginal design.

 

That makes sense to me, since we see the 1701 and the 1701-A on the wall, but not the 1701-refit. So if the -C was refit, we'd see the original design on the wall.

 

^ The trouble with that theory is if we assume the Enterprise's depicted in the obs lounge display are their 'original' designs before refits, then the Enterprise-B should look like it does in GENS. But it doesn't. We can assume the 'B' on the models is a refit version, perhaps bringing it back more into line with the original Excelsior design. But again, that means we can't assume that the wall model depicts a 'pre-refit' fleet of Enterprises.

As boring as it is, I'm left thinking the best explanation is that whoever sculpted the wall model in-universe did a stylistic rendition of the ships, rather than an accurate one.

 

All of the wall-ships are impressionistic. Not one of them accurately depicts the shape and proportions of the 'real' ships. I don't see how that leaves any point of contention.

 

http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...es/6/62/Enterprise-C_golden_display_model.jpg

Unfortunately, that usually doesn't stop obsessive-compulsive fans from coming up with ridiculously outlandish theories to explain quite minor things.

 

Unless the -B originally DID look like a regular Excelsior-class, and after the first shakedown before they let civilians on board, someone said, "Hey, let's try something...."

Yeah. I don't buy it, either. Had to type it out to see how I felt about it, though, so here we are.

 

The Enterprises -B and -C see prior to "Yesterday's Enterprise" and Star Trek Generations were essentially placeholders, swapped out for the actual designs as they were realized. Here is a pic from 1993's "The Nagus", with the realized Enterprise-C from "Yesterday's Enterprise" but the conjectural Enterprise-B (none of the mods we saw in 1994's Generations) and warp prototype ship which eventually became the Phoenix in 1996's Star Trek: First Contact.


Saying the Enterprise-C 'really' looks as it does on the early concept is like insisting the refitted Enterprise from the classic movies really looks as it did in the Planet of the Titans or Star Trek Phase II concept art and models. Just like Probert's early version of the -C, they were developed but dropped. Neither ever became the USS Enterprise.

I find is strange Robert Comsol, that you can be so anti some retroactive additions to the Trek timeline (like Enterprise NX-01 or the USS Kelvin) yet insist Probert's early concept for the -C trumps what's on screen, especially since that concept was only recently realized for a Ships of the Line calender. http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=28446

 

The E-C looks like it did in "Yesterday's Enterprise", which is the same as other Ambassador-Class ships seen in "Data's Day", "Redemption, Part 2", and "Emissary".

The model on the wall of E-D's observation lounge must've been poorly sculpted--just the same way the NX-01 wasn't displayed.

I love the design of the Ambassador-Class. Not a fan of the Probert design, so happy it wasn't used.

 

In Generations, we see a picture of a large and not bald at all Robert Picard. So, this movie and Family are not in the same universe? In Parallels, which is actually about universes and not timelines, all the Enterprises seems to have the same design.

 

Acting roles are recast all the time. That's been a common practice for decades. Thus it's understandable that a character might not look the same from one film to the next, because the same actor can't always be kept. And re-casting does not need to be explained, for that very reason.

As for the Enterprise-C? The only appearance that ship ever actually had was "Yesterday's Enterprise". And it wasn't just a fleeting glimpse, we saw it up close and personal as it were. Models and drawings don't count; the only appearance that matters is the actual use of the ship in an episode, and YE was it. Thus that is the only way that ship ever looked. The models depicted on the briefing room wall are irrelevant. Those are rough approximations, nothing more.

 

You're absolutely right about the re-casting, but on the other hand, the character's faces are more noticeable than a little decorative element.

Robert Comsol, these backround details are interesting, but come one, trying to fabricate a continuity issue about that...

 

Picard's nephew not only changed appearance, but somehow didn't age a day in four years. In fact, I think he actually grew younger.

 

It looked like this, didn't it?

 

Isn't that the Enterprise-D getting blown up in "Cause and Effect?"

 

Well, one Enterprise blows up just as good as another!