USS Excalibur: NCC-1664 or NCC-1705?

What's up with the registry for the USS Excalibur? Some places mention that it's NCC-1664 while it's listed as NCC-1705 elsewhere (such as the fan production.)

Is there a canon reference for this and why the difference?

 

There is no canon reference whatsoever for the USS Excalibur registry. Both of the numbers that you cited are fan interpretations. The NCC-1664 number came from an article that Greg Jein wrote back in the seventies, which was later used by the Star Trek Concordance, the NCC-1705 number came from Franz Joseph's blueprints and the Star Trek Technical Manual.

 

The Star Fleet Technical Manual has it as NCC-1705.

As I understand this, NCC-1664 was the Excalibur's number in the script notes for 'The Ultimate Computer', and that was put on the AMT model they used in that episode for her. But this detail is/ was as not as well-known as the TM.

 

Oops!
Thanks for catching that.

 

Well, note that we posted more or less simultaneously.

 

I may be wrong, but I think NCC-1664 was used in the remastered effects for "The Ultimate Computer"

It's also worth noting that many of Franz Joseph's numbers have been disproven (for want of a better word) by later Trek productions, such as "In a Mirror, Darkly", which gave the number 1764 (the number used in the old FASA RPG manuals) for the Defiant.

 

One, I would be very surprised if the script has anything regarding registry numbers for the other ships, but I'm willing to be surprised.

Two, the footage of the wrecked Excalibur was just painfully obvious recycled footage of the Constellation from "The Doomsday Machine".

 

Is it not possible that the registry pre-M5 incident was 1664? Once the hull was towed to space dock and refitted with new technologies and such she was re-assigned 1705 out of respect to those that lost their lives. That would at least fit with what we know of Joseph Kerezman's show concept at this point. The obvious upside is that it reconciles both numbers. Course that last bit is more of a fan-film concern...

 

^ IMHO, it would seem more respectful to the Excalibur's lost crew to keep the ship's old registry number, rather than give it a new one.

 

Well, I's thinkin' along the lines of retiring a jersey an whatnot.

 

There was no AMT model built for the Excalibur. As CRA said, the footage of the battle-damaged ship was stock footage of the Constellation. And even if it was an AMT model, there would have been no sixes or fours for the decals. They would have only had ones, sevens and zeros.

 

Does anyone know what they went with when re-doing "The Ultimate Computer"? The Excalibur appeared in that ep.

 

^ They used NCC-1664 in the remastered ep.

 

So NCC-1664 is canon.

 

I haven't seen the remastered episode but I checked YouTube for the remastered shots from The Ultimate Computer and couldn't find any that shows the registry for the Excalibur.

 

I'll drag out my dvds and check, but the number MAY come from Okuda's notes. if it was on the model, but not seen it's still canon.

 

...Similarly, it isn't possible in the redone "Court Martial" to see that the registry of the Intrepid is NCC-1631. At best, we can see in the opening shot that the registry begins with NCC-1, while the next two digits just possibly might be "fat" ones, like 3, 6, 8 or 9.

Really, the entire shot with the Intrepid in it is somewhat silly, as Starbase 11 is supposed to be repairing these ships under a tight schedule. Having them float in empty space apparently unattended doesn't convey that particularly well.

The ships with 1600-range registries of TOS-R are an extension of that silliness, as supposedly all of them were being repaired at SB11 during "Court Martial"! If there only are a dozen ships like Kirk's, then Starfleet is really screwed if basically the entire force sits crippled at that one starbase...

OTOH, "The Ultimate Computer" clearly shows the registry of the Lexington (NCC-1709) while giving a fuzzy hint of the Excalibur registry in this image:

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x24hd/theultimatecomputerhd0906.jpg

It's not really possible to tell much about that registry there. Might be NCC-1884, might be NCC-1664, or NCC-1554, or whatever.

(Also, just because a starship sports a certain registry at wargames doesn't mean she'd be stuck with that registry for her entire career. )

Naah. If that were true, then it would also be canon that Kirk's ship only had windows down one side, and usually had a giant rod sticking out the bottom, even though we never could see this. To paraphrase a certain Rule of Acquisition, artist intent plus an empty screen is worth the screen...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I thought all that was done with CGI instead of models?

 

Well, with "CGI models".

And those add a whole new degree of unreality to the whole business. A physical model might be missing detail from the far side; a CGI model may be missing the far side altogether, being only visible from one side and totally nonexistent from the other!

Timo Saloniemi

 

None of which changes the fact that it aired, so it's canon, which is the overarching canon rule.

I had to find a HD screencap, but I was able to confirm. In the shot where we see the 4 Connies in formation, the lower right ship can be seen with the registry 1664 both on the saucer and the nacelle.

You have to "light blast" the still to get rid of the shadows and even then it's barely legilble (right at the fringe of resolvable), but it is there. The distinctive triangular shape of the "4" is what gives it away.

The raw image can be found here:

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Constitutions_formation,_remastered.jpg

My link is of a few frames later which exposes the nacelle registry as well.

All Timo's speculating and "what iffing" can't change the fact that the Okuda's tell us what the model-makers put on the model at their instruction, and the model as seen on screen is the deciding factor on canon.