Still doesn't work. Even within the Constitution-class ships, as we have ships in the 1600s and of course Constellation in the 10s. I did speculate once that the registry numbers indicated which shipyard/planetary system the ship was built. With the first one or two numbers being the place and the rest of the numbers being the ship built there. The 17s being built at Sol. The 16s being built elsewhere, such as Vulcan (since USS Intrepid was an all Vulcan crewed ship and she is listed as NCC-1631). The 18s and maybe 19s being built at other yards. By the time they got to the end of the 17s, they needed a new number set of Sol, so Excelsior gets to be the first of the new set built their in the 20s. Constellation, Republic, and Eagle being built at some more obscure shipyards in the Federation, owing to their low registry numbers.
How comes? I'd say it works perfectly 16 for the Constitution Starship Class (unfortunately it's a very popular misconception that the Enterprise belonged to the Constitution Class. The Making of Star Trek explicitly mentions twice that the Enterprise belonged to the "Enterprise Starship Class", add to this that's what the dedication plaque on the Bridge says ) As for the Constellation NCC-1017 they didn't add letters, yet, during TOS. Obviously this caused a lot of confusion, therefore they started adding alphabetic letters later for vessels that were named and numbered to honor the achievements of earlier starships like the Enterprise and the Yamato. YMMV. Bob
My thought was to make some odd numbers work in a weird way. Think about this. The Federation is founded and they start incorperating ships from the various worlds into the fleet. Then they add all the existing shipyards and start upgrading various yards for each member world. They start with 100 ships for each system with yards in it, or perhaps two sets of 100 per system. Earth gets 0 and 1. Vulcan gets 2 and 3. Andor gets 4 and 5. Tellar gets 6. Debobula get 7. Alpha Centari gets 8. Albebaran gets 9 and Deneb gets 10. Other planets start getting a single set of 100 number to fill orders. But then Earth and Vulcan go over and start using a new set of 100. By the 2240s Vulcan gets 16 and Earth gets 17. Earth cheats a little with the 0 and goes to 999 with it, possibly including some older ships with it. This would account for there being both the Saladin-class in the 500s and the Kelvin-type in the 0500s. And also accout for the brand new looking USS Grissom having a hull number in the 600s long after the 1700 era Constitutions are built. Some places just don't build as many ships for Starfleet. It also accounts for some ships that seem like they should be newer or older than another ship having ridiculous hull numbers even into the 24th century. The USS Enterprise keeps the NCC-1701 number in all forms partly because they are all built in the Sol system and covered under the 17s allowing Earth a few more hulls in later block numbers to be contracted, or something. (Noticing the oddity of the Enterprise-B's plate not giving the shipyard it was constructed even though all the other Enterprises do list the yard built. That said, we see it launched from Earth.)
Sorry, but no. I disagree and so does canon and onscreen continuity. Only one person is waggling a dick here. Exactly. There's nothing to argue about.
I will try to mediate, hope you don't mind. Here is the dialogue from "Relics": COMPUTER: Insufficient data. Please specify parameters. SCOTT: The Enterprise. Show me the Bridge of the Enterprise, you chattering piece of COMPUTER: There have been five Federation ships with that name. Please specify by registry number. SCOTT: NCC 1701. No bloody A, B, C, or D. Do we really know whether the ship's computer has holodeck programs of Enterprises prior to the TOS Enterprise? Sounds to me as if the computer was saying "I only have holodeck programs of the five Federation starships to choose from". Fact is that the computer doesn't even ask him which NCC-1701 bridge he'd like to see and delivers him the only program available - it's not even the Bridge of the Enterprise but just a Constitution Class Bridge, basically an approximation, but Scotty seemed grateful that he got that, at least. Bob
I do think what we saw on the holodeck wasn't just the bridge of some random Constitution-class starship, but that of the original Enterprise herself because that's the ship Scotty told the computer he wanted to see. That particular version of the bridge was probably a preprogrammed default based on how it generally looked during Kirk's 5-year mission.
It was the Enterprise bridge. They used prints from an episode were only Kirk was on the bridge (thou if I recall, that was actually a reproduction of the Enterprise, in 1:1 scale. It was enough to fool Kirk for a while.)
Did they recreate the Enterprise's dedication plaque for that scene too? That right there would be perfect evidence that it was the Ent-nil and not any other Connie.
The reproduction was just the 1960s set. "The Mark of Gideon" I believe. To make for a mostly bottle episode. The Next Generation crew would have just taken stills and some shots from that episode, cleaned them up, matted out Kirk and placed in Scotty and Picard via blue or green screen. The only part of the Bridge they recreated was the chairs to sit in for. Edit: Only part of the shots wer from "The Mark of Gideon" (the shot fo the viewscreen with no one in the seats was from that episode). It seems the rest were from "This Side of Paradise" with a shot of an empty bridge of USS Enterprise.
Er, no they didn't. Only the establishing shot was from Mark of Gideon. The rest was an actual set they built.
Neither version is entirely correct. The stock footage parts were from two episodes. They made part of a bridge set and used a lot of blue screen for long cuts and some transitions. The tighter shots are the mobile wedge of the set they built along with the replica chairs and helm/navigation console. The wide shot of Scotty in front of the turboshaft has the plate from USS Enterprise on it, since that was what the question was about.
But the computer never knew (and never asked!) whether Scotty wanted to see the pre-TOS, TOS, TMP or TWOK bridge of “NCC-1701”. IMHO, this suggests that it only had a holodeck bridge of a (TOS) Constitution Class starship (and those of the A, B, C and D). Technically the first look Scotty gets is that deserted bridge shot from “This Side of Paradise” (the way he remembered it and his first impression in his drunken condition). But as we get a closer look it becomes painfully obvious that this can’t be the bridge of the Enterprise. As we can clearly see throughout the scene there the step down from the outer bridge platform is just behind the command chair’s left side (and apparently the right side, too): But on the original TOS bridge the step down from the upper platform is only and right behind the command chair: Probably the computer put an Enterprise dedication plaque there to increase the plausibility of the simulation. Let's just say that I found it interesting to see the bridge of a Constitution Class starship in "Relics" (probably an authentic copy from the one in the Starfleet Museum). Bob
This is being incredibly nitpicky. It's obvious that this simulation was meant to be the TOS Enterprise. Saying that the simulation is of some other ship just because the set builders missed a step is just silly.
Of course the ship's computer tried to provide Scotty with a simulation that closely approximated the TOS Enterprise (it was meant to represent the TOS Enterprise). But the differences are clearly there and visible the rail and step next to the command chair don't match the color of the floor carpet is wrong (Bob Justman said so when he visited this set) the helm/nav console lacks the black vertical edge the helm/nav console control buttons are different and the set of switch buttons is missing (where Chekov's left hand would usually be) there is less space between the alert indicator and the dedication plaque, and the lights above aren't colored (okay, I agree these truly are nitpicky) Since we are dealing with onscreen canon, there must be an explanation for the discrepancies (hopefully not one which claims that the bridge presentation in TOS was inaccurate ). Bob
In the rest of my post, I said that the TOS version was probably a default version. It was likely chosen because it was the version most well known because of Kirk's 5-year mission. Not necessarily. See towards the end below. It could have been how the Enterprise bridge looked towards the end of Kirk's mission. We only saw three of those five years and the bridge could have had (another) upgrade after the end of the televised episodes.
Maybe the holodeck simulation was generated based on the standard Bridge module construction plans stored in the archive files. The actual final appearance of the Enterprise's bridge (and likely many others) probably varied according to on the spot decisions during construction, personal stylistic preferences of the Captain and so on.
While I couldn't rule out such a possibility, I think what we saw in TOS was the whole 5-year-mission (with unseen events - e.g. defeat of Romulan ship near Tau Ceti - happening between visualized stories). Bob
If one read the novel "Crossover", The old USS Yorktown is one of Starfleet's museum ships. However its bridge module was badly damaged so the replaced it with the actual module from the USS Enterprise as it was when it entered drydock to be refit following Kirk's five-year mission. My impression would be that a detailed holographic record of this bridge would have been done in this condition, as it was in 2270 or perhaps 2271, depending on when she actually started her refit and they removed the bridge (the events of TMP having been moved up to 2273 and 18 months in refit doesn't go all the way back to 2270). Though this might technically mean that the bridge should be in the condition is was during TAS.
Thanks for mentioning TAS. Here is a screencap from its last episode (going by stardate chronology) according to which there was still no rail right behind the command chair. Had Scotty not been that drunk in "Relics" he probably would have thought "this bridge must have been put together by monkeys". Bob