The operational status of NCC 1701-A...?

[MacLeod]

It could have been the star drive section from and the saucer section from another. When they put the two together they had a few system issues. Which is why it's back in space dock shortly after TVH.

[Captaindemotion]

^ That sounds a little contrived to me. But as BillJ says, we're unlikely to ever get an official explanation.

[BillJ]

MacLeod wrote:

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It could have been the star drive section from and the saucer section from another. When they put the two together they had a few system issues. Which is why it's back in space dock shortly after TVH.

If it is the Ti-Ho, its' issues would make sense as they would've had to put a new warp drive and nacelles into the ship.

[Captain Mike]

BillJ wrote:

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If it is the Ti-Ho, its' issues would make sense as they would've had to put a new warp drive and nacelles into the ship.

I'll stick with the Yorktown theory. Who knows just what exactly "The Probe" did to all it's systems. Could have fried them all out , seeing how there was so much smoke in the Captains transmission to Starfleet Headquarters on Earth. Also it is very reasonable to suggest that the repairs were not fully finished by the time that Kirk and company arrived on board, although we are not sure what time has passed since they got back from the past.
Also because personally I think I like that idea is because TOS in the planning stages the Enterprise was first going to be the Yorktown....

[Timo]

...Also, for fans of Ships of the Star Fleet, the Yorktown represents a TOS era vessel initially upgraded to lesser specs than Kirk's original vessel (the so-called Constitution (II) standard, a name chosen by the book's authors for the Phase II interpretation of the Star Trek hero vessel). It would make a great deal of sense for Starfleet to refit that ship one more time, now that the Klingon threat was peaking and budgets would allow for all the bells and whistles that had not been affordable when the Constitution (II) refit was implemented in the early 2270s.

Having had a partial refit already, USS Yorktown would still be in pretty modern shape in the 2280s, so not everything would need to be brought to the latest standard in the second refit - hence the TOS style shuttlebay, the exposed GNDN tubes etc. Some time after the second refit, the Whale Probe would fry much of the computer system, though, and installation of the replacement would entail installing the most modern interfaces as well. Thus, three layers in evidence: TOS interiors, TMP exteriors, modern computer interfaces.

Something built for the purpose would be far less likely to demonstrate layering of that sort...

Timo Saloniemi

[BillJ]

Personally, I subscribe to the theory that it's a brand new ship. Nothing in the dialogue from Star Trek V supports that it was a different vessel renamed Enterprise.

[EliyahuQeoni]

BillJ wrote:

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Personally, I subscribe to the theory that it's a brand new ship. Nothing in the dialogue from Star Trek V supports that it was a different vessel renamed Enterprise.

That's my take on it as well. There was a new Connie being built, perhaps the plan was to name it the USS Ti-Ho or something else, but soon after Fleet Admiral Morrow decided to decommission the Enterprise (or maybe after its destruction at Genesis), the decision was made to name the ship in honor of NCC-1701. Kirk and crew had no knowledge of this and were suprised to see 1701-A because they'd been exiled to Vulcan for three months, during which the change in name had occured.

Simple.

[Nighthawk]

I found this searching the origians of the Enterprise-A

This was listed on Memory Alpha:http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_...se_(NCC-1701-A)

According to Gene Roddenberry, the NCC-1701-A was not a newly-constructed ship, but instead was the renamed USS Yorktown, a nod to the name of the starship in his original pitch for Star Trek. This was based on the fact that it was difficult to believe that Starfleet would build a whole new ship in such a short time, and then decommission it a short while after, and the early retirement of the Enterprise-A could be justified if the ship had been in service for many years under another name.

(I remember reading in Star Trek: History of the Future it also stated the information above)
Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, released shortly after Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, cites the origin of NCC-1701-A as the USS Ti-Ho (NCC-1798), an Enterprise-class starship which was a test bed for transwarp technology alongside the USS Excelsior. The Ti-Ho was rechristened Enterprise after Kirk and his crew were exonerated.

Interseting.....

[Timo]

I just don't like the idea of Starfleet laying down new keels on what was already declared to be an old and useless design in a previous movie.

From what we see, the Constitution class indeed disappears right after the movie era. The appearance of a single example in "BoBW" doesn't mean the class would remain in service, as the anti-Borg flotilla seemed to feature quite a few "museum ships" or recycled study models from the pre-movie era. In-universe, we probably did see Starfleet Museum activate its orbital collection for a last-ditch defense...

Timo Saloniemi

[BillJ]

Timo wrote:

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I just don't like the idea of Starfleet laying down new keels on what was already declared to be an old and useless design in a previous movie.

What?

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock wrote:

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Jim, the Enterprise is twenty years old. We feel her day is over.

There is no evidence that Morrow is speaking for an entire class of vessel.

The Enterprise herself is closer to forty years old, but the refit was introduced in 2271. Making the design itself around fifteen years old.

In 2286, the Excelsior is still in its test-run phase and there's no way they'd already have them in production without knowing if transwarp drive was practical. So there's no doubt in my mind that Starfleet was continuing to produce Connies until, at least, the early 2290's.

[Ronald Held]

I would speculate that Connies were being phased out be the early 24th century.

[Captaindemotion]

BillJ wrote:

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Personally, I subscribe to the theory that it's a brand new ship. Nothing in the dialogue from Star Trek V supports that it was a different vessel renamed Enterprise.

This.

[BillJ]

Nighthawk wrote:

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According to Gene Roddenberry, the NCC-1701-A was not a newly-constructed ship, but instead was the renamed USS Yorktown, a nod to the name of the starship in his original pitch for Star Trek.

Which means absolutely nothing. Roddenberry was paid a consultants fee for each film after the first and got to scribble notes on each films screenplay which were roundly ignored by Bennett and company.

[Captaindemotion]

^ Yeah, this was around the time that he was decrying the 'militaristic' depiction of Starfleet in the movies and insisting that they film his time-travel story about the assassination of JFK as the next movie.

[Timo]

In 2286, the Excelsior is still in its test-run phase and there's no way they'd already have them in production without knowing if transwarp drive was practical.

It doesn't appear that "the Great Experiment" was in production, or about to replace anything much (although curiously enough, the "testbed" had apparently been built with full operational gear such as sensor and weapon emplacements). But we know of one new cruiser design from the 2280s already - the Constellation. And we saw the Miranda, which falls between the Constitutions and early Constellations in terms of registry numbers.

In contrast, we never saw or heard of a Constitution that wouldn't have been a refit of a TOS era original.

It's not as if we're left grasping at straws for ships to fill the gap left by Kirk's hero ship class retiring: to the contrary, this is one of the eras where multiple options present themselves. And this is one of the eras where we get the sense of something ending, as the TOS design aesthetic disappears in a very sharp cut. Dramatically, Kirk bows out, and so does his ship - twice! It thus feels wrong on multiple levels to think that nothing changed in the story of the Constitution class at large here.

Timo Saloniemi