3 Registries for the Yamato?

[Timo]

I dunno. There isn't enough resolution for the audience to see anything - but the angle of the ship does present Riker with a sufficient view of both the top and bottom pennants, and he supposedly enjoys better resolution, too. Spotting the rare -E there might well be possible even at the somewhat extreme angle.

I mean, we couldn't originally tell how Riker could divine that the Batris was a Talarian ship, even though (we in hindsight knew that) the vessel was of an extremely generic type, and Riker watched her on the viewscreen for a good while before suddenly coming to the surprising conclusion. But the blu-ray shows us that the ship has pennant writing in the Talarian language, and this indeed becomes visible just before Riker's exclamation.

Just out of interest, what is the source of the original imagery that prompted this thread? That is, where do we see the "Contagion" saucer in greater resolution than in the original version of the episode?

Timo Saloniemi

[throwback]

The image is from Memory Alpha. It is a pre-HD image, which means the registry will be even more readable in HD.

[Wingsley]

What is so wrong with certain rare Federation starships (Enterprise and Yamato among them) possessing dual NCC registries? (one honorific/historic, the other formal)

Think of it this way: We know that Picard's Enterprise was NCC-1701-D. Maybe it was also NCC-71809, just as the Yamato could be both NCC-1305-E and NCC-71807.

[QuinnTV]

Wingsley wrote:

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What is so wrong with certain rare Federation starships (Enterprise and Yamato among them) possessing dual NCC registries? (one honorific/historic, the other formal)

Think of it this way: We know that Picard's Enterprise was NCC-1701-D. Maybe it was also NCC-71809, just as the Yamato could be both NCC-1305-E and NCC-71807.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Much like the 1701-A is often thought to have been another number (and name) for its build and subsequently changed. Perhaps the Yamato was honored with a change shortly after entering service.

[Timo]

...But stripped of honors afterwards?

It will be interesting to see how an obvious continuity hiccup is handled in a process that previously has tried to remove exactly such hiccups (the Tsiolkovsky registry), and with very limited success at that. Dubbing over Riker's line sounds highly unlikely; overwriting the computer screens in "Contagion" is doable, but I'm sure they will miss a couple, plus I bet they won't try and retouch the saucer itself no matter what.

Timo Saloniemi

[QuinnTV]

Timo wrote:

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...But stripped of honors afterwards?

Anyone can earn demerits!

[Wingsley]

I was thinking that Enterprise and Yamato each had two NCC registries apiece, simultaneously.

[blssdwlf]

And the Yamato could've had adventures that caused the 1305-E's destruction necessitating a replacement ship. That captain seemed to take alot more risks with the ship than Picard

[Timo]

The risk-taking Varley commanded the putative latter ship, though. Would he have been given one, had he just lost a Galaxy class vessel to recklessness?

The destruction of the supposed first Yamato should definitely have been discussed in "Contagion". Catastrophic loss of a Galaxy class vessel prior to that episode would have been the most important subject to be discussed in that Observation Lounge meeting, right before "Can it happen to us, too?". Even if the first Yamato was lost to something clear-cut like the skipper committing suicide by flying into a star, leaving a suicide note and everything, the heroes would still have to consider whether the Galaxy class features a design fault that promotes suicidal behavior somehow...

Timo Saloniemi

[Dukhat]

Plus, I don't quite buy that one Galaxy class ship was destroyed and another one was completely finished to take it's place (and then destroyed again) in a 2 1/2 month span of time, just to reconcile a registry mismatch.

[Timo]

Renaming would explain away that one, though: the already fully operational USS Risk Investment, NCC-71807, could have been renamed Yamato to honor the lost ship.

But supposedly honoring involves suffix letters, at least for Enterprises and Yamatos... If the NCC-1305-Letter tradition of honoring was dropped at Letter=E, then perpetuation of the name Yamato would not make much sense, either.

Timo Saloniemi

[blssdwlf]

Unless Varley lost the 1305-E to not honorable reasons. Kirk took risks with the Enterprise all the time, but they still gave him another ship (after he saved Earth.) Varley could've lost the 1305-E on a mission but the new ship that they gave to him kept the original registry when she was re-named to Yamato as a reminder that it didn't deserve a letter registry. Varley could've been going on extra risky, rogue missions just to rebuild his credibility back

It wouldn't be too hard to look at the 3 month gap between ST3 and ST4 to ask the same question of Kirk getting another ship that almost got destroyed again in ST5. Or in the case of Sisko's Defiant, they were awarded a new ship and were allowed to KEEP the original registry - totally screwing the whole "letter" concept.

[QuinnTV]

The TNG Tech Manual mentions the time to build a Galaxy class vessel to be rather lengthy. Fabrication began in 2348; Enterprise launched in 2358 and commissioned in 2363. Although I would expect that build times may have gotten shorter for later vessels in that class, the initial long fabrications make me hesitant to accept that 1305-E and 71087 were different vessels. Later on in the series, that could be argued to be the case - the newer Yamato might have been one of the "spare" spaceframes mentioned in the TM.

[throwback]

According to the dedication plaques for the Enterprise, the starship was launched on SD 40759.5 and commissioned on SD 41025.5. (There were two plaques for this ship; the first, seen in the first two seasons, gave the commission date; the second, seen after the third season, gave the launch date.)

[Dukhat]

Timo wrote:

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Renaming would explain away that one, though: the already fully operational USS Risk Investment, NCC-71807, could have been renamed Yamato to honor the lost ship.

I don't quite buy that explanation either. Why would it have been so important to quickly rename another ship Yamato right after the first ship was destroyed? It's not like she was such a noteworthy ship or anything.