What's a Starship?

[Forbin]

The Wormhole wrote:

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Okay, I should have said a ship which flies through space at FTL speeds.

More than that, you should say a ship that can travel from one star system to another. Hence the word "star" in its name.

[The Wormhole]

Well, presumably, if you are travelling at FTL speeds, the intent is to go to another star system.

[Timo]

My take on this is time-dependent.

For the first half of the Star Trek pseudofuture, starship would indeed be something like battleship today: there'd be star corvettes, star frigates, star cruisers (canon from "Peak Performance", and probably separate from the cruisers Scotty mentions in "Relics" or from the cruiser Aurora of "Way to Eden" fame), and then starships. NX-01 would be the first ever star vessel from Earth to warrant the designation, but every alien design from the very smallest up would be a starship in comparison.

Whether Kirk's ship would be a star cruiser and a starship simultaneously, or one thing or the other at different points of her history, the reader can decide. Perhaps heavy star cruiser was the same thing as starship as there was nothing bigger in service to compete for the term?

But after Kirk's days, basically every vessel in Starfleet service would become capable enough to warrant the designation starship, and only certain diehard enthusiasts like Worf or the Zakdorn strategist Kolrami would insist on distinctions like "(star) frigate" and "star cruiser". Of course, there'd still be ships that are more equal than others, and now "star cruiser" would be small potatoes compared with the "real starships", now typically from the explorer category. Again, explorer would be an analogy to today's (yesterday's, really) battleship in defining a very specific combination of capabilities and size - "explorer" would no more mean a generic vessel that explores than "battleship" means a generic vessel that battles.

As for the Ferengi exclamation, surely one would need further defining after saying "Federation vessel", because the Federation no doubt operates garbage scows and cometary trawlers in addition to the combat vessels of Starfleet...

Timo Saloniemi

[t_smitts]

Sci wrote:

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I consider a starship to be any commissioned Federation Starfleet vessel bearing a warp (or other faster-than-light) drive, a "U.S.S." title prefix, and its own unique "NCC" or "NX" registry.

Any ship no longer commissioned into Federation Starfleet service -- say, an Oberth-class ship sold to the University of Alpha Centauri for long-term, long-range research projects -- would no longer be considered a starship. Support vessels without their own commissions -- say, the Delta Flyer or the Type-6 Shuttlecraft Goddard -- would not be considered starships. Civilian vessels would not be starships.

I believe Picard referred to a Romulan Warbird as a starship in "Tin Man".

Also, based on your definition, would the Vico not be considered a starshp then? (Was it ever referred to as such in "Hero Worship"? I don't remember.)

[Sci]

t_smitts wrote:

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I believe Picard referred to a Romulan Warbird as a starship in "Tin Man".

I would take that as Picard either speaking imprecisely, or as Picard applying the same label to a ship commissioned into the service of the Romulan Imperial Fleet in the same way it's used for their Starfleet counterparts.

Also, based on your definition, would the Vico not be considered a starshp then? (Was it ever referred to as such in "Hero Worship"? I don't remember.)

I don't remember if it was, but I seem to recall that it was called the S.S. Vico and had an "NAR" registry. So I'm inclined to interpret the S.S. Vico as not formally being a starship.

Again, that's just my interpretation of things.

[Christopher]

The Wormhole wrote:

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Well, presumably, if you are travelling at FTL speeds, the intent is to go to another star system.

But the converse is not so: if you intend to go to another star system, it doesn't necessarily follow that it will be FTL. So it's a mistake to use FTL as part of the definition. The term "starship," in general usage, refers quite simply to any sizeable, crewed spacecraft intended for interstellar travel. That's true whether it uses some hypothetical form of effective superluminal travel such as a warp drive or more conventional, slower-than-light means such as a ramjet or lightsail system. There's lots of science fiction and scientific speculation out there about slower-than-light starships.

I tend to take the distinction in Trek between "starship" and "spaceship" as analogous to the distinction between "ship" and "boat." A seagoing vessel is a ship if it's large enough and independent enough, or if it carries another vessel. Although I definitely think it's a sloppy use of the term to refer to a runabout as a starship.

[C.E. Evans]

I've taken the position that the term "starship" changed between TOS and TNG, and went from being special to generic.

I think the only reason why a warp-capable shuttle might not be considered a starship is due to its small size (if a runabout was perhaps several meters shorter in length, it might have been called a long-range shuttle instead, IMO).