Anyone have any good reason for ship registry changes?

[Timo]

Diplomatic escort in the real world (back when diplomats did not travel by air) was typically by humble scouting cruisers, as such vessels would be faster and cheaper to detach and operate than the bigger combatants.

Besides, Starfleet wasn't sending an escort ship to meet the needs of diplomatic protocol. Starfleet was sending Kirk and his famous cruiser as an insult to Gorkon, understanding that the negotiations would greatly benefit from the Klingons being insulted. (Indeed, the Klingons would probably feel honored by the daring challenge, even if Starfleet just thought that the Kirk-shaped middle finger would give the UFP the psychological upper hand, in addition to being the "Nixon in China" concession to the hawks back home.)

Timo Saloniemi

[Darkwing]

TorontoTrekker wrote:

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Would Starfleet have sent any ship other than the flagship to escort the Klingon Chancellor in TUC, though?

Who's flag? A flagship is the ship a flag officer is embarked on, typically used as a command ship. It is not the "prime showboat" usage civilians have turned it into. Kirk wasn't an admiral anymore, nor a commodore, so there was no flag officer onboard to give the Enterprise flag status.

[Timo]

Starfleet in the 24th century does operate ships under the unique"Federation flagship" status, so the question of whether Kirk's E-A would have been one of those is quite valid. A lowly Captain can command one of those, and the status isn't dependent on who is aboard and who is not.

However, we never learned of a clause that would require the leader of the Klingon Empire to be escorted by the UFP flagship and none other... And we did learn that Kirk's ship was sent because Kirk himself needed to be sent. And in an Enterprise to rub it in, even though Starfleet at the time had more impressive ships available as well - at least NCC-2000 (unless she was down for post-Praxis repairs) and her potential sister ships (we see ships of that class with 2000 range registries in TNG), not to mention the smaller but still Constitution-trumping three-nacelle vessels that were glimpsed on computer readouts in the early movies.

Timo Saloniemi