Canon TOS/TMP Starships-of-the-line

[JES]

I'm just pointing out that there are fans who consider designs published under license to be canon in their own right, which the Loknar and Larson class were, though they never appeared on screen (a pity, seeing as how the two would also fill out the fleet nicely, and they even have their own registry numbers and everything).

I think that it is safe to say that the Saladin, Hermes, and Ptolemy are definitely good enough to be considered canon, even if under a more dogmatic definition, they might be more or less semi-canon at best.
I will admit that I don't remember seeing any screen shots showing the Federation's schematics, only hearing about it, and it seems that this might be false, since it says on the Ex Astris Scientia-Spotting the Ships from the Star Fleet Technical Manual was not one of the designs to appear on the computer screens in II or III, and I consider Schneider's website to be very accurate in that sort of thing, so I can see how the Federation class could fall outside your definition of canon. The only thing that we have canonically is that there was a starship named Entente, that was operating in as early as the mid-2270s.
However, Memory Alpha, another website that I consider reliable lists the same registry used by the Federation class of the same name, so I choose to assume that they are one in the same, and that others of the Federation class must also exist. A bit of a stretch, but one that seems reasonable to me.

 

[JES]

Franz Joseph's destroyer/scout concept appears to have been displaced by the Grissom and her Oberth-class ilk. Either that or the larger Miranda-class frigates.

As far back as 1989, Mr. Roddenberry (through Mr. Arnold) made it official that FJ's 1975 Tech Manual was considered apocryphal.

Not quite. The Saladin-class Destroyer's registries are primarily in the 500 range. Initially NCC-500 to NCC-519, with additional variants, not including the Hermes, going all the way to 583.
No contradictions there, other than the Rahman (NCC-514, which contradicts the Kelvin), as the Oberth class registries don't start until NCC-602.
Same thing goes for the Miranda-class Heavy Frigates, with the Miranda herself having a registry no earlier than 1800, and going on from there.

The Hermes class starts initially at 585, and goes onto 600, with further variants/upgraded versions going on from 601-625.
So there can still be a total of 16 Hermes-class Scouts, without contradicting any speculative members of the Oberth class.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm just pointing out that there are fans who consider designs published under license to be canon in their own right, which the Loknar and Larson class were, though they never appeared on screen

Well, no, for two reasons. First, CBS only considers what is shown on screen to be canon. And second, FASA's license to create Trek RPGs was revoked by the beginning of TNG. And anyway, if one were to make every single thing canon that has or had at one time a license, then we'd have games, novels, comics, commercials, toys, coloring books, audio books, etc. etc. etc. as canon.

 

[Wingsley]

Depending on how much anyone cares to hear about TOS-R muddying the waters, FJ takes a hit once again with some NCCs for the list of "original twelve" Constitution-class cruisers, as not in the 1700-range: Exeter (1672) Intrepid (1631), Excalibur (1664) and Potemkin (1657). And of course Defiant was shown as 1764 in both TOS-R and ENT's "Darkly".

 

[Timo]

But that one need not be a slight against the Defiance - there's room for both in the universe. The registry just indicates that the Galina, while authorized, was never actually built.

It's a bit of a shame that the new movies basically prevent us from gaining any more onscreen data on TOS era starships. But sticking to what was seen on screen was never going to be satisfactory for that era, not with the spinoffs and movies opening up a wider universe with bigger budgets and making fans salivate for a broader TOS fleet as well. What was intended back when TOS was made has become outdated long ago already, and rather categorically irrelevant in in-universe terms. Doesn't mean it wouldn't be interesting in its own right, but just about the only thing still lacking full clarification from that era is the thought process that resulted in the list of registries in "Court Martial". Or, more exactly, whether any thought was ever involved.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[137th Gebirg]

The Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser
The Miranda-class Heavy Frigate
The Oberth-class Science Vessel/Surveyor
The Constellation class, which I believe commonly described as some sort of Explorer.
The Excelsior-class Heavy Cruiser/Battleship
The Soyuz-class Attack Frigate

Where in canon was it ever stated or seen that these were the designations for these ships? (other than the Heavy Cruiser designation for the Constitution class)

Okay, so I sort of went with Shipschematics.net designations for all of the above, which while not stated on-screen, seems to be pretty accurate speculation for the purposes that they seemed to have been designed for, except for maybe the Soyuz. It's hard to tell if those long things are actually weapons or sensor equipment, in which case the Soyuz could be a Reconnaissance/Surveillance or Science Frigate.
I'd have to say that the Soyuz is one of those iffy designs.

Heh...and I basically used Jackill's designation for that. Yes, the Soyuz has long been an anomaly from a starship design POV in the Trek verse. Those spire turrets could easily be omnidirectional sensor arrays. They could also just as easily be supercharged megaphaser swivel turrets. We don't really know for certain. The book "Ship of the Line" described the Bozeman as a "border cutter", complete with yellow and red flashing lights mounted somewhere on the hull as some "universal designation" as to the ship's policing purpose and intent. I could see something like that being a border patrol ship, so maybe those turrets contain both long range sensor arrays for border incursions, as well as high-powered weapons to potentially serve as a first line of defense against an invasion, buying them enough time with their big guns to get a distress message out before falling. Again, nobody knows for sure, as it's one of the least-explored canonical classes in Trekdom (next to the Wolf 359 fleet and DS9 frankenfleet, of course ).

 

[Timo]

One wonders... This specialized design isn't prominent, as only one example is ever seen (of contemporaries, even Sydney made more appearances). If the design is intended to guard borders, why send one of the very few to explore Typhon, supposedly far outside any borders worth guarding?

The same goes for assuming that this ship carries heavy artillery. What use is that in exploration, and why would Starfleet send it away from where it is needed?

On the other hand, my favorite explanation of this being clumsy signals-intelligence gear (outdated by threat evolution or technology miniaturization, resulting in early retirement) doesn't carry far, either, as sigint sensors probably isn't the same thing as exploration sensors. But that's what the ship looks like - a flying antenna farm. Who knows, perhaps she went looking for invisible enemy ships and found a spatiotemporal anomaly instead?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Perhaps it can be argued that the DS9 "Frankenfleet" kitbashes which used classic movie parts are in fact old ships from that era?

 

[Wingsley]

That's pretty vague.

 

[137th Gebirg]

King Daniel - where in the world did your Avatar come from? I am genuinely curious...

 

[F. King Daniel]

That's pretty vague.

The Jupp-class, the "Raging Queen", the Centaur, the Curry, the 3-nacelled Excelsior saucer etc... no reason for those classes not to be contemporary to the ships they're based off of.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/ds9tm.htm

King Daniel - where in the world did your Avatar come from? I am genuinely curious...

See this thread.

 

[Wingsley]

A useful argument, but not very precise. The "TMP" era ends with either THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY or GENERATIONS. Since the Enterprise-B showed that at least some Excelsior-based designs were still be revealed at that time, it's also not unreasonable to assume that Centaur and her ilk evolved in the years following Enterprise-B's launch.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I'm sure the registry of the Grissom in ST3 was not a deliberate attempt to contradict FJ, but it does happen that a ship Kirk thinks either "is" or "could be confused with" a scout now carries a FJ scout registry...

Well, not exactly. As JES mentioned, the Hermes registries end at 625, so Grissom's 638 doesn't contradict at all.

Back when we thought that Copernicus's registry was 623, then that was a conflict with an FJ ship, but I believe now the prevailing theory is that Copernicus is actually 640, so no conflict there either.

I think the only actual overlap remaining between FJ and the Oberth class is the Oberth itself at 602, which was IIRC only seen in an Okudagram. (If they'd just gone with 632 or something, then no problem!)

I'd be willing to bet that ILM just pulled the Grissom's registry number out of their asses, and didn't know diddly-squat about FJ's tech manual.

OTOH, I've always wondered (but of course could never prove) if they deliberately used a 6xx registry later than 625 for the Grissom to show that it was the "next generation" of scouts after the Hermes class. Otherwise why didn't it end up with something in the 1600 - 1900 range? I always figured they were trying to stay consistent with FJ, whether or not it was "officially" recognized.

 

[Dukhat]

A useful argument, but not very precise. The "TMP" era ends with either THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY or GENERATIONS. Since the Enterprise-B showed that at least some Excelsior-based designs were still be revealed at that time, it's also not unreasonable to assume that Centaur and her ilk evolved in the years following Enterprise-B's launch.

Also, the Curry, Raging Queen and Centaur have registry numbers of 4XXXX, which chronologically would place their construction after the Enterprise-C.

OTOH, I've always wondered (but of course could never prove) if they deliberately used a 6xx registry later than 625 for the Grissom to show that it was the "next generation" of scouts after the Hermes class. Otherwise why didn't it end up with something in the 1600 - 1900 range? I always figured they were trying to stay consistent with FJ, whether or not it was "officially" recognized.

Honestly, I think ILM just used a random three-digit number because the Grissom was a small ship. I'd bet that was the extent of their logic where this was concerned.

 

[bolak]

So to clarify in my mind, restricting ourselves to TOS series and movie canon. We have these 'categories' of Starfleet vessels mentioned in dialogue:

1. Starship
2. Scout
3. Dreadnought

Also seen with a Starfleet reg ( the Grissom ):

4. Federation Survey Vessel

The only definite ship-class was:

1. Constitution Class ( TUC schematics )


Is that correct?

It looks like ILM referred to the USS Reliant as 'Starship Reliant' and the Grissom as 'FSV Grissom', nothing more descriptive than that.

 

[137th Gebirg]

IIRC, there were the phaser schematics that Khan was looking at in Space Seed that mentioned Constitution class many years before TUC.

As for the rest of it, yeah, the writers were very "loosey goosey" and super-abstract about class names and types back then - "Starship class" vs "Spaceship class"? WTF is that anyway? They didn't really pay attention to such things until TNG came around, once they realized that there was a large tech-geek following in the Trek world and there was a purpose behind such designations.

 

[Dukhat]

So to clarify in my mind, restricting ourselves to TOS series and movie canon. We have these 'categories' of Starfleet vessels mentioned in dialogue:

1. Starship
2. Scout
3. Dreadnought

Also seen with a Starfleet reg ( the Grissom ):

4. Federation Survey Vessel

The only definite ship-class was:

1. Constitution Class ( TUC schematics )


Is that correct?

It looks like ILM referred to the USS Reliant as 'Starship Reliant' and the Grissom as 'FSV Grissom', nothing more descriptive than that.

You forgot "Class I Heavy Cruiser" from FJ's Tech Manual:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd0184.jpg

 

[JES]

I think the only actual overlap remaining between FJ and the Oberth class is the Oberth itself at 602, which was IIRC only seen in an Okudagram. (If they'd just gone with 632 or something, then no problem!)

Or there is one less Hermes class, which is no big deal as far as I'm concerned.
I give priority to the canon Oberths, and everything else in that registry range are pretty much Hermes.

 

[Wingsley]

Lest we forget: TOS-R's "Charlie X" revealed a space vessel named Antares, given an NCC of 501. That cuts right into the FJ destroyer-scout list. Mr. Roddenberry, by way of Mr. Arnold, made it very clear as far back as 1989 that FJ's Tech Manual was not recognized by the studio.

 

[Wingsley]

How about this for canon:

TOS era Federation and Earth space vessels

Class I starships-of-the-line

• Constitution-class heavy cruiser / dreadnought (Enterprise, Lexington, etc.)
• Miranda-class light frigate (?)
• Soyuz-class heavy frigate (?)

Class II

• unknown transport/survey/science probe ships (Woden, Antares, S.S. Dierdre, U.S.S. Carolina)

Class III

• Oberth-class scout/science/survey ships (Grissom?)

Class IV

• merchant service ships (S.S. Beagle)

Class V

• space cruisers (S.S. Aurora)
• prospecting scouts (Harry Mudd's "wiving settlers" ship, Cyrano Jones' Spacematic)

TMP era Federation and Earth space vessels

Class I starships-of-the-line

• Excelsior-class dreadnoughts (NX/NCC-2000, Enterprise-B)
• Constitution-class refit heavy cruisers (refit Enterprise, Enterprise-A)
• Miranda-class refit light/medium frigates (NCC-1887 Saratoga, Reliant)
• Soyuz-class heavy frigates (Bozeman)
• Constellation-class heavy frigates (Hathaway?)

Class II

• ? unknown transport/survey/science probe ships (were ships like Antares and Dierdre refit or replaced with similar but more advanced classes of ships?)

Class III

• Oberth-class scout/science/survey ships (Grissom)

Class IV

• merchant service ships (?)

Class V

• warp-sled courier (Surak in TMP)