Where did the Enterprise NCC-1701A come from?

[C.E. Evans]

You're being snippy again.

Well, since this discussion has apparently devolved into a dick-measuring contest, I'll be the bigger man, bow out, and admit you've got the bigger dick. Happy now?

"Bigger man?" Yeah, right. There's simply was never any need for you to be snippy and ugly about this. But whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

Peace.

 

[Timo]

The bridge in Trek VI is even more puzzling, as the turbo lift doors are aligned differently, which would require that the tubes themselves would have been moves (which is obviously a major undertaking).

Actually, I'd think it's a relatively trivial adjustment. More like moving the signpost for a bus stop than building an all-new road.

What I figure goes on with those turbolifts is that there's one vertical shaft in TOS and two in the movies that stay put. The lift station is never atop that shaft. Instead, it's a bit to the side, so that a spare turbolift can park there and wait for an urgent call without preventing other lifts from arriving from down below. (In the movies, there may even be a curving horizontal cross-shaft for such parking and shuffling. Depends on how deep you feel the bridge is inset into the hull. Quite possibly the saucertop docking port assembly is one deck above the bridge, explaining why it is accessed from the bridge via turbolift rather than a simple door.)

In some bridge layouts, the holding stations are inboard of the vertical shafts. In others, they are outboard. Or clockwise, or counterclockwise, creating the range of designs we see. Each and every bridge wedge is just as "wild" in the Starfleet reality as it is in the Desilu/Paramount one, and instead of pulling out the entire bridge, Starfleet can replace those wedges as it sees fit.

Sometimes it may indeed be quicker to pull out the entire bridge, and perhaps the entire "apple core" of the saucer center axis, and replace this massive data-processing element (sensors at top and bottom, bridge below top sensors, lots of computers in between, perhaps saucer auxiliary control also included in the mix) as a whole. This may have happened between ST4 and ST5. I doubt it happened at any other time in the history of the E-nil or the E-A, though...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[doubleohfive]

Personally, I always thought it more puzzling that the Enterprise bridge in the first four films (and other ships like Reliant, Grissom, and Saratoga) looked so retro, while the bridge in Star Trek V and Star Trek VI (and also those of Excelsior and Enterprise-B) was clearly a new build further influenced by the look of the bridge of the Enterprise-D, whereas ships like the Stargazer looked like the old Motion Picture bridge.

Now, I know the real world reason for this. TNG whored out the old movie bridge every chance it could, and with Star Trek V a new bridge was built (and later redressed in Star Trek VI) ... but from an in-universe perspective, it's rather incongruous.

 

[Dukhat]

Different people like different things, including different ideas.

Er, yeah, I get that. My point was that I didn't understand the logic of the choice based solely on what we see in the film.

Er, you didn't get what I said about what Roddenberry, did you?

Here's the point where you started getting snippy first. Just saying. But to each his own. Peace.

 

[C.E. Evans]

If we go with the replaceable (plug in/plug out) bridge module idea, it could be that the Enterprise-A--or at least her bridge--underwent upgrades between the movies she appeared in.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Er, yeah, I get that. My point was that I didn't understand the logic of the choice based solely on what we see in the film.

Er, you didn't get what I said about what Roddenberry, did you?

Here's the point where you started getting snippy first.

Just giving back what was given to me.

Just saying. But to each his own. Peace.

Let it go, man and move on.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

but from an in-universe perspective, it's rather incongruous.

It's easier to explain than the different Klingon bridges from ST III to IV.

With the Enterprise-A, obviously Starfleet can have easy access to whatever kind of bridge module it wants to use. But the Klingon ship - the stolen Bird of Prey - would have to stick with whatever bridge it originally had, unless the Vulcans somehow happened to have an extra Klingon bridge module laying around (when they refitted the ship prior to its appearance in ST IV)...and how likely is that...

 

[Nerys Myk]

Heroes or not, I can't imagine Starfleet taking a ship away from its crew just to hand it off to Kirk and company.

Why not? They saved earth. What other crew would take priority over the 1701 group when a ship was needed as part of Kirk's punishment?

They may have been exonerated but it doesn't mean that Starfleet doesn't hold a grudge. Kirk and Company made them look like fools over and over on the whole. Exposed they had only sent an underpowered science vessel to Genesis with no protection, broke their newest toy and made Starfleet security look terrible.

So in other words, a Tuesday.

 

[doubleohfive]

but from an in-universe perspective, it's rather incongruous.

It's easier to explain than the different Klingon bridges from ST III to IV.

I always assumed the Vulcans helped Kirk and company retrofit the bridge so it would be easier for them to operate in a configuration they'd be familiar with But you're right -- it takes a bit of a leap of faith/suspension of belief to fully accept that explanation.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ It wouldn't be so bad if the ST IV bridge didn't already look like many other Klingon bridges we've seen.

I guess the simplest explanation could be that one or other of the bridges (the one we actually see Kruge use in ST III, or the one in ST IV) is an emergency/battle bridge/auxiliary control kind of thing, though...

 

[Timo]

Indeed. Kruge appeared concerned that his own crew might learn some of his secrets. Perhaps his assignment as a spy/spymaster deep within UFP space called for a separate Intelligence Operations Center, set well apart from the navigation bridge?

Which is which, though? The ST3 installation had the cool swiveling gunnery chair from ST:TMP, plus the unlucky gunner was in the pit of that installation; one'd think these stations would be found at the "grunt bridge", not in the chamber where Kruge processed his deepest secrets. Yet Kruge does process his deepest secrets right there, having to resort to hushed voices (and possibly to speaking English!) to keep his crew in the dark.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Peach Wookiee]

You're being snippy again.

Well, since this discussion has apparently devolved into a dick-measuring contest, I'll be the bigger man, bow out, and admit you've got the bigger dick. Happy now?

"Bigger man?" Yeah, right. There's simply was never any need for you to be snippy and ugly about this. But whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

Peace.

Cool it, both of you. That's dangerously close to a flame, C.E.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Well, since this discussion has apparently devolved into a dick-measuring contest, I'll be the bigger man, bow out, and admit you've got the bigger dick. Happy now?

"Bigger man?" Yeah, right. There's simply was never any need for you to be snippy and ugly about this. But whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

Peace.

Cool it, both of you. That's dangerously close to a flame, C.E.

Not remotely. I'll PM you.

 

[KhanSolo]

This is the first time I've checked this thread in about a week and I just want to say I love all of you.

 

[Leto_II]

Visual evidence: At the end of TVH, the ship has a bridge reminiscent of the older TMP Enterprise bridge. At the beginning of TFF, it has a brand-spanking new bridge. I take this to mean that the ship was an older vessel which had been upgraded at some point between the two films.

Which would indicate a REALLY hasty refit since only a matter of weeks passed between The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier

Canonically, we know that roughly around a year elapsed between TVH and TFF -- in TNG's third-season premiere ("Evolution"), which is set in early 2366, Data mentions that it had been 79 years since the last major, system-wide computer failure on a starship. Michael Piller later confirmed that this was indeed a reference to the events of Star Trek V (which opened theatrically less than two months before this episode aired), which places the movie in 2287 (The Voyage Home taking place in early 2286, some 78 years prior to "Encounter at Farpoint").

Going from this information, the Enterprise-A had the better part of a year's worth of missions and adventures before returning to Spacedock as we see in the movie, where probably any number of events could've had a cumulative effect upon the ship's internal systems, necessitating that wholesale overhaul. (Interestingly, the last twenty or so issues of DC Comics' first ST series from the late '80s gave us quite a few immediate post-TVH stories which could account for this).

Plus, as was already pointed out earlier in this thread, the bridge undergoes a fairly radical redesign between the movies -- if one doesn't buy into the "removable bridge-module" theory, this would've taken some time for Starfleet to accomplish; certainly far longer than just two or three weeks.

 

[doubleohfive]

Do you have a source for any of that? You're attributing factual information to Piller, but where was it ever documented?

 

[Leto_II]

The movie dating-reference in the TNG episode is noted in official Paramount-licensed sources like Larry Nemecek's Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion (and forms the basis for Star Trek V 's 2287 placement in the Okuda Chronology), but was also brought up during at least one online chat that Piller did back in the day (which I remember once being archived over on the old PsiPhi site, years back).

 

[doubleohfive]

The movie dating-reference in the TNG episode is noted in official Paramount-licensed sources like Larry Nemecek's Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion (and forms the basis for Star Trek V 's 2287 placement in the Okuda Chronology), but was also brought up during at least one online chat that Piller did back in the day (which I remember once being archived over on the old PsiPhi site, years back).

How funny. I'm looking at the TNG Companion entry for "Evolution" and don't see a single mention of any of this, nor of Piller confirming same.

I guess I'll just have to take your word on it. Please don't misunderstand -- I just like to have concrete sources for things taken as fact, that's all. Thanks for clarifying!

 

[BillJ]

Do you have a source for any of that? You're attributing factual information to Piller, but where was it ever documented?

Even if Piller said that, I'd still dismiss it. He wasn't involved in either the production of The Voyage Home or The Final Frontier.

 

[Leto_II]

Even if Piller said that, I'd still dismiss it. He wasn't involved in either the production of The Voyage Home or The Final Frontier.

Remember though, that Piller didn't have to be directly involved in either production for it to be a canonical dating-reference -- as a writer/executive producer on a filmic Star Trek production shot on the Paramount soundstages, if something like that makes it into an episode, it's automatically considered binding, as far as the continuity is concerned (similar to how onscreen dialogue in the VOY episode "Q2" canonically locked in the dating of Kirk's 5YM as lasting from 2265-70).

The Okudas then likely used Piller's reference as one of the movie's dating-placements in The Official Star Trek Chronology (Piller was evidently pretty fond of referencing Star Trek V at that time, going by other nods like Wesley Crusher's great-great-grandfather being "a horse-thief" on Nimbus III, etc.), along with the film's reference to Nimbus III having been "settled twenty years ago" (i.e., no earlier than 2267 at the very least, after the events of "Balance of Terror," but with enough reasonable time factored in for the UFP and the Romulan Empire to re-establish formal communications and diplomacy after more than a century of silence).