Fate of the original 12 Constitution Class Starships

[Warped9]

Not all spaceships are starships, but all starships are spaceships.

The (now retired) shuttle orbiter) is a spaceship as was the Command Modules and Lunar Modules that went to the moon. Any vehicle designed to operate in space is a spaceship. But they are certainly not starships given they are designed to operate within limited parameters.

But a genuine starship, while also by nature isa soaceship, is a specific thing. A starship is specifically designed for interstellar travel beyond a solar system and to other star systems. It needn't be a FTL vehicle to be a starship. It need only be designed to be able to cross interstellar distances. As such even a sleeper ship can be a starship because it's designed fir interstellar travel even though it will take years, decades or centuries to make the trip. A generational worldship, like the Yonada asteroid, is also a starship.

By that reasoning even a vehicle like the shuttlecraft Galileo is a starship because it can cross interstellar distances from one star to another. A TNG/DS9 era runabout is basically a large shuttlecraft.

Today we use different words to describe essentially similar devices: desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone are all variations of computer. In SF shuttlecraft, sleeper ship, world ship, explorer, etc. are all classifications for different kinds of starships.

 

[CrazyMatt]

Imagination and imagination.

Imagined reality vs imagined imagination?

 

[Marsden]

That's not a Mustang, it's a Mustang II! (I had one, they were crap).

That's a Pinto with extra trim. I didn't even notice at first because, Farah Fawcett.



I think that whole "Starfleet adopted the Enterprises badge as everyone's now" caused the "Enterprise was the only survivor" business. I really don't like it, but, like a lot of other things it's out there.

 

[The Old Mixer]

One thing I don't get is why everyone seems to assume that line means 12 Connies including the Enterprise. I'd say that it means 12 Connies other than the Enterprise, for a total of 13.

And I'd take that to mean the count at that moment, not including any that may have already been lost in the time that the class had been operating, which some close-to-canon sources put at over 20 years as of TOS Season 1.

 

[J.T.B.]

One thing I don't get is why everyone seems to assume that line means 12 Connies including the Enterprise. I'd say that it means 12 Connies other than the Enterprise, for a total of 13.

Yeah, that's been brought up many times. Personally, I think the way most people talk "twelve like her" would be twelve total, while for thirteen they would say "twelve more like her" or something like that.

 

[The Lensman]

My recollection (paraphrasing, this would have been many years ago) from reading the novelization of TMP was that Kirk was the only captain to bring his ship home following his 5 year mission with his ship and crew "relatively intact", and that there was a humble footnote by Kirk himself to the effect that he lost a number of crew and thus deserved no special singling out. Assuming my recollection is essentially correct, the other starships may not have all been totally lost, but their crews decimated or nearly so.

Came here to say this, but you beat me to it. I've never forgotten the "relatively intact" bit from that book. I've always assumed that Kirk just made it back with the least amount of crew members killed and his ship in better shape, i.e. it wasn't towed into space dock because some giant space kid broke off the warp engines on his new toy spaceship or something.

 

[publiusr]

That must have been what I was thinking. There was also something about "billion ton super spacers.."

 

[MAGolding]

The (now retired) shuttle orbiter) is a spaceship as was the Command Modules and Lunar Modules that went to the moon. Any vehicle designed to operate in space is a spaceship. But they are certainly not starships given they are designed to operate within limited parameters.

But a genuine starship, while also by nature isa soaceship, is a specific thing. A starship is specifically designed for interstellar travel beyond a solar system and to other star systems. It needn't be a FTL vehicle to be a starship. It need only be designed to be able to cross interstellar distances. As such even a sleeper ship can be a starship because it's designed fir interstellar travel even though it will take years, decades or centuries to make the trip. A generational worldship, like the Yonada asteroid, is also a starship.

By that reasoning even a vehicle like the shuttlecraft Galileo is a starship because it can cross interstellar distances from one star to another. A TNG/DS9 era runabout is basically a large shuttlecraft.

Today we use different words to describe essentially similar devices: desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone are all variations of computer. In SF shuttlecraft, sleeper ship, world ship, explorer, etc. are all classifications for different kinds of starships.

IMHO Star Trek starships are special even as faster than light starships and even as starfleet vessels:

Clearly a starship is a much greater ship than a civilian space ship, and probably much greater than the average Starfleet ship. Starships are probably Constitution (and maybe other) class ships (and not necessarily all the members of those classes) that are armed equal to (or perhaps are members of) the top classes of warships, and also equipped with research facilities equal to the best pure research ships, and are assigned to special types of missions where both qualities may be needed, such as five year missions, for example.​

Thus we need not assume that the Federation has only 12 or 13 starships total at a time for exploration, or that its defense force has only 12 or 13 top level warships.​

And thus there is no need to assume that all of the starships seen in TOS belong to the Constitution class since it is possible that other starship classes closely resemble the Constitution class on the outside.​

I think that in the era of TOS the designation of starship would not have been given to a purely military space battleship in a defense fleet, nor to a purely science vessel like the Oberth class. In the era of TOS a Starfleet starship was a STARSHIIP, and not just an ordinary starship .

 

[Warped9]

Post TOS the definition of starship became more aligned with what is more widely understood in SF and the real world.

 

[Timo]

...Not that the real world would feature starships of any sort. And once it gets some of those, the terminology may have moved beyond naval analogies and the English language. Possibly also in the Trek universe, where shuttles definitely aren't starships despite occasionally traveling from star to star.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SPCTRE]

the terminology may have moved beyond naval analogies and the English language

hahahaha, yeah, no.

 

[Timo]

Some things certainly have - we speak of "astronauts", after all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Some things certainly have - we speak of "astronauts", after all.

Timo Saloniemi

Exhibiting an English word dating from the 1920s, if not the 1880s, one coined in the same vein as other new English words, is proof of anything but a move beyond English.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=astronaut

 

[Forbin]

Yeah, that's been brought up many times. Personally, I think the way most people talk "twelve like her" would be twelve total, while for thirteen they would say "twelve more like her" or something like that.

That's my interpretation as well.
Say you're ridiculously wealthy and you have two matching custom cars made, one for yourself and one for your spouse. There are no others in the world like them. If someone were to see your car alone and ask about it, you would say "There are only two like it in the world," and it seems pretty clear that there are two in total. There's no way that saying "There are only two like it in the world" would lead someone to believe there are three in total.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

That's my interpretation as well.
Say you're ridiculously wealthy and you have two matching custom cars made, one for yourself and one for your spouse. There are no others in the world like them. If someone were to see your car alone and ask about it, you would say "There are only two like it in the world," and it seems pretty clear that there are two in total. There's no way that saying "There are only two like it in the world" would lead someone to believe there are three in total.

Exactly. The way you'd indicate three in total using the number two would be to say, "There are only two others like it in the world."

 

[Poltargyst]

But Kirk doesn't say "only 12 others like it in the fleet." Sounds to me like "only 12 of its kind in the fleet", hence 12 total.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

KIRK: There are only twelve like it in the fleet.

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/21.htm

 

[The Old Mixer]

I should have announced that I fold. It was on H&I last night, and in light of the explanation here, I concede that it sounds like 12 total, including Enterprise.

 

[Timo]

Exhibiting an English word dating from the 1920s, if not the 1880s, one coined in the same vein as other new English words, is proof of anything but a move beyond English.

To the contrary, it establishes the very thing as being standard practice for the English language (the language which the heroes in all eras supposedly speak). English is always moving beyond English, and "starship" is as likely a word as any to be replaced by a foreign loan when the time comes to coin new words relating to newly relevant phenomena.

I'm betting it will be a loan of a word or concept not yet even coined. But it could be something as old but esoteric as where we got "torpedo" from.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

A tablet was once a pad of paper until the usage of that term fell into general disuse. Now a tablet is recognized as an electronic device, a particular kind of computer.

Remote means a locale or place isolated by great distance. Now it's more recognized as a handheld device to wirelessly control another device.