Constitution Class Retirement

[Admiral Kirk]

Many people have stated over the years that the Constitution Class ships were in the process of being decommissioned around the time of Star Trek III and the following movies. I took it for granted that this was true.

However after re-viewing the original six movies I have some observations.

1 - At no point in the movies is there at reference to this. Admiral Morrow said "we feel her day is over. I take that to mean specifically the USS Enterprise and not the entire class.
2 - The Enterprise A (whether its the Yorktown, Ti-Ho, or a new build) is handed over to Captain Kirk and crew.
3- The Excelsior class was brand new and untested. Can't replace the backbone of the fleet until you know you have something to replace it with (except the Space Shuttle Fleet..).
4 - There are at least 3 and possibly 5 Constitution refits shown in Star Trek IV.

-The Original Enterprise shown on video being destroyed
-A pre-refit Constitution Class shown on Spock's testing program on Vulcan
-The crippled Yorktown signaling Star Fleet Command about making a solar sail
-the warp pylon and nacelle of a Constitution Class being passed in the shuttle in Spacedock
-The Enterprise A​

I know that some of those references certainly are reaching but it seems to me the Constitution class overall was doing fine and the original Enterprise was specifically being targeted for decommissioning/mothballing or whatever that would have entailed.

Star Trek V Quote - "I think this New Ship was put together by monkeys.

In Star Trek VI there is no mention of the Enterprise herself being mothballed or scrapped. The language used was -

This "Crew" is due to stand down in 3 months.
"We" are put back to spacedock to be decomssioned. (crew or ship?)
This will be my final voyage aboard this vessel as a member of her crew.
This ship and her History will shortly become the care of another crew
​

I tried to only use Canon references. As far as I'm concerned if it didn't appear on film than it is very difficult to take into consideration because then you have to consider everything that is non canon and then you have a mess.

 

[Paradise City]

It's possible Connies were being scaled back, retired from frontline service and the remaining ships functioning as science vessels or lesser duties whilst the Excelsior class ships stepped up to the plate in frontline roles.

I'd also speculate that an adversary or other may have innovated a weapon that the Constitution class was somehow particularly vulnerable to and this accelerated the mass demobilisation of these ships.

I gravitate towards that because I'm dissatisfied with the idea that the ship was simply renamed and handed to someone else. It's a common enough practice in contemporary terms to do that I suppose but I find that idea a bit underwhelming personally.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I've always thought that the proposed scrapping of the NCC-1701 and later the NCC-1701-A had as much to do with the serious battle damage that both hulls had sustained in addition to their age than the later only.

 

[Dukhat]

1 - At no point in the movies is there at reference to this. Admiral Morrow said "we feel her day is over. I take that to mean specifically the USS Enterprise and not the entire class.

Agreed.

2 - The Enterprise A (whether its the Yorktown, Ti-Ho, or a new build) is handed over to Captain Kirk and crew.

Not sure how this is evidence either way. The Enterprise-A could have just been given to Kirk temporarily until the Enterprise-B was built, as is what seems to happen at the end of TUC and the start of Generations.

3- The Excelsior class was brand new and untested. Can't replace the backbone of the fleet until you know you have something to replace it with (except the Space Shuttle Fleet..).

Nowhere is it said that the Excelsior class was supposed to replace the Constitution class. As far as we know, she's just the newest type of ship.

4 - There are at least 3 and possibly 5 Constitution refits shown in Star Trek IV.

-The Original Enterprise shown on video being destroyed
-A pre-refit Constitution Class shown on Spock's testing program on Vulcan
-The crippled Yorktown signaling Star Fleet Command about making a solar sail
-the warp pylon and nacelle of a Constitution Class being passed in the shuttle in Spacedock
-The Enterprise A​

We don't canonically know the class of the Yorktown. Also, the warp nacelle/pylon in Spacedock could have been from a different class since we don't see the whole ship in its entirety. (Yes, I know that the model used was the Constitution, but I'm going by what was shown on screen.)​

Star Trek V Quote - "I think this New Ship was put together by monkeys.

The ship was new to Scotty. That doesn't mean this ship itself was brand new. When I bought a used car, I told all my friends, "look at my new car!" Because it was new to me.

In Star Trek VI there is no mention of the Enterprise herself being mothballed or scrapped. The language used was -

This "Crew" is due to stand down in 3 months.
"We" are put back to spacedock to be decomssioned. (crew or ship?)
This will be my final voyage aboard this vessel as a member of her crew.
This ship and her History will shortly become the care of another crew​

The existence of the completed Enterprise-B in Generations pretty much confirms that the Enterprise-A was either mothballed or scrapped. And you don't "decommission" a crew.




​

 

[Lance]

Agreed that the Enterprise-B's existence in Generations , as well as her launch date being canonically within a year of 1701-A's decommissioning, certainly means that the earlier ship was earmarked for being taken out of service, at least under the name 'Enterprise'. ( There's the wiggle-room for it maybe remaining in service under another name. ) My belief is that Kirk was merely being maudlin, and maybe a little poetic, when he talked about "this ship and her history" passing to another crew in his last ever log entry as skipper of the ship. He could be talking either of the literal ship being renamed but retaining the continuity of her structure, or else it was a gesture towards the 'ship' and 'history' being passed to the Excelsior-Class successor. Either interpretation is valid.

As to what happened to the Constitution-Class Enterprise herself, well we just don't know. She may have been sent to the fleet museum. (We know her more famous predecessor never made it there.) All we do know is that the Constitution-Class is seldom seen in the Next Generation era.... in fact, only once, one ship as a wreck after the Borg attack at Wolf 359, and even that vessel may have been pressed into service only for an emergency.

 

[Dukhat]

My belief is that Kirk was merely being maudlin, and maybe a little poetic, when he talked about "this ship and her history" passing to another crew in his last ever log entry as skipper of the ship. He could be talking either of the literal ship being renamed but retaining the continuity of her structure, or else it was a gesture towards the 'ship' and 'history' being passed to the Excelsior-Class successor. Either interpretation is valid.

Actually, the intent of the line was to foreshadow TNG. It had nothing to do with the fate of the Enterprise-A or the eventual Enterprise-B (which at the time of TUC hadn't even been thought up yet as a plot point.)

 

[Vger23]

We never see another "re-fit" Constitution class starship anywhere in Star Trek. You could very easily assume that the only ships that had the re-fit style were the Enterprise and the Enterprise-A (unrealistic, but no other canon evidence exists).

Given the lack of re-fit Connies seen on screen, you could assume that (more realistically) that only a few more were refit or built the way the Enterprise was circa TMP, perhaps as testbeds for new technologies etc...and Starfleet was moving forward with mass-production of ships like Oberths and Mirandas (which evidence points to as being far more wide-spread), while the old-style Connies were either mothballed or had been lost in space.

 

[Desert Kris]

I'm a bit of a romantic, so I tend to prefer that the second Constitution-class Enterprise was one of, it not the last Connie built, before production companies shifted gears to produce Excelsior class starships. I like the idea of 1701-A being brand new, and was originally going to be designated with a different name. I also figure that Kirk and company were retiring, so Starfleet re-name her, maybe with the name she was originally slated for.

I also look at a lot of the background developments as details provided by the writers to produce an effect of things moving on. Harve Bennett introducing Excelsior as a replacement starship, and a replacement class of starship, to carry on themes from WoK about aging and moving on. In TUC, when Kirk says, "This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew," it's a signing-off moment for TOS, the original crew, and their adventures on the Enterprise. The second Enterprise gets a new name, and a new identity. And the Connies, I figure Enterprise-A had a few sister ships that were build from scratch in the refit-Connie configuration, and those ships are still good for the front lines along side the newer Excelsiors, and they gradually phase out as each new Excelsior comes out.

 

[PCz911]

Since star fleet was sort of like the modern navy, us news and world report states that the average age of a ship in the US navy is twenty years old. Applying this to Star Trek....This means that a Connie would be pretty average in the mid 80s and probably a very rare ship starting in the mid 90s.

Not a perfect construct, but a reasonable one.

 

[Timo]

It's a bit misleading to think that the E-B succeeded the E-A in any fashion. The two ships are dissimilar in design, and we know nothing about the intended role of the E-B in Starfleet even if we have some minor insight into the role of the E-A (insight actually suggesting her role was different from that of the E-nil!).

It basically never happens ITRW that a ship by name X would succeed a ship by name X. Say, the conventional WWII aircraft carrier Enterprise wasn't succeeded by the nuclear carrier by the same name, nor is the nuclear vessel being succeeded by the newer nuclear Enterprise - ships by completely different names took on the roles of those Enterprises when they were withdrawn from service.

"This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew"

How literally should this be taken? "This ship" would mean Kirk is convinced that "we are about to be decommissioned" did not refer to the vessel (or at least that he would speak Starfleet out of it soon enough); "her history" might put a more poetic spin to it, actually negating the idea that the physical ship herself is going to become anything besides scrap.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

I tend to think Constitution's continued to serve Starfleet, just like the Miranda's, Oberth's and Excelsior's. They were just not the frontline fleet workhorses, once the Excelsior class began regular production.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

It's a bit misleading to think that the E-B succeeded the E-A in any fashion. The two ships are dissimilar in design, and we know nothing about the intended role of the E-B in Starfleet even if we have some minor insight into the role of the E-A (insight actually suggesting her role was different from that of the E-nil!).

It basically never happens ITRW that a ship by name X would succeed a ship by name X. Say, the conventional WWII aircraft carrier Enterprise wasn't succeeded by the nuclear carrier by the same name, nor is the nuclear vessel being succeeded by the newer nuclear Enterprise - ships by completely different names took on the roles of those Enterprises when they were withdrawn from service.

I'm no expert, but reading the bios for CV-6 it seems to me that CVN-65 and the upcoming CVN-80 are very much intended as the successors in every way to CV-6. However, as I'm not an expert, I'd be interested in hearing why you believe they aren't?

 

[Dukhat]

The fact that the Ent-B's name is the Enterprise, that it shares the same registry with an updated suffix, and the fact that the Ent-A was decommissioned a year before, pretty much makes the Ent-B the Ent-A's successor in every way. I'm not sure why anyone would even be arguing to the contrary.

 

[Lance]

Actually, the intent of the line was to foreshadow TNG. It had nothing to do with the fate of the Enterprise-A or the eventual Enterprise-B (which at the time of TUC hadn't even been thought up yet as a plot point.)

Actually, my recollection was that the line was rewritten to make this less obvious -- allegedly because Shatner really didn't like the idea of 'passing the crown'. Obviously he must have changed his mind about this by the time 'Generations' rolled around.

 

[Lance]

We never see another "re-fit" Constitution class starship anywhere in Star Trek. You could very easily assume that the only ships that had the re-fit style were the Enterprise and the Enterprise-A (unrealistic, but no other canon evidence exists).

Given the lack of re-fit Connies seen on screen, you could assume that (more realistically) that only a few more were refit or built the way the Enterprise was circa TMP, perhaps as testbeds for new technologies etc...and Starfleet was moving forward with mass-production of ships like Oberths and Mirandas (which evidence points to as being far more wide-spread), while the old-style Connies were either mothballed or had been lost in space.

We see one in the wreckage at Wolf 359.

 

[Vger23]

We see one in the wreckage at Wolf 359.

There is no way to be certain that the wreckage is from a Constitution-class starship, unfortunately.

 

[Dukhat]

There is no way to be certain that the wreckage is from a Constitution-class starship, unfortunately.

Correct. We see part of a saucer in one scene, and a section of the secondary hull in another scene. IRL, they weren't even attached when filmed. So while we know where those pieces came from (the destroyed model of the Enterprise from STIII), in-universe they could have been parts from entirely different ships.

 

[Ithekro]

There is precident for ships to be renamed when a newer, better ship comes into service, but the older ship is still viable. Around 1900, the United States Navy commissioned several classes of Armored Cruisers that had the names of states. These were nearly battleships, but not quite. The battleships were constructed as well, also with the names of states.

By World War One, and the coming of the super dreadnoughts, the Americans rushed to build more battleships. Around a dozen armored cruisers were renamed after cities within those states to release the state names for the new battleships. These cruisers remained in service for another decade or so before being retired. Also the United States had kept them because they had not been building cruiser type ships to replace them until the 1920s.

If you go back to around the birth of Naval Aviation, there are pictures of an Airplane taking off from the deck of a USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay in 1911. This is the Armored Cruiser, USS Pennsylvania (ARC-4), She was renamed in 1912 to the USS Pittsburg (ARC-4 later CA-4). She remained in service with that named until 1931 when she was decommissioned and scrapped 30 years after she was laid down. The battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), was laid down in 1913 and was at Pearl Harbor with her sister ships, USS Arizona (BB-39). This ship was sunk in atomic testing in 1948 after being decommissioned in 1946.

So there is the possibility that the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) remained in service after being renamed to free the name for the new Excelsior-class starship. I don't know if her hull number would be changed, though it might go back to whatever it was suppose to be prior to being redesignated NCC-1701-A.

 

[Desert Kris]

How literally should this be taken? "This ship" would mean Kirk is convinced that "we are about to be decommissioned" did not refer to the vessel (or at least that he would speak Starfleet out of it soon enough); "her history" might put a more poetic spin to it, actually negating the idea that the physical ship herself is going to become anything besides scrap.

Timo Saloniemi

Perhaps as literally as a person wants, in accordance with how it fit's that individual's theory. It strikes me as one of those occasions where things are left ambiguous enough that different people can interpret the background details very differently (until a future writer locks down the details in their own way). Like how people interpret Enterprise-A's construction history differently: some people think she was once a very old connie, that got refitted just like Enterprise. I have my own alternative preference that she was the last or penultimate connie built; she feels new to me.

In my own mind, I don't know if I have a strong feeling of how I think Enterprise-A continues after Kirk and company retire. Part of my answer is tied up with feelings of revulsion for what the ST: Generations movie establishes; I really hate Generations because it provides concrete answers to things that I would have preferred ended in a more "They faded into history and legend" kind of resolution. Before Generations, Kirk had a chance to gracefully accept age and retirement, and didn't have to go thrill seeking to chase his demons away, and subsequently get himself killed, heroically...twice (he just had to double down on that?!). Enterprise-A had a chance to continue for a few more years as the Enterprise under a new captain, with an Excelsior class Enterprise further in the future.

 

[Desert Kris]

Double damn post.