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Discovery prequel novel: Desperate Hours

I admit I was confused as to why Earth Starfleet vessels didn't have some other prefix, such as UES (United Earth Ship).
UES is used by Eaglemoss's The Official Star Trek Starship Collection for two Earth ships (UES Intrepid and UES Warp Delta).

Are we still talking about the DSC novel, by the way?
 
Why should it "show up elsewhere in the series"? ENT has precious few graphics of fellow starships, and all such depicting NX type ships (to wit, this single one) show the USS identity. In comparison, graphics on Boomer ships feature the ECS prefix - is that an "error", too? After all, the letters ECS are to be found nowhere on the actual Fortunate hull.


IIRC, ECS was said audibly

USS has never been used in the NX-01's name ever outside of that graphic

It was an error.
 
IIRC, ECS was said audibly

To be accurate, "ECS" has been used as a prefix for the name of a ship in dialogue, both for the Fortunate and the Horizon. But the Fortunate also had the registry ECS-2801 in a graphic, never mentioned in dialogue.

In addition, ECS has been spelled out as "Earth Cargo Ship" once, although it also reads out as "Earth Cargo Service" in the sleeve badges of the Horizon crew. Does this perhaps mean that Kirk's "USS" meant both "United(federationofplanets) Star(fleet) Ship" and ""United(federationofplanets) Star(fleet) Service", as in "Star Service" of "The Conscience of the King" fame?

It was an error.

Who cares? It's what precedes the name of Archer's Enterprise in the Star Trek universe. And there's nothing wrong with it. Indeed, there would be something seriously wrong with the USS not being there, as its use straddles the Archer era while also covering multiple unrelated "naval" organizations.

Sheesh. Kirk wore green in TOS; gold is an error. But in-universe, the heroes refer to the color as gold. Are they colorblind all, or should we laugh out the people who "admit to the error"?

Are we still talking about the DSC novel, by the way?

Hopefully we'll get that novel eventually. And then we'll certainly talk.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Who cares? It's what precedes the name of Archer's Enterprise in the Star Trek universe. And there's nothing wrong with it. Indeed, there would be something seriously wrong with the USS not being there, as its use straddles the Archer era while also covering multiple unrelated "naval" organizations.


The graphics artists admitted it was wrong so it is wrong. The enterprise and Columbia do not have USS. Why is that hard to understand?
 
Why should it "show up elsewhere in the series"? ENT has precious few graphics of fellow starships, and all such depicting NX type ships (to wit, this single one) show the USS identity. In comparison, graphics on Boomer ships feature the ECS prefix - is that an "error", too? After all, the letters ECS are to be found nowhere on the actual Fortunate hull.

Much of Star Trek comes about as a series of "errors". Once on screen, they become "features". Some may be awkward features, such as a character missing a rank pip or half his fake beard. But there's no a priori reason to oppose the feature that NX class ships have an USS prefix, or that Klingons fly Warbirds - or that the rare death penalty associated in the early 2250s with General Order 7 goes away and gets replaced by another rare death penalty associated in the late 2260s with General Order 4. All of those are in fact logical and expected parts of the Trek universe, and the opposite would be unexpected and in need of explaining.

Timo Saloniemi

Graphics also use a lot of nonsensical filler text, Easter eggs (like the official Enterprise duck on the famous TNG display board) that are not meant to be taken seriously, information that is contradicted by the dialogue onscreen in the same episode or later ones.

Screen graphics are inherently less accurate than other pieces of information (many of them are also not even meant to be actually read).

Who cares? It's what precedes the name of Archer's Enterprise in the Star Trek universe. And there's nothing wrong with it. Indeed, there would be something seriously wrong with the USS not being there, as its use straddles the Archer era while also covering multiple unrelated "naval" organizations.

The USS prefix is never used in dialogue. It's not on the hull. The sole use of it was a mistake. The evidence against it being "accurate" is stronger than the evidence for it.

Sheesh. Kirk wore green in TOS; gold is an error. But in-universe, the heroes refer to the color as gold. Are they colorblind all, or should we laugh out the people who "admit to the error"?

The color green is never mentioned in dialogue. There is no version of the show on film where it's called "green." It is called gold in-universe. All subsequent TV shows use gold for their uniforms or for recreating TOS uniforms. Ergo, the TOS uniforms were "always" gold. There is no contradiction.
 
Sometimes mistakes end up a thing in later productions. "Klingon Warbird" was an admitted mistake in the script of ENT: "Broken Bow", but came back as a unique (well, updated/modified D7) class of ship in Star Trek. It was USS Franklin for ship lost in the ENT era, not just Franklin. One could point to the "USS" botch in ENT as the reason, if they wanted (or say that it was renamed in the short span post-ENT before she was lost. Or that it's an AU with a slightly different history etc etc)
 
USS Franklin was lost as a Federation starship after the Romulan War and the Founding of the Federation.

Yes. UFP founded 2161; Franklin lost 2164. My Rise of the Federation novels begin in 2162 and all the Federation Starfleet vessels have USS prefixes in that time frame, because the individual member fleets have been folded into the Federation fleet. And the Franklin was explicitly a MACO starship that was folded into Starfleet when the UFP was founded. So it's not a mistake there.

The earlier novel The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing applies the USS prefix to two Daedalus-class vessels, the Yeager and the Yorktown, in 2155. However, it isn't used for any other Starfleet vessel in the book or in any of the other post-ENT novels. So it must've been a mistake based on using older reference materials for info about those vessels. Mistakes do happen, which is why you have to consider these things in context.
 
And the Franklin was explicitly a MACO starship that was folded into Starfleet when the UFP was founded.

I recall the filmmakers saying that that was their assumption, however I thought in the movie proper, all they said was that it was Earth's first warp four ship. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but I recall being a little surprised to hear that it was ostensibly a MACO ship after seeing the movie.
 
There's tons of background material that may tell us something about "author intent" or somesuch. It should not matter for Star Trek in the slightest, because "authors" come and go, and generally they apparently don't care much for each other. Only Star Trek stays.

Nothing about the Franklin connects her to the MACO, save for her final skipper having been a MACO in former life. And indeed nothing about the Franklin that we could discern from the movie is relevant to her pre-Federation stage of existence but her speed record of warp four, necessarily achieved before Archer's ship did better in ENT.

Heck, we don't even know if the ship was already named Franklin when she made that speed record. Her dedication plaque comes from the time when she had already been transferred to the UFP Starfleet (what with the plaque containing e.g. the term UFP along with the USS-accompanied name and the 300-ballpark registry). For all we know, she was the UES Usain Bolt, VK-03, back when first trying out her brand new superengines.

Conversely, we have seen Archer's ship sport USS in a set of records pertaining to her operating era. There is zero in-universe reason to disbelieve in that information, as absolutely nothing contradicts it.

- The presence of USS isn't contradicted by the presence of a conflicting prefix.
- The use of prefixes in 22nd century Earth starflight is amply confirmed, especially in cases where no such prefix is painted on the hull.
- USS is a common prefix for military-exploration spacecraft in Star Trek, before and after ENT.

Even in out-of-universe terms, we're much better off believing in USS than disbelieving in it. After all, other writers have made and are going to make the same "mistake" often enough, considering how it's a feature rather than a bug to begin with.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I recall the filmmakers saying that that was their assumption, however I thought in the movie proper, all they said was that it was Earth's first warp four ship. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but I recall being a little surprised to hear that it was ostensibly a MACO ship after seeing the movie.

I'm curious about this as well. There was nothing in STB about the Franklin ITSELF being a MACO ship (indeed, since the MACOS are ground forces, the concept of a "MACO ship" would seem to be a contradiction). Only that Balthazar Edison himself was a former MACO who received command of the ship.
 
Also, Scotty's concerns regarding the "airworthiness" of the ship sound even more misguided if she was originally built to serve Earth's ground assault forces...

Indeed, perhaps the strongest support for this odd idea that this could be a MACO ship comes from the fact that she flies so well inside atmospheres and lands and takes off with such ease!

Timo Saloniemi
 
I suppose the term MACO kind of refers to the marines, and they have ships of their own!

As for Desperate Hours, I am looking forward to the novel, but I hope it is a serious foray into Discovery that will give meaningful background to the show.
 
I suppose the term MACO kind of refers to the marines, and they have ships of their own!

Well, not. All the ships helping the USMC to perform amphibious assault are actually USN ships. (Okay, a couple of civilian-crewed USNS ships in the mix, too.)

Even the US Army can lay greater claim to actually having "ships or their own", although those are more like coastal barges and ferries. The Army also has some bona fide fighting boats, while the Marines do not.

As for Desperate Hours, I am looking forward to the novel, but I hope it is a serious foray into Discovery that will give meaningful background to the show.

...Unlike certain other novels that have preceded their respective spinoff shows not just in in-universe terms but in the timeline of writing, and suffered for it. But I have high hopes for Desperate Hours in this respect, as there will supposedly only be about one year of Burnham adventures until the TV show shifts on a different gear (who knows, perhaps even the focus on characters will shift?), and all of Burnham's first-year arc is supposed to be about change and development anyway - "character inaccuracies" in the prequel book ought to be much less a factor than with, say, early TNG books.

Timo Saloniemi
 
I recall the filmmakers saying that that was their assumption, however I thought in the movie proper, all they said was that it was Earth's first warp four ship. My memory may be playing tricks on me, but I recall being a little surprised to hear that it was ostensibly a MACO ship after seeing the movie.

Fair point. But they did say that the MACOs themselves were folded into Starfleet, which still fits. I was pleasantly relieved at how well Beyond's 22nd-century backstory fit with what I've done in the books. There are a few minor clashes, like the 2160s uniform style being different from what I established, but there's nothing I can't reconcile.
 
Conversely, we have seen Archer's ship sport USS in a set of records pertaining to her operating era. There is zero in-universe reason to disbelieve in that information, as absolutely nothing contradicts it.

- USS is a common prefix for military-exploration spacecraft in Star Trek, before and after ENT.

No.
 
I'm curious about this as well. There was nothing in STB about the Franklin ITSELF being a MACO ship (indeed, since the MACOS are ground forces, the concept of a "MACO ship" would seem to be a contradiction). Only that Balthazar Edison himself was a former MACO who received command of the ship.

It seems many of the people who served in the wars with him went on to be shipmates.

As for the Franklin being a MACO ship, I was watching Beyond a couple of days ago, and the mission patches (as well as all other ship insignia's) had the little MACO star on the delta rather than the larger Starfleet one.

https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.ne...8b/MACO.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20060817001253

https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.ne...ision/latest?cb=20161007105600&path-prefix=en

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Franklin
 

Yes. :p

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net...ision/latest?cb=20061122032434&path-prefix=en

As for the Franklin being a MACO ship, I was watching Beyond a couple of days ago, and the mission patches (as well as all other ship insignia's) had the little MACO star on the delta rather than the larger Starfleet one.

Intriguing. Although lamentably we don't have a point of comparison in the form of a "real Starfleet" star from that era. Perhaps Starfleet started out with small stars? After all, the symbols in Beyond postdate the disbanding of MACO.

Timo Saloniemi
 
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