If you do a war then doesn't Pike and the Enterprise have to show up?

[Jackson_Roykirk]

PIke and the Enterprise would only NEED to show up if we would see 100% of Star Fleet's ships in this, but I don't think that we necessarily would see 100% of the ships.

I'm thinking that it is quite possible that the Enterprise (and probably a few other ships) might have been in various locations on the other side of the galactic quadrant keeping the peace in those places.

 

[Ithekro]

One exploration vessel out doing exploration things with a crew of 203. Assuming the USS Enterprise under Captain Pike was even doing exploration missions. Approximately two years prior to this episode of Discovery they went to a relatively known planet. Some of the crew died, and then they went to the Vega Colony for reasons only to be stopped by a distress call from a long overdo Earth ship. After that, we don't know a lot. Spock stayed with Pike for about decade after that. From what we are told, it seems like Captain Pike did do some exploring, but it is unclear if the five year mission thing was something Pike did, or if it was a new feature under Kirk's command, with a larger crew.

 

[Timo]

I don't think we have any reason to believe in a "five-year mission", either before, during or after Kirk.

Rather, every mission is merely "ongoing". Kirk went on for five years and then wrote his memoirs where he referred to his five years out there. Nothing specific marked the beginning or the end of the mission, except for Kirk personally beginning it and ending it; for all we know, the mission went on for another three years under Captain Nowan before ST:TMP happened.

However, Kirk refers to "his five years out there" as the thing that exceptionally qualifies him to command the Enterprise, not just over the potentially inexperienced Will Decker but also over every other starship skipper on Earth. Most skippers thus probably do less (perhaps significantly less) than five years of deep space commanding! And we don't know if Pike ever did any.

It's only in the Kelvinverse that a preplanned five-year mission is a thing - the thing that Kirk wants to be chosen to command in ST:ID. Apparently his ultimate mission in ST:B is of a preset length, too. But those are purely Kelvinverse things. And even there it seems nobody did that sort of stuff before ST:ID.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[section9]

That said, if a war developed with the Klingons, Enterprise would be piut at the head of either its own Heavy Cruiser Task Force or tasked to be the muscle assigned to a Fast Carrier (Roddenberry patterned Starfleet after his experiences as a bomber pilot in the Pacific: basically, Starfleet is the Pacific Fleet in space) Task Force.

What we saw was Enterprise during the Cold War period in the 2260's, when it was assigned to a Five Year Exploration/Peacekeeping mission in which it acted alone.

In wartime, the Big E would always be part of a large task force.

 

[Timo]

The funny thing is, when there was heated war (one that Starfleet saw coming a long way off) in "Errand of Mercy", the Enterprise was not assigned a combat task at all. She was instead sent to visit some backwater planet that supposedly was of strategic significance (to the Klingons?), but had to immediately flee when challenged by Klingon forces there.

That's classic cruiser stuff - a second-rate ship running errands and fleeing at the first sight of enemy capital ships or superior enemy cruiser forces. That Kirk's ship is "heavy" may confuse the issue somewhat, as some heavy cruisers were wielded like capital ships in the past wars, but apparently Starfleet doesn't think that way.

One wonders... How does NCC-1701 compare to NCC-1227 or NCC-1031 combatwise? Georgiou's ship is said to be "old" - is Lorca's ship then even older, with that lower registry, and is Pike's ship perhaps not particularly modern as of 2256, either? Did we glimpse higher registries in the battle scenes of "Binary"? More capable combatants? Blatantly newer or bigger designs?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kevman7987]

I wonder if Kirk, Garth, and Axanar will be name dropped in a future story?

 

[Jayson1]

Yes, just like how in WWII every single US Navy ship showed up to every single battle in the Pacific. Even the ones serving in the Atlantic steamed all the way over there and back each time.

That's real life. I think fictional universe's work a little different in that if you know you got this important ship out their and you have this war which is going to be a important event for this universe you kind of expect both to play a major role in the events and the audience kind of expects to see at least a glimpse of it. I know people might call that small universe syndrome but to me that isn't a big issue for me if you don't overdo it. Enterprise showing up seems fine. Now if you had a mission were Burnham teams up with Spock,Kirk,FInnegan to go explore a Klingon ship whose captain is Kor and rescue the ROmulan commander that was plyed by Mark Leonard and then you have gone to far and all the way into fan fiction.

Jason

 

[Tuskin38]

That's real life. I think fictional universe's work a little different in that if you know you got this important ship out their and you have this war which is going to be a important event for this universe you kind of expect both to play a major role in the events and the audience kind of expects to see at least a glimpse of it. I know people might call that small universe syndrome but to me that isn't a big issue for me if you don't overdo it. Enterprise showing up seems fine. Now if you had a mission were Burnham teams up with Spock,Kirk,FInnegan to go explore a Klingon ship whose captain is Kor and rescue the ROmulan commander that was plyed by Mark Leonard and then you have gone to far and all the way into fan fiction.

Jason

We never saw the Enterprise-E in DS9 during the Dominion war and that was fine.

 

[Jayson1]

We never saw the Enterprise-E in DS9 during the Dominion war.

I know and I thought that was a mistake. At least I think they had a legal reason for it and I think the ship could only be used for the movie's. It's possible this show has the same issue. I wonder if it is legally acceptable for them to even show a Constitution class starship or a Deadlaus class, on the show.

Jason

 

[Michael]

I know and I thought that was a mistake. At least I think they had a legal reason for it and I think the ship could only be used for the movie's. It's possible this show has the same issue. I wonder if it is legally acceptable for them to even show a Constitution class starship or a Deadlaus class, on the show.

Jason

Never heard about any legal reason for not using the Enterprise-E in Deep Space Nine. They only ever talk of it as a creative decision, i.e. to make her something special exclusively for the movies.

 

[saladdays]

Never heard about any legal reason for not using the Enterprise-E in Deep Space Nine. They only ever talk of it as a creative decision, i.e. to make her something special exclusively for the movies.

I know this was discussed in one or more threads in the DS9 forum. I think it was more than just speculation, but I can't remember for sure.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

That's real life. I think fictional universe's work a little different in that if you know you got this important ship out their and you have this war which is going to be a important event for this universe you kind of expect both to play a major role in the events and the audience kind of expects to see at least a glimpse of it. I know people might call that small universe syndrome but to me that isn't a big issue for me if you don't overdo it. Enterprise showing up seems fine.

Okay, but that's not what you were saying in your OP, which is what I was responding to. You were saying it was a "stretch" that the Enterprise wouldn't show up in a battle against the Klingons alongside the Discovery, as if Starfleet were so small that any task force would include both ships, the Enterprise was so important that it would be present at every single battle against the Klingons, or that there was only one theater of war for them both to fight in.

Now, if you want to say it would be cool for the Enterprise to show up at a battle, that's another story, but it wasn't your original argument.

 

[Michael]

I know this was discussed in one or more threads in the DS9 forum. I think it was more than just speculation, but I can't remember for sure.

But what legal reason could there possibly have been? Both entities were owned and produced by Paramount.

 

[Nyotarules]

I was thinking about this. It seems like a stretch to do a war, and maybe massive space battles or even important missions and not use your flagship in any of this. Trek already went with this problem once with the Enterprise-E not ever being used on DS9 for legal reasons of course. Might still be a legal issue since Pike and the Enterprise is part of the Kelvin Universe but it will feel strange from a creative angle to not see the Enterprise or at least get a reference about some big mission they are on that we the audience just can't see.

Jason

Who says Enterprise is the flagship in this era?

 

[Jayson1]

Okay, but that's not what you were saying in your OP, which is what I was responding to. You were saying it was a "stretch" that the Enterprise wouldn't show up in a battle against the Klingons alongside the Discovery, as if Starfleet were so small that any task force would include both ships, the Enterprise was so important that it would be present at every single battle against the Klingons, or that there was only one theater of war for them both to fight in.

Now, if you want to say it would be cool for the Enterprise to show up at a battle, that's another story, but it wasn't your original argument.

That's fair. I didn't mean to imply that the ship has to be at ever battle we see. Only that it should be making a difference in some fashion off screen and maybe only poping up on the actual show once. Also it would be even better if was used as backdrop for character stuff. I really do want to see Burnham and Spock share a scene and while he is their maybe we find out also what the Enterprise is doing or even set it up a little. In one episode you talk about important battle that was lost and the Enterprise was involved and then in a few episodes later when you see Spock you see how that incident has impacted him and maybe they bond over their war experiences.

Jason

 

[Timo]

Sounds good.

Who says Enterprise is the flagship in this era?

Nobody; but what's more important, several people appear to be very directly saying she isn't a significant ship at all.

In "Amok Time", Kirk argues his ship would add nothing to the gunboat-diplomacy naval review. In "Errand of Mercy", the ship misses out on the mother of all wars. She's seldom the first into the fire, and very seldom the one to sort it out after somebody else has fucked up (both things generally happen utterly by chance, not because Starfleet would want NCC-1701 on the spot). And when Kirk does mop up after the Intrepid, he makes a big deal about his ship being no better than the one that just perished (even if there's some hollow pep talk about her crew being Starfleet's finest).

Ultimately, there may have been a reason why this particular ship was given to the very junior Kirk while at least two others ended up with Commodores in command...

(Perhaps things were different back in 2256, though, with NCC-1701 not yet so utterly outdated or whatever?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Never heard about any legal reason for not using the Enterprise-E in Deep Space Nine. They only ever talk of it as a creative decision, i.e. to make her something special exclusively for the movies.

I seem to recall (though my memory could be fuzzy) that they also didn't want to use the Sovereign Class in the background of any of the big DS9 battles for fear that the audience would be confused and assume it was the Enterprise-E, which I thought was kind of silly. Besides kind of underestimating the audience, who I think are capable of grasping the concept that there are more than one ship per class (which could have easily been demonstrated by using more than one Sovereign Class in a single battle, just like they did with the Galaxy), so what if an unnamed Sovereign Class had possibly been the Enterprise and you left that up to the audience's imagination? Would that be such a terrible thing?

I think that's also why the only time we saw an Intrepid Class in DS9 it was prominently featured as the only ship in the episode and given a name, so audiences wouldn't confuse it with Voyager, which I guess they thought the rubes in the audience would assume crossed the entire galaxy and bypassed any kind of celebration or rest so they could immediately ferry a bunch of Romulan and Federation dignitaries across local space.

I would have been cool seeing some Sovereign and Intrepid Class ships in the background of the DS9 battles, especially instead of so many Miranda Class Space Pintos. As it stands it looks a little weird when you have 600+ ship fleets in the shot but two prominent classes of ship are nowhere to be seen. Granted, they were newer classes, but there's no reason to assume they weren't produced in decent numbers.

 

[Jayson1]

Who says Enterprise is the flagship in this era?

Nobody and like many have mentioned I don't think it was ever said of the "TOS" Enterprise. I kind of think though it is a concept many have ran with because that was what the Enterprise D was and Kirk and the Enterprise have been seen as legends by the time of the 24th century. It doesn't help that the Enterprise is the only ship that get a letter after it's name whenever one replaces another. It's also the only one were you have 3 shows and 13 movies were it is the star vehicle of those projects.

Jason

 

[Spider]

I would LOVE to see the episode where Pike, Spock and the Enterprise show up!

 

[Kor]

Since there was no flag officer on Pike's 1701, and nothing else to indicate that it had any special status above the rest of the fleet, it wasn't a flagship.

Kor