It’s pretty clear that the Enterprises down the line are the flagship, from NX-01 to E-E. Again, you could choose to write a story and technically make it work....and I could write one in which a Flying Spaghetti Monster is the true overlord of the Federation, and given that no-one in-universe said that it isn’t, it’d technically work....but that’s head canon. If Kelvin’s Enterprise, meaning Kirk’s, is, and Picard’s is, and Archer’s kinda is, and all Enterprises are The ship of the Starfleet line, becoming *bigger and stronger, and the E-E carries the E-D’s crew, who weren’t transferred to another Galaxy, like Kirk & Co. all were together in the Prime and Kelvin Timelines...then, it’s a pretty obvious conclusion to draw, unless you’re a specific type of fan with a specific ax to grind. *TPTB designer it longer if not internally larger to maintain the idea of Enterprises getting larger and more powerful, despite the Atkins body and Voyager necklessness.
Look, there's no shame in being wrong. It's just so darn difficult to convince anybody of "right" in an utterly fictional, indeed sciencefictional context where things like common sense and everyday expectations are expressly invalid arguments. Your angle here is that X applies to all hero ships because it is known to apply to one of them. Is that an easy or a difficult position to defend? Even the answer to that is surprisingly dependent on the greater context of this being science fiction. In the real world, one might go for consistency: if being a hero ship is common to all these ships, perhaps X is, too? Not so in fiction. That X has been specifically pointed out to apply to the E-D means it's worth pointing out - that is, it's a distinction the writers want to make. They never made that distinction as regards any of the other hero ships. So we're left looking at things that might contribute to X and hint at X being present. What does a Flagship of the Federation do? Supposedly, she shows the flag a lot. Did any ship other than the E-D do that? Argument may ensue - but in TOS, this only happened once, in "Amok Time", and Kirk himself argued his ship would be ill suited for the job. There's also the diplomatic angle, and Kirk chauffeured dignitaries often enough. But his ship was not supposed to get involved, and indeed conflict arose whenever Kirk felt she needed to. We may also choose to insert real world considerations here, although probably at our peril. ITRW, flagships are ships aboard which flag officers command major operations and large numbers of ships. Kirk's ships never had flag officers aboard, except for the one time when Kirk himself was given a birthday cruise aboard a ship that explicitly was not his; the one time a flag passenger tried to take over; and the one time a Talosian illusion of a flag officer apparently literally broke his flag in the briefing room. No commanding of other ships took place, either - whereas the sister ship Lexington indeed did this stuff, with a flag officer aboard. On the other hand, Picard's TNG ship never hosted admirals who would have taken a command role, either (when Adm. Pressman tried to do that, he got busted; Jameson got killed for a much lesser command ambition of an away mission). Commanding of a task force happened once on Picard's shift (we saw the other ships in "Redemption") and supposedly once on Jellico's (we did not see any in "Chain of Command"). But other ships in TNG were explicitly called flagships and credited with task force or fleet command. Picard's movie ship was outright rejected as a task force command vessel until Picard forced the issue. We're really left grasping at straws, then. Are the hero ships the biggest ones around, by design? Even the E-D fails there, with equally large Nebulas swarming around her. The E-E is actually quite a bit smaller than her predecessor, and potentially a demotion to Picard for having lost the previous ship. Do the hero ships get the top assignments? Kirk just stumbled on stuff, or mopped up after Starfleet's first choice fumbled. Sure, an argument can be scraped together from these bits and pieces - either way. But the default position is that the E-D was singled out with a flagship role, while no such thing popped up in connection with any of the other ships. Sweeping the crumbles into a pile resembling an argument can be done in support of the default position, or against it. The pile just looks better surrounding the pillar of what was actually established. IMO. Timo Saloniemi
It really isn't. There's nothing to stop you from thinking that if you wish, but there's no clear evidence either way. Kelvin's Enterprise is massively different from the original and is built decades after the timeline change, so there is no reason whatsoever to assume its status is at all indicative of the original's status (and TOS never came anywhere near implying that Enterprise was the flagship of anything). The Kelvin enterprise and the D were clearly chosen as the flagship, but how or why that happened is never even hinted at. The NX is unquestionably the most advanced/important ship in the fleet for at least its first several years, but it's never actually called a flagship at all and its constant deep space mission profile is not entirely consistent with the typical concept of a 'flagship'. The crew transfer from D to E has no bearing at all on anything. It's not the crew that counts as 'the flagship', it's the ship. So the E could be the new flagship, or it could not be. Either way works perfectly fine. Not to mention the concept of Enterprises automatically being the flagship of the fleet simply does not work with canon. Even if Kirk's Enterprise was the flagship during TOS, it very clearly was not the flagship during the TOS movies. So either something else was or there was no flagship at the time. If there was no flagship then, then there need not necessarily be a flagship at any other given point in time. If some other ship was flagship then, then there are other ships or even lines of ships which can traditionally hold the status of flagship, even if there's an Enterprise around. Therefore just because an Enterprise is built that doesn't automatically make it the flagship.
I never got the impression from TOS the Enterprise was meant to be the flagship. I know everyone has since retconned it as that, including Trek XI, but in the show itself? There was no indication that it was the flagship or indeed anything special, beyond is status as a starship. The idea that the Enterprise holds some sort of special significance to Starfleet didn't start until TMP, and even then it wasn't the flagship. That did not start until TNG. At the very least, I should think if the Enterprise was the flagship in TOS it would have been one of the Constitutions to be commanded by a Commodore or a more senior Captain. Kirk's one of the younger Captains we see and TOS and you think he would have been selected over all the others to command the flagship?
Yes, the original series Enterprise was special but not unique. 12 like it in the fleet. Never referred to as a flagship, either in the naval sense of a vessel where an admiral commands a fleet or task force, or in the popular sense of the best of the best. Kirk, though, the way NuKirk jumps over intermediate ranks nobody is happy unless he's promoted from Cadet to Star Fleet Chief of Staff.
Lol there is no shame in having elaborate pet theories and a personal head-canon either. There is in being purposefully rude about it to fellow posters. There’s about a 98% likelihood that the E-E is the flagship of the Federation. Your anti-Sovereign wish that it isn’t would be charming at least to this fellow Galaxy lover, but to present it as gospel is silly, to be kind about it.
The whole idea of a “flagship” personally I think is silly and one of these TV things where your heroes are THE heroes. Uh, why? But if you’re following internal logic, the flagship is the Enterprise. We were just talking in another thread about Voyager being the fastest ship in the fleet during “Caretaker,” with a cruising speed of 9.975. Again, why? It’s not a clipper ship, or what have you; it’s a light cruiser, or a science vessel, depending on who you talk to. It’s also not going to return from the Delta Quadrant or outrun the Kazon or the Borg any faster than the story calls for, so why make it “super-duper”? Especially as what’s the speed of the next series’ ship going to be, Warp 9.975975? But it out new HERO ship, with new bio neural gel packs and hydraulic nacelle pylons to boot!
I think it's quite likely the Enterprise-E had the same (largely symbolic) title of "Federation Flagship", but there's nothing in the films to confirm it. It's entirely true that only the Enterprise-D had that honour.
Or in the cases of the Abrams-Enterprise "a flagship," Pike referred to it as the newest flagship. I took that to mean one of many flagships. Perhaps all starships in the Abrams-universe are flagships?
I think we can pretty much assume that not all starships are flagships. There's no point referring to some little Oberth class science/scout ship as a flagship in any sense of the word. Then again, if one tries to resurrect the whole 'starship class' idea, one could imagine that all Connies are flagships and starship class was just a weird way of saying that.
Yes It's designed to be it's premise explorer. However I would not be surprised if it's a "hidden" battleship. First: dump the civies and science staff at a star base. Second: it has something like 30% empty space. This could be in case of a war the Galaxy class could be quickly refited with extra shields and weapon systems. In the battle we see they seem to be pretty durable. It took a suicide strike to take the odessy out and that likely didn't have any war time upgrades.