NCC numbers, hyperdrive, and the TAS Bonaventure

Discussion in 'Trek Tech' started by Mres_was_framed!, Dec 16, 2018.

  1. Mres_was_framed!

    Mres_was_framed! Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 5, 2018
    Digging into some terminology from "The Cage" and taking a closer look at screenshots from TAS, it may be possible to rectify TOS registries with classes of ship. Here's the short version, more details below: The Bonaventure's real canon registry could be 1028, and it was an early faster-than-light "hyperdrive" ship, converted to "warp drive," while later ships were true "warp drive" ships.

    Here comes the reasoning :)

    The Bonaventure from TAS is listed as having the registry 10281NCC. This seems too high. BUT...as would be correct for that time, and just as the Enterprise had in "The Cage, the number "1" and the letter "i" were represented by the same character. Meaning it really says "1028 i NCC" or "i 0281 NCC or "i 028 i NCC"

    Let's ignore the use of the term "warp drive" in 2001's "Enterprise" for the moment. In "The Cage," the term "hyperdrive" is used, but Tyler speaks of a "time" barrier being broken. Perhaps, in its day, "hyperdrive" was a slower, but still faster than light, version of warp drive, and still the term used in shipboard commands, while the Enterprise had a true "warp drive," breaking the "time" barrier.

    Scotty of all people, should know what he means when he says the Bonaventure was the "first ship to have warp drive installed." Perhaps this ship belongs to the same class as the Constellation NCC-1017, and maybe even the Eagle NCC-956. These ships had slower "hyperdrive," and while not the oldest, Bonaventure was the first to be a testbed for installing the faster "warp drive." Constellation and Eagle were later refitted to appear like Constitutions.

    I have a TV guide from 2001 in which Berman and Braga say that they decided not use UESPA on "Enterprise" because it was unfamiliar to audiences, and that they used "warp drive" instead of "hyperdrive" because they felt it was a generic term that they would not trademark. I can't find it now, so I can't give the exact issue. So the terminology used in "Enterprise" is not able to disprove this theory.

    Consequences of this thinking:

    Maybe that is also why ships like Exeter and Excallibur have lower registries than 1700. They were also older designs refit to Constitution spec.

    Maybe the reason no one trusted the Excelsior at first was that it was the first true redesign of starships. A Bonaventure-type could by updated to a TOS-style; a TOS-style to a TMP-style, but Excelsior might have been a totally new platform with almost no structural or functional relationship to older ships. I think that makes a ton of sense.
     
  2. Kemaiku

    Kemaiku Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 23, 2004
    Location:
    Northern Ireland
    The Enterprise and Endeavour become NCC-01 and NCC-06, the final episodes of Enterprise have the UESPA/Starfleet combined logo.

    In Star Trek Beyond, before the timeline split, the Franklin becomes NX-326 and UESPA/MACO are listed on it's database until May 8th 2161 when they are both disbanded and all ships are folded into the Federation fleet.

    Evidently the ECS is too, as the second Kobayashi Maru built post 2200 is ECS-1022 in honour of the Y/J-Class freighter destroyed during the Romulan War. NX/NCC/NAR/ECS are the contract code, the numbers are just the next hull number of the fleet up. Have to get to 70,000-80,000 somehow.
     
  3. Mres_was_framed!

    Mres_was_framed! Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 5, 2018
    So are you saying you agree or disagree? I did not want to bring the JJ-films into this, but Franklin being 326 or Kobayashi Maru being 1022 would not contradict my theory that the Bonaventure is really 1028 and that it is from the same time as the Constellation NCC-1017.
     
  4. STEPhon IT

    STEPhon IT Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2010
    Location:
    Sunny California
    No Stupifan Greg Jein decided to randomly christened ships from TOS to the registry numbers from the Starship chart in Court Martial. I felt the Constellation was the first Starship Class vessel and I felt it wasn't necessary to pull a Star Trek III to have the prototype be the name for the first ship. A registry number would be acceptable and that's all; whether it gets commissioned for star travel - -space command could've christened the first ship constellation.

    I don't think everything needs to be retconned because the films did something interesting. It's okay for even a timeline like Star Trek where there was a sense of progression as the centuries went along. Trying too hard to wrap everything in a nice bow is boring and doesn't give that universe, not the retcon Prime nonsense, fluidity and advancement in their vessel and tech methods.

    ST Enterprise like Discovery is all about trademark and ownership, just make a series set in the future than sh*tting all over what was done in 1966.
     
  5. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2003
    My preferred fanwank:

    1) Just as Scotty says, the vessel seen in TAS was the first Bonaventure to be equipped with warp drive. Previous ships by that name had not been starships yet, so it was a glorious moment to have a Bonaventure finally be launched to the stars in 2203, joining the namesakes of so many other famed 21st century space exploration vessels.
    2) The vessel was lost on the third test run of all-new nacelles, the 102 set (the 100 and 101 sets had worked without a hitch, but they were high-strung thoroughbreds and everybody sorta expected them to eventually go wormhole) as indicated in pennant paint.
    3) Which was a shame, because the ship was due to receive a proper NCC number after this very run, having carried an NX number until then. The engineers had the paint cans and bots ready and all, and were eager, perhaps even overeager, to put them to use. There was space for the registry just aft of the the bit where the nacelles flared out and had a couple of dark intercooler holes.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  6. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2017
    I don't know. 1028 indicates it's a 1000 series ship. That's still under the Connie's 1700 series.
     
  7. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2003
    Wholly apart from the fact that Scotty in "Time Trap" did not identify 10281NCC as the Bonaventure, but referred to the Bonaventure some moments before 10281NCC floated into view...

    ...There's plenty of real estate on the side of that nacelle for five-digit registry numbers with a three-letter prefix. Why do these people paint the string so that it extends past two major kinks in the nacelle, then? Why not put all of it in either the nicely straight forward bit, or the nicely straight (if tapering) aft bit?

    Splitting the string into 102, 81 and NCC would seem to be deliberate, in-universe...

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  8. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2011
    Location:
    astral plane
    In 1962, the US began using the Tri-Service aircraft designation system. It was based on the previous system used by the US Air Force, so the new system's numbers had a similar format, but it assigned different, generally smaller numbers. For example, what was briefly designated F-110A under the old system was basically eventually designated F-4A under the new system. Also, older numbers influenced the new system in perpetuum, as for example F-111s (a designation deriving from the pre-1962 USAF system and in sequence with the old F-110 mentioned above) were used heavily in Desert Storm in 1991.

    The Bonadventure's registry is "10281NCC." I propose a similar deal. Perhaps the Starfleet system that the Enterprise registry number "NCC-1701" is in is a newer system based on and similar to an earlier one that the Bonadventure's registry number is actually in.
     
  9. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2007
    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    I tend to be more of a literalist. I don't see a problem with the 10281NCC registry because it's just a different registry scheme than in TOS, one that probably came after the NX class but was a precursor to the NCC-XXXX registry scheme. Even ENT and Beyond don't contradict this, since every pre-Federation Starfleet vessel had only known registries of NX-XXX.

    Known canon ship registries:

    Enterprise- NX-01
    Columbia- NX-02
    Franklin- NX-326
    Bonaventure- 10281NCC
    U.S.S. Constellation- NCC-1017
    U.S.S. Republic- NCC-1371
    U.S.S. Enterprise- NCC-1701

    Also, we don't know when the Federation Starfleet decided to change the registry scheme from NX to NCC. Obviously it wasn't changed immediately after the formation of the Federation, since the Franklin retained its NX registry (or, more likely, given a new registry since it was originally built before the NX-01.)

    Here's the thing. At this point in the fictional universe of Star Trek, Scotty's line from TAS has pretty much been invalidated. Both the intent of the line and the visual evidence of what the Bonaventure looked like just can't be reconciled with what comes afterward as Star Trek progresses through the decades. The Bonaventure is no longer the first ship to have warp drive installed, just like Kirk's middle initial hasn't been "R" for over fifty years.

    I'm sure very little forethought was put into ENT on the part of B&B, but that's just my opinion.

    Remember, there is no canon evidence that the Constitution's registry number was NCC-1700. As a matter of fact, there's no canon evidence that a Constitution class ship named the "Constitution" even exists, much less that it was the first ship of its class. DSC shows that there was no U.S.S. Crossfield even though it's the class name of the Discovery and the Glenn, the only two Crossfield class ships.

    The only person I can think of who didn't trust the Excelsior was Scotty, and that was just because he was biased.
     
    Gabriel likes this.
  10. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2003
    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Exactly.

    How likely is it that every starship "anchored" at a specific starbase on a given day were all of the same class of ship? That's my one big problem.
     
    QuinnTV likes this.
  11. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2011
    Location:
    astral plane
    So, the dedication plaque on the bridge of the NCC-1701 says "STARSHIP CLASS."

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

    Though at the very least it's clear that Star Trek has since moved on from this strict interpretation of "starship," assuming it ever obeyed it to begin with, some fans take that to mean that the intent was always only that ships in the same class as Enterprise be referred to as "starships." This is somewhat backed up by "Bread and Circuses," when starships are differentiated from spaceships.

    With that in mind, if that's what you think "starship" means, and you assume that "star ship" and "starship" are synonymous, then under those conditions the status chart in "Court Martial" can only be referring to ships in the same class as Enterprise.
     
  12. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2007
    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Not only that, but it’s ten of only twelve of that class of ship in existence, in various states of disrepair. What if the Klingons decided to stage a space Pearl Harbor at that time?

    Also, NCC-1864 was the Reliant. So unless the pre-refit Reliant was a TOS Constitution class, it’s not the same as the others.
     
    Gabriel likes this.
  13. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2003
    But so does the one on the bridge of the Franklin.

    So this "class" thing doesn't mean quite what we think it means. And if it covers those two ships, it can well also cover the Reliant. And, for all we know, the Discovery. Even though these four are also from the Constitution, Pioneer, Miranda and Crossfield classes, respectively.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  14. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2007
    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    Pioneer?
     
  15. uniderth

    uniderth Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2009
    Wow. This seems entirely too convoluted for my tastes. My fan theory is completely different but I feel would make a better episode or miniseries. The Bonaventure was launched in the mid to late 2060s. It was financed by eccentric billionaire William Wrigley(who would later go one to found a theme park planet of the same name). At some point in the early 2060s Mr. Wrigley had been taken aboard a starship that had traveled back in time from two hundred years in he future. When space warp was discovered by Zefram Cochrane, Mr. Wrigley became his primary financial backer. After several years he actually designed the first true interstellar warp ship, the Bonaventure. He modeled it directly after the ship from the future that taken him aboard several years back. The S.S. Bonaventure was one of mankind's greatest achievements. Yet, it was also an unusual design as it was a total departure from anything else humanity was designing at that point. The bizarre design requirements Mr. Wrigley had imposed on the project caused it to be much more expensive than it should have been. The design was in some ways ahead of its time, but in other ways it was not very efficient. As a result the Bonaventure was a one-off and no other ships like it were built at the time.

    I feel this story explains a lot about the Bonaventure that seem weird. It remains one of earth's first warp ships though now it is the first major warp ship with warp drive built-in. That is oppose to the common practice at the time of retrofitting warp drives into existing ships, with the Valiant (a former solar system cargo hauler). It explains why the design looks so much like a Constitution class. And it explains why NCC is in the registry.


    Considering the fact that is a cartoon series I think we're free to take it only in broad strokes. To me TAS is just a cartoon version of the "actual" episodes. We aren't beholden to what is depicts or says but there is some basic kernel of truth behind it.

    His famous middle initial hasn't been. But perhaps he had a second, less well known middle name. And the fact that Gary Mitchell used it on the tombstone just emphasizes how close they were.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
    Gabriel likes this.
  16. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2003
    ...No more or less canon than the suggested but ultimately unaired Freedom, I guess. Pioneer is what Sean Hargreaves designed the ship to "be", after an early script.

    (The ship could easily be both, of course. Much like Kirk might be flying a Horizon (NCC-1000) class ship of the late Constitution (NCC-1700) subclass, or Lorca the Zenith (NCC-1010) class ship of the late Crossfield (NCC-1030) subclass, we can pile on the fictional names just as we please. After all, we already know Starfleet does this with Enterprise class. So what the Federation adopted for its frontier needs may have been called the Freedom class after the earliest surviving specimen of the Pioneers, or vice versa. And vice versa would be nice, as the Federation supposedly later will operate "another" Freedom class.)

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  17. STEPhon IT

    STEPhon IT Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2010
    Location:
    Sunny California
    The theory I had was when the Space Force or Pre-Starfleet* came about to advance their spacecrafts - Starship Class - the initial vessels were 4, or probably 8, commissioned had specific areas of the Milky Way to explore. 1 of them would be more like Voyager 1 and 2 satellites which would be sent to an extended mission into space; the registry numbers would be designated originally to where those pioneer spacecrafts would explore in a particular sector of the galaxy. I believe the Enterprise and the Constellation were one of the pioneering vessels to boldly go.


    *I am not considering the bogus prequels like Prime ST Enterprise and Discovery, but referring to TOS when Star Trek was good. Retroactively implanting the prefix NX is lazy, so the canonists believe the Federation and Starfleet has held the same process for registry for the last 300 years??? No advancements, no sense of showing position of progress??? It was all planned out right from the start... as if that's how military organizations work??? Give me a f^cking break!
     
  18. STEPhon IT

    STEPhon IT Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2010
    Location:
    Sunny California
    Could you also explain how Zefram Cochrane is originally from Alpha Centuri, and did Wrigley financially backed it where Cochrane is from? Unless you're going to ignore what was done in TOS, which was done right, and proceed with the crap done in TNG First Contact where he's from Earth.
     
  19. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2011
    Location:
    astral plane
    True. But that's now.

    But when Greg Jein did his "Jonathan Doe Starship" thing, the Franklin's dedication plaque was still over 40 years in the future, production-wise.

    From my very next sentence:
    So, yeah.
     
  20. TIN_MAN

    TIN_MAN Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2007
    Below is my take on the original TOS/TAS timeline before things got retconned and hopelessly complicated by later series/movies, apologies for the length, this was lifted directly from my notes.

    Uses of “space warp” in TOS/TAS


    Zephram Cochrane “discovered” the “space warp” and was believed to have died c.150 yrs BT (Before TOS) yet he is known as Zephram Cochrane “of Alpha Centauri” despite being referred to –and acting like- a human from Earth. So perhaps Cochrane “discovered” the space warp when he was still quite young, say around the year 2018 when Lt. Marla McGivers said sleeper ships like the Botany Bay became no longer necessary for use within the solar system.

    So it was at this point that limited interstellar travel became feasible, albeit still requiring cryogenic sleep for months/years beyond the solar system?

    This, would not only explain how the Valiant “from 200 years ago” (WNMHSGB) got out into deep space but also how the Terra-10 colony (TTI) was established so far from Earth. (Especially if they were both using early space warp drive combined with sleeper ship technology)

    Below is relevant dialogue from “Metamorphosis”

    KIRK: Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri, the discoverer of the space warp?
    COCHRANE: That's right, Captain.
    MCCOY: But that's impossible. Zefram Cochrane died a hundred and fifty years ago.
    SPOCK: The name of Zefram Cochrane is revered throughout the known galaxy. Planets were named after him. Great universities, cities.
    KIRK: Isn't your story a little improbable, Mister Cochrane?
    COCHRANE: No, it's true. I was eighty seven years old when I came here.

    If Cochran was 87 yrs old when he was lost to the pages of history, and that was a 150 years before the Enterprise’s five year mission, then Cochrane would have been about 37 years old in 2018!

    Kirk: “Our space warp ability gone” WNMHGB

    In neither case is there an association with warp drive per se.

    On the other hand…

    Dialogue in TOS/TAS suggesting that some relatively recent and significant breakthrough in propulsion technology (c. 30 yrs BT) -relating to time- has occurred (And which the Enterprise/Constitution class is among the first so equipped)

    SPOCK; “S.S. Columbia, disappeared in that region approx 18 yrs ago”

    TYLER: (to crash survivors) “And you won’t believe how fast you can get back. Well, the time barriers been broken, our new ships can…TC/M

    So perhaps the newer tech is an improvement or addition to the older more limited space warp tech, one which overcomes some limitation with the latter which had come to be known in general parlance as “the time barrier”?

    The above has interesting implications for seeming contradictions between TOS and TAS as to when “warp drive” technology was first implemented.

    SARAH APRIL: “the first chief medical officer on a starship equipped with warp drive”. (It has been generally been assumed that the starship in question was the Enterprise, since her husband -Robert April- was the ships first captain.)

    On this basis it seems that Sarah April uses the term “warp drive” as a reference to the more recent time warp tech. suggesting perhaps, that it is the time warp tech that has the drive or field propulsion aspect associated with it? So perhaps Cochrane’s earlier “discovery” of the space warp was for a static warp field with no drive aspect associated with it and therefore merely allowed for the impulse engines to “cheat” the light speed barrier?

    If we accept that the SS Valiant was an early space warp/sleeper ship combination, then it would still use impulse (rocket) power for propulsion, this is consistent with Kirk’s statement that “the old impulse engines weren’t strong enough” to resist the magnetic storm pulling it off course.

    Then there’s this from “The Time Trap”;

    SCOTTY “There’s the old Bonaventure; she was the 1st ship to have warp drive installed”. (A ship that looks a lot, perhaps tellingly, like the Enterprise)

    Interpreting this is somewhat problematical; on the one hand, the design of the Bonaventure suggests that it could be a prototype vessel for the more recent “time” warp innovation that resulted in the production-line ships like the Enterprise. This is supported not only by its overall design configuration but also by the “NCC” on the nacelles, as well as the fact that a female member of the Elysian council is wearing what appears to be a “Cage era” Starfleet uniform and therefore may be the captain or one of the crew. On the other hand, Spock’s statement about “The crew's descendants may still be living, Captain.” suggests that it is perhaps the older “space” warp tech that is being referred to after all?

    In my opinion, the preponderance of evidence here seems to point toward the conclusion that the Bonaventure should be considered as equipped with the newer time warp innovation and Spock’s statement should be taken in light of a similar statement he made in WNMHGB regarding one of his “ancestors” who married a human female.

    In any event, note also that the use of the terms “installed” and “equipped with” in each case might imply some contraption that can be added to existing starship’s internal engineering systems, and therefore not something requiring a wholesale redesign of existing starship hull configurations.

    Other specific uses of “time warp” in TOS/TAS

    PIKE/SPOCK: “Our time warp factor” TC/M

    -Suggesting that the later oft used term “warp factor” is, in fact, an abbreviated form specifically referring to the time warp as opposed to space warp

    The association with warp factors in TC/M might suggest that the warp scale formula (given in TMOST/TWG) -which has been criticized for not yielding the kinds of speeds to cover the distances seen in some TOS episodes- is therefore actually the old, slower speed of C cubed (space) warp factor scale and that the newer time warp tech augments or modifies this scale so that the newer (time) warp factors are considerably faster, but not, apparently, in any consistent integer value? Alternately, perhaps the warp factor formula is for the time warp drive after all, but that it must be cross calculated with the older space warp velocities to arrive at a true ETA at any given time? The new scale factor would initially be distinguished from the older by calling it a time warp factor, at least until the new scale became standard, after which it would just be called warp factors again. Be this as it may, it should be kept in mind that the warp factor scale was never explicated in onscreen dialogue; therefore we are free to ignore altogether it if we wish.

    To sum up, the seeming contradiction between TOS and TAS can therefore be resolved if we understand the term warp drive to mean time warp tech, either by itself or when wedded to the earlier space warp tech.