Ship continuity.
- Thread starter Jon holder
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Makes sense. In our own world James Webb Space Telescope has been in development since 1996. It's old enough to vote, drink and graduate college and it still hasn't been launched.
For what it's worth, I guess it's possible to construct a rationale that doesn't require a lot of convoluted logic to explain what we have seen so far:
From a production point of view, the 1031 / 1030 registry numbers (whatever the real reasons for picking those exact digits) for the Crossfield-class ship are clearly intended to evoke the feel of, and to pitch the ships as being from roughly around the same time as, the classic 10XX numbers of the established Constitution-class vessels from TOS. Whether the ships are full new-builds or massive re-fits of existing space-frames is open to debate but in the end I'm not sure that it really matters (given the whole rotating primary hull feature and the deliberate, expository comments about the "newness" in the script, I suspect that the intention was that these were meant to be new ships).
1. The Crossfield ships are clearly involved in highly classified research which, if successful, could lead to a significant technological and tactical advantage for Starfleet.
2. Starfleet would clearly want to obscure this project from prying eyes.
3. There *could* be a USS Crossfield space-frame that got mothballed because there were leaps in development earlier in the project that caused it to be left behind while the Disco and the Glenn moved ahead.
OR: maybe there was never a Crossfield and, in this case, that was simply a deliberate part of the obfuscation and secrecy around this particular project and the general tradition of naming a class after the lead ship would otherwise normally be maintained.
4. On a similar basis, the registry numbers could be unused numbers from an older batch or may be deliberately re-used numbers from decommissioned ships.
This is all pretty peripheral to the main story though so I don't think it really matters either way.
From a production point of view, the 1031 / 1030 registry numbers (whatever the real reasons for picking those exact digits) for the Crossfield-class ship are clearly intended to evoke the feel of, and to pitch the ships as being from roughly around the same time as, the classic 10XX numbers of the established Constitution-class vessels from TOS. Whether the ships are full new-builds or massive re-fits of existing space-frames is open to debate but in the end I'm not sure that it really matters (given the whole rotating primary hull feature and the deliberate, expository comments about the "newness" in the script, I suspect that the intention was that these were meant to be new ships).
1. The Crossfield ships are clearly involved in highly classified research which, if successful, could lead to a significant technological and tactical advantage for Starfleet.
2. Starfleet would clearly want to obscure this project from prying eyes.
3. There *could* be a USS Crossfield space-frame that got mothballed because there were leaps in development earlier in the project that caused it to be left behind while the Disco and the Glenn moved ahead.
OR: maybe there was never a Crossfield and, in this case, that was simply a deliberate part of the obfuscation and secrecy around this particular project and the general tradition of naming a class after the lead ship would otherwise normally be maintained.
4. On a similar basis, the registry numbers could be unused numbers from an older batch or may be deliberately re-used numbers from decommissioned ships.
This is all pretty peripheral to the main story though so I don't think it really matters either way.
Then again, the whole spore drive thing appears to be a wartime crash program, a jump off the deep end. I sorta doubt any real-worldish navy would build a special ship for that if they didn't even know what key bits ought to go in there - unless it were a 20-foot test rig made of plywood and off-the-shelf parts. Much more likely for them to drag out a spare ship of suitable parameters and do quick modifications on that... Especially when up-to-date ships would all be busy fighting the war.
...Whichever way the writers go there, we can always bullshit ourselves through the formalities and declare the solution not only viable but expected. It's just that the writers haven't really committed themselves to nailing this down, and it's a bit difficult to see the situation where they'd be inclined, much less forced, to say something more definite about the origins of the ships than the idle musings of a crazy convict.
EDIT: Ah, ninja'ed again. But never mind, the assorted rationalizations are definitely there for us to use. I just wonder about the twin spinning rings... The expert crazy people who commented on the newness didn't seem to think the unusual primary hull worth a comment. Or the unusual secondary hull for that matter. Might be there's nothing particularly unusual about them after all. Perhaps spinners for bleeding off extra energies are quite commonplace in flying laboratories? (These ships are being designed by John Eaves, who has a thing for rings - he suggested a ring-saucered ship for ENT "The Expanse", say, and has done lots of ring designs for STO and other game projects, for all Trek eras.)
Timo Saloniemi
...Whichever way the writers go there, we can always bullshit ourselves through the formalities and declare the solution not only viable but expected. It's just that the writers haven't really committed themselves to nailing this down, and it's a bit difficult to see the situation where they'd be inclined, much less forced, to say something more definite about the origins of the ships than the idle musings of a crazy convict.
EDIT: Ah, ninja'ed again. But never mind, the assorted rationalizations are definitely there for us to use. I just wonder about the twin spinning rings... The expert crazy people who commented on the newness didn't seem to think the unusual primary hull worth a comment. Or the unusual secondary hull for that matter. Might be there's nothing particularly unusual about them after all. Perhaps spinners for bleeding off extra energies are quite commonplace in flying laboratories? (These ships are being designed by John Eaves, who has a thing for rings - he suggested a ring-saucered ship for ENT "The Expanse", say, and has done lots of ring designs for STO and other game projects, for all Trek eras.)
Timo Saloniemi
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I'm okay with the registry numbers not being sequential.
The only thing that gives me pause is when it's said that there are 7,000 Federation ships. They may not all be Starfleet but, if they are, then we've never seen a 23rd Century ship with a registry passed the 2000s. So there aren't enough registry numbers in use to cover all those ships. Showing a ship with an NCC-6500 registry or something would fix that problem. As would showing other ships without an NCC registry.
It jumped out to me while watching "Perpetual Infinity" but I didn't want to bring it up in the Discussion Thread because I knew it was Red Meat.
The only thing that gives me pause is when it's said that there are 7,000 Federation ships. They may not all be Starfleet but, if they are, then we've never seen a 23rd Century ship with a registry passed the 2000s. So there aren't enough registry numbers in use to cover all those ships. Showing a ship with an NCC-6500 registry or something would fix that problem. As would showing other ships without an NCC registry.
It jumped out to me while watching "Perpetual Infinity" but I didn't want to bring it up in the Discussion Thread because I knew it was Red Meat.
Well, we have seen two S31 ships with two different kinds of non-NCC registries so far (NCIA and NI). TAS showed us further variety in this era. Are those spyships and transports and drones Starfleet or not? S31 is supposed to be part of SF, that is, part of SF's Intel branch. And the transport in TAS had crew clad in Starfleet uniforms.
If anything and everything with N as the first letter is in fact Starfleet, one way or another, and NCC is just the fighting/exploring force, we can adjust the balance as we wish, perhaps leaving just 2,000 of the 7,000 to the NCC category.
Timo Saloniemi
If anything and everything with N as the first letter is in fact Starfleet, one way or another, and NCC is just the fighting/exploring force, we can adjust the balance as we wish, perhaps leaving just 2,000 of the 7,000 to the NCC category.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes, that seems possible -- at least in this period of time. It certainly seems plausible that "lesser" support and auxiliary vessels my have different registry prefixes than purely NCC- and that this would relatively easily explain total fleet numbers which apparently do not fully tally with the known range of NCC- prefixes. Again, I don't think it's a big deal either way. You could hypothetically extend this again for certain specific roles, such as designated diplomatic vessels, local planetary defence vessels, and so on.
We know that the NX- prefix persisted for experimental / development vessels, and that these could later be commissioned to NCC- using the same registry number. IIRC, the USS Galaxy was first referenced as NX-70637 in the Ent-D tech manual (by Okuda & Sternbach) before being seen on-screen commissioned as NCC-70637. Someone with better info please correct that; I haven't seen my copy of that book in twenty years...!
It followed the Excelsior which began with an NX- registration. As a side note, I wonder if the original concept for the Excelsior's NX- prefix was intended to have a specific meaning at the time it was created, or whether it was originally just meant to look "new and different" compared to the established Enterprise registry (a bit like the ship itself), and only acquired the specific experimental / development tag as a later mild retcon, which then led to Excelsior subsequently gaining an NCC- prefix. Does anyone know?
Interesting thought but, given the timescales involved, I'd be more inclined to consider it as an existing project that maybe got pushed forward and accelerated because of the war -- I can't see it being developed from scratch.
On that note, that also nudges me towards thinking of the 1031 and 1030 numbers as maybe having been allocated rather earlier but with some time having passed between the initial laying down and actually getting the ships and the technology ready to launch and go live, hence the relative newness of the interiors, etc.
If there's ever an episode or story arc where this becomes relevant then we may get a bit more on-screen exposition about the background to the Crossfield ships (new build / re-fit / re-purpose / whatever...) and the evolution of the spore-drive technology project -- but I suspect that it's likely to be a gap that never truly gets filled-in. It falls in to the category of interesting-but-ultimately-not-important (!).
We know that the NX- prefix persisted for experimental / development vessels, and that these could later be commissioned to NCC- using the same registry number. IIRC, the USS Galaxy was first referenced as NX-70637 in the Ent-D tech manual (by Okuda & Sternbach) before being seen on-screen commissioned as NCC-70637. Someone with better info please correct that; I haven't seen my copy of that book in twenty years...!
It followed the Excelsior which began with an NX- registration. As a side note, I wonder if the original concept for the Excelsior's NX- prefix was intended to have a specific meaning at the time it was created, or whether it was originally just meant to look "new and different" compared to the established Enterprise registry (a bit like the ship itself), and only acquired the specific experimental / development tag as a later mild retcon, which then led to Excelsior subsequently gaining an NCC- prefix. Does anyone know?
Interesting thought but, given the timescales involved, I'd be more inclined to consider it as an existing project that maybe got pushed forward and accelerated because of the war -- I can't see it being developed from scratch.
On that note, that also nudges me towards thinking of the 1031 and 1030 numbers as maybe having been allocated rather earlier but with some time having passed between the initial laying down and actually getting the ships and the technology ready to launch and go live, hence the relative newness of the interiors, etc.
If there's ever an episode or story arc where this becomes relevant then we may get a bit more on-screen exposition about the background to the Crossfield ships (new build / re-fit / re-purpose / whatever...) and the evolution of the spore-drive technology project -- but I suspect that it's likely to be a gap that never truly gets filled-in. It falls in to the category of interesting-but-ultimately-not-important (!).
What makes you sure there weren't?
In Relics, Picard says that he's only ever seen one in the fleet museum.
Which tells us Picard has only seen one in a museum, not that they aren't still out there somewhere.
Realistically though I think it's pretty clear that Connies weren't common ships even in the 23rd and they were used for high risk missions. More likely there simply aren't any left as opposed to being obsolete.
Also, given how versatile and ubiquitous the Excelsior class seems to be, it was probably more cost-effective to maintain them instead of a probably smaller number of Constitutions. It's even possible that the Connies were eventually cannibalized for replacement parts for the more compact Mirandas when they were supplanted by newer classes designed for the same long-term exploration niche.
No. Based on the context of the conversation that would be an absurd interpretation.
Or that they were decommissioned because they were fucking old. It makes sense. Connie refit was an upgrade to an old ship. However, if Miranda was a brand new design using the similar tech, then it makes sense that they would remain in service longer. Due the Constitution originating as an older configuration, there would come a point where upgrading them further would no longer be feasible due some outdated design choices, whereas it would take longer for the newer Miranda to face similar limitations.
I really don't get why so many people want to imagine STO style nonsense where ancient ships can be upgraded indefinitely. If that was truly possible there would be little point in ever designing new ships...
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I know, I was just being pedantic to make a point about how silly this argument tends to get
Nonsense.
There are Constitution class ships being used in Daniels' time, the Ent J is just a heavily upgraded one.
B-52 is going to be almost 100 because:
-It's still capable of fulfilling it's mission
-Cost of upgrades is cheaper than brand new design
-Other new designs proved much shorter lived so in retrospect not worth it
-Unless its designed beyond it's capacity (see Boeing 737 MAX) it's logical to continue using it
I always thought Miranda is like B-52, proven design that can last a long time. Maybe Oberth is too, but in less military functionality.
Admiral what's-his-name said the Enterprise is "20 years old" in STIII. Obviously wrong as it was more like 40 years old by then, which is still not that old unless the wear & tear to the spaceframe was more than could be repaired.
What's stranger is the 1701-A. If we assume it was a new ship, renamed in 2286, it was less than 10 years old by the tim ethey wanted to decommission her. This would make me lean towards the Connies being defective on some level.
Or otherwise non-optimal. Some things are quickly retired, leaving their jobs to their predecessors, because there is no merit to doing the job-at-hand better than the predecessors did it - cheaper if worse is better in the bigger picture. Being too good is a common damning fault, at least in a universe where everything carries a price.
More commonly, though, doctrines change - say, fast ships might go out of fashion, just like they did on Earth's oceans after WWII. Or multipurpose ships might. Or then the Constitution got a worthy successor on the Excelsior, but the corresponding successor to Miranda turned out to be crap and was never adopted.
In the end, Starfleet has dozens of classes in any era. The fate of one shouldn't really be of interest to us, save for our hero bias.
Timo Saloniemi
More commonly, though, doctrines change - say, fast ships might go out of fashion, just like they did on Earth's oceans after WWII. Or multipurpose ships might. Or then the Constitution got a worthy successor on the Excelsior, but the corresponding successor to Miranda turned out to be crap and was never adopted.
In the end, Starfleet has dozens of classes in any era. The fate of one shouldn't really be of interest to us, save for our hero bias.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, in that particular case it was probably because the ship was literally full of holes.
Oh yeah, recall notices, TSB's, the whole nine yards. My 2005 GTO was like that, a "Friday build" when the Aussies wanted to get on to their Fosters.
, and a lot of it.
