I would assume that the whole reason why the VOY producers gave the ship's class as "Intrepid" was precisely because of that scene in TNG. And I'm not sure why there's an assumption that the prototype for the Intrepid class would be in drydock under construction. We don't know how old the Intrepid class is; we only know when the U.S.S. Voyager was commissioned. For all we know, the Intrepid could have been built during TNG's 3rd season.
According to “Caretaker”, “Relativity” And “First Contact”, the Intrepid-class was the most advanced class in the Fleet prior to the Sovereign-class. It was more advanced than the Galaxy-class with it tricyclic warp core, bioneural circuitry and folding nacelles. Also Voyager was the first ship to test the Class 9 warp core in deep space in 2371. As for Geordi’s bet, I always, just from the way the actor’s performed the scene, the Intrepid mentioned was suppose to be an older class of ship than the Galaxy-class, and they were referring the improvements kind of like what Krazinsky had done to the Fearless and Ajax.
That still doesn't tell us exactly when the Intrepid class was introduced. The only real clue we have is that Voyager has variable geometry nacelles which wouldn't have been standard issue on starships until after TNG's "Force of Nature" (S7 ep9). But for all we know, the Intrepid prototype did not originally have VG nacelles, as @TommyR01D said. (And to be a real canonista, there was never any canon mention that VG nacelles had anything to do with "Force of Nature;" that was only mentioned in background material.)
Yes, the Intrepid-class is clearly brand new and state-of-the-art in 2371. The Excelsior-class, by contrast, dates back as early as 2285. The Excelsior-class USS Intrepid (NCC-38907), discussed in Sins of the Father, was active in the year 2346, which would make it at least twenty-four years old at the time of Force of Nature. The Enterprise-D itself is, as La Forge emphasises, the Federation's flagship. The Galaxy-class in general was developed during the 2350s and is described a few times in TNG's early seasons as the most sophisticated design that Starfleet has ever produced. If the Enterprise has serious competition for engine efficiency in 2370, then I'd say it's more likely to be from the rising star of the fleet than from an antique workhorse, which, unless it was just renamed, must logically have been retired not long after this episode occurs.
Exactly. Why waste time upgrading engines on a ship that's about to be decommissioned because a new Intrepid was about to take its place?
Whose to say the guy was upgrading his engines? From what the dialogue says, the other engineer is performing routine maintenance on his engine and just from tweaks and modifications he’s managed to improve engine performance! We saw LaForge modify the Enterprise’s warp core in “Booby Trap”. It wasn’t a new warp core, but he modified it for an increase in warp power. But with the Galaxy, we also know that it was built on components that the Oberth-class “Pegasus” was field testing around 2358. So Starfleet was using older ships as testbeds for new components. And with the Intrepid-class Intrepid, how do we know that it wasn’t originally built with regular fixed nacelles, but then it was retrofitted with the swinging pylons, which were implemented for all Intrepid class ships.
Could you please quote the relevant dialogue? It's been a while and I don't remember exactly what LaForge said.
Thanks. So based on the dialogue, it appears that Kaplan didn't actually do anything to the Intrepid's engines; it's just LaForge trying to get the Enterprise's engines' power conversion levels to be higher than the Intrepid's based on some ambiguous rivalry he has with Kaplan. So the dialogue gives zero indication whether the Intrepid is the new class ship of the Intrepid class, or an older Intrepid, other than the Intrepid's power conversion levels were originally higher than the Enterprise's, which could indicate a more advanced ship.
Indeed, but in my head canon, I assume it is an Intrepid class ship. After all, TNG's seventh season (which this episode is from) is only a year before Voyager's first, so it's perfectly reasonable to assume the Intrepid class USS Intrepid is in service.
That’s an illogical assumption. It could be that there were 2 Intrepid’s active at the same time with the older one set to be retired within a month or two while the new one was still being referred to as the Intrepid NX? Starfleet could’ve had 2 Intrepid’s in service for a few months. But considering that the Class 9 warp core wouldn’t be in service even in the Intrepid prototype until after Voyager was launched, LaForge and the other engineer were probably working with similar engines.
IDK, seems a bit of a stretch to justify a few lines of dialogue. Maybe at the time the episode was written the writers meant it to be the older Intrepid, but by the time of VOY and the revelation that there was an "intrepid" class of starship already in service around the same time, it was retconned into being the newer ship.
It might but at the same time the prototype was probably not even on active duty. The prototype was probably being run through its paces, so would LaForge really be in competition with a ship that was still being tested? Much less would there even be a chief engineer assigned to the prototype at that point?
Except, again, we do not know when the Intrepid class was commissioned. The prototype could have been built two years before for all we know.
In the real world, there's years between when one ship in a particular service is decommissioned and another with the same name is commissioned. It's very unlikely Starfleet will have months between the process, and even less likely two ships with the same name would be in service simultaneously. I'm going to echo the above in that we have absolutely no idea when the Intrepid was constructed and put through its trials. It could have been as early as TNG's sixth or even fifth season. Regardless, even if it is as you say and the Intrepid was only still a prototype being put through its trials during Force of Nature (where the conversation took place) how does that mean it wouldn't have a chief engineer? If anything, a prototype in trials is going to have a full engineering complement. There's a greater chance of something going wrong on a prototype, and if it does, you'd want a full engineering staff to handle things.
Your forgetting that the Enterprise-A was commissioned within 2 months of the NCC-1701 being retired from service. Also the Enterprise-E was commissioned within 12 months of the Enterprise-D’s destruction. And then in 2375, Starfleet again commissioned a new Defiant, when the original prototype was destroyed. Prototype crews would most likely have to report to the Captain of the build team who would likely be in overall charge (and command) when they were going for tests, so there would be no Chief Engineer as the Captain would be the Chief Engineer.
I'm assuming that in these separate cases, there was precedence for building and/or renaming other ships with the same name as the previous ship for exceptional reasons. 1. The Enterprise-A was most likely a new ship already off the line but not given a name yet, or an older ship that was renamed at the last minute. 2. From Memory Alpha: "Asked about its construction, Ronald D. Moore replied that his "working assumption was that the E-E had her keel laid sometime during TNG's last season and was probably going to be given another name. When the E-D was destroyed, that Sovereign-class ship was nearing completion and was then christened Enterprise. This same sort of thing happened during WWII. After the carrier Yorktown was sunk at Midway, the US Navy decided to rename a carrier then under construction in honor of the fallen ship." 3. The Sao Paulo was already in service when the Defiant was destroyed and was just renamed the Defiant. In the case of the Intrepid, your assumption is that the ship mentioned by LaForge was an older one, and not the same as the Intrepid class prototype, but that the prototype was flying around at the same time as the older ship. Well, ok, I guess that's possible, but unless we know of the exact circumstances as to why Starfleet didn't just decommission the older ship once the prototype was launched, it's more logical to assume that there was in fact no older ship and Geordi was referring to the prototype. Plus, when he asked Data if he knew of the ship, it's not like Data asked, "Do you mean the Excelsior class vessel or the Intrepid class prototype?" Which he most likely would have asked if both ships were in service at the same time.
The Intrepid is a speedboat with a machine gun. The Constitution is a battleship The Galaxy is a cruiseliner The Sovereign is an aircraft carrier. The Intrepid is the most efficient, but not NECESSARILY the most powerful. You can run a hundred intrepids for the same amount of power needed to run one galaxy. Meh.
Your forgetting (and I had to look this up) but the Enterprise-A was retired in 2293, while the Enterprise-B was launched later in 2293. Plus we know that the B was incomplete when launched and was missing a number of crew and parts. So the B was being constructed and was in testing flights (sure it wasn’t the prototype—-unless it was its subclass prototype) while it’s predecessor was out battling General Chang. Unless you are suggesting that the B was constructed in, what? 6 months from when it’s keel was laid to what we saw in Generations? Now then there is definitely a 20 year gap between the C & D, however Starfleet seems to give retired ships names to new ships and launch them rather quickly. And the São Paulo was a fresh ship, just launched when it was assigned to DS9, and was given the Defiant moniker.
But that's assuming the Intrepid was still in trials at the time of Force of Nature. For all we know, it's trials were complete and it was on regular duty, at which point it would have a full crew assigned.