Starbase 11 registry chart

[Peregrinus]

This whole thing is not a can of worms. It is a JJ-Trek Enterprise engine room of worms, and has been ever since the show originally aired. @yotsuya, you said a few times "whoever made the wall chart..." It might have been Marvin March, the set decorator, but it was much more likely Jefferies himself. He was the Okuda of TOS -- doing all the displays and most of the signage, or, at the very least, being part of a two or three man group doing a lot in a hurry (bridge displays during original build). So the person making that chart very probably knew Jefferies' intentions, because the person making that chart was very probably Jefferies.

A lot of mess might have been avoided if several things had been ironed out beforehand, rather than during production, like stardates, the uniform insignia, how Starfleet worked -- or even was spelled (space or no space?), or even had the notion of something like a Technical Consultant for Jefferies to be one. If people had consulted with him on matters starshipp-y, some problems -- notably the Constellation -- could have been avoided. That ship model was built over at the visual effects stage, and not on the Desilu lot, where Matt was. They used an off-the-shelf AMT kit, which was still the original 1966 release -- it wasn't revised until 1968. A lot of the parts were different. The upper and lower domes were tinted green instead of clear, the nacelle rear caps were flat 1st-pilot versions (as you can see when the ship goes into the planet-killer), and the decal sheet had more accurate markings than the '68 release... but only for the Enterprise. So their only option was to rearrange "1701" into some other permutation. I don't know if they did a decal for the Constellation name, or just used some Letra-Set letters of the right size. I've never been able to see the top of the saucer at a good enough angle, clearly enough.

Also, read Matt's interviews, as well as reading his annotations. Yes, that one drawing bears the marginal thoughts as to it being the Federation's 17th Cruiser design and the 01st production hull is 1701, 02nd is 1702, etc. Note, though: production hull. As he put it, "first production hull after the prototype -- 1700".

I've looked at still frames, looped .gifs, watched the episode on VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray (original and remastered). I'd just about saw off limbs for some of the original film the scene was shot on. *sigh* But after all is said and done and analyzed to death, positive and negative image, high and low contrast, et cetera ad very much nauseum, I see:

1709
1831
1703
1672
1864
1697
1701
1718
1685
1700

I'll interject here to say "starship" (or "star ship"), "class", and "type" give me about as many fits in Star Trek as "group" and "commander" do in Star Wars. Like... This is what happens when a couple of old Army Air Corps bomber pilots muck around in naval terminology. As it appears on the dedication plaque, "STARSHIP CLASS" would mean there's a USS Starship out there the Enterprise bears a strong likeness to. Gene and Matt equating "Star Ship" with a Royal Navy Cruiser of the early 19th century would mean it is more appropriately a "Starship classification/type" vessel. But we all know that, whether we try to rationalize it in-universe, or work around it from real-world understanding.

After the fact, Matt also mentioned having remembered/noticed the US Navy registered ships with doubled letters, like DD for Destroyers or BB for Battleships, and having the CC in "NCC" indicate a Cruiser made sense to him, as Starships were Heavy Cruisers, and all that.

Incidentally, as I was doing some serious starting-from-first-sources reworking of my whole fleet system, I dug into nomenclature, and I'm disgusted. For over a hundred years, navies that have Frigates don't have Cruisers, and vice versa. And ya know why? Because they're the same damn thing, in different languages! During that era, Cruisers were the Royal Navy term for long-range, independently-operating vessels that conducted exploration, scientific research, protected colonies, fought off pirates, etc. Frigate was the French and Spanish term for the same type of vessel. So their use in Starfleet had to have some other connotation. Also, do you want to know the difference between a Light Cruiser and a Heavy Cruiser? I thought it might be displacement, but nope. Or one had more guns. Hm-mm. A Light Cruiser has a 6" main gun, and a Heavy Cruiser has an 8" main gun.

That's it.

So I'll get into how I had to reconsider all of that nomenclature later. Anyway. Allowing for "Starship" to indicate a classification of vessel within Starfleet, and not necessarily be the proper name of a particular configuration, design generation, and shared layout, and going by Matt's system, as he most likely created and built the chart, the 16xx registries are some Cruiser class that was put in service prior to the Enterprise's class entering service, but is likely easier to build in quantity, given there are at least 97 of them in existence, versus the highest confirmed registry of an Enterprise-style ship is 1718 (Greg pulled the Defiant's "1764" out of his butt for the article, and says as much in it). And the Intrepid and Reliant are both Miranda-class, bolstered later by the Lantree and (first) Saratoga (and, IMO, the Bozeman -- not gonna get into it here), as supplemental Cruisers to the big workhorse Hero ship and her sisters.

The other thing this episode famously has divided production staff and fandom over is the uniform insignia. Since everyone on the Starbase except for the 'base command staff (Stone, Shaw...) have the familiar "Enterprise delta", but aren't Enterprise crew, that nixes the whole "each ship has a unique emblem" thing. Since Starfleet has (at least) ten fleets within it in DS9, and since that corresponds handily to the old "subquadrant" breakdown of the Federation's territory and exploration zone, I've maintained for some time now that the familiar Enterprise insignia is the emblem for the First Fleet; the Exeter insignia in "The Omega Glory" is the insignia for a different one; and, since it doesn't have the departmental logo in it, Decker's "swoosh" indicates something else (best theory I've seen is for a Commodore commanding a starship instead of a starbase, but there would still be the matter of Commodore Wesley to resolve). Later, the First Fleet emblem was adopted for all of Starfleet.

If so, that would mean those ships were all part of the First Fleet, and Starbase 11 is the command base for said fleet. I, personally, like to think it's a big enough deal that there's a planet-based and space-based portion. Obviously nowhere near as massive as what exists on and over Earth -- what with Spacedock, the San Francisco Yards, McKinley Station, etc. -- but something substantial. In my personal headcanon, I use FJ's "Star Fleet Headquarters" space station for the space based portion of Starbase 11. Each of its six enclosed docking pods can accommodate three starships reasonably comfortably. I feel there's nothing more mysterious to the order of the hull numbers than docking assignment. Incidentally, six times three is eighteen, which is the repair crew Stone said he's pulling off the Intrepid to put on Enterprise. Correlation is definitely not causation, but I felt it was what Bob Ross would call a happy little accident.

Now, the Republic, by all this, isn't [presumptive] Constitution-class, being of the 13th Cruiser design. Neither is the Valiant, having gone missing before the class was even in service. The Farragut is referred to by BTS material and in current official works as Constitution class, and I have no problem with this -- but I like Debt of Honor, in which the ship is destroyed not too long after its encounter with the cloud creature, which I'm also happy with, as that matches up with Making of Star Trek and FJ's stuff derived from it.

So.

From the chart we have:

1700 (presume Constitution, class lead ship)
1701 (duh)
1703
1709
1718

In "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", we have Kirk's "dozen like her" line, giving thirteen total at that point. Constellation and Defiant haven't been lost at this point. Oh -- I know some might approve and it might piss purists off, but I take the expedient of "fixing" the Constellation's registry in the least-invasive manner possible, swapping the number pairs to '1710'. It makes my list happier and I like to think it's what would have been on the model had Matt been consulted.

Exeter is part of a different fleet, so it's not one of the above numbers. There are only three. That, plus the other starbase Kirk is summoned to, makes me figure the Hood, Lexington, Potemkin, and Excalibur are part of a different fleet, too. The Yorktown is mentioned, but never seen, so we don't know what fleet it's part of (and the official 1717 registry Greg also came up with for his article -- I prefer a lower one). The Defiant crew, however, are wearing the Enterprise delta, so I apply it to the "Court Martial" list to fill one anonymous registry. Later canon gives us the Merrimac at 1715 in TMP, taken from FJ but now canon thanks to its inclusion. And I also like to use as much fan-created stuff as doesn't conflict, so I like Todd Guenther's Endeavour at 1716. It incorporates newer kit than the TOS Enterprise, so that's my demarcation like for ships "like" the Enterprise, thus removing 1718 from the famous baker's dozen. Personally, I like to use the FJ name there -- Excelsior. Destroyed sometime later and her name given to NX-2000.

So that gives us the first sixteen Constitutions built in a 1st-pilot-through-Production/TAS configuration before improved tech begins to more substantially alter the class' lines. Three have to have been destroyed or lost by this point to make Kirk's statement work, one of which is Farragut. Where we're at with that, based on everything I've rambled about to this point, is:

1700 -- Constitution
1701 -- Enterprise
1703 -- [poss. Defiant/Yorktown/UNK.]
1709 -- [poss. Defiant/Yorktown/UNK.]
1710 -- "fixed" Constellation
1715 -- Merrimac
UNK. -- Excalibur
UNK. -- Exeter
UNK. -- Hood
UNK. -- Lexington
UNK. -- Potemkin

That leaves me two short, unless I pull the Defiant and/or Yorktown from those anonymous registries. Several directions I could go, there. So, I like the idea that on this wall chart, we have a good half-dozen different classes and subclasses/variants represented. I like that far more than the notion that all those numbers represent ships identical to the Enterprise in one or another of her three nearly-indistinguishable guises to that point.

I've always found this a silly idea to try and rationalize why Constellation isn't NCC-17something. Different scale physical models of the same object are never 100% identical to each other.

Even better if we let the 1966 model kit of the Jefferies-diagram-derived, 1st-Pilot-detailed be the 947' "small" Constitution, and the 11-foot studio model be the ~1,050' actually-fits-the-sets, Production-detailed Constitution. Different points along the refit/uprate schedule.

Some folks approach such issues extra-diegetically, outside of the fiction. They will say that issues are due to budget restrictions, time restrictions, lack of concern, etc, during the original production. They are correct, but in a diegetic (inside the world of the fiction) sense these answers serve no purpose.

On top of that, there are people (myself included) who enjoy addressing the issues, trying to determine how what we see onscreen could possibly be true, even when it seems to make zero sense :-)

Where do you stand with folks like me, who merrily tap-dance along the razor edge between the two?

And Strange New Worlds has a chance of livening up this discussion further.

Not really. No matter how much people want it to be so, or how much TPTB insist it's the same universe as TOS... it just flat-out isn't. However much they might include from one or another extant source, it's still an alternate universe that might have some somewhat familiar trappings.

 

[Albertese]

Interesting ideas. For many years, I have also assumed that the different badges were tied to sub-fleets rather than individual ships.

--Alex

 

[ChallengerHK]

Where do you stand with folks like me, who merrily tap-dance along the razor edge between the two?

Arguments either make sense, or they don't That said, there's generally not much overlap between the two types of answers. Usually, an extradiegetic answer does nothing to explain the diegetic facts, and vice versa. They're each interesting and valuable in their own way, but they don't relate to each other in any really meaningful way. Imagine Sulu asking Kirk why the Constellation had such an odd registry, and Kirk saying "Those were the decals they had on hand."

Not really. No matter how much people want it to be so, or how much TPTB insist it's the same universe as TOS... it just flat-out isn't. However much they might include from one or another extant source, it's still an alternate universe that might have some somewhat familiar trappings.

Once people started accepting the concept of the retcon, TPTB had an unfortunate ability to play with their fictional reality as they saw fit, and they did. After that it became OK to cherry pick things that "happened" and "didn't happen," and then to say that series never happened like what we saw, but this episode did" and now it's just every being for him- or herself. I'm largely of the opinion that, at the very least, most of the series take place in their own universe, and many of the episodes also take place in discrete universes, and as I said elsewhere, the term Star Trek is now nothing more than a marketing tool.

 

[BK613]

@Peregrinus The term 'cruiser' during the Age of Sail was not tied to a particular size of vessel. Cruising was a type of mission like patrolling, escorting, or blockading and a vessel on such a mission was referred to as a cruiser. During war, the mission type required a vessel capable of operating independently in a given area, and capable of seeking targets of opportunity and/or otherwise harassing the enemy. During peacetime, it was a political show of the Flag and enforcing maritime law. It was different from 1) patrolling, in which the goal is to protect a friendly strategic asset, 2) escorting, in which the goal is to protect a convoy or fleet, and, 3) blockading, in which the goal is to deny the enemy the use of its ports.

Typically, lower rated or non-rated vessels were assigned to cruising. So you could have a rated ship like a frigate referred to as a cruiser but you could also have a non-rated sloop of war (like a brig) referred to as a cruiser.

The term took on a different meaning due to the arms limitations treaties of the early 20th century where it became associated somewhat with size.

 

[Dukhat]

Once people started accepting the concept of the retcon, TPTB had an unfortunate ability to play with their fictional reality as they saw fit, and they did. After that it became OK to cherry pick things that "happened" and "didn't happen," and then to say that series never happened like what we saw, but this episode did" and now it's just every being for him- or herself. I'm largely of the opinion that, at the very least, most of the series take place in their own universe, and many of the episodes also take place in discrete universes, and as I said elsewhere, the term Star Trek is now nothing more than a marketing tool.

That's how I feel. I get annoyed when some schmuck on the internet tries to tell me that what I saw in TOS for the last 40-some years 'didn't actually happen the way I saw it' just so some sub-par new show produced 50 years after the fact can have the limelight.

 

[Peregrinus]

Thanks, @BK613. The clarification is useful. I was focusing more, for my post (which was already pretty long), on "cruisers" and frigates being used for a lot of the same missions at the time, all being smaller than the big ships-of-the-line, the line of battle. That is to say, line-of-battle ships. Or, as they would come to be called, Battleships. "Cruiser" came to be a catchall for all the sloops, barks, packets, and other ships sent out.

Those patrolling, escorting, and blockading missions would later become the rôle of Destroyers. Since we're really looking at a mashup of the Horatio Hornblower years, the Great White Fleet of the turn of the last century, and a modernish post-WWII naval landscape... er... seascape, that throws terminology application around a bit. Frigates went from being the larger end of the spectrum of ships sent out on cruises to being, essentially, cruisers used as destroyers.

I have it now in my ship lists as a shorthand term for a Cruiser that's been upgunned for a more combat-oriented rôle -- Miranda to Avenger, for instance -- or a Heavy Destroyer balanced out with more scientific capacity and capability for independent operation.

 

[BK613]

@Peregrinus NP. FWIW, I purposely skipped over the 19th Century since that era was ripe with terminology changes.

 

[Henoch]

My TOS head-canon on Starships and Starbases:

Starship Class - Ship Mission Type is Deep Space Cruiser, registry identifier NCC.

Subclasses include:
1. ? Class - registry numbers 1300. (Only one ship left, Republic, training vessel)
2. ? Class - registry numbers 1600. (Lots of these ships in fleet)**
3. Constitution Class - registry numbers 1700. (12 ships in fleet, as of TIY)*
4. Miranda Class - registry numbers 1800. (Lots of these ships in fleet)​

All Starship Class ships are continuously upgraded to the highest capabilities in power generation, warp drive, phaser power, shield strength, sensor arrays, scientific laboratories and living amenities for five years.

Oh -- I know some might approve and it might piss purists off, but I take the expedient of "fixing" the Constellation's registry in the least-invasive manner possible, swapping the number pairs to '1710'. It makes my list happier and I like to think it's what would have been on the model had Matt been consulted.

*Being dyslexic, I, too, see the Constellation as NCC-1710. One other option, it may be a lone survivor of another era and extensively refitted and upgraded to look similar to the 1600 and 1700 series ships. Another option, the 1000 series starships may be special command ships used by Commodores and Admirals as their flagships accounting for their relatively low number of units. The Lexington may be another such ship.
**Since the 1600 series goes up to at least 1697, it probably ran out of numbers and simply extended into the 1700 series, making the 1600 and 1700 the same subclass, i.e. Constitution Class. So, ship 1700 might not be the Constitution, rather it was serial number 1600. I doubt "12 like her in the fleet" would work in this case. Or, Starfleet decided it was an opportune time for a new subclass and designed the 1700 series. After which, the older 1600 series were all brought up to the same capabilities of the 1700 series via refits and upgrades. This could explain the slow down in building less 1700 series ships since the abundant 1600 series were eventually brought up to 1700 specs. "12 like her in the fleet" works in this case because Kirk is a ship snob and doesn't think much of the refitted 1600 series ships or the newer 1800 series ships.​

Starbases are the sector's shipyards and depots. For example, Starbase 11 had ten Star Ships in orbit getting repairs and resupplies. In addition, Starbases provide for command and control of all Starfleet assets in their sector. Starbases are commanded by a Flag Officer Rank, either Commodore (one-star) or Rear Admiral (two-star).

 

[BK613]

In my headcanon, Starship Class was a politically neutral label chosen for the first totally built from the keel up Fed ship class (as opposed to an initial fleet in which planetary members' vessels served as the primary combatants.). Tradition carried it forward until the fleet unit types began to diversify.

 

[Peregrinus]

Arguments either make sense, or they don't That said, there's generally not much overlap between the two types of answers. Usually, an extradiegetic answer does nothing to explain the diegetic facts, and vice versa. They're each interesting and valuable in their own way, but they don't relate to each other in any really meaningful way. Imagine Sulu asking Kirk why the Constellation had such an odd registry, and Kirk saying "Those were the decals they had on hand."

When there's something like that that the characters don't comment on, I treat that as a datum of use in the real world. I sort of Heisenbergianally have both the in-universe rationalization that I've seen for decades that the Constellation is an older ship uprated to Constitution specs... and being able to say "it was a production goof -- it shoulda been something else", simultaneously. I could go either way depending on further evidence or convincing enough argument. The fact that none of the characters said "hang on, what's up with the number?" means it can be read either way. Other things, like the Yamato's registry in TNG, I can just ignore the erroneous first registry, as I know the real-world story behind it. That ship was always 71802, including in "Where Silence Has Lease". I do, however, have a Yamato at 1305, in the same class as the Republic -- and then four more between then and the Galaxy-class ship, to keep the connotation of the "-E" of the erroneous line.

One of the reasons I peg Enterprise to an alternate timeline is because in Voyager's "Hope and Fear", no one on the bridge, on seeing the Dauntless' registry of NX-01-A, said, "Hang on -- I remember my Starfleet history. NX-01 was the Enterprise." I've seen all the rationalizations, and feel some of them are pretty reaching. The class "names" in Enterprise are, frankly, silly.

And the TNG science vessel is named Brattain, despite how the model was labeled. Ditto Jenolan/Jenolin and Belleraphon/Bellerophon. Or the latter Prometheus' registry number(s). Or the Melbourne fuckery (sorry, I'm still steamed at the poor Nebula-class ship getting so unceremoniously sidelined). I feel it's perfectly valid to ignore things they got wrong, even if it's onscreen. The biggest example I have of this is the Oberth class. It was going to be a new ship design, basically an Ambassador era version of the Reliant. But the higher-ups didn't want to spring for the cost so early after the pilot, so the Grissom miniature was pressed into service. They didn't even change the registry. NCC-638 is clearly visible, even in the crappy resolution of the day. Rick tried to fix this every time an Oberth shows up in TNG, but there kept never being the money. He almost got to in "The Pegasus", getting so far as preliminary sketches for display graphics before the decision came down that the Grissom model was to be used yet again. I mentally overlay that model with his "real" Oberth every time.

On the other hand, the list of things I've found ways to rationalize is even longer, and I'm so used to thinking of it "just being that way" I'd have to seriously think through my time as a Treknical fan to come up with anything near a thorough accounting. I mentioned the TOS insignia thing earlier. Some of it's on display in other threads. I like finding new and creative solutions out of corners production mistakes or carelessness or laziness painted us into.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

NCC-1701-D was a 24th century registry number. It's pretty easy to head canon NCC-1017 as something similar, but without the letter at the end. The Constellation could have been a refit from an earlier class to Constitution class. Or, it could have been an homage registry like the Ents A through E. Or, it could have been intended as disinformation for an alien species, to deceive them about what class of ship was on its way to a battle. The possibilities are endless.

 

[Dukhat]

The biggest example I have of this is the Oberth class. It was going to be a new ship design, basically an Ambassador era version of the Reliant. But the higher-ups didn't want to spring for the cost so early after the pilot, so the Grissom miniature was pressed into service. They didn't even change the registry. NCC-638 is clearly visible, even in the crappy resolution of the day. Rick tried to fix this every time an Oberth shows up in TNG, but there kept never being the money. He almost got to in "The Pegasus", getting so far as preliminary sketches for display graphics before the decision came down that the Grissom model was to be used yet again. I mentally overlay that model with his "real" Oberth every time.

That's not quite true. The "Ambassador era version of the Reliant" was only for the Pegasus. The original first use of the model as the Tsiolkovsky in season 1's "The Naked Now" was a different story. Okuda made the dedication plaque for the ship before he knew that the VFX people were going to reuse the Grissom. So the 'Oberth' class name and the high 5XXXX registry on that plaque was originally meant to represent a different type of ship, one contemporary to the Enterprise-D (the ship's launch date on the plaque is only one year before the Enterprise-D's launch), but that ship was never designed because the producers were loathe to spend money to build new models if the show got cancelled after the first season. So the Oberth name was retroactively given to the Grissom-type ships.

 

[aridas sofia]

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to rationalize things as fans. I’m saying that there’s no reason to assume that the Constellation was a different and older class than the Enterprise just because they used an inaccurate model kit and rearranged the registry to a random number that was meant to be different than the Enterprise’s. It’s crystal clear that the person who built this model meant for it to be the exact same class as the Enterprise, and the registry was an afterthought, since they probably had no idea about Jefferies’ intentions for the numbers. So the Constellation is a Constitution class starship with a registry of 1017. It’s not problematic at all since nothing was shown on screen to contradict that there was any problem with the number.

I tend to notice that the more obsessive fans come up with convoluted rationalizations for things, when there’s really no need for it. This is one example.

If a person insists other people believe his particular rationalization, then there's a problem. But if somebody wants to use the fact the AMT model was different from the 11-foot model to distinguish the two ships, more power to them. It’s entertainment, and imagination. It’s supposed to be fun, and if that is what gives them fun, fine. Plus, it just so happens to fit the way the USN works just as well as seeing it the other way likely fits the producers’ intentions.

And just as it would be wrong for somebody to insist others believe their unique take on things, it would be just as wrong to make the outlier swallow the standard, vanilla, middle of the road, consensus.

 

[Dukhat]

If a person insists other people believe his particular rationalization, then there's a problem. But if somebody wants to use the fact the AMT model was different from the 11-foot model to distinguish the two ships, more power to them. It’s entertainment, and imagination. It’s supposed to be fun, and if that is what gives them fun, fine. Plus, it just so happens to fit the way the USN works just as well as seeing it the other way likely fits the producers’ intentions.

And just as it would be wrong for somebody to insist others believe their unique take on things, it would be just as wrong to make the outlier swallow the standard, vanilla, middle of the road, consensus.

I don't presume to believe that people will automatically stop coming up with convoluted explanations for things just because I think it's silly. People can believe what they want. My point is that I believe in Occam's Razor, because it's the most logical explanation for most things. The production didn't have the budget to build another TOS Connie filming model to represent the Constellation (and have it then be battle-damaged to boot), so they took an off-the-shelf plastic Enterprise model kit as a stand-in. They clearly meant for it to be the exact same ship as the Enterprise, and I'm sure they didn't think twice about any inaccuracies between the model kit and the filming model. They certainly didn't bother to mention that it was a different class of ship in the episode.

 

[aridas sofia]

I don't presume to believe that people will automatically stop coming up with convoluted explanations for things just because I think it's silly. People can believe what they want. My point is that I believe in Occam's Razor, because it's the most logical explanation for most things. The production didn't have the budget to build another TOS Connie filming model to represent the Constellation (and have it then be battle-damaged to boot), so they took an off-the-shelf plastic Enterprise model kit as a stand-in. They clearly meant for it to be the exact same ship as the Enterprise, and I'm sure they didn't think twice about any inaccuracies between the model kit and the filming model. They certainly didn't bother to mention that it was a different class of ship in the episode.

I understand that YOU believe in Occam’s Razor, or more appropriately, the application of Occam’s Razor to this particular instance. Occam’s Razor is a tool of interpretation and analysis, and for that purpose is very useful. But the question here is not whether the producers intended such and such thing. I think that is pretty much beyond reasonable doubt. It is whether everyone should confine their own ideas to what the producers intended, or refuse to extrapolate beyond what the producers intended - particularly in those areas where that intent was left unclear.

The richness of Star Trek has historically been aided by fan speculation in those voids left blank by the producers. If they didn’t say what they wanted, and if our own history goes against such a monolithic interpretation as was likely their intent, fan speculation should be free to take more into account than what fans think the producers wanted.

 

[Dukhat]

I understand that YOU believe in Occam’s Razor, or more appropriately, the application of Occam’s Razor to this particular instance. Occam’s Razor is a tool of interpretation and analysis, and for that purpose is very useful. But the question here is not whether the producers intended such and such thing. I think that is pretty much beyond reasonable doubt. It is whether everyone should confine their own ideas to what the producers intended, or refuse to extrapolate beyond what the producers intended - particularly in those areas where that intent was left unclear.

The richness of Star Trek has historically been aided by fan speculation in those voids left blank by the producers. If they didn’t say what they wanted, and if our own history goes against such a monolithic interpretation as was likely their intent, fan speculation should be free to take more into account than what fans think the producers wanted.

I never said that fan interpretation was a bad thing. I said that I don’t need convoluted interpretations of things that really don’t need convoluted interpretations.

 

[Andorian]

To explain wacky registry numbers (like Constellation's), I speculate that blocks of registries are "assigned" to various shipyards in the Federation; these facilities might use up NCCs at different rates. This allows registries to stay mostly chronological, while leaving wiggle room for ships like Constellation, Eagle or others that don't fit the accepted scheme. It also lets Constitution NCC-1700 stay the class ship, a long time fandom assumption. Let's say...

* The first several Connies are laid down at San Francisco Fleet Yards, which has a block of registries starting with 1700 set aside for the purpose

* Tranquility Base at Luna gets a block of registries in the mid-1700s; USS Defiant NCC-1764 is one of these

* The shipyard at 40 Eridani A has a few registries in the 1000s left over from a class of heavy cruiser built earlier in the 23rd century (the last few ships were cancelled). Of these numbers, NCC-1017 is assigned to the Constellation

* Izar Shipyard (just a hypothetical!) is a smaller facility, still churning through a block of registries in the mid-900s they were assigned earlier in the 23rd century. The few Constitutions they contribute to the fleet are all in the 950s, like USS Eagle NCC-956

This allows you to handwave most registry difficulties; such as the oddly low NCCs on the Grissom or First Contact ships, or USS Nova (NCC-73515) having a higher registry than any other known Nova-class vessels (Equinox, NCC-72381 and Rhode Island, NCC-72701).

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

The class "names" in Enterprise are, frankly, silly.

The problem I have with the way that was implemented is that, looking at TV guides and other promotional materials for that show, the production team clearly intended existing fans to recognize the NX as "experimental," even though the show was set so early that might not apply, and then later used the NX as if it was a class name. I know that the producers intentions can be ignored if the viewer wishes to do so, my problem is that they created an unnecessary consistency with the other shows and then needlessly deleted it by apparently redefining what NX meant at that time.

oddly low NCCs on the Grissom or First Contact ships

I have a similar approach, but one that does not need to account for the yard where the ship was built. It resembles the way that pickup trucks are marked based on capacity.

-Early ships reach NCC numbers around 500, like TOS-R showed with freighters.
Then, beginning around the TOS-era:
-Smaller ships start around 500 like in the FJSTM. By the time of Star Trek III, enough have been built to reach the 600's for the Grissom.
-Medium ships start in the 1000's (FJSTM has them at 3800 for some reason but I am not using that).
-Larger ships (i.e. "starships" or "cruisers") would start at 1500, and by the time of TOS, they have reached the 1700's; by the movies they have reached the 1800's.
-Ships' registries are grouped by two numbers for the general purpose followed by any number of serial digits. (So the ship after 1099 could be 10000 if it was the same general type, or 1100 if it was a new type. Eventually, there would have been BOTH a 10000 and and 1100 in service)
-The above means that the last 2 or 3 digits are consecutive numbers by ship, but the first two are serial only in the sense of when that series started.

-We could possibly eliminate the "medium" series, and just say that "larger" ships started at 1000, which means that Constellation could have been updated to look like a 16- or 17- series ship, but kept the number it had earlier in life.

To give an example:
This means that a ship in TNG with a number like 12537 could be ship 537 of series 12. The "series" is not directly the same as "class" but we could assume this would be a two-nacelled, medium ship. The game "Star Trek: Legacy" has this as a ship with two warp nacelles, 4-forward torpedoes, and no secondary hull, which works for me under this system.

 

[publiusr]

I have this idea that, by the TMP era, different. -hundreds referred to different builds. 1700s were now Connies, 1800s Miranda.

Before this, numbers had to do with age.

Now, NCC-100 isn’t old, just small?

 

[Dukhat]

I have this idea that, by the TMP era, different. -hundreds referred to different builds. 1700s were now Connies, 1800s Miranda.

Before this, numbers had to do with age.

Now, NCC-100 isn’t old, just small?

In TMP, there is radio chatter mentioning three ships from Franz Joseph’s tech manual: two NCC-6XX scouts, and one NCC-2XXX dreadnought. FJ specifically had registries based on the type of ship (scouts = 6XX, heavy cruisers = 1XXX, destroyers = 5XX, etc.) So there is some precedent for registries at this time not being chronological but based on ship type.