Constitution Class Ships Seem To Be Everywhere

Except they’re not ‘cop outs.’ They’re valid reasons that you don’t like because they don’t fit with your personal worldview of how Star Trek is supposed to ‘work.’

 

Not in Star Trek:
Example:

^^^
Taken from this article of the official Star Trek (.com) website:
https://www.startrek.com/article/tos-enterprise-dedication-plaque-from-eaglemoss

 

Not i: Star Trek:
Example:

^^^
Taken from this article of the official Star Trek (.com) website:
https://www.startrek.com/article/tos-enterprise-dedication-plaque-from-eaglemoss[/QUOTE]

It should also be added from 'The Making of Star Trek', Part II 'An Official Biography of a ship and its crew' Prologue - ' . . . Star Fleet includes twelve ships of the 'Starship' class'.

So, even members of the Production crew back in '67-'68 considered the Enterprise and others like her to be of the 'Starship' class. The nomenclature 'Constitution' class came later.

 

So FTL travel is my "personal worldview" of Trek. Then explain warp is supposed to work that I'm missing.

It should also be added from 'The Making of Star Trek', Part II 'An Official Biography of a ship and its crew' Prologue - ' . . . Star Fleet includes twelve ships of the 'Starship' class'.

So, even members of the Production crew back in '67-'68 considered the Enterprise and others like her to be of the 'Starship' class. The nomenclature 'Constitution' class came later.[/QUOTE]
And has been the dominant lore ever since. I stand by what I said.

 

I've made my opinions quite clear about the IRL distances in the galaxy and the improbability of two ships of the same class meeting when there are only twelve of them. To explain further would be a waste of time as you've already made up your mind about how things work in Star Trek.

 

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply-class_fast_combat_support_ship

 

Do you even realize that IN REAL LIFE and Star Trek are two different things??? How things work IN REAL LIFE can't prevent similar ships in Star Trek from meeting in space because STAR TREK ISN'T FUCKING REAL!

Starships aren't real, Faster Than Light travel is not real, yet both exist within the unreal environment of Star Trek. Spaceships in that environment are equipped to travel at FTL speeds, which means they aren't subject to the same limitations as REAL spacecraft IN REAL LIFE, and to cite those REAL spacecraft limitations as proof that UNREAL spacecraft can't rendezvous is the height of stupidity in an already stupid thread!

But whatever, man. Let's play your game. I'll start with a question: How many Gemini spacecraft were in operation at the time of the first successful rendezvous? I'll even answer it for you: Two, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7, the craft involved with the mission. Now, two is rarer than twelve, isn't it? Compared to Starfleet's abundance of ships poor old NASA had to make do with a couple phone booths paid for with jingle change from the couch cushions. And space was just as BIG back then as it is now, right? And Earth was just as big then, too, so big and less advanced that it would be even harder to get around if you did your "killing everybody but twelve people" trick, or is it "everybody but two people" in this context?

So space was BIG, Earth was BIG and NASA had to complete the mission without having ten ships to spare, yet somehow, on December 15, 1965, a bunch of people with half a brain managed to arrange for Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 to approach to within a foot of each other in orbit, close enough for the astronauts to wave at each other out the window. Got that? With nothing but chemical rockets and analog technology at hand, two spacecraft of the same class met in the same area of space, which is BIG.

So I ask you, if NASA can work that miracle, why would it be impossible for an agency with access to a dozen FTL capable starships to do the same thing with them?

Your arguments are bullshit.

Quote John Landis: "You can kill a vampire any way you want because vampires don't fucking exist!"

In Star Trek, you can make any starship of any class, type or design do whatever you want because starships don't fucking exist.

That's the real answer to OP's question. Every other answer is just being polite.

 

More matter that all things being equal twelve ships of the same type probably won't end up in the same neighborhood. However, given the highly specialized functionality of the Starship/Constitution class fleet operations would likely utilize these vessels to support one another if the need arises due to their capability.

As a random coincidence it is highly improbably. As a part of fleet operations probably more probable.

 

More than probable, IMO. I mean, 70.8% of the surface of the Earth is ocean and it would be unlikely for two carriers to meet each other if all parts of the oceans were equal. But they are not and so carriers encounter and work together all the time.

 

What's bullshit is me thinking you could actually have a civilized conversation without resorting to childish behavior. Your Gemini example is invalid because both spacecraft were never more than 500 kilometers away from each other at any one time, and the whole purpose for their existence was to perform that rendezvous. It wasn't like one capsule was in orbit around Pluto when the other one in orbit around Mercury suddenly gave out a distress call and expected the other capsule to come to its aid instantly.

Anyway, you're welcome to continue talking about this, but I have no interest in debating with someone who acts the way you do when confronted with things he doesn't like. You're not worth it.

 

Indeed, and would be diverted by the higher command to address specific needs. So, even in a vast space, their areas of operation would still overlap because they have to function as a larger whole, not disparate pieces.

 

FWIW, Star Trek treats "our" quarter of the Milky Way like a mere ocean, and inhabited planets like islands that you can sail to in a matter of days. And that's how we get our stories told.

The real galaxy is so much bigger, and habitable planets so much rarer and more dispersed, that real astronomy logic can only be applied at Star Trek's peril.

That's the best compromise.

 

FTL is not one speed, it is a fast range of possible speeds ranging from the speed of light to infinite. And thus it is an infinite range of speeds.

But certanly there is no evidence in TOS that starships have a warp factor with infinite speed. And if a ship can not reach infinite speed there will always be some plots involving that ship which are impossible because of matters of insuficient speed.

What was said in "By Any Other Name"?:

And:

The Andromeda Galaxy is about 2,500,000 light years from Earth. Assuming that Kirk meant it would take the Enterprise between 1,000 and 10,000 yeas to travel that far at maximum speed, the maximum speed of the Enterprise would be somewhere between 250 and 2,500 times the speed o flight.

In "the Omega Glory" the Enterprise finds another starship in orbit around a planet:

So Starfleet lost contact with the Exeter 6 months or less earlier, and Kirk apparently hasn't been ordered to find her, but just accidentially found her. Suppose instead that Starfleet command ordered Kirk to go looking for the Exter 6 months ago and the Enterprise has been travelling straight to that solar system for 6 months at top warp speed.

In that case the Enterprise could have travelled about 125 to 1,250 light years from its old position straight to the posiiton of the Exeter. But instead the Enterprise didn't know that anything had happened to the Exeter and was travelling from star to star in various directins at varius speeds on various other missions during those six months.

So the initial distance between the Exeter and the Enterprise when tthe plague struck the Exeter should have been much less than 125 to 1,250 light years.

In "The Tholian Web" they are looking for a missing starship:

Exactly three weeks is exactly 7 days. Assuming that Kirk would round up or down to "three weeks" if the actual time span was somwhere between 17 and 025 days, the Enterprise should have traveled no more than 4,250 to 62,500 light days, which is 11.635 to 171.115 light years, toward the Defiant in that time, and possibly a lot less.

In "The Immunity Syndrome" Starbase 6 tries to contact the Enterprise, and Spock suddenly feels the death of the Vulcans aboard the Intrepid. And then:

There is no statement about how long it takes for the Enteprise to reach the Gamma Seven A system. So I would guess that it takes the Enterprise between one hour and one week to travel the distance, which should be no more than 0.028 to 47.912 light years.

In "The Doomsday Machine" the Enterprises earches for the starship sending out a distress signal:

Later they enter solar system L-374:

But when they find the constellation in system L-374, and replay the Constellation's log:

So the planet killer finished destroying tthe fourth planet and then destroyed the third planet in the interval.

Matt Decker is still alive, so life support has not yet totally failed, and he hasn't committed suicide yet, but he is still very traumatized over the fate of his crew. That gives me the impression that the third planet was destroyed no more than a few days ago. So I would guess that the Enterprise was no more than a week's travel, or 47.912 light years, from system L-374 when the Constellatin sent out the distess call.

And a star system is mentioned later:

So star system L-374 seems to be beyond Rigel as seen from Earth. Since Rigel is about 860 light years from Earth, that indicates that exploring starships should lbe operation on the surface of a sphere of space with a radius of about 860 light years - or beyond it.

A sphere with a radius of 860 light years would have a surface area of 9,294,087.71 square light yers. If 12 starships are equally spaced on the surface of the sphere each would have an area of 774,507.3 square light years to itself. That are would equal a square flat surface that was 880.06 by 880.06 light years square, or a round flat surface that had a radius of 496.042 light years, wrapped on the surface of the sphere.

And that is not allowing for how much more or less beyond the 860 lightyear radius various starships might be at any one time.

There is absolutely no identification of starship classes in TOS. Nobody ever mentions how many starships Starfleet Command has.

Kirk does say that there are only 12 starships like the Enterprise in the fleet. If that is interpreted as meaning there are only 12 starships of the Enterprise's class in Starfleet, then Starfleet needs to have other classes of starships for.the Enterrpsie to meet as many starships as it does.

 

Was the Antares or the Valiant ever addressed as STARSHIPS? When I watched TOS I was never confused when our heroes addressed a Starship it referred to the Enterprise, but when I watched TWOK and the horrible TSFS, and later TNG the term became generalized. It was brilliant for the studio to incorporate the title starship to boost the brand, but when some fans claiming this was something which originated from the start shows a sense of retro-active thinking.

It should also be added from 'The Making of Star Trek', Part II 'An Official Biography of a ship and its crew' Prologue - ' . . . Star Fleet includes twelve ships of the 'Starship' class'.

So, even members of the Production crew back in '67-'68 considered the Enterprise and others like her to be of the 'Starship' class. The nomenclature 'Constitution' class came later.[/QUOTE]

As I've mentioned before, if the producers wanted to correct this and call it Constitution Class, they had two other seasons to do so but never did. It's not hard to reproduce a plaque not even in the late 1960's.

 

The Antares was never referred to as a starship, it was, however, referred to as a science vessel, a survey ship, cargo ship and a transport, all in the same episode. It was never referred to as the ‘U.S.S.’ Antares.

The Valiant (that was destroyed at Eminiar; I’m assuming that’s the ship you’re referring to) was given the ‘U.S.S.’ designation, but was also not referred to as a starship in dialogue. Anan 7 does refer to the Enterprise as a ‘star cruiser’ (perhaps because that was the Valiant’s designation), but Anan isn’t a Starfleet officer, so his terminology can’t be used as proof of anything.

 

Unless they envisioned a ship called the U.S.S. Starship, I'd say Roddenberry and the other producers didn't know that a class gets named for the first such ship. The U.S.S. Starship's commissioning plaque motto would be "We can build this dream together."

Sorry if I missed it above, but can anybody point out the first canon mention of "Constitution Class" in the franchise? All I can think of off the top of my head are:

0. Star Trek Blueprints (1975). Not canon, but a resource to the filmmakers.
1. TNG "The Naked Now" (1987). Picard refers to Kirk's ship in a historical computer record.
2. Star Trek VI (1991). Scotty looks at refit blueprints labeled Constitution Class.
3. TNG "Relics" (1992). Picard says "Constitution Class" aloud when he enters the Holodeck.

So is that it? And if so, where did Franz Joseph get it from?

 

-2. It's scripted in "Space Seed" that Khan was looking at Constitution-class schematics [https://collectingtrek.ca/2020/08/13/enterprise-is-not-constitution-class/].
-1. It's on a diagram Scotty is looking at in "The Trouble with Tribbles" [ibid., http://trekplace.com/article10.html].

 

Thanks, your two links really nail down the answer. FJ or his daughter Karen must have bought a "Space Seed" script from Lincoln Enterprises, or possibly they bought and enlarged a 35mm transparency of the phaser graphic, also from Lincoln (if so, it was included by luck in the "Tech Grab Bag" option; I got general frames of the bridge and Engineering). And those two data points are the canon beginning of Constitution Class.

 

You're welcome. Those are certainly possibilities.

Perhaps @Maurice or @Harvey at Fact Trek might have something to add, either now or in the future.