But it is worth noting that the designation was not carried forward into the second season writer's guide. So, while it was later picked up by fans and licensed works and ultimately by the franchise itself, it is very much possible that the idea was nixed by the TOS production staff. Matt Jefferies, at least, famously thought in the beginning that the Enterprise was the "first bird."
Constitution Class Ships Seem To Be Everywhere
- Thread starter There Be Whales Here
- Start date
In The Making of Star Trek, bottom of page 165, Constitution is listed as one of the names "established for starships," in the same class as Enterprise. That doesn't mean that at time, 1968, the class was thought of as Constitution-class, but it does mean that the name Constitution, missing from earlier proposed lists, was on the final list as of that writing.
Also, the list of 14 names there exactly matches those given in Franz Joseph's Booklet of General Plans (Constitution-class blueprints).
Interestingly, the name Defiant is not on the list.
Also, the list of 14 names there exactly matches those given in Franz Joseph's Booklet of General Plans (Constitution-class blueprints).
Interestingly, the name Defiant is not on the list.
Agreed.
I expect that also has to do with the Titanic going to the bottom just halfway through her maiden voyage.
The memos about the starship names are in The Bird's papers. At some point @Harvey or I will look and see when Kongo shows up.
I suppose you could square that there are 14 names for ships with dialog that says that are 12 like her in the fleet by assuming one or two were destroyed before Kirk says that, but I forget how many times he says how many star ships there are.
...Only once, in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" - at which point there had been no losses mentioned, be it in production, airdate or stardate order. The first shocking loss would only come in "Doomsday Machine". But since there were several after that, we could easily assume a pattern, so that fourteen did exist at some point, but a couple of those had been lost before Kirk uttered his figures in "TiY". Squaring is simple! (Although of course we can also assume rounding, so that Kirk's dozen is a baker's plus a bit of extra.)
The only other reference to numbers, and an iffy one at that, is Stone's thinking of Kirk as "one in a million", implying if taken literally that there were, or had been, thousands of starship captains at least. Which is in line with numbers gleaned from the spinoff shows, but neither here nor there as regards TOS itself.
Timo Saloniemi
The only other reference to numbers, and an iffy one at that, is Stone's thinking of Kirk as "one in a million", implying if taken literally that there were, or had been, thousands of starship captains at least. Which is in line with numbers gleaned from the spinoff shows, but neither here nor there as regards TOS itself.
Timo Saloniemi
The "class J cargo ship" class is Mudd's ship in "Mudd's Women."
In TOS-R, the Aurora in "The Way to Eden" is made to be the same class, matching the ship seen in the updated TOS-R visuals for "Mudd's Women." So, we get a really good look at it in "The Way to Eden."
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Class_J_starship
^^^^
MCCOY: What's his problem, Commodore?
MENDEZ: Inspection tour of a cadet vessel. Old Class J starship. One of the baffle plates ruptured.
MCCOY: The delta rays?
MENDEZ: He went in bringing out all those kids that were still alive. Just wanted you gentlemen to be prepared.
MCCOY: What's his problem, Commodore?
MENDEZ: Inspection tour of a cadet vessel. Old Class J starship. One of the baffle plates ruptured.
MCCOY: The delta rays?
MENDEZ: He went in bringing out all those kids that were still alive. Just wanted you gentlemen to be prepared.
Or just not taken much note of? The script reference would be a fairly minor detail for the story editing side of production, but just the sort of thing that fans buying and poring over every Lincoln Enterprises offering they could get hold of would seize upon.
Indeed. Or the occurrence in "Space Seed" and on the list was just coincidence. If one intent was to name-check famous American warships "Constitution" would have to be near the top of the list of possibilities.
I assume the Kongo name was related to establishing a more international flavor. It may have been seen as a "safe" Japanese warship name; she had been seen as something of a hot item in WW1 when Japan had been a US ally.
BTW my own theory on the reason for the inclusion of "Farragut," which was not a famous carrier or warship name, is the great upswing of writing about and interest in the Civil War in its 1960s centennial years.
OTOH, Mudd makes it clear that he thinks of "starships" as something pretty special, and his vessel is far from being one.
Yeah, I agree there's plenty of wiggle room. The quote for the designation that I provided was verbatim from "Mudd's Women." I did that precisely for the reason you describe.
The TOS-R team apparently decided it would be the same ship class, as described in the Memory Alpha article regarding Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, #79.
TBH, I don't really have a problem with that.
There have been two US destroyer classes named for Farragut though. But you are probably right about the public awareness aspect of the name rising during the 1960s...
I don't believe that Mudd's Class-J cargo ship was supposed to be the same type of vessel as the Class-J training starship. One is civilian, the other is not. They just coincidentally happen to have the same class letter designation.
So does Merrick in "Bread and Circuses":
MERRICK: He commands not just a spaceship, Proconsul, but a starship. A very special vessel and crew. I tried for such a command.
Me either, but it also raises the question of why Starfleet would be using a small transport for cadet training. There is still wiggle room but it also seems a little grasping to merge them together.
Agreed. The Farragut DLGs were hot shit in the '60s, but I don't know how well-known that was for the general public. USS Farragut served in WW2, but there were many better-known ship names from that conflict. Could be a combination of factors, for sure.
I'd like to think the original Class J we saw (Mudd's ship) was not tiny but small (around 200') so it is just small enough for a small crew and large enough for a cadet crew of 60. The TOS-R version was too small, IMHO.
There's nothing in "The Way to Eden" that requires the Aurora to be a class J anything. It's simply called a "space cruiser."
With respect to TOS-R, I think that's where the biggest "mistake" in conflation lies.
With respect to TOS-R, I think that's where the biggest "mistake" in conflation lies.
We might even call it "retconflation."
Right - "The Way To Eden" showed the Aurora as a different ship from Mudd's ship in "Mudd's Women" in the original FX. "The Menagerie" is the only other episode that mentions a Class J and it was not shown on screen.
But it was explicitly referred to as a starship. Not a cargo vessel but an "old...starship."
