Star Trek Picard Season 3 End Credits - Legacy Ships at Earth Spacedock?

[Admiral Archer]

So I was trying to determine what legacy ship classes are still in service in 2401, other than the Sovereign-class. I was rewatching the end credits to Picard Season 3 Episode 1, titled "The Next Generation", and stumbled upon this interesting find: if you search from timestamp 51:13 until 51:19 (just 6 seconds of footage) on the episode I mentioned during the end credits, you'll see an LCARS display depicting the Earth Spacedock and a list of ship registries, such as NCC-52136 (the Steamrunner-class USS Appalachia) and NCC-80107 (the Luna-class USS Ganymede), both of which were present at the fleet formation. But wait! There's more! In addition to these two ship registries (and a couple more I couldn't quite make out) you can see four older class ships (insert Captain Picard Chain of Command part II joke here)! From what I can tell, the ships are:

At Center Left: Intrepid-class
At Upper Right: Defiant Class
At Center Lower: Sovereign-class*
At Far Lower: Constitution II Class (!?)

Now, three of these could easily be museum pieces, and perhaps Commodore LaForge was planning a sort of "starship parade" featuring the Enterprise-A, the Defiant and the Voyager at Earth Spacedock for Frontier Day, until the Changeling plot kinda threw those plans out the window. But if that's true, which ship is the Sovereign-class? There were no Sovereign-class ships in the Fleet Museum (that I know of) and the Enterprise-E sounds like it was un-flyable as of Frontier Day. But if it isn't the Enterprise-E, nor a non-musuem ship, it would have to be a ship that's still in service, which might indicate the other three are in service as well. Which makes an interesting suggestion: Are all three ships still in service? And if so, who would be flying a Constitution II class ship in 2401???

What do you guys think of all this? Granted it's just an end credits sequence, and just a background LCARS image, so it's hardly grounds for serious debate. Still, I really would like to see some "older" ships still in service. After all, just because something's old doesn't mean you throw it away.

*This could also be an Excelsior-class ship, it's kinda hard to tell, but if it is it could be the USS Excelsior, another museum ship, and an indication that Geordi's "Parade of Historical Ships" was indeed gonna be a thing, in addition to crushing my hopes that anything older than a Sovereign-class starship would still be in service.

 

[StewMc]

There was at least one formation of Defiant class ships in the fleet scenes in the last two episodes, although they were absolutely tiny on screen.

Could the Constitution in the credits possibly be a Constitution-III?

 

[Captain Shaw]

Was there a nebula class ship in the background somewhere in Picard?

 

[The Wormhole]

Was there a nebula class ship in the background somewhere in Picard?

I think there's one at the Museum.

 

[Tuskin38]

I think there's one at the Museum.

Yes the USS Lexington

There's also STO's Sutherland Class in some shots which is a 25th Century Nebula replacement.

 

[Captain Shaw]

I know the real reason we get new ships, is because they now use CGI instead of models, but for a inuniverse reason, I wonder if all the Borg Tec they had access to ment big improvement in Tec, or after the war they decided not to keep classes going for a 100 years.

 

[Tuskin38]

According to the VFX supervisor, they had access to a lot of the CGI models used in the DS9/VOY/TNG movies, but the format is so old it was just too time consuming to convert to the modern format.

Which is why they used models from STO and Eaglemoss alongside their own.

Though it's funny, the Nova Class model seen in the Confederation timeline in Season 2 was the original Voyager Nova Class CG model, just with whatever eaglemoss did to it + the red lights the Picard team added.

 

[Paul Weaver]

although they were absolutely tiny on screen.

Tough little ship...

 

[evilchumlee]

Intrepids, Defiants and Sovereign's are definitely still around. I do believe the Constitution you saw is a III just like Titan.

I know the real reason we get new ships, is because they now use CGI instead of models, but for a inuniverse reason, I wonder if all the Borg Tec they had access to ment big improvement in Tec, or after the war they decided not to keep classes going for a 100 years.

There could be a number of things going on. The Dominion War probably did alot to thin out alot of the REALLY old ships. Miranda's were dropping like flies.

PIC S1 is 2399... we're only looking at like 25ish years. Sovereigns, Defiants and Intrepids are only like 30 years old at this point. They may not be new and shiny, but a 30 year old ship should still be completely usable.

I could absolutely see a fleet modernization / replenishment taking place after the Dominion War.

 

[Dukhat]

Intrepids, Defiants and Sovereign's are definitely still around. I do believe the Constitution you saw is a III just like Titan.

Defiants and Sovereigns, yes. I saw zero Intrepids in the Frontier Day fleet.

 

[evilchumlee]

Defiants and Sovereigns, yes. I saw zero Intrepids in the Frontier Day fleet.

You appear to be correct. Sort of odd given they had an Intrepid model available. Maybe they just didn't want to potentially confuse viewers and think that Seven somehow pulled out Voyager or something.

EAS has a nice breakdown. So scratch Intrepids, but there were Akira's, Nova's, and Luna's.

Still, at the core of it, it really isn't odd at all that any of these ships would still be in service.

Using the STO ships is interesting though because it does seem to imply a modernization effort by Starfleet, given the presence of things like the Ross, Gagarin, Reliant, and Sutherland... which are really just modernized versions of older ships, not to mention the the Sagan and Excelsior II already in PIC. Feels like Starfleet has been phasing out older vessels, but just replacing them with newer models... or potentially even given them the incredibly odd-ball Titan-A treatment of being a Refit and a new ship at the same time.

I could absolutely see a Galaxy-Class just getting generally overhauled into a Ross-Class, or a Nebula into a Sutherland.

As a general side note, the more I see the Constitution-III, the more I like it. I'm never going to call it a "Neo-Constitution" because that's stupid, but I like the ship itself. I attribute the "Neo-Constitution" to a somewhat oddball slangish term used by Riker. Perhaps it's kind of en vouge to throw "Neo" around to describe the new fleet of ships inspired by older ships, even if they don't keep the same name... people might describe a Reliant as a "Neo-Miranda".

 

[HotRod]

As a general side note, the more I see the Constitution-III, the more I like it. I'm never going to call it a "Neo-Constitution" because that's stupid, but I like the ship itself. I attribute the "Neo-Constitution" to a somewhat oddball slangish term used by Riker.

Calling it a Constitution-anything doesn't make any sense to begin with, because it's not based on the Constitution class. It's based on the USS Shangri-la, a design they made canon in the damn show!

 

[evilchumlee]

Calling it a Constitution-anything doesn't make any sense to begin with, because it's not based on the Constitution class. It's based on the USS Shangri-la, a design they made canon in the damn show!

Yeah for sure, the creators based it off that design.

That doesn't really invalidate the in-universe ship designers deciding to go with the Constitution name, given the apparent revamp of Starfleet to look towards that era.

The Shangri-La wouldn't gotten the Constitution monniker because it was a ship from an era where the Constitution was still relevant on its own.

 

[HotRod]

Yeah for sure, the creators based it off that design.

That doesn't really invalidate the in-universe ship designers deciding to go with the Constitution name, given the apparent revamp of Starfleet to look towards that era.

The Shangri-La wouldn't gotten the Constitution monniker because it was a ship from an era where the Constitution was still relevant on its own.

Being that the Constitution and Shangri-la Class were two entirely different classes. And being that the Titan was clearly designed based off the Shangri-la Class, and not the Connie. Would it not have made far and away more sense to have the Titan be a "Neo-Shangri-la Class?"

I mean, we know why it was named a Constitution, Lord Terry wanted it to be, regardless of how much sense it made.

But in-universe? It makes not a bit of sense.

 

[evilchumlee]

Being that the Constitution and Shangri-la Class were two entirely different classes. And being that the Titan was clearly designed based off the Shangri-la Class, and not the Connie. Would it not have made far and away more sense to have the Titan be a "Neo-Shangri-la Class?"

But in-universe? It makes not a bit of sense.

It makes a ton of sense if you look at it from a different perspective.

Starfleet seems to be trying to invoke the golden age of exploration, the era of "those old scientists".

They built a new class of ship intended for science and exploration. They looked to an old Titan, a Shrangri-La-Class and thought "we can update this". They also though, "Hey wait a minute, this ship looks alot like a Constitution-Class!"

I picture a conversation with an Average Starfleet Joe..

Designers: "We're calling it the Shangri-La II-Class!"
Admiral Joe: "The what?"
Designers: "Shangri-La II, like we designed the ship after."
Admiral Joe: "What the hell is a Shangri-La class?!"
Designers: "Oh it's this really obscure design from the 2290s that we really liked, and one of the first ships getting this conversion is the Titan, which was also one of the old Shangri-La's"
Admiral Joe: "Never heard of it. That's stupid. Let me see this ship."
Designers *show ship*
Admiral Joe: "It looks a Constitution. Why not just call it Constitution? Nobody knows what a Shangri-La is."

 

[fireproof78]

And because of ignorance of history we get a dumb down naming.

Checks out with humans.

 

[evilchumlee]

And because of ignorance of history we get a dumb down naming.

Checks out with humans.

I suppose you could take that perspective. I would say the name is more important as a source of inspiration rather than nitty gritty technical details.

The ship was designed to harken back to the old days of Starfleet exploration and help usher in a new, more peaceful age... you could name it a Shangri-La II and make the couple of people who know or care what that is happy, or you can name it Constitution III... and everyone knows it is, giving it some prestige right off the bat.

That explanation works both in-universe and out.

Out of universe: "It's a Shangri-La-Class"
*The four people who know what is applaud.

"It's a Constitution-Class"
Most people: "Oh cool!"

 

[fireproof78]

I suppose you could take that perspective. I would say the name is more important as a source of inspiration rather than nitty gritty technical details.

The ship was designed to harken back to the old days of Starfleet exploration and help usher in a new, more peaceful age... you could name it a Shangri-La II and make the couple of people who know or care what that is happy, or you can name it Constitution III... and everyone knows it is, giving it some prestige right off the bat.

That explanation works both in-universe and out.

Out of universe: "It's a Shangri-La-Class"
*The four people who know what is applaud.

"It's a Constitution-Class"
Most people: "Oh cool!"

Star Trek fandom in a nutshell.

 

[evilchumlee]

Star Trek fandom in a nutshell.

I feel like it's somewhat opposite, and something i'm guilty of myself.

Usually it's fans getting upset because they didn't indulge some minor obscure detail.

 

[fireproof78]

I feel like it's somewhat opposite, and something i'm guilty of myself.

Usually it's fans getting upset because they didn't indulge some minor obscure detail.

Depends on the fan. The minute details are important until they are not, just like this name change.