Twelve Like It In The Fleet

[Forbin]

I haven't forgotten that. But look at the list of starships in TOS: the USS Constellation, the USS Defiant, the USS Enterprise, the USS Excalibur, the USS Exeter, the USS Hood, the USS Intrepid, USS Lexington, and the USS Potemkin. (We assume that the Intrepid was a Constitution-class vessel, without even actually seeing it in the "original" (pre-remastered) TOS. Does anyone have a list of carriers to match up with these names, and others to fill out the balance of Kirk's 13?

One problem I see with the only-13 Constitution-class theory is that of the vessels listed above, the USS Constellation, the USS Defiant, the USS Enterprise, the USS Excalibur, the USS Exeter, and the USS Lexington all appeared to have human captains during their appearances in TOS, and the Defiant, Enterprise, Exeter and Lexington appeared to have either mostly- or all-human crews as well. We did not see any non-human captains of starships during TOS, although we're told that "Intrepid is manned by Vulcans". So if there were only 13 Constitution-class vessels in Starfleet during TOS, and Travacious' list above of losses of ships and crews from this class are that serious, the peacetime Federation is suffering wartime losses. None of the Enterprise's officers, or any Starfleet guest characters seemed to have a commensurate sense of urgency about them.

The only thing I would surmise (based on no clear evidence) is that if Starfleet had only 13 Connies during TOS, then Starfleet must have a much larger pool of "Connie Lite" light-cruiser-style ships that would be almost as capable as the Enterprise, but somewhat less massive and with smaller crews, like Starscape's Spitfire. (additional views: 2, 3)

Otherwise, Kirk's 13 would refer to the historical group of the original Constitution-class, Constitution-subclass prototypes/pathfinders/first-production-run, allowing for subsequent subclasses of Connies like those listed in FJ's Tech Manual.

Twelve. "There are only 12 like it in the fleet." Not "there are 12 MORE like it in the fleet." That's 12 including the Enterprise.

 

[Timo]

But enough people would not recognize that difference (even if somebody explained it to them) that 13 remains equally valid as an interpretation. Kirk could well be one of those people.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lieut. Arex]

Otherwise, Kirk's 13 would refer to the historical group of the original Constitution-class, Constitution-subclass prototypes/pathfinders/first-production-run, allowing for subsequent subclasses of Connies like those listed in FJ's Tech Manual.

Which, following the stardates in the Tech Manual, wouldn't have been built at the time of the episode.

Stardate
0965 -- Original appropriation for the Constitution class starships.
3113.2 -- "Tomorrow is Yesterday"
3198.4 -- "Errand of Mercy"
3220 -- Bon Homme Richard class appropriations
4444 -- Replacement appropriations for Valiant, Intrepid, Constellation, and Farragut.
5928.5 -- "Turnabout Intruder"
5930 -- Achernar and Tikopai class appropriations.

 

[Wingsley]

I said "like those listed in FJ's Tech Manual".

I never said that FJ's work has to be adopted verbatim; only the concepts he introduced were of interest.

BTW: "only 12 like it in the fleet" means there are 12 other starships like the Enterprise.

 

[Forbin]

BTW: "only 12 like it in the fleet" means there are 12 other starships like the Enterprise.

Not in my head!

I've always heard it as "There are only a total of 12 in the fleet that are like this one." Otherwise he'd have said "12 MORE like it" or "12 OTHERS like it." At least that's the way I say things like that.

 

[Outpost4]

It's a Baker's Dozen, Forbin. Dunkin' Donuts Heavy Industries built the ships for Starfleet.

Actually, I agree with you, completely. How people make 12 to be 13 is beyond me, even as I read it here.

 

[JM1776]

Frankly, I've always assumed that the diagram visuals of Saladin-, Hermes-, Ptolemy- and Federation-class starships in Star Trek II entirely canonize and legitimize those classes ... and that the Miranda-class was to some extent an evolution of the Ptolemy, which served a utilitarian function so surpassingly well that its descendant was still in service a century-plus later.

Your mileage may vary, of course ... but such an interpretation certainly solves the numbers problem, whilst maintaining the uniqueness of the Constitution-class early on in the series.

 

[Shatmandu]

If you folks were standing on the deck of the carrier Enterprise tomorrow, and the Captain of that ship said the line, how would you interpret it?

Joe, realist

 

[SonicRanger]

Considering that (1) the Connies are 20+ years old in TOS and are seen as obsolete just a few years later and (2) there were between two and five Connies lost (depending on how you count) during the three years of TOS, there could have been many more Connies during their production run, perhaps as many as 50 (or even more).

 

[J.T.B.]

Also, as far as ships and their missions go I would think that Starfleet would have to leave the "distant stations" model of Nelson/Hornblower, where individual cruisers are important, and move to the "fleet in being" form which puts an emphasis on multiple ships operating in concert. There would probably still be smaller research and exploration vessels but major combatants would operate as parts of squadrons, task forces, and fleets.

The Nelson/Hornblower RN of the late 1700s to 1815 was very much a fleet-oriented force, built around big fleets in home waters and the Mediterranean, with smaller but still powerful fleets elsewhere. Cruising vessels did mainly three things: scouting for the battle force, raiding enemy shipping, and escorting friendly shipping. After Trafalgar, even this mission dwindled, by 1808 there were only about a dozen frigates and a dozen sloops assigned to independent cruising duty. And there was little time for exploring, of course (the 1787 Bounty voyage was in a brief interval of peace).

The term "fleet in being" refers to a naval strategy where a smaller fleet exercises strategic influence over a larger fleet by staying in port, tying down enemy forces to watch it, rather than fighting a battle which it would probably lose. Not really applicable here.

As I mentioned in the "Musing on the 12-ship fleet" thread a couple of months ago, the Royal Navy of the late 1800's Pax Britannica period is closer to the TOS Starfleet, with policing and exploration supplanting most of the war fighting mission. But it's still not completely comparable: major threats in the TOS era often come out of the unknown. It's as if the intrepid RN explorers scouting new islands in the Pacific were as likely to be met by new steam battleships as by canoes.

But look at the list of starships in TOS: the USS Constellation, the USS Defiant, the USS Enterprise, the USS Excalibur, the USS Exeter, the USS Hood, the USS Intrepid, USS Lexington, and the USS Potemkin. (We assume that the Intrepid was a Constitution-class vessel, without even actually seeing it in the "original" (pre-remastered) TOS. Does anyone have a list of carriers to match up with these names, and others to fill out the balance of Kirk's 13?

Constellation was a US carrier active from the 1960's till five or so years ago. Intrepid and Lexington were WW2 carriers and were still in active service when TOS originally aired. The first carrier Lexington was sunk early in WW2. The name Hood is most notable for a famous British battle cruiser sunk by the German battleship Bismarck. Exeter is best known as the name of a British cruiser in the Battle of the River Plate. Potemkin was a Russian battleship where a famous mutiny took place and the subject of a classic silent movie. Excalibur and Defiant don't have much of a history as warship names, but the latter appears as a fictional ship of the line in the 1962 film HMS Defiant (US title Damn the Defiant).

Of the other Constitution-class names generally ascribed to the TOS era only Yorktown is a US carrier name. Some sources list Eagle, which was an early RN carrier. In The Making of Star Trek someone mentioned in early starship name discussions that there should be a Japanese carrier name, but the only Japanese name associated with TOS Constitutions has been Kongo, which was a battle cruiser in WW1 and upgraded to battleship for WW2.

BTW: "only 12 like it in the fleet" means there are 12 other starships like the Enterprise.

It might work grammatically, but nobody uses the language that way; as Forbin points out, "more" or "others" would be used for clarity. The "twelve like it" construction is much more likely to be used to mean twelve than thirteen.

--Justin

 

[Tyberius]

BTW: "only 12 like it in the fleet" means there are 12 other starships like the Enterprise.

Not in my head!

I've always heard it as "There are only a total of 12 in the fleet that are like this one." Otherwise he'd have said "12 MORE like it" or "12 OTHERS like it." At least that's the way I say things like that.

As spoken in the ep, the phrase can mean either 12 ships total or 13 ships total.

 

[Timo]

We could always argue that what Kirk is saying is "There are twelve like her in the fleet, and then there is this one which isn't in the fleet because it's stuck here in the past"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

Here's another twist:

Kirk's "twelve like it in the fleet" line does not explicitly link his comparison to a specific starship class. Was he talking about Constitution-class starships? There is nothing conclusive there to expressly hold that idea up.

Kirk could have been talking about 12 (or 13) Class I starships sponsored by UESPA. If so, and if other founding member-worlds of the Federation such as Vulcan, Tellar and Andor each sponsored a similar number of starships, Starfleet could easily encompass hundreds of starships-of-the-line, depending on just how many member-worlds there are in the Federation. Note that in this line of reasoning, Kirk may not have been talking about the Constitution, but rather all starships-of-the-line (Constitution and other large Class I starships) who hail Earth as their home port. (Or which have predominantly human crews).

In this scenario, there is no clear picture as to how many Connies are in operation during TOS.

 

[Timo]

To be sure, Kirk's response "twelve like it" is to Christopher's exclamation that it must have been difficult to build something this impressive. So it should really be taken to refer to the technological feat, not to details of organization - either twelve ships exactly like Kirk's, or then twelve ships similar to Kirk's in technological might (allowing for a few ships even mightier, and lots of ships less mighty, of course).

Kirk might be enough of a bigot to exclude non-Earthling Starfleet ships of identical type or impressiveness. But he'd be rather unlikely to start from an organizatory premise, such as "only those ships under UESPA authority", and only then narrow it down by technological criteria.

This is not to say that there wouldn't be room for speculation. To the contrary, we have good reason to think that Kirk is lying his eyes and ears full whenever he "divulges facts" to this intruder from the barbaric past.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timewalker]

There is a section in The Making of Star Trek, by Gene Roddenberry, where he has a list of Constitution-class starship names. There are twelve.

 

[Timo]

Which of course doesn't tell us anything about how many Constitution class starships were in service during TOS in "reality", or what their names were in "reality".

"Reality" would have us believe there were those starships we saw on screen, those starships we heard mentioned on screen, plus those starships whose registries were seen in "Court Martial" on the famed Star Ship Status chart. The mixture of Constitutions and non-Constitutions there is largely for the audience to decide.

This "reality" does not seem to be in conflict with the list from the book. We just have to assume that there were originally far more Constitutions than the twelve listed, considering the high casualty rate; whether the dozen in the book represent a selection of the original strength, or exactly the 12 survivors in existence during "Tomorrow is Yesterday", is another point to be debated.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[A beaker full of death]

They never spoke of Constitution class. They only spoke of "starships", which as used was clearly intended to convey capital ships, as opposed to other warp-capable ships. Therefore, it does seem pretty evident that there were only 12 (or 13) starships, as they used the term.

 

[Wingsley]

If you go back look at Kirk's line in the turbolift scene in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", Kirk never expressly makes his remark about a class of vessel or "starships" as a type of vessel.

To recap, my emphasis added:

CHRISTOPHER: Must have taken quite a lot
to build a ship like this.

KIRK: There are only 12 like it in the fleet.

CHRISTOPHER: I see. Did the Navy--

KIRK: We're a combined service, Captain.
Our authority is the United Earth Space Probe Agency.​

Kirk never mentions a starship class, nor does he elaborate on his "twelve like it in the fleet" remark to make it sound like the entire United Federation of Planets has only 12 or 13 starships. Far from it; he seems to distinguish between UESPA and any other "authority" in the Federation, which strongly suggests (using FJ's "Class I" analogy) there are 12 or 13 Class I starships sponsored by UESPA in the Federation Starfleet.

Kirk's "combined service" mention seems to back this up. Starfleet Command may be the authority for deployed Federation starships, but Kirk's remarks seem to strongly suggest that each member-world of the United Federation of Planets must either contribute (or prove itself?) by building those ships to an agreed-upon spec. This may be one of the ways the Federation determines which worlds get to "join the club" and which are merely allies.

 

[Forbin]

If you folks were standing on the deck of the carrier Enterprise tomorrow, and the Captain of that ship said the line, how would you interpret it?

Joe, realist

I'd interpret it as the captain being stupid, 'cause the CVN-65 is a one-off build. There ARE no other ships like it.

 

[Shatmandu]

If you folks were standing on the deck of the carrier Enterprise tomorrow, and the Captain of that ship said the line, how would you interpret it?

Joe, realist

I'd interpret it as the captain being stupid, 'cause the CVN-65 is a one-off build. There ARE no other ships like it.

Zzzzzz.

Joe, zzzzz-ing