they make a lot of assumptions on the based of limited or no information. like the class of the starships Yorktown, Intrepid, Farragut, Republic, Deirdre and the Antares.
as well as out-right making stuff up like the NCC numbers...
Wolf 359 Questions
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they make a lot of assumptions on the based of limited or no information. like the class of the starships Yorktown, Intrepid, Farragut, Republic, Deirdre and the Antares.
as well as out-right making stuff up like the NCC numbers...
Then again, the people making up those NCCs are people employed for making up NCCs. AFAIK, all of the registries there were created by Mike Okuda for use in the show, even if only in the background computer graphics. In that sense, they are as valid bits of Trek information as, say, the idea that Kirk's first name is James or that the Enterprise has shuttlecraft. Those things were made up by people employed for the purpose, too.
Assigning class identities to unseen and possibly nonexistent starships, though... Not part of Okuda's work description, I guess.
Timo Saloniemi
Assigning class identities to unseen and possibly nonexistent starships, though... Not part of Okuda's work description, I guess.
Timo Saloniemi
The starship chart in the Encyclopedia does contain the notation: "Many of the class designations and registry numbers are somewhat conjectural, although most of them have been used in various background charts and readouts...." So it's not like the authors were deliberately trying to mislead anyone or pass this off as canonical.
Yeah, and it really doesn't make much of a difference if they do make that kind of conjecture because it has very little significance. Who cares about the registry numbers? So what if it's 54806 instead of 54598?
To me, it's a world apart from the Endeavour claims.
To me, it's a world apart from the Endeavour claims.
Well, why is it that every Excelsior class ship has a ridiculously high registry, and not a 2xxx registry like the Excelsior herself? I'm not sure it's supposed to represent production order, because I just don't think there are that many Excelsiors in the fleet. I respect Mike Okuda's work and I think he contributed a lot to the series, but I've also sometimes gotten the impression that he made up a lot of the registries just to avoid using the systems that have appeared in non-canon works, like FJ's technical manual (all Constitutions followed the 1700 scheme, while Okuda gave several vessels 1600 registries). I think he may have, unintentionally or intentionally, contributed to the registry system being so screwy to begin with.
this thread has drifted off topic....
I think it was because there was a refit (possibly) class of Excelsior still being used in the TNG era. This refit class probably got new numbers. Take the Lakota (NCC-42768), whose registry was clearly seen on the show.
Unfortunately, that theory doesn't quite work, as other Excelsiors of the "classic" design have been shown with the same insanely high registry numbers as the Lakota.
I've often wondered about this myself, and I know I stated this same thing somewhere else on this board (but it's location escapes me...
). The ironic thing is that at the start of TNG, all the Excelsiors used had low numbers, like the Repulse and the Hood (which actually had NCC-2541 printed on the hull, but it was never clearly seen in the episode), and the highest numbers were still in the 1XXXX range. Then, around the first or second season of DS9, all of a sudden the numbers inexplicably jump to 4XXXX! That's higher than the Ambassador class, which was supposed to be a more advanced class than the Excelsior. 
Even the Hood gets a new 4XXXX registry number, contrary to what was printed on the hull.
I've often wondered about this myself, and I know I stated this same thing somewhere else on this board (but it's location escapes me...
). The ironic thing is that at the start of TNG, all the Excelsiors used had low numbers, like the Repulse and the Hood (which actually had NCC-2541 printed on the hull, but it was never clearly seen in the episode), and the highest numbers were still in the 1XXXX range. Then, around the first or second season of DS9, all of a sudden the numbers inexplicably jump to 4XXXX! That's higher than the Ambassador class, which was supposed to be a more advanced class than the Excelsior. Even the Hood gets a new 4XXXX registry number, contrary to what was printed on the hull.
Don't they all?
Well, one would think that something as insanely complicated, large and groundbreaking as NX-2000 would have to wait a long time for series-produced sisters. It sounds perfectly reasonable that there'd only be a handful of ships in the 2XXX slot, to be followed by the first series production batch a decade or so later, with those 14XXX registries. Quite possibly something similar happened with the Constitution class, too, as we get the NCC-1017 in addition to the ships clustered around 16XX-17XX.
Whether there would still be demand for a second batch at 42XXX is debatable, but I don't really see why not. Those ships would still have lower registries than any witnessed "new" ship type save for the Ambassador class, and I don't think the giant Ambassador would be a direct competitor for the Excelsior niche, but more like a high-end companion. The next "new" designs emerge at NCC-52XXX, which is where the earliest Steamrunner registries lie, and then comes the Galaxy generation with its earliest examples at NCC-57XXX (the New Orleans class).
The one Excelsior with a registry even higher than 42XXX-43XXX would be the Melbourne, which originally in "Best of Both Worlds" was a Nebula class ship and thus a plausible recipient for a high registry. Too bad the registry wasn't changed when the ship became an Excelsior in "Emissary". Then again, good that this new ship's registry was never quite seen on screen and can be ignored...
Apart from the Excelsiors, the Mirandas also appear to come in two batches - 18XX and 31XXX. And the Ambassadors and Niagaras also have two batches, it seems - but that's just fine with me, because we actually see that there are two distinct variants of Ambassador, and we can also speculate that there used to be a variant of Niagara that had different engines, considering that the lower Niagara registries would (in the chronological interpretation) coincide with an era when those Galaxy engine lookalikes probably weren't available yet.
All in all, I have no problem with the Okuda registries in the TNG era. It's just too bad that they trample on "established" fandom registries in the TOS era - but happily, Okuda hasn't done too many TOS era ships. And the ones that were given Okuda registries in TOS-R didn't all get to show the numbers on screen and in focus, so there's wiggle room...
Timo Saloniemi
Whether there would still be demand for a second batch at 42XXX is debatable, but I don't really see why not. Those ships would still have lower registries than any witnessed "new" ship type save for the Ambassador class, and I don't think the giant Ambassador would be a direct competitor for the Excelsior niche, but more like a high-end companion. The next "new" designs emerge at NCC-52XXX, which is where the earliest Steamrunner registries lie, and then comes the Galaxy generation with its earliest examples at NCC-57XXX (the New Orleans class).
The one Excelsior with a registry even higher than 42XXX-43XXX would be the Melbourne, which originally in "Best of Both Worlds" was a Nebula class ship and thus a plausible recipient for a high registry. Too bad the registry wasn't changed when the ship became an Excelsior in "Emissary". Then again, good that this new ship's registry was never quite seen on screen and can be ignored...
Apart from the Excelsiors, the Mirandas also appear to come in two batches - 18XX and 31XXX. And the Ambassadors and Niagaras also have two batches, it seems - but that's just fine with me, because we actually see that there are two distinct variants of Ambassador, and we can also speculate that there used to be a variant of Niagara that had different engines, considering that the lower Niagara registries would (in the chronological interpretation) coincide with an era when those Galaxy engine lookalikes probably weren't available yet.
All in all, I have no problem with the Okuda registries in the TNG era. It's just too bad that they trample on "established" fandom registries in the TOS era - but happily, Okuda hasn't done too many TOS era ships. And the ones that were given Okuda registries in TOS-R didn't all get to show the numbers on screen and in focus, so there's wiggle room...
Timo Saloniemi
People should not take Star Trek's ship registration numbers all that seriously.
Even in the real life U.S. Navy you have some massive inconsistencies.
The three Seawolf class submarines are "SSN-21, SSN-22, & SSN-23" when the submarines before and after them have numbers in the "700s".
Why?
The "21" was originally supposed to be a reference to "21st century" alluding to the advanced technology of the submarines.
Even in the real life U.S. Navy you have some massive inconsistencies.
The three Seawolf class submarines are "SSN-21, SSN-22, & SSN-23" when the submarines before and after them have numbers in the "700s".
Why?
The "21" was originally supposed to be a reference to "21st century" alluding to the advanced technology of the submarines.
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
Obviously the registry numbers were a major weakeness that the Borg were able to exploit.
Or that the surviving ship just decided to make like a tree and run. If one is to make the Endeavour assumption, this makes sense because
A) You have someone to pick up the escape pods. The largest ship type we saw at 359 was the Nebula class. I don't think a Cheyenne or something of the like would be able to take on all the survivors. (Though there really is no way to know how many survivors there were, is there?)
B) I just wanted to make a list.
Regardless of which ship it was, someone picked up the escape pods before the Borg left, since I doubt they'd leave a couple thousand pefectly good living beings un-assimilated.
A) You have someone to pick up the escape pods. The largest ship type we saw at 359 was the Nebula class. I don't think a Cheyenne or something of the like would be able to take on all the survivors. (Though there really is no way to know how many survivors there were, is there?)
B) I just wanted to make a list.
Regardless of which ship it was, someone picked up the escape pods before the Borg left, since I doubt they'd leave a couple thousand pefectly good living beings un-assimilated.
^^Sure. Haven't you ever been to Birnam Wood?
is that the zombie moan of a dead thread?
I can help resurrect it with a topic of my own.
Voyager often had Borg or ex-Borg characters who were assimilated at Wolf 359 (like Riley in "Unity"). The only way I have been able to reconcile this is with the theory that there was a second Borg ship present or that the Cube was able to launch some sort of smaller craft like a Sphere.
The Enterprise destroys the Borg Cube at the end of the second episode. There is no way there were any survivors, let alone any chance that those survivors could have made it back to the Delta Quadrant.
Voyager often had Borg or ex-Borg characters who were assimilated at Wolf 359 (like Riley in "Unity"). The only way I have been able to reconcile this is with the theory that there was a second Borg ship present or that the Cube was able to launch some sort of smaller craft like a Sphere.
The Enterprise destroys the Borg Cube at the end of the second episode. There is no way there were any survivors, let alone any chance that those survivors could have made it back to the Delta Quadrant.
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