Is the Luna-class an improvement?

[Unicron]

Personally, I think the system's fudged up enough that it'll never be as consistent as we'd like. FJ's system has a somewhat similar issue, in that the destroyers have 500 series registries but the scouts also have these, as well as 600 series registries. The ships are ordered chronologically by number, and while this happens with the cruisers as well, it makes some sense there.

I myself like the idea that you can have a series number for a specific class, ideally without much overlapping but it might occasionally occur. The series number has little to do with the order of the construction in relation to other classes, but serves mainly to identify that class. In some cases you might have numbers carrying over between refits and upgrades, as Ships of the Star Fleet does with its frigates.

 

[Timo]

That registry scheme falls apart in the TOS time especially with the Constellation.

I agree that the scheme is unlikely to be the one in use by Starfleet (at any time) as it ill fits the evidence. But why would the Constellation be a special faltering point?

Nothing in the episode suggests she ought to have been newer than the hero ship. Nothing in the episode establishes that she ought to have been of the same class, either. Same shape, yes, but that isn't necessarily a telling point.

Onscreen registries in general don't require us to believe in anything specific, or to disbelieve in chronological order (with minor deviations). The weight of fan material seems to go for "batch-type" TOS registries and "wild and free" registering in the later eras where Starfleet grows significantly in size and complexity, though. And since starships are such a central aspect to being a Star Trek fan, I tend to favor these interpretations, canon be damned. That is, agreement with Unicron on TOS and earlier regos, simple rough chronological order for later eras.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Well, the Constellation is a Constitution with a 1017 registry. Which means that the Enterprise isn't the 17th cruiser design. Now with the remastered versions, it shows that the Enterprise isn't the 17th cruiser design with the Intrepid at 1631 and the Exeter at 1672. It would work somewhat if those vessels were upgraded FRAM style to the modern design ethic (2240s to 2260s), in which I do believe occurred.

 

[Timo]

the Constellation is a Constitution

But that's just it, this is not stated in the episode. All we know is that Decker's ship looks like Kirk's. A bit like the Kidd and Spruance and Ticonderoga classes look alike in the real world.

It would work somewhat if those vessels were upgraded FRAM style to the modern design ethic (2240s to 2260s), in which I do believe occurred

Could be like FRAM, which were "bulk" ships, lower-tier vessels refitted because that was an affordable alternative to building comparable numbers of modern ones. Could be a top-of-the-line ship class that gets upgraded because the original ship has already been such a massive investment, too - say, WWI->WWII battleships.

Or could be that Starfleet built a couple of parallel designs on this particular hull shape, like Spruance/Kidd/Ticonderoga, and those were the types 10, 16 and 17, respectively - with just a dozen hulls or less per design. Even NCC-1764 could be the 15th ship of the 17.5 type, rather than the 65th of the 17 type...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Exactly, I what I was getting at, but that scheme would still fall apart if lets the Falkirk-class frigate was designed and built as a quick alternative to help with anti-piracy and coast guard-like duties that you wouldn't need a larger constitution-class vessel to be doing. Especially with the size of the Federation, a large class of small vessels would not be unheard of. So the Falkirk would start at 1500, but does that mean that the class is only limited to a hundred vessels? Does that mean Falkirk 1600 is called something to else to make it fit in the scheme. I kinda wish that the creators went with a mission-specific scheme rather than what we got.

 

[Titan Designer]

I try not to think about the whole registry issue to much. It just gives me a headache.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Like time travel!

Hmm, that could be a good explanation for it...

 

[Titan Designer]

Damn Tempral Prime Directive...

 

[Vance]

Actually, there's a much simpler reason for the Star Fleet Registrar to be so odd at first glance. That reason is politics. Keep in mind a couple of things:

1) Each registry must be unique to a single vessel. There can only be one NCC-1701, period. The vessel that is NCC-1701 may be re-registered, but once appropriated (which is the key word), the NCC-1701 is taken.

2) The Star Fleet Appropriations Committee, part of the Federation Council, allocates funds and resources for each ship as they come across the desk. The Fleet says "We need 12 heavy cruisers" and the committe says "We approve contracts NCC-1700 through NCC-1711 for this project."

So what does this mean? It may mean that every concept for registration may have been accurate at one time.

*NCC-1700 may have started out as the 17th heavy cruiser design and was allocated accordingly.

*NCC-1017 may have originally been intended for a different ship class and was re-allocated to the new Constitution class before construction began on her.

*Those late NCC-1600 series ships may have also been leftover allocations put in by some other appropriation bill later, though now inconsistent with the original NCC-1700 appropriation. (Note, this would mean that no ships of that series would be in the original twelve.)

*NCC-2000 was allocated as a 'special project'. This could be retro-conned to include the NCC-1000 (Columbia/Bonaventure) as well. This may have been done YEARS before the Transwarp project had even been considered.

*Someone could assign new ship registry to 'fill in the gaps' for entries not yet used, giving us the oddities like the USS Eagle's low registry.

*Someone in the commitee in the 24th century demanded that the ships now be purely sequential, then someone later overruled him.

In that light, politics, it all makes sense.

 

[Unicron]

Perhaps it would have been somewhat simpler to either not use registries in the first place or just drawn less attention to them. Outside of Fed ships in Trek, I can't think of any other systems that use specific numbers for individual ships.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

CVN 65?

 

[6079SmithW]

Thought this might be of interest:

As with any retroactively applied system, peculiarities and seeming discrepancies were bound to (and still do) appear. George Washington (SSBN-598), for example, was a fleet ballistic missile submarine, nuclear propulsion, with a hull number of 598. This seems to indicate that George Washington was the 598th ballistic missile submarine accepted by the Navy, a reasonable assumption given the mid-20th century practice of using consecutive numbers. This is not the case, however, as the numbers were consecutive by general type, not individual class variations. Thus, SSBNs were slotted into the “submarine” category along with every other variation in submarine type (SS, SSK, SSG, SSN, etc.). George Washington, therefore, received number 598 even though it was actually the first SSBN in the U.S. Navy

link: http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/ship_nomenclature.htm

 

[Saquist]

I try not to think about the whole registry issue to much. It just gives me a headache.

It seems fairly straight forward despite the few exceptions.

 

[Vance]

Perhaps it would have been somewhat simpler to either not use registries in the first place or just drawn less attention to them. Outside of Fed ships in Trek, I can't think of any other systems that use specific numbers for individual ships.

You mean, other than most navies in the world since WWI? Even NASA uses a registrar system for all of their vessels.

In fiction, you're generally right (there are exceptions, like Wing Commander), though this is actually one of those elements of Star Trek that grounds it quite a bit when compared to other space-opera series. The existence of a registry implies a serious political body behind the ships, a bit more 'meat' to the Trek universe when compared to - say - Lost in Space.

 

[SicOne]

Regarding the Luna...

(1) Are all Luna sensor pods one-size-fits-all (as shown in the schematics in the "Sword Of Damocles" gatefold) with sensors AND weaponry (such as the triangular Nebula pod), or are there also separate tactical pods with minimal sensors and sensor pods (a la the Nebula AWACS-type) with no weaponry?

(2) AFAIK, we've only seen the two pods (triangular and oval) on the Nebula-class, which would suggest that that the final Nebula design was dictated by the two pod designs...would the Luna-class be able to manage different-sized or -shaped pod designs, or would future Luna pod enhancements be restricted to whatever would fit into a pod of that shape and/or size due to warp field dynamics or some related Treknobabble?

 

[Unicron]

Yes, I probably should have clarified that I was mainly referring to fiction as opposed to real militaries. Those tend to be a bit more consistent, most of the time.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Most of the time, just don't look at the Soviet/Russian System.

 

[Timo]

If Constitution starships got new registries when assigned to new fleets, Soviet style, it would be a delight to those who prefer the systematic FJ or even FASA numbers to the Greg Jein ones that were canonized in TOS-R. Say, the 1600 range regos could have been assigned for the "Ultimate Computer" wargames only...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Timo, you are a mad genius.

 

[T'Girl]

*NCC-1017 may have originally been intended for a different ship class and was re-allocated to the new Constitution class before construction began on her.

Or despite it's external appearance, the Constellation wasn't a Constitution Class starship, but rather a different (older) class that used a similar design philosophy. Might explain why Kirk initially had a small problem finding the auxiliary control room.