USS Copernicus, NCC-640 or 623?

[Dukhat]

The whole "A" business originated with that Enterprise design sketch from Matt Jefferies where he added next to "17th Cruiser Design" "1st Moderize & Modification 1701A".

Get your facts straight. The "A" business, at least as far as delineating a newer ship with the same name as an older ship, originated at the end of Star Trek IV The Voyage Home, by that movie's producers. I sincerely doubt they were thinking anything about Matt Jeffries at the time.

I've also seen that original sketch by Jeffries - its in the Star Trek Sketchbook. 1701A is quite clear there.

Yes, but that's not why the new Enterprise in STIV had a registry of NCC-1701-A. It had that registry because they needed something to differentiate that it was a new ship and not the old one. They could have easily decided to go with 1701-2, 1701-II, or 1701.1 for that matter

 

[throwback]

I am working on the planets, stars, and star systems articles on Memory Alpha. One thing I have learned is how much non-official material - that done by people who are intimately involved and the fans - can veer off course from what is stated in the canon. (To Timo, I know this is a sensitive topic as you worked on the Star Trek: Star Charts. I am apologizing in advance.)

Here is an example: Romulus. Here is what I wrote.

The common assumption among the fans and some of the production staff was that Romulus was located in the Beta Quadrant. The Romulan Star Empire bordered the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets. This empire didn't border the Cardassian Union. This belief was made canonical with a display graphic from "Insurrection" that depicted the location of the Romulan Star Empire. [http://startrekpropcollector.com/trekauctions/items/6746] [http://startrekpropcollector.com/trekauctions/images/ae990050495ed308f2dddf80cbe72bdc]

However, an examination of the dialog painted a different picture. The picture began to be drawn by the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'. The first time that a location for the Romulan Star Empire was given was in the episode "The Search, Part II". In this episode, the Romulan Star Empire was identified as one of the great powers of the Alpha Quadrant. For the Dominion, there were four great powers in this quadrant: the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Cardassians. With the Battle of the Omarion Nebula, two of these threats had been reduced in effectiveness - the Romulans and the Cardassians. By "Call to Arms", the Cardassians were in an alliance with the Dominion and three powers, small and great, had signed non-aggression pacts with the Dominion. These powers were the Miradorns, the Tholians, and the Romulans. In the opinion of Constable Odo, the Dominion was ''...making impressive inroads into the Alpha Quadrant...''. In "In the Pale Moonlight", it was revealed that the Dominion forces were crossing the Cardassian-Romulan border and were launching attacks against Federation ships. The Dominion was secretly planning to invade Romulan space from Cardassia, and, by their estimation, the Romulans would be defeated in three weeks. When Benjamin Sisko was attempting to persuade Senator Vreenak to consider having the Romulans join the offensive against the Dominion, the Starfleet officer said "''I'd pick the side most likely to leave us in peace when the dust settles. Maybe you're right. Maybe the Dominion will win in the end. Then the Founders will control what we now call Cardassia, the Klingon Empire and the Federation. So, instead of facing three separate opponents with three separate agendas, you'll find yourselves facing the same opponent on every side. There's a word for that. Surrounded''".

This association of Romulus with the Alpha Quadrant was carried over to the sister series, Star Trek: Voyager. In "Flashback", [[Captain]] [[Kathryn Janeway]] reminisced about what it would be like to live in [[James T. Kirk]]'s era. In his era, large swaths of the Alpha Quadrant were yet to be explored, and one of the dangers to be encountered in the quadrant was Romulans hiding behind nebula. In "Bliss", when it seemed that the Voyager would find a way home to the Alpha Quadrant, Tom Paris stated that he looked forward to Cardassians, Ferengi, and Romulans. In "Flesh and Blood", Chakotay identified the Romulan disruptor as an Alpha Quadrant weapon. In "Q2", in a simulation, several Alpha Quadrant species were fighting over mining rights to a planetoid, and Q Junior had to find a way to settle the dispute. The species listed were the Nausicaans, the Bolians, the Cardassians, the Romulans, the Ferengi, and the Bajorans.

In conclusion, the Romulans were an Alpha Quadrant species. The territory of their Romulan Star Empire was surrounded by the Cardassians, the Klingons, and the Federation.

Mr. Okuda, who created the map in Insurrection, and Mr. Mandel, who created the Star Charts, created maps based on what they believed and not was stated in the canon. Intention counts for nothing when it ignores what came before.

 

[Timo]

Interestingly, the same is true of Andrew Probert, who placed the Romulans and the Klingons to the antispinward side of Earth in that famous piece of background art from TNG "Conspiracy" already.

All the onscreen graphical evidence, from Probert or Okuda or Sternbach, is in favor of the Romulans being somewhere "to the upper right", that is, antispinward and coreward of Sol. It is an amusing coincidence that the real star Gamma Hydra, closely associated with Romulans in "The Deadly Years", is also in that direction.

No other relevant "real-world" stellar data on the Romulan Star Empire exists in canon. But in a further bit of amusement, the constellation Triangulum (Australe) is nicely clustered in that direction, too, making fans of Diane Duane's Romulan stories rejoice... The corresponding Triangulum (Boreale) in the opposite direction isn't such a good candidate for various reasons, but would naturally also serve as an argument.

Whether dialogue or graphics should be preferred in this case, everybody can decide for themselves. Intriguingly, nowhere in onscreen dialogue is it even established where these Alpha or Beta Quadrants are to be found; the idea that Beta would be antispinward from Alpha, with Earth, Sol or the Federation straddling the line, is purely based on graphical evidence.

As for the Star Charts, the booklet was lamentably outdated even when it came out of the press. It would be fun to get an updated version in roughly the same format (that is, printed or virtual, but with the same sort of simple 2D layouts and planetary introductions and whatnot) some day. Say, some day when there wasn't any new Trek coming out of our receivers. Say, today...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Robert Comsol]

"Yes, but that's not why the new Enterprise in STIV had a registry of NCC-1701-A. It had that registry because they needed something to differentiate that it was a new ship and not the old one. They could have easily decided to go with 1701-2, 1701-II, or 1701.1 for that matter "

...and since we had never seen the first USS Constellation NCC-1017, there really wasn't any need to add an "A" to Matt Decker's starship which was possibly named and numbered to honor the achievements of the previous Constellation. Thank you, "Sir"

The case of Yamato's original NCC-1305-E prefix clearly shows they wanted to do something similar like NCC-1701-D. Yes, they did change the registry scheme (just as they did for the two Valiants of the 23rd Century), but it nevertheless cleary hints that USS Yamato was named after a previous ship of that name, too, and the registry of the first one seems to have been NCC-1305.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Wouldn't it better serve your purpose if you were starting a new thread with Romulus?

Just like the people of Cheron (cloaking technology...!) the Romulan Star Empire was located at the outer rim of known space, sector Z-6 to be precise. Many years ago and before TNG I attempted a sketch of known space as a sphere or globe (Sector J-39 somewhere in the middle) where sector Z-6 was sort of speaking the South pole.

Considering the Romulans were unregistered colonists or exiles (think Botany Bay and Australia) I always thought the South Pole analogy to be a good one.

"Intention counts for nothing when it ignores what came before."

 

[Dukhat]

...and since we had never seen the first USS Constellation NCC-1017, there really wasn't any need to add an "A" to Matt Decker's starship which was possibly named and numbered to honor the achievements of the previous Constellation. Thank you, "Sir"

First of all, enough with the condescending comments. They're not going to make you any friends here.

Second, please give me some evidence that there was a Starfleet U.S.S. Constellation NCC-1017 that existed before Matt Decker's ship. That's just your speculation, but you're speaking as if it's some kind of fact.

The case of Yamato's original NCC-1305-E prefix clearly shows they wanted to do something similar like NCC-1701-D. Yes, they did change the registry scheme (just as they did for the two Valiants of the 23rd Century), but it nevertheless cleary hints that USS Yamato was named after a previous ship of that name, too, and the registry of the first one seems to have been NCC-1305.

As I said before, I wasn't arguing with you about that idea. And I have no idea what you're talking about with the "two Valiants." The only ship named Valiant in the 23rd century was the one that visited Eminiar.

 

[Robert Comsol]

"First of all, enough with the condescending comments. They're not going to make you any friends here."

Fair enough if you stop treating me like a cadet.

"Second, please give me some evidence that there was a Starfleet U.S.S. Constellation NCC-1017 that existed before Matt Decker's ship. That's just your speculation, but you're speaking as if it's some kind of fact."

It's a question of deduction:
a) The USS Constellation NCC-1017 is a cruiser of the 16th (Constitution Class) or 17th design (Enterprise Class). Conclusion: The NCC registry scheme doesn't make sense
b) The USS Constellation NCC-1017 is a cruiser of the 10th design. Conclusion: Thanks to an incredible amount of interior and exterior modifications it looks almost exactly like Kirk's television Enterprise
c) Matt Decker's Constellation had been renamed and renumbered honoring the achievements of a previous one to send a strong pyschological message to Federation opponents that are familiar with the success of the original ship.

So why is Picard's Enterprise still wearing the registry of the original ship from a treknological point of view? In my opinion because Kirk and the Enterprise gained a notorious reputation among the Romulans for TOS events in "Balance of Terror" and "The Enterprise Incident" - Any NCC-1701 showing up near the Neutral Zone tells the Romulans the Federation means business. It's a show of strength.

So I fail to see, why the same idea shouldn't apply to an earlier Federation vessel. If there are better explanations I'm curious to hear these

I mentioned Valiant because the two ships in the 24th Century clearly reveal that this concept doesn't apply here or anymore.

Same with the Yamato, the concept was obviously abandoned, but from the evidence at hand (NCC-1305-E) we are at least enabled to conclude that there have been previous ships with that name and the first one was NCC-1305.

Bob

 

[Timo]

Fair enough if you stop treating me like a cadet.

...When you are in fact an Ensign.

It's a question of deduction:
a) The USS Constellation NCC-1017 is a cruiser of the 16th (Constitution Class) or 17th design (Enterprise Class). Conclusion: The NCC registry scheme doesn't make sense

Or, rather, doesn't work the way Jeffries once thought it might. But it's quite sensible for a vessel of a certain design to sport a registry number lower than that of a vessel of a design that is not older than the first design. "Not older" is the only requirement there for giving the system easily graspable logic.

b) The USS Constellation NCC-1017 is a cruiser of the 10th design. Conclusion: Thanks to an incredible amount of interior and exterior modifications it looks almost exactly like Kirk's television Enterprise

Or then the 10th and 17th design are identical to start with. Happens a lot in the real world, both with designs separated by some time (if there are no major breakthroughs or other developments in technology during that time) and when numerous designs are created in a short span of time.

c) Matt Decker's Constellation had been renamed and renumbered honoring the achievements of a previous one to send a strong pyschological message to Federation opponents that are familiar with the success of the original ship.

There is no known historical or pseudohistorical precedent for the practice of reusing a registry number for "honoring", though. Registry numbers are supposed to identify, which calls for uniqueness and precludes repetition.

The freezing of a player's number in a sports team is a somewhat different issue, basically the exact opposite of "honoring by copying". Which already might tell us something about the nature of honoring.

So I fail to see, why the same idea shouldn't apply to an earlier Federation vessel.

The thing is, it doesn't seem to apply to the Constellation. Her registry number lacks the established repeat indicator, the suffix letter. And if the "heritage" of Kirk's ship reached the letter D by the 2360s yet that of the Yamato was already at the letter E, then the system of letters for repeat indicators would appear to predate Kirk.

I mentioned Valiant because the two ships in the 24th Century clearly reveal that this concept doesn't apply here or anymore.

Why should two ships of the same name bear the same registry a priori? If registry repeating is a way of honoring a celebrated ship, then you'd have to demonstrate that a random ship (in this case, a Valiant) would be celebrated before you could argue that another ship by that name but by different registry serves as evidence one way or another. As far as we know, there was nothing celebrated about any of the Valiants, Hoods, Intrepids or Grissoms that have had their name reused later on.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

In DS9, the NX-74205 Defiant was destroyed and Sisko was given the San Paolo in "The Dogs of War" and given a special dispensation to rename (and change the registry) of the ship to the Defiant.

SISKO: Special dispensation from the Chief of Starfleet Operations to change the name from Sao Paulo to Defiant.

​

And there is the TOS Enterprise's upgrade from her TOS-look to the TMP-look. She kept her registry and name. Now going from NCC-1701 to NCC-1701-A might be explained as a change in classes as the 1701 was described as "Enterprise Class" in the simulator label in TWOK and in TUC could have been a "Constitution Class". Note: I consider TOS as it's own separate continuity and the TOS Movies as "bridge" continuity that could work in TOS or TNG.

In anycase, the NCC-1017 Constellation could have been an older class but still of a starship configuration. Whether she was an upgrade that kept her registry or a replacement ship or the original we don't have enough information to determine either way, IMHO.

 

[Robert Comsol]

"And there is the TOS Enterprise's upgrade from her TOS-look to the TMP-look. She kept her registry and name. Now going from NCC-1701 to NCC-1701-A might be explained as a change in classes as the 1701 was described as "Enterprise Class" in the simulator label in TWOK and in TUC could have been a "Constitution Class". Note: I consider TOS as it's own separate continuity and the TOS Movies as "bridge" continuity that could work in TOS or TNG.

Thanks for reminding. Then Kirk's first Enterprise was the first in the series if it's Enterprise Class.

The NCC-1701-A already is a different Enterprise as it has transwarp drive (according to the bridge screens). Obviously a Constitution Class (according to Scotty's blueprint in ST VI) "II". I also favor separate continuities. Nice to see I'm not the only one.

"In anycase, the NCC-1017 Constellation could have been an older class but still of a starship configuration. Whether she was an upgrade that kept her registry or a replacement ship or the original we don't have enough information to determine either way, IMHO."

Yes. Though that shouldn't stop us wondering which explanation seems to be the most credible (unless we just go along with the VFX production reasoning...).

Bob

 

[Dukhat]

Fair enough if you stop treating me like a cadet.

I was treating you like someone who had his facts wrong, and I was simply correcting you. If you don't like being corrected, I can't help that.

It's a question of deduction:
a) The USS Constellation NCC-1017 is a cruiser of the 16th (Constitution Class) or 17th design (Enterprise Class). Conclusion: The NCC registry scheme doesn't make sense
b) The USS Constellation NCC-1017 is a cruiser of the 10th design. Conclusion: Thanks to an incredible amount of interior and exterior modifications it looks almost exactly like Kirk's television Enterprise
c) Matt Decker's Constellation had been renamed and renumbered honoring the achievements of a previous one to send a strong pyschological message to Federation opponents that are familiar with the success of the original ship.

It's not your deductions I'm questioning. I asked if there was any actual evidence from a canon source that the Constellation's registry was numbered in honor of a previous ship. Those three examples are only your opinion and AFAIK cannot be backed by visual evidence or dialog from the actual show.

So why is Picard's Enterprise still wearing the registry of the original ship from a treknological point of view? In my opinion because Kirk and the Enterprise gained a notorious reputation among the Romulans for TOS events in "Balance of Terror" and "The Enterprise Incident" - Any NCC-1701 showing up near the Neutral Zone tells the Romulans the Federation means business. It's a show of strength.

Star Trek IV heavily implied if not outright stated that Kirk got his new Enterprise (and with the "A" attached to it) from his efforts in saving Earth from the Whale Probe, and nothing whatsoever to do with Romulans.

I mentioned Valiant because the two ships in the 24th Century clearly reveal that this concept doesn't apply here or anymore.

I'm still not sure what you're talking about. There were only two ships named Valiant in the 24th century and they both had different registry numbers.

In DS9, the NX-74205 Defiant was destroyed and Sisko was given the San Paolo in "The Dogs of War" and given a special dispensation to rename (and change the registry) of the ship to the Defiant.

SISKO: Special dispensation from the Chief of Starfleet Operations to change the name from Sao Paulo to Defiant.​

Actually, only the name was changed. The registry stayed the same as the Sao Paolo's. The scenes where the registry was the original Defiant's were just stock footage of the old Defiant and was not meant to be taken seriously as a registry change as well.

 

[blssdwlf]

Actually, only the name was changed. The registry stayed the same as the Sao Paolo's. The scenes where the registry was the original Defiant's were just stock footage of the old Defiant and was not meant to be taken seriously as a registry change as well.

Until the VFX is re-done for DS9, her registry got changed to the NX-74205 registry

 

[Dukhat]

Actually, only the name was changed. The registry stayed the same as the Sao Paolo's. The scenes where the registry was the original Defiant's were just stock footage of the old Defiant and was not meant to be taken seriously as a registry change as well.

Until the VFX is re-done for DS9, her registry got changed to the NX-74205 registry

If DS9-R will be anything like TNG-R, the VFX footage will not be redone.

 

[Timo]

Then again, TNG-R was rather different from TOS-R. While that was largely for technical reasons, various commercial reasons might warrant massive revamping in DS9-R.

And we're still waiting to see what happens to the Yamato...

Although I'm hoping they won't go overboard with "solving" the assorted inconsistencies and cock-ups, I'd like to see them tackle a few things, just to learn what they think of the issues.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

Then again, TNG-R was rather different from TOS-R. While that was largely for technical reasons, various commercial reasons might warrant massive revamping in DS9-R.

Actually, you bring up a good point: Will the later seasons, with much more heavily-laden CGI space scenes, have to be redone for HD?

 

[Robert Comsol]

"Actually, you bring up a good point: Will the later seasons, with much more heavily-laden CGI space scenes, have to be redone for HD?"

Foundation Imaging provided the CGI for seasons 6-7 of DS9 and seasons 3-7 of VOY. The company was dissolved in 2002, their CGI work is considered as lost.
Thus for HD the work would have to be redone.

Bob

 

[Timo]

...But only if the surviving finished material doesn't already qualify as HD.

I mean, it does exist in a variety of LD formats, including VHS tapes on a shelf right next to me. And there's quite a bit of original LD effects work from TNG that is currently being used in TNG-R as HD "as is", without going back to the lost roots. Original LD material from DS9 would be doubly qualified for serving as HD material for DS9-R: it might already be good enough, and it's so complex and involved in comparison with TNG anyway that redoing it might be way too much work.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[throwback]

The CGI work for the Crystal Entity was lost. So, CBS Digital redid the CGI, attempting to match the original work.

 

[Robert Comsol]

"...But only if the surviving finished material doesn't already qualify as HD.
I mean, it does exist in a variety of LD formats, including VHS tapes on a shelf right next to me."

All that had been previously available on consumer video (VHS, Laserdisc or DVD) is only standard definition or 480 horizontal lines of resolution compared to Full HD's 1080 lines. None of that qualifies for HD, as the original masters are equally only available in 480i SD.
From DS9's third season on, improvements in professional video technology yielded a better picture quality but - again - only in SD.

Bob

 

[Dukhat]

BTW, to get back to the OP topic, I've updated and finished my essay on the Oberth class. I had to shorten it, as I was originally speculating about possible new designs to replace the ship in TNG-R, until the knowledge that that won't be happening. Oh, well.

https://www.box.com/s/ogjlykhmvdq1inpk2b7p

Sometime in the near future I'm going to write up another essay like this, focusing on the uses of the Reliant studio model in TNG (and its one use in DS9 as the Saratoga). And hopefully I will be updating my woefully behind conjectural classes essay too.