Was the reveal of the Enterprise-A a big surprise?

I have heard that too: Yorktown is the ship that Roddenberry was telling people was renamed Enterprise A, but that doesn't make sense given that in ST IV, they say the Yorktown was adrift and they were getting ready to deploy the solar sail, when the Whale Probe rolled through Federation space near the beginning of the movie. It really seems unfair to unseat that captain and crew to give the Yorktown to Kirk, and then to add insult to injury, rename it!

And with Ti-Ho, from I think MR Scotts guide to the Enterprise or something similar, a brand new ship, being renamed Enterprise-A, it still doesn't make sense, when it was decommissioned 5 or so years later.

So to me, the thing that makes the most sense to me is the Enterprise-A was a newly refitted Constitution Class ship, that was around the same age as the original 1701, and then renamed Enterprise-A .

 

But then did TUC imply the crew was getting decomissioned or the ship ? If the latter, that's just 5 years for a brand new ship.

 

I've still got my theory that 'Enterprise A' was kind of a ship on permanent stand-by, whose crew were in a state of semi-retirement except for a few occasions when Starfleet assembled them together and sent them out on a special mission that required the specific talents of that crew and that captain. Certainly, it's clear they haven't been out in space together for some time at the start of STVI, and even the events at the beginning of STV could be interpreted the same way. The crew are all off doing their own things and Uhura has got to "get the band back together" for the Nimbus III mission.

Behind the scenes, I assume 1701-B was already under construction in the timeframe of STIV to STVI, so Kirk's "new" Enterprise was probably only ever intended to be a temporary stop-gap by the powers that be in Starfleet Command.

 

That depends on if you accept the Okuda Chronology's dates, which has ST II-V happening over the course of 3 years (2285-87) when internal evidence from the movies show them taking place over the course of a few months at the most. They also have TWOK 18 years after The Space Seed rather than 15 (and yes, I am aware of the reasons why; and no, they can't be 15 Ceti Alphan years, since Kirk independently confirms the 15 year time-frame)

If you use the date references from the films (15 years after Space Seed in TWOK; McCoy's been assigned to Enterprise for 27 years) its a gap of closer to 10 years between V and VI.

 

I wouldn't take the numbers so seriously.

9/11 happened 10 years ago. In casual conversation, you round numbers. 10, 15, 20.

 

Yeah, but, generally speaking, nobody rounds 18 down to 15, they round it up to 20. And I would totally agree that there is some wiggle room if not for the fact that both Kirk and Khan independently give the 15 year figure as the amount of time since thier last meeting.

 

In Okuda's chronology, Star Treks II-III took place towards the very end of 2285 and then Star Trek IV took place three months later in early 2286. He then placed Star Trek V in 2287 after presumably a year-long shakedown cruise (or space trials) of the Enterprise-A.

But it can be a figurative or off-hand number given by both Kirk and Khan. Quite a few people in the real world do that when being precise isn't an issue (Spock might be the only one inclined to give an exact number--even down to the month and day perhaps).

 

It has been a while since I saw ST4, but wasn't the Yorktown shown at the beginning a Miranda Class vessel?

 

^That was the Saratoga. A bit later we see the Yorktown's captain (that former tennis player guy) on the big screen at Starfleet HQ, talking about deploying a solar sail. But we don't actually see the ship or what class it is.

 

Yes, my mistake. I went from memory, but it's indeed about 8 years rather than 5.

 

I think you have to assume that ST5 takes place shortly after 4 on the basis of Scotty's, "Let's see what she's got, said the Captain, and then we found out, didn't we?" The totally-different bridge appearance aside, of course.

By this time, the original 1701 had been gone three months, so I don't believe the E-A was a totally new ship built in the time between the Bird of Prey crash and the crew's trial -- of course, I don't know how much time passes between those two events. A day or two, perhaps?

I'm with the poster who said the ship that stood for the E-A was on a permanent standby basis and the reason she has the shortest lifespan is that the E-B could have been under construction or in the planning stages at that time.

 

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3rRSue6eDk[/yt]

The interesting thing to me about this scene, is that two Constitution class vessels are clearly visible in spacedock before the Enterprise is even seen. The shuttle seems to fly over one and you then see another when the view switches to the inside of the pod - on the right-hand side.

And I have to say, I absolutely LOVE that bridge seen here as opposed to the one in ST5.

 

^^^
Actually, all we see is an Oberth-class ship, the front part of a warp nacelle, and the aft part of a nacelle & pylon combo that could belong to a different design. Can't really say they were any clearly Constitution-class ships in that scene.

If anything, the scene initially caused a brief moment of confirmation that Kirk and the gang were going to get the Excelsior until the last moment.

Truthfully, that's one reason why I can accept Okuda's idea that about a year passed between Star Treks IV and Star Trek V. To me, it's perfectly plausible that the new Enterprise-A was in service for awhile, discovered numerous problems during that time (which would still validate Scotty's comment), and then returned to Earth to fix them.

 

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28NCC-1701-A%29

The E-A never had a captain to my knowledge besides kirk, either.

 

I remember years ago seeing a Ent-A design illustration plan that was somewhere between a Constitution and Excelsior in shape. Was that legit concept art or fan art, anyone?

 

Fan design. There were several. My personal favorite is the Solaris-class design; it's the Constitution refit scaled up with Excelsior parts.

 

I remember hearing from some people that at one point the E-A was going to be something entirely new.

Another thing I heard some years ago was that there were rumors it would be "the original." As in, a souped up TOS Enterprise waiting for them in drydock... I'm almost certain he was pulling my chain. Still, it was an interesting thought.

 

I remember seeing a drawing of a different design for the E-A some years ago. It had curved nacelle struts and the engineering hull was really strange looking,almost like it was drawn with french curves in the front of it. Does anyone else recall seeing this drawing?
I just found a picture of it doing a google search for nx-1701-a but unfortunately I have no way of posting the image and apparently hotlinking is a no no.

 

http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/uss-enterprise-nx-1701-a.php

^ This one?

Very interesting design.

 

Yes that's the one I saw.