Enterprise question

[Nero's Shadow]

I would assume that all the Connies got different mission types from deep space research to petrol duty to peaceful diplomatic mission. I assume also that the USS Enterpise was the only ship to seek out new life and complete its mission !!!! E.G. The USS Intrepid was lost with all crew investigating the space creature. I always thought that they must have been captains with the more experience to handle situations and kirk couldn't be the only legendary captain in starfleet???

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Another idea...we don't know that all of the Constitutions were doing the exact same type of mission as the Enterprise at the time of TOS.

Agreed.

We know from the Star Trek Writer's Guide that the Enterprise is the biggest and most powerful ship that Star Fleet has, one of our capital ships as Christopher points out.

And we know there are only twelve like it in our possession.

So I think there is no way Star Fleet could afford to send them all so far off into distant unexplored space, for extended, isolated, and autonomous missions.

Roddenberry wanted to put Kirk in situations where he had no boss looking over his shoulder, where he would have absolute authority to do big, dramatic things. The specific Horatio Hornblower novel that inspired this idea had to be Beat to Quarters (known as The Happy Return in U.K. editions).

 

[The Badger]

And we know there are only twelve like it in our possession.

And from this it is generally taken that there are only twelve Constitution class ships overall. But isn't it possible that there are variants within the class? The Enterprise in The Menagerie had a number of physical differences to that in the mainseries, as well as a much smaller crew. Perhaps the ' only twelve like her' description was of a specific configuration, an upgrade that only a few Connies had received?

 

[Christopher]

And did "twelve like her" mean twelve more in addition to the E, i.e. thirteen in all, or a total of twelve including it?

Anyway, just because there were 12/13 of them as of the first season doesn't mean there weren't more coming into service in the subsequent years. Although they did lose an awful lot of them in the span of just two years -- Constellation, Intrepid, and Defiant were all lost and Excalibur was crippled. So it's hard to say whether they broke even, gained, or lost.

 

[Nero's Shadow]

I was thinking what if... The Enterprise was the only ship to be the furthest ship out exploring the edges of federation boundaries. Also I assumed that starfleet gathered most of there Connies together when the Klingons started the war with them. Also we saw how a fleet of Connies could be formidable in combat. I've been thinking that the Connies that were lost were replaced the franz tech manual showed that starfleet had a array of ships from destroyers to scouts and tugs also the dreadnought was been built at the time possible to replace the Connie ??

 

[Timo]

We witnessed the Defiant get destroyed in deep space far away from other assets - supposedly on a mission similar to Kirk's. The Exeter was found, apparently by accident, by Kirk during one of his missions to space not frequented by UFP travelers; the Constellation, likewise.

If anything, we might deduce that ships of this class perform near-identical missions, and moreover that these missions overlap: one month, a region of space might be explored/patrolled by the Enterprise, while the next month, the same space might be covered by the Constellation (as "Doomsday Machine" would have us believe), and a region previously studied by the Exeter would later be given a second look by the Enterprise (as "Omega Glory" suggests).

Starfleet might do wisely to build a dedicated ship class for these missions, so that it wouldn't have to take any dedicated warships off the hot spots on the border, or any dedicated geological survey vessels from years-long missions of fully mapping a planet's mineral riches. Essentially, the Constitution would be a jack-of-all-trades ship for frontier purposes, quite possibly inferior to other dedicated designs in every single field but superior in combination. Or then it's actually an ace-of-all-trades, overengineered at great cost to do everything and thus to waste most of its capabilities at any given mission - but so that Starfleet doesn't need to send another ship to the frontier to do the job every time a job is specified.

If the previous incarnations of Trek and the latest two movies are to be taken as representing one and the same universe, we might do well to choose to believe that the Constitution was at most a jack-of-all-trades midget vessel, and perhaps just a deuce-of-all-trades in relative strength. A Constitution skipper would still be the cream of the cream, in major part for performing heroics with such a crappy little ship...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jaygibson77]

Here's where I saw it. From Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise:

 

[Christopher]

^Hmm. Sounds like Shane Johnson was thinking of Roddenberry's claim from the TMP novelization but (as is so often the case with human memory) exaggerated it in the retelling. Roddenberry didn't say that all the other Connies were destroyed, just that only the Enterprise came back from a 5-year mission with both ship and crew mostly intact. Meaning that sometimes the ship survived but not most of the crew, or most of the crew survived but lost the ship -- and implying that ships that weren't assigned to 5-year missions aren't included.

 

[Timo]

...It's a bit odd that SJ accompanies his FASA-style date with a stardate that is explicitly higher than the one mentioned in the first movie!

Another case of exaggerating in retelling is SJ's apparent idea that a five-year mission would be so standard that any ship (here the Enterprise) would be expected to complete multiple such missions, and apparently do nothing much else.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sariel2005]

I would assume that all the Connies got different mission types from deep space research to petrol duty to peaceful diplomatic mission. I assume also that the USS Enterpise was the only ship to seek out new life and complete its mission !!!! E.G. The USS Intrepid was lost with all crew investigating the space creature. I always thought that they must have been captains with the more experience to handle situations and kirk couldn't be the only legendary captain in starfleet???

Agree with this, actually I wondered whether the diferent badge types denoted the Constitution class ship were assigned to different departments of Starfleet as opposed to being individual to the ship ( making Enterprise the deep space exploration one, assigned to UESPA)
Certainly some ships seem fine when last seen, though they lack a crew ( USS Exeter, for example) and one imagines the ships were pressed back into service with new crews ( presumably they did not have refits, since Enterprise was apparently the test bed for that )

Back in the time of TOS, Kirk, his crew and his ship might not have been anything special. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have become unique by the time of ST:TMP somehow, possibly indeed by the virtue of their we-survived-the-full-five-years t-shirts. And indeed we hear rather explicitly that this five-year mission thing makes Kirk uniquely qualified among all Captains or or flag officers currently on Earth to face the V'Ger threat, so it must be a rare achievement indeed.

This is less telling than we might assume. All it means is that none of the other previous captains are not admirals on Earth at that time ( and certainly there are out of 12/13 starships there were not that many in the first place, of those we know of some are dead, one became a planetary governer and if the Vulcans have a ship to themselves surely the Andorians do too) . TNG indicates that a Starship returning to Earth is rare, so the idea of a training vessel left there aside, Its not unreasonable to assume they are sent far and wide, after all why would general defense vessels need long range ( not that we saw any) Starfleet may well consider Earth very safe and not needing Starship defense.

 

[Relayer1]

I'd say the phrase 'of the original thirteen Constitution class vessels launched' indicates that more came later.

If not, why use the word original ? Without it you get -

'of the thirteen Constitution class vessels launched'

 

[Timo]

All it means is that none of the other previous captains are not admirals on Earth at that time

Am I misreading this? Kirk was qualified despite holding flag rank, so we do have to count people promoted to Admirals.

And his "year class" of starship skippers is not the only one we have to consider: the movie is evidence that the previous commanders of starships did not gain experience on five-year missions against V'Ger like things, either. It's not just twelve people (minus casualties) we are discussing. If assignments lasting five years are exceptionally long, then it's all the more reason to think there are dozens upon dozens of former starship skippers available at Earth, and yet none can outshine Rear Admiral Kirk. (If five-year missions are common, then there might be fewer ex-skippers in existence, but the odds of finding an experienced skipper on Earth as opposed to an inexperienced one would correspondingly increase.)

The next movie already blows out of water the idea that you need one of the dozen Constitutions in order to clock up a five-year mission; the technical readiness for that is available in at least one other type of starship, and nothing indicates it wouldn't be in dozens or perhaps hundreds of types. Add to that ship types preceding the Constitution but still supposedly serving (why would there not be overlap?), and you have preempted the concept that starship availability limitations would prevent one from holding five-year-mission experience.

All this thus dovetails to five years being a really big thing for nuKirk in ST:ID...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sariel2005]

And his "year class" of starship skippers is not the only one we have to consider: the movie is evidence that the previous commanders of starships did not gain experience on five-year missions against V'Ger like things, either. It's not just twelve people (minus casualties) we are discussing. If assignments lasting five years are exceptionally long, then it's all the more reason to think there are dozens upon dozens of former starship skippers available at Earth, and yet none can outshine Rear Admiral Kirk. (If five-year missions are common, then there might be fewer ex-skippers in existence, but the odds of finding an experienced skipper on Earth as opposed to an inexperienced one would correspondingly increase.)

Not sure I agree, with twelve or thirteen ships doing deep space exploration of the sort that would give the experience to deal with V'Ger no others on Earth is not unreasonable, especially if some Constitution class ships are still out there, as to previous commanders, well April would be extremely old and Pike not exactly available either. TOS seems to imply only the Constitution ships are "starships" so dozens upon dozens of former skippers seems OTT

 

[Timo]

TOS seems to imply only the Constitution ships are "starships"

Naah - the ancient Archon was considered a starship as well. So it's a continuum of starship classes even back in TOS. And while some of those might not be capable of mounting five-year missions, some others would be: the Constitution class wouldn't have appeared out of nowhere, without direct predecessors.

The idea of a Starfleet solely consisting of Kirk's ship and any copies thereof TPTB could afford to show is not a particularly defensible one. Star Trek could rarely afford to show, but it made up for that by telling. And if Klingons can muster eight (unseen) ships to face a similar Starfleet force over the relatively insignificant Organia, then total fleet strength isn't something we should count in the dozens, but in the hundreds at the very least.

Kirk being unique among the available officers is really evidence of something exceptional. Whether it's 5yr missions being rare, or Earth being exceptionally devoid of officers at that time (and perhaps others), we don't know exactly. It may still simply be evidence of Kirk lying to Scotty, too...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Badger]

Meaning that sometimes the ship survived but not most of the crew, or most of the crew survived but lost the ship -- and implying that ships that weren't assigned to 5-year missions aren't included.

Or even that their missions may have been curtailed before the five years were up. The Enterprise, after all, was often reassigned to short term defensive tasks before returning to exploration. Perhaps other ships had more permanent missions?

"Hmm, the Romulans have increased their strength along the Neutral Zone. Better take a couple of Heavy Cruisers off their current deployment and add them to the defence fleet."

 

[Christopher]

The novel series Vanguard, set concurrently with TOS, has the Constitution-class Endeavour permanently assigned to Starbase 47 and the dangerous region of space it defends.

 

[publiusr]

Another possibility is that all the other starships were presumed lost in a conflict that took place off screen during the V'ger incident--or that only 12 really good Connies were to survive, the rest being, say, cheaper Achernars or something.

 

[Agonizer]

because the Enterprise transporters weren't operational yet -- the engineering crew was having problems getting them to work. When Kirk arrived in the engine room minutes before the accident, the engineers' chatter was about "faulty modules" in the transporter that kept its sensors from engaging. Cleary was in the process of putting a new backup sensor in the unit, per Scotty's order, when the transporter room started to engage the transport. Essentially, because they were rushing to do a job in 12 hours that should've been done over days or weeks, mistakes were made, and the accident resulted from that. Kirk's hubris, his zeal to use the crisis as an excuse to get his ship back, has resulted in an unready ship being pushed into service, and two people have died as a result. And Kirk has to live with the consequences of his actions.

Why is Kirk responsible here when the sequence of events in the movie points to a mistake on the crew? Yes, we hear some engineers saying something was wrong with the transporters. They should've then locked out the system so no one would use it and test it until corrected - like they did in "The Galileo Seven". Instead no one bothers to do this or inform the transporter room of the problem until the accident happens. Kirk didn't give any order to override safety protocols so this is a crew fault which goes to Shatnertage's comment of an inept Starfleet.

Given that one of the people killed was Kirk's ex-wife, maybe transporter "accident" = no more alimony.

 

[Christopher]

Kirk's hubris, his zeal to use the crisis as an excuse to get his ship back, has resulted in an unready ship being pushed into service, and two people have died as a result. And Kirk has to live with the consequences of his actions.

Why is Kirk responsible here when the sequence of events in the movie points to a mistake on the crew?

From a legal standpoint, he probably wouldn't be deemed responsible; after all, it was an emergency situation, and it's understood that the lives of military personnel are at risk in any crisis. But I was speaking more from an emotional and dramatic perspective. If Kirk hadn't forced the crew to get ready in a hurry, then they would've been more careful and fewer mistakes would've been made, and the accident wouldn't have happened. Its intention as a dramatic beat in the story was to force Kirk to face the cost of what he was doing -- that there was more at stake than just his own craving to get command back, and that being a commander meant being aware of your responsibility to the people under your command, the people whose lives are in your hands. It was part of Kirk's journey in the film, his arc from covetously and selfishly craving command to actually earning that command again.

 

[Timo]

Given that one of the people killed was Kirk's ex-wife, maybe transporter "accident" = no more alimony.

Technically, since the other victim besides Commander Sonak did not wear a flag uniform, she couldn't have been the character "Vice Admiral Lori Ciana". (Doesn't mean she couldn't have been Kirk's ex-wife anyway, or one of those at any rate.)

Timo Saloniemi