Was the Enterprise A actually the Yorktown?

[Timo]

Definitely so. But assuming that the ship was a newbuild carries the connotation that Starfleet still thought these ships were hot stuff. And I'd like to steer clear of such an idea for multiple reasons:

-The ST:TMP vessel was considered outdated and ripe for scrapping, despite the refit.
- We never see these ships after the last TOS movie (at least not intact and in use).
- ST3 makes a big deal about Starfleet wanting to upgrade to Excelsior, ST6 has the new model in regular use for the third year at least, and ST:GEN then shows the upgrade in full swing with more ships and variants coming off the production lines.
- Apart from the ST:TMP ship, the only Constitution we ever really get to see is the E-A anyway - and she shows signs of being another refit, what with her TOS-style shuttlebay (forced perspective issues notwithstanding, on both sides) and GNDN pipes and whatnot. All other uses of the Constitution shape are inconclusive, ranging from mere fragments glimpsed in ST4 to generic silhouettes being used in the charts of ST6.

From Starfleet's viewpoint, building an all-new ship just for Kirk would be silly. Donating a useful ship to him would be silly. But having him wear out an already obsolete ship would be perfect, as it would serve as a symbolic reward, a factual punishment, and an elegant means of waste disposal!

On the other side of the issue, Kirk at the end of ST6 seems to think there's still oomph left in the ship, enough for another crew to take over. For all we know (and Ashes of Eden notwithstanding), this is what happens - but Starfleet takes the flashy name off this ship and gives it to the latest pet project instead, so Kirk's second starship now continues service under some other name...

The real question is, how would a "solar-sail" generate power?

The same way a regular sail can generate drinking water: you "deploy" it in a "makeshift" manner!

(With regular sails, the routine trick is to make a funnel out of it for collecting rainwater. With a lightsail, you could again make a "funnel", using the reflective properties to mirror sunlight into a hot focus.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^
It's just as valid an idea as her being an all-new build is.

That's what FASA postulated in the Star Trek IV RPG Sourcebook Update - that she was a new build, originally supposed to be named the USS Atlantis, and then renamed Enterprise following the Whale Probe incident.

Yeah, there are at least 3 or 4 different origin stories amongst the fandom of where the E-A came from, all possible, none proven or dis-proven either way.

 

[SicOne]

But if it wasn't a newbuild, why all of the shipwide problems described in ST5? If it was an old Constitution recently refitted into new configuration, Starfleet has supposedly enough experience in refitting by now to not release a phucked-up ship into service, especially one bearing the name Enterprise. That has me thinking newbuild with some significant quality-control issues.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The same could be said for a refitted or recently repaired old ship, especially if she's launched before she's truly ready. She could have a fine engine that works brilliantly, but not all the doors work properly.

 

[SicOne]

Was there a TOS Constitution named Yorktown, to do a refit of in the first place?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Was there a TOS Constitution named Yorktown, to do a refit of in the first place?

Yes.

(The only TOS episode which mentioned it was "Obsession.")

 

[Timo]

Not that the episode would have actually told us what class the Yorktown represented, mind you. Even if the name "starship" is only applicable to the cream of the cream, and only one ship class at a time is built to those specs, it would stand to reason that there would always be at least three starship classes in simultaneous operation: the "current" design, the "past" design and the "future" design.

We saw seven starships (almost) identical in shape to Kirk's: the Constellation, the Defiant, the Exeter, the Excalibur, the Lexington, the Hood and the Potemkin. There was also a ship shaped like Kirk's but with the name illegible in the TOS_R version of "Court Martial", intended to be the Intrepid but portrayed in a manner contrary to the dialogue of the episode. Any of these could have been scheduled for a refit, and we only know the first two missed it for certain... (Although apparently, one was left unrefitted for Starfleet Museum, as per "Relics".)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saturn0660]

The same way a regular sail can generate drinking water: you "deploy" it in a "makeshift" manner!

Timo Saloniemi

Well played my friend. Well played indeed.

 

[Anduril]

Upon closer examination I believe it's actually unlikely it's the Yorktown as we just saw that ship earlier in the movie:

CARTWRIGHT: We don't know. Get me the Yorktown.
YORKTOWN CAPTAIN: (on viewscreen) Emergency channel zero one three zero. Code red. It has been three hours since our contact with the alien Probe. All attempts at regaining power have failed.
CARTWRIGHT: It's using forms of energy we do not understand.
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: Can you protect us?
CARTWRIGHT: We are launching everything we have.
YORKTOWN CAPTAIN: (on viewscreen) Our systems engineers are trying to deploy a makeshift solar-sail. We have high hopes that this will, if successful, generate power to keep us alive.

Theoretically, everyone aboard Yorktown might have suffocated in the icy cold of space, so you had an empty starship looking for a new captain.
On the other hand Scotty's remark of the E-A being a "new ship" (in the subsequent movie) seems to contradict this idea.

Not really, because if the Yorktown was crippled and had to be towed back to Earth for repairs, her captain and some of his crew could have been reassigned somewhere else while the ship was in dock. Starfleet could have made the decision to rename the ship the Enterprise-A based solely on her being the only available Constitution-class ship on hand at the time. For all intents and purposes, she would still be a new ship for Kirk and the TOS gang.

I imagine a similar situation played out for Picard and the TNG gang following the loss of the Enterprise-D in which an existing Sovereign-class ship in dock was renamed the Enterprise-E.

Sometimes, people have a hard time not taking what the characters say as gospel. "New ship" for instance. You have to look at it from their point of view sometimes.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Upon closer examination I believe it's actually unlikely it's the Yorktown as we just saw that ship earlier in the movie:

CARTWRIGHT: We don't know. Get me the Yorktown.
YORKTOWN CAPTAIN: (on viewscreen) Emergency channel zero one three zero. Code red. It has been three hours since our contact with the alien Probe. All attempts at regaining power have failed.
CARTWRIGHT: It's using forms of energy we do not understand.
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: Can you protect us?
CARTWRIGHT: We are launching everything we have.
YORKTOWN CAPTAIN: (on viewscreen) Our systems engineers are trying to deploy a makeshift solar-sail. We have high hopes that this will, if successful, generate power to keep us alive.

Theoretically, everyone aboard Yorktown might have suffocated in the icy cold of space, so you had an empty starship looking for a new captain.
On the other hand Scotty's remark of the E-A being a "new ship" (in the subsequent movie) seems to contradict this idea.

Not really, because if the Yorktown was crippled and had to be towed back to Earth for repairs, her captain and some of his crew could have been reassigned somewhere else while the ship was in dock. Starfleet could have made the decision to rename the ship the Enterprise-A based solely on her being the only available Constitution-class ship on hand at the time. For all intents and purposes, she would still be a new ship for Kirk and the TOS gang.

I imagine a similar situation played out for Picard and the TNG gang following the loss of the Enterprise-D in which an existing Sovereign-class ship in dock was renamed the Enterprise-E.

Sometimes, people have a hard time not taking what the characters say as gospel. "New ship" for instance. You have to look at it from their point of view sometimes.

Sometimes, people have a hard time of realizing that there's more than one way of looking at things. "New ship" could simply mean an old ship with a new name, for example. You have to look at it from the point of view that there's other possibilities sometimes.

 

[137th Gebirg]

It is clearly a "newer" design than the original refit. Out-of-universe cost-saving rationales aside, it has a different bridge module, newer style of engineering and warp core, totally different secondary hull innards with regard to shuttle bay and cargo hold, different turbolifts. The refit may have been an "almost" entirely new Enterprise, but the E-A is an entirely new Enterprise. It brings to question why they would decommission her so soon in TUC after being launched only a few years before - just for some hull damage that could be easily repaired in drydock for a couple of months? Maybe the E-A was the first casualty in "mothballing the Starfleet", or some enterprising (pun not intended) young Admiral wanted to make his/her/its mark on Starfleet by commissioning a new Excelsior-class Enterprise-B (already on the drawing board by this time?)

Dunno...

 

[C.E. Evans]

It is clearly a "newer" design than the original refit. Out-of-universe cost-saving rationales aside, it has a different bridge module, newer style of engineering and warp core, totally different secondary hull innards with regard to shuttle bay and cargo hold, different turbolifts. The refit may have been an "almost" entirely new Enterprise, but the E-A is an entirely new Enterprise.

Not necessarily. Indeed, I would argue that not all ships from the same class are exactly the same, with some having different bridge modules, engine rooms, etc. You can take six ships from the same class that start off as identical copies of one another, but after a few decades of service, you'll find notable differences in them all as a result of different modifications to each over time. In fact, the Enterprise-A had a different bridge module in each movie she appeared in and there were changes to the original Enterprise bridge between TMP and TWOK.

It brings to question why they would decommission her so soon in TUC after being launched only a few years before...

That's where the old ship theory really works, IMO. If the Enterprise-A was actually a renamed vessel roughly the same age as the original, it easily explains why she decommissioned--she was already past her prime at the time of TUC, with the Enterprise-B waiting in the wings to replace her.

 

[The Badger]

... It brings to question why they would decommission her so soon in TUC after being launched only a few years before - just for some hull damage that could be easily repaired in drydock for a couple of months? Maybe the E-A was the first casualty in "mothballing the Starfleet", or some enterprising (pun not intended) young Admiral wanted to make his/her/its mark on Starfleet by commissioning a new Excelsior-class Enterprise-B (already on the drawing board by this time?)...

I've thought the same thing. We don't know the exact details of the Kitthomer Accords, but the (perhaps flippant) comment about 'mothballing the fleet' suggest there may be a reduction in the Federation's military capability. Now, and this is pure speculation I admit, if the Fleet had to limit the number of heavy cruisers in use, they'd have a choice. Maintain their current force of Constitutions, or gradually phase them out of service, replacing them with the new Excelsiors.

Having just developed the Excelsior, and probably built the construction facilities, it's not surprising they go with the newer ship. There's no sense in repairing the heavily damaged Enterprise-A, not when it will be decommissioned soon anyway, hence the message to decommission at the end of TUC. And it also explains why no Constituions are in service in TNG times, despite some contemporarys being so.

 

[C.E. Evans]

A case could be made that perhaps as far back as Star Trek III, the Constitution-class was already on its way out and to be replaced by the Excelsior-class.

Then again, perhaps there were still Constitution-class ships in service during TNG, but they weren't deployed where our heroes were.

 

[Ronald Held]

Perhaps the decommissioning was part of the treaty?

 

[C.E. Evans]

Or maybe not. The treaty was really just an agreement for the Federation and the Klingons to cease hostilities with one another while the Klingons rebuilt their economy and cleaned up Qo'noS.

 

[Timo]

The Khitomer Accords are credited with odd things later on, such as a ban on subspace weapons... Sure, that's the "second" Khitomer Accords, whatever that means, but it does establish that such esoteria would be within the general purview of Khitomer Accords regardless of ordinal number.

And the Accords also involved the defining and possible redefining of borders, as Gowron quotes their ceding of Archanis to the Federation as the reason for his going to war against the UFP.

Since the Accords ended almost a century of cold war, there were probably piles upon piles of issues to be dealt with there, ranging from territorial disagreements to the number of starships allowed to the type of secret handshake required when representatives of the two sides would meet in neutral territory. It would greatly surprise me if the Accords were a simpler document than the treaty with the Sheliak!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

I do think there were amendments to the Khitomer Accords over the years--including the eventual establishment of an alliance between the Federation and the Klingons after the Narendra III incident--but that it originally started off as a simple time out/cease-fire agreement following the Praxis disaster. Otherwise it seemed little to curtail the size of Klingon and Federation forces (the Federation in particular continued to develop bigger and more powerful starships over the decades).

 

[BillJ]

It's been nearly thirty-years and there is no right answer and there is likely never going to be a right answer.

 

[CharlieZardoz]

It's always fun to discuss these things. Right answer aside, thanks! ^_^