NCC = Not Constitution Class?

[Robert Comsol]

"Ah, that was a cool website! Figuring out the Falcon's guts is about as fun as figuring out the Enterprise's."

Yes, it was (unfortunately emphasis on was ).

But I'm inclined to disagree: Figuring out the Falcon's interior is like always chosing the lesser of two evils (not that much "fun").

If you go for a blueprint that accurately reflects the studio sets, you end up with an internal arrangement that hardly looks believable or credible.

If you go for a blueprint that is supposed to look good and believable, you'll have to twist and tweak the actual studio sets at the expense of accuracy (I did this once, my solution was to give the main hold area a trapezoid shape instead of a correct rectangle).

The advantage of a starship like the Enterprise is its sheer size that will accomodate a variety of studio set interiors.

My latest revision of the TOS Enterprise's hangar deck is hopefully an example that accuracy with minor tweaks can have a credible and believable look: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=7499314#post7499314

Bob

 

[Albertese]

I've found that if you assume that the exterior studio set for the Falcon was itself a scaled down model, and you scale it up to accommodate the interior set of the cockpit, then the rest of the sets can fit in without too much massaging.

I understand the guys who are building a full-size Falcon are taking this approach... Their ship is something like 114 feet long?

Anyhow, I wouldn't want to steer this thread too far away from the topic at hand...

--Alex

 

[Robert Comsol]

In the Jefferies model, the implication is "16th cruiser design" and "18th cruiser design." By that method, there are/have been 98 16xx class, 19 17xx class, and 32 18xx class vessels indicated by that chart. (Not to mention the 18 10xx vessels. )
Serial numbers make it even a larger fleet, with 813 ships between NCC-1017 and NCC-1831, although not all of those are necessarily starships.

I'd like to revisit the issue because today a different idea came to my mind, mostly inspired from "The Doomsday-Machine".

In the episode's beginning there's heavy subspace interference:

PALMER: The distress call definitely came from one of the solar systems in this sector.
KIRK: Can you pinpoint it any closer, Lieutenant?
PALMER: Negative. It was so badly garbled all we got was the name Constellation, then we lost it.

The Epsilon 9 subspace chatter from TMP hinted that a proper subspace message will contain the name of the vessel and its NCC registry.

If Lt. Palmer would not have gotten the name in the distress call but just a fragment of the NCC registry (e.g. "...17") would that have meant they remained clueless (too many NCC registries ending with a "17") or would that have helped them to immediately identify the Constellation by the "17" ending?

Apparently there'd only be a pool of 99 numbers available to the front-line Starfleet vessels (those most likely to experience subspace disruption and possibly limited to starships and destroyers).

The last two numbers follows no chronological system but will be assigned ("Naval Contact Code"?) based on availability. If a vessel is scrapped or destroyed or considered permanently lost it's removed from the active inventory and its last two NCC digits can be assigned to a new vessel.

Interestingly that works well with three known Star Trek starships.

• USS Excalibur (NCC-1664) was destroyed by the M-5 in "The Ultimate Computer", the last two digits passed on to the
• USS Defiant (NCC-1764) whose crew was found dead and the ship was considered permanenty lost in interphase in "The Tholian Web", the last two digits passed on to the
• USS Reliant (NCC-1864) that was destroyed in the explosion of the Genesis Device in "The Wrath of Khan".

(Darn, I would never serve on a starship with a registry ending of "64" ).

Admittedly, there'd be something wrong with the USS Intrepid (NCC-1631 according to TOS-R) as it existed at the same time Commodore Stone's starship status chart in "Court-Martial" (now in HD) shows the number to be actually NCC-1831.

But since Greg Jein's "1631" was a misinterpretation of the actual "1831" (indiscernible to read properly when he wrote his "John Doe Starship" article) I'd say either TOS-R is wrong or the starship status chart needs a fix.

Bob

 

[Albertese]

Interesting idea...

--Alex

 

[Kenny]

Forgive me for resurrecting this old (and interesting) thread, but there's one more problem that no one has mentioned regarding the registry of the Intrepid and what is and isn't canon...

Jein said that the registry of the Intrepid was NCC-1631. This has become (arguably) canon because this registry was used in Star Trek: Remastered.

But what we've all forgotten is that Franz Joseph's registry of the Intrepid as NCC-1707 was (arguably) established as canon by a deleted scene and artwork from Star Trek IV.

See: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/NCC-1707

The question, as has been debated in this thread, is whether dialogue from deleted scenes "count" as canonical in a meaningful way.

And what's really interesting about these registries of the Intrepid is that we have two dueling numbers from canonically suspect sources: one from a movie's deleted scene/artwork and one from a CGI special effect used in a remastered episode of the original series. And neither number is on the Starbase 11 chart in the original series.

Fans of Greg Jein's registries line up on the left, please. Fans of Franz Joseph's registries line up on the right, please. Face each other. Ready, set, go....

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Forgive me for resurrecting this old (and interesting) thread, but there's one more problem that no one has mentioned regarding the registry of the Intrepid and what is and isn't canon...

Jein said that the registry of the Intrepid was NCC-1631. This has become (arguably) canon because this registry was used in Star Trek: Remastered.

But what we've all forgotten is that Franz Joseph's registry of the Intrepid as NCC-1707 was (arguably) established as canon by a deleted scene and artwork from Star Trek IV.

See: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/NCC-1707

The question, as has been debated in this thread, is whether dialogue from deleted scenes "count" as canonical in a meaningful way.

And what's really interesting about these registries of the Intrepid is that we have two dueling numbers from canonically suspect sources: one from a movie's deleted scene/artwork and one from a CGI special effect used in a remastered episode of the original series. And neither number is on the Starbase 11 chart in the original series.

Fans of Greg Jein's registries line up on the left, please. Fans of Franz Joseph's registries line up on the right, please. Face each other. Ready, set, go....

There needn't be any conflict there, since the ship shown in TVH is a refit-class. Just because the refit Enterprise had the same registry number as the Constitution-class original, it doesn't mean that each refit-class ship had the same registry number as the Connie with the same name.

Besides, the original Intrepid was destroyed in "The Immunity Syndrome", so the Intrepid shown in TVH (assuming it was the Intrepid) was probably an entirely new ship with its own keel and everything.

 

[Kenny]

Besides, the original Intrepid was destroyed in "The Immunity Syndrome", so the Intrepid shown in TVH (assuming it was the Intrepid) was probably an entirely new ship with its own keel and everything.

Hi John:

I considered your observation, but why would an earlier registry (NCC-1707) be assigned to a refit in the 2280's when Star Fleet had already reached a higher number NCC-1764 (the Defiant) in the late 2260's?

I would assume that NCC-1707 would have been assigned to a ship commissioned not long after the Enterprise.

Further, and here I'm way out on a limb, we don't know that the Intrepid's hull was destroyed. The space amoeba was absorbing energy, correct? I'm not sure it was absorbing matter. The solar systems it had destroyed were still there, right? But devoid of life.

So perhaps the hull of the Intrepid (1707) was salvaged and refit.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Great find, I wasn't aware, yet, that we had a quasi-official NCC registry of "1707" for the Intrepid.

First, this has been discussed extensively, I don't believe that the Intrepid necessarily had to be on the infamous starship status chart in "Court Martial".

IMO, Commodore Stone was well aware of the Intrepid's repair progress and had simply pulled the starship [upgrade] status chart to notice that Enterprise (unlike Intrepid) still required upgrades.

In HD it's clearly visible that there is no "1631" on that chart but only an "1831", so Mike Okuda would have done better not to show any Intrepid registry, IMHO.

Since the whole "1631" registry for the Intrepid has been conjectural from Day One on, add to this that the number didn't exist anymore on the starship status chart once available in HD (becoming even more conjectural), I'd say that the deleted scene and materials outrank this conjecture and should be considered canon, instead.

Second, I believe that the Constellation had been named and numbered to honor the achievements of a previous ship.

Assuming that in the TOS era they didn't add "A"-ppendixes, shortly after its destruction in "The Immunity Syndrome" a new starship of the 17th design could have been named and numbered to honor the achievements of the Vulcan Intrepid, that ship was refitted, too, and ended up in Earth Spacedock along with Excelsior.

Bob

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Besides, the original Intrepid was destroyed in "The Immunity Syndrome", so the Intrepid shown in TVH (assuming it was the Intrepid) was probably an entirely new ship with its own keel and everything.

Hi John:

I considered your observation, but why would an earlier registry (NCC-1707) be assigned to a refit in the 2280's when Star Fleet had already reached a higher number NCC-1764 (the Defiant) in the late 2260's?

I would assume that NCC-1707 would have been assigned to a ship commissioned not long after the Enterprise.

Further, and here I'm way out on a limb, we don't know that the Intrepid's hull was destroyed. The space amoeba was absorbing energy, correct? I'm not sure it was absorbing matter. The solar systems it had destroyed were still there, right? But devoid of life.

So perhaps the hull of the Intrepid (1707) was salvaged and refit.

That's why I said "probably".

As for making sense of the sequence of registry numbers, good luck! No, err, I mean, that's a good point! Robert Comsol's idea seems tenable (it's a refit of a ship assigned the name Intrepid after "Immunity").

Great find, I wasn't aware, yet, that we had a quasi-official NCC registry of "1707" for the Intrepid.

Agreed.

Assuming that in the TOS era they didn't add "A"-ppendixes, shortly after its destruction in "The Immunity Syndrome" a new starship of the 17th design could have been named and numbered to honor the achievements of the Vulcan Intrepid, that ship was refitted, too, and ended up in Earth Spacedock along with Excelsior.

 

[Kenny]

I need to take a step back and ask for some clarification.

I don't have an HD television or remastered prints of "Court-Martial". The best I have is the screengrab on Memory Alpha, which can be enlarged: http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080310072417/memoryalpha/en/images/4/4d/Starbase11_chart.jpg

To my eyes, the Starbase 11 chart contains these registry numbers:
NCC-1709
NCC-1831
NCC-1703
NCC-1672
NCC-1864
NCC-1897
NCC-1701
NCC-1718
NCC-1685
NCC-1700

The contentious registries are the ones that might be 16xx or might be 18xx. I don't think any of the 17xx registries are being debated.

Can someone with a big screen HD television and a remastered print do us all a big favor and look at this scene, frame by frame, and tell us what those aggravating 16xx or 18xx registries actually are?

A frame by frame analysis is necessary because the grain in the original film stock will shift from one frame to the next, but I would think that a person with a good eye (and a lot of patience) would be able to see whether the majority of the frames show a 6 or an 8 for each of the contentious registries.

Or is it not that simple?

-- Kenny

 

[Kenny]

Oops.

I made a mistake. The NCC-1707 source for the Intrepid is not Franz Joseph (he used NCC-1708).

NCC-1707 comes from the FASA Ship Recognition Manual published in 1985.

This demonstrates how Paramount was officially eclipsing (or nullifying) Joseph's work by the time Star Trek IV was produced in 1986.

-- Kenny

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Oops.

I made a mistake. The NCC-1707 source for the Intrepid is not Franz Joseph (he used NCC-1708).

NCC-1707 comes from the FASA Ship Recognition Manual published in 1985.

This demonstrates how Paramount was officially eclipsing (or nullifying) Joseph's work by the time Star Trek IV was produced in 1986.

-- Kenny

Ah, thanks for that. I didn't even bother to crack my FJ tech manual, but I just did, and it is indeed 1708 in there.

In any case, the point that it doesn't match any number given in "Court Martial" stands.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Can someone with a big screen HD television and a remastered print do us all a big favor and look at this scene, frame by frame, and tell us what those aggravating 16xx or 18xx registries actually are?

Thanks for reminding me, that I wanted to take care of that.

I do have a FullHD DLP front projector with 1:1 pixel mapping (!) and an Oppo BD player (considered one of the best out there). I put the scene into an A-B loop and also did freeze frame analysis.

It's obviously clear that it is, indeed, "1831" and "1685" and "1672"

A frame by frame analysis is necessary because the grain in the original film stock will shift from one frame to the next, but I would think that a person with a good eye (and a lot of patience) would be able to see whether the majority of the frames show a 6 or an 8 for each of the contentious registries.

This is the problem I encountered, there is no majority. Regarding "1X64" and "1X97" there is an equal amount of frames that do suggest a "6" or an "8".

Since I presented a theory further up in post # 123 regarding the last two digits, it's essential to decipher "1X64" to determine whether my theory holds water or "there she blows".

One of my friends has the big Sony 4K UltraHD front projector and the latest Oppo BD player. Next time I see him I will bring my TOS BD along and see if it's clearer to see there.

Bob

 

[Pippin209]

I could be very mistaken but NCC stands for Naval Classification Code like modern navies use codes for there vessels like cv for carriers and cvn for nuclear carriers. (this is because cr is the classification code for cruisers) and i would assume NX stands for New Experimental as they are not yet a commissioned ship design for starfleet just prototypes. but like i said could be verry mistaken.

 

[F. King Daniel]

According to the late Franz Joseph in his USS Enterprise blueprints, it was "Naval Construction Contract". Later one of the unlicenced fan technical books (Ships of the Star Fleet?) used the term "Navigational Contact Code" which has a nice ring to it.

NX was assumed to be experimental until Star Trek: Enterprise established it originally as a starship class designation, like DY or J-class. I think now it just means "ships to cool for C's"

 

[Robert Comsol]

I'm not aware it was ever officially established what NCC stood for, other than Matt Jefferies' US/USSR crossover (NC + CCC = NCC).

If we went for Pippin209's (Welcome to the BBS) analogy it could stand for nuclear (N) FTL (C as for speed of light) cruiser (C).

While Matt Jefferies suggested himself that the "01" of the Enterprise should stand for a construction number ("first of the 17th series"), NCC-1697 (worse should it be 1897 ) would indicate the 97th ship (!) of the 16th series (and no more ships allowed after the 99th has been finished ).

IMHO this is not compatible with only "12 ships like her in the fleet" remark of Kirk in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", so I'd rather interpret the last two digits as a contact code.

Bob

 

[Albertese]

...

If we went for Pippin209's (Welcome to the BBS) analogy it could stand for nuclear (N) FTL (C as for speed of light) cruiser (C).

...

Bob

This is basiclaly how it is in my own personal Star Trek universe. I like to have the N stand for "Starfleet(naval)," the first C standing for "FTL(Lightspeed=C) and the last C standing for "Combatant" meaning that it is armed. By the time of TOS and later, this classification would make basically all ship's in Starfleet NCC- ships, so it works for me.

--Alex

 

[Sean_McCormick]

Oops.

I made a mistake. The NCC-1707 source for the Intrepid is not Franz Joseph (he used NCC-1708).

NCC-1707 comes from the FASA Ship Recognition Manual published in 1985.

This demonstrates how Paramount was officially eclipsing (or nullifying) Joseph's work by the time Star Trek IV was produced in 1986.

-- Kenny

It is very doubtful to me, that this is due to input from Paramount. IMHO apart from a very wide general standard of decency (so, no "Deltan Sex Guide" or "Klingon Torture Manual"), the only thing Paramount was interested in, was that the licence fees were paid on time.
This is cetainly the impression on how treklit were managed at the time.

Also, for there to be an anti-FJ agenda, there are far too many one-nacelled ships in the FASA materials.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Although FJ and GR fell out pre-TMP, the 'anti-FJ agenda' didn't really take hold until Next Gen got started, when Roddenberry's "rules of starship design" came along and and Mike Okuda was told to ignore what came before. It's detailed in this interview with FJ's daughter Karen.

 

[Robert Comsol]

^^ Sorry, but I'm afraid this one falls under the category of urban legends.

Here is the exact Probert quote: "Gene specified to me, in fact, that starship warp engines operate in pairs... only in pairs because they're codependent. If you had one warp engine, you'd probably go in a circle, I don't know..."

Andrew Probert already drafted the officers lounge scene from TMP with an energy field clearly visible between the two nacelles and commented that to create this kind of field you need a pair of warp nacelles (i.e. 2 at least), so apparently Gene told him this already during production of TMP.

And all warp-capable ships prior to TNG, the TOS Enterprise, the Aurora, the Klingon Battlecruiser, the Surak shuttle, the Grissom etc. always had a pair of warp nacelles, so it stood to reason that this was and is the minimum requirement of nacelles to create a warp "field" and what truly "came before".


I can't see any "anti-FJ Agenda" here. If Mike Okuda decided to prefer Greg Jein's registry numbers for the TOS sister ships of the Enterprise over the FJ ones for his Encyclopedia, it's probably because

• Bjo Trimble had already used Jein's conjectural numbers for the Star Trek Concordance
• Greg Jein also worked on TNG as did Mike Okuda

I'm not aware of any executive order from Gene Roddenberry to Mike Okuda (?!) to ignore the works of Franz Joseph or the like. Such a claim should be beefed up with some solid evidence, IMHO.

Bob