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Connie - TOS canon nomenclature

It has more to do with your twisted and erroneous definition of how canon works.
  1. Accepting the onscreen information (in pictures and dialogue) and the conclusions we can draw from these.
  2. If in doubt regarding the proper conclusion look up publically accessible materials from the original creators to determine their intentions in the particular context unless revised by their own premise change.
  3. Premise change by third / later parties should be solid and leave no room for doubt and/or should constitute an improvement the original creators could have approved.
Sorry, can't see what's "twisted" or "erroneous" here.

Sci-fiPorky3_zps3006fd45.jpg~original


Bob
2 and 3. especially when you use them to reinforce each other. What is seen on screen is ultimately the only canon, even if it contradicts itself. Everything else is just fanwank.
 
It has more to do with your twisted and erroneous definition of how canon works.
  1. Accepting the onscreen information (in pictures and dialogue) and the conclusions we can draw from these.
  2. If in doubt regarding the proper conclusion look up publically accessible materials from the original creators to determine their intentions in the particular context unless revised by their own premise change.
  3. Premise change by third / later parties should be solid and leave no room for doubt and/or should constitute an improvement the original creators could have approved.
Sorry, can't see what's "twisted" or "erroneous" here.

Sci-fiPorky3_zps3006fd45.jpg~original


Bob

Point three. That's where the concept you have goes off the rails.

Actually, he gets it wrong at #2. Here's the real definitions of canon (at least as it pertains to Star Trek):

1. What is seen on screen, even if it's not internally consistent;

2. in lieu of the above, whatever the current holders of the franchise says it is;

3. See steps 1 and 2.

"Publicly accessible materials from the original creators" is meaningless in this regard, unless that info made it onto the screen. If it didn't then no one has the right to use it to justify what's canon and what's not. They're free to use it to bolster their own pet theories about things, but that's it.

*EDIT* Sojourner beat me to the punch.
 
Accepting the onscreen information (in pictures and dialogue) and the conclusions we can draw from these.

Half right. Onscreen information is canonical. Conclusions drawn by fans never are.


If in doubt regarding the proper conclusion look up publically [/sic] accessible materials from the original creators to determine their intentions in the particular context unless revised by their own premise change.

Nope. Authorial intent does not impinge on the canon status of material appearing onscreen.

Premise change by third / later parties should be solid and leave no room for doubt and/or should constitute an improvement the original creators could have approved.

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That's not an opinion. That's the way it is.
 
Robert Comso said:
I think the Starfleet uniform insignia debate where his delicious memo popped up clearly revealed he had influence to the point that qualifies him as TOS’ continuity guru.
I think if anyone should be called "TOS’ continuity guru" it would be DC Fontana who worked as story editor and script doctor for the first two seasons.
 
I still think it’s easier to rationalize that the “1700” is a placeholder for the yet to come Defiant (NCC-1764), which got it’s contact code from the Excalibur that was still alive and kicking according to that starship status chart.

The only way you can rationalize "1700" as a place holder is if you have any evidence that Starbase 11 is a starship construction facility.

Then the question would become: why are they keeping track of starships under construction and starships being repaired and resupplied on the same chart?
 
If it’s a phaser of the Enterprise then why is Scotty studying the same phaser in a journal he reads in “The Trouble With Tribbles”? If he wants to study the real thing he can just go to the phaser deck.

Would you take your car to a mechanic who never looks at the manuals, and just relies on looking at the car to try to fix it? Can you assemble an Ikea cabinet without looking at the instructions? Would you want the mechanics working on the airliner you just climbed into to service it without knowing the specs - type of fuel, type of oil, proper hydraulic system pressure, tire pressure...?

Why wouldn't the chief engineer be reading a manual?
 
Would you take your car to a mechanic who never looks at the manuals, and just relies on looking at the car to try to fix it? Can you assemble an Ikea cabinet without looking at the instructions? Would you want the mechanics working on the airliner you just climbed into to service it without knowing the specs - type of fuel, type of oil, proper hydraulic system pressure, tire pressure...?

Why wouldn't the chief engineer be reading a manual?

This is just crazy talk! :lol:
 
If it’s a phaser of the Enterprise then why is Scotty studying the same phaser in a journal he reads in “The Trouble With Tribbles”? If he wants to study the real thing he can just go to the phaser deck.
I think it's worth reinforcing the point that the technical manuals which Kahn and Scott read are not the same ones:

technicalmanualsfromSSandTTWT_zpsb5e7305d.jpg%7Eoriginal


Scott may well be reading up on the constitution class primary phaser module for mk IX/01 starships, but we have no way of knowing what specific page of the technical section that Kahn is browsing through, since stage directions are not canon (although see below).

Since no-one's done it yet, I though I'd post a link to the article which first drew many of the connections between the registry numbers and classes - it's a good read.

As for the registries of the starships, Greg Jein filled a vacuum and I'm okay with these. But how he arrived at the decisive conclusions, which is the source for the issue, is "remarkable" to say the least. And now matter how hard I try I'm unable to accept his methodology and conclusion as the essential base for "serious" canon (just matching the starship status chart numbers to a name list he made up and next to read the whole thing from bottom to top). Again, on behalf of Greg Jein, I think he did this as a mental excercise and for fun, but the ramifications that sprang from it were "serious".

The article was written 40 years ago without benefit of the internet so a gap in the author's knowledge here and there is hardly surprising. But it's also clear that Greg Jein never expected his work to be taken as the "ultimate authority" - this disclaimer is pretty clear:

A projected list of starship registry. Many of the names and numbers are autocratic additions, but I have included the aforestated "official" names as well. You are, of course, free to regard this with approval, disapproval, or indifference.

It's also clear from the above posts page that there's no clear consensus about what "canon" actually is. For a community of Trek fans I must say that's a little surprising!

all the inconsistent statements in the shows remain canonical whether they can be reconciled or not.
Or...to have "first takes precedence", which is actually the reverse of how it works in canon.
I guess "personal canon" rules the day after all? :)

However, coexisting inconstencies means each individual must eventually choose a preference - without anyone being actually wrong! Awesome. :techman:
 
It's also clear from the above posts page that there's no clear consensus about what "canon" actually is. For a community of Trek fans I must say that's a little surprising!

Actually, if you remove one certain fan's interpretation of "canon" in this thread, there actually is a pretty good consensus.
 
I'll throw this out here as well and expand on it slightly:

Ships go though refit cycles from time to time. Ships also get repurposed from time to time.

Take USS Boston (CA-69). She was a heavy cruiser built during World War II and served during 1944 and 1945 in the Pacific. Following the war she was decommissioned as there were too many ships in the fleet.

In 1952 she was taken out of reserves and rebuilt as the worlds first guided missile cruiser. She kept the name USS Boston, but was renumbered to CAG-1. She served in this capacity until decommissioned again in 1970. However she was renumbered back to CA-69 in 1968. This was due to her missiles being outdated, so her purpose was to use her old 8 inch guns in combat instead of her obsolete missiles.

Back in the 1940s to 1960s, when a ship was rebuilt like USS Boston here, its class was also renamed. When built, USS Boston was a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser (of which there were 14 built). After her refit, she was given a new hull number, and was the first of the Boston-class guided missile cruisers (of which there were two, converted from the Baltimore-class cruiser Boston and Canberra).

Thus one ship can be part of two or more classes based on a refit. However, when one talks generally about the ships in history, they are usually referred to by the first class they were built as, rather than one of the classes they were refitted into.

So, if this is the case with USS Enterprise, she is called a Constitution-class starship by the 24th century. By general practice (from what I can tell), she would have been built as a Constitution-class starship in 2245. She may have later been converted to become an Enterprise-class starship and been properly called that to specify her from her older Constitution-class cousins, that had not been refit, or other Constitutions that were refit into yet another configuration and called by yet another class name.

What is interesting is that I can't find a real world example of a class that was majority refit and then had new ships built into that class. I could probably find ships that were built based on a refit design, but they would be a separate class of ship with more improvements over the old refit hull. There are examples of ships being changed while I the shipyard based on information from ships that were finished beforehand. They are sometimes classified as a different class, and sometimes they are considered the same class, just with differences (the Essex-class carriers had two different designs while under construction in World War II, a short hull and a long hull. The Long hulls were sometimes classed differently, as were some of the ships when half the class was given angled flight decks in the 1950s and the other half wasn't. Half were kept as attack carriers (CVA) while the others were made anti-submarine warfare carriers (CVS)) At some points they are called different things in places like Jane's Fighting Ships based on their hull configuration or their task. The name sometimes changes in Jane's to reflect the remaining existing ships if the "sub-class" ship leader is retired or sunk, they would sometimes reassign the "sub-class" leader title to the oldest remaining ship of the class.

So the definitions "Constitution-class". "Enterprise-class" and perhaps "Starship-class" could all be correct, at one point or another in the ship's history. But the evidence suggests that the ship class was originally the Constitution-class, based on how naming conventions work in history.
 
We've had this discussion before.

I think Robert Comsol is arguing that the "Constitution-class" diagram Scotty is looking at can't be a diagram about "the class to which the Enterprise belongs" because if Scotty were interested in Enterprise components, he would have gone to look at those actual shipboard components (a la Lee Kelso looking at the engine's "points"); he would never have relaxed by reading the tech manual about those components; he can only relax by taking offline/removal/disassembly/tinkering with the actual physical shipboard components.

This is sort of like thinking that I will always go out into my driveway even during the rain at night to remove and fondle the carburetor of my 1966 Ford Mustang; I would never choose to read about the component in a Mustang manual in bed at night when I've turned in for the night.

It's not that Scotty can go to the Phaser deck; Robert Comsol seems to be arguing that Scotty It's not that Scotty can go to the Phaser deck; Robert Comsol seems to be arguing that Scotty must go to the Phaser deck and must study ship components only in situ.

It seems a pretty flimsy way of excluding the "Trouble with Tribbles"/"Space Seed" "Constitution-class" diagram from possibly being about the Enterprise.

If it’s a phaser of the Enterprise then why is Scotty studying the same phaser in a journal he reads in “The Trouble With Tribbles”? If he wants to study the real thing he can just go to the phaser deck.

Would you take your car to a mechanic who never looks at the manuals, and just relies on looking at the car to try to fix it? Can you assemble an Ikea cabinet without looking at the instructions? Would you want the mechanics working on the airliner you just climbed into to service it without knowing the specs - type of fuel, type of oil, proper hydraulic system pressure, tire pressure...?

Why wouldn't the chief engineer be reading a manual?
 
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We can take it a step further, too. No doubt, inspecting certain areas of the ship requires taking systems offline. Can you imagine a chief engineer who would, say, take the phasers offline on his own authority, just because he wanted to tinker with them in his off time?

Sulu: "Captain, the Klingon ship has left its parking orbit around K-7. They're locking disruptors on us!"
Kirk: "Red alert. Arm phasers."
Chekov: "But Mister Scott completely disassembled the phaser array as soon as he went off shift!"​
 
:drool:You have a '66 Mustang?

Doesn't everybody?

Actually, I don't. It was meant to be an illustrative theoretical example. That, and I would never own a piece of crap Ford.

I do own a 1951 Chevy Deluxe Fleetliner "woody" station wagon that my granddad bought new in 1951 and which I inherited.
 
I've never owned a car that is younger than I am. Presently own a 1972 Dodge Dart and previous a 1976 Fleetwood Cadillac.

However, for Star Trek, I would think the Constitutions would be the old workhorse by the time Kirk gets his hand on one. Unlike all the other ships we see crewed by the heroes in Star Trek series. Only the original one has the ship as old at the start. Every other Star Trek series has the ship as brand new at the start/first time they get it in series. USS Enterprise-D was brand new. USS Enterprise-E was a year old and just finishing its shakedown year. USS Defiant was basically new. USS Voyager was basically new. SS Enterprise was brand new in Enterprise. The Enterprise-A might as well have been brand new (we don't know for sure about her, or if she isn't new, her backstory/history in the fleet). The Enterprise-B was brand new. Only the Enterprise-C wasn't new, but that wasn't the hero's ship. So therefore, only the NCC-1701 was an old ship when we first see it as the hero ship. Even under Pike it was over five years old in "The Cage". Only in the 2009 film is that ship brand new, which again makes less of it.

The charm of the old Enterprise was it had a personality...even if it was only given it by Kirk and Scott. It had a history. It had quirks that Scott knew about and worried about. She was the ship that got people home. In some versions, she was the survivor (until Star Trek III that is).
 
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