enterprise better treatment

[Ithekro]

CVN-80 will come when she is ready. Left just hope she doesn't have all those "...it will be here on Tuesday" moments of the Enterprise-B.

 

[Armored Saint]

I imagine every captain in the fleet tells his crew that. If you're facing the ship blowing up in 5 minutes unless everyone works together, you're not going to tell them they're the worst screwups you ever served with to inspire them.

Maybe not, but it'd sure make for some great tv!

I don't really see what kind of better treatment would have been possible. The Enterprise-A last mission was indeed prestigious, but that's because Spock was directly involved in the negociation process and because the Klingons were pretty sensible to that kind of questions.

So the other great possibility for the first Enterprise would have been to turn her into a giant Japanese restaurant with naked chicks as sushi table, but I'm not sure that kind of idea is so popular.

 

[Marsden]

I don't know if this is off the topic, but when the Commander told Kirk that he couldn't have the Enterprise back, I was assuming, with no supporting evidence, that they wanted it for the Starfleet Museum. It's just a personal theory of mine.

Are you talking about Morrow from STIII? I always got the impression based on his dialogue that Morrow didn't give a shit about the Enterprise, and would have been happy to see her decommissioned and scrapped for all he cared. He seemed to be far more interested in the Excelsior.

Yes, Morrow. And I agree with you. But, maybe he didn't care but that was the unannouced plan. I'm sure he wasn't the only one that decided these things, there was probably a committee on cultural preservation or currator of the fleet museum.
I said it was just an idea, probably not a good one.

I question the need of "scrapping" in a future with technology that has replicators and other advanced building techniques, though. Would they really need to reuse those helm stations or the components in them? The deck plates and hull materials? The Federation always seems like it's got everything.

 

[Cyke101]

So the other great possibility for the first Enterprise would have been to turn her into a giant Japanese restaurant with naked chicks as sushi table, but I'm not sure that kind of idea is so popular.

Man, you do a great job of living up to your avatar picture

 

[Dukhat]

I am wondering why the damaged Enterprise was going to be decommissioned in Star Trek III, and the new one in Star Trek VI. The USS Enterprise was a training ship in the first, and could have been again in the second, though that is not clear.

The first Enterprise was rather old by the time she returned to spacedock after the Genesis incident. She seemed viable as a starship. Scott said he could have her ready in a few weeks which means she wasn't that badly damaged anymore. She's need hull repair work, some rooms rebuilt, some tweaks to the engine room and a rebuilt torpedo tube. See seemed to be functional give she was able to make it to Genesis again at seemingly high warp speed, with some issues if Scott's comment on a second wind means anything. The rigging of the automation wasn't up to combat specifications, but the ship seemed to work properly and would have been fine with a skeleton crew onboard.

The second Enterprise was in better shape, thought she had a larger hull breach. Her systems were alright, thought they'd need a new ship's mess. I think she might have been the training cruiser due to the command staffs comments about teaching at the academy and other comments about "what are we doing here" in relation to being at a high end Starfleet meeting. This would suggest that Enterprise was not being used for deep space exploration anymore. They were at Earth for unknown reasons. The crew was suppose to stand down within the year. So either they had come back from a five year mission and were filling time, or they were in their final rotation as training ship before she was due to be retired to free up the name for the Enterprise-B that was likely under construction.

What we don't know for certain is, how old was the second Enterprise? Did they built new Constitutions after the Enterprise was refit in the 2270s? Come to think of it did they build any new ones by the 2260s? Was Defiant the last one built? How old was it? Were all the remaining ships of that class refit to those specifications? How many were left by the 2290s?

Well, Morrow made it perfectly clear when he said "The Enterprise is 20 years old. We feel her day is over." We presumably meaning Starfleet Command or whoever makes the decisions about decommissioning ships. Based on Morrow's and Styles's comments, Starfleet's attitude at the time seemed to be that the Constitution class was old, outdated, and soon to be replaced by new ships like the Excelsior (which, based on visual evidence in TNG, is exactly what happened).

So as far as the Ent-A is concerned, here's the scenario I always thought: The TMP Enterprise was originally supposed to be replaced with one of the new Excelsior class ships, which was why it was being decommissioned instead of refitted (more of a PR thing than anything else). However, due to the circumstances after STIV, Starfleet (again because of PR) decided to instead rename an older Connie the Ent-A as a temporary stand-in until the Excelsior class ship was completed (which would now be the Ent-B). So the early decommissioning of the Ent-A makes more sense.

 

[mos6507]

It just seems like the Enterprise doesn't get many years of active service as a refit before it's considered obsolete, and there isn't much notice given before the order is made. It's not unprecedented for a big government agency to zig one way and then zag the next, I guess, but it takes away some of the pomp and circumstance of the TMP reveal to have the ship classified as a dinosaur two films later.

 

[Ithekro]

It also seems weird that they seems to be training cadets specifically to take over USS Enterprise (rather than putting an experienced crew back on the ship, as Dr. McCoy suggests), implying they were going to keep using Enterprise for exploration missions. Kirk and crew also seems to be blindsided by the decommissioning order from Morrow. USS Enterprise, by this time has been in service in her refit configuration for at least ten years, and otherwise in service since 2245. She is old, but seemingly not extremely outdated following her refit.

Though it is unclear if they continued to build Constitutions after the first production run, or if Enterprise is a late batch ship in the 1700s with Defiant one of the last ships built. Or if they even build new ships in the refit configuration.

However almost a decade later, the crew seem perfectly aware that Enterprise-A is to be decommissioned soon. Or at least that they as a crew are to stand down within the year. The Enterprise-B is commissioned within a year or so of Khitomer, so they would be well aware of its existence.

 

[CoveTom]

Perhaps it was simple politics? One group of people were in charge and decided to give the big upgrade treatment to the Constitution Class ships. Then another group came to power, decided the Excelsior project was the next big thing, and wanted to put all the Connies out to pasture.

Stranger things have happened in real life governments...