Spoilers The Strange New Worlds Starship Thread™

And yet Jonathan Frakes has repeatedly stated that when contracts were up for renegotiation Paramount's stance was that the Enterprise was the only true and indispensable star of the show...

 

Indeed. There is a strong emotional reaction, and I think some writers were a bit more inclined towards the interpretation of the ship as a character than others. But, for the most part, it thrived as a setting, and became a familiar place, not unlike the Brady house. Comfortable but not character.

I'm not sure taking studio executives at their word during contract negotiations indicating their willingness to walk away from a particular actor is the best argument here.

 

Well as a setting it probably is. Just as St. Eligius and County General are to St. Elsewhere and ER.

 

If you had a Star Trek show where it never cut to the inside of the ship and you just saw the vessel doing stuff, then it'd definitely be a character.

 

Yep, it's a negotiation tactic saying you're replaceable. The show's "Star Trek" not "Will Riker's Adventures". Fan rumor has Frakes becoming lead if Stewart left.

 

So what? Are you claiming that this represents a wholly literal and definitive statement of fact that's in some respect relevant to the discussion?

The existence of The Next Generation itself was a demonstration that the Star Trek setting and format - the spaceship exploring space, Starfleet, the story formulae, etc. - were in great measure the essence of the IP and that no individual character was indispensable to Star Trek's success.

Neither that, or a secondhand assertion that some executive in the 1990s called the spaceship "the star of the show" makes Enterprise into a character. Sorry.

 

And then they crashed the indispensable star of the show into a planet and replaced her with a new, skinnier one.

 

It's the ultimate Hollywood metaphor.

 

And just as Spock has been recast in SNW, so has the Enterprise. It's no different.

 

At least his angled sideburns don't have slits... ...yet

 

Back to the crashed Connie in the character promos, It could be the Kongo. The Kongo was one of the original 12 Constitution-class ships according to the Franz Joseph Technical Manual, and one of the memorial pins on display at Mission Chicago was for the USS Kongo.

Perhaps the discovery of the lost Kongo is the impetus for everyone wearing memorial pins for ships they previously served on or to which they otherwise have some connection.

 

Ohhh! Anyone have a pic of this Kongo memorial pin???

Although the USS Kongo was supposed to be in service in 2293... maybe the precursor to the NCC-1710?

 

We're making a lot of assumptions about the history of the Constitution class ships again...
There could have been a production block built before the one that our 1701 is part of.

 

Yeah, nothing in Canon never said there were only ever 12 built. Kirk's line was in the present tense.

Meaning there could have been more before that episode that might have been destroyed or damaged too much to be repaired, and more could have been built after that episode.

 

Yeah. Twelve in active service at that time. Not a cumulative number of all such ships ever built.

 

https://twitter.com/TrekCore/status/1512543504693661697

According to another user on here, the display at the convention said the pins were for ships that were destroyed or suffered a large loss of life.

So it could be the same USS Kongo.

Like there is a USS Farragut pin, but it wasn't destroyed.

 

Given that Starfleet of the 2250s has 7000 ships per DIS: "Perpetual Infinity" it would seem meagre indeed for there to be only 12 Constitution-class ships. In fact in canon there are 16 confirmed Constitution-class ships anyway:

• USS Ahwahnee, NCC-2038 – shown on an Enterprise-A bridge display, and later the "Operation Retrieve" plans in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• USS Constellation, NCC-1017 – Matt Decker's ship, destroyed in TOS: "The Doomsday Machine"
• USS Constitution (presumably), NCC-1700 – shown on a screen in TOS: "Court Martial" (registry number only)
• USS Defiant, NCC-1764 – lost in a spatial interphase in TOS: "The Tholian Web"; actually transported to the Mirror Universe in the 22nd century (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly"; DIS: "Despite Yourself")
• USS Eagle, NCC-956 – shown on an Enterprise-A bridge display, and later the "Operation Retrieve" plans in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• USS Emden, NCC-1856 – shown on an Enterprise-A bridge display, and later the "Operation Retrieve" plans in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• USS Endeavour, NCC-1895 – shown on an Enterprise-A bridge display, and later the "Operation Retrieve" plans in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• USS Enterprise, NCC-1701
• USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A
• USS Excalibur, NCC-1664 – destroyed in TOS: "The Ultimate Computer"
• USS Exeter, NCC-1672 – shown on a screen in TOS: "Court Martial"; later found abandoned in TOS: "The Omega Glory"
• USS Hood, NCC-1703 – shown on a screen in TOS: "Court Martial"; severely damaged in TOS: "The Ultimate Computer"
• USS Intrepid, NCC-1631 – crewed entirely by Vulcans; shown on a screen in TOS: "Court Martial"; later destroyed in TOS: "The Immunity Syndrome"
• USS Korolev, NCC-2014 – shown on an Enterprise-A bridge display, and later the "Operation Retrieve" plans in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
• USS Lexington, NCC-1709 – shown on a screen in TOS: "Court Martial"; led the doomed task force in TOS: "The Ultimate Computer"
• USS Potemkin, NCC-1657 – part of the doomed task force in TOS: "The Ultimate Computer"; later refitted in the 2270s; refit configuration shown on an Enterprise-A bridge display, and later the "Operation Retrieve" plans in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

 

I think the simplest solution would be to say that the line referred to the specific subclass to which the Enterprise belongs. There may be many other Constitution subclasses with subtle or not so subtle differences, but only 12 ships just like the Enterprise.

 

I prefer the idea that there really are only twelve Constitution/Starship class ships like the Enterprise in the fleet at that point, and they're something rare and special.

 

Yeah but what could the Enterprise do that Discovery couldn't in Disco S2? The shapes may vary but in-story it's all the same. The Enterprise officers even complimented Disco saying they could tell where Starfleet's pennies were going when they saw the Turbolift Funhouse through the ceiling of a corridor