Holy crap! Where did they get the reference material for the backside? We saw very little of it in the show in low definition and I’ve never seen the original anywhere. The details are astounding on that model.
10 Starship "Holy Grails"
- Thread starter Dukhat
- Start date
Not to restart all the debate on the sequential nature of NCC numbers or not, but in mid-TNG a number starting with a 6 makes a lot more sense than a number starting with an 8. Assuming that either the numbers are sequential or that the first 2-3 digits reference a build series or build order, then keeping anything on TNG lower than NX-74205 or NCC-74656 would be my preference. I do still think that the Intrepid-variant ship USS Yeager, which is numbered 65674 should be re-numbered to 85674 or 85874, as despite the use of a Maquis raider for the main lower body, the onscreen effect when they are shown in episodes is that of a newer ship than Voyager in my opinion, almost like another class in the Soveriegn type vessels designed after the battle of Wolf 359. I almost think, looking at the picture on Ex Astris Scientia that the decals were damged slightly to give such an effect, maybe as 65874, which I still think is tool ow, but that may be a bit a stretch.
Actually during the first season of TNG, 5XXXX was the highest registry for new ships, based on the Tsiolkovsky's registry of NCC-53911 and its commissioning date, which was the same year as the Enterprise-D's (although the intention was for the ship to be a new design, not a reuse of the Oberth class Copernicus NCC-640 from the movies.) Later they changed new ships' registries to 7XXXX.
So, I have been thinking and looking at the unknown saucer. I am wondering if its a concept top of a Space Station like Earth Space dock or Regula 1. Though when you enhance the brightness it looks like it has a sort of Enterprise 1701 type bridge dome section. It looks to detailed around the edges to be a starship IMO? Was there ever a flat space station?
Interesting point. A check of Ex Astris Scientia suggest that Challenger, Chimera (unseen as far as I know), Excelsior (Crazy Horse), Korolev (unseen as far as I know) New Orleans, Niagara, Olympic, and Springfield were all classes other than the Oberth that had registries starting with 5. I like the idea that some ships originally represented by the Grissom model are really Springfield-class ships that would have a similar configuration but be made from newer Galaxy family components. It would also affect the size concerns, allowing some ships that seem to be like the Grissom in TNG to be larger than those in other episodes.
Hard to find that on the web
Other classes that had registries starting with 5 were the Steamrunner, Sabrerunner, Edison, Olympic, and Prometheus.
The Olympic's design fits the Galaxy 'family' of pre-designs like the BoBW kitbashes very well. However...
The Prometheus's registry was supposed to be NX-74913 according to the dedication plaque made by the Art Department, but the VFX people put NX-59650 on the CGI model. AFAIC, the latter registry, while more visible, was an error, and I have no problem going by the plaque information.
The Steamrunner's registries simply make no sense chronologically. The design is clearly from the 2370's, but has registries from the 2350's. It is a discrepancy which LDS chose to carry over with their "Sabrerunner" for whatever reason.
The Edison makes even less sense. The STO prototype for the class has a registry of NCC-95160, but for some strange reason Dave Blass decided to do a 'Steamrunner' and give the Edison class USS Harlan a 52277 registry for a publicity image, despite the design coming from the 2400's. But there's no evidence that this registry was actually on the CGI model used for the fleet scenes. Blass has been known to make mistakes...
About the chronology of registries, there is the weirdness of the Constellation-class. We have three canonical dates for this class.
2285 - the USS Hathaway (NCC-2593) enters service
2293 - the USS Constellation (NX-1974) is undergoing certification tests at Starbase 24
2326 - the USS Stargazer (NCC-2893) is commissioned
Dukhat, do you want to take a stab at making sense of this?
2285 - the USS Hathaway (NCC-2593) enters service
2293 - the USS Constellation (NX-1974) is undergoing certification tests at Starbase 24
2326 - the USS Stargazer (NCC-2893) is commissioned
Dukhat, do you want to take a stab at making sense of this?
Sure!
First of all, we can throw that 2326 date for the commissioning of the Stargazer out the window, because it is clearly wrong. There's no way the Stargazer was only 29 years old when it was lost at the Battle of Maxia. And a registry of 2893 is far too low for a new ship from 2326. Most of the information on those ship plaques from PIC that were not remotely seen clearly are subject to being ignored. And that date of course conflicts with the other two Constellations (see next.)
So that leaves the Constellation and the Hathaway. The date for the Hathaway makes the most sense to me. The Bozeman NCC-1941 was already in service in 2278 (and the entire Soyuz class was about to be decommissioned, implying that the Bozeman was already an old ship), and the Excelsior NX-2000 was commissioned in 2285. I don't see the class ship of the Constellation commissioned a whole 8 years after the Bozeman was lost, with a registry of 1974. Is there wiggle room? Sure. But the 2285 date is the least problematic. Perhaps "certification tests" are unrelated to the Constellation's commissioning and are just some other random tests that are done at a Starbase.
It would have made great sense for NCC-17xx to be Constitutions, NCC-18xx to be Mirandas, NCC-19xx to be Constellations, and NCC-20xx to be Excelsiors... at least for their initial batches. But as has long been established registry numbers are a dumpster fire...
Don't forget the REALLY odd NCC-1017 of the Constellation in "Doomsday Machine", leading some to speculate that she was actually a testbed refit for the TOS-era Connie class, much in the same way the TMP Enterprise was refit into the newer design we saw in the movies. That's in my head-canon, anyway... 
I just chalk things like that up to registries not being chronological during the TOS/TMP period, which then changed later during the pre-TNG and TNG period. For example. I truly believe that the IRL mindset for making the Excelsior NX-2000 and the Grissom NCC-638 was that the former ship was big and the latter ship was small.
Don't forget the REALLY odd NCC-1017 of the Constellation in "Doomsday Machine", leading some to speculate that she was actually a testbed refit for the TOS-era Connie class, much in the same way the TMP Enterprise was refit into the newer design we saw in the movies. That's in my head-canon, anyway...
The most annoying thing about the Constellation is that the model used was an off-the-shelf AMT model kit so it could be heavily damaged, and the registry number number was derived from them rearranging the decals that came with it... what was wrong with NCC-1710!?
Because the person who built the model didn’t know or care about Matt Jeffries’ registry logic. Nor did the people who filmed it.
I once worked for a multinational company where every employee was assigned a number, but originally they were allocated to countries in blocks; so something like 1xxx... for the US, 2xxx... for France, 3xxx... for the UK, 4xxx... for Germany etc, with numbers within each block being allocated chronologically. Eventually though they ran out of numbers this way, and improving admin technology meant the could switch to a global chronological sequence for employees. So occasionally it was possible to see someone with, for example, a 3xxx... number who'd been there longer than someone with a 1xxx... number.
So I wonder if it's plausible that specific blocks of NCC numbers are assigned to specific shipyards or ship classes, which might explain why some of them seem chronological but not all of them? This might also tie in to an idea I've written about before where different shipyards had different "design schools" for starships – Utopia Planitia with its wide rounded shapes like the Galaxy, Nebula, and the Intrepid, San Francisco with its skinny elongated designs like the Constitution, Excelsior, and Sovereign etc.
