Antares in "Charlie X"

[SchwEnt]

I was just watching the eps and within the first few opening scenes, the Antares is referred to as:

"cargo vessel Antares"
then
"transport ship"
then
"science probe vessel"
then
"survey ship"

So Antares was a cargo/transport science survey probe vessel? Or someone couldn't make up his mind or check the script a second time?

 

[GSchnitzer]

I was just watching the eps and within the first few opening scenes, the Antares is referred to as:

"cargo vessel Antares"
then
"transport ship"
then
"science probe vessel"
then
"survey ship"

So Antares was a cargo/transport science survey probe vessel? Or someone couldn't make up his mind or check the script a second time?

Well, couldn't make up *her* mind.

 

[Grant]

Wow, you successfully nitpicked a 44 year old TV show.

That's what I took out of watching the episode----the fact it had a number of errors.

I wonder if they 'transported' 'cargo'?

 

[LOKAI of CHERON]

I was just watching the eps and within the first few opening scenes, the Antares is referred to as:

"cargo vessel Antares"
then
"transport ship"
then
"science probe vessel"
then
"survey ship"

So Antares was a cargo/transport science survey probe vessel? Or someone couldn't make up his mind or check the script a second time?

In all the countless times I've watched that episode, that has totally eluded me! Another nitpick to add to the list.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Wow, you successfully nitpicked a 44 year old TV show.

That's what I took out of watching the episode----the fact it had a number of errors.

I wonder if they 'transported' 'cargo'?

Its kinda what a lot of us do. I hear some guy even wrote entire books on the subject.

 

[Timewalker]

Maybe it transported a cargo of science probes...?

 

[Valin]

Well, Charlie had been on that ship. He probably used his Jedi Mind Tricks to change the Antares mission statement multiple times.

 

[Timo]

To be sure, it wouldn't be all that difficult to draw the necessary = signs between the descriptions.

"Cargo vessel" is clear enough. "Transport" is military parlance for all those ships that haul things from A to B, and needs further clarification in order to be accurate: a ship that moves cargo would be a "Cargo transport", while a ship that moves passengers would be a "Passenger transport". (Words like "freighter" or "liner" are forbidden civilian jargon.)

Science Probe Vessel need not be a ship that probes scientifically. After all, a United States Ship isn't necessarily a ship that unites any states. In this very same episode, and in another one, we learn that there exists an organization called UESPA, or United Earth Science Probe Agency. Perhaps UESPA-operated vessels (including their transports) are called Science Probe Vessels?

Okay, okay, it's actually United Earth SPACE Probe Agency, as we hear in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and finally see written in ENT "Demons". So perhaps Kirk slightly misspoke in his log entry? Remember the context: Kirk is officially recording the fate of the UESPA vessel Antares. A perfect place for using the "honorific" form of the ship's designation...

Kirk: "Captain's Log, stardate 1535.8. UESPA HQ notified of the mysterious loss of Science Probe Vessel Antares."

So we get to the final bit, "survey ship". An error by Kirk, as he well remembers the ship was a UESPA one, but forgets she wasn't a frontline surveyor but mere humble support transport? Or then formal acknowledgment that UESPA is in the survey business, and all the ships of that organization, including the transports and the buoy tenders, participate in that line of work?

...Of course, the very fact that the Antares visited the planet where Charlie Evans had crashed stands testimony to her doing some surveying. Why would a pure transport deviate from her usual route and visit a planet that would wish to neither send nor receive any cargo? Perhaps UESPA standing orders have their ships, no matter their type, perform survey tasks whenever possible?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Noname Given]

I was just watching the eps and within the first few opening scenes, the Antares is referred to as:

"cargo vessel Antares"
then
"transport ship"
then
"science probe vessel"
then
"survey ship"

So Antares was a cargo/transport science survey probe vessel? Or someone couldn't make up his mind or check the script a second time?

Look, they were transporting research cargo to a new scientific research base that was newly established in a very recently star system that had yet to be extensively probed.

Where's the contradiction?