Aventine the new flagship?

[Hartzilla2007]

Does Trek-lit really have it that all the Enterprises are flagships?

I mean, we don't know about NX-01 one way or another onscreen, as regards UE Starfleet, and she seems to be retired before there's a UFP Starfleet. Kirk's ships never seemed to carry that nomer, and we saw too little of the -B and -C to tell whether the lack of such mention was evidence of absence or just absence of evidence. Only the -D and -E have been established as ships of flagship status outside lit.

Timo Saloniemi

Trek Lit has never established any ships other than the D and E as Federation flagships. That previous Federation starships Enterprise have been flagships is my interpretation.

I'll second that.

Um The Enterprsie NCC-1701 was refered to as the Federation Flagship in part one of the first book of the Badlands Duology.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Also, in the novelization of Relics, the Enterprise was referred as the Federation Flagship.

 

[Timo]

So that'd leave only the -A, -B and -C as undefined in lit, right?

Or are there books to suggest that those were flagships at some point, too?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JoeZhang]

In the sonic shower, she thought about the challenges facing John. As captain of the Federation flagship, one of the most powerful vessels in the fleet

From Lost Era: Serpent amongst the ruins

"The Great Captain Rachel Garrett. Commander of the illustrious Enterprise, the flagship of Starfleet."

from Lost Era: Well of Souls

 

[Timo]

So now we're down to -A, right? That is, this wasn't the ship described either in the "Relics" novelization or in Badlands?

We can argue minutiae after that: at which point during her career would each ship have held this flagship status?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JoeZhang]

So now we're down to -A, right? That is, this wasn't the ship described either in the "Relics" novelization or in Badlands?

We can argue minutiae after that: at which point during her career would each ship have held this flagship status?

Timo Saloniemi

Do you want to make things complex first? :-)

Kirk noted that the Vulcan hid her own disappointment well, as she did her disapproval that Starfleet's flagship had been relegated to providing a civilian with taxi service. That's not how Captain Sulu had viewed Kirk's request for a favor, but Kirk understood how others might see it.

From Federation.

 

[JoeZhang]

There is no reference in any TOS novel to the Enterprise-A being a flagship, there are multiple references to flagships belonging to various admirals but that's it.

 

[Clawhammer]

I think, even though the Aventine is one of the largest and one of the most advanced ships of the fleet, it does not really have a long history like the Enterprise has, that should count a bit.

 

[Herbert1]

Regardless of how you define it, I don't think the Aventine would be the "flagship." It's more of an experimental ship, a test bed for new technologies. The "flagship" of the fleet might get the best, most advanced new toys, but not until after the Aventine has taken them for a test drive and made sure they won't blow up.

That answers my question. So we shouldn't expect the Enterprise, Titan, or Voyager to be ordered to a shipyard anytime soon in the novel series to be refit with quantum slipstream drive?

 

[Christopher]

That answers my question. So we shouldn't expect the Enterprise, Titan, or Voyager to be ordered to a shipyard anytime soon in the novel series to be refit with quantum slipstream drive?

Well, Titan is going back out to the frontier, so it won't be near any shipyards. As for the others, I couldn't say.

 

[RTOlson]

I think, even though the Aventine is one of the largest and one of the most advanced ships of the fleet, it does not really have a long history like the Enterprise has, that should count a bit.

I like both views of a flagship -- a vessel representing the vanguard of the Federation and a vessel carrying the flag of a commanding officer of a fleet. Of course, in "Star Trek," we never really saw a lot of admirals or commodores commanding from single starships (although we did see Admiral Hansen in the "Best of Both Worlds.").

I view Aventine in a light similar to the original Excelsior. The Excelsior was outfitted with transwarp engines and was touted as the future of Starfleet (much to Scotty's chagrin). Only after the experimental stuff was removed and the ship was allowed to prove itself did it become the vanguard of the fleet (as evidenced by the longivity of the Excesior-class).

Did the Excelsior eventually become a "flagship?" Yes, I believe it did. The Federation is big enough to have multiple explorer-type ships carrying its banner (or flag) to the edges of the final frontier.

 

[LutherSloan]

Remember that Voyager couldn't get the quantum slipstream drive to work properly, and the Aventine didn't either, not until an 800-year old Erika Hernandez piloted the ship for them.

I'm not sure if regular Starfleet vessels would be able to use a quantum-slipstream drive yet. The Vesta-class is probably heavily modified to use the drive. We don't know what it looks like yet.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Remember that Voyager couldn't get the quantum slipstream drive to work properly, and the Aventine didn't either, not until an 800-year old Erika Hernandez piloted the ship for them.

The Aventine crew could work it just fine, they just couldn't fly it with enough precision to land right on top of the Borg ship and conduct the ambush. That's where Hernandez came in.

 

[Clawhammer]

Voyager was not designed to do QSD, still it worked for a brief period of time, I guess the Vesta class ships could exchange parts/equipment easier then Voyager to experiment with it. When they have found something like a "baseline" setting, perhaps distribution to other ships could be realised. As far as I can see it, no heavy exterior modification would be involved.

It's like upgrading the CPU, you will go faster, but you still looking at the same old case.

I do think the Aventine/Vesta class should be overbuild though, so it can be used over and over again to test new setups and break new speed records. That way it would be able to serve a long time, like the Excelsior or the Miranda classes.

 

[Herbert1]

It's like upgrading the CPU, you will go faster, but you still looking at the same old case.

That isn't a good analogy. Stable quantum slipstream drive represents a greater technological leap. It opens a much greater portion of our galaxy to exploration and colonization and greater story telling possibilities in the Star Trek universe without resorting to Caretakers Arrays or worm holes because of the distances involved.

 

[RTOlson]

With a quantum slipstream, Starfleet could revisit the Small Magellanic Cloud to determine the fate of the Neyel (I imagine it wouldn't be pretty, but it would be possible). Oh, there's also the matter of puncturing the galactic barrier.

 

[Cicero]

Geordi's use of the phrase "The flagship of the Federation" was correct when referring to the NCC-1701-E in Star Trek: First Contact because the Sovereign-class Enterprise was the most advanced at the time.

Flagship can also be used to refer to a ship when it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, a designation given on account of it being the largest, fastest, newest, most advanced, most heavily armed or, for publicity purposes, the most well known.

Okay, you're quoting the bolded portion directly from Wikipedia's "Flagship" entry (or rather, you're plagiarizing it -- in future, don't quote something directly without citing your source, please). But that's not always the most reliable source, and I think it's conflating multiple different uses.

From the OAD:

noun
the ship in a fleet that carries the commanding admiral.
....• the best or most important thing owned or produced by a particular organization

In strictly military terms, I think Babaganoosh is right -- a flagship is the ship on which the commander of a fleet (whether a group of ships operating jointly or simply the navy at large) is based.

The US Navy sometimes uses the term "flagship" in the context of competition or recognition of excellence, wherein the group which wins the competition or is otherwise recognized for excellence is designated the "flagship" within certain contexts. I don't think the civilian usage of the term is entirely foreign to the sea service. If anything, usage seems quite parallel.

That said,Enterprise is Starfleet's flagship not for technical reasons,not even because an admiral commanded one,but because a ship called Enterprise has been around before the Federation even existed.In homage to that history the Enterprise will always be the Federation flagship.

I suspect there's more to it than that, otherwise Kumari or T'Plana-Hath would be the flagship.

Put differently, one might conclude that the unique role of Enterprise in the Federation's formation (perhaps coupled with the previous history of ships of the same name) might have garnered it a permanent place of honor.

I think, even though the Aventine is one of the largest and one of the most advanced ships of the fleet, it does not really have a long history like the Enterprise has, that should count a bit.

I like both views of a flagship -- a vessel representing the vanguard of the Federation and a vessel carrying the flag of a commanding officer of a fleet. Of course, in "Star Trek," we never really saw a lot of admirals or commodores commanding from single starships (although we did see Admiral Hansen in the "Best of Both Worlds.").

I view Aventine in a light similar to the original Excelsior. The Excelsior was outfitted with transwarp engines and was touted as the future of Starfleet (much to Scotty's chagrin). Only after the experimental stuff was removed and the ship was allowed to prove itself did it become the vanguard of the fleet (as evidenced by the longivity of the Excesior-class).

Did the Excelsior eventually become a "flagship?" Yes, I believe it did. The Federation is big enough to have multiple explorer-type ships carrying its banner (or flag) to the edges of the final frontier.

Wasn't there some supposition that the Excelsior was designated the Flagship between the decommissioning of the Enterprise-A and the launch of the Enterprise-B?

 

[Clawhammer]

That isn't a good analogy. Stable quantum slipstream drive represents a greater technological leap. It opens a much greater portion of our galaxy to exploration and colonization and greater story telling possibilities in the Star Trek universe without resorting to Caretakers Arrays or worm holes because of the distances involved.

No doubt, but I'm only referring to a ships exterior. "Case" as in computer case.

 

[Tino]

I also think that a flagship should be defined by its reputation and not by its technology. Otherwise, Starfleet would have to "pass the flag" all the times.

But I do wonder if the -B und -C were really flagships. To this date, I have only read a few adventures of them and they were rarely talked about on screen.

 

[JoeZhang]

That isn't a good analogy. Stable quantum slipstream drive represents a greater technological leap. It opens a much greater portion of our galaxy to exploration and colonization and greater story telling possibilities in the Star Trek universe without resorting to Caretakers Arrays or worm holes because of the distances involved.

No doubt, but I'm only referring to a ships exterior. "Case" as in computer case.

It seems to me that the answer with the quantum slip screen is outline a "control" problem - so they've worked out how to use it to go 60,000 light years but not 2000 light years, they cannot control the energy to that fine of a degree. That way, the delta Quadrant can be used again but you don't have situation where the Enterprise can be at Earth at the start of an adventure and then at the Klingon home world an instant later.