• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Build date of the original U.S.S. Enterprise

I tend to use (1) a lot, especially when interpreting between original "writer's intent" and fitting the resulting episode into the franchise as a whole
 
If you want to include Marvick AND believe that by the third season anyone cared what the previous thinking about the Enterprise's age was, you have to engage in the kinds of contortions in which those of us that tried to make sense of such things engaged. "His appearance doesn't reflect his true age, it being the 23rd century." "He isn't totally human but rather a hybrid or a humanoid." "He is the designer of a 2245 refit that was as extensive as the later 2270 refit." And my favorite, "He took a (possibly test) flight at relativistic speeds."

But the biggest problem with Marvick is the idea of someone being so significant in the design process to be singled out. Try to find THE designer of any modern naval vessel and you'll find design teams. So even if you accept him and adopt one of the contortions above, it should be emphasized that he was ONE of the ship's design (or redesign) team.
 
...Unless he actually did invent something radically new, in which case the team implementing the innovation would be secondary and the inventor (possibly with minimal hands-on involvement) the celebrity. Perhaps Marvick's vastly improved engine design allowed the "new ships" to do whatever they do in "The Cage"?

In his bout of insanity, Marvick apparently gives the ship a fantastic boost in speed. Perhaps his invention is what allows Kirk (or one of his enemies) to redline the Enterprise engines to a ridiculous degree in so many adventures, giving him an edge in survivability - while other inventors have made possible other such "superpowers", the lot then collectively known as the "designers" of the Enterprise, as in the people who put some design into a mass product.

Timo Saloniemi
 
But the biggest problem with Marvick is the idea of someone being so significant in the design process to be singled out. Try to find THE designer of any modern naval vessel and you'll find design teams. So even if you accept him and adopt one of the contortions above, it should be emphasized that he was ONE of the ship's design (or redesign) team.
Well, Marvick isn't really singled out. The dialogue from the teaser:

KIRK: We mustn't keep the ambassador waiting. If you'll go with Mister Scott, I'm sure the two of you will have a great deal in common.
SCOTT: Aye, indeed. It's a rare privilege meeting one of the designers of the Enterprise.
He's explicitly called one of the designers, so yeah, he was part of the design team.

Hell, even the TV and movie versions of the Enterprise were the products of teams of people. Matt Jefferies did the bulk of the original design work, but Roddenberry had a significant amount of input. For the movies, they started with Jefferies's Phase II revision and then folks like Andy Probert and Harold Michelson revised and refined it even further (with input by Roddenberry and Robert Wise, I'm sure). And when you factor in things like the interior sets, every production designer the movies had contributed in one way or another.
 
vindication.... is good.

I love how when one group of fans debase/bash an idea simply because it doesn't fit a single episode that they built an entire religion upon.
 
Can you clarify what you mean by your comment? What "group of fans", what episode and what religion?

My contribution to this discussion began with the comment that I'd like to know what the people making the show thought. All the evidence I've seen indicates they wanted the ship to be an older vessel with some past history. But then you get Marvick. Nobody in the episode said how old Marvick was, or when he'd contributed to the ship's design. And when somebody DID tie down anything relating to dating, it was TAS and the exacting addition of TMoST's forty year Enterprise age to Robert April's stated 35 year age to get his age in The Counter Clock Incident - 75.

None of it matters. It can be said to also be vague. It all was later overwritten. But the point was, what did the people making the show think?

Now really, it's all just Star Trek. It doesn't matter one little bit. But for someone who hangs out on the TrekBBS to point fingers at other people on the board as devotees of some religious devotion is damned funny. I just want to give you a chance to actually, you know, not look foolish.
 
Last edited:
well around this forum, if it wasn't written by their particular author, or by someone on the forum its considered to be un worthy trash. ie the book about how George Kirk flew the original enterprise into combat before it was commissioned as a star fleet ship against space pirates, killed romulan spies on board, saved the universe.

because it wasn't written by their favorite writers or member
 
Is @topcat posting in the right thread? He seems to be responding to a conversation that doesn't appear on this page! :shrug:
 
I'm just going to throw these ideas out there. Feel free to tear them apart if you disagree. But I'm always hearing about how the vacuum of space is a ideal storage environment. Maybe the wear-and-tear on a spaceship only comes from being on a mission (3-yr, 5-yr, 11-yr , whatever) when its racking up "mileage." Maybe Morrow's comment of the Enterprise being only 20 years old is just the "mileage" time and doesn't include the down time between missions and refits sitting in drydock. So you could have Kirk's 5-year mission, maybe Spock's 11 years of service time was just 2 5-year missions, and the remaining 5 years could go to a 2nd 5-year mission after STTMP and April was only the first captain during a 2 year shakedown period before he was reassigned. As far as scrapping the Enterprise after only 20 years, here's another half-baked idea. In TNG's "Starship Mine," they had to put the Enterprise-D in for a sweep to remove a buildup of baryon particles. Maybe they just didn't have the technology in the 23rd century to remove such a safety hazard and had to retire and decommission the ships after 20 years.
 
It may also simply be that battle damage of the TWoK or TUC sort is fatal to a ship and requires a complete rebuild - and whether a ship really warrants such a rebuild depends on her standing in the rat race. If she's too far behind the times when the race is at a hectic phase, then no rebuild for her. If the times are peaceful, then what was good sixty years ago is still good today and it would be a shame to waste a keel (since a rebuild still is a bit less expensive than creating a new ship).

Timo Saloniemi
 
As far as scrapping the Enterprise after only 20 years, here's another half-baked idea. In TNG's "Starship Mine," they had to put the Enterprise-D in for a sweep to remove a buildup of baryon particles. Maybe they just didn't have the technology in the 23rd century to remove such a safety hazard and had to retire and decommission the ships after 20 years.
Interesting idea. I'm thinking that baryon particles didn't exist back in the 23rd century since they didn't invent technobabble until the 24th. ;)
 
Or then Kirk's ship being a deeper shade of grey than Pike's was no optical illusion...

Timo Saloniemi
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top