Building NCC-1701 [The Trek XI Way]

[Vance]

Are you somehow basing that on the fact that the ersatz Dauntless in VGR: "Hope and Fear" had the number NX-01-A, by analogy with the Enterprises being NCC-1701-A etc.?

It doesn't seem like they would make an obvious 'NX-01-A' as anything BUT an homage to an 'NX-01' of Starfleet. Saying that Starfleet's 'NX-01' (likely a prototype cruiser) was the USS Dauntless doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.

We've seen plenty of Starfleet vessels that reused old names without reusing their registry numbers.

But we've NEVER seen a suffix letter used for anything but an homage to an earlier ship. (Even in the cases where the registry was retconned to a 'regular' NCC registry).

Besides besides, it wasn't even a real Starfleet vessel. It can't be taken as evidence of anything pertaining to the real Starfleet.

I think that knowing what the NX-01 was would be common for crews, even on the USS Voyager. If the name was wrong, the crew would have noticed, right?

You're right about that much. This whole "flagship" nonsense is a regrettable case of fan sentiment infecting the canon.

It was was Roddenberry, really more for TNG than anything else, since he was aping his own 'Starship' bible and scripts for the beginnings of TNG. In that series, the 'perfect ship' was the Flagship of a perfect fleet, with perfect people, and perfect teeth.

 

[Deks]

Actually, the fake Dauntless registry from Voyager could be easily explained with the fact that the vessel is a radical departure from standard ship designs (which was explained on screen) featuring a completely new engine system (which for the voyager crew it did), so they could have easily arrived at a conclusion that the prefix stood for a new line of experimental starship which would feature radically different ships for the future of SF (hence the NX-01-A prefix ... the A addition referring to the whole new line of ships).
Yes it's shaky at best, but it works

 

[Christopher]

Vance said:
It doesn't seem like they would make an obvious 'NX-01-A' as anything BUT an homage to an 'NX-01' of Starfleet. Saying that Starfleet's 'NX-01' (likely a prototype cruiser) was the USS Dauntless doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.

Except that NX-01 was the Enterprise. The use of the "A" suffix could've simply been meant to imply "This experimental ship is so revolutionary that we're starting the numbering over again, but adding the suffix to avoid confusion." Indeed, since Enterprise (obviously) hadn't been created when "Hope and Fear" was made, I strongly suspect that's exactly what the creators of the Dauntless had in mind when they gave it that number.

There's no reason to assume that registry numbers have to be indelibly associated with ship names. Just because it has been done in the case of the Enterprise doesn't prove that it's a universal rule.

In real life, numbers aren't linked indelibly with names, because that's not what they exist to represent. That would be totally redundant. Numbers serve to identify a ship in ways independent of names, systematic ways that are useful for cataloguing and identifying technical information about a vessel.

So a new ship with the same name would get a different number, and sometimes the same ship will get its name changed and keep its number. Or, if it's refitted extensively, it may get a new number while keeping the name, or have both changed.

So while there are Trek-universe examples of reused registry numbers with letter suffixes being used for "legacy" ships with famous names, there's no reason to assume that's the only thing they can be used for. A narrow set of examples is not proof of a universal law.

But we've NEVER seen a suffix letter used for anything but an homage to an earlier ship. (Even in the cases where the registry was retconned to a 'regular' NCC registry).

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You talked about this as though it were an absolute canonical fact, but it's just a speculation based on a whole string of ad hoc assumptions. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's very, very far from a fact.

 

[Captain Robert April]

It should also be noted that the NX prefix in the post-TOS time frame has a different meaning that in the ENT era.

The UFP Starfleet uses it to designate an experimental ship, whereas in the case of Archer's ship, that was just the class of ship. Presumably, earlier classes include NV, NW, etc., etc.

 

[Captain Robert April]

LCARS 24 said:

Captain Robert April said:
What we have here is JJ & Co. spotting that 10+ year old pic someone did of their AMT model mixed into a picture of the Newport News shipyard, thinking that it was "kewl", and basing a teaser on it, then coming back and cranking out a lot of very lame excuses to justify their move.

I don't know if this is the one you mean, but just for reference here's the pic that was going around showing the Reliant being built on the ground:

Here's the one that started this latest sleigh ride to absurdity:

Seemed harmless enough ten years ago. If we only knew...

 

[Kaziarl]

When did we get into a religious debate? Bible? If your talking about the encyclopedia, please call it that. It no wonder non trek fans think we're nuts.


Anyway, wether or not there were other ships before the NX01, which i'm sure there were during the R&D phase, the NX01 was the first one to be sent out. Yes, bigger missions came after, but she was the first. I don't know why thats not obvious.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Kaziarl said:
When did we get into a religious debate? Bible? If your talking about the encyclopedia, please call it that. It no wonder non trek fans think we're nuts.

He's referring to the show bible, not any sort of religious text or the ST Encyclopedia. Pretty much every TV show has a series "bible," which is their main behind the scenes reference material for the show.

 

[Kaziarl]

I'm not familiar with that text. So I'm at a loss there.

 

[Deks]

Neither am I ...
At least I never read it ... but referring to anything as a 'bible' really has a tendency to put me off (atheist here).


Anyway ... since the NX prefix as we know it is usually used for experimental class of ships ... then how does it differentiate from what Archers ship was ?
The NX-01 Enterprise WAS an experimental ship ... therefore I don't see any problem between the NX prefix being used for experimental ships or description as being experimental class.
It's the same thing.

 

[Christopher]

Deks said:
At least I never read it ... but referring to anything as a 'bible' really has a tendency to put me off (atheist here).

Well, "bible" is just an English version of a Greek word meaning "book." The book that we think of as "the Bible" is more properly called "the Holy Bible," to distinguish it from other biblioi, other books.

Sure, the use of "bible" to refer to a writers'/directors' guide for a TV series is somewhat by analogy with the Holy Bible, in the sense that it's the book containing the defining principles and fundamental guidelines that people working for the show should follow. But it's a loose analogy at best, and the term "bible" has been standard in the industry for so long that it's pretty far removed from any religious connotations.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think it was pretty clearly established early on during ENT's run that the Enterprise was not the first ship, nor was she the first ship "sent out". Enterprise was just the first ship with a engine rated for Warp 5, and could go out further that other ships, but there was definitely a starfaring fleet to go with the name "Starfleet".

And during that period, NX did not mean an experimental ship. Enterprise was an NX class starship, this is explicitly stated in dialogue (and caused all kinds of scrambling here in the cyberhinterlands).

It didn't start meaning "experimental" until the Federation Starfleet took over with its new registry system.

 

[aridas sofia]

^ That was one of ENT's screw ups IMO, since the "NCC" registry is conceptually based (and visually similar to) the contemporary aircraft registry system, in which "NX" means... experimental. So, if it means experimental now, and it will mean experimental under the Federation, then why doesn't it mean experimental in the 2150s?

Flub.

 

[trevanian]

I hate to defend ENT in any way, but maybe this is a hiccup like the thing a couple decades back when the rank of commodore was abolished in favor of some sillyass thing like 'half-admiral.' I assume it never took, cuz I've never seen anybody on CNN addressed as half-admiral.

The NX- ENT thing really does rankle me too.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think it's a flub, just a fluctuation in usage. After all, ship classes in that era seemingly tended to use letter designations rather than names (DY-500, J-class, etc.). So maybe the prototype Warp 5 ship was designated NX-01 to mean "experimental ship 1," but then they just decided to call all of its successors "NX class" rather than going to the trouble of coming up with a different letter combination. After all, that's often the way in which people coin terms: by taking something that originated to mean one thing and blurring its usage to mean something else. (Cf. "canon." )

 

[aridas sofia]

And yet, if you create a "NX" class, what do you call the next experimental vessel? The "NX" is still used in combination with a number as it is in current usage. If "NX-20" is a different type of vessel altogether, is it still "NX" class? My only point is that it necessitates taking "NX" out of its established usage and then returning to it, while simultaneously maintaining that usage. It seems ripe for confusion.

 

[Christopher]

aridas sofia said:
And yet, if you create a "NX" class, what do you call the next experimental vessel?

George.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

trevanian said:
I hate to defend ENT in any way, but maybe this is a hiccup like the thing a couple decades back when the rank of commodore was abolished in favor of some sillyass thing like 'half-admiral.' I assume it never took, cuz I've never seen anybody on CNN addressed as half-admiral.

It was "Commodore Admiral," and most people had the same reaction you did, so they just changed it to "Rear-Admiral (lower half)" .. But your point stands. People changed nomenclature all the time. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

 

[Ronald Held]

Just because it was used in that way in the Terran Starfleet, does not mean that it stayed that way in the Federation Starfleet.

 

[Vance]

Except that NX-01 was the Enterprise.

Actually, no. We know that an NX-01 was called 'Enterprise', well before the founding of the Federation, much less the Star Fleet. It's a different animal, and a different registrar involved.

If you're going to include ENT as canon when even the production crew said that Enterprise rewrites the canon for its own purposes (Rick Berman, explicitly), then adhere to what it actually says. The NX-01 was never a part of the Federation Star Fleet.

 

[Christopher]

Vance said:
If you're going to include ENT as canon when even the production crew said that Enterprise rewrites the canon for its own purposes (Rick Berman, explicitly), then adhere to what it actually says.

That's rubbish. Whatever Berman said, you're twisting it if you think it means ENT wasn't part of the canon. And every canon rewrites its own past to some extent. TOS constantly rewrote its own rules, figuring them out as it went, and all subsequent Trek shows did some rewriting of history as well. That doesn't mean they're non-canonical, because a canon is not an absolutely consistent fictional reality; it's a body of work that operates under the conceit of being a consistent reality even when it contradicts itself. And nobody involved with making ENT ever claimed it wasn't part of the same canon as previous Trek shows.

And sure, Enterprise was part of Earth Starfleet rather than UFP Starfleet; that's not under dispute. But it hardly proves that the first UFP Starfleet vessel was the Dauntless. At most, you've made the case that the claim can't be disproven; but that doesn't remotely make it a fact, as you implied it to be earlier. There's simply no solid evidence on the question, one way or the other. So arguing about what the non-evidence does or doesn't show is pointless.