If you're going just from the canon, I don't believe there is anything that describes either the Miranda Class or the Soyuz Class as frigates. Actually, I'm not even sure the Miranda Class designation itself is canon, although perhaps it appears on an Okudagram somewhere.
Again, just from the canon... there is nothing in "Friday's Child" that specifies what type of ship the Carolina was. Dierdre was explicitly stated to be a freighter, but nothing was mentioned about the Carolina's role.
Also, IIRC Woden was an automated "robot" ship... I'd be tempted to put those in a different category than crewed vessels.
Just out of curiosity, why is the science/survey ship Grissom in a separate category from the survey/science probe ship Antares?
I'm guessing you're not counting TAS as part of the canon? I didn't see anything referencing the Huron-type, but it would probably go into your "Class II" category.
(Sorry, just offering feedback, wasn't meaning to pick apart your list. On rereading, it seems to come off a lot more negative than I was intending. No offense meant.)
No offense taken at all.
Making a list like this, based on the on-screen spoken and clearly viewed canon, is a very awkward exercise to be sure. To some, especially fans of FJ's Tech Manual, this kind of list is a minefield.
I learned in 1989 from a mutual contact that Mr. Arnold had privately (later publicly) announced that Mr. Roddenberry and the studio were adamantly opposed to any concrete ties to Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's 1975 Tech Manual and all the other materials and derivatives that followed. Roddenberry made up some elaborate rules to monkey-wrench what he saw as a parallel evolution to his creation (the STAR TREK franchise); these rules included the convoluted Warp 10 Infinity rule.
While I own FJ's Tech Manual (first edition, bought when it first came out on sale) and find it filled with fascinating ideas, it has become clear that FJ's works were parallel to the TREK franchise, not embedded in it. The Tech Manual's material on the Articles of Confederation, combined with ship class construction lists tied to specific stardates, made it clear that FJ was asserting that the United Federation of Planets only came into being within James T. Kirk's lifetime, a notion loosely derived from a strict interpretation of Kirk's conversation with Garth about Axanar in "Whom Gods Destroy". While I can appreciate that some FJ fans want to see the Tech Manual embedded in TREK canon, the problem I see is that if you literally do that, you retroactively assert that the Treaty of Axanar was the first step to the foundation of the Federation, not simply an important milestone in the already-existing Federation's recent history.
TAS (STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES, 1973-4) was pooh-poohed by Arnold as well, and does have its share of continuity flaws. (Note: FJ's Tech Manual, which was published almost concurrently TAS' first-run on NBC Saturday mornings' lineup, contains no references at all to Huron, Independence, the aqua shuttle, life support belts, etc.) You are correct that Huron was absent from my (first draft) list. This was not an intentional omission. I just wasn't sure if Huron was meant to be a separate class or not; or whether it was even a good idea to interpret the specifics of TAS so literally as part of canon. (Remember, the Starship Enterprise visited the center of the Galaxy in TAS, which would seem to contradict TMP5: THE FINAL FRONTIER.)
As far as the Grissom/Oberth being listed as Class III space vessels and the Independence/Huron and others being listed as Class II: my thinking, based largely on my interpretation of what was seen in TOS-R and TMP3: TSFS, would be that because Independence (and presumably others of her overall kind of transport vessels) are built to haul large amounts of cargo, these ships are more massive (either volumetrically or by actual mass) than small scout-like ships like that Grissom/Oberth. Hence, Independence/Huron/Antares would be of a superior class than "smaller" ships like Grissom.
RE: the Woden. Woden languishes in a strange never-neverland of discontinuity wherein TOS-R shows us a different kind of vessel than what was seen in TOS, so it isn't entirely clear what it "really" was, but for sake of argument we can at least try using the newer TOS-R assertion for the sake of this exercise. You'll recall what Spock told Kirk in "The Ultimate Computer" (my emphasis
underlined):
CAPTAIN KIRK IS OPERATING EQUIPMENT IN HIS QUARTERS AS MCCOY TALKS WITH HIM
KIRK: 20th century Earth. 'All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer by'. You could feel the wind at your back in those days. The sounds of the sea beneath you. And even if you take away the wind and the water, it's still the same. The ship is yours. You can feel her. And the stars are still there, Bones.
INTERCOM WHISTLE GOES OFF.
UHURA [OC]: Captain Kirk to the bridge, please! Captain Kirk!
KIRK: Kirk here.
SPOCK [OC]: Another contact, Captain. A large, slow-moving vessel.
SPOCK, ON THE BRIDGE...
SPOCK: Unidentified. This is not a drill.
KIRK AND MCCOY, IN KIRK'S QUARTERS...
KIRK: On my way.
ON THE BRIDGE... KIRK AND MCCOY ENTER FROM THE TURBOLIFT
UHURA: Captain, there's no response to any of our signals, but M-5 has given us an autorelay.
SPOCK: M-5 has identified her, Captain. The Woden. Listed in Starfleet Registry as an old-style ore freighter converted to automation. No crew. Coming into visual range.
This quote would seem to make some things apparent, both in TOS and TOS-R:
- Woden is a large, slow-moving vessel.
- Woden was converted to automation, so she no longer has any crew.
Apparently, by inference, Woden may, once upon a time, have been a crewed ore freighter. She has since been converted. But Spock made it clear, she is a "large, slow moving vessel". Since it is a foregone conclusion that ships like the Woden (and, presumably, Antares, Huron, and Independence, as well as the Sherman's Planet cargo drones) are designed to carry cargo, the ships are structured for large internal volumes to be filled (and off-loaded) efficiently.
While the on-screen appearance of Antares with the Enterprise makes it clear the Antares is a smaller vessel overall, much like the Grissom presumably would be, the Antares' structure, and her mass, are assumed to be greater than a scout like the Grissom. As such, I made Antares a Class II vessel and Grissom a Class III. This would also put Grissom and her Oberth Starfleet siblings in the next immediate class above merchant marine ships like the Class IV S.S. Beagle.
Finally, your correct about the Miranda and Soyuz not being called frigates. You are also correct that Miranda (at least, as far as I can recall) was never spoken as a starship class name by any of the characters. However, the term "frigate" was used generally to describe some unseen ships in TNG's "Conspiracy", thus establishing that such a type of ship was in service. I simply drew the distinction (and least, in the TOS and TMP eras) that multi-hulled ships like Enterprise was called "cruisers", while single-hulls ships (not counting nacelles and pods) like Reliant and Constellation would be considered frigates. I did this because, as I understand it, the original use of the term "cruiser" was to delineate ships outfitted for an extended cruise. Ships not so outfitted would not be "cruisers" but could be called by another ship-class name of similar ship-of-the-line stature: "frigates". Since the multi-hulled "cruisers" of the Constitution and Excelsior classes contain elaborate mission facilities (the 14 science labs Kirk boasted about in "Operation Annihlate") and crew habitats for extended deep-space cruises, while ships such as Saratoga and Reliant seem to take more restricted near-home patrol runs (and there was nothing in what Capt. Batesman of the Bozeman said to contradict this), it would seem logical that ships of this nature, with their simpler hulls, would be frigates instead. So, this assertion does stretch beyond canon, and it does nod to fan-made literature, but it is a logical extrapolation based on what was seen and heard in canon.
