I just re-checked Memory Alpha and you're completely right, my bad. Your theory of the TOS Star being a holdover of the MACOs being absorbed into Starfleet makes sense too.
Spoilers Concerning Krall's back story
- Thread starter Klondike307
- Start date
I thought Krall was a fascinating character and loved the nods to Enterprise. I like the possible timeline mentioned upthread. His character fits well with the MACOs who served aboard Enterprise, and the idea of giving him an older vessel as compensation seems appropriate. Today in naval service we have vessels much older than what the Franklin would have been when Krall was given command.
Like others, I would have preferred a few more minutes of reflection to fill out his motivations, but ultimately Krall serves as an allegory for many who feel very much the same way in today's society. The Brexit vote, for example, was won by an older generation with fears and values very similar to Krall's. The right wing anti-immigration movements in Europe and the U.S. have supporters who make Krall seem sane by comparison. I really liked that Pegg tried to reintroduce contemporary allegory into a Star Trek movie and succeeded for the most part.
EDIT: Pegg has mentioned in interviews that he relied heavily on Memory Alpha in writing the script. He is a fan of Star Trek and that shows well in this movie.
Like others, I would have preferred a few more minutes of reflection to fill out his motivations, but ultimately Krall serves as an allegory for many who feel very much the same way in today's society. The Brexit vote, for example, was won by an older generation with fears and values very similar to Krall's. The right wing anti-immigration movements in Europe and the U.S. have supporters who make Krall seem sane by comparison. I really liked that Pegg tried to reintroduce contemporary allegory into a Star Trek movie and succeeded for the most part.
EDIT: Pegg has mentioned in interviews that he relied heavily on Memory Alpha in writing the script. He is a fan of Star Trek and that shows well in this movie.
I was disconcerted and amused about how Krall's entire backstory and motivation was summed up in about 2 minutes. He's the bad guy, get it? Good. Now, back to the movie.
Yeah, the Edison reveal should have come earlier while they were still on the planet. It would have have made him a more sympathetic and rounded character and there'd be more time to delve into his motivation and clear up his and the Franklin's history during the Enterprise Era.
He was basically a James Bond villain 00MACO gone rogue.
I guess he's the Star Trek equivalent of 006 from GoldenEye then:
EDIT: ...or Raoul Silva from Skyfall. Mi6 has a horrible record when it comes to agent retention:
exactly! he "felt" betrayed by those he served but he was really just a sociopathI guess he's the Star Trek equivalent of 006 from GoldenEye then:
Hiring sociopaths to do your dirtywork has its downsides
I'll take "20th and 21st Century Politics" for $500, Alex!
I have done some web searching and there is a discrepancy that I cannot find any answers for. Posters in this thread (that I stumbled onto) discuss whether or not Edison was assigned an "old Clunker."
This does not make sense.
That assumption is based on the one line in the film that references it as the first Warp Four vessel. However, the first warp 4 vessel was an Emmette style ship which preceded the NX class entirely.
The registry number of the USS Franklin depicted in the film was NX-326. (Now, this a discrepancy in its own right as starting with Columbia, the numbers should have been different and starting with NCC; the NX-01 designation given to the Enterprise meant "Prototype" and NCC means Naval Construction Contract that is used on ship that are in Active Service. The NX-01 was pulled into service prematurely and in the series, they never assigned it a new NCC number. Perhaps we can excuse it with the idea that the NX-designated were still all considered prototypes for 5 or more years.) The designation numbers move upward - meaning a larger number is a more recently built ship. The USS Franklin was NX-326, which suggests it was built Quite a Long While after the NX-01. It should have been a newer ship (It should have been NCC-326,) and it probably would have been more advanced than Archers was.
I think it is easier to conclude that Scotty was (Horror!) mistaken about the vessel being the first Warp 4 ship than to entirely throw out all the canon storyline from 4 seasons of Enterprise.
This does not make sense.
That assumption is based on the one line in the film that references it as the first Warp Four vessel. However, the first warp 4 vessel was an Emmette style ship which preceded the NX class entirely.
The registry number of the USS Franklin depicted in the film was NX-326. (Now, this a discrepancy in its own right as starting with Columbia, the numbers should have been different and starting with NCC; the NX-01 designation given to the Enterprise meant "Prototype" and NCC means Naval Construction Contract that is used on ship that are in Active Service. The NX-01 was pulled into service prematurely and in the series, they never assigned it a new NCC number. Perhaps we can excuse it with the idea that the NX-designated were still all considered prototypes for 5 or more years.) The designation numbers move upward - meaning a larger number is a more recently built ship. The USS Franklin was NX-326, which suggests it was built Quite a Long While after the NX-01. It should have been a newer ship (It should have been NCC-326,) and it probably would have been more advanced than Archers was.
I think it is easier to conclude that Scotty was (Horror!) mistaken about the vessel being the first Warp 4 ship than to entirely throw out all the canon storyline from 4 seasons of Enterprise.
That's how it goes in the Federation Starfleet, not in the Earth Starfleet. In the Earth Starfleet registry codes are based on the class of starship. The Enterprise was NX class, the first of that class and so it's NX-01. Likewise, Columbia was the second NX class ship, therefore NX-02. It was not until after the Federation was founded that these ships were reassigned NCC registry codes to fit with the Federation Starfleet's registration number practices.
All that being said, the Franklin having an NX number is weird, but who cares? The point is the Franklin is an older ship and less advanced than the NX-01, and I see no reason to assume otherwise.
No other class of ship was called "NX." They had names. NX means Prototype or Test vehicle: All the other Starfleet Test Vehicles were NX, including the one in Voyager mounted by "The Doctor."
I see every reason to state otherwise. And I gave plenty of those reasons above. The assumption that it is older and less advanced makes no sense to the story whatsoever.
This was how things were done in the Earth Starfleet, ship classes had letters for their names and those letters were used in their registry codes. The Intrepid for example was NY class, its registry NY-05. Just look at the on-screen evidence on Enterprise itself, the Columbia was NX-02, in the Mirror Universe we had the Avenger which was NX-09.
In the Federation Starfleet, NX is for experimental starships. It's important to remember in Enterprise we follow a different Starfleet than the one in the other Star Treks.
Nothing in canon which says the Emmette-class (which I had to google, it's one of the ships from the ENT intro montage) was the first warp 4 ship.
The Franklin's number was a reference to the late Leonard Nimoy - his birthday was 3/26.
Read this article for a detailed look at where the Franklin fits into the Trek timeline. Short version, built before NX-01, lost after.
I'd have to find that source, too and it probably is not canon. It may even have been on Memory Alhpa, but it was "Backstage Talk" information. That doesn't mean it made the final cut. Similarly, there was the First Warp Seven craft being considered, but ST:Enterprise got the axe before any of those potential stories were fleshed out.
Ok, thank you - an explanation for the oddball number being higher than that of the ship that came after it: It was the writers tribute to Leonard Nimoy. It is weird; but understandable. 'Beyond' was full of Easter eggs. Thanks for providing the link and clearing that up.
The Franklin registry was a reference to Enterprise and Leonard Nimoy, but it can probably be explained in-universe.
What we do know about the Franklin:
-First warp 4 Earth ship (therefore probably commissioned between 2145 when NX-Delta reached warp 3 for the first time and 2151 when Enterprise NX-01 the first Warp 5 ship was launched)
-Was about 10 or 15 years old when the Federation was founded in 2161, so hardly a very old ship. Outdated perhaps, given the warp technology advances.
-By the time it disappeared in the 2160s, it had been assimilated in the Federation fleet and given a UFP dedication plaque with "Starship Class".
Since the registry doesn't make sense in the Earth Starfleet context (the Franklin isn't a NX-class ship like the Enterprise, and 326 is too high a number for a NX-class ship anyway), it's likely that the registry is a Federation Starfleet registry given in 2161 when the amalgamated fleet was formed. There were probably more than 300 ships in the common fleet and it would explain the UFP dedication plaque.
Why the NX prefix standing for an experimental/pilot ship? Well Franklin was the first warp 4 ship, so likely the pilot ship of its class. We don't know if any other were ever built, and frankly we don't know for how long class ships keep their NX registry before switching to NCC anyway. The Defiant kept its NX registry for 5 years before it was destroyed.
I'm just glad that Nimoy wasn't born on March 25th, because there's already a NCC-325! (the Woden)
What we do not know about the Franklin, and probably never will:
-Its Earth ship class and/or Federation class ("Starship-class" is rather meaningless).
-Its original Earth registry
-The year it was built and the year it disappeared (a few years after 2161?)
What we do know about the Franklin:
-First warp 4 Earth ship (therefore probably commissioned between 2145 when NX-Delta reached warp 3 for the first time and 2151 when Enterprise NX-01 the first Warp 5 ship was launched)
-Was about 10 or 15 years old when the Federation was founded in 2161, so hardly a very old ship. Outdated perhaps, given the warp technology advances.
-By the time it disappeared in the 2160s, it had been assimilated in the Federation fleet and given a UFP dedication plaque with "Starship Class".
Since the registry doesn't make sense in the Earth Starfleet context (the Franklin isn't a NX-class ship like the Enterprise, and 326 is too high a number for a NX-class ship anyway), it's likely that the registry is a Federation Starfleet registry given in 2161 when the amalgamated fleet was formed. There were probably more than 300 ships in the common fleet and it would explain the UFP dedication plaque.
Why the NX prefix standing for an experimental/pilot ship? Well Franklin was the first warp 4 ship, so likely the pilot ship of its class. We don't know if any other were ever built, and frankly we don't know for how long class ships keep their NX registry before switching to NCC anyway. The Defiant kept its NX registry for 5 years before it was destroyed.
I'm just glad that Nimoy wasn't born on March 25th, because there's already a NCC-325! (the Woden)
What we do not know about the Franklin, and probably never will:
-Its Earth ship class and/or Federation class ("Starship-class" is rather meaningless).
-Its original Earth registry
-The year it was built and the year it disappeared (a few years after 2161?)
No, it wasn't.
I mean, it could have been, until the movie told us it couldn't.
This is demonstrably false, because clearly NX-01 was not United Earth Starfleet's first-ever ship. NX-01, if denoting experimental, should have gone to that unseen ship, with Archer's vessel getting something like NX-123 instead.
OTOH, Archer's ship was indicated to be UE Starfleet's first-ever deep space exploration ship. So the X there could well be taken to mean eXplorer, with -01 rightly going to the ship we saw.
And to all her sisters. Archer said in "Fortunate Son" that four of the ships were soon going to serve Earth, and identifed the four as "NX class" - which makes no sense if NX means experimental, but perfect sense if NX specifies an all-new ship category with all-new capabilities.
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In the series, NCC-preceded numbers didn't exist. No vessel had that particular code ahead of her registry number - indeed, no other ship had a registry number visible at all, save for sister ship NX-02.
This sounds like a reasonable assumption. Given how Archer's ship was -01, we must then assume each separate ship category proceeds at its own pace through the numbers - possibly combat vessels were up to -891 in their particular sequence, tugs up to -327, and so forth.
On a dedication plaque indicating that she belonged to the United Federation of Planets Starfleet. The plaque thus must have been created long after the ship herself was created. And in the UFP Starfleet system, NX indeed appears to denote experimental rather than exploratory vessels. -326 may have been slapped to that old clunker when she ceased to be good for anything else but engine testing, then.
This isn't an onscreen fact at all.
The only thing that got a registry number besides the hero ship and her sister was the ECS freighter Fortunate (ECS-2801 in an obscure computer readout, not painted on the hull); by implication, other such freighters probably had numbers as well, in-universe. Starfleet's own ships never got either letter codes or registry numbers.
Since Krall's ranting in the movie suggests the thing called the Romulan War took place between the introduction of the ship and her assigning to Edison, we could well say the ship was thoroughly outdated: the four years of WWI and the six or so of WWII completely outdated the top-of-the-line designs from immediately before that war!
Note that NX-01 was also retired around that time, as per the ENT finale - quite possibly for similar reasons.
A modification of this model would have registries in the 300 range assigned to a specific kind of ship, registries in the 200 and 400 ranges to other sorts, and numbers up to 1200 being assigned, in a fleet that was about 250 ships strong overall...
OTOH, UPF space might well be cluttered with thousands of excess starships in the aftermath of the recent war...
Or the only one pulled aside to act as an engine testbed back in her day, with all her sisters continuing to putter along at warp 2 in their designed role as insystem patrol cutters or outpost supply sloops or whatnot.
Or even the victim of not just one but two unfortunate warp engine malfunctions, the first forcing her warp 2 engines to warp 4, the second one throwing the ship all the way to Altamid.
Indeed. (Sometimes the fandom has gone by the names used in earlier script versions, though, and I think this baby used to be the Pioneer there.)
Provided she had one. ECS might have been more bureaucratically minded than UESF!
And the first one is further obscured by the totally unknown progress towards the warp 4 record. Early on in her career? Towards the twilight?
Timo Saloniemi
There is actually one instance of Earth Starfleet registry besides the NX ships. The Sarajevo in "Daedalus" has registry NC-27 which was copied to the CGI model from John Eaves' concept sketch. It's not really visible in the episode but the screen capture found in the latest Encyclopedia (vol.2 p.250) shows it rather clearly.
I'm pretty sure the shuttlepod that flew the crew to the stadium in "Home" had an NC registry too.
