Constitution and Miranda Classes / A Hi-Lo Mix?

[Herbert1]

^This discussion also seems to presume that all Constitution-class starships were outfitted with five year mission kit. Kirk mentions that there are twelve like it in the fleet in "Tomorrow is Yesterday". This dialogue could mean that there are twelve Constitution-class starships or twelve Constitution-class starships configured with five year mission kit.

This discussion also seems to presume that the Miranda-class couldn't be outfitted with science labs or crewed for a five-year mission. I have seen no evidence that it couldn't be outfitted for a five-year mission. One or both hangers surely could be used for dry goods and spare machinery storage.

I accept that the Constitution-class is better than the Miranda-class. I am just still not convinced that it is a Hi-Lo mix when comparing the two.

If we were saying that the Constitution-class and the Oberth-class was a Hi-Lo mix, I would be inclined to agree.

 

[Timo]

^This discussion also seems to presume that all Constitution-class starships were outfitted with five year mission kit. Kirk mentions that there are twelve like it in the fleet in "Tomorrow is Yesterday". This dialogue could mean that there are twelve Constitution-class starships or twelve Constitution-class starships configured with five year mission kit.

Going one bit further, perhaps no other ship besides NCC-1701 was fitted for a five-year mission? After all, Admiral Kirk quotes this mission of his as a unique qualification for taking command of the Enterprise from young Will Decker in ST:TMP. If it weren't unique or nearly so, Earth would surely have an abundance of veteran Captains suited for taking over from the greenhorn Decker, so that Starfleet wouldn't have to do the unheard-of maneuver of demoting a Rear Admiral down to a starship CO.

I accept that the Constitution-class is better than the Miranda-class.

Does it have to be, though? None of the movies seem to suggest that this would be the case: there's no discussion about the relative prestiges of commanding the two ship types, and no statistical bias towards or against deploying either type for important missions.

For all we know, the Miranda always was the better and more popular ride, and we just happened to see Constitution skippers in TOS because Starfleet had deployed its second-rate ships on the far frontiers when the ongoing Klingon scare necessitated holding the first-rate Miranda units close to home.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Herbert1]

I accept that the Constitution-class is better than the Miranda-class.

Does it have to be, though? None of the movies seem to suggest that this would be the case: there's no discussion about the relative prestiges of commanding the two ship types, and no statistical bias towards or against deploying either type for important missions.

For all we know, the Miranda always was the better and more popular ride, and we just happened to see Constitution skippers in TOS because Starfleet had deployed its second-rate ships on the far frontiers when the ongoing Klingon scare necessitated holding the first-rate Miranda units close to home.

Timo Saloniemi

In the absense of a canon list of which starships constitute Starfleet, we pretty much have to go with the feelings or creative intentions of the show's creators concerning the TOS Enterprise that she and her sisters are the most powerful starships of their era.

I believe that the intent of the USS Reliant NCC-1864 was that she was more or less equal to USS Enterprise NCC-1701 in capabilities. Perhaps with Enterprise being a little bit better because she was the hero ship. The USS Reliant model was created so that the audience could more easily differentiate the villain ship from the hero ship, but it is pretty much a duel between equals. Superior intellect versus superior experience. If the ships aren't equals, then there really isn't a contest between Kirk and Khan.

It wasn't until Star Trek III: The Search for Spock that it was suggested that the Enterprise was old and obsolete and that she was going to be surpassed by the Excelsior and her sister ships.

Should we presume that since the producers decided that they didn't want to use the Enterprise model in Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, perhaps concerns of audience confusion that the TOS cast was present in these shows, is that really an indication that the Constitution-class was not in service or that the Miranda-class was built in superior numbers to the Constitution-class? We saw the Enterprise primary hull and secondary hull in the Wolf 359 Graveyard scene and the damaged primary hull (saucer section) was used again as USS Olympia in "The Sound of Her Voice" in DS9 so we have evidence that some Constitution-class vessels were still in service. Just because the NCC-1701-A was decommissioned in 2293, doesn't mean that all Constitution-class starships were decomissioned in 2293. We also don't know if the ship was struck or if she was recommissioned with another name or registry number. Historically, ships have been renamed to allow their names to be used on brand new ships.

The battle sequences in Star Trek: Deep Space were not intended to represent the entire Federation fleet. The remaining Constitution-class starships could have been serving in other fleets.

If the Enterprise model was going to be refurbished for TNG "The Battle", would the Constitution-class USS Stargazer also have the registry NCC-2893?

Going one bit further, perhaps no other ship besides NCC-1701 was fitted for a five-year mission? After all, Admiral Kirk quotes this mission of his as a unique qualification for taking command of the Enterprise from young Will Decker in ST:TMP. If it weren't unique or nearly so, Earth would surely have an abundance of veteran Captains suited for taking over from the greenhorn Decker, so that Starfleet wouldn't have to do the unheard-of maneuver of demoting a Rear Admiral down to a starship CO.

Maybe. That certainly seems to be the backstory justification for honoring the NCC-1701 registry number in later starships as NCC-1701-A through NCC-1701-E.

Though Kirk's promotion may have been motivated by the fact that William Shatner was getting too expensive to hire for all the episodes of Star Trek: Phase II. The plan was to have Decker eventually captain the starship and Shatner to come back as a guest star in the television series. Interesting how much of the Star Trek: Phase II story material was retained for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Maybe they were preparing audiences for a movie series without Shatner?

 

[blssdwlf]

Going one bit further, perhaps no other ship besides NCC-1701 was fitted for a five-year mission? After all, Admiral Kirk quotes this mission of his as a unique qualification for taking command of the Enterprise from young Will Decker in ST:TMP. If it weren't unique or nearly so, Earth would surely have an abundance of veteran Captains suited for taking over from the greenhorn Decker,

Well, let's look at that for a moment. At the time, Kirk had 12 other peers at the time. Intrepid, destroyed with crew by space amoeba. Exeter, the captain went crazy after crew reduced to dust. Constellation, captain went insane after crew killed by Planet Killer, then killed himself. Excalibur, crew killed by insane M-5 computer. That's +33% attrition rate for Captains of Connies. Of the 6 or 7 other captains that made it back, it wouldn't be unheard of for them to be re-assigned to another 5 year mission, or assigned to training or promoted or still be out there finishing up their mission. And of those folks, there might only be 1 or 2 actually stationed on Earth. In this case it doesn't seem too unusual for Kirk to be the only experienced 5 year mission commander available (that also had enough pull to get his ship back.)

so that Starfleet wouldn't have to do the unheard-of maneuver of demoting a Rear Admiral down to a starship CO.

Actually, Kirk retains his rank until he gets busted down in The Voyage Home. It's no different than Commodore Decker commanding a starship...

I accept that the Constitution-class is better than the Miranda-class.

Does it have to be, though? None of the movies seem to suggest that this would be the case: there's no discussion about the relative prestiges of commanding the two ship types, and no statistical bias towards or against deploying either type for important missions.

Yep. They just seem to be ships geared for probably different missions.

 

[Unicron]

Actually, the Defiant's crew went crazy and killed each other before the ship wound up in the ENT-era MU. The Constellation fell to the planet killer.

 

[blssdwlf]

Actually, the Defiant's crew went crazy and killed each other before the ship wound up in the ENT-era MU. The Constellation fell to the planet killer.

Thanks! I forgot about the Defiant's crew

 

[Timo]

Actually, Kirk retains his rank until he gets busted down in The Voyage Home.

For some weird reason, Kirk abandons his ||| | Rear Admiral rank braid after boarding the ship, and for the rest of the movie he's clad in a series of uniforms that feature the |:| rank braid of Captain.

Similarly, poor Will Decker is busted out of his |:| -striped Captain's uniform and down to the || -striped Commander's uniform, which he wears till the bitter end.

The whole operation thus seems extremely complicated and convoluted, and something Starfleet wouldn't do lightly - especially not when there were bigger things to consider, such as an approaching armageddon. That's why I think Kirk must have been a truly uniquely qualified individual for the job, as otherwise Starfleet would have taken just about anybody else.

(I wonder if Kirk listed "The Changeling" among his references when applying for having his ship back?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gagarin]

It might be helpful to know what a Chief Of Starfleet Operations was, anyway.


Back to topic, it might not be a better/best situation, but more of a different role/mission situation. Even if the modern navy builds a new kind of ship, that doesn't make an old kind of ship obselete if the two ships are supposed to do different kinds of things. I don't retire my pickup truck because I got a new convertable.

 

[Timo]

It might be helpful to know what a Chief Of Starfleet Operations was, anyway.

True. ST:TMP borrowed many a thing from Franz Joseph's old tech manual, quite possibly including the organization charts. In those, the chart "STAR FLEET ARMED FORCES / organization T0:01:01:00" has Star Fleet Command on top (with the UFP Council and the Military Staff Committee supervising), with sixteen divisions directly below it. These include Fleet Operations and Base Operations. And supposedly Fleet Operations is the division that is further expanded on in the chart "STAR FLEET ARMED FORCES / organization T0:01:01:02". In that chart, Chief of Operations sits on the very top, with Vice Chief and Assistant Vice Chief next to him/her, and with Deputy Chief (Fleet Ops) and Deputy Chief (Base Ops) below him.

Chief of Ops sounds like a big head honcho, then - so it's a bit surprising that a young Rear Admiral would get the billet. Then again, we have seen some other probable division heads with low rank: in "Paradise Lost", the apparent Commandant of Starfleet Academy (on the same organizational level as Chief of Ops) had the two pips of Rear Admiral, and in the second season of TNG, Beverly Crusher was said to be heading Starfleet Medical at the lowly rank of Commander.

Of course, we did see higher-ranking Academy Commandants previously. And "Starfleet Medical" might not be the same thing as Starfleet Medical Division; perhaps Crusher just headed an important hospital?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

Actually, Kirk retains his rank until he gets busted down in The Voyage Home.

For some weird reason, Kirk abandons his ||| | Rear Admiral rank braid after boarding the ship, and for the rest of the movie he's clad in a series of uniforms that feature the |:| rank braid of Captain.

Similarly, poor Will Decker is busted out of his |:| -striped Captain's uniform and down to the || -striped Commander's uniform, which he wears till the bitter end.

I think this is probably more of Kirk going overboard in asserting his old command. Kirk made it a point to tell Decker that he was temporarily demoted to make room for Kirk. Since we know Kirk retains his Admiral rank in ST2-4 he could've either also been temporarily demoted by Admiral Nogura or he just liked being called Captain vs Admiral and had a bit of inferiority complex when competing with Decker

The whole operation thus seems extremely complicated and convoluted, and something Starfleet wouldn't do lightly - especially not when there were bigger things to consider, such as an approaching armageddon. That's why I think Kirk must have been a truly uniquely qualified individual for the job, as otherwise Starfleet would have taken just about anybody else.

(I wonder if Kirk listed "The Changeling" among his references when applying for having his ship back?)

Heheh, Starfleet was about to use anybody else. That should say something about the availability of qualified Captains

SCOTT: The crew hasn't had near enough transition time with all the new equipment. And the engines are not yet tested at warp power. And an untried Captain.

 

[BK613]

Folks here have said several times that the Miranda would have less space for labs than the Constitution. I grant that the two are both of irregular shapes, and the shapes are dissimilar, so it is hard to judge how they compare by eye.
This page http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvolumetrics.html was done by a guy who used 3-D software and some good models of the ships in question to work out the volume of a bunch of Star Trek ships (and Star Wars ships, which isn't relevant here).
He has the Miranda being 6500 cubic meters larger than the Constitution, or about 3%.

I believe you compared the Miranda to the wrong data point.
From the top of that chart:

"Also, you'll see after certain vessel classes that appear more than once an A or B. This is based on Captain Picard's use of the term "B-type Warbird", which happened to coincide with the first appearance of the second Warbird studio model, which had different features from the first. This also works nicely given that the Enterprise-B is the first known vessel of the modified Excelsior class (with the secondary hull 'wing' additions and so on), meaning that the B-type Excelsior refers to the Enterprise-B, as well as merely referring to a second type of Excelsior.
As a result, obviously, the A-type Constitution is the TOS vessel. The B-type Constitution is the TMP (movies) version."

That chart's volumes(in m^2):
Constitution A (TOS volume)................211,248
Constitution B (TMP volume)................234,928
Miranda volume.................................217,770

234,928 - 217,770 = 17,158
234,928 / 217,770 = 1.0787895

So the TMP Connie is about 8% larger by volume than the Miranda.

 

[SpyOne]

Yep, my mistake: I was using the wrong Enterprise.

 

[SpyOne]

Had a further thought about this:
Basically, I've proceeded from the assumption that the Miranda and the Constitution have very similar roles. I believe that the Miranda can do most of the things the Constitution can do, and the Miranda is slightly cheaper to build. Those two points combine to have the Miranda used a lot to free-up Constitutions to do those things that only they can do. (Be big, be sexy, go fast, etc.)

What this means is that if another ship comes along that can do the things a Constitution can but a Miranda can't (I'm looking at you, Excelsior), the Constitution suddenly becomes redundant: it is basically a Miranda that costs more to build. Sure, it can do more things, but it almost never gets the chance to actually do them, so it isn't worth the extra cost.

Being the biggest, the baddest, the fastest, or the best is a very fragile position. Someone else comes along and knocks you off the top of the hill and all you are is old. But being reliable has a lot of job security.
IMO, that's why 100 years later there are plenty of Mirandas still in service but apparently no Constitutions: the latter got effectively replaced by the Excelsior, but the former was not replaced for most of the century.

 

[Gagarin]

Had a further thought about this:
Basically, I've proceeded from the assumption that the Miranda and the Constitution have very similar roles. I believe that the Miranda can do most of the things the Constitution can do, and the Miranda is slightly cheaper to build. Those two points combine to have the Miranda used a lot to free-up Constitutions to do those things that only they can do. (Be big, be sexy, go fast, etc.)

What this means is that if another ship comes along that can do the things a Constitution can but a Miranda can't (I'm looking at you, Excelsior), the Constitution suddenly becomes redundant: it is basically a Miranda that costs more to build. Sure, it can do more things, but it almost never gets the chance to actually do them, so it isn't worth the extra cost.

Being the biggest, the baddest, the fastest, or the best is a very fragile position. Someone else comes along and knocks you off the top of the hill and all you are is old. But being reliable has a lot of job security.
IMO, that's why 100 years later there are plenty of Mirandas still in service but apparently no Constitutions: the latter got effectively replaced by the Excelsior, but the former was not replaced for most of the century.

QFT.