Or maybe it's like Marge's Chanel suit and after so many refit and redesigns it just started to fall apart
Constitution Class 24th Century Question
- Thread starter Jeffmw078
- Start date
The original Constitution class ships yea. I’m talking about the refit styles that were built from the keel up. Not refits.
Which I guess is the interesting question. Were any ever built?
It would be quite realistic to have ships at the very ends of their lifespans look the same as brand new ones, in a situation where the operating agency can afford to modernize but for some reason isn't inclined to newbuild and/or to scrap old stuff. WWII would have been a classic juncture: the perfect excuse to pour resources both to expanding one's navy with newest-style units and to modernize the biggest of the older ones, the ones where the sheer tonnage of preexisting steel made scrapping-and-replacing unattractive but where additionally there were time pressures and international treaties that needed to be circumvented by redefining new as its very opposite.
Many WWI battleships became WWII ones in a way that perfectly reflects the change of NCC-1701 from its TOS to its TMP looks: new aesthetics, new shapes, a roomier new interior facilitated by adoption of more compact modern counterparts to previous boilers, engines and gearboxes... This didn't mean that the ones actually built for WWII would have been close copies of WWI conversions, or that they wouldn't have outlived the conversions by far (in navies that could afford not to totally de-escalate afterwards).
It doesn't sound implausible that Kirk's TOS ship would already have been a "very late newbuild", a vessel built to a design originally created at the turn of the century back when registries in the NCC-1017 ballpark were all the fad. She'd already represent the death throes of that particular design, and Starfleet would have nothing to lose in trying out new technologies on this expendable senior come the 2270s - those just wouldn't amount to life extension techniques, not for something that old any longer.
Timo Saloniemi
It would be quite realistic to have ships at the very ends of their lifespans look the same as brand new ones, in a situation where the operating agency can afford to modernize but for some reason isn't inclined to newbuild and/or to scrap old stuff. WWII would have been a classic juncture: the perfect excuse to pour resources both to expanding one's navy with newest-style units and to modernize the biggest of the older ones, the ones where the sheer tonnage of preexisting steel made scrapping-and-replacing unattractive but where additionally there were time pressures and international treaties that needed to be circumvented by redefining new as its very opposite.
Many WWI battleships became WWII ones in a way that perfectly reflects the change of NCC-1701 from its TOS to its TMP looks: new aesthetics, new shapes, a roomier new interior facilitated by adoption of more compact modern counterparts to previous boilers, engines and gearboxes... This didn't mean that the ones actually built for WWII would have been close copies of WWI conversions, or that they wouldn't have outlived the conversions by far (in navies that could afford not to totally de-escalate afterwards).
It doesn't sound implausible that Kirk's TOS ship would already have been a "very late newbuild", a vessel built to a design originally created at the turn of the century back when registries in the NCC-1017 ballpark were all the fad. She'd already represent the death throes of that particular design, and Starfleet would have nothing to lose in trying out new technologies on this expendable senior come the 2270s - those just wouldn't amount to life extension techniques, not for something that old any longer.
Timo Saloniemi
Also factor in that the Enterprise had been "retired" into a training ship by TWOK. Was this her intended fate at the time of the upgrade? Were they upgrading her to "Reliant" technology to make her more useful for training.
Perhaps Enterprise was the only "movie era" Constitution class - either upgraded or new build.
Is there a canon timespan between the first two films? I know that the Chronology postulated two 5-year missions between the two, but is there anything to support that?
dJE
Perhaps Enterprise was the only "movie era" Constitution class - either upgraded or new build.
Is there a canon timespan between the first two films? I know that the Chronology postulated two 5-year missions between the two, but is there anything to support that?
dJE
In TMP, Kirk has had one 5 year mission and hasn't been in space in 2.5 years. In Wrath of Khan, its 15 years since "Space Seed", so it depends when "Space Seed" takes place in the 5 year mission.
There is also the question of how many Connies survived the TOS era, how many went thru the refit, how many new refit versions were built and how many survived beyond that.
I think it’s possible not many would have survived to the 24th century. Especially the ones that went thru the refit process.
I think it’s possible not many would have survived to the 24th century. Especially the ones that went thru the refit process.
Well, we know on-screen of at least 2. The refit Enterprise from TMP - TSFS and the Ent-A from TVH-TUC. Dialog from TFF implies that was a new build.
My own take on the subject is that Starfleet got about 20 additional years out of the Constitution-class than it was supposed to. I don't think every design is meant to last about 100 years. Some designs may be products of a particular time or technology and are only around for a few decades and then are retired & replaced with new designs. The 23rd-Century designs we saw in TNG may be far more the exception than the rule, IMO.
Actually, no. The Excelsior from TNG had a registry of NCC-21445:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Excelsior_(NCC-21445)
And we don’t know what class it is. For all we know it’s an Ambassador.
I wonder though if the people writing the Excelsior into the script may have been thinking of Sulu's ship, but the art department assumed differently? A blurry NCC that was never meant to be read isn't exactly hard canon.
Sort of. Ron Moore claimed the reference to the Excelsior in Interface was meant to be in reference to Sulu's ship, unaware of the Okudagram listing an Excelsior with a different registry in The Measure of a Man.
Almost definitely. But I was just posting the evidence that it actually wasn’t the same ship regardless of what the intent was.
And on what Kirk was last doing in space those 2.5 years before TMP. Was that his TOS run, or something else altogether?
We have direct onscreen evidence that the TOS mission ended in 2270 (that is, a character says as much). We have indirect evidence that TWoK was after the year 2283 (that is, this date on an ale bottle surprises Kirk, but not quite enough for us to think it was in his future!). And we have circumstantial evidence that TMP was after 2277 (because 1977 is when the Voyager probes were launched, a date dictated by astronomical invariables, and Decker says this was "over" 300 years ago) and perhaps before 2278 (because at that date, we see the next type of uniform worn, on the Bozeman of "Cause and Effect" fame). But the latter we can haggle over.
But dialogue from TMP also implies (that is, outright states!) that the NCC-1701-nil there was an all-new ship.
This is not literally true in TMP. It need not be literally true in TFF, then, either.
Timo Saloniemi
The galaxy needs more Ambassador-Class ships!
Nope, not even,
KIRK: Two and a half years as Chief of Starfleet Operations may have made me a stale but I wouldn't exactly consider myself untried. They gave her back to me, Scotty.
You can't be given back what you never had, She may be so "redesigned and refitted" that she is "almost a totally new Enterprise" but she is also explicitly the TOS Enterprise.But yes. That the movie then contradicts itself is merely further proof how these things work: a ship can be stated to be new but isn't.
That we failed to get the explicit bit that says the E-A was old is no more significant than the fact that we got bits that might suggest she was new. Both are merely points of view, and there's no fault in one or the other seemingly being a lie. That's simply how it works, according to TMP...
Timo Saloniemi
A used car can also be a new car, in the context that it’s new to the person buying it. It’s not a contradiction; it’s just how the context is used. The TMP Enterprise is clearly the TOS Enterprise upgraded, so there’s no confusion about that unless someone wants to artificially make confusion.
Actually, in this particular case it's vice versa: much as we and Kirk would like to think the ship is old, in actuality Honest Harry's Slightly Preowned Starships just screwed the old license plate to an all-new chassis, body, engine, upholstery and stereos. This is something of a plot point, even, with Kirk desperately wanting to relive the past and being blind to the fact that he cannot.
Kirk's career in general is a never-ending sacrifice, it seems: he always ends up behind the desk, then briefly getting command of a ship that doesn't meet his daydreaming expectations, then again behind the desk...
Timo Saloniemi
Kirk's career in general is a never-ending sacrifice, it seems: he always ends up behind the desk, then briefly getting command of a ship that doesn't meet his daydreaming expectations, then again behind the desk...
Timo Saloniemi
Exactly. It's like getting your old corner office back but someone remodeled while you were away. Same old location but everything is new just the same.
