Decommissioned = renamed and recommissioned? Enterprise-A

[Mr. Crane]

It has often been debated in some circles why the Enterprise-A was commissioned and then decommisioned after less than a decade of service.

Here is an in-universe explanation that might make sense:

2286

Following the actions of the former Enteprise 1701 command crew in saving Earth from the communication attempts of the “Whalesong Probe”, Starfleet Command decided to commission one of their newer vessels as the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A, in honour of that crew. Initially, the intention is to rename the first Excelsior-class vessel “Enterprise”, but following the failure of the prototype’s transwarp drive program, it is decided that a recently completed Constitution-class vessel, will be renamed the Enterprise.

2293

Starfleet decides to stop any future construction contracts on its Constitution-class starships in favor of newer designs. Now that the Excelsior-class program is back on track, the Admiralty orders the transfer of the historic “Enterprise” name to one of the new prolific vessels, as was the intention in 2286. It further orders the temporary decommissioning of the Enterprise-A so that it can be refitted and recommissioned under a new name.

The decision is highly controversial, and is formally protested by several members of the command crew of the Enterprise-A, who argue that the new ship is proving its worth as a successor to the original. Captains Kirk and Scott prepare documentation emphasizing the merits of the Constitution-class, but the Fleet PR department pushes through the change; following the disasterous PR of some Starfleet admirals’ involvement in the assassination of the Klingon high chancellor, the Fleet wants to present a shiny new ship flagship bearing the Enterprise name to the media. Captain Kirk is offered the captaincy of the new vessel, but Kirk declines and goes forth with his original goal of taking early retirement. Captains Spock and Sulu also decline the offer in favor of their own career goals and loyalty to Captain Kirk.

Following its decommissioning ceremony and subsequent systems overhaul, the Enterprise-A is recommisioned under a new name, and enters service under a new designation, the U.S.S. (Some other name). It remains in service for several more decades, until the class is decommissioned in the middle of the second decade of the 24th century.

 

[BlastHardcheese]

I doubt that the Ent-A was recomissioned as a different ship. I think it was placed in the fleet museum where it belonged.

 

[SilentP]

Well it wouldn't be without precedent (within the canon), since the USS Sau Polo was renamed to Defiant, so maybe Starfleet is ok with just renaming the E-A back to whatever the ship was originally called.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I doubt that the Ent-A was recomissioned as a different ship. I think it was placed in the fleet museum where it belonged.

Nah. It was sold off, it's "sensitive" equipment yanked out, and bought by a group of half-Romulan, half-Klingon colonists. It was fitted with disruptors and later destroyed in battle against a renegade Starfleet Admiral. Oh, yeah, and Kirk got to command it one last time before his tour of the Enterprise-B.

At least, that's how one story goes.

 

[Timo]

It's not that bad a story, either. Too bad that it spawned sequels...

Several ways by which it would make sense to end the career of the E-A at Khitomer:

1) She was an old vessel, originally built when Kirk's first ship was, and later refitted to a standard not too dissimilar from the ST:TMP one. All ships of that ilk were considered second-rate in the 2280s, though: the E-nil was just a training ship, and this other ship was either going to be scrapped, or then renamed and donated to a national hero in need as a symbolic gift. The latter happened - but it didn't increase the service life of the vessel much.

2) She was built all new when the older Constitutions were refitted, in the 2270s. She would have had quite a bit of life left, and indeed she was supposed to continue a glorious career after Khitomer. She wasn't going to be decommissioned - only Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura were. However, Starfleet decided it was politically clever to retire Kirk's ship along with him, to appease the Klingons - and then further decided it was clever to still let the Enterprise name live on, to give some credibility to that newest over-budget, behind-schedule monster of a ship they were building.

3) She was a relatively new ship, but being pounded by a dozen direct torpedo hits broke her back, and all the king's horses and men couldn't gamma-weld her together again. It was much cheaper to just build a new ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Santaman]

4: She was a prototype and therefor had little standard equipment and therefor not suited for regular duty, when the Ent nil was destroyed they de-mothballed the old girl and gave it to Kirk, after Kirk and crew were pensioned off it was sent to the Starfleet museum.

 

[Bones2]

Umm, Yorktown? Also explains why so little is working at the beginning of V.

 

[Santaman]

Yorktown was a Pre-Refit Constitution, not a refit, also Scotty's lines suggest that this wasn't a refitted but a new vessel.

 

[JB2005]

^ put together by monkeys could refer to the refit, they did basically rebuild the connies...

 

[Bones2]

Whoever said the Yorktown in IV wasn't a refit Constitution?

 

[Ronald Held]

I would vote for being decommisioned and sent to the Fleet museum.

 

[Red Ranger]

I doubt that the Ent-A was recomissioned as a different ship. I think it was placed in the fleet museum where it belonged.

Nah. It was sold off, it's "sensitive" equipment yanked out, and bought by a group of half-Romulan, half-Klingon colonists. It was fitted with disruptors and later destroyed in battle against a renegade Starfleet Admiral. Oh, yeah, and Kirk got to command it one last time before his tour of the Enterprise-B.

At least, that's how one story goes.

Which novel is this? Ashes of Eden, the "prequel" to the Shatnerverse series of novels? -- RR

 

[SeerSGB]

Yorktown was a Pre-Refit Constitution, not a refit, also Scotty's lines suggest that this wasn't a refitted but a new vessel.

Scotty's line can be taken two ways:

-- 100% new ship

-- Old ship, but a "new" ship for the crew. Much in the same way a person my by a used-car but say "this is my new car"; new to them, but not "new" as in "brand new"

As for the Yorktown, didn't we get a glimps of her bridge on a monitor screen (honest, I should know this but I've been confusing names all day), and it was a TMP bridge.

 

[BillJ]

Sitting in the salvage depot orbiting Qualor II.

 

[Timo]

Scotty's line can be taken two ways:

-- 100% new ship

-- Old ship, but a "new" ship for the crew.

Or perhaps

-- Old but renovated ship, like the one in TMP that her skipper called an "almost totally new" Enterprise. Scotty might just have skipped the "almost" part.

As for the Yorktown, didn't we get a glimps of her bridge on a monitor screen (honest, I should know this but I've been confusing names all day), and it was a TMP bridge.

Yeah, for whatever it's worth. The Grissom also had a bridge like that, while being a totally different class of ship.

The Yorktown could well have been the ship from TOS refitted once, then refitted/repaired a second time after the Whale Probe encounter before being handed over to Kirk. I can just imagine the grins on the faces of Starfleet top brass when they realized what would be the perfect "reward" for this mutinous pain-in-the-ass hero... A twice-refitted turd that had just been mangled by a space monster, but ah so cutely looked like the troublemaker's old ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SeerSGB]

The Yorktown could well have been the ship from TOS refitted once, then refitted/repaired a second time after the Whale Probe encounter before being handed over to Kirk. I can just imagine the grins on the faces of Starfleet top brass when they realized what would be the perfect "reward" for this mutinous pain-in-the-ass hero... A twice-refitted turd that had just been mangled by a space monster, but ah so cutely looked like the troublemaker's old ship.

Timo Saloniemi

Disclaimer: I am a Kirk fan, and for the most part I like the 1701-A


I've often thought that the 1701-A was a "shut up and go away" sort of reward. They knew making Kirk as desk jockey always backfired (TMP, STII) and he would some how twisted the regs to get his old ship and crew back. They knew the man was-- regardless of political baggage-- a national hero to the Federation, so they couldn't fuck with him to much do to the political and public backlas. Solution: Cut out the middle man.

Give him a old ship, slap PR stunt name on the hull, and send him out on pissy little "mapping missions" and "Show the flag" shit that he can't fuck up too bad till him and his buddies say "screw it" and put in for retirement.

Hell the thing could be the Excalibur pulled out of mothballs, slapped back together with spare parts, and repainted. I've always thought the 1701-A was a kitbash/testbed ship; don't know why though, beyond it basically behaving like a Hong Kong Transformer knockoff and falling apart when anyone played with it.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I doubt that the Ent-A was recomissioned as a different ship. I think it was placed in the fleet museum where it belonged.

Nah. It was sold off, it's "sensitive" equipment yanked out, and bought by a group of half-Romulan, half-Klingon colonists. It was fitted with disruptors and later destroyed in battle against a renegade Starfleet Admiral. Oh, yeah, and Kirk got to command it one last time before his tour of the Enterprise-B.

At least, that's how one story goes.

Which novel is this? Ashes of Eden, the "prequel" to the Shatnerverse series of novels? -- RR

Yes it is; although, I don't think you can consider Ashes of Eden the prequel to the Shanterverse books since it is the first book written in that series.

 

[Red Ranger]

^Oh, I thought the Shatnerverse only began after Kirk "died" in GEN. -- RR

 

[Timo]

Give him a old ship, slap PR stunt name on the hull, and send him out on pissy little "mapping missions" and "Show the flag" shit that he can't fuck up too bad..

Actually, the first mission they gave him in ST5:TFF was one that he couldn't NOT fuck up! He was sent in a failed ship to a failed colony to defuse a century-long political crisis and rescue a bunch of hostages nobody truly cared about from apparently bloodlusty terrorists in the few hours available before two other governments who cared even less came in and bombed everybody to bits. Surely he'd come out utterly humiliated, and thus would no longer be a troublesome hero? I mean, he couldn't really be expected to rescue the hostages, sign a truce with the Klingons, deal with the terrorists and return without casualties? That'd be like expecting him to go chat with God and come out holding His wallet and fistful of His teeth.

Seems to me that Kirk had enemies in high places... So them giving him an old but poorly modernized ship as a "reward" would also fit the picture smack on!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SeerSGB]

Give him a old ship, slap PR stunt name on the hull, and send him out on pissy little "mapping missions" and "Show the flag" shit that he can't fuck up too bad..

Actually, the first mission they gave him in ST5:TFF was one that he couldn't NOT fuck up! He was sent in a failed ship to a failed colony to defuse a century-long political crisis and rescue a bunch of hostages nobody truly cared about from apparently bloodlusty terrorists in the few hours available before two other governments who cared even less came in and bombed everybody to bits. Surely he'd come out utterly humiliated, and thus would no longer be a troublesome hero? I mean, he couldn't really be expected to rescue the hostages, sign a truce with the Klingons, deal with the terrorists and return without casualties? That'd be like expecting him to go chat with God and come out holding His wallet and fistful of His teeth.

Seems to me that Kirk had enemies in high places... So them giving him an old but poorly modernized ship as a "reward" would also fit the picture smack on!

Timo Saloniemi

You could have a point.

After all had they taken Excelsior or even the Saratoga things would have went a hell of lot differently. And it would have still been "Jim Kirk" just a different ship. Sybok wouldn't have been able to steal the ship: Fine he gets the shuttle, gets to the ship, and finds a detachment of security officers standing on deck with phasers pointed at his head.

Sorta supports my belief that the TOS movies should have stopped at STIV. Cause the last 2 1/2 are just Starfleet fucking with Kirk to knock him down a few pegs.