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Defiant question?

GalaxyClass1701

Captain
Captain
Ok so shouldn't the first Defiant in the series be the Defiant A and the second Defiant B since there was a Constitution class ship called Defiant?
 
The NX-74205 would have been Defiant-A if it had carried forward the registry of the Constitution-class starship (NCC-1764). Since Starfleet did not use the same registry for both ships, no, it would not have been Defiant-A. According to Memory Alpha, Ronald D. Moore stated in the Deep Space Nine Companion that it was his intention that the Sao Paulo would be known as the Defiant-A in-universe, but the costs involved in redesignating the model (and not being able to use stock footage of the NX-74205) prevented that intention from being realized on-screen.
 
The NX-74205 would have been Defiant-A if it had carried forward the registry of the Constitution-class starship (NCC-1764). Since Starfleet did not use the same registry for both ships, no, it would not have been Defiant-A. According to Memory Alpha, Ronald D. Moore stated in the Deep Space Nine Companion that it was his intention that the Sao Paulo would be known as the Defiant-A in-universe, but the costs involved in redesignating the model (and not being able to use stock footage of the NX-74205) prevented that intention from being realized on-screen.

And for an in-universe explanation, I've always rationalized that away by saying Starfleet repainted the Sao Paolo as the Defiant as a propaganda message to cover up the fact that it was destroyed.
 
Ok so shouldn't the first Defiant in the series be the Defiant A and the second Defiant B since there was a Constitution class ship called Defiant?

When Sisko went back to get the Defiant, it was in "mothballs" I'm guessing it had to be brought up to specs and so on. Also, this ship was a prototype that Sisko whisked away pretty quickly b/c of the threat from the Dominion.
Don't know if SF had time or even cared about all the A's and B's and so forth
 
^

Not that I can remember. Multiple ships have had the same name, but not necessarily the same registry. The Enterprise has been the only series of ships to maintain the 1701 registry, despite each one bein' a different class from the previous ship.

In show explanation for the Defiant could simply be there was a war goin' on and the Sau Paulo was sent to the front lines with its name intact. Chief O'Brien was lucky to get the paint job done as quickly as he did!
 
Is there a precedent on ships not called Enterprise following that pattern?

No, never. At least not in canon. The Enterprise is a special case.

Well, that isn't quite correct. The USS Relativity had a -G. Two "fake" Starfleet ships had letters, the faked USS Yamato (-E)and the USS Dauntless (-A). No one mentioned it as something extraordinary when they saw these ships, which might mean it is more common than just for the Enterprise.
 
IMO, the Enterprise is the first and currently only vessel to have its hull registry expanded to include subsequent starships with that name. I know, I know--one could argue "absence of evidence doesn't mean absence of whatever" that almost every other ship in the fleet has letters have its hull registry--but I think the line has to be drawn somewhere regarding a fanboy-friendly tradition that could get real silly real fast. Even if becomes a practice that goes on to include other ships in the future, it really has to be a very small number--perhaps only a handful. Any more than that and I think the practice no longer becomes special, IMO.

Besides, the Yamato-E was retconned in a later episode with an onscreen registry of NCC-71807, and the "Dauntless-A" was encountered by a lost ship in the Delta Quadrant that had been out of touch with Starfleet for a few years. Besides, the "original Dauntless" would have been NX-01, so that wouldn't have worked now...
 
Riker was pretty clear that he considered NCC-1305-E a valid registry: he spelled it out, letter by letter, and quoted it as proof that the ship was the Yamato.

The registry was retconned later, yes. But without any explanation given, we could just as well argue the registry was changed in-universe. Or we could even say that the registry was not changed, because the only place where it was observed was a series of log recordings; perhaps a programming bug resulted in NCC-1305-E being replaced by an incorrect registry?

Besides, the "original Dauntless" would have been NX-01, so that wouldn't have worked now...

Why not? The first experimental starship of the UFP Starfleet could well have been USS Dauntless, NX-01 (or NCC-01). The fact that some earlier, foreign navy had some other spaceships or spacecraft or aircraft or watergoing ships with some other name but the registry NX-01 should not affect that much.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Riker was pretty clear that he considered NCC-1305-E a valid registry: he spelled it out, letter by letter, and quoted it as proof that the ship was the Yamato.
We could just as easily say that Riker was spelling out the registry because it wasn't a valid registry and proof that they were encountering an alien mystery to be solved.
The registry was retconned later, yes.
And that's all that matters.
Besides, the "original Dauntless" would have been NX-01, so that wouldn't have worked now...

Why not? The first experimental starship of the UFP Starfleet could well have been USS Dauntless, NX-01 (or NCC-01).
Or the hull registry of first experimental starship of the Federation Starfleet might have been NX-100, and the Voyager crew didn't see any correlation between the USS Dauntless and Starfleet's first Warp 5 starship. None of the Voyager's crew may have been history buffs...
 
The reason why they had to call the ship the Defiant was because the USS Ben Sisko's Mutha Fucking Pimp-Hand was too long.
 
Is there a precedent on ships not called Enterprise following that pattern?

No, never. At least not in canon. The Enterprise is a special case.

Well, that isn't quite correct. The USS Relativity had a -G. Two "fake" Starfleet ships had letters, the faked USS Yamato (-E)and the USS Dauntless (-A). No one mentioned it as something extraordinary when they saw these ships, which might mean it is more common than just for the Enterprise.

A potential future, and two fakes. I don't think anyone in Starfleet would balk at the notion, but I think the letters at the end of the registry is best left as an Enterprise tradition and nothing more.

Riker was pretty clear that he considered NCC-1305-E a valid registry: he spelled it out, letter by letter, and quoted it as proof that the ship was the Yamato.

Frankly, I tend to lump that in with things from early TNG that got revised that make more sense after revision, such as Worf saying that the Ent-D is more powerful without the saucer (yeah, those extra engines and phaser arrays sure take away a lot).
 
The reason why they had to call the ship the Defiant was because the USS Ben Sisko's Mutha Fucking Pimp-Hand was too long.

I love that guy's reviews :lol:

Anyway, I don't see any reason for Starfleet not to use the additional letters for subsequent ships with the same name, but I reckon that they'd want to keep it restricted to the Enterprise, since Kirk's era, it's always been the flagship, so by keeping the same registry, you tie them all together all that much more stronger, which you don't necessarily have to do with other ships.

Now if another ship was to gain prominence over the Enterprise and that ship was to become the flagship, I could see that registry for the new ship being reused.
 
I see the Enterprise thing as just a historical anomaly. I mean, think about it. Starfleet was going to decommission the old Enterprise, and would probably have built a new one before too long; it may already have been the long term plan to name one of the new Excelsior-class ships Enterprise.

But then Kirk goes and saves the planet Earth, and the Federation President decides to reward him by putting him out on a new Enterprise - it would make great PR! And it makes the Klingons scared too - in the next couple of movies, Kirk and the Enterprise are specifically sent because it will make the Klingons quake in their little space boots.

The only ship they've got ready is a Connie, which is hastily renamed Enterprise NCC-1701-A. Kirk does his thing, and the Excelsior-class successor doesn't turn up until much later, when instead of being USS Enterprise NCC-2001 (or whatever), she's given the now familiar 1701-B.

I'm putting my fingers in my ears and pretending Yamato was always NCC-71807, just like Mike Okuda. :p
 
they'd want to keep it restricted to the Enterprise, since Kirk's era, it's always been the flagship
Umm, the only Enterprise that has ever been said to be "flagship" is the E-D. The others were apparently just regular starships, without specific command roles or flag officers or special diplomatic status or whatever.

The other Enterprises apparently haven't been the biggest and baddest ships of their respective eras, either. Kirk's original was supposedly the fastest for her day, tho.

In the alternate universe of STXI, Pike's new Enterprise does appear to be the biggest and baddest, so it's no wonder she is a flagship in that universe...

the Excelsior-class successor

UFP press thought the E-B would be a "successor" to the E-A in some vague sense. We never learned if Starfleet thought that way, though. The E-E was a more concrete successor to the E-D in that much of the command crew just transferred from one ship to the other, but even there we don't learn if the E-E took over the mission of the E-D or was built for a mission of her very own.

Timo Saloniemi
 
What is "important" in creating such a fake? The Dauntless fake didn't try to pass for an existing, standard, known Starfleet vessel, but for a futuristic and novel one; her registry could be painted in pink and our heroes still wouldn't have a valid reason to cry mallard. The Yamato was a fake of a very real and existing ship, though, so even the slightest error would have launched a duck season.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Umm, the only Enterprise that has ever been said to be "flagship" is the E-D. The others were apparently just regular starships, without specific command roles or flag officers or special diplomatic status or whatever...

From Dictionary.com's definition for "flagship" -

a single item from a related group considered as the most important, often in establishing a public image

So, by slappin' letters & maintainin' the number registry for the Enterprise was a PR move. The Enterprise was also sent on unusual diplomatic missions & brought into action for galactic changin' events.

Thus, the flagship of the Federation.
 
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