That made some sense in the original draft of TATV, written to cap off the third season had Enterprise been cancelled then, in that they would say the ship was being decommissioned due to the extensive damage it received during the Xindi mission.
Does Enterpise-A's short tenure make sense?
- Thread starter tim0122
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You're only putting several hundred people at a time on these things. Guess they'll find out whether or not they work, on the way to Whothehellcares IX. And, if it blows up, they can just punch out another one...
There is a real historical precedent for the Enterprise-A's apparently short life.
While Enterprise CVN-65 was in service for 51 years, her predecessor CV-6 was only in service for nine years. Despite being the most decorated US ship of World War II and being in full operational status after the war, she was decommissioned in 1947 due to her high cost of maintenance, being deemed surplus to requirements after victory in the Pacific, and the rapid rate of naval technological advancement during the war rendering her obsolete. A Constitution-class ship suffering the same fate at the end of the Federation-Klingon cold war is almost appropriate if you think about it.
Besides, even if the -A was new her class was not. As is implied in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock before being confirmed in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the Constitution-class is over forty years old and simply outclassed by newer ships, both Starfleet and Klingon. There's only so often you can update an existing design before it stops being an efficient use of resources.
My headcanon here is that the Enterprise-A was like the space shuttle Endeavour – built out of existing spare parts rather than an actual brand new construction. One, means she could be built comparatively quickly and cheaply. Two, it would explain why it took a while for Scotty to iron out her quirks and get everything "run in" properly.
While Enterprise CVN-65 was in service for 51 years, her predecessor CV-6 was only in service for nine years. Despite being the most decorated US ship of World War II and being in full operational status after the war, she was decommissioned in 1947 due to her high cost of maintenance, being deemed surplus to requirements after victory in the Pacific, and the rapid rate of naval technological advancement during the war rendering her obsolete. A Constitution-class ship suffering the same fate at the end of the Federation-Klingon cold war is almost appropriate if you think about it.
Besides, even if the -A was new her class was not. As is implied in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock before being confirmed in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the Constitution-class is over forty years old and simply outclassed by newer ships, both Starfleet and Klingon. There's only so often you can update an existing design before it stops being an efficient use of resources.
My headcanon here is that the Enterprise-A was like the space shuttle Endeavour – built out of existing spare parts rather than an actual brand new construction. One, means she could be built comparatively quickly and cheaply. Two, it would explain why it took a while for Scotty to iron out her quirks and get everything "run in" properly.
Speed of construction does not preclude safety nor regulations ensuring that these ships work. I am simply pointing out that they as a post-scarcity interstellar society CAN churn out a lot of ships, fast.
It's debatable as to whether the Federation is a true post-scarcity society. On an individual level perhaps, but starships still represent a mammoth investment of time and limited resources. We might refer to the Federation as proto-post-scarcity. Compare it to something like the Culture in the novels of Iain M Banks, for example, which is WAY further along to true post-scarcity than we see in Star Trek.
The fact that the Miranda class is about the same age and continued to see service to at least the mid 2370s shoots that argument down.
We don't know whether there are refits still out there. The Federation is massive, there could still be whole armies of refits out there. We saw a secondary hull in the aftermath of Wolf 359.
Shouldn't that be whole navies of refits?
Yes, I'm reserving the right to be that pedantic.
Indeed, if the Constitution-III was a relatively new class of ship, and if (based on precedent) the prototype was a rebuild of the Constitution-II (which is probably bigger than the current official size thanks to SNW, so it might not be that outlandish by Star Trek refit standards), it suggests Constitution-IIs were still a going concern up to the end of the 24th century.
I think they should be as common as Mirandas and Excelsiors in the TNG-era, and I don't like over-fitting because of production limitations and deciding Starfleet was made up entirely of eight classes of ships that had CG models available in 1997. If they put me on DS9HD, I'd absolutely tap the Eaglemoss archive and fill out the big fleet scenes with Constitution-IIs, Ambassadors, Enterprise-B style Excelsiors (heck, maybe even a couple Excelsior-IIs, based on the registry numbers, they aren't that new), New Orleanses (and the other BoBW ships, but that's my favorite), and anything else that could've been around then. I'd go mad with power, relabel the new Defiant with an -A, make new shots to replace the stock footage in the finale, and slip in cameos for the Cerberus and Enterprise-E. It's my daydream, I'll do what I like.
Rolling back to the main topic, the original Enterprise had also been worked over in TWOK, which could've also contributed to the decision to decomission it as much as or more than the ship being anything but twenty years old, no matter how you count it.
If there were structural issues, it seems like Scott wouldn't be able to repair the ship in two, or eight, weeks.
It could be like totaling a car. Your insurance will only give you as much money as you could sell the (functioning) car for. A five thousand dollar repair on a brand-new vehicle will be covered, but the same damage on the same car that's ten years older, even in top condition, would have it sent to the junkyard.
Unfortunately, Starfleet owns the Enterprise, not Scotty, so he can't cover the balance of the repairs out-of-pocket if Starfleet decides repairing the Enterprise doesn't pencil out, even if they have the parts and materials on-hand that they could.
I never had a problem with the Enterprise-A being a renamed older ship, In fact, I like to think that instead of Starfleet giving that troublemaker Kirk a brand-new ship, they gave him one originally slated to be decommissioned and dismantled. It was spruced up a little bit, but still something of a clunker until Scotty could work his magic. If she was anywhere near as old as the original Enterprise, that would be another good reason for her to be retired in TUC, IMO.
Don't get me wrong, I see the arguments for her having been a newly-built ship and it could work that way too.
Don't get me wrong, I see the arguments for her having been a newly-built ship and it could work that way too.
I actually really like this idea. It allows them to retire in the same ship they began in, and makes Kirk's complete and total unfamiliarity in TMP make a bit more sense. It softens the loss in III, and bookends the series very nicely.
I have a very hard time buying the refit idea. For one, if that was the case, I'd think they'd keep the original ship name like in TMP and nevermind the A. Two, more importantly, the original ship exploded pretty badly. I have no doubt they would've salvaged some parts for historical purposes. It was a legendary ship, and they'd want parts of it for a museum. But why go through the trouble of grabbing what few pieces remain of the ship and welding them (or whatever they'd do) to mostly new pieces when it'd probably be much easier to just build a new ship from scratch.
I have a better time believing they'd rename an already built ship. Even that, though, I don't see happening. Would seem in poor taste and an insult to boot to give the best known captain in Starfleet a hand-me-down with a new name etched on.
Plus, Starfleet always has a problem with having other ships in range. So, I doubt they had any other ships to spare.
I think the suggestion is that the one that exploded actually wasn't the original, and was a new build given the name, so when they needed another one, they just finished the refit on the original.
I have always loved the idea of a (imo) 3rd 5 year mission after TFF, a whole new series of adventures, that would include Spock meeting Valeris and Sulu's promotion, giving them an actual point to the end of IV and the shakedown in V, that was more then just pandering and humoring Kirk by the Federation Council.
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Was there any indication that the crew would have died, and not just the ship taking damage?
I like to think that the ship was rechristened, that it was a ship that had been sitting around unused for quite a while after a Mary Celeste situation; a starship whose crew all mysteriously vanished...and so Starfleet weren't keen to send it out again with the original name. (Bad luck, dontcha know? )
The ST4 events made for a perfect opportunity to get it back into service.
)The ST4 events made for a perfect opportunity to get it back into service.
According to Memory Alpha, at least one Constitution II took part in the Battle of Wolf 359.
The Yorktown captain in the movie is concerned that they aren't going to survive if their plan to rig a solar collector doesn't give them enough power to keep life-support going. I prefer to think everyone on the disabled ships in TVH was able to hold out until the Probe released them and their power came back on, but the fact that the Yorktown was in the same movie the Enterprise-A debuted in, in active duty and deadly peril, makes it awkward either way to suggest they're the same ship, regardless of if you think the Yorktown's crew was rewarded for surviving a dangerous situation by being reassigned en masse, or if they all died and the ship was a macabre bit of recycling.
I think it was a kitbash?
Dunno. This isn't an area of production I'm very knowledgeable regarding. Memory Alpha isn't always right, though sometimes they are.
As the article suggests, they used the model from Star Trek III
If we saw the Yorktown, and she was a Connie, I would be more inclined to consider it. As it is, we have no idea what class that ship was. How far from Earth was she, I wonder? I just always pictured that as one of the lesser vessels, for some reason.
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