Does interesting/weird stuff happen on ships we never hear about?

[The Rock]

We've seen the most interesting and bizarre space stuff happen with all of the crews of the different Enterprises, the Voyager, and DS9 (basically every week).

But for the crews of ships we never hear about, what do you think life in space is like for them? Do you think they run into weird and bizarre stuff nearly as much as, say, the Enterprise does?

Or do you think they mostly just map stars, study nebulae and aid in boring diplomatic stuff with only interesting/weird stuff happening very rarely?

I kinda wonder if Q or some other powerful entity intentionally made it so that the different Enterprises, Voyager, and DS9 would get to see the vast majority of the interesting/weird space stuff so that the viewers at home watching them on TV would be entertained (if you know what I mean).

 

[Melakon]

Roddenberry originally premised the Enterprise as a typical ship in the fleet, so all those we never see probably go through weird stuff too. They just don't get TV shows about them.

But that's why fan fiction, fan films, and licensed publications exist.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think most of the ships in the fleet have carry out fairly regular assignments keeping both the Federation and Starfleet in operation. That doesn't mean boring necessarily, but not on a "save the Universe" nature. But even with that, there are probably lots of ships that have adventures just as exciting and as important as those of the Enterprise (DS9's Defiant and the Voyager are two immediate examples).

Just because we don't hear about those other great "hero ships" don't mean they don't exist, IMO. I would imagine that on most ships, the exploits of the Enterprise are never mentioned unless it's something relevant to a current mission or something really big like the mission to stop the Xindi superweapon, taking down Nero, or halting the Borg after Wolf 359 (can't really ignore those incidents).

 

[SPCTRE]

Super weird and interesting stuff does happen on other ships as well, it's just that they blow up in the end, which is why it gets shown/mentioned on the show.

 

[Timo]

I think most of the ships in the fleet have carry out fairly regular assignments keeping both the Federation and Starfleet in operation. That doesn't mean boring necessarily, but not on a "save the Universe" nature

Kirk's own ship basically never got sent to major, exciting, Federation-saving errands. Quite to the contrary, Kirk's missions were on the dull side: deliver medical supplies, check on expeditions, patrol silent stretches of the border. Even when there was the looming threat of open war with Klingons, Kirk's role was to secure a backwater planet with some medieval villages on it!

It's just that each and every one of these tedious chores somehow turned into an adventure with galactic consequences...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Super weird and interesting stuff does happen on other ships as well, it's just that they blow up in the end, which is why it gets shown/mentioned on the show.

That might be even more interesting than what we got...the adventures of the U.S.S. Failureprise

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think most of the ships in the fleet have carry out fairly regular assignments keeping both the Federation and Starfleet in operation. That doesn't mean boring necessarily, but not on a "save the Universe" nature

Kirk's own ship basically never got sent to major, exciting, Federation-saving errands.

Kirk's Enterprise was sent out to stop a powerful alien spacecraft that was cutting through the heart of the Federation and destroying everything in its path in TMP.

 

[Timo]

Well, that was the one big exception. And even then, the ship appeared to be Starfleet's last choice, there simply being no alternatives despite the fact that the ship's (and the hero's!) shortcomings nearly doomed the mission.

The other mission that might have seemed important from the outset already was the ST6:TUC escort (and that was symbolism, rather than indication that the Enterprise would be functionally important for Starfleet). But most of the movies and all of TOS just featured routine stuff going awry.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

Well, that was the one big exception. And even then, the ship appeared to be Starfleet's last choice, there simply being no alternatives...

Which is pretty much how all such assignments go. They're often sent out of desperation or because they're the only starship in range. Thankfully for the Federation and Starfleet, such assignments are more rare than common.

 

[Metryq]

You must be a Thermian from the Klaatu nebula. I hate to let you down, but these are not "historical documents." It's fictional TV and movies.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2CvCZbqlJg[/yt]​

 

[martok2112]

Well, there was the USS Intrepid with its crew of 400 Vulcans who died simultaneously, and Spock felt it, and said: "It was as if I heard four hundred voices cry out, and were suddenly silenced." (well....not exactly those words, but. )

 

[B.J.]

Super weird and interesting stuff does happen on other ships as well, it's just that they blow up in the end, which is why it gets shown/mentioned on the show.

Constellation, Yamato, Equinox..... Plenty of weird stuff to go around.

 

[uniderth]

Link to Metryq's video.

Am I alone in thinking that even this would be awesome?

 

[Timo]

In TOS, it's something of an unavoidable feature that ships like Kirk's are the ones that get into danger and perish, after which Kirk sorts it out; in TNG, despite the wider range of ship types available, much the same happens.

Does this mean that Kirk/Picard is the guy who gets all the uninteresting assignments among his peers? Is this why we follow the adventures of the starship Enterprise - because hers is the only mission profile dull and tedious enough to allow for up to seven years of survival?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Wormhole]

Somewhere, I think there is a Starfleet ship with a routine day-in, day-out life where nothing interesting happens at all. The crew probably doesn't even believe the stories they hear about the Enterprise or whatever.

 

[Orphalesion]

It stands to reason that about the same amount of weird stuff happens on other ships as well. If we look at it we only saw a very small amount of the Enterprise D's seven year run, the days and missions we didn't see likely where the routine ones where nothing went wrong and nothing exiting happened.

When it comes down to it we only get a very small window into the Star Trek universe there is a whole galaxy of potential stories, never to be told.

 

[martok2112]

Isn't it part of the lore that James T. Kirk was the only commander of a Constitution class starship to return from his five year mission with both ship and crew largely intact?

 

[Ithekro]

It is never confirmed that Kirk and Enterprise are the only ones to do that. We have examples of some of the other Constitutions having survived, though only by name, or tiny print number on Operation Retrieve's plans. The assumption is that USS Yorktown from TVH was one of the 13 original ships, thought that is not confirmed.

We so rarely see Constitutions after TOS that it is really hard to tell what happened. Or if any aside from Enterprise was even on a five year mission.

 

[martok2112]

It is never confirmed that Kirk and Enterprise are the only ones to do that. We have examples of some of the other Constitutions having survived, though only by name, or tiny print number on Operation Retrieve's plans. The assumption is that USS Yorktown from TVH was one of the 13 original ships, thought that is not confirmed.

We so rarely see Constitutions after TOS that it is really hard to tell what happened. Or if any aside from Enterprise was even on a five year mission.

Indeed. We've seen multiple Mirandas, Excelsiors, Oberths, etc....just about every other type of ship in multiples on screen...either separately (Reliant, Saratoga in the TOS movies), or in fleet actions (DS9).....but from the movie era onward, we've only ever seen one of the refit Enterprise.

 

[Ithekro]

Well two (maybe three). USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) and I think on unidentified Constitution-refit in Spacedock the same day Kirk gets the Enterprise-A. At least I think that was what they passed near just before heading towards Excelsior.

Other than that we have potential Constitutions and tiny chart representations of them in Operation Retrieve. But I don't know it all those ship would be Constitutions except Excelsior, or if the Constitution silhouette was used for all ship types except Excelsior, because she was new and possibly still unique until the launch of Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) six months to a year later.