Flagship Duties

[HoundDog]

Because all our beloved Enterprises were known to be flagships of Starfleet, General Trek seems the right place for this:

Don't know if this has been asked before, but I've never been in the military and I have a couple of questions to all the folks who have been. The Enterprise(s) in Star Trek are constantly refered to as flagships of Starfleet. I got the impression that this would imply that she's some kind of "leading ship". But regarding this special status, shouldn't it be commanded by some flag officer (e.g. an Admiral)? And wouldn't it have some different duties than front line exploring? And if so, what are special "flagship duties"?

 

[erastus25]

Because all our beloved Enterprises were known to be flagships of Starfleet, General Trek seems the right place for this:

Don't know if this has been asked before, but I've never been in the military and I have a couple of questions to all the folks who have been. The Enterprise(s) in Star Trek are constantly refered to as flagships of Starfleet. I got the impression that this would imply that she's some kind of "leading ship". But regarding this special status, shouldn't it be commanded by some flag officer (e.g. an Admiral)? And wouldn't it have some different duties than front line exploring? And if so, what are special "flagship duties"?

I believe the only ship actually referred to as a flagship is the E-D. And as far as special duties go, we don't see that they have any. My guess is that it's more of a figurative title than anything.

 

[MarianLH]

Because all our beloved Enterprises were known to be flagships of Starfleet,

Where does this myth come from, anyway? As erastus25 said, only Picard's ship ever held this honour, yet a lot of people make this mistake.

From the context, it seems to be a purely ceremonial title, completely divorced from its historical meaning. On those occasions when we've seen ships acting as flagships in the historical sense of the term, such as Hanson's ship in "Best Of Both Worlds" or Wesley's in "The Ultimate Computer", I don't recall them being referred to as such (although it's been awhile since I've seen BOBW).

Based on that, and the relative rarity of multiship formations in Trek, I hypothesize that the traditional meaning has fallen into disuse, leaving only the ceremonial title. Although it could have been revived during the Dominion War, when suddenly Starfleet needed actual fleets again.


Marian

 

[JM1776]

I think the writers of Generations, ignorant to military usages, thought the word "flagship" sounded kewl, and affixed it to Enterprise-D without a clue as to what it really stated.

To them it meant "most powerful and advanced starship in the fleet, sporting the best of the best as crew." That actually works, considering Enterprise's lineage.

 

[Forbin]

Because all our beloved Enterprises were known to be flagships of Starfleet, General Trek seems the right place for this:

Please cite specific episodes or films where EACH Enterprise was called the flagship.

Good luck.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Because all our beloved Enterprises were known to be flagships of Starfleet

Ahem. Bullshit. Ahem.

EDIT: Ah. I see everyone got to it before I did.

 

[Yeffrey]

A flagship is supposed to have a flag officer on it, which is an Admiral rank. Yeah the writers of TNG had no clue what it meant. Its supposed to be the mobile command post/centre for the local fleet. If that were the case they would need a CIC (combat information centre) or some sort of Trek equivalent. This would be where the Admiral and his staff and a whole bunch of communication techs would be situated, recieving intelligence and issuing movement and combat orders. On modern US aircraft carriers they have an "Admirals" bridge in addition to the main one for this purpose.

 

[LeadHead]

I always thought it was a way of making the Enterprise-D really seem like a big deal. They created a mythology about that ship, Riker said at one point that Officers waited years to get to serve on her. It was a way of making the ship seem elite.

 

[Timo]

Just to rub it in, not even the E-D was ever said to be flagship of Starfleet. Or flagship in Starfleet, for that matter.

What the E-D was said to be was "Flagship of the Federation" or "Federation flagship". And since the Federation isn't a military organization as such, we are no doubt best off thinking that the title "flagship" should be interpreted through its civilian meaning here. That is, the E-D would have been the showpiece vessel of the Federation, the one people back home are the proudest of, the one that makes Federation engineers look the most competent, the one that impresses the new worlds and civilizations the most.

So the TNG writers didn't actually err any. When they did use the word "flagship" in its military meaning, they got it right: when Admiral Nechayev made the Gorkon her flagship in "Descent", the vessel carried her aboard and served as the forward command post aboard which she coordinated multiple starships in the wild Borg hunt.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Because all our beloved Enterprises were known to be flagships of Starfleet

Ahem. Bullshit. Ahem.

EDIT: Ah. I see everyone got to it before I did.

Yeah, you're late. You'll just have to be faster next time this topic comes up

 

[Nebusj]

EDIT: Ah. I see everyone got to it before I did.

Yeah, you're late. You'll just have to be faster next time this topic comes up

... next week.

Incidentally for Timo: I can find through quick Google search that there are three cases in scripted dialogue (I haven't had time to confirm they happen on-screen) in which the Enterprise-D is called the flagship of Star Fleet, rather than the Federation: in ``The Icarus Factor'' Picard tries to get rid of this `Will' person who keeps hanging around by telling him ``You are the second in command of Star Fleet's flagship -- but still, second in command.''

In ``Man of the People'' Alkar talks of the danger of arriving at the Weekian planet ``on the Enterprise, the armed Flagship of Star Fleet'', although this could be excused as supposing that Alkar is not up on precise and fine distinctions like we fans are.

Finally, in ``Parallels'', Gul Nador wonders why would ``Star Fleet's flagship want to venture so close to the Cardassian border''. Of course, this does happen in a parallel universe, but on the other hand, Worf hasn't at that point realized he's the one falling through universes and he does not seem to find this an odd thing for Nador to claim. Of course, he has got many things on his mind, little reason to say anything about a Cardassian possibly making a mistake, and he soon has much bigger things to worry about.

 

[Michael]

^ Really just out of curiosity (no hidden agenda whatsoever), why don't you use the proper quotation marks, Nebusj? This bugs me for some time now. Please understand, I'm a design student and a very visual kind of guy (I love typography) and I find it very confusing that you use diacritical marks instead of quotation marks.

Sorry for this OT post.

 

[Nebusj]

^ Really just out of curiosity (no hidden agenda whatsoever), why don't you use the proper quotation marks, Nebusj? This bugs me for some time now. Please understand, I'm a design student and a very visual kind of guy (I love typography) and I find it very confusing that you use diacritical marks instead of quotation marks.

Sorry for this OT post.

Well, if the moderators and the thread originator don't mind the diversion I don't mind answering.

It's just a habit I picked up from LaTeX, the mathematics typesetting package. It gets really, disturbingly freaky when you use ordinary "-style quote marks to mean quotations, and you need to use ` to open quotes and ' to close them. Run through the LaTeX filter, you get beautifully typeset text ready to be published (and you have extremely fine control over things like mathematical expressions which cause HTML and many mere mortal word processors to explode).

Anyway, having learned one habit, I just found it easier to stick with it even when it's not quite appropriate. That ` is more evocative of an open-quote than ' or " is helps me justify it to myself.

Plus, it makes nearly any paragraph I write into a neat copyright trap, just in case. Can't be too futile these days, you know?

I'm sorry if it does disturb you, but I don't know if we have the quote HTML tag working in these parts, which I suppose would be the preferable option nobody ever uses.

 

[HoundDog]

Because all our beloved Enterprises were known to be flagships of Starfleet,

Where does this myth come from, anyway?

My fault then. I've seen all Trek and could have sworn that Kirks Enterprise were refered to as flagship as well in some random dialogue. I apologize . And with Archer's ship, I thought it was at least implied (the NX-01 being the most powerful vessel of Earth-Starfleet).

On the other hand, at least the E-D was known to be a flagship, so I still have some kind of point.

Anyway, no need to be rude, it was just a question that came to me yesterday.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Because all our beloved Enterprises were known to be flagships of Starfleet,

Where does this myth come from, anyway?

My fault then. I've seen all Trek and could have sworn that Kirks Enterprise were refered to as flagship as well in some random dialogue. I apologize . And with Archer's ship, I thought it was at least implied (the NX-01 being the most powerful vessel of Earth-Starfleet).

On the other hand, at least the E-D was known to be a flagship, so I still have some kind of point.

Anyway, no need to be rude, it was just a question that came to me yesterday.

Let's just say that this question comes up far more often than the Usual Crowd has patience for.

 

[Michael]

Yeah, someone should have warned you.


(Du musst wissen, jeder fühlt sich hier wie der bessere Fan. )

 

[HoundDog]

Yeah, someone should have warned you.


(Du musst wissen, jeder fühlt sich hier wie der bessere Fan. )

The next time I have a question, I'll rewatch all the episodes before asking - maybe I can find the answer myself then.

 

[Nebusj]

The next time I have a question, I'll rewatch all the episodes before asking - maybe I can find the answer myself then.

For what it's worth, there are available online the closed captioning transcripts from the Original Series and from Enterprise; and reasonably final scripts from The Next Generation and for Deep Space Nine. (I haven't run across a similar compendium for Voyager or for the Animated Series.)

Anyway, a quick Google site search on likely keywords -- like, in this case, flagship -- can do wonders to make it look like you have a more encyclopedic mastery of the Trek Canon than you actually do.

(I refrain from giving URLs as I don't know whether they fit within the board guidelines for linking to sites which might be infringements of copyrighted material, though the sites have been up for years without apparent trouble. They're not hard to find, given knowledge that they exist.)

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I've linked to them in the past, so I'm certainly not going to warn you (if I recieve any information that we shouldn't be doing this, I'll remove the links).

TOS and TAS
TNG, DS9, and the movies
Voyager
Enterprise

 

[HoundDog]

I've linked to them in the past, so I'm certainly not going to warn you (if I recieve any information that we shouldn't be doing this, I'll remove the links).

TOS and TAS
TNG, DS9, and the movies
Voyager
Enterprise

And thus, I've reached the next level in achieving my life's goal - becoming the perfect Star Trek fan (still a long way to go, though).

Thanks for the links.