How Many TOS Constitution Class Ships *Can* There Be?

[Emperor Norton]

On screen evidence the refit Enterprise was a heavy cruiser: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=40646&fullsize=1 Enterprise schematic from Star Trek III when McCoy entered Spock's quarters.

And from "The Starfleet Technical Manual" no less. Said source was also used in TMP, as the USS Entente is also canon, and Star Trek II & III made the Saladin, Hermes, Ptolemy and Federation class canon. Although not much of the rest of it is entered into the canon in any form, and the NCC registries are refuted by TOS-R, which is why I would warn against using ship names and numbers or the number of Connies in service.

Actually, with that in mind, we do have a wider perspective on the canon fleet of the TOS era. The USS Reliant was also at Starbase 11, meaning the Miranda class existed in the TOS era as well. And the USS Merrimac (NCC-1715) is canon, and though the canon does not deal with what class it is, we could infer it is a Constitution class ship.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Every Enterprise so far has been a capital ship. It may not have been explicit but it is easily deducible and very implicit. They're even referenced as flagships which is more important than just capital ship. The Constitution-class ships were the capital ships of their era, the Excelsior-class ships were the capital ships of their era, the Ambassador-class ships were the capital ships of their era, the Galaxy-class ships were the capital ships of their era, the Sovereign-class ships were the capital ships of their era, etc. Even the NX-01 was a capital ship, as it was the biggest, fastest and most advanced starship that Earth had at the time.

 

[Forbin]

The D was the only one ever referred to as a flagship.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

The D was the only one ever referred to as a flagship.

The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) was also referred as the flagship of Starfleet in the Kelvin timeline.

 

[BillJ]

And from "The Starfleet Technical Manual" no less. Said source was also used in TMP, as the USS Entente is also canon, and Star Trek II & III made the Saladin, Hermes, Ptolemy and Federation class canon. Although not much of the rest of it is entered into the canon in any form, and the NCC registries are refuted by TOS-R, which is why I would warn against using ship names and numbers or the number of Connies in service.

Much like the Daedalus debate, just because they used the names of various ships doesn't make their appearance canon.

 

[MarsWeeps]

On screen evidence the refit Enterprise was a heavy cruiser: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=40646&fullsize=1 Enterprise schematic from Star Trek III when McCoy entered Spock's quarters.

Well, what's interesting is that screenshot doesn't show the refit Enterprise, it shows the original. Look at the warp drive nacelles. Also, the registry appears to be NCC-700 but it's hard to tell. Maybe they meant 1700 for the Constitution?

 

[BillJ]

Well, what's interesting is that screenshot doesn't show the refit Enterprise, it shows the original. Look at the warp drive nacelles. Also, the registry appears to be NCC-700 but it's hard to tell. Maybe they meant 1700 for the Constitution?

View attachment 1989

It does seem odd that the Enterprise had been in its upgrade configuration for roughly fifteen years at that point, and no one updated the security software.

 

[Tenacity]

a peaceful ship of exploration

Which the TOS era Enterprise never was.

on screen reference to Connie's being capital ships

Sorry, who in Starfleet or the Federation ever made that reference?

The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) was also referred as the flagship of Starfleet in the Kelvin timeline.

Correction, "our newest flagship," it wouldn't surprise me if every ship and shuttlecock in Abram's bizarro universe was a "flagship."

Says who? Where? Nobody is saying all ships are capital ships.

You're the one who brought up a extremely specific definition of a capital ship by referring to a early twentieth century treaty.

 

[Tenacity]

a peaceful ship of exploration

Which the TOS era Enterprise never was.

on screen reference to Connie's being capital ships

Sorry, who in Starfleet or the Federation ever made that reference?

The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) was also referred as the flagship of Starfleet in the Kelvin timeline.

Correction, "our newest flagship," it wouldn't surprise me if every ship and shuttlecock in Abrams bizarro universe was a "flagship."

 

[wayoung]

Which the TOS era Enterprise never was.Sorry, who in Starfleet or the Federation ever made that reference?Correction, "our newest flagship," it wouldn't surprise me if every ship and shuttlecock in Abram's bizarro universe was a "flagship."
You're the one who brought up a extremely specific definition of a capital ship by referring to a early twentieth century treaty.

You mean the actual definition of a capital ship in response to someone stating there is no definition of a capital ship?

 

[J.T.B.]

Every Enterprise so far has been a capital ship. It may not have been explicit but it is easily deducible and very implicit. They're even referenced as flagships which is more important than just capital ship.

Eh, I wouldn't make too much of that. A flagship is whatever is needed. The US Asiatic Fleet CinC flagship in the inter-war years was always a cruiser. Admiral Spruance as Commander 5th Fleet in WW2 preferred the cruiser Indianapolis to a battleship or carrier. The flagship of CinC US Fleet in WW2 was a converted luxury yacht. Dedicated amphibious force flagships in WW2 were transport-based, which lives on in Mount Whitney and Blue Ridge, built around command/control/communications capability rather than fighting power.

As for "capital ship," that's a term that was useful for a time but isn't so much later on. If you look at this
ngram you can see that it really takes off in the context of 1920s naval disarmament. It meant battleships, back in the day when they were the ultimate weapon and only a battleship could take out another battleship (a torpedo might put them out of action, but probably not permanently). Because there were still some battle cruisers on the books or potentially so, they were included, too. But after WW2, with intercontinental air forces, atomic bombs and nuclear submarines, not to mention the cost of rebuilding after the war, the structure of the world's navies changed so "capital ship" wasn't really meaningful like it once was.

 

[Ithekro]

The Constitution-class's job is that of a cruiser. There is no point to defining it as a capital ship because any ship in Starfleet would fit that role by definition. Starfleet does not consider their cruiser to be battlecruisers, so that definition is also pointless for the Federation. The Klingon can call it that all they want, but that doesn't make it specially a capital ship.

A basic problem we have with the TOS era is that we only really see one type of Federation starship, and nothing else that isn't a freighter and civilian ship. We only see Constitutions in the Prime Timeline. In the Kelvin Timeline we see lots of other ships types. All of which would seem to be roughly equal is size and power to USS Enterprise, with Enterprise being newer and more modern. Only the very old USS Franklin is much smaller than the other ships in Starfleet, and she's a converted Earth ship from the NX-01 era. By the time of TMP era we see a few more ships but aside from USS Grissom, which is a science ship, all the others are roughly equal to USS Enterprise in power, with USS Excelsior being the next design.

 

[MarsWeeps]

Which the TOS era Enterprise never was.Sorry, who in Starfleet or the Federation ever made that reference?

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

I'm sure Kirk also referenced their mission of exploration in a bunch of episodes.

Also, just a nit, but you don't need to use the word "the" before "TOS" unless you are trying to say "the the original series."

 

[Tenacity]

You mean ...

Also, just a nit, but you don't need to use the word "the" before "TOS" unless you are trying to say "the the original series."

"The TOS era," similar to "the TNG era," or "the ENT era." Proper use of "the."

 

[MarsWeeps]

"The TOS era," similar to "the TNG era." Proper use of "the."

Don't think so. I guess you also use "PIN number" for your credit cards?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Battle cruisers are defined as capital ships by two different treaties limiting arms races. Hence the klingons calling them battle cruisers, our translation of the klingon term is a canon, on screen reference to Connie's being capital ships.

Only if "battle cruisers" are considered to be capital ships BY STARFLEET conventions. So far, we don't even know that the concept of a "capital ship" is even applicable, let alone the term "battle cruiser" let alone whether their equivalent term would even fit the Enterprise.

For what it's worth, Kang also refers to the Genesis device as "the genesis torpedo" and later as "your doomsday weapon" and he refers to Kirk as "The genesis commander" despite him not actually having anything to do with Genesis' development. So even to the extent that Kang's terminology is even applicable, it is FAR from accurate in context.

 

[MarsWeeps]

^Kang???

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Battlecruiser is the 20th century translated equivalent of what the Klingons military classifies it as.

No, the Klingons are speaking plain English in that exchange. We know this because eight seconds later the same officer speaks Klingon when ordering the ship to cloak. God only knows why two Klingons are talking to each other in English on the bridge of a Klingon vessel, but they seem to think that the closest English translation for what they're talking about is "battle cruiser." I can only assume this crew has been doing a lot of behind-the-lines espionage lately and they've started switching back and forth from Klingon to English without realizing it.

In that sense, it's a bit like if an American sonar operator got a signal from a Kirov class ship and said "That's a Soviet battlecruiser." That's all well and good, but the Russian term to describe the Kirov is тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер which means approximately "Heavy Guided Missile Cruiser." Likewise, western operators might define the Admiral Kuznetsov as an "aircraft carrier" but in Russian it is actually something called an "aviation cruiser," a term which is actually somewhat more accurate considering the Kuznetsov also carries a pretty impressive arsenal of anti-ship missiles of its own.

tl;dr: it doesn't matter what the KLINGONS call it. Starfleet doesn't, so they're wrong.

 

[wayoung]

Still waiting for something to show I'm wrong.


On screen canon saying that the Constellation isn't a capital ship? That there are bigger, badder Federation classes?

Off screen showing real life evidence disputing the legal definition of battlecruisers as capital ships?

Been a couple days now. Still waiting.

No? Nothing more? Just one word memes?

OK then. Happy Holidays.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Every Enterprise so far has been a capital ship. It may not have been explicit but it is easily deducible and very implicit. They're even referenced as flagships which is more important than just capital ship.

1) No, the TOS Enterprise was NEVER described as a "flag ship" at any time in its existence and were was the Enterprise-A or -B. There's also nothing to suggest they would be considered "capital ships" either, given that Kirk often describes parts of the Enterprise's mission as "patrol," a mission role that almost explicitly RULES OUT it being a capital ship.

2) "Flagships" are more important than capital ships for reasons that have nothing to do with the ship itself. If we're using standard naval terminology, a "flagship" is whatever ship the Admiral happens to be commanding from. An aircraft carrier, a battleship, a light cruiser, even a destroyer escort can serve as a flagship in battle. The flag ships of the U.S. Navy are, most of the time, lightly armed command and control ships with no offensive capabilities of their own and are valuable only because they have a lot of computers and office space on board. They could convert the USS John C. Stennis into a giant mobile golf course and replace all of its tactical systems with high speed internet connections so the Admiral would never have to miss an appearance on a Sunday talk show, and the ship would still be able to serve as a flagship.

Starfleet defines "Flagship" differently, in that they imply that there's only one such vessel in the entire fleet. That may not be true, and it's possible that "flagship" is the equivalent term of art for what we used to call a "capital ship." Either way, no Enterprise before -D was ever described as such at any time in history.

Even the NX-01 was a capital ship

Not really, no. For one thing, Earth Starfleet is an explicitly nonmilitary organization, so calling NX-01 a capital ship is like calling the space shuttle a "dreadnought" just because it's the biggest space ship we've got.