I Never Noticed Before

[Carpe Occasio]

I was watching TSFS again over the weekend and I noticed something for the first time. The Excelsior is NX-2000. That being the case, why was the Enterprise from the "Enterprise" series designated NX, as it appears to me to be a post-NCC designation?

 

[Christopher]

The idea is that the "X" stands for "experimental." NX- is a prefix for prototype ships. Note that in The Undiscovered Country, the Excelsior's designation had changed to NCC-2000, because it was no longer an experimental testbed.

Archer's Enterprise was called NX-01 because it was the first prototype Warp 5 vessel. However, the producers ended up varying the usage a bit, since its class in general was referred to as the "NX class" and subsequent ships (such as Columbia NX-02) used the same prefix. But that was Earth Starfleet rather than the Federation Starfleet, so there could easily have been usage drift over the course of a century.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

I get it. Thanks.

 

[Trekker4747]

The idea is that the "X" stands for "experimental." NX- is a prefix for prototype ships. Note that in The Undiscovered Country, the Excelsior's designation had changed to NCC-2000, because it was no longer an experimental testbed.

Archer's Enterprise was called NX-01 because it was the first prototype Warp 5 vessel. However, the producers ended up varying the usage a bit, since its class in general was referred to as the "NX class" and subsequent ships (such as Columbia NX-02) used the same prefix. But that was Earth Starfleet rather than the Federation Starfleet, so there could easily have been usage drift over the course of a century.

It's possible Columbia had some different enough systems that it was a "different class" in a similar air-frame so it retained the NX registry.

But, really, I don't know WHAT was up Bermaga's asses when they were doing that. In all logicality with the rest of the franchise Columbia should've been NCC-, Enterprise sooner or later should've gotten an NCC and the class of ship should've been called "Enterprise."

 

[Jack Bauer]

I think the idea was the the experimental designation of NX was meant to be a tribute to the first warp 5 ship's class. Sure previous Starfleet ships went out and explored but nowhere to the extent that the NX-01 was able to. It was humanity's first really big step out into space ehich eventually led to the formation of the Federation.

 

[Christopher]

Also, there is precedent for the idea of old ship classes having letter designations -- DY-500s, J-class, etc. It may not have been Berman & Braga themselves who came up with that, but one of the continuity-buff members of the writing staff; the "NX-class" designation seemed to come into use later on in the series, not right off the bat.

(I always find it bizarre that people who want to criticize Berman and Braga do so by ignoring the contributions of all the other people who worked on the shows.)

 

[trevanian]

(I always find it bizarre that people who want to criticize Berman and Braga do so by ignoring the contributions of all the other people who worked on the shows.)

The buck has to stop somewhere, doesn't it? If somebody takes credit for making the trains run on time, he should probably be at least partly answerable for derailments as well. The one and only thing I'll grant Berman for his whole Trek tenure is making the trek train run on time and budget, but that gives me plenty of rope to hang him for damned near every other place where his sense of taste intruded negatively on the show, whether it be costuming, music scoring, opinion of TOS ... (well, this list really IS endless)

 

[Christopher]

^^But giving him and Braga credit for the term "NX-class"? That's not holding them responsible for the show's flaws, it's assuming they thought up even the tiniest concept by themselves.

Besides, how is the "NX-class" concept a "derailment" that someone needs to be blamed for? There's nothing wrong with it.

 

[Eric Cheung]

In all logicality with the rest of the franchise Columbia should've been NCC-, Enterprise sooner or later should've gotten an NCC and the class of ship should've been called "Enterprise."

That's assuming NCC stands for something that's not exclusive to the Federation Starfleet. We know that at least Enterprise was out of commission before the UFP was founded. Perhaps Columbia got an NCC-02 designation if it continued to serve after the founding of the Federation.

I like the explanation Christopher had about NX-Class being similar to DY-Class. That makes sense to me since it is an Earth ship.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

I also never noticed before in DS9 "Tears of the Prophets" that there is a ship that looks remarkably similar to the NX-01 -

 

[Trekker4747]

I also never noticed before in DS9 "Tears of the Prophets" that there is a ship that looks remarkably similar to the NX-01 -

That's the Akira-class. Introduced in "First Contact."

Many people took issue with the NX-Enterprise's similarity to it.

 

[Trekker4747]

In all logicality with the rest of the franchise Columbia should've been NCC-, Enterprise sooner or later should've gotten an NCC and the class of ship should've been called "Enterprise."

That's assuming NCC stands for something that's not exclusive to the Federation Starfleet. We know that at least Enterprise was out of commission before the UFP was founded. Perhaps Columbia got an NCC-02 designation if it continued to serve after the founding of the Federation.

I like the explanation Christopher had about NX-Class being similar to DY-Class. That makes sense to me since it is an Earth ship.

The problem is NC/NX are real-world terms used to denote the type of aircraft they're on (they're no longer used, though.) "C" being for a standard, and "X" being for experimental.

It's obvious to anyone (anyone who doesn't want to be pedantic, that is) that the registries used in Trek (before Enterprise) that NCC/NX/NAR (again, real world for Restricted) were inspired by this and had similar meanings.

The decision makers for Enterprise (likely Berman and/ or Braga) either didn't know about this or didn't care and just did whatever the hell they wanted no matter if made sense or not and just said, "It's a prequel, things are different." to "explain" it.

Sorry, that's not an excuse for me. It's illogical for Columbia to've had an "NX" registry. It should've been NCC, unless we want to "rationalize" it by saying that Columbia was different enough from Enterprise to be another experimental vessel. And the class name should've been something other than "NX."

The class name "NX" is just dumb. That's like someone aksing you what kind of car you drive and yon answer by giving them the first two letters off of your license plate.

 

[trevanian]

^^But giving him and Braga credit for the term "NX-class"? That's not holding them responsible for the show's flaws, it's assuming they thought up even the tiniest concept by themselves.

Besides, how is the "NX-class" concept a "derailment" that someone needs to be blamed for? There's nothing wrong with it.

I have the same issue the other folks here do, that it is established in real history and trek history that NX represents a testbed, not a line of ships.

 

[Ziz]

I also never noticed before in DS9 "Tears of the Prophets" that there is a ship that looks remarkably similar to the NX-01 -

That's the Akira-class. Introduced in "First Contact."

Many people took issue with the NX-Enterprise's similarity to it.

That was another of those arguments I never understood. They based the NX on the Akira, so in continuity the Akira becomes an evolution of the NX class, we just happened to see Akira first. The complaint was that NX should have been a totally original design, not a mod of something that already existed.

Then the other half of the peanut gallery comes in screaming that an original design would have never worked because there wouldn't have been any connection to the existing Trek universe, that the only logical way to do it was to retro-ize an existing design.



MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!!!

 

[Therin of Andor]

They based the NX on the Akira, so in continuity the Akira becomes an evolution of the NX class, we just happened to see Akira first. The complaint was that NX should have been a totally original design, not a mod of something that already existed.

And there is a precedent. Beverly Crusher's (future) medical ship in "All Good Things..." is like a revamped replica of the original sphere-not-disc sketches of the TOS USS Yorktown/Enterprise.

Fashion is always cyclic, whether it be clothing, footwear, cars, houses, gardens, TV shows, whatever.

 

[Trekker4747]

That was another of those arguments I never understood. They based the NX on the Akira, so in continuity the Akira becomes an evolution of the NX class, we just happened to see Akira first. The complaint was that NX should have been a totally original design, not a mod of something that already existed.

"In universe" it makes sense that the Akira was an evolution of the NX but in our real world it was just lazy to make the Enterprise-NX a derivative of the Akira.

Certainly a "more original" design could've been made that was keeping with the Trek-verse contnuity/design lineage without being such an obvious derivitaive of the Akira.

 

[Therin of Andor]

in our real world it was just lazy to make the Enterprise-NX a derivative of the Akira.

It was a great design that was hardly used, and it fitted the writers' bible specifications. Did you have the same complaint when the Enterprise-B reused the Excelsior model?

It's not as if someone said, "I'll tell them it took me seven days to design this, even though it was really only one day, plus six with my feet up watching baseball."

 

[Timo]

The problem is NC/NX are real-world terms used to denote the type of aircraft they're on (they're no longer used, though.) "C" being for a standard, and "X" being for experimental.

It's obvious to anyone (anyone who doesn't want to be pedantic, that is) that the registries used in Trek (before Enterprise) that NCC/NX/NAR (again, real world for Restricted) were inspired by this and had similar meanings.

To be sure, the concept of NC/NX/NR/NL aircraft registries was abandoned well before we got our first NX-registered starship. The folks at ILM responsible for NX-2000 are highly unlikely to have gotten their inspiration specifically from the outdated general aviation registry scheme, and far more likely to have simply extrapolated from the original NCC on their own account (also minding that NCC obviously owes at least half her birth to naval pennant codes).

And when NAR first rolled along, I highly doubt anybody involved in creating that registry even remembered that there had once existed the NR registry for general aviation aircraft. The usual expansion of the letters, paraphrasing Mike Okuda, is something like "Naval Auxiliary Reserve", again harking back at naval pennant codes (without actually accurately following any historical system of such codes).

On screen, "X for Experimental" is of course obvious, and is by no means limited to some obscure general aviation codes. "R for Restricted" in connection of the NAR ships would make no sense at all, as none of those ships appear particularly "Restricted".

Call that pedantic if you wish. I call the NC/NX/NL/NR speculation largely unwarranted. Or at least the NX/NL/NR part of it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cultcross]

I also never noticed before in DS9 "Tears of the Prophets" that there is a ship that looks remarkably similar to the NX-01 -

There's a can of worms you don't want to open. There's a reason we have a mod here called Akiraprise.
As I recall the board nearly melted down the day the NX-01 TV Guide image broke.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

The class name "NX" is just dumb. That's like someone aksing you what kind of car you drive and yon answer by giving them the first two letters off of your license plate.

There is, however, precedence for this practice in TOS: DY-100 class, J-Class. So an NX-Class doesn't stand out as being totally out there to me.