Is the Luna-class an improvement?

[ProwlAlpha]

Actually, the Constitution was doing trials in 2242 in time to fight at Donatu. I really don't see why people have a problem with older ships being upgraded and refitted into a style that resembles the more modern ones. In real life, it is done all the time. If the US Navy can refit an old WWII destroyer to resemble one built in the 60s, I think Starfleet can do it easier two hundred years later.

In my opinion, the Constellation NX-1974 was Starfleet's test ship and in 2293, the ship doing trials to become a regular vessel. Given the registry, I would say the Constellation should at least be a contemporary of the 2260s Enterprise.

 

[Vance]

Once again, ProwlAlpha, the registrations are not sequential. The NCC-1701 was not necessarily the 1701th ship that the Federation built. The whole mindset that makes it MUST be so doesn't mesh with any version of Star Trek ever presented... ever.

And, the presence of the Constitution at Donatu is .. questionable at best. But, even if she's doing trials in 2242, that doesn't mean that the Enterprise date isn't 2245, etc etc.. Still doesn't make the case that the registry numbers are strictly in sequential order. In fact, we know that it's impossible given several canon appearances of ships appearing with lower registries than their class ships... which wouldn't be possible sequentially.

As for the Constellation, officially the ship is made of leftover uprating tech ... so that's the 2280s. That doesn't mean there isn't a four-nacelles cruiser in the 2260s, but it's not the same class. Star Fleet does make some new ships from time to time.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Once Again Vance, we don't know that about registries its only conjecture and its the same with the Constellation all conjecture.

 

[Vance]

Once Again Vance, we don't know that about registries its only conjecture and its the same with the Constellation all conjecture.

Actually, no, everything I cited for the Constellation (the NCC-1974 one, thanks Tomalak, I KNEW that, I just failed typing!) comes from TNG materials.

As for how things were intended by the writers, behind-the-scenes, etc.. keep in mind that a lot of us into this material have the 'people in charge' (when possible) on our friends list, our IM lists, see them post here, etc. It's really easy for me to figure out a writer's intent on this material when I can just ask them.

Sadly I cannot, of course, do this for most of the people behind the scenes for the original series, obviously. We do, however, have a string of books published by them which gives exactly this information. Many of us attended conventions which had them give lectures and interviews. Some of us even have their own emails and posts on the old usenet days before the internet was coined.

In all honesty, I'm probably one of the handful of people who can give you the most definitive answer on ship tech questions. The reason I can do this has nothing to do with my awesome greatness, and everything to do with having an insane contact list and lots of resources at my fingertips.

But in truth, everything that we all do here is interpretation, even the official 'canon'. Mike and Andrew and Rick and Walter and Franz and Dana and Eric and Wang and many others whom I could name weren't making real ships, they were making a vision for television and games and movies and comics and toys and models. Each vision was tempered by the realities of marketing and budget. Sometimes, when we were really lucky, someone in that list would do something a bit more and flesh out this wonderful fictional universe just a bit more. Often it wasn't consistent, of course, and often things just got wonky. But it's largely okay, it's Star Trek. We're meant to enjoy the ride.

So don't lecture me about the ships, the tech, the registries, or the 'real' meaning of it all. I will give you the real answer, and it's not one that comes from the 'in universe canon', but from our real-world experiences and the realities that went to making Star Trek possible. It'll come across like I'm taking the piss out of you - largely because I am.

You see, we all have fun playing within our own visions and sharing them with others, but none of us - not even Gene Roddenberry - are truly right. At best we can hope to get a tiny margin of error for the parts of Trek that we like.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Once again, you are blowing smoke and so that means you have a pile of books stating that the info about the Constellation you gave is all fact not conjecture because it sounds like conjecture. The Constellation was never specified on being a hodgepodge of technology. There is no contradicting on screen fact that the Constellation could not have been in service during the 2260s. If the Enterprise could be refitted, why not the Constellation? In all honesty, the only examples of production vessels with lower registries than the prototype are the various Constitution ones which can be that they are older vessels refitted up to modern standards. Again I there is real-life precedence, the USS Midway was commissioned as a lengthened Essex-class carrier in the late 40s but through numerous refits the ship that was decommissioned in the 1990s look liked a smaller version of the Kitty Hawk class, which was built in the late 50s and early 60s.

 

[Vance]

Way to completely missing the fucking point, ProwlAlpha. Since it seems obvious now that you're going to reinforce your view of Trek above all else and feel quite free to be a complete ass to anyone that may bring other viewpoints... I think we're done.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Talking about calling the kettle black, dipshit.

 

[Tomalak]

I love how a discussion about NCC numbers turns into a slanging match.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Well its not really a discussion when one person says I will give you the real answers and then accuses you of doing what exactly what that person is saying.

For a person who gives himself a PhD, he is very narrow minded and insulting when people don't agree with him.

Either way, let's get back to discussion.

I do believe that the NCCs are chronological and sequential. Yeah, they are messed up in TOS and in the Movie era, but it is easy to justify.

Let's take the Excelsior NCC-2000, from the way Sulu was taking about it, the ship is the successor to Constitution Class. Since we know that 1701 was built in the early 2240s, it can be assumed that the Excelsior was in its development stage in the 2260s. Does this mean that the Excelsior was built during this time? No, it can mean that the Excelsior was on the drawing boards and to assign the NCC-2000 registry to show that its milestone. The Excelsior plans evolved and delayed over the 60s and then during the 70s the final ship design was approved. So construction on the NX-2000 was started years after other ships that were assigned beyond 2000 mark were built and started to be commissioned.

Then we have the many Constitutions with the 1600 and one 1000 registry. I know I am not the only one to suggest this but those ships were older heavy cruisers that were refitted into Constitution-style as a ship extension plan similar to the FRAM and GUPPY projects in the 1950s and 60s.

Then we get the Jefferies explanation of 01 first ship of 17th class, well since we do not see any other registry other than the NCC- and NX- on Starfleet vessels, that explanation will fail once a destroyer 1701 and a frigate 1701 enters service. Since we see that the Ptolemy class is in the 3800 mark, it can only be assumed that there was a transport 1701 as well. It would have nice if the NCC was only for cruisers, but that is not the case. I, usually go by the opinion, that the 1701 number came from not only how ships served, that have been planned, or cancelled, but it is also the shipyard number. Real World precedence, there hasn't been 109 DDGs that have served in the US Navy, but there is a DDG-109 in commission. Many of those DDG numbers, also reflect some of the Ticonderoga class CGs that were originally DDG but they were changed during construction.

This is just my take on the NCC debacle.

 

[Saquist]

Way to completely missing the fucking point, ProwlAlpha. Since it seems obvious now that you're going to reinforce your view of Trek above all else and feel quite free to be a complete ass to anyone that may bring other viewpoints... I think we're done.

You need to calm down...
There are worse things in life than differing opinions.
Get a grip.

 

[Tomalak]

I think Bernd Schneider's got it right in his conclusions here.

Summarizing, as a matter of fact the known registries of Starfleet vessels may only roughly correspond with the ages of the ships. None of the various theories accounts for all of the inconsistencies, so it should be tolerated that ships are sometimes arbitrarily numbered. Real-world numbering systems like on passports or car number plates are not based on a perfectly obvious system either. In my view it is a stretch if fans speculate too much about registry oddities that they would easily accept in the real world.

 

[Saquist]

It's true it's obviously not perfectly explained however the preponderance of evidence supports as a generality a rise per year. We know there are always extenuating circustances to that general conclusion.

 

[Unicron]

Way to completely missing the fucking point, ProwlAlpha. Since it seems obvious now that you're going to reinforce your view of Trek above all else and feel quite free to be a complete ass to anyone that may bring other viewpoints... I think we're done.

Vance, you know better than this. What do I always say to everyone if they get irritated? Walk away from the thread for a while. Infraction for trolling.

Talking about calling the kettle black, dipshit.

This isn't helping either. You have an infraction for flaming.

 

[Vance]

Sorry, Uni. I've just hit the end of my patience with something that's been coming up in Trek Tech a lot in recent months. A poster will say "I've decided X about Trek" and put it up as cosmic fact and law. If anyone else points out things that conflict with X, or talks about how X did or did not come to be (along with the material to back all that up), the poster gets indignant and insulted. This usually ends up with some trolling or flaming (evidenced above).

Like I said, this happens all the time, and I tried to explain politely that "there are many competing visions of Trek, and none are exactly right, nor could they be." Yet the demand in response, as usual, is that the poster must be right and all other viewpoints are free to ridicule, or will simply be dismissed and ignored.

I often, more and more, think that Bill got it right in his SNL sketch.

 

[Unicron]

Hell hath no fury like a group of anal nerds.

 

[Santaman]

*slap!* I'm a Pirate not a nerd!

Besides that:

Rule Nr 1: I am ALWAYS right.

Rule Nr 2: in the unlikely event that I'm not right see Rule Nr1

 

[Satyrquaze]

Hell hath no fury like a group of anal nerds.

There's a mental image that I never wanted.

 

[Unicron]

Maybe not the best metaphor on my part. Here's some brain soap.

 

[captcalhoun]

Matt Jeffries intended the Enterprise to be the first ship of the 17th design. hence 1701.

so now figure out how that tallies with 74656 or 70637 in TNG era registries.

(fits with the NX-2000 20th design, ship 0, test-bed. the Reliant's 1864 also fits; 64th ship of the 18th design. where the Grissom's 638 fits in is questionable... 6th design, ship 38? 63rd design, ship 8?)

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Matt Jeffries intended the Enterprise to be the first ship of the 17th design. hence 1701.

so now figure out how that tallies with 74656 or 70637 in TNG era registries.

(fits with the NX-2000 20th design, ship 0, test-bed. the Reliant's 1864 also fits; 64th ship of the 18th design. where the Grissom's 638 fits in is questionable... 6th design, ship 38? 63rd design, ship 8?)

So that means there was 63 Constitutions til the Defiant? and 64 Mirandas til the Reliant? and the Oberths are older than the Constitutions? That registry scheme falls apart in the TOS time especially with the Constellation. Personally, I think that scheme is extremely flawed and doesn't really take in account for support ships and such (especially since there tend to be a lot more support vessels than line vessels), it also doesn't take into account of the smaller line vessels such as destroyers, frigates, and corvettes that would built in higher numbers than the Constitution.