Matt Jeffries Intentions / Federation Vessel Hull Numbers

[Idran]

Thanks to Enterprise (even though it's an alternate universe to Prime Trek, I treat some timeline points to be generally reliable/inevitable in both universes)

To be fair (and to make it even easier on you), that's fanon; the production intention at the time was always that it was the same timeline.

Also, if you have the Intrepid as a Miranda class, how do you reconcile the "400 Vulcans" comment in "Immunity Syndrome" with the USS Brattain only having 30-some crewmembers? Increasing automation doesn't seem enough to explain that to me even over a 100 year span, that's a pretty huge change.

 

[Ithekro]

I think I put forth in another thread the idea that the hull numbers having a purpose of sorts and suggested that they indicate which star system the ship was constructed based on the first one or two digits of the hull number, with the remaining numbers being the number of ship build there. The could potentially fix the problem of having ships of the same class with widely different hull numbers, or having ships with lower hull numbers being built after ships with higher hull numbers.

The 17xx vessels are all built in the Sol system (including the later versions of the USS Enterprise up to the Enterprise-E). It is possible that the 10xx vessels were built elsewhere, so that the USS Constellation, NCC-1017 was built around the same time or later than USS Enterprise, but in another system (like say Tellar or Izar) While the 16xx or 18xx vessels might have been built at Vulcan. The 9xx vessels (USS Eagle) could have been built at Andor or one of their Empire's planets. If one wants to take the USS Kelvin (NCC-0514) into account, there could be a clause for 0x, 0xx and 0xxx ships to be build in the Sol system to account for Sol's heavy ship building programs and to incorporate old Earth starships from the Romulan War into the new Starfleet. This practice would go out of favor and Sol would get a new number ever hundred ships or so including the 17xx vessels. By the 24th century, this could be the 70xxx vessels are built in one system, or just the 701xx vessels and the like depending on the pattern kept, if one is kept.

The main thing is I don't have all that much information on where each ship was built, or if their are contradictions in the pattern yet. Some ships dedication plaques have contradictory information or just not enough information, since it is unlikely the USS Defiant was built in the Bajor sector, when Sisko even said he was working on it at Mars.

Also, if you have the Intrepid as a Miranda class, how do you reconcile the "400 Vulcans" comment in "Immunity Syndrome" with the USS Brattain only having 30-some crewmembers? Increasing automation doesn't seem enough to explain that to me even over a 100 year span, that's a pretty huge change.

Different mission type? What was Brattain's mission again, as we know, or think we know that Intepid was on a five year mission sort of deal like USS Enterprise, so it would have the bloated staff for a lot of science labs and the like, while being under USS Enterprise's crew of 430. (I still content Intrepid is Constitution-class as that seems to be the intention of the writers and producers of that time.) Lantree was serving as a transport and I don't think we got the crew size of USS Reliant. Only that Kahn managed her with maybe 30 or 40 people.

 

[Peregrinus]

To be fair (and to make it even easier on you), that's fanon; the production intention at the time was always that it was the same timeline.

Which is fine, but it doesn't work. Per Voyager, previously, NX-01 was the Dauntless, not the Enterprise. Various timeline things are wrong, per TOS, TNG, etc. The tech is all wrong for the period. The Enterprise in Enterprise is about the tech level NCC-1701 was as launched -- close to a century later. Transporters a new thing on starships, phase cannons a new thing on starships, photon torpedoes installed shortly after launch... That ship has a saucer nearly the same volume as that of NCC-1701. The top speed is too high for where it falls on the line from the Phoenix to TOS.

Basically,the only way it works is if tech advanced massively for a century after First Contact, then stagnated utterly for a century, then progressed normally again for the next century plus.

Since Enterprise's NX-01 is one of the models on Admiral Robocop's credenza in Into Darkness, it works far better for me to say Enterprise is a precursor to JJ-Trek. That NCC-1701 is about the size and tech level as the Prime timeline's NCC-1701-D. It all works if Cochrane gleaned more than Our Heroes thought he would when they helped repair the Phoenix after the Borg attack, and thus tech got an early boost. He also wanted the first jointly-designed Starfleet ship named after their ship, thus the changed name from the Prime timeline. It all works, particularly if you ignore Enterprise's awful finale.

Also, if you have the Intrepid as a Miranda class, how do you reconcile the "400 Vulcans" comment in "Immunity Syndrome" with the USS Brattain only having 30-some crewmembers? Increasing automation doesn't seem enough to explain that to me even over a 100 year span, that's a pretty huge change.

The Lantree, which we saw earlier, was a Flight I Miranda with a crew of 26. The Brattain was built somewhere in the 2330s, most likely, from the registry number, and is probably Flight II or Flight III, and had a crew of 35. The high degree of automation on starships has always been a thing. The larger crews have been for redundancy and community, plus mission specialists. We know too little about what the 'Intrepid was up to. A mission beyond a milk-run would require more than a couple dozen. They might have been a science team en route to some colony or station and wanted the company of fellow Vulcans. It might have been because they were on a longer-duration mission than those later ships. I can come up with a lot.

--Jonah

 

[Tenacity]

Where'd you get that from?

From what the Hansens were apparently doing with the Borg.

 

[Ithekro]

The NX-01 isn't all that advanced really. It might have the appearance of being advanced only because it was made in 2001 verses 1966. Other than that it is clearly inferior to a Constitution-class starship, which was not even a new ship in TOS.

Warp 5 is about the bare minimum speed using the old warp factor cubed rules to get anywhere in reasonable amount of time. Most of the time Enterprise cruises as warp 4 or so with warp 5 being its upper limits. The NCC-1701 was pushing warp 7 most of the time without more than complaining from Mr. Scott. It could do warp 8 reasonably well with more complaining by Mr. Scott. Only pushing over warp 8 started to have problems, and even then, she managed to get up to warp 14.1 without breaking before they stopped her (as she would have flown apart with more than that per both Mr. Scott and Mr. Spock). Using the warp factor cubes that was seemingly common for both Enterprises, warp 5 is 125 times the speed of light while warp 8 is 512 times the speed of like of over four times as fast as the NX-class. Out to warp factor 14.1 is 2,800 times the speed of light, around 22 times the speed of the NX-class.

"In the Mirror Darkly" shows us the Constitution-class can easily handle a NX-class or even superior Vulcan and Andorian starships of the era quite easily, even with its shields down. With its shields up, it is basically invincible in the mid-22nd century.

The transporter is new and doesn't have the range, nor the bugs taken out of it.

Technology gets more streamlined and simple as it gets more advanced, which is (inadvertently) what happens between Enterprise and TOS. Even more so by TNG with the touch panels.

While the shapes and purpose of the ships and technology appear the same, the abilities are different by a few generations. If one assumes that USS Kelvin exists in both universe, than Starfleet made some huge saucer ships prior to the Constitution-class being built, so saucer size is not a end all and be all to ships being more advanced than others. It just is the size it is for its role in the fleet. Kelvin could be a long term survey ship or even colonial support ship, which would give it a reason to have such a large number of people on board, a large saucer and a huge amount of shuttles. USS Enterprise is traditionally called a cruiser and we see it as a main line vessel tasked with space exploration, border patrols against major powers, and being one of the mainstay ships in the fleet. The NX-class was built as Earth's main exploration vessel as well as the prototype for the new warp five systems. Newer ships would be built with this system or systems designed to improve efficiency or safety while being able to maintain warp 4 or 5 speeds and thus allow Starfleet to more effectively defend its scattered colony worlds from pirates and other species, since the Warp 2 and even warp 3 ships wouldn't be all that effective at the task.

As for the NX-01A being USS Dauntless and not Enterprise. Well as far as Janeway knows the USS Enterprise under Captain Picard should still be in service. So she might not even question the name. Nor do we know for sure if the Federation kept the old Earth ship hull numbers when they joined the Federation since the NX-01 Enterprise was retired prior to the Federation unifying. The new Federation starship USS Dauntless NX-01 could have been anything really. There is even a potential historical precedent even if the NX-01 Enterprise stayed in service. If the Federation was planning to build a new much better starship that combined all members technology and name that ship USS Enterprise, the old Enteprise (NX-01) would either need to be retired, or have its name changed to free up the name. Even if this new ship was cancelled, the new name on the old NX-01 might stay in place. The sailing frigate, USS Constitution, was renamed "Old Constitution" in the 1920s to free up the name for a new American battlecruiser to have the name USS Constitution. This ship was eventually cancelled via the Washington Treaty and the "Old Constitution" got her name back. Other ships have been renamed twice because their ship names get taken over by a newer more modern ship. The old Armored Cruiser USS New York had its name changed to USS Saratoga to free up the name for a battleship, and then had that name also taken from it for a new battlecruiser (eventually an aircraft carrier), and ended its nearly 50 years of service as the USS Rochester, being scuttled to prevent capture in the Philippines during World War II, having been launched in 1891.

 

[Dukhat]

From what the Hansens were apparently doing with the Borg.

Ships with NAR registries have been typically associated with civilian/non-Starfleet Federations ships with missions as varied as transports, shuttles, science vessels, and even colony ships:

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/NAR

 

[Green Shirt]

I've never had an issue reviving threads of any age if I feel I'm adding something relevant to the discussion that hadn't been brought up previously in it.

--Jonah

Well, I guess I've been properly chastised.

 

[Albertese]

Without going into a whole explanation of my own take on these registry systems, I will just day that my theory isn't too far (in spirit anyway) to what Jonah has explained.

I will just mention that in my take, the N is assigned to any federally funded vessel, which would include all Star Fleet ships, and the AR meas "auxiliary resource," meaning a ship which is funded by subsidies granted it by the UFP in exchange for being available for any official Federation business as needed, while otherwise going about the business of the private organization who is actually operating it. The deal is, sure you can operate your civilian science ship or supply ship or whatever, and we'll foot most of the bill, but any time we need to tap your ship for an official Federation mission or a Starfleet ship needs your help for something, you are required to drop what you're doing and help out.

--Alex

 

[Tenacity]

... as well as the prototype for the new warp five systems. Newer ships would be built with this system ...

I would think that the older ships we saw would be retrofitted with the new propulsion system too. Really, all the new systems that proved out in the NX would be added to the older ships.

but any time we need to tap your ship for an official Federation mission or a Starfleet ship needs your help for something, you are required to drop what you're doing and help out.

Kind of like today with US flagged airlines, if the US military needs their aircraft, they get turned over.

 

[Albertese]

I would think that the older ships we saw would be retrofitted with the new propulsion system too. Really, all the new systems that proved out in the NX would be added to the older ships.

I wouldn't make this assumption. No doubt a ship's spaceframe and other structural features would limit their forwards compatibility. Your chassis needs to be strong enough to handle the stresses of high-powered warp flight, and you need space for the required reactors, et cetera. Sensor and computer upgrades might be more trivial, but propulsion, I would imagine, is more "baked in" to the vehicle design and could only be upgraded so far.

--Alex

 

[Tenacity]

Even if it's an improvement from warp 4 to warp 4.5 it would be better, and it probably more a matter of new IDS and the SIF than structure.

 

[uniderth]

My pet theory in regards to 22nd-23rd century registry numbers is that the first one or two numbers indicated ship role. So while the Enterprise and Constellation may have been the same(or very similar class(FU remastered edition)) they were assigned different roles so the Constellation got 1017 and the Enterprise got 1701. The Constellation may have been a strictly science vessel or a cargo ship, while the Enterprise was more of a patrol/security/exploration ship.

Another option is that the Constellation inherited the registry number of an older Constellation star ship. The flaw in this theory is that there is no A after 1017.

...And also the future we were promised at the time, without NASA getting defunded by Nixon or the LNTB treaty scrubbing the cooperative projects being jointly developed by NASA and the US Air Force. Their timeline didn't get derailed. Their Apollo program went through Apollo XX, they had their first La Grangian space station online by 1980, first permanently manned moon base by 1990, first manned expeditions to Mars and the outer planets by 2000. Basically, watch the middle act of 2001: A Space Odyssey. They had nuclear-powered cryogenic sleeper ships with artificial gravity being launched by the mid-1990s. The Botany Bay was not stolen by Khan, but was the World Court's solution to him and his followers. That ship and probably others) was sent toward Tau Ceti -- a close system with a good star that never, ever gets mentioned in Trek. Wonder why? Eugenic colony under quarantine, maybe? But the Botany Bay was disabled and knocked off course, drifting further into the constellation Cetus.

So by the time Cochrane had his breakthrough in 2063, we were already colonizing near-space, and each of those would want craft to get around in.

This. All of this. I agree completely. As convoluted at Star Trek presents the 1990's-2030's I think it's clear that they are WAY ahead of where we are as far as space travel is concerned.

Thanks to Enterprise ...

Booooooo!

 

[Ithekro]

Some older ships might get the engine upgrade, if they can fit in the new style warp reactor, or derivatives of the design. While the delta shaped ship was considered an older design to the NX-class, the Intrepid could go either way. If could be a slightly older design, or a slightly newer design as it looks like a cut down NX-class ship. If that was the case, than at the time of "The Expanse" Starfleet would have two Warp Five starships, but only Enterprise was designed for long range travel, while Intrepid was designed for local defense, and likely to deal with the likes of pirates. Columbia being nearly two years away from completion. It might also explain some of the delays with Columbia is Starfleet is building the NX and Intrepid designs alternately in the larger dock, and they do not yet have the infrastructure to build more and more starships around the Sol System, like we see in TNG and Voyager.

We don't have hull numbering patterns for the other Earth starships since the art department didn't put number on the other Earth ships.

 

[STR]

That's very cool. Perhaps that could be applied to Starfleet? N = Federation, C = cruiser, C = standard.

Sure, but I wouldn't draw too direct of a line.
The first letter could be state of registration
N = Federation
Which implies that other states have their own registry code. Like R = Romulus, or K or Q for Klingons. However, it's unlikely multiple star empires would agree to a single registry. So the NCC is probably unique to the Federation, and if the other states have their own system it's not similar.

So assuming its within the federation only, it could be the *level* or region of the registry.
N = National? None Specific? (or N = top level, no reason the letter has to be a literal abbreviation). Could just refer to region N, which might happen to include Earth and starfleet always registers their ships there.
B = Bolarus? Region B
V = Vulcan? Division V?

The second letter is clearly a status code.
A = Auxiliary
C = Commissioned, Active Duty (in use by starfleet), clearly a starfleet specific designation.
F = Ferry (a passenger ship). Maybe passenger ships above a certain capacity are required to hold a particular license and undergo certain inspections. May be drafted under emergencies.
G = General Purpose/Public. Equivalent to GA aircraft. Minimal licensing, but limited access.
S = Service, or simply not available for drafting into service. F,G, and S registries only show up once or twice each, and only on text graphics or in dialog. We never see the ships themselves. It's impossible to discern what they mean. The others seem much more solid.
X = Experimental. Confirmed on screen by Defiant and Excelsior.

Third letter, which is apparently optional, may indicate a role or certification.
C = combat (allowed to carry heavy weapons) or is a letter indicating the ship has police or military powers in federation space.
R = Research, or has access to generally Restricted space.
T = something else. Training? I'm at a loss here.
V = only shows up on a future time ship, so may not be relevant to the discussion here.

About the one thing NCC would *not* stand for is a single phrase like "Naval Construction Contract". There's no need to spray that on the hull of every ship. Each letter has to have a specific (and independent) meaning. Otherwise you'd just leave it as " 1701" because everything else is implied.

It would be nice if Discovery would flesh this out. Seeing a VX- registry, or a NCR- would be nice little touch implying a larger universe than we've seen up to now.

 

[psCargile]

^
Been saying similar for years. Sometimes a letter is an abbreviation, sometimes, if not most times, it's a code, or a sequential designator in an alphabet chain. And not everyone is speaking English, or using the same alphabet, which enforces the idea that the prefixes are more of the coded meaning variety than abbreviations or acronyms.