Hi I was just wondering if anyone knows where the name NCC-1701 on the Enterprise comes from?
Name of the Enterprise
- Thread starter pop-culture guy
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It's the Enterprise's ship's registry in Starfleet. N.C.C. stands for Naval Construction Contract, and 1701 is what I would assume to be the sequential number assigned.
Kinda like a licence plate.
Kinda like a licence plate.
Took about 5 seconds to find it with Google.
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=93403
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=93403
Well, it's not a name, it's a registry number. The "Naval Construction Contract" is an unofficial/fan explanation for what the NCC stands for (some fan sources have used "Navigational Contact Code" instead). In real life, aviation buffs Gene Roddenberry and Matt Jefferies chose it based on some common aircraft registries. Here it is in Jefferies's own words:
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/features/firstperson/article/143.html
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/features/firstperson/article/143.html
Huh... that could be the explanation for the letter prefixes..
Thanks all for great replies! So the rumours that the numbers came from the house across the street from Gene Roddenberry is not true? Anyone heard anything about this?
Not the same thing, though. As Jefferies said, a letter is appended if it's a modification of an existing ship. So going by that, the TMP refit should've been 1701A instead of just 1701, and the second Connie Enterprise and its successors should've had different numbers altogether instead of being 1701-A, -B, -C, etc.
Source? Where did he publish this?
Anyway, it's only official if it's authorized by Paramount/CBS, not by Roddenberry. Roddenberry sold all rights to Star Trek to Paramount in the '70s, sometime between TAS and TMP. When he came back to executive-produce TNG, he was working for Paramount, and any official standing that his decisions had came from them. He was only a consultant on the Harve Bennett movies and had no authority over their contents. And if Paramount had chosen a different producer to make TNG (as they seriously considered doing), Roddenberry would've had no say at all.
And of course, as you say, "official" doesn't really mean that much. It just means that a published work is authorized by the franchise owners, as opposed to being a bootleg or fan creation. There are plenty of officially licensed books that make entirely contradictory claims, including about what NCC stands for.
Which is why I made the distinction. "Official" includes a wealth of material, including RPGs, video games, and such, which came from licenses and other works. And, yes, much of that work is contradictory.
What makes the "Naval Construction Contract" unique is that not only was it official (from one of the earliest of the Star Trek licenses, no less, the Star Trek: Blueprints), but that Gene Roddenberry had personally signed every single sheet with his authorization. Of course, this is well before the 'great falling out' which decanonized such things.
But, like I said, in lieu of anything else consistant and carrying anything near that much weight, NCC pretty much stands as "Naval Construction Contract".
What makes the "Naval Construction Contract" unique is that not only was it official (from one of the earliest of the Star Trek licenses, no less, the Star Trek: Blueprints), but that Gene Roddenberry had personally signed every single sheet with his authorization. Of course, this is well before the 'great falling out' which decanonized such things.
But, like I said, in lieu of anything else consistant and carrying anything near that much weight, NCC pretty much stands as "Naval Construction Contract".
^^Of course Roddenberry signed it -- he'd put his name on anything that he could potentially make money from. I doubt he gave a second thought to the suggestion of what the letters stood for, if he was even aware of it at all.
Honestly, the bottom line is, it's all totally made up and it's silly to debate over which piece of make-believe is more "real" than which other piece of make-believe. Who cares what the letters are imagined to stand for? If you want to believe they stand for "Newfangled Cosmic Contraption," you're entirely free to do so.
Honestly, the bottom line is, it's all totally made up and it's silly to debate over which piece of make-believe is more "real" than which other piece of make-believe. Who cares what the letters are imagined to stand for? If you want to believe they stand for "Newfangled Cosmic Contraption," you're entirely free to do so.
Except that it doesn't really fit the way registries have been shown, what with all the ones that start off with NX, NAR, NSP, etc.
Very true, but I was simply trying to clarify the issue, not really debate it. There's a reason that NCC as "Naval Construction Contract" has had traction over the years - in that it was the acronym, officially, for over 10 years. (Even though, yes, we know it was taken specifically from Jefferies' aircraft and had no deeper meaning as the show was being made.)
So when someone asks, as was done in the first post, I'll be honest in the reply.
Um, look higher up in the thread. Jefferies' plane had nothing to do with it. He didn't get that plane until after TOS was canceled, and the number that was on it was there when he got it.
But nowhere did I say that NCC would be the exclusive designator in the registry, did I?
NCC would simply apply to 'primary service vessels', and that's it.Umm, why would a three-letter acronym whose meaning is "primary service vessel" have its three letters mean "naval construction contract"? It makes rather little sense.
I mean, it would make obvious sense to have the three letters be PSV, for "primary service vessel". Or perhaps they could be NCC, for "navei cervuz centralizhey" in some fictional future language that translates to "primary service vessel" in English. But why choose an expansion for the letters that is in complete conflict with the intended meaning of the letter combo?
Both the "naval construction contract" expansion and the "17th cruiser type, 01st unit" theory are currently outdated, impossible to reconcile with the established facts of this fiction. So is the theory that Cochrane was the first to discover warp in our galaxy, or that humans found Vulcans, or that the Klingon Empire has always had an Emperor: reasonable and entertaining ideas in their time, but superceded by even more interesting stuff soon enough, and never made explicit on screen anyway. Such early assumptions or half-baked rationalizations are best forgotten at the first sign of contrary evidence - it just doesn't do to stick to the old at the expense of the innovative. At least not when there is no contradiction in the innovation, and when the old was contradictory to begin with.
Timo Saloniemi
I mean, it would make obvious sense to have the three letters be PSV, for "primary service vessel". Or perhaps they could be NCC, for "navei cervuz centralizhey" in some fictional future language that translates to "primary service vessel" in English. But why choose an expansion for the letters that is in complete conflict with the intended meaning of the letter combo?
Both the "naval construction contract" expansion and the "17th cruiser type, 01st unit" theory are currently outdated, impossible to reconcile with the established facts of this fiction. So is the theory that Cochrane was the first to discover warp in our galaxy, or that humans found Vulcans, or that the Klingon Empire has always had an Emperor: reasonable and entertaining ideas in their time, but superceded by even more interesting stuff soon enough, and never made explicit on screen anyway. Such early assumptions or half-baked rationalizations are best forgotten at the first sign of contrary evidence - it just doesn't do to stick to the old at the expense of the innovative. At least not when there is no contradiction in the innovation, and when the old was contradictory to begin with.
Timo Saloniemi
So, let me get this right... Someone at the studio comes up with a half-baked idea and fans should rush to embrace it and forget every other explanation, regardless of who came up with it, or how good it is, just because it is from the studio and thus it is "innovative"?
No. Fans should ignore what is substandard and demand what is quality. If an artist's rationalization for what he came up with, or a fan's explanation, makes more sense, embrace it. Fan's aren't beholden to canon -- they aren't being paid to follow any line. Use your own imagination and decide for yourself what is good.
For God's sake, it's not as if this is real.
Well, almost. If it comes from the studio and becomes part of the onscreen pseudofactuality of the Trek universe, then it of course supersedes whatever some earlier people quietly mused about but failed to turn into a Trek fact. If it comes from some other source than the studio and still somehow manages to become part of the onscreen universe, again it supersedes all the inconsequential musings that never were part of that universe. And if it comes from the studio but fails to make it on screen, then it is of no consequence to the universe. Clear enough?
In the specific case of NCC, onscreen "fact" has indirectly negated the idea that it could be interpreted as meaning "naval construction contract". Such "fact" has directly negated the idea that 1701 would denote the first of the seventeenth. This has nothing to do with the "quality" of those ideas, which may have been either innovative or idiotic back in their time.
Sure, it's always possible to imagine a competing universe that is better than the Trek one. Perhaps it is more innovative, perhaps more rational, perhaps it more closely resembles ours. But that universe should be discussed in the fanfic sub-forum.
Around here, if we were discussing something that is little or not at all touched upon on screen, such as the exact location of Main Engineering or meaning of Spock's shirt color in TOS, then making up our own solutions would of course be a fine thing, and quoting original author intent would be a sensible thing to do. But that only applies to things that have not been established in the Trek universe.
The keyword in the paragraph you quoted was "evidence": it always trumps speculation and intent. And reason, for that matter, although one can always strive for the most reasonable interpretation of the evidence, as long as one doesn't try and negate the evidence for no good reason.
Timo Saloniemi
In this old discussion, someone always brings up that modern-day organizations such as militaries have tons of registry letter prefixes that seem either to be based on nothing at all or to have had their origins lost to time and circumstance. It is fun to think of what the letters might mean, but their reason for being there in the Trek universe might be innocuous, outdated or even arbitrary.
I can do without "naval construction contract," myself. That word "naval" in there seems sorta out of place, not being used very often in the rest of Trek to refer to the ships or fleets. I encourage fans to keep making up their own meanings, but not to quote them as if they were fact to people who innocently inquire as to the origins of that "NCC" on the hull.
I can do without "naval construction contract," myself. That word "naval" in there seems sorta out of place, not being used very often in the rest of Trek to refer to the ships or fleets. I encourage fans to keep making up their own meanings, but not to quote them as if they were fact to people who innocently inquire as to the origins of that "NCC" on the hull.
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