Names for future Vesta Class Starships

[Christopher]

It's not like every class of starship has a theme unifying all its names. What possible theme could there be unifying Galaxy, Enterprise, Yamato, and Odyssey?

Named for famous ships.

That only applies to two of them. The Galaxy class was named for the astronomical object, like the Constellation, Nova, and Nebula classes. And Odyssey is the name of a work of literature, analogously to how the Miranda class is named for a Shakespearean character.

 

[Christopher]

How about the seven hills Cincinnati was built on? You even get a bonus, since that's just something people say, even though there are more than seven of them. Call it USS Adams, USS Auburn, USS Walnut, USS Fairview, USS Clifton, USS Vine, USS Price, USS Fairmount, USS Lookout, USS Hope, USS Echo, and USS Storm.

Oh, yes, we've got a ton more than seven hills here. The whole "Seven Hills of Cincinnati" thing is just a conceit coined by the people who saw Cincinnati as the "Rome of the West" back in the day. They never actually bothered to specify which hills were "the" seven, or at least there have been many opposing views over the generations.

Although in a sense we don't have any hills in Cincinnati at all. I once heard a tour guide point this out: all the "hills" surrounding downtown Cincy are essentially the same height. In fact, it's the downtown area that's in a valley carved out by glaciers.

 

[Penta]

Norman Polmar of the United States Naval Institute wrote an article complaining that there was no longer any recognizable system for naming US Navy ships:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/names.htm

That's not in fact from Polmar, but the point is well-made.

Globalsecurity.org illustrated it even more graphically:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/names.htm

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It's not like every class of starship has a theme unifying all its names. What possible theme could there be unifying Galaxy, Enterprise, Yamato, and Odyssey?

Three syllables?

 

[Thestral]

It's not like every class of starship has a theme unifying all its names. What possible theme could there be unifying Galaxy, Enterprise, Yamato, and Odyssey?

Named for famous ships.

That only applies to two of them. The Galaxy class was named for the astronomical object, like the Constellation, Nova, and Nebula classes. And Odyssey is the name of a work of literature, analogously to how the Miranda class is named for a Shakespearean character.

Enterprise and Odyssey have a clear link, and are intentionally similar. Since after all, an "odyssey" is fairly (though not exactly) analogous with an "enterprise." That way you can blow up Enterprise and shock the audience without blowing up Enterprise.

Then of course you've got the slightly stuffy older captains with a commanding presence but no-nonsense and a bit stiff.
And the younger, more dashing first officer (if black instead of white).

Enterprise and Yamato have a relationship/theme too; as the most famous combatants from the Pacific Theatre, having them be sister ships in the 24th Century makes for a nice statement.

But yeah, as far as unifying themes, Starfleet in the 24th C doesn't really seem to have one. Which is a shame. It'd be nice if the Vestas did that.

The question is, stick with the Roman theme or go with hills - and maybe mountains?

 

[Herbert1]

It's not like every class of starship has a theme unifying all its names. What possible theme could there be unifying Galaxy, Enterprise, Yamato, and Odyssey?

Named for famous ships.

That only applies to two of them. The Galaxy class was named for the astronomical object, like the Constellation, Nova, and Nebula classes. And Odyssey is the name of a work of literature, analogously to how the Miranda class is named for a Shakespearean character.

I don't believe that the USS Constellation was named for an astronomical object. I believe that the USS Constellation was named for the original USS Constellation (1797) that was the first US Navy vessel to put to sea and the first US Navy vessel to engage, defeat, and capture an enemy vessel.

Odyssey was the callsign of the command module of Apollo 13.

The Royal Navy has had several ships named for characters in Shakespeare plays. There have been three ships named Miranda. The first ship served in the Crimean War.

 

[Aaron McGuire]

Odyssey was also the name of Apollo 13's command module. In the future it is possible that there could be spacecraft named Galaxy and Yamato which would give the Galaxy-class an in-universe naming theme.

Aaron McGuire

Edit: It might help if I read all the posts. Der.

 

[C.E. Evans]

As far as the Galaxy-class, I think it was a case of it was part of a design naming theme (Galaxy-class, Nebula-class, and Nova-class), but with random names given to the individual production ships within those designs...

 

[SpyOne]

I don't believe that the USS Constellation was named for an astronomical object. I believe that the USS Constellation was named for the original USS Constellation (1797) that was the first US Navy vessel to put to sea and the first US Navy vessel to engage, defeat, and capture an enemy vessel.

Much like the USS Belerophon from DS9 was not named for the figure from greek myth (who rode Pegasus and slew Chimera), but rather for Lord Nelson's ship of the same name (which I believe was named for the figure in greek myth).

And yes, my idea was that even though I know of no famous ship named "Galaxy", there's 200 years of history in the future for one to get famous in.

Even the best laid plans get a wrench thrown in every now and then: did you know that space shuttles are named for explorers' sailing ships? And that 2 of them were also the names of Apollo Modules (named for the same ships)?
Guess which one space shuttle was not named for a sailing ship of scientific significance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Atlantis#cite_note-5

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Atlantis.

I hope that the new Vestas, which I think are Starfleet's big ship after the Sovereigns start going with more traditional Trek names or at least acknowledge more of the other member planet's famous ships names of course with a little back history, like the Kumari from ENT.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe the TOS Constellation was named after that famous ship. The TNG Constellation class was called that because "The Battle" was scripted and shot with the Stargazer being a Constitution-class ship, but then in post-production they decided to go with the design of the kitbash in Picard's ready room, and they decided to call it Constellation-class because that was the only thing they could dub over the shot of LeVar Burton saying "Constitution" without screwing up the lip sync.

And given that the TNG-era Roddenberry was trying to divorce Starfleet from its military aspects as much as possible, I profoundly doubt he intended the Galaxy class to be named after some famous warship or something. He intended that class of ships to be exploration cruisers, the Federation's most powerful tools in history for the discovery and charting of the galaxy. The name of the class was supposed to be a mission statement.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Yet, the second Galaxy class shown was the USS Yamato. Anyways, I like the name Galaxy class, but I don't like in the novels the names that were assigned to the Galaxy, like the USS Breedlove, the USS Muikukaibo, the USS Hedderjin and the USS Norman Scott. Of course we got the USS Challenger and the Challenger class, some writers that it was a good idea to the USS Sequoia and the USS Cheyenne afterwards.

With the various names of the Nebula class, I tend to think that the Nebulas are the TNG's Constitution Class.

 

[Christopher]

If there really were a theme naming convention, you'd think the Galaxy-Class ships would have names like Milky Way, Andromeda, Triangulum, Magellanic, Whirlpool, etc. Hey, there might even be a USS Sombrero!

 

[Herbert1]

Maybe the TOS Constellation was named after that famous ship. The TNG Constellation class was called that because "The Battle" was scripted and shot with the Stargazer being a Constitution-class ship, but then in post-production they decided to go with the design of the kitbash in Picard's ready room, and they decided to call it Constellation-class because that was the only thing they could dub over the shot of LeVar Burton saying "Constitution" without screwing up the lip sync.

And given that the TNG-era Roddenberry was trying to divorce Starfleet from its military aspects as much as possible, I profoundly doubt he intended the Galaxy class to be named after some famous warship or something. He intended that class of ships to be exploration cruisers, the Federation's most powerful tools in history for the discovery and charting of the galaxy. The name of the class was supposed to be a mission statement.

IIRC, the Galaxy-class name was chosen because they wanted to have a name that implied scale. If I remember my old Starlogs, Andy Probert was going to name the class Ambassador and Gene complained it was "not big enough." Unfortunately, I don't have that old issue of Starlog magazine to verity this.

In any case, Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda did start naming classes for astronomical objects. Remember the Nova-class in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Techncical Manual that was meant to be the Galaxy-class replacement and not the science surveyor we saw in Star Trek: Voyager?

 

[Warp Coil]

I think the only on-screen, "canon" naming convention that seemed to stick was for the Danube-class runabouts, which are all named after earth rivers. Perhaps the notion of naming conventions that apply to specific classes is a relatively new trend, so anything prior to, say, 2369, wouldn't have followed it.

 

[Herbert1]

I think the only on-screen, "canon" naming convention that seemed to stick was for the Danube-class runabouts, which are all named after earth rivers. Perhaps the notion of naming conventions that apply to specific classes is a relatively new trend, so anything prior to, say, 2369, wouldn't have followed it.

It was nice that the writing staff maintained the river naming convention.

^I also wonder if the Yamato was named not for the original IJNS Yamato but for the rebuilt space battleship in Space Criuser Yamato/Star Blazers.

 

[Sci]

All I can say is that I think it'd be nice to see more non-Human names for ships. Ships named after famous non-Human Federates or non-Human locations or ships from Federation worlds' histories. U.S.S. Kumari, U.S.S. ShiKahr, U.S.S. Ashalla, U.S.S. Soval, U.S.S. sh'Rothress, etc.

 

[Herbert1]

All I can say is that I think it'd be nice to see more non-Human names for ships. Ships named after famous non-Human Federates or non-Human locations or ships from Federation worlds' histories. U.S.S. Kumari, U.S.S. ShiKahr, U.S.S. Ashalla, U.S.S. Soval, U.S.S. sh'Rothress, etc.

Probably fans would understand the in-universe references in Star Trek literature.

 

[LightningStorm]

All I can say is that I think it'd be nice to see more non-Human names for ships. Ships named after famous non-Human Federates or non-Human locations or ships from Federation worlds' histories. U.S.S. Kumari, U.S.S. ShiKahr, U.S.S. Ashalla, U.S.S. Soval, U.S.S. sh'Rothress, etc.

USS Opaka FTW.

One wonders if in a hundred or so (in-universe) years there will be a ship called the USS Picard or USS Kirk.

 

[Penta]

Probably not gonna happen. Why? Because the names still have to be pronouncable to one's audience.

edit: I meant non-human names.