Names of the Original Series Starships ?

[Vance]

The term "Constitution class" first saw print in Bjo Trimble's fan produced version of the Star Trek Concordance (roughly 1969), and also includes the Constitution/Constellation mixup (both designations are used).

Thanks. I get the two works confused a lot, since I haven't had either in ages... and are similar in a lot of respects. But, yes, the 'Constitution Class' as an official 'outside the studio term' for the Enterprise and sister ships was probably first definitive there.

 

[Unicron]

(Again, this wouldn't be the only case, as much of Roddenberry's 'Rules' for starships were invented primarily to discredit the Technical Manual, and were then promptly ignored.)

Vance, I'm honestly not so sure about this. The only "rule" which Roddenberry specifically invented was that there couldn't be odd numbers of nacelles. His view was that you needed both to create a stable warp field, and that having an odd number would make the ship spin in circles like a helicopter with only one rotor. I don't know that Gene ever bothered to create an engineering reason for that, as I've seen nothing in Trek to convince me that paired nacelles are an absolute necessity. At most, I've only seen it suggested (plausibly) by some that paired nacelles are the optimum configuration, because it's easier to create a viable field that way.

Most of the other "rules" were invented by Andrew Probert, and the impression I've gotten from reading his interviews on the subject is that no one had a vendetta against FJ. It is true that going by Gene's rule would rule out some of the designs in the TM, but it would also disqualify some of the ships Okuda designed. Other rules are violated by other canon designs, so I take the rules with a grain of salt anyway. I think they were only ever intended to be general guidelines, not authoritarian rules.

 

[Vance]

Well, Probert mentioned (somewhere, and it's been a long time since I saw the article) that the 'edicts' came from above. Considering that the rules were fairly arbitrary, and each seemed geared specifically to counter Franz Joseph's work at a time when that feud was in high gear, and then completely ditched as of ST:TSFS.... Granted, I couldn't say it's concrete proof, but I could find in a civil case here.

But, no, the rules have never been enforced, so far as I know.

 

[Unicron]

Well, I think Ex Astris Scientia has a link to one of his interviews regarding ship design. I'll see if I can find it tomorrow. For what it's worth, I do sympathize with some of your frustrations regarding some of the powers behind Trek. I just also want to be sure I give credit and complaints where they're due.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Does anybody else remember the story of the USS Tritium?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Also note that in TWoK (if you accept it) there's a visual reference to Enterpriseclass and that raises an interesting wrinkle.

If you mean the simulator room, that doesn't necessarily have to refer to the ship. (Which, given what we would later learn in ST VI, I think it does not.) It could just be the simulator itself: since it was built to resemble the Enterprise, it's an Enterprise-class simulator.

Actually I like the idea that somebody else here (it wasn't me, I can't remember who though) suggested: the phrase refers to an Academy class of cadets, and that room was used to train the group of cadets that would be posted to Enterprise. Hence, Enterprise class.

 

[number6]

... the 'definitive' one that Franz Joseph made is forgivable in my view, particularly without access to clean masters or the 11 foot model itself.

Sorry in advance if this is a dumb question. Some of you guys know a whole lot more about this than I do.

How wouldn't FJ have access to the 11' shooting model or at the very least the blueprints from the studio archives?

Star Trek was still in production, albeit in animated form, but Paramount was still involved and the Filmation production company must have had access to set blueprints to create the background plates and ship shots.

So wouldn't FJ be able to have had access to some of this?

Let's not forget that the E herself was crated up and on the lot until 1974, IIRC..

Also GR's falling out didn't happen until later than you think.. FZ's blueprints were in TMP and TWOK and then even later on in TNG season one.

I count those tech manuals and blueprints from the mid seventies as canon.
So much of that found its way into not only a great deal of fan films, but also echoed in the post TOS years starting with TMP and up through ENT.

I am freely admiting that this may be naive of me, but what's the source of the animosity to the stuff that FJ did? What happened between GR and him?

I understand some of the sentiments some have about Gein and the Okudas, even if I may not agree with all of them.

But I would think that some of you more hardcore TOSers would as I do about the FJ stuff. I've been a fan since 71, In addition to the Tech/Med Manuals and Blueprints, I own the James Blish and Alan Dean Foster novelizations, even a few other 70s novels and a couple of the newer ones..so there are elements of "hardcore" that we all certainly share.

Explain the origin of some of these sentiments regarding the Franz Josephs blue prints.. Is it because he made up some stuff (i.e. four transporter rooms when we only ever saw THE transporter room)? Or is it something else I never heard of?

 

[Shaw]

I, personally, have no animosity towards FJ's work... but we have an unparalleled amount of access to stuff today that no one really had back in the 70s (or 80s and 90s for that matter). Given that, why not revisit this new found data and approach it with open minds?

What if we had all the tools and data we have today, but there was no TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT or the movies to color our view of this stuff? What if we hadn't been given FJ's works (which most of us grew up studying from the moment they were released)?


So for me, I'm really just curious if I would reach the same conclusions that others have over the years. We are all different, and most of us who attempt this type of thing have different approaches and reach different conclusions. But to take on this type of project, one of the first things you have to do is attempt to keep all the other later ideas from influencing what you are doing... and to some people, that makes it seem like we're spitting on the grave of FJ.

Frankly, I'd be willing to bet that had FJ had access to better information, he would have taken full advantage of it in his works. And I don't see us taking advantage of this today as any form of disrespect for what he accomplished with much less... it just so happens we have more, so lets see where it takes us.

At the same time, I totally understand people's shock... and even hostility, at projects that attempt to get more original information out of TOS. I myself felt the same type of thing the first time I saw aridas sofia's cross section, which looked completely different than FJ's work. But over time, after seeing much of the same information he had been working from, I started wondering how the Enterprise might have been intended to be laid out.

But yeah, even though I love both the FJ's Booklet of General Plans and Technical Manual, I don't see them as biblical text nor do I see questioning any of his assumptions as a form of blasphemy.

In fact, it is the almost religious way that people look at this stuff that has kept me from framing any of my works in the same type of fictional universe like much of other people's works (including FJ's). My drawings are dated with our current calendar, I don't take on the role of a fictional engineer or designer from the 23rd century in my stuff... I'm just sharing information that I've found about my favorite show with others who share those feelings. But seeing how people react to FJ's stuff and the stuff of others has made me decide to keep my distance from anything of mine being considered works of fiction. I'm just sharing my personal studies of stuff from a television show from the late 60s and not much more.

 

[Vance]

How wouldn't FJ have access to the 11' shooting model or at the very least the blueprints from the studio archives?

So far as I know, based on some interviews with Karen Dick, FJ had access to whatever materials that Lincoln Enterprises would send to him, and they weren't always authentic about what they would send along. In addition, FJ had access to episode reels for the first two seasons.

Star Trek was still in production, albeit in animated form, but Paramount was still involved and the Filmation production company must have had access to set blueprints to create the background plates and ship shots.

Filmation mostly traced and rotoscoped footage from the series. They did very little 'original' work, which was par for the course for Filmation.

Also GR's falling out didn't happen until later than you think.. FJ's blueprints were in TMP and TWOK and then even later on in TNG season one.

I don't think anyone really knows exactly when things went to hell, but the feud is known to have begun with TMP and had something to do with Paramount wanting FJ as an advisor, and Roddenberry wanting his own people. I haven't been able to find the 'match' that started it, but it does seem to have been around the time that TMP was being made.

It gets harder to pin down since Roddenberry was known to... shall we say... heavily embellish stories about those who weren't part of his circle. So finding the facts of the story gets a bit harder. From all I can personally tell, it seems like it was a control issue for TMP, which escalated (and included other licenses that had nothing to do with FJ) by the time TNG came out.

Explain the origin of some of these sentiments regarding the Franz Josephs blue prints.. Is it because he made up some stuff (i.e. four transporter rooms when we only ever saw THE transporter room)? Or is it something else I never heard of?

Keep in mind, Roddenberry personally signed off on every single page of the Technical Manual at one point. The problem seems more to be that the Roddenberry of 1966 wasn't the same man as the Roddenberry of 1978. When the Technical Manual was first put together, Roddenberry considered Trek a dead project and was moving on. Come 1978, he was trying to reclaim the franchise all over again, despite his licensing it out to anyone with a few bucks.

 

[Warped9]

After I got over the excitement of getting my copy of FJ blueprints and his Tech Manual back when they were initially released I quickly realized something was amiss. As I poured over the material I was experiencing two emotions:

- Wow! This is so cool!
- and, WTF! is this?

It was easy to see that FJ diverged on a lot of things. And after awhile I was confused on how GR could sign off on things that were so evidently inaccurate.

But GR wasn't above that sort of thing and fandom was still in its infancy. We didn't get much tie-in merchandise back then and we weren't so critical. But it doesn't change the fact that FJ was off on a lot of things.

Since then we've gotten access to a lot more archival material. And like in history and archeology new findings often inevitably eclipse previously held assumptions.

It isn't attacking FJ to criticize his work as long as you consider the conditions under which he was working. But that said it's inescapable that on many things his work has since been proven wrong. Or more kindly, incorrect.

 

[Vance]

It was easy to see that FJ diverged on a lot of things. And after awhile I was confused on how GR could sign off on things that were so evidently inaccurate.

Yeah, I think a lot of people were confused by things like the USS Defiant, etc. In hindsight, we can see what the problems were (Lincoln not giving season three material, FJ's primary goal of making a technical document rather than a 'canon' document, etc...). And, of course, the issue that TOS wasn't exactly internally consistent on many things, either.

It isn't attacking FJ to criticize his work as long as you consider the conditions under which he was working. But that said it's inescapable that on many things his work has since been proven wrong. Or more kindly, incorrect.

I don't have a problem with people saying 'well, his registry list is incorrect', but more the idea that 'FJ was a hack because canon that came out 30 years later is different', which is an attitude that's been out more and more of late.

 

[Warped9]

The quality of FJ's work is clear evidence that he wasn't a hack. But while he brought a lot to the project that is admirable my impression is that he skated on some things perhaps with the thought that it wouldn't be closely scrutinized.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Don't forget that Lincoln Enterprises didn't have complete access to everything. The blueprints weren't in the studio archives, they were in the personal collections of Matt Jefferies, Richard Datin, and other folks who either just wanted a souvenier or forgot they had the thing. The eleven foot model was packed away in two or three crates in a dusty corner of the prop warehouse, getting no repsect from the folks running the place, the three footer was on Roddenberry's desk, and the Galileo shuttlecraft was rotting away in a salvage yard. It is not an exaggeration to say that FJ didn't have much more to go on that any of us at the time, and not being a fan himself, less inclination to sweat out the tiny details and resolve apparent contradictions (like the bridge or the location of Engineering or just how in the hell the warp drive worked anyway).

Yes, I've said some snarky things about the FJ blueprints from time to time, mainly as blowback against those who do treat them like some holy scriptures brought down from Mt. Seleya, but there is no denying that he did lay the foundation of what all of us Johnny-come-lately's have tried to accomplish.

Oh, and as for the Defiant: The registy for that ship first showed up in the Ballantine edition of Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance, 1975. So blame Bjo for that one.

 

[Unicron]

If you mean the simulator room, that doesn't necessarily have to refer to the ship. (Which, given what we would later learn in ST VI, I think it does not.) It could just be the simulator itself: since it was built to resemble the Enterprise, it's an Enterprise-class simulator.

That's one possibility, but it would only be practical if the Enterprise had a unique bridge. There is nothing to suggest it would need its own simulator, and it's been implied that Fed ships have long used modular, multipurpose bridges that can be swapped out.

Actually I like the idea that somebody else here (it wasn't me, I can't remember who though) suggested: the phrase refers to an Academy class of cadets, and that room was used to train the group of cadets that would be posted to Enterprise. Hence, Enterprise class.

That idea never really made sense to me. Why would you post the name of the class in the simulator, as opposed to it referring to the type of ship being simulated? There's also no evidence that the cadets would have been posted to the Enterprise on active duty, as opposed to the training cruise they were originally supposed to have.

Meh. I prefer the term Enterprise Class anyway for the movie ship. It's more fitting for a major upgrade/successor class and it's been used consistently in most unofficial publications. None of that "Constitution refit" junk.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I've grown rather fond of the theory that when the Enterprise was refit, she essentially became a prototype, with many unique features that weren't carried over to other Constitution class refits, so the Enterprise basically became her own class (not unheard of; the current aircraft carrier is the only ship of her class).

So, the refit became an Enterprise class starship, while the other ships that underwent different, but more standardized, refits, including the ship that would one day become the Enterprise-A, retained the Constitution class moniker.

Sound like a plan?

 

[Timo]

Certainly. And of course people in the 24th century wouldn't remember such fine details, so they'd consider Kirk's two ships Constitution class regardless of the state of refit.

Why would you post the name of the class in the simulator, as opposed to it referring to the type of ship being simulated?

Because the bridges of TOS movie ships were unique. Or at least we never saw two of the same.

Of course, the simulator itself could be just as modular as the bridges: in about two hours, it would be repaired, rearranged, and have the sign "Simulator, Hornet class" hung next to the entrance. In a further couple of hours, it would become "Simulator, Reliant class".

There's also no evidence that the cadets would have been posted to the Enterprise on active duty, as opposed to the training cruise they were originally supposed to have.

To the contrary, McCoy suggests that the purpose of the training is to give the Enterprise an all-new crew - the alternative being to give the ship back her old crew.

This makes sense if Starfleet intends to send the ship (or the crew trained on her) to another of those five-year deep space missions. Rather than constantly pump out cadets and crew, the Academy would in this particular occasion be honing a specific group of people (many of them postgrads) for working as a coherent unit in a long, demanding assignment.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

How were they unique? The only other bridge shown in any detail was the Reliant's, and it had the same basic configuration as the one on the Enterprise (due more of course to the same set being used). There are some small differences, but nothing that would suggest they're totally unique designs. And in the absence of any other bridges being shown, it's easier to speculate that they would probably look like this.

I mean, we already saw identical bridges in TOS on Constitution class ships. Nothing that made one bridge unique compared to the others.

 

[Wingsley]

The exact line was "Only twelve like it in the fleet." People have interpreted that both ways over the years -- twelve in addition to the E, or twelve altogether.

There's another possibility:

Here is a transciption of the turbolift conversation between Capt. Kirk and Capt. Christopher:

KIRK:
Bridge.

CHRISTOPHER:
Must have taken quite a lot
to build a ship like this.

KIRK:
There are only 12 like it in the fleet.

CHRISTOPHER:
I see.
Did the Navy...?

KIRK:
We're a combined service, Captain.
Our authority is the United Earth Space Probe Agency.


Perhaps there are twelve Federation starships with human crews. These would be the twelve starships sponsored by Earth/Solar System. Kirk would naturally be distinguishing between starships-of-the-line from Earth, and starships from other Federation member-worlds, such as Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, etc.

This would make sense when you consider how many Federation starships were lost during TOS; if there were only about 13 to begin with, loosing the Intrepid, Defiant, Constellation, and the crews of the Exeter and Excalibur would be like sustaining war casualties. The reaction of Kirk and company to these losses is notable, but they hardly appear to be behaving as if their organization is on a war-footing.

If the "twelve like it in the fleet" line were referring to U.E.S.P.A.-sponsored Federation starships, this would open the door to the possibility of having a Federation Starfleet with a larger number of starships in service. Mortality among ships and crews could still be substantial over time, but at least it seems more logical that the Federation could sustain the losses listed above in only a three-year period and not be left with their total fleet compliment down by one-third or more. I tend to think that Franz Joseph had the right idea with his list of Constitution-class vessels, even if the names and structure of the subclasses may have been out of kilter with STAR TREK.

 

[Wingsley]

And don't forget the Archon and the Valiant lost at Eminiar VII.

 

[Captain Robert April]

The Valiant was lost fifty years earlier, and almost certainly not a Constitution class ship (maybe the class immediately preceding it). The Archon was lost a hundred years earlier and was most likely a Daedelus class ship.