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"NCC-1701" never said onscreen?

Here's some stuff from http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701-A)#Background_information about the NCC-1701-A:

While the ship's history before its recommissioning as Enterprise has never been officially stated, several non-canon sources (such as the AMT/Ertl Model kit documentation) have claimed it to formerly be the USS Yorktown (NCC-1717); others cite it as the newly built (but not yet commissioned) former USS Ti-Ho (NCC-1798), or the also newly built USS Atlantis. Captain Scott alludes to the ship being newly built in the ship's log of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, stating "This new ship must have been built by monkeys".

Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, released shortly after Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, cites the origin of NCC-1701-A as the USS Ti-Ho (NCC-1798), an Constitution-class II starship which was a test bed for transwarp technology alongside the USS Excelsior. The Ti-Ho was rechristened Enterprise after Kirk and his crew were exonerated.

I tend to go with the Ti-Ho explanation.
 
I've never heard Navy personnel refer to the ship they're serving on as anything but its name or nickname (Enterprise or Big E, for instance). How would that even come up in most of the circumstances where a character would refer to her ship?

Some of the smaller navy ships are only referred to by number, such as PT-109.
 
I was going to say the registry might be visible in Commodore Mendez's file on the Talos incident from The Menagerie.

But on finding it again, the official file only states USS Enterprise, no other details.

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x11hd/themenageriepart1hd180.jpg

What the heck does third quadrant of the vernal galaxy mean?

Because that sounds like Talos IV is in another galaxy.

This Talos IV file later makes a guest appearance in A Taste of Armageddon, with "Ambassador Fox" printed on the cover.
 
There could have been half a dozen refitted Constitutions available, all deemed too outdated for active service, until one was ordered to be donated to Kirk and superficially patched up for the job, possibly in a matter of weeks.

She wouldn't become a worthy instrument for Starfleet, but she would become a worthy gift for Kirk - and there it would matter that she looked as much like Kirk's old ship as possible. So she'd get the same name and the same registry, until some bureaucrat steps in and says "you can't have two different ships under the same registry - it will wreck our System". Thus the A is added as a compromise.

Everything about the process would be subordinate to making Kirk happy (within budgetary limits and the limits of Starfleet's patience with the mutineer), until the adding of the A. The earlier registry, the earlier crew, the earlier role in Starfleet would all be erased, these being of no worth to anybody. There would be no need for continuity there, not even in record-keeping, except in the most abstract of senses: the number painted on the hull would be accompanied by an archives ID, and when the former changed, the latter would be appended with a note about the change, but that would be it.

This. This is what I was saying.

NCC-1701-A was a Christmas present: TO JIM, LOVE STARFLEET.

And this.
 
Hartzilla2007 said:
What the heck does third quadrant of the vernal galaxy mean?

Because that sounds like Talos IV is in another galaxy.
I guess someone in the art department figured it was. it sounds like something from a Gold Key comic.
The end of TVH seems reasonable as a special case. That ship was apparently created (or recreated) as a favor to Kirk and his crew. The nostalgia factor applies.

Impossible. You don't build a starship overnight. It takes years. They would've had to rename an existing ship.
Who knows how long there was between the end of the crisis, the court martial and the crew's assignment to the -A? They could have easily taken place across a year or two.

I tend to favour the -A being a new ship (although new as in built prior to the whale crisis and renamed, as in MSGttE and FASA), because the interiors are so different. The bridge in V looks to me to be based on the Excelsior's from STIII, which was supposed to be bleeding edge.
 
Hartzilla2007 said:
What the heck does third quadrant of the vernal galaxy mean?

Because that sounds like Talos IV is in another galaxy.
I guess someone in the art department figured it was. it sounds like something from a Gold Key comic.

There are, sadly, a lot of people out there who don't understand what galaxies really are, or how they relate to stars and planetary systems. I like to tell the story of the science fiction art book I once came across, with a thinly written narrative loosely connecting a bunch of space/SF paintings the creator had done, in which there was a journal entry where the protagonist said something like, "We're two light-years from Earth now -- just a few more galaxies to go."


Who knows how long there was between the end of the crisis, the court martial and the crew's assignment to the -A? They could have easily taken place across a year or two.

Would it really have taken that long for Gillian to get settled and assigned to her research vessel? Or for Spock to get around to telling Sarek to tell Amanda he felt fine? A few weeks or months, I could buy, but years? Unlikely.


I tend to favour the -A being a new ship (although new as in built prior to the whale crisis and renamed, as in MSGttE and FASA), because the interiors are so different.

So? There's no law saying that all ships in existence at the same time have to have the same interiors. After all, the E still had the same interiors it'd had since its refit over a decade earlier. The ship that became the E-A could have had newer interiors while still coexisting with the refit E.


The bridge in V looks to me to be based on the Excelsior's from STIII, which was supposed to be bleeding edge.

But it wouldn't take nearly as long to put in new bridge consoles as it would to lay the keel and build the superstructure and install the engines and so forth. Especially since bridges are generally assumed to be modular and easily swapped out. What you're saying is equivalent to assuming that a house is brand-new just because it has the latest model of dishwasher and range in its kitchen. Those could've been the last things installed.
 
It could have had the 'new' interiors all along, but I think the intent of newer and more advanced was conveyed pretty clearly in IV and V. Contrast with VI, (or much more recently, the USS Kelvin), where the sets were aged and panels intentionally scuffed, to convey an older vessel (presumably Meyer wanted the ship to match the actors)

Plus, there's Scotty's complaint in V, "I think this new ship was put together by monkeys!"
 
^Well, yes, nobody's saying it wasn't a new ship. The general theory is that Starfleet took a ship that was nearly completed, that had been slated to be commissioned under a different name and was then changed to Enterprise as a result of the trial. What I find implausible is the idea that they didn't even start building the ship until after Kirk's trial.
 
That was from my post. I just said "created or recreated" to handwave all possible origins for the ship -- but when they built it was not the point. The actual point was that the ship was a gift to Kirk; therefore, the "-A" designator was justified as a very special exception. (Unlike the bloody -B, -C, -D, or -E.)
 
Andy Probert suggested the ship number in TMP be NCC-1800.

Mind you, Navy ships with extensive conversions or modernizations got some change to their letter identifiers but their number stayed the same. The Hornet CV-12 was converted and become CVA-12 (A for Attack) then became CVS-12 (S for Support when switched for antisubmarine support duties).

Except it sounds like they do that because the ship is serving a different role after the refit, where as the Enterprise is doing the same stuff it just has a new look while doing it.

I was merely recounting how the Navy has done things. Did I suggest what the Enterprise registry should be?
To me, the upgrade system MJ had proposed has always sounded less like the way the Navy does things but more like the way aircraft are referred to:
bomber design 17
B-17
Upgrades:
B-17A
B-17B
B-17C
B-17D
etc.
 
Hartzilla2007 said:
What the heck does third quadrant of the vernal galaxy mean?

Because that sounds like Talos IV is in another galaxy.
I guess someone in the art department figured it was. it sounds like something from a Gold Key comic.

There are, sadly, a lot of people out there who don't understand what galaxies really are, or how they relate to stars and planetary systems.

Well, I think it's more the case of "galaxy" being a technobabble term of 1950s and 60s popular sci-fi, mixed with writers who are scientifically-illiterate. I'm still wondering how we broke the time barrier, and what's come of it.

Would it really have taken that long for Gillian to get settled and assigned to her research vessel?

Maybe she was quarantined for a year. Imagine all the nasty bugs she brought with her that had been eradicated centuries beforehand! And they thought the whale probe meant the end of life on Earth! :)
 
There are, sadly, a lot of people out there who don't understand what galaxies really are, or how they relate to stars and planetary systems.

Well, I think it's more the case of "galaxy" being a technobabble term of 1950s and 60s popular sci-fi, mixed with writers who are scientifically-illiterate.

I don't see how that's incompatible with what I said.

Your comment was on the scientific illiteracy part. Claiming it was just this suggests the writers *thought* they were writing something that made sense. But it's more subtle than that: saying the "third quadrant of the vernal galaxy yadayada" is very much in line with popular sci-fi of the time. The words are meaningless thrust into the same sentence, but they SOUND out of this world. And likely the writers didn't give a care as to whether or not what they came up with made sense, because the audience didn't either.
 
Would it really have taken that long for Gillian to get settled and assigned to her research vessel? Or for Spock to get around to telling Sarek to tell Amanda he felt fine? A few weeks or months, I could buy, but years? Unlikely.

There are many ways in which the flow of time towards the end of the movie could differ from the "scene per day" impression we might hold. The trial would probably come a few days or weeks after Earth had avoided the last trump, not immediately. The assigning of our heroes to their new ship might happen more like two years after that, though.

Plus, there's Scotty's complaint in V, "I think this new ship was put together by monkeys!"

Well, the "new" there is an insult. Doesn't mean the ship would be shiny - only that it's not the old one.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Your comment was on the scientific illiteracy part. Claiming it was just this suggests the writers *thought* they were writing something that made sense.

Well, you're the one who brought in the phrase "scientific illiteracy." I just said "don't understand what galaxies really are." As in, just having some vague sense that they're something out in space, without really knowing just what. And although we may have phrased it differently, I don't disagree with your interpretation.


But it's more subtle than that: saying the "third quadrant of the vernal galaxy yadayada" is very much in line with popular sci-fi of the time.

And just about every other time. There are tons of more recent works that abuse the term "galaxy" just as badly. And not just actual stories. I once saw a TV listing describing Total Recall, which takes place on Earth and Mars, as a tale of intergalactic intrigue. To the layperson, "galaxy" just means "space and stars and stuff."
 
To me, the upgrade system MJ had proposed has always sounded less like the way the Navy does things but more like the way aircraft are referred to:
bomber design 17
B-17
Upgrades:
B-17A
B-17B
B-17C
B-17D
etc.

Not surprising, given Jefferies' background.
 
Considering we have people in Los Angeles who not only cannot point to the Pacific Ocean on a map, they don't even know its the big body of water where they could go to the beach that day. Thinking "galaxy" is "all space and stuff" as all they got wong would be a kindness.

As for registry numbers, naval vessels can sometimes change their number when rebuilt, but only if they are rebuilt into a different type of ship. Some of the World War II cruisers were rebuilt as missile cruisers and had there numbers changed, while the carriers only had a letter in their designation changed to indicate the ships role as a carrier. Ships can also be renamed. If a new ship is to be built to get a name of a ship that exists, but that ship is not due to be retired, the older ship loses its name in favor of the newer ship. The older ship gets a different name, but usually keeps its old numbers (unless it is reclassified as a different type of ship, then it might get added into that ship type's numbering pattern).

A hypothetical Starfleet example:
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B). An Excelsior class starship.

Sometime in around 2330 the old ship comes home from a mission. The Federation Council has decided that a new subclass of Ambassador-class starships will bear the famous name of "Enterprise". However the old Excelsior-class vessel is perfectly fine and viable as she is. It would be wasteful to retire her. So the word comes down that the Enterprise will be decomissioned, get a minor refit, and be renamed. During this process it is decided that the vessel will be fitted for a different type of mission than previously, changing from say a heavy cruiser into a deep range explorer. So to reflect these changes, the ship is required to get a new name, and because of the type change, she will get a new regristry number.

By the time the new Ambassador-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C) is launched, the older Excelsior-class vessel has already left on her new deep range mission, as USS Lakota (NCC-42768).
 
As for registry numbers, naval vessels can sometimes change their number when rebuilt, but only if they are rebuilt into a different type of ship.

Or when reassigned without actually being physically modified, which is essentially what happened with the CV->CVA->CVS changes.

OTOH, ships can change registry numbers for a variety of tactical or bureaucratic reasons, too. Say, the USN kept shuffling the registries of four ships it hadn't actually ordered, the Kouroush class destroyer-cruisers that could not be sold to Iran and had to be adopted as the Kidd class; they have now been sold to South Korea, another way for ships to get new registries! And e.g. the Soviets changed pennant numbers when assignments changed - unlike the names, the numbers were not specific to the ships.

By the time the new Ambassador-class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C) is launched, the older Excelsior-class vessel has already left on her new deep range mission, as USS Lakota (NCC-42768).

This probably wouldn't even call for the physical refitting and the mission adjustment; orders could simply come from on high to change the name and the registry.

Although I suspect that all the NCC-1701-whatever ships actually have a "real" registry somewhere in the records, at a range appropriate for the time of their service entry - so the 1701-B would "really" be something like 9763, the 1701-C "really" 10025, the 1701-D "really" 69448 and so forth.

Timo Saloniemi
 
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