No USS Constitution?

[F. King Daniel]

Old news, I know. But I'm rereading Best Destiny so it's fresh in my mind again...

According to Diane Carey's Final Frontier the Enterprise is the first of it's kind. The prototype Constitution-class starship.

Here's what Captain April had to say:

"The Consitution was actually put on the boards before all the technological breakthoughs of recent years. Before they even laid the keel, things had vastly changed, from duotronics to the warp navigational tie-in we've got on board this one. Faced with virtually reengineering the whole heart of the ship, Starfleet took out a new construction contract. On the drawing board, the ship is Number 1700. The actual vessel is 1701."

Later, George Kirk names the ship "Enterprise". In Best Destiny (~5 years later), Captain April tells young Jimmy Kirk that he would have called her "Constitution".

I like the idea that the Enterprise was the first of it's type. But I'm curious what others think of Carey's little rewrite.

 

[F. King Daniel]

This obviously contradicts the assumptions made in all the Treknical manuals, from Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual to the (relatively) recent Star Trek Encyclopedia. Also, the USS Constitution was featured in the second book of MJF's My Brother's Keeper trilogy, Constitution (but IIRC, nothing in that novel mentions the USS Constitution being the first of her class).

 

[bok2384]

I know its all a bit of a fudge. My explanation is that considering all of the secrecy surrounding the construction and launch of the Enterprise, its possible that another team were working on building the Constitution at another site on the other side of the Federation with no knowledge of the other team. Probably non-sensical, but I like it.

Interestingly, the Errand of Vengeance trilogy have the half-completed Constitution under the command of Admiral Jefferies charging into battle against the Klingons at the Battle of Donatu V. Although, the tide was turned, the Constitution was all but wrecked. Perhaps, that could be another fudged explanation, the Constitution was a write-off, so they focused on the Enterprise.

Although, a fully-functional Constitution came to the rescue of the yet-to-be-commissioned Enterprise prior to her launch in the Star Trek: Crew comic, "Shakedown".

 

[captcalhoun]

there is a Constitution. there has to be, otherwise it'd be the Enterprise class.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

Perhaps the Constitution was never actually launched, much the same way the space shuttle Enterprise never went into space.

 

[Christopher]

I think Final Frontier's interpretation is pretty clearly irreconcilable with the Trek continuity as we understand it today. Hell, I had a great deal of trouble accepting it even when it first came out. It made a lot of claims that were highly revisionist:

• The word "starship" is a new coinage.
• Transporters rated for beaming people are a new invention.
• The "library" computer is a new invention.
• Before library computers, ships were limited to making short warp hops except in well-charted territories.
• Therefore, Starfleet was unable to defend the Federation's colonies and frontiers and could not be taken "seriously."
• As a result, the whole Federation was a loose, decentralized alliance before this point.

So basically the Enterprise is the first ship ever to do most of the things we take for granted, and is basically responsible for turning the Federation into a unified galactic power in the first place. I mean, sure, it makes for a grand adventure story about pioneers doing important and unprecedented things, and it captures the kind of flavor that Star Trek: Enterprise aspired to, but it never felt right to me as a story taking place just 20-odd years before TOS. Even when it first came out, it was nearly unprecedented to suggest that all these things were such recent developments. And there's no way it can be taken today as anything other than an alternative take on things.

So saying that the Constitution was never built is just one more of FF's idiosyncratic claims. There's no reason to give it any more weight than any of the rest.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Although I'll agree that Final Frontier revised the importance of the Enterprise herself (hence this thread, my reread of Best Destiny reminding me of something that vaguely irked me many years ago), I found Carey's pre-TOS universe believable. The "Starship" thing goes back to the dedication plaque and Kirk's crowing about the importance of a Starship during TOS, the transporter's invention roughly tallies with the time of it's debut in The Final Reflection, and so much emphasis was put on the TOS era as a time of pioneers by various later publications (from technical manuals to FASA RPG suppliments to boxouts on TOS in TNG articles in TV guides) that their generation being the first to have and do all that stuff seemed right to me.

Personally, I found Star Trek: Enterprise far more revisionist in having all of TOS' technologies in standard use a whole century earlier.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Interestingly, the Errand of Vengeance trilogy have the half-completed Constitution under the command of Admiral Jefferies charging into battle against the Klingons at the Battle of Donatu V. Although, the tide was turned, the Constitution was all but wrecked. Perhaps, that could be another fudged explanation, the Constitution was a write-off, so they focused on the Enterprise.

Which was reconted in the sequel Errand of Fury trilogy as the Constitution taking little or no damage at that battle and being an active starship during the present day of the books.

Personally, I found Star Trek: Enterprise far more revisionist in having all of TOS' technologies in standard use a whole century earlier.

Seeing as the books aren't canon it really isn't being revisionist to contridict them.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Personally, I found Star Trek: Enterprise far more revisionist in having all of TOS' technologies in standard use a whole century earlier.

Revised from what? We've no idea how long before TOS those technologies were invented and went into wide use.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I wasn't comparing to the books. Enterprise was revisionist with regard to TOS. Cloaking devices being commonly used by Suliban and Romulan ships (and Romulan mines) after they were an amazing new technology in "Balance of Terror". 24th century style Phasers in use when "The Cage" used lasers. A simple transporter control podium and 5 second beaming sequence when in early TOS it took two men working a large console and beaming took a lot longer. A single flight control console on the bridge when TOS required a double console and a pilot/navigator duo to fly the ship.

 

[Christopher]

Personally, I found Star Trek: Enterprise far more revisionist in having all of TOS' technologies in standard use a whole century earlier.

Seeing as the books aren't canon it really isn't being revisionist to contridict them.

Well, both Final Frontier and Enterprise took advantage of the grey areas within canon to make assertions that didn't necessarily conflict with the letter of onscreen information but that went against a lot of widely held expectations. So they were both revisionist in that sense. And yes, ENT did a few things that I felt went a little too far, like having transporters and holographic target drones that early. But I find it easier to believe that kind of "pioneer ship" premise a century before James Kirk's lifetime than within it.

And of course if a canonical work is revisionist, its assertions nonetheless become "fact" from that point on, and any earlier tie-ins that take a different approach are rendered apocryphal.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I wasn't comparing to the books. Enterprise was revisionist with regard to TOS. Cloaking devices being commonly used by Suliban and Romulan ships (and Romulan mines) after they were an amazing new technology in "Balance of Terror". 24th century style Phasers in use when "The Cage" used lasers. A simple transporter control podium and 5 second beaming sequence when in early TOS it took two men working a large console and beaming took a lot longer. A single flight control console on the bridge when TOS required a double console and a pilot/navigator duo to fly the ship.

They werent all that amazed,

SPOCK: Invisibility is theoretically possible, Captain, with selective bending of light. But the power cost is enormous.
They may have solved that problem

SPOCK: Obviously, their weaponry is superior to ours, and they have a practical invisibility screen.

SULU: Attack, without a visible target? How do we aim our phasers?
STILES: Aim with sensors. Not accurate, but if we blanket them

Could be advancing sensor tech made previous cloaks impractical and useless.

How are their phasers "24th Century style"? Phase pistol, Laser or phaser, you pull the trigger and a beam of light shoots out. Its all the same really.

REED: They're called phase pistols. They have two settings, stun and kill. It would be best not to confuse them.

My theory is lasers replaced phase pistols for a while, until an upgrade to the technology made phased energy weapons more pratical and versatile. ( Phasers)

As for transporters and pilots

Technology evolves. It may start simple, get more complex and then get simple again.

 

[F. King Daniel]

"Thoretical possibility" Spock says with regard to the cloaked Romulan ship. If, in TOS' universe, the Suliban and the Romulans had cloaked ships and minefields 100 years prior, Spock never would have mentioned that they "may have" solved the power problem (which never came up in ENT) or that cloaks were a "theoretical possibility". Enterprise made a retcon, plain and simple.

 

[Nerys Myk]

"Thoretical possibility" Spock says with regard to the cloaked Romulan ship. If, in TOS' universe, the Suliban and the Romulans had cloaked ships and minefields 100 years prior, Spock never would have mentioned that they "may have" solved the power problem (which never came up in ENT) or that cloaks were a "theoretical possibility". Enterprise made a retcon, plain and simple.

Of course they did. But there is wiggle room. Spock also used the the term practical. Which could imply that the impractical power consuming version did exist.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Indeed. Remember how the Romulan ship in "Minefield" kept cloaking and decloaking at random moments? That is easily explainable. And in fact already has been, non-canon though it may be:

Spoiler: ENT novels

That ship, Praetor Pontilus, was a prototype. The first cloaked ship in the Romulan fleet. The cloak drew so much power that it went out of control - the ship self destructed because the cloak took too much energy and malfunctioned, with fatal results. That is why the ship kept cloaking and decloaking - it was already breaking down.

As for the USS Constitution: Meh. I am a literalist. It must exist. There must be a ship to name the class after - otherwise the class name means nothing.

 

[Christopher]

24th century style Phasers in use when "The Cage" used lasers.

That was Roddenberry's own retcon. He coined the term "phaser" because he decided it had been a mistake to call the weapons "lasers." Even in 1964, only four years after the laser was invented, it was well-enough understood that people would've known "The Cage"'s portrayal was wrong. So he abandoned the "laser" terminology and replaced it with a made-up weapon name. He would've wholeheartedly approved of a prequel ignoring the use of "laser" in the first pilot. He wouldn't have wanted it to perpetuate something he himself considered a mistake.

Anyway, let's not turn this thread into yet another ENT-bashing thread. Surely all of this has been rehashed a million times already, and it's not a suitable topic for the Trek Literature forum.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I know that the term NCC-1700 has been used onscreen, but I assume the actual ship name has never been canon-ized?

 

[NSTrekfan]

It could have been explained by keeping the ship visible but not showing up on the non-visual sensors. At range that most ships would first encounter each other your sensors would normall pick something up before you could see it. Even then you'd need to know where to aim the camera and zoom in. Sensor cloak<invisibility.

Lazy storytelling, plain and simple.

 

[Idran]

It could have been explained by keeping the ship visible but not showing up on the non-visual sensors. At range that most ships would first encounter each other your sensors would normall pick something up before you could see it. Even then you'd need to know where to aim the camera and zoom in. Sensor cloak<invisibility.

Lazy storytelling, plain and simple.

It seems to me that "stealth technology that works exactly the same way as stealth technology works today" is just as lazy. Even if I agreed with you that what they did was lazy, I would have to say that either choice would have been equally as unoriginal, meaning that that wouldn't need to be a factor in which to choose.

 

[captcalhoun]

Braga admitted the use of Cloak for the Suliban was a mistake and it should've been 'stealth'