I didn't say you were. 
NX-Class Starship in Star Trek IV:TVH
- Thread starter darkshadow0001
- Start date
Actually, the Presteign of Presteign -- pardon me -- the Enterprise of Enterprise was explicitly labelled NX class, part of the NX program, complete with testbed vehicles of the NX Alpha and NX Beta and I forget if they went father in the Greek alphabet. And at least one NX-02 sequel ship.
Of course, a mid-22nd century ship classification or program name in no way binds 23rd or 24th century ship designations beyond the limits of the romantic senses of later planners.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
And the notion that a related series of films made PRIOR to the mid-22nd century set-series, one that already had nomenclature in place that made sense, of course that shouldn't be followed, is that it?
This is like, 'why does k7 spin when trek has artificial gravity?' Answer is, 'they screwed up.' You can rationalize it how you want, but BEAKER is pretty much dead on target here.
This is like, 'why does k7 spin when trek has artificial gravity?' Answer is, 'they screwed up.' You can rationalize it how you want, but BEAKER is pretty much dead on target here.
cardinal biggles said:
I didn't say you were.
Ok, good...
Oy, nobody remembers the past these days... nor do they pay attention to the very details that get them so worked up...
The Star Fleet that exists in ENT is the Earth Star Fleet, NOT the same as the Federation Star Fleet of TOS. It is not surprising or unreasonable that they might use a different method of classifying ships than the Federation did a century later.
The two-letter class designator system is an outgroth of something from TOS - Kahn's Botonay Bay was specifically referred to in Space Seed as a DY-100 class ship. It was referenced again in TOS with the SS Mariposa, a DY-500 class transport from Up the Long Ladder.
Somebody in the ENT production crew remembered this little tidbit, and if you pay attention, you'll notice that all of the Earth ship classes specifically mentioned in ENT had one- or two-letter designators: the NX class explorers, the J-class freighters like the Horizon, on which Travis Mayweather was born, and the larger Y-class freighters like the Fortunate from Fortunate Son.
The fact that one class of pre-Federation Earth starship was called the NX class, and the fact that the Federation Star Fleet of a century later uses NX as a registry prefix for experimental starships, may or may not be related, but the fact is well established that Enterprise NX-01 was most definitely an NX-class starship (as specifically stated in numerous expisodes).
There is precedent for things like this even in modern times. For instance, during the 1930s the US had a fighter plane called the F4U Corsair. Only 20 years later a whole new plane was developed called the F4 Phantom II; obviously, the US military had changed numbering systems for aircraft in the intervening years. And that was the SAME military, with only 20 years in between - imagine the differences between the pre-Federation Earth Star Fleet and the Federation Star Fleet of the TOS era!
The Star Fleet that exists in ENT is the Earth Star Fleet, NOT the same as the Federation Star Fleet of TOS. It is not surprising or unreasonable that they might use a different method of classifying ships than the Federation did a century later.
The two-letter class designator system is an outgroth of something from TOS - Kahn's Botonay Bay was specifically referred to in Space Seed as a DY-100 class ship. It was referenced again in TOS with the SS Mariposa, a DY-500 class transport from Up the Long Ladder.
Somebody in the ENT production crew remembered this little tidbit, and if you pay attention, you'll notice that all of the Earth ship classes specifically mentioned in ENT had one- or two-letter designators: the NX class explorers, the J-class freighters like the Horizon, on which Travis Mayweather was born, and the larger Y-class freighters like the Fortunate from Fortunate Son.
The fact that one class of pre-Federation Earth starship was called the NX class, and the fact that the Federation Star Fleet of a century later uses NX as a registry prefix for experimental starships, may or may not be related, but the fact is well established that Enterprise NX-01 was most definitely an NX-class starship (as specifically stated in numerous expisodes).
There is precedent for things like this even in modern times. For instance, during the 1930s the US had a fighter plane called the F4U Corsair. Only 20 years later a whole new plane was developed called the F4 Phantom II; obviously, the US military had changed numbering systems for aircraft in the intervening years. And that was the SAME military, with only 20 years in between - imagine the differences between the pre-Federation Earth Star Fleet and the Federation Star Fleet of the TOS era!
All this rationalization is silly. ENT didn't have a military advisor (nor anyone familiar with the military influences on Trek) and so they pulled the details out of their ass. It hurt the show badly, since it lacked any semblence of reality and not only didn't make sense but was entirely inconsistent with both real life history and TOS.
TOS was a transportation of OUR reality into a fictional setting, with most of the details either adapted from or extrapolated from reality. ENT was random bullshit.
TOS was a transportation of OUR reality into a fictional setting, with most of the details either adapted from or extrapolated from reality. ENT was random bullshit.
Why does everyone assume I was talking about Enterprise??? This thread had nothing to do with Enterprise...
All right, I call. Exactly how is a sense of consistency or plausibility hurt by proposing that in the 22nd century Earth dubbed its warp five starship program the NX Program, with ship numbers accordingly, while in the 23rd and 24th centuries Star Fleet appears to use NX as a registry number prefix for experimental starships?
C'mon, Beaker; you're a smart enough person to notice that designations will sometimes change and sometimes be reused and sometimes not be reused in a perfectly consistent manner as time goes on. That's not the result of stupidity, arrogance, ignorance, or incompetence; that's just life. Declaring that an NX class starship in the 22nd century is irreconcilable with NX's meaning as a registry prefix in the 23rd and 24th centuries is the sort of homogenizing little-universe thinking that would have us passing off all Vulcans having the same haircut as a triumph of continuity.
Here, too. How is having a space station spinning a screw-up? What has one got to do with the other, past the trivial point that you can make artificial gravity by spinning an object?
Rationalizations have always been the trek fan's friend. The series individually and collectively would fall apart without them.
Star Trek had been around for decades by the time ENT cam around. Trek has developed its own "reality" and "traditions" over those decades and it's need to mine current or past militaries has diminished.
"Entirely incosistant"? I dont think so. If anything they tried to remain too consistant with what had gone before and should have tried a different tack.
Ass others have pointed out the Starfleet is not the Star Fleet of TOS or the Starfleet of the Movies and other shows. It has no reason to follow the naming patterns form those productions. The double and single letter designations are constistant with what TOS used for older ships (the J-class ships from "Mudd's Women' and "the Menagerie", the DY from "Space Seed") Then there are the points brought up by Timo and McAvoy in their posts.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
centrifugal (alright, centripetal) force is what makes gravity work in a spin, not 'artificial' gravity, which is the pseudo stuff of TREK. Does nobody know/remember anything? Geez, a fan called trek on this k7 thing back in the 70s and David Gerrold at least owned up to it by saying it was a mistake.
You're confusing genuine science with trek bs, and actual history with moderntrek revisionism. There's your call and a raise.
FJ gets pissed on enough as it is. These are essentially license plate numbers for fictitious spaceships, all of which (NCC-1701, NCC-1017, the ships from the infamous Starbase 11 chart, and presumably also "number one-three-seven-one") began with "NCC" during the original series. FJ didn't exactly have a lot to work with.
*lol* Maybe Starfleet STARTED with NX and had a couple of ships. Later on, they revised it and made the registry NCC.
So it's not really the fault of the writers when Starfleet at some times decided to make NX NCC.
You know people, sometimes there are larger issue for Starfleet then just a registry of the starship.
The point I think beaker is trying to make is that, yes, things like the 'NX Class' can be justified by making up 'what if' stories to shoehorn it into the existing stories, but it would have been a lot better if they'd actually fitted without shoehorning - if the stuff in ENT had logically preceded what followed. It would have been easy to do too, as we saw both the first and second vessels of that class - the first gets an NX registry, the second, an NCC one. A simple decal change, nothing more elaborate than that.
On the thread topic, to my knowledge the only hero ships with the NX registry have been ENT's Enterprise, the Defiant (thanks to budget constraints, even the new Defiant
) and the Excelsior in ST III and IV. The NX-01 registry itself had also of course popped up once before in Voyager's Hope and Fear, as NX-01-A on the Dauntless, but that ship wasn't really Starfleet after all.
Other ships to have used the registry were the Prometheus in VOY's Message in a Bottel, which was NX-59650, and randomly the Bradbury in TNG's Menage a Troi, NX-72307
On the thread topic, to my knowledge the only hero ships with the NX registry have been ENT's Enterprise, the Defiant (thanks to budget constraints, even the new Defiant
) and the Excelsior in ST III and IV. The NX-01 registry itself had also of course popped up once before in Voyager's Hope and Fear, as NX-01-A on the Dauntless, but that ship wasn't really Starfleet after all. Other ships to have used the registry were the Prometheus in VOY's Message in a Bottel, which was NX-59650, and randomly the Bradbury in TNG's Menage a Troi, NX-72307
You are making the assumption that the only reason to have a space station spin is to provide artificial gravity through centrifugal force. And therefore if it is spinning it must be for that artificial gravity, and since that's not needed then everybody involved in the show must be a big dumb dummyhead full of dumbness and wrongness.
I await your evidence that spinning K-7 is done to provide artificial gravity. Since it's implausible that it would be, not just because there's no need for artificial gravity that way in the Trek universe but also because a realistic estimate of the station's size indicates it's unlikely you could get a satisfactory full gravity anywhere on it, and there exist perfectly good reasons to have a station spin that aren't for artificial gravity purposes, I submit that you're making the assumption the spinning is stupid and grabbing for a pretext to justify that assumption.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
What's your reason for the spin, to keep the view from getting boring?
And the fact it ain't spinning fast enough to provide a one-gee environment doens't wash for 'entertainment' either, pretty much no sf ship or station has ever spun at a rate that would work. When I talked to the DQI vfx guys on MISSION TO MARS, they were saying that the spin would be very extreme, supporting the notion of a tethered 1-gee environment rather than one contained all in one structure, and also that it would look pretty funny on film.
And the fact it ain't spinning fast enough to provide a one-gee environment doens't wash for 'entertainment' either, pretty much no sf ship or station has ever spun at a rate that would work. When I talked to the DQI vfx guys on MISSION TO MARS, they were saying that the spin would be very extreme, supporting the notion of a tethered 1-gee environment rather than one contained all in one structure, and also that it would look pretty funny on film.
Generally speaking, it's a good idea to spin your spacecraft whenever you can.
For one thing, if you can achieve a stable spin (along the axis of highest or lowest angular momentum), you have nicely stabilized the station against random drift. That's why communications and weather satellites used to be cylindrar, rotating things until recently. Active stabilizing using multiple gyroscopes or some sort of thrust is a less robust, less reliable way to keep your installation's major axis pointing in one direction.
For another, by spinning, you manage the thermal balance of your installation. Most Trek objects are brightly lit from one side, to suggest illumination by a nearby star (or actually to give a familiar type of illumination to the objects even when inappropriate). Such lighting would overheat one side of the installation if not for the rotation. Sure, superior technology can compensate - but why should it, when rotation is a possibility?
Finally, spinning is good for scanning. If you wish to observe or affect the entire 4pi space around you, but don't wish to cough up the dough for two to four distinct sensors or weapons or whatever devices are to do the observing or affecting, your best bet is to install just one device of each sort and then rotate the mounting.
Either the first or the last reason makes it highly practical to use spinning for the second reason. Of course, there's also a fourth argument, the opposite of the third reason: sometimes you want to keep things pointed in just one direction. But all the stations we have seen spinning have been equipped with systems that can regulate the direction and speed of spin at will. If there's a need to stop, then the station stops (as witnessed by the varying speeds and directions of stars beyond Sisko's office window)...
Timo Saloniemi
For one thing, if you can achieve a stable spin (along the axis of highest or lowest angular momentum), you have nicely stabilized the station against random drift. That's why communications and weather satellites used to be cylindrar, rotating things until recently. Active stabilizing using multiple gyroscopes or some sort of thrust is a less robust, less reliable way to keep your installation's major axis pointing in one direction.
For another, by spinning, you manage the thermal balance of your installation. Most Trek objects are brightly lit from one side, to suggest illumination by a nearby star (or actually to give a familiar type of illumination to the objects even when inappropriate). Such lighting would overheat one side of the installation if not for the rotation. Sure, superior technology can compensate - but why should it, when rotation is a possibility?
Finally, spinning is good for scanning. If you wish to observe or affect the entire 4pi space around you, but don't wish to cough up the dough for two to four distinct sensors or weapons or whatever devices are to do the observing or affecting, your best bet is to install just one device of each sort and then rotate the mounting.
Either the first or the last reason makes it highly practical to use spinning for the second reason. Of course, there's also a fourth argument, the opposite of the third reason: sometimes you want to keep things pointed in just one direction. But all the stations we have seen spinning have been equipped with systems that can regulate the direction and speed of spin at will. If there's a need to stop, then the station stops (as witnessed by the varying speeds and directions of stars beyond Sisko's office window)...
Timo Saloniemi
You really think it was the ship designations (something that very few viewers would even notice) and a lack of a "military advisor" that "hurt the show badly?"
Yowza. I thought it was the mediocre writing in the first two seasons that hurt the show. Silly me!
^ part and parcel of the same thing. Sloppy hack work.
I like the first two seasons. Much more in keeping with TOS than 3 or 4 (despite 4's Fan wank.) Military and scientific advisors are nice, but can be put on "ignore" with ease and quickness, by the producers and writers. Even TOS preferrd to err on the side of drama.
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