*Potential Spoilers* What will the Alternate Enterprise-A look like

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

In the Prime timeline the TMP-TUC Constitution ships are still called that because they're supposed to be refits of (or based on) the original TOS-era hulls.

In the Kelvin universe that's obviously not the case, as the Ent-A is a separate new class, so it makes no sense whatsoever to also be named Constitution-class.

It's possible that the Kelvin-Constitution class went through another new refit and the Enterprise-A reflects the new version of the Constitution. Or perhaps this is the first refit of the class and the previous refit wasn't a full-fledged class refit and was just some upgrades of the current Constitution. A bit of a stretch since you'd have to accept that Starfleet made one or two major refits of the class in such a short time.

You could even argue that the upgrades they made to the Enterprise in STID were Enterprise-only upgrades, and was a testbed for what would be the full refit of the class, and when the ship was destroyed the next movie, they just made the new ship based on the new refit design.

 

[David cgc]

Part of the design brief for the new -A was that it was designed to survive the kind of attack that destroyed the original at the beginning of the movie, hence the additional phaser emplacements and reinforced neck and pylons.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

^ Ah, thanks for the clarification, I would have loved to be in the designer's room when they thought of that.

Engineer: I TOLD you that the THINNEST parts of the ship needed added protection!
Engineer2: Well, live and learn.

But still, the Beyond incident could have been the pretext to a complete refit of the design. Maybe these changes were made to other existing Constitution class ships. This timeline might have a more fluid definition of 'class' than the prime timeline where when new ships are based off an existing class they're still considered to be the same class. Maybe class has more of a 'sedan' and 'coupe' and 'suv' type meaning? Who knows? I don't see the reason why any of the newer versions of the Enterprise that *look* like Constitution class ships can't be Constitution class just because they're new and slightly different. That is...assuming any of the Enterprises of the Kelvin timeline are actually Constitution class to begin with.

 

[Kemaiku]

Not sure that's true. When we see the A at the end of the movie possibly the day (or only a few days at most) after the attack, nearly the entire engineering section and most of the neck are already complete and the nacelle pylons halfway done.

Looks like they went ahead with the original plans, regardless of what happened to the 1701, just adding simpler things like more phasers.

 

[Ithekro]

I believe is mentioned earlier in the film that the next type of starship was under construction at Starbase Yorktown when Kirk is considering the promotion offer, or perhaps when they are assigning Enterprise the task, as the next ship available is still under construction.

 

[Fandango831]

I'm sure the new Boldy Go issue #10 will go into more depth about the Ent-A during her build time.

 

[Kemaiku]

I believe is mentioned earlier in the film that the next type of starship was under construction at Starbase Yorktown when Kirk is considering the promotion offer, or perhaps when they are assigning Enterprise the task, as the next ship available is still under construction.

Admiral Paris mentions the ship being under construction when they first arrive at Yorktown. It's a subtle mention of the now Enterprise A which we see at the end of the movie, which going by everyone's still fresh injuries could only be a couple of days later.

How long that montage actually covers we don't know, but the other ships docked there wouldn't be staying for that long.

So the Enterprise A was already nearly half finished when the 1701 arrives, and I assume making nacelles takes quite a long time with the coils and all. So the design was pinned down and a lot of parts currently being manufactured. They couldn't have changed too much after that, the cosmetics of the name, a few extra phasers and power relays maybe.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How long that montage actually covers we don't know, but the other ships docked there wouldn't be staying for that long.

That plus the implications in dialog as well as the way the timelapse plays out means that the Enterprise-A may have actually been completed relatively quickly. After all, Paris is telling Kirk that the only ship advanced enough to get through the Nebula is still under construction, and there's a subtext in there that she actually would have considered sending that ship if the Enterprise didn't just happen to be there. So think days, not months.

I find that even if you assume the time-lapse is running at over 1000x normal speed, then the real duration of that entire sequence would only be about 3 hours. But I don't think the timelapse could possibly BE that slow, considering how fast the shuttles and ships in the bay were moving before the scene sped up. So the way the scene is actually filmed, it's possible that Kirk and his crew actually stood there and watched the entire ship complete its construction for the duration of the party, then got dinner, went home, and boarded the new Enterprise for a shakedown cruise the very next day.

It's the 23rd century, dammit!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Part of the design brief for the new -A was that it was designed to survive the kind of attack that destroyed the original at the beginning of the movie, hence the additional phaser emplacements and reinforced neck and pylons.

IDK, it seems like no ship could have survived that, as it was shown.

 

[MFB]

How long that montage actually covers we don't know, but the other ships docked there wouldn't be staying for that long.

According to the making-of book "Star Trek Beyond - Collectors Edition" the time lapse covers in real time a little over a month. Quite fast but not fast enough for an immediate rescue mission and the ship would also need some time for test flights.

 

[F. King Daniel]

According to the making-of book "Star Trek Beyond - Collectors Edition" the time lapse covers in real time a little over a month. Quite fast but not fast enough for an immediate rescue mission and the ship would also need some time for test flights.

Wow, they built half a starship in a month? I guessed it was a year.

 

[Ithekro]

Means they probably built the entire ship in three months. That actually fits, sort of, with the old FASA lines about build four of Constitution-class ships a year out of only two shipyards. And when you actual check the number of ships built, it looks to be more like ten per year for short periods than two a year later on as they start winding down production in favor of other ship classes.

 

[MFB]

At least they built the shell of the ship within that short time. I can imagine that a lot of the inner workings, cables, consoles, pipes and of course everything for comfort has been installed after they closed all the hull segments. The precision work and finishing touches could take a lot more time than assembling the hull. And building the warp nacelles and some of the bigger parts of the hull and the framework which were added in complete form could be constructed months or even years before they were added to the ship during the one month we saw.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Starfleet 3D-printed the whole thing in 3 hours. But it was only 9 inches long and the crew couldn't fit inside.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Now see, this is why you don't build starships on the ground. Three years vs. three months... no contest.

 

[Kemaiku]

Wow, they built half a starship in a month? I guessed it was a year.

Whole sections were lifted in at a time already mostly made. The final piece was the entire bridge module, several decks below it, and the entire impulse spine all as one massive unit.

Yorktown probably had all the different parts being made for months, the final construction we saw was them pieceing all that together in 1-2.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm thinking at the tech level we're seeing in the 23rd century, one to two months is really pushing it. Again, the timelapse is only actually sped up maybe ten times normal speed for the final montage; from what we see of it in REAL TIME, they're actually slapping it together pretty quickly.

So even if they spent a month constructing every component of the ship -- all the different internal sections, hallways, rooms, corridors, components and hull sections -- then bolting them together could have been done in a day, and wrapping the hull plating around them would have taken just a couple of hours.

In an example from modern aviation: the most time consuming part of building a fighter plane is the installation of its computers, avionics and electrical systems. Once those are in place, the fuselage and mechanical components are pretty straightforward. This is actually one of the reasons why cars are so much faster to build than airplanes: it's not because they're smaller, there's just a lot less to DO before you can finally put them together.

If Starfleet streamlined the construction process so that all of that time-consuming delicate work could be both automated and and piecemealed, then the only time consuming part is the DESIGN of the ship in the first place. Once it's designed, you get the computers to fabricate the modules and then get the construction crews to move the modules into place and weld them together.

Now see, this is why you don't build starships on the ground. Three years vs. three months... no contest.

I actually thought the Enterprise had been completed just a few days after Kirk went to the academy and they spent most of that time testing her new systems, debugging technology, shakedown cruise, etc. Prototype ship is prototype.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Nightfever's amazing 3D model of the Enterprise-A is now available for free download!

 

[gerbil]

With Nightfever's model and Pixelmagic's rendering, I spent some free time putting this together for anyone who's interested in the sort of thing.

 

[pst]

@gerbil get this to ex-astris-scientia, they could use a better one