It always bothered me that there was no designation of class for the good ship Kelvin, and just saying it was the prototype for a line of Kelvin-class starships just felt not complete to me. So, it got me thinking: Could the Kelvin be a Saladin- or Hermes-class refit? I mean, nobody said either of them were contemporaries of the Constitution-class, so they could be pre-TOS/JJverse. What are you guys' thoughts?
The Kelvin is far bigger than either of those two classes. The book Federation: 150 Years calls it an Einstein-class starship.
Yep, that book pretty much gave it a designation of class. I'm not sure if the James T. Kirk autobiography (which said he was indeed born on the Kelvin before he was raised by his father in Iowa...it's kind of a small retcon I guess) gave that same class designation though.
It's understandable, as there are many sources outside the shows and films that explain and expand things Federation: 150 Years is a pretty interesting attempt to expand the gap between Enterprise to TOS. There was a rather amusing event where United Earth, still unsure of the Vulcans during their early days, sent a spy to Vulcan in disguise...Only to see his logs grow increasingly more and more clear he's losing his mind as he's growing native.
...Of course, if this is a parallel reality, then the Kelvin could easily have been a parallel Saladin by birth, supposedly USS Rahman, and at some point refitted with a dorsal shuttlebay and spying gear pod and moved to the euphemistically named "Observation vessel" category where her registry got that animated series style O prefix. Her subclass identity would then depend on which sister ship had been refitted that way first, and what new name had been assigned to her; perhaps NCC-508, USS Suleiman, became NCC-O508, USS Einstein? It's just that in the parallel universe, everybody is more bloated and leaks lens flares. Timo Saloniemi
But I thought the the alternate reality was a result of the Narada travelling back in time and destroying the Kelvin? Doesn't that mean that everything pre-Kelvin destruction (i.e. Enterprise, The Phoenix launch, etc.) from before is still canon to the Kelvin timeline, including the construction of the Kelvin herself? I'm probably wrong; though. I have troubling keeping up with anything and everything.
No, you're understanding it all correctly as it was presented on-screen! Simon Pegg asserted that the changes happened backwards and forwards - retroactively changing history that had already occurred - but Star Trek Beyond uses so much pre-Kelvin continuity that I'm not even sure he believes that himself.
Certainly the movies so far can be explained as being different only from 2233 onwards. It just makes one wonder a bit why we never see small ships like the TOS one in the movie universe, even though those should probably have existed in the early 2230s already and not merely invented after the crucial event... If we look for the devil in the details, the most direct indications that the parallel timeline was different before 2233 already come from Into Darkness. Okay, so Khan looks different from his TOS self - far more different than Kirk, Spock and McCoy. But he's a secret agent, and probably got plastic surgery every second Saturday anyway. What doesn't get handwaved so easily is why he now sleeps in a cryocoffin when originally he was on a cryoshelf! It's not as if he could have been transferred from a shelf to a modern coffin, either, because the coffins specifically are identified as ancient - so where did Admiral Marcus get a supply of ancient coffins all of a sudden? Moreover, McCoy seems to think the occupants have never been thawed. The writers might be forced to go by Pegg's thinking sooner or later. Or then they could keep on ignoring detail such as above. Timo Saloniemi
Originally, Bob Orci claimed the time lines were one and the same until the Narada appeared in 2233, but now Simon Pegg (and Mike Okuda in the new Star Trek Encyclopedia) are saying effects of the changes in the timeline rippled both ways. I'm pretty sure the real life reason is because Star Trek Discovery, made by an entirely different creative team to the Kelvin movies, is set in the same era and this frees both creative groups up to do whatever they want without fear of contradicting each other.
Of course, Trek in general has been made by "entirely different creative teams", sometimes working simultaneously, sometimes decades apart. And eventually it always comes down to somebody deciding it's a good idea to file off the hard edges in the way of merging it all into one happy continuity. Probably because splintering your fanbase isn't beneficial, and because references to established Trek sell well, and because ultimately only the fans of old Trek remain interested in pushing for "new" in the various Trek incarnations. I seriously hope DIS won't directly affect the fourth and potential fifth neo-movie and vice versa. But I also sorta hope DIS will live a long and prosperous life, meaning it will ultimately "again" become part of standard Trek, taking others (possibly including the new movie continuity) with it, much like ENT and DS9 for their part dragged TAS back into the fold. Timo Saloniemi