Then why were Kirk and the crew so flabbergasted when the existence of another ship named Enterprise was revealed to them?
Okay. They arrived back from TWOK, and were immediately taken to be debriefed for their involvement with the Genesis device and planet. The new Enterprise wouldn't have been in Starbase One - she'd have been in an orbital slip, like the NX-01 and the no-bloody-A,B,C, or D before her and the B, after her. Might not have even had her paint yet, or any systems online to speak of. Morrow isn't mentioning the new ship, because several of the crew are known to have a "thing" about the Enterprise, and they aren't looking for any interference in the project.
Well, this also goes to my idea about how starfleet ships would be built, and what the function of the various facilities we've seen would be.
People tend to assume... erroneously, I think... that ships would be built, stem to stern, first beam to last drop of paint, in a single location. But that is nonsensical, isn't it?
Instead, it's more logical to assume that various bits and pieces would be built in various locations, tested and proven out (for instance, the impulse drive might've been built on Betelguese IV?) and shipped to the integration center.
Major hull elements might well be built planetside (that was the original intent during TOS... major components were to have been built at the San Francisco Naval Yards - a real place in the real world - and assembled in orbit).
They'd probably be towed to orbit, then assembled into a consolidated structure in one of those "drydock" facilities we see... where their alignment would be ensured in zero-G conditions. Most of their time would then be spent in that environment, but not ALL of it.
Certain processes (painting, for instance) might be more easily done in an environment with an atmosphere. And that's where Spacedock comes into play... it's where ships that need work requiring an atmosphere (or more easily done in an atmosphere) would be taken for that work to be performed.
My point? Ships would be moved from berth to berth, from facility to facility, while being built, not just be built in one place.
And ships are never christened until their construction is complete, are they?
Would Kirk, or Scott, have been aware that there was at least one Constitution-type hull under construction? Almost certainly. But that ship simply would not have been named yet...
They plan their theft and return to Starbase One, and leave with the Enterprise, pretty soon after - not long enough for a change in status. However, Excelsior's failure in pursuit is enough to make them decide against installing a transwarp system in the new ship - it needs further tests, and the new Enterprise is meant to go straight into service upon completion.
This part, I've always had a massive problem with... though it IS in agreement with Roddenberry's interpretation (that "transwarp was a failure").
The thing is, they would not have built a massive and expensive ship around this new propulsion system had it not been previously tested out and proven out in some other venue. In other words... "Transwarp" MUST have worked. Otherwise, the Excelsior would never have been built at all.
Remember, the reason Excelsior failed to follow wasn't that "Transwarp didn't work." It was because Scotty SABOTAGED the main propulsion computer subsystem to prevent it from working.
Since that was such a MAJOR plot-point... it's always bugged me that people seem to miss that and assume that somehow "transwarp failed."
I'll guarantee you that if Scotty had pulled components out of the "regular warp drive controller" on some other ship, that ship's warp drive would have failed, too.
The events of III play out, and the Bounty returns to Vulcan. They are on Vulcan for an unspecified amount of time. At least a couple of months. Some sources place it at a year and a half. Back at Earth, the new ship is complete enough to leave the slip and allow construction on another ship to begin, and is moved inside Starbase One for finishing.
This is a good point. We don't actually know exactly how much time passes from the day 1701 returns to Spacedock 'til the day Kirk and Co. board teh 1701-A. And to take it a step further... how long from the time of Khan's attack on the 1701?
Remember, 1701 had been relegated to Academy Training Ship duty already. This mean that she was no longer considered a "top of the line" ship (since ST traditionally uses modern naval practice as their template). It simply makes no sense to put your "top of the line" ships in that sort of role... it's a waste of material.
So... between the time of TMP and the time of TWOK, how many years passed? Possibly quite a few... and possibly the Enterprise had the crap kicked out of her several times during that period, to the point where her spaceframe was considered compromised, resulting in her being "downgraded" to training duty.
With the events of TWOK, massive structural damage was done. Her primary hull was hit by torpedos, her dorsal was compromised by phaser hits, and her secondary hull was ripped open like a tin can by a can-opener.
It's likely that at that point... based upon the very first damage assessments from the field... Starfleet decided that it wasn't cost-effective to try to fully repair this ship, and that she should instead be retired (probably converted into a museum ship).
That's when I think the clock (for a "new Enterprise") would have started ticking.
IV occurs, and the crew still has no knowledge of the new Enterprise, since the Bounty ended up in the bay, not at the starbase.
Yeah, it's entirely reasonable to assume that, by this point, the as-yet-unnamed ship would have been mostly finished, yet not yet have been christened.
Surprise! Except - I'm almost certain Kirk did know, for at least a little bit before, 'cause it was probably specified in his orders. The rest of the crew looks surprised, but he looks smugly pleased and appears to be as interested in their reactions as in the ship itself.
Agreed.
But the surprise is probably less due to there being a new cruiser hull (which would be known by anyone who bothered to read the "fleet status" updates), as it was that they were being assigned to that new cruiser hull... And that the hull had been christened "Enterprise." AND that the ID code was (possibly for the first time) an effective REUSE of the prior ship's code.
All out of (possibly excessive?) gratitude for having saved Earth from the big "space cylinder o' death."
Note: It's called the Enterprise-Class. The ship that bears the name of the class is near the beginning of the run, if not the first. They weren't done with the "Connies" - at least, not the Enterprise-Class variant.
This is one of those internal-inconsistency things... it was established, by the TNG-era production folks... ON-SCREEN... that the 1701-A was "Constitution-class." However, it was similarly established, by the TWOK-era movie folks... ON-SCREEN... that this class of ship was "Enterprise-class."
I accept it as "Enterprise-class" because, where two contradictory versions are given on-screen, the one that makes the most sense is the one you should accept. Ship classes aren't assigned based upon whether or not two ships look similar... or even whether they're built upon the same hull. No, they're assigned based upon CAPABILITIES.
The idea is that any two ships of a given class are, for all practical purposes, interchangeable. This is the only reason to CARE about "class," after all... you have a job that needs to be done, and you know the capabilities of a certain class of ship, so you send one of the ships of that class to do that job.
Two ships of the same class should be the same speed, have the same armament, the same cargo-carrying capacity, the same sensors... though it's possible to have ship-by-ship variations, these variations would be relatively minor and would not result in significantly different capabilities.
The TOS series ships were Constitution-class... this was defined during the series (though not "really" established on-screen). The TMP-era ships were faster, more powerful, better-armed... they had a totally different set of capabilities. If you were Chief of Starfleet Operations, and you assigned a "Constitution-class" ship to do a particular job... would you care if it was a TOS-style or a TMP-style ship?
And yes, the first ship in a given configuration is defined as the "class ship," and it was established (not on-screen, but in Roddenberry's novelization and in his intent) that the Enterprise was the first ship to be put into this configuration.
So... by all reasonable arguments, the movie Enterprise was "Enterprise-class." And this was demonstrated on-screen as well.
The fact that the Berman-era folks screwed up and gave Scotty a "blueprint" which said "Constitution-class" is something I'm prepared to write off as just another "who cares, they'll take whatever we give them" demonstration by the B&B crew.
