Starbase 11 registry chart

[Dukhat]

Does it make any sense, that 10 Constitution class ships are all undergoing maintainable at this starbase At the same time? What about the logistics to repair 10 of those ships simultaneously? Any thoughts as to the loss of patrolling large amounts of space?

Sure, if there’s a Constitution class-specific upgrade/repair. But I doubt the intent was that all ten ships were the same class as the Enterprise.

As for patrols, if the intent was that those ten ships represented the bulk of Starfleet, then yes, that would be problematic. But again, I doubt that was the intent.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Does it make any sense, that 10 Constitution class ships are all undergoing maintainable at this starbase At the same time? What about the logistics to repair 10 of those ships simultaneously? Any thoughts as to the loss of patrolling large amounts of space?

It was probably a Wednesday, and everyone knows Klingons don't come out until Friday night.

 

[Timo]

So, what is this quality that a "star ship status" chart is expected to list as "percentages complete"?

"High level hyperoversimplified indicator of how long it will take for a dock spot to be freed" makes sense, sort of. Conversely, "high level hyperoversimplified indicator of how soon a ship will need attention" does as well. And that need not be the attention of a grease-covered mechanic, either. Sure, Stone is mildly concerned with repairs, but supposedly he is already much more concerned with Kirk being a murderer. I mean, Jamie already knows about that bit, so Stone probably has gotten the word as well.

Or perhaps "star ship status" is what heroes like Kirk earn with their heroics, and this gives Stone some food for thought...

...It's not as if Kirk would spare even a glance at the chart, so Stone need not worry about any congruence between what he says and what he shows.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

It's a list of ships at that starbase that are undergoing repairs. It's really no more complicated that that, unless people want to needlessly make it more complicated.

 

[Timo]

True that. But it's certainly fair game for complicating, as it's basically our only insight into registry numbers in the whole of TOS. In addition to Kirk's verbal mention of a registry in the very same episode, and the glimpse we get in "Doomsday Machine", that is.

Whatever the intent of the folks who made this set decoration and directed the reactions of the characters to it, it's certainly an attention-catcher. And as such merciless in revealing the lack of thought that went into it - that is, the failure of it to predict fifty years of a scifi phenomenon and anticipate the whims of countless of future writers.

What it specifically does against all expectation is giving the NCC prefix to every number. Which is odd for being so dull and repetitive in an eye-catcher - and contrary to naval precedent! Why are no NDDs or NFGs under repair that day? A bout of timidity there, a failure to expand the universe. And consequently grounds for griping why this specific type of Starfleet asset is under repair in such great numbers, and further for finding alternative interpretations.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Search4]

Does it make any sense, that 10 Constitution class ships are all undergoing maintainable at this starbase At the same time? What about the logistics to repair 10 of those ships simultaneously? Any thoughts as to the loss of patrolling large amounts of space?

Seems like there are a lot of 737 Max planes at a few depots - right now. Perhaps a recall or systemwide fix needed?

 

[yotsuya]

The clue is in the name. That chart is labeled "Star Ship Status". Per the established use of starship or star ship in Star Trek, that denotes the top of the line ships. In the case of more expanded nomenclature, that is the Constitution Class. Kirk references 12 like it in the fleet. So for what the series established, Jein was quite correct to try to match up those numbers with the given ship names. And given the constraints of what was readable before modern high def video, Jein nailed exactly what that chart says it represents. It does not specify that all those ships were at the base, but it implies it. The only two ships we know of that were specifically there were the Enterprise and Intrepid. Intrepid gets its only appearance in the remastered version as the ship in orbit with Enterprise.

So, according to the series use of Star Ship and the official list of names to use in the production, and the resolution he was using, Jein's list is the only logical explanation of that list. I would suggest that it might not be all ships at that starbase, but a general list of ships under repair. The Commodore knows that Enterprise needs a quick repair and so he puts her at the top of the list to get her back out on duty right away. But as to the identity of the ships, they all have to be from the list of 12. We know Republic and Constellation are not on that list and neither is Valiant (all known Valiants were destroyed). This is where 1700 for USS Constitution comes from (matching the later appearance in the early movies and FJ's screen used drawing of NCC-1700 - no name given). So it really is not possible that any of these ships were not of the "Starship Class" that the Enterprise belonged to that we now know as Constitution Class.

True, Jefferies intended something different from the numbers, but we can see that in use they didn't follow what he intended. Kind of the same as Datin not quite following his design or the production team leaving the Enterprise model undecorated. What a given member of the production team intended has no bearing on what happened as a result during production of the series. Jefferies intended Enterprise to be the first ship of the 17th design. Instead it is the second ship of the design and we have no idea how many other designs are out there or what meaning the NCC number actually has because they were never consistent. From Constellation and Grissom, the numbers are not chronologically based. Constellation was intended to be an identical sister ship to Enterprise (even so far that they used 2 different AMT kits with one as Constellation and one as Enterprise). So 1701 and 1017 were from the same series. We are left with result of what they did to figure out.

 

[MAGolding]

The is in the name. That chart is labeled "Star Ship Status". Per the established use of starship or star ship in Star Trek, that denotes the top of the line ships. In the case of more expanded nomenclature, that is the Constitution Class. Kirk references 12 like it in the fleet. So for what the series established, Jein was quite correct to try to match up those numbers with the given ship names....

In TOS the "12 like the Enterprise" and "starships" were mentioned separately and there is no proof that they are the same/ The Cosntitution class may have first been mentioned after TOS and there is no proof that it is the same as "12 like the Enterprise" and/or "starships".

The Enterprise was identified as a starship as early as "Charlie X":

CHARLIE: How many humans like me on this ship?
RAMART: Like a whole city in space, Charlie. Over four hundred in the crew of a starship, aren't there, Captain?
KIRK: Four hundred and twenty eight, to be exact. Is there anything we can do for you, Captain? Medical supplies, provisions?

In "Tomorrow is Yesterday":

CHRISTOPHER: Must have taken quite a lot to build a ship like this.
KIRK: There are only twelve like it in the fleet.

So there are only 12 vessels like the Enterprise in Starfleet, or perhaps in a local sector fleet or something. But starships are not mentioned in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" so the relationship between "the 12 like the Enterprise" and starships is not specified.

In "Court Martial" Stone says:

STONE: Stop recording. Now, look, Jim. Not one man in a million could do what you and I have done. Command a starship. A hundred decisions a day, hundreds of lives staked on you making every one of them right. You're played out, Jim. Exhausted.

And this also implies that starships are rather unusual and commanding them is even more stressful than commanding other starfleet vessels. It also implies that there are hundreds of crew members on a starship.

In :The doomsday Machine":

PALMER: Sir, I'm picking up a ship's disaster beacon.
KIRK: Try to raise it, Lieutenant.
SPOCK: I have it on the sensors, Captain. By configuration, a starship stopped in space. She appears to be drifting.

So apparently all starships have a configuration that can be recognized.

In "The Ultimate Computer" the M5 computer controlling the Enterprise fights four other starships:

KIRK: There's your murder charge. Deliberate. Calculated. It's killing men and women. Four starships, sixteen hundred men and women!

And that again shows that a typical starship crew is about 400 persons, like the Enterprise. The starships in "The Ultimate Computer" all look like the Enterprise. But that doesn't mean that they belong to the same class as the Enterprise. If all starships in the era of TOS have a roughly similar configuration there would be no strong reason for the production staff of TOS to create different expensive models for different starships. Instead they could just use images of the Enterprise model or AMT Enterprise model kits to depict the other starships even though that made them look a bit more similar to the Enterprsie than they actually were.

If the Enterprise and the other ships in "The Ultimate Computer" were all starships, and if there were only 12 or 13 starships, Starfleet would have concentrated 0.3846 or 0.416666 of the starships at one place for the M5 wargames.

If the Enterprise and the other ships in "The Ultimate Computer" were all Constitution class ships, and if there were only 12 or 13 constitution class ships, Starfleet would have concentrated 0.3846 or 0.416666 of the Constitution class ships at one place for the M5 wargames.

In "Bread and Circuses":

CLAUDIUS: Certain this isn't different, Captain? Those are your men dying, not strangers.
KIRK: I've had to select men to die before so that others could be saved.
CLAUDIUS: You're a clever liar, Captain Kirk. Merikus was a spaceship captain. I've observed him thoroughly. Your species has no such strength.
MERIK: He commands not just a spaceship, Proconsul, but a starship. A very special vessel and crew. I tried for such a command.

So clearly starships and their crews and commanders are far superior to civilian spaceships and their personnel, and possibly also very superior (though less so) to other Starfleet spaceships and their personnel.

But those lines give no indication how many starships Starfleet has.

There is no canon proof whether "the 12 like the Enterprise", "starships" and "Constitution class" ships all refer to exactly the same group of vessels.

Constitution class ships could be the 12 or 13 ships like the Enterprise, or be fewer than 12 or more than 13.

Starships could be the 12 or 13 ships like the Enterprise, or be few in number than 12 or greater in number than 13.

Starships could be the Constitution class ships, or they could be fewer in number or greater in number than the Constitution class ships.

 

[yotsuya]

You have forgotten the dedication plaque. USS Enterprise, Starship Class, San Francisco, Calif. It was not given a named class until Star Trek VI. Per The Making of Star Trek, there are 12-13 Starships in the fleet. The names were selected though not all were used. Everything presented in the episodes agrees with that. As far as the production is concerned, there is no difference between Starship Class used in TOS and Constitution Class used elsewhere. Constitution Class first shows up in schematic of a phaser in season 1 (not visible on screen, but we have the image that Scotty was looking at, so we know the production had used Constitution Class and Constitution is one of the Starship names). All the pieces fit together and can be documented to the TOS production. Starship, Starship class, and Constitution Class are all the same ships. Every appearance was of a model that also represented the Enterprise (the Constellation was a separate model, but the exact same kit was used for the Enterprise in the same season). So we have Enterprise, Constellation, Exeter, Excalibur, Lexington, Hood, Potemkin, and Defiant that we see as models, Constitution/1700 on an onscreen display, Intrepid under repair at Starbase 11 (and seen in the remastered). And the full list also includes Republic, Valiant, Farragut, Kongo, and Yorktown. By Star Trek VI, Kongo and Yorktown are confirmed to be Constitution Class as well as Pegasus, Eagle, Endeavor, Emden, and Ahwanhee. Republic is assumed to be retired (and still around in TNG per Relics) and every time Valiant was mentioned it had been destroyed. Farragut was presumed to be off the active list as well. And Defiant was made up for that Episode. That leaves 12 ships around during the reference that are considered Constitution Class/Starship Class. All of them can be tied through some on screen (though not always readable on screen) reference to either Starship Class or Consitution Class. And through Enterprise we know that it was originally called Starship Class (on the dedication plaque) and then Constitution Class (on the phaser diagram in TOS Season 1 and then in Star Trek VI). So there are at least 15 canon names on the list that are the same class and removing all the known retired or damaged ones resulted in the link of the names to Regitry numbers that Jein came up with.

 

[Timo]

The clue is in the name. That chart is labeled "Star Ship Status". Per the established use of starship or star ship in Star Trek, that denotes the top of the line ships. In the case of more expanded nomenclature, that is the Constitution Class. Kirk references 12 like it in the fleet. So for what the series established, Jein was quite correct to try to match up those numbers with the given ship names.

Sounds rather bass-ackward. Kirk goes to great trouble to establish that ships like his form only a small fraction of the big fleet, a point of pride for him - and then somehow this small fraction is nevertheless supposed to be all there is?

Star Trek (either in the TOS sense, or the Star Trek sense) does not establish that starships would be exceptional within the wide fleet. A distinction is merely made between starships and the rest of the rabble, without any attempt at defining "starship" beyond "a ship from Starfleet". All the non-starships discussed in this context (to wit, SS Beagle!) are civilian vessels explicitly. And whenever Kirk's ship is inclusive in the group "starships", the inclusion does nothing to indicate Kirk's ship type would be exclusive in defining the group "starships". (It just, say, happens to fit the "configuration" definition of starships, just like it logically should, doh!)

To see elitism within Starfleet re: starships is something external to that which is actually said or shown. It's by no means forbidden, but it's not by any means necessary, either. Starship captains are such an exclusive bunch that Commodore Stone feels there are at the very least thousands of them ("one in a million"); make of that whatever you wish. Stone's statement is not exclusive: it's merely inclusive of both him and Kirk. Things would be different if we could claim Stone excludes, say, the CO of some other vessel we have at least some knowledge of. But he does not. ("Command of hundreds" is not particularly remarkable in any context, and it's quite a leap to think that this would in Starfleet be limited to the CO positions on a dozen special ships. But "command of hundreds" certainly is stressful, which is Stone's entire point.)

Whether "star ships" are more exclusive than starships is a separate issue. The collection of registries on that chart is quite random, literally. It's not in any apparent order; it is not distributed in any obvious fashion, either. Certainly it in no way supports the idea that there would only be a dozen relevant registries in existence. All we get is a sampling of a greater whole - its greatness extending across at least hundreds of numbers as seen.

Nevertheless, a "star ship" might be something far more exclusive than the ubiquitous, thousands-out-there starship. Especially when being one is directly associated with "status"! And status in the elitist sense may well be reached regardless of registry number, and also measured on a scale for its inherently competitive nature. Whether "complete" is a valid goal in the quest for status is a hairier question: allowing one to aim for and reach "100% complete" would allow for several to hold the highest status on an even footing, which sort of defeats the very purpose of status.

But assigning elitist status to the bunch of a dozen like Kirk's is no more logical than assigning random registry numbers to them. Nothing whatsoever ties a SB11 status chart to Kirk's dozen, beyond Kirk's being involved. But since the camera exclusively follows Kirk's ship, this is not allowed evidence.

In any case, a logical and dramatic fallacy seems to be associated with the "only a dozen" thing. Kirk feels pride of the very fact that there are so few of these ships. Does that make the ships special in all their qualities? Quite the opposite - the only way Kirk feels they stand out is the one quality he is able to quote, that is, the rarity. Writer intent and backstage writing instructions are their own thing: what actually gets written indicates the opposite.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[yotsuya]

It is a TV show. How often does logic go out the window for production expediency or because a story needs something? The answer is all the time. The supreme logic of TOS was the story and all sorts of things happen because the story needs them to. In another topic we have endlessly discussed the Engine Room and all the variations of it that story needed that didn't' really form a cohesive whole.

TOS establishes a limited number of ships like the Enterprise. It establishes that those captains are elite... the best of the best. This is very much taken from Hornblower and the US Navy. In Hornblower the best of the best command a ship of the line. In the US Navy during WWII, it was battleships and aircraft carriers. And as we know the Battleshp had seen its day and since then it has been the carrier. It is no coincidence that all the names for the starships are from WWII carriers. Starship captains are the elite and there are only 12-13 of them. We know the names and they are all identical ships. They are all now called Constitution Class to distinguish them from later elite classes like Excelsior or Galaxy.

 

[Timo]

Well, sure, it's a TV show, thus next to nothing - from which it follows that the tedious minutiae of writing that show are even less worthy of consideration, and TMoST should not affect our thinking in the slightest.

Except it apparently does. Nowhere in the show itself is there a logical connection between "starship captains being elite" and "only a dozen like her". At best, we can succumb to the logical fallacy of thinking that because Kirk (with a dozen best buddies) flies a starship, only Kirk (with a dozen best buddies) flies a starship.

Referring to other eras doesn't help much: there is no elite class elsewhere in Trek, no "starship among non-starships". To the exact contrary, everybody thinks he or she is flying an elite class, and Picard twice, Janeway and Sisko all are perfectly entitled to thinking so, concurrently even. This is how it works in reality, too: skippers may be fiercely proud about their tiny boats for the very same reason Kirk was of his, namely the rarity and exclusiveness. "Sure, you may be in command of a big floating city named after a congressman, but I fly across the seas in a hydrofoil named after a god!" "And I won the cold war for you whippersnappers in a ship from the mightly Avenger class of super-warships, the best minesweeper there ever was!"

Claiming that Kirk was elite is doing him a grave injustice if the drama is about the bluecollars of space doing their day jobs (which just happen to deal with the absurd). And there's no reason to take that interpretation away from us, save for a dusty book written ages ago by now-dead people who didn't know better.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[yotsuya]

Funny, but when I first really watched TOS intently, the impession I got was just that, 12 starships, their commanders were the elite. It is there episode after episode. TMOST just confirms that it was intentional and not some accident. Bread and Circuses is one of the key episodes to cement it, as is Turnabout Intruder and Court Martial. They all reinforce the same idea, that being a starship captain is special. Starship is reserved for the elite ships in the fleet. Enterprise is even labeled as Starship class on the bridge plaque. I'm not sure when you watched it, but when I watched it there was only TOS, TAS, and a couple of movies. It was very clear what the producers intended. I never read Jein's work until a couple of years ago or gave that chart a second thought. But it is labeled Star ship (with a space, but another word used in Trek, Starfleet, can be written as one or two words so I don't see why the space makes any difference) which means these are the elite ships. Jein was making the only assumptions he could based on TOS canon.

 

[Dukhat]

There were 8 Constitution class ships shown on screen: the Enterprise, the Hood, the Excalibur, the Lexington, the Potemkin, the Exeter, the Constellation, and the Defiant.

There were only three registry numbers shown or mentioned: the Enterprise NCC-1701, the Constellation NCC-1017, and the Republic “Number” (presumably NCC)-1371. And the Republic was not shown, so we don't know what class it was.

There were four starships mentioned by name but given no class or registry: The Farragut, the Yorktown, the Carolina, and the Intrepid (although a case can be made that the Intrepid's registry number is NCC-1831 based on Stone's looking directly at that number when talking about the ship.)

(I'm sure someone will correct me if I've forgotten anything.)

While I don't necessarily agree with Jein's logic in assuming that all ten ships were the exact same class, I also don't agree that the Republic and the Farragut were also Constitution class ships.

I go with what I believe was the original intent: that all ten ships were obviously starships, but not necessarily the same class, with 16XX representing the class immediately preceeding the Constitution, and 18XX representing the class immediately after. Yes, the Constellation NCC-1017 throws a monkey wrench into that idea, but speaking strictly IRL terms, the only reason it was labeled as such was to utilize the decal sheet available, not because whoever labeled the model really cared about Jefferies' registry scheme.

 

[yotsuya]

Yes, I haven't always agreed with Jein's logic, but his logic seems to fit with what was behind that progress chart. The way he did it, Constitution, Enterprise, and Intrepid all matched. And I agree with Stone looking at that longest line and then referencing Intrepid.

If you stick to just TOS references, that is all there is, but there are a bunch more in the films. Some not readable on screen, but people have uncovered the pages of Rene's (not sure of his character name in ST:6) flip chart and it lists a lot of Constitution Class ships ranging in registries from 956 to 2048. It also lists Excelsior and uses a different icon (the rest all use Constitution Class Refit for the icon. It shows Republic and 1371 in the same place making that pairing canon. It still doesn't show it, but other TNG sources have them list the Republic as still around and it fits with Picard's dialog in Relics.

 

[Dukhat]

Yes, I haven't always agreed with Jein's logic, but his logic seems to fit with what was behind that progress chart. The way he did it, Constitution, Enterprise, and Intrepid all matched. And I agree with Stone looking at that longest line and then referencing Intrepid.

Unfortunately due to standard definition TV only being available at the time, he got the Intrepid's registry number wrong (NCC-1631 instead of the correct NCC-1831). And again, I don't believe that the Intrepid was meant to be a Constitution class ship, but the next class after it.

If you stick to just TOS references, that is all there is, but there are a bunch more in the films. Some not readable on screen, but people have uncovered the pages of Rene's (not sure of his character name in ST:6) flip chart and it lists a lot of Constitution Class ships ranging in registries from 956 to 2048. It also lists Excelsior and uses a different icon (the rest all use Constitution Class Refit for the icon. It shows Republic and 1371 in the same place making that pairing canon. It still doesn't show it, but other TNG sources have them list the Republic as still around and it fits with Picard's dialog in Relics.

For the purposes of this conversation, I'm just focusing on TOS and the original intent with respect to that show. With that said, I have pics of that TUC chart, and I have seen all the ship silhouettes. I'm of two minds about it. On one hand, the ship information wasn't seen clearly in the movie, and consistent use of Constitution class silhouettes does not necessarily mean that all those ships were indeed of that class; it’s just the generic silhouette they used. On the other hand, without any other evidence to the contrary, the information is valid unless it's contradicted later.

Also, based on the Jefferies registry scheme, the NCC-18XX class would have been the Reliant-type from TWOK. NCC-19XX would be the class after that (possibly the Soyuz class based on the Bozeman's registry of NCC-1941), and then NCC-20XX would be the Excelsior-type. After that, things go out the window registry-wise.

 

[yotsuya]

Jefferies registry scheme went out the window with the Constellation.

 

[Dukhat]

As I said, that was a special case. Whoever labeled that model kit obviously wasn’t aware of it.

 

[yotsuya]

And whoever made the list on the wall in Court Martial didn't either. That is my point. What Jefferies intended was negated by what they did during the run of the series. His idea is not canon because canon breaks that. Not only TOS, but when you add in the movies as well. The Constellation registry is not a special case, but the norm for how Jefferies registry idea was treated. It basically was Jefferies head canon for the registry numbers that the series never followed. Republic (1371) has become another case. Republic has gone down in post TOS canon as the lone Constitution Class (non-refit) to survive as a museum ship. It was listed on a couple of TNG screens as well as Star Trek VI. If Jefferies idea had been followed, that list in Court Martial would have been very different. According to him it would have been the Enterprise Class and there would be no registry 1700 (as we see in that episode). So Constellation is not a special case at all, but a very clear indicator. We see a similar difference of opinion in what the Enterprise arrowhea insignia means. For Bob Justman it was supposed to represent all the Starship class crews. For Bill Theiss, it was just the Enterprise and he made other emblems for Constellation and Exeter, as well as Antares. In the long term scheme of things, Bill Theiss won out because later productions (TAS and ENT) showed additional insignia for other ships. So just because one person in the production had an idea does not make it the rule to follow. Canon is what made it to the final cut of the episodes.

 

[Dukhat]

I disagree. Without other evidence to the contrary, I believe whoever made that chart made those specific registry numbers for a reason, rather than the Constellation’s number which was made because they just rearranged the numbers from the model kit in an effort to be as different from the Enterprise’s as possible. I choose to believe that the reason was that they were trying to adhere to Jefferies’ scheme.