Starbase 11 registry chart

[yotsuya]

Not claiming anything other than that Bill George fits the profile of someone who could be influenced by FJ. He even worked for Greg Jein before joining ILM. As for the Entente, I'm not sure how common that knowledge was in the 1980s. The Revere/Columbia comm traffic is so clear that I remember hearing it in the theater in 1979 but the Entente part is hard to make out even on modern surround systems.

It's not all that hard. It is just a little quieter. But that goes along with someone in the production having a copy of FJ's two products. They were used by the people who made the display graphics and by the people who did the ADR for the comm traffic. And they were used for the first three movies on many displays (as was the Phase II Enterprise design... I found the front view of the final design because it was used in a display). So why wouldn't someone in the production tell ILM the name and registry of the two ships (Grissom and Excelsior) and knowingly make them fit for a next generation scout class and a next generation heavy cruiser (the Excelsior was supposed to replace the Enterprise and from how later movies and TNG laid things out, it did). Anyone familiar with the Tech Manual would not feel forced to make Excelsior a higher number. The Tugs were in the 38xx range. I think it is a mistake to assume that ILM just put a random number on the models. They didn't put random names on them. The names are in the script so the Number likely would have been sent to ILM with the name.

 

[ChallengerHK]

I tend to concur that production staff didn't come up with NCCs willy nilly, at least starting with the films. I don't think that they spent huge amounts of time reasoning those numbers out, however.

Reason for edit: damn autocorrect :-)

 

[Dukhat]

I tend to concur that production staff didn't come up with NCCs silly Billy, at least starting with the films. I don't think that they spent huge amounts of time reasoning those numbers out, however.

That’s the thing: I also think there was some rhyme and reason to the numbers, otherwise we’d have had registries like NCC-482GP258 or GDK-02. All I’m saying is that I doubt FJ was the influence for the Excelsior and the Grissom’s numbers.

 

[ChallengerHK]

There is definitely a rhyme and reason, even if it's only that they're all "NCC" numbers (except for that pesky "NAR"). I just don't think that whoever came up with them say down for days or weeks (like we do) trying to make a comprehensive plan into which the new numbers would fit. IMO, it was more like "I need a number or two, so let me take 15 minutes and come up with something that seems to fit." The other problem is that different people have applied different strategies to them over the years, the most obvious strategies being Jein's (and its derivatives) and FJ's (and its derivatives). Since they took such different approaches, trying to make them fit is a task...which is why we can debate it for pages and for months :-)

 

[Rowenaster]

Isn't for me, though - Memory Alpha is often full of shit.

And, to quote Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crap. You can't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

No, it wasn't. In fact, dialogue doesn't acknowledge the existence of any ships named Eagle.

I don't personally know the reference, I only see other people cite it upthread (waaaay upthread): Operation Retrieve okudagram (ignoring the side arguments about silhouettes)

Or then there are always tens of thousands of ships being built, but at earlier points in Fleet history, they didn't get NCC numbers. Take DSC, say, where the heroes believe there are about 7,000 ships in Starfleet, yet no NCC registry goes past the low 1700s in that show yet.

That we in the audience saw. Doesn't mean they weren't "out there" somewhere. Also, DSC is perhaps the worst possible source to cite for canonicity, considering how fast and loose they play with just about everything else that was ever established.

A simple change in bureaucratic practices could result in the "surge" we may witness, rather than any change in actual production.

That is very nearly the first thing you've said that I unabashedly agree with.

 

[Rowenaster]

Another thought on the 17xx vs. 18xx numbers for Connies. IF any Connies can be said to have 18xx numbers, I would only allow xx ≤ 50, with 1850+ being Miranda/Anton/Reliant class vessels. New class demarcations for NCC numbers should be at a multiple of 10, maybe modulus 5 at worst case.

We know Jeffries said the 17 of 17xx was because it was the 17th design...that being how the ship looked in The Cage (no swirly lighting on the Bussards, antennas/probes affixed to same). All 17xx Connies therefore conform to THAT configuration at time of construction. From 2nd pilot (Man Trap) onwards, the revised (therefore, 18th) design, swirly Bussards, no antennae on domes, was the new refit. "Only 12 like it" could be construed as "refitted to the same level as Enterprise", with other Connies/Starships being in service but at the old (The Cage) refit level. Gooseneck-mounted monitors on the helm console, and all that. 18xx Connies, and possibly latter-half of 17xx, built new AFTER Enterprise's pre-Kirk refit, looked like Enterprise as seen under Kirk's command.

I attribute Excelsior's NX 2000 being "new" well after NCC numbers should be way higher (e.g. Entente, and the non-canonical Star Empire [Dreadnaught!]) to (a) the long-running nature of the Transwarp Project and (b) Kirk's reluctance to put back into port, lest he be promoted and taken out of Captain's chair. I'm figuring he brought Enterprise in on its absolute Scotty-jury-rigged last legs. As such, in my mind, Enterprise was one of the LAST Connies to get the "flat nacelle" refit. Starfleet knew that the flat nacelles could be problematic, but instead of tuning the warp coils properly (intermix) they dashed out, because extinction-level emergency, and as we saw in TMP, "wormholed".

 

[Timo]

And, to quote Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crap. You can't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

...But you should throw out the shitty water. (And conversely, there's no point in going Nazi because Hitler was a nice vegetarian.)

But Memory Alpha isn't all bad. It's just idiotic to think that 90% of it not being completely wrong somehow justifies endorsing the 10% that is. With a wiki, the only way to go is being thoroughly source-critical.

I don't personally know the reference, I only see other people cite it upthread (waaaay upthread): Operation Retrieve okudagram (ignoring the side arguments about silhouettes)

Which is why it's worth reminding once again that there is no Eagle in canon dialogue. Let's not perpetuate mistakes, is all.

That we in the audience saw. Doesn't mean they weren't "out there" somewhere.

And that's one of 'em "how the world works" issues. See German Tank Problem. In short, it's not that difficult to tell that if we don't see it, it is a fairy tale.

Unless, that is, we invent a mechanism by which all the high-numbered vessels are out there. This is complicated by us seeing everything from the low 1000s to the low 1700s in the mix; there's no mechanism to segregate those, so how can we invent one that puts the 2000s through 7000s in their own neat categories?

Also, DSC is perhaps the worst possible source to cite for canonicity, considering how fast and loose they play with just about everything else that was ever established.

Hmh? Surely TOS has DSC beat there, with a baseball bat. Canonicity wasn't invented yet back then. And Greg Jein didn't exactly help.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lakenheath 72]

The Intrepid's number is on the graph, otherwise, why would Commodore Stone look at the graph before sending his orders about a maintenance team being reassigned to the Enterprise? Seeing that his head was tilted upwards, to the top of the graph, it could be presumed that the Intrepid's number was one of the registries listed in the uppermost lines. Only one registry was shown as having 100% completion - the NCC-1831. A model, with Okuda's blessing, was named Intrepid and given the registry NCC-1631, along with the shuttle Setar from the Intrepid (which was seen briefly in the remastered episode), confusing the issue, and the editors at Memory Alpha made a decision to create two pages, one for the Intrepid and one for the NCC-1831. It should have been handled as it was done for other ships with conflicting registries, with the Yamato being the most egregious example with four known registries.

It is not clear from the dialog in DIS whether the 7000 ships line refers to capital ships, or all the ships of Starfleet. It could be a case of saying the US Navy has 490 ships, as of 2019. This number includes not only all the capital ships, it includes the non-capital ships as well, in active and reserve duty. Starfleet has both active and mothball ships, which were mentioned in PIC, so Leland could have been saying that Starfleet has 7000 capital and non-capital ships in active and mothball duty.

 

[Timo]

Well, it's specifically stated that these are "active" ships. Of what sort, we don't know, but they are out there in some capacity. How far out is another thing we don't know.

What Stone is doing with that chart is up to us to decide. Perhaps he's looking at it to take his mind off the work at hand? Or to ponder possibilities beyond the actions he has already decided upon? For the purposes of the action currently being taken, that is, affirming the priority status of NCC-1701, it would suffice to have that ship on the chart at the time (and she's there all right), not the Intrepid. After all, Stone already knows everything about the Intrepid by heart, including the fact that Maintenance Section 18 is working on her (a fact not presented on that chart - there's no 18 of anything there).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DEWLine]

I'm going to raise the question again.

Why, for even one second, should we believe that all the ships putting in at Starbase 11 on that day would be Constitution-class ships?

No. Just...no.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Timo,

So, you are saying a ship that is under maintenance would not be on a maintenance chart? Where would it be?

Well, we have one Miranda at the base. And, in the real world, we have had moments when a large number of ships of the same class were docked at a base. Look at Pearl Harbor.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm going to raise the question again.

Why, for even one second, should we believe that all the ships putting in at Starbase 11 on that day would be Constitution-class ships?

We should not believe that. Unless the Constitution class was the only type of ship Starfleet had. Which it wasn't.

 

[ChallengerHK]

I'm going to raise the question again.

Why, for even one second, should we believe that all the ships putting in at Starbase 11 on that day would be Constitution-class ships?

I concur with this completely. Therefore, either:
1) Some of the ships are not Constitution class
2) Some of the ships are not at Starbase 11
3) A combination of both

 

[JonnyQuest037]

So, you are saying a ship that is under maintenance would not be on a maintenance chart? Where would it be?

This is right up there with "Sulu saying that Chekov doesn't have a brother means that he does have a brother" and other absurd fan theories I've heard from certain quarters here.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Then what is the chart?

Does someone have the script, or production notes, relevant to this episode? If so, what do they have to say?

 

[Timo]

So, you are saying a ship that is under maintenance would not be on a maintenance chart? Where would it be?

The question is absurd. So you think Starbase 11 has a grand total of one maintenance chart, which Stone stares at day and night?

And never mind what this "star ship status chart" is supposed to mean, in-universe or in the minds of the writers. Even if the Intrepid were eligible for this chart in suitable circumstances, nothing forces the Intrepid to actually make an appearance on it, when we have every reason to think Starfleet is chock full of starships.

Well, we have one Miranda at the base. And, in the real world, we have had moments when a large number of ships of the same class were docked at a base. Look at Pearl Harbor.

And all the ships here have NCC-prefix registries. And are supposed to be "star ships", FWIW.

But the misconception that there would only be 12 starships in Starfleet is one of the more amusing ones in fandom in any case. Trying to cram all of them onto this chart is just icing on a particularly tasteless cake.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boris Skrbic]

An argument could be made for starship generations as a way of reconciling the TOS-dialogue starship that takes a crew of four hundred with others in the past and the future. There may have been about a dozen starships in the 2260s, but that’s because Kirk’s was the “starship class” of the day, while others may have been starships in the past (class J) but not any more.

Eventually the starship/spaceship distinction would’ve fallen out of use as imprecise language specific to the 2260s — after all, what’s a starship if not a spaceship capable of interstellar travel? — and that’s when starship classes would’ve regained prominence.

(Either that, or there is a difference between a starship and a star ship.)

 

[ChallengerHK]

I'll also mention again the idea of "Class" possibly being distinct from "Mark," as in "Mark IX" starship. The "Mark" concept was a part of both Jeffries' design and the FJ follow ups, possible evidence the FJ followed Jeffries' work in that regard. Different "Marks" built on identical hulls could explain a lot of the inconsistency we see.

For what it's worth, I've long been of the opinion that Jeffries' original guidance when conceptualizing the organization of Star Fleet and its various ships came from the NASA practices of the time. Operationally, NASA had the Mercury program, the Gemini program, and then the Apollo program. They were very different, but only one program was operational at time. When we got to Apollo, the basic components were re-mixed for moon orbits, moon landings, and the Russian linkup.My guess (and it's nothing more than a guess) is that Jeffries intended that Star Fleet had only one hull type, possibly called Constitution class, possibly not. If this model is correct, Kirk's statement about "twelve like her in the fleet" could be referring to the Mark IX variant, but there could be several which by outward appearance look just like Enterprise, but fitted out for different missions.

This certainly wouldn't explain everything, but as I said it might give up insight into Jeffries' intent.

 

[DEWLine]

Which brings me back round to that question of why Decker's Constellation was NCC-1017. Could the Constitutions have been around longer than we taught ourselves to believe? Was Decker's ship part of an earlier batch of them?

 

[Dukhat]

Which brings me back round to that question of why Decker's Constellation was NCC-1017. Could the Constitutions have been around longer than we taught ourselves to believe? Was Decker's ship part of an earlier batch of them?

Sure, that's what I've always thought. Some people have even hypothesized that the differences between the AMT model kit and the actual filming model make the Constellation a different, older class than the Constitution (although I've never subscribed to that notion because the intent was obviously that the two ships were the same.)