Given the effort to appeal to casual viewers who might just click on to the channel the desire to avoid confusion is understandable, if misplaced.
But, let's not let it get in the way of assuming a mindset in the most negative way possible.
But, let's not let it get in the way of assuming a mindset in the most negative way possible.
It might have been an attitude that he came up with after the fact. Watching dailies of Voyager and DS9 every day for hours upon hours and thinking to himself that "these shows aren't visually distinct enough".
"I can't tell which one is the black captain and which one is the woman captain in these uniforms!" - Rick Berman probably
NCC numbers shouldn't be serial - so that aliens cannot guess how many ships there are in total or how fast their production rate is
(like the Allies did in WW2, when Germany put serial numbers on their ammunition, and the Allies then could guess the production capacity of German arms factories and which areas of the front were loaded with new and large amounts of ammunition, and which areas had scarcity).
For me the NCC number is a mix of several things like ship class, home port/registration/division no., and a randomised serial number.
Why would an alien even think of this?
I think I may have wondered that as well.
It's okay to think that, since it's not really contingent to the plot, but it makes for some interesting world-building and callbacks. To outright refuse to put something in there because they had some misguided notion that we would get so easily "confused" does a disservice to the intelligence to the fans. Not-so-hardcore starship fans wouldn't even think about it. Hardcore starship fans like me would say, "cool" and move on. I'm just exceedingly tired of hearing this whole "they'll get confused" B.S. It's just dumb.
On the other hand, the US Navy numbered their ships in sequence.
The management of DC were really bad for this as well, they would demand character embargos for the arrowverse if there was even the early planning stages of a film because they thought audiences wouldn't be able to tell they were separate continuities.
But Superman and the Flash they let slide because they were also very hypocritical.
The only problem with this line of thought is that with the progression of the shows, registry numbers are shown to be generally sequential in nature. If they weren't, then we'd just get random numbers all over the place; but we get progression in numbers as the shows go on, with older vessels and designs popping up with lower sequential numbers while newer ships have higher numbers. That's not coincidence, that's just a general application of simple logic.
Maybe the registration number just follow the same logic as stardates?
The original series gave us an NCC-1701 and an NCC-1017 in the same class of ship in the same episode. Clearly, we're putting more thought into this than they did.
[HeadCanon]
The Constellation, possessing an older registry number, was the first experimental "refit" into the TOS-era Constitution class that we all know and love. All subsequent builds of the "12 others like her in the fleet" were first-builds, like the Enterprise which, in turn, was the first to receive the TMP-era "refit", followed by others that were either also refits (depending on the remaining life on their spaceframes) or brand new builds like the E-A and others.
[/HeadCanon]
[RealWorld]
They had a limited number of numbers on the AMT decal sheet for the Constellation filming model so they just re-ordered them randomly. Extra name and number decals weren't included in the kits until the late 70's/early 80's. Using NCC-1710 would have made more sense, IMO.
[/RealWorld]
The Constellation, possessing an older registry number, was the first experimental "refit" into the TOS-era Constitution class that we all know and love. All subsequent builds of the "12 others like her in the fleet" were first-builds, like the Enterprise which, in turn, was the first to receive the TMP-era "refit", followed by others that were either also refits (depending on the remaining life on their spaceframes) or brand new builds like the E-A and others.
[/HeadCanon]
[RealWorld]
They had a limited number of numbers on the AMT decal sheet for the Constellation filming model so they just re-ordered them randomly. Extra name and number decals weren't included in the kits until the late 70's/early 80's. Using NCC-1710 would have made more sense, IMO.
[/RealWorld]
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It’s also a weird position, because they expect enough familiarity with the designs that people could specifically recognize a particular ship, when people like my wife, who is the casual Trek fan they’re probably hoping not to confuse, think all of the ships look the same.
Exactly. There is exactly zero logic to that commonly-used argument that the suits always seem to leverage. I've honestly never understood it.
shakes fist at DC / WB for screwing over the Suicide Squad setup, leaving the off-screen voice of Harley Quinn to never be followed up again
also shakes fist at DC / WB for saying no to Damian Wayne, Batman's actual son, in Gotham Knights because I'm sorry, who cares about an OC called Turner Hayes?
Oh heya
It's a very basic form of counterintelligence. The same reason the Romans intentionally mixed up the sizes of their regiments on the march. If the enemy couldn't accurately estimate and their estimates trended upwards, then they were less likely to engage.
This is also probably an even more apt analogy.
"The intelligence value of a roll of toilet paper" is an interesting thought experiment that helps put things into perspective. If the only info I have on the enemy is the amount of toilet paper they order, then I can learn an immense amount of information about them. I can approximate the size of their force using data from how much my own forces use. I can determine if they're sick from food poisoning or disease if that number spikes at some point. Etc. etc.
This is also the stated reason for why they stopped publishing Star Wars Expanded Universe content alongside New Canon releases. Because they thought it would confuse fans, but casual fans don't bother with anything outside a theater or Disney+ (or maybe the occasional video game) anyways.
Technically, there is still one peice of Legends content still on going with new stories, the Old Republic MMO.
But I'm guessing that's because either it's still making a decent amount of money, or it's set so far in the past that it doesn't matter. Maybe a bit of both.
Edit: And I just noticed your avatar is a SWTOR screenshot, so I probably didn't need to tell you this lol
SWTOR kind of does its own thing, is under its own license, and made enough money it wasn't worth discontinuing or shutting down at the time (it was doing REALLY WELL in 2013-2014 before the drop-off of the past... god 10 years now).
But Star Wars discussion is better suited for off-topic or something.
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