Starfleet Academy Starship Thread

[Boo-khat!]

Weren't there some fans that thought that they messed up and that S3 was supposed to be in 2411, not 2401? I could be mistaken but I seem to recall something along those lines.

The theory was that “Frontier Day” was originally supposed to be the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Federation in 2161, which would have been 2411. This makes total sense. Having Frontier Day instead be about the launching of the NX-01 while that ship was sitting neglected in the museum while the celebration was taking place in Earth orbit made zero sense. Add to that the aforementioned issues with Jack’s age and Seven’s time on the Titan shows that something changed in post-production.

 

[tenmei]

The theory was that “Frontier Day” was originally supposed to be the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Federation in 2161, which would have been 2411. This makes total sense. Having Frontier Day instead be about the launching of the NX-01 while that ship was sitting neglected in the museum while the celebration was taking place in Earth orbit made zero sense. Add to that the aforementioned issues with Jack’s age and Seven’s time on the Titan shows that something changed in post-production.

And we also know that they considered, at some point, the Titan to be renamed the USS Picard at the end of the season, the following interview indicates they didnt even pick the name until post-production

We always wanted it to be the Enterprise. We did play with a couple of names. At one point, we even discussed, "Does it become the Picard?," but when we got to the visual effects and we saw NCC-1701-G on it, and USS Enterprise, we all gasped. We all got chills because it looked so perfect on that Constitution class saucer, and then we were like, "Nope, we did the right thing. This is the thing." And we feel really good about it. All of us who worked on it are having models built as we speak.

 

[Boo-khat!]

While I totally get that the Titan was always going to be renamed (which was a stupid idea from the get-go), I’m not sure they ever seriously thought the ship would be renamed the Picard.

Really, what they should have done was initially name the ship something that would have no affinity for fans. Like the USS Pathfinder, or whatnot. Have it be a ship Riker commanded after the Titan so there would be no naming conflict but still be a former command of his. Then when the ship was renamed the Enterprise at the end of the season, it would have been a more effective name-change instead of the convoluted mess we actually got. But Matalas had such a hard-on about the Titan and he wanted his ship to be the same one mentioned in Nemesis.

 

[David cgc]

But Matalas had such a hard-on about the Titan and he wanted his ship to be the same one mentioned in Nemesis.

To be fair, I think if had worked out as he hoped, it would've been sweet if it turned out Riker's first command had been the Enterprise, he just hadn't known it at the time, but I think that's an idea that should've been shelved once it became incompatible with the larger universe (if not sooner). Turned in the Luna-class Titan into an Enterprise would've been even weirder.

Personally, I think the story would've worked better with Shaw being the captain of the Enterprise-E. Two generations removed from the TNG crew (like, the prior captain had been Worf's first officer, but Shaw himself never directly worked with anyone who'd started on the -D), the ship is now a somewhat... aged... man-o-war that's staying close to the core doing more regular missions and less putting out fires, and doing flybys for parades and inaugurations.