NCC = Naval Construction Contract is idiotic. Why would you bother painting "NCC" on the hull of every ship if all ships are built under naval construction contracts? So all ships have NCC on them? So doesn't it seem redundant and stupid to paint that on the hull?
I prefer to think that the letter prefix was originally something really meaningful and specific when the system was developed at the founding of the Federation, but that more and more ships fit the definition for so basically all Starfleet ships wound up with NCC. One example I imagined some years ago would be that perhaps, "N" means a ship registered for government use (Federation or maybe even specifically Star Fleet.), maybe a warp equipped ship gets a "C" in it's registry and another "C" if it's equipped for combat missions. Perhaps a sub-light only patrol ship might have an "NSC" registry (For a government operated sub-light, but armed ship). Some ships were, for bureaucratic reasons, shoved into other categories when they could have qualified for more specific codes, like "NX" for a government operated experimental craft whose specific capabilites were still under wraps, or "NAR" for a government operated (or perhaps just subsidized) auxiliary resource ship, often used as science assets or other non-military needs. Before long, basically the entire Starfleet was warp capable and armed for combat so basically all Starfleet ships end up with "NCC" cause no one felt the need to alter the system as it still works well for civilian ships.
Didn't DS9 show us some civilian ships with a "YTD" registry or somesuch?
As for which ships were fit into which number groups, in my own head-canon, initially it was like Matt Jefferies wanted and a class had a specific number and then the ship number was second,* so Enterprise was the first production ship of the seventeenth starship class (Constitution would be the prototype build and therefore would have been 1700.) But, I also feel that no starship class ever had anywhere near a hundred ships in it (possible exception being Mirandas by the 24th Century) so this left a lot of potential numbers unused. I also posit that there were a lot of weird ships that were never really intended to be large class runs and that these ships, with only, say, less than 5 of, would be issued numbers from some of these "left over" registries.
But, then by sometime in the 24th Century, they decided to scrap the class series numbering since it had gotten a bit disorderly at that point, what with basically all ships qualifying for the NCC code, so they started in with strictly chronological numbers starting with NCC-10000.
Now, this might seem silly and redundant again, with almost every ship qualifying for "NCC", but not really as we still have codes like NX and NAR is steady use, and also this still is part of a larger civilian registry scheme with has its own numerous and meaningful letter codes.
That's my two cents. Enjoy it for what it is.
--Alex
*Jefferies' system of class-number/ship-number does make sense given the timeline that the franchise ended up with. If the Federation registry started with the founding in 2161, and the Constitution-class starship was the seventeenth design by 2245, that leaves 84 years to have seventeen designs, or an average of not quite five years between new classes getting in to service, which doesn't seem too outlandish for me. But then you might call me out because the Excelsior by this logic would have to have been the twentieth starship design with something like forty years between its launch and that of the Constitution. But I would counter that the number would have been assigned at the start of the project and the project, being highly experimental and dealing with radically new theoretical technologies, was greatly delayed and it would be entirely possible that NCC-2501 was already on duty by the time NX-2000 entered shakedown.
I prefer to think that the letter prefix was originally something really meaningful and specific when the system was developed at the founding of the Federation, but that more and more ships fit the definition for so basically all Starfleet ships wound up with NCC. One example I imagined some years ago would be that perhaps, "N" means a ship registered for government use (Federation or maybe even specifically Star Fleet.), maybe a warp equipped ship gets a "C" in it's registry and another "C" if it's equipped for combat missions. Perhaps a sub-light only patrol ship might have an "NSC" registry (For a government operated sub-light, but armed ship). Some ships were, for bureaucratic reasons, shoved into other categories when they could have qualified for more specific codes, like "NX" for a government operated experimental craft whose specific capabilites were still under wraps, or "NAR" for a government operated (or perhaps just subsidized) auxiliary resource ship, often used as science assets or other non-military needs. Before long, basically the entire Starfleet was warp capable and armed for combat so basically all Starfleet ships end up with "NCC" cause no one felt the need to alter the system as it still works well for civilian ships.
Didn't DS9 show us some civilian ships with a "YTD" registry or somesuch?
As for which ships were fit into which number groups, in my own head-canon, initially it was like Matt Jefferies wanted and a class had a specific number and then the ship number was second,* so Enterprise was the first production ship of the seventeenth starship class (Constitution would be the prototype build and therefore would have been 1700.) But, I also feel that no starship class ever had anywhere near a hundred ships in it (possible exception being Mirandas by the 24th Century) so this left a lot of potential numbers unused. I also posit that there were a lot of weird ships that were never really intended to be large class runs and that these ships, with only, say, less than 5 of, would be issued numbers from some of these "left over" registries.
But, then by sometime in the 24th Century, they decided to scrap the class series numbering since it had gotten a bit disorderly at that point, what with basically all ships qualifying for the NCC code, so they started in with strictly chronological numbers starting with NCC-10000.
Now, this might seem silly and redundant again, with almost every ship qualifying for "NCC", but not really as we still have codes like NX and NAR is steady use, and also this still is part of a larger civilian registry scheme with has its own numerous and meaningful letter codes.
That's my two cents. Enjoy it for what it is.
--Alex
*Jefferies' system of class-number/ship-number does make sense given the timeline that the franchise ended up with. If the Federation registry started with the founding in 2161, and the Constitution-class starship was the seventeenth design by 2245, that leaves 84 years to have seventeen designs, or an average of not quite five years between new classes getting in to service, which doesn't seem too outlandish for me. But then you might call me out because the Excelsior by this logic would have to have been the twentieth starship design with something like forty years between its launch and that of the Constitution. But I would counter that the number would have been assigned at the start of the project and the project, being highly experimental and dealing with radically new theoretical technologies, was greatly delayed and it would be entirely possible that NCC-2501 was already on duty by the time NX-2000 entered shakedown.
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