off topic but every time i watch this scene, i expect the niburans to be blown away when the deflector rises into view. and am always disappointed when they aren't.
Starship design history in light of Discovery
- Thread starter INACTIVEUSS Einstein
- Start date
Unfortunately, TNG threw a monkey wrench into the works by using the model in the show (80 years after STIII), and giving it an insanely high 5XXXX registry.
If the TOS-era one had the TOS-style hull font, that would really look nice, IMO. The movie-era font sometimes doesn't look as good on that hull coloring and style to me for some reason.Nimitz with TOS style hull material
And TMP Era
Well, given that Starfleet is a military organization, they have a registry system that sometimes needs to be done in a method that isn't always made public, further confusing starship captains when they look at other ships through the front window on the bridge.
Starfleet numbers it's ships with the "Hull registry number generator app." 
blown away as in the 1992 erotic thriller starring corey haim.
(thrown back or into the air by the invisible forces of the dish)
My votes for the former!
Yeah, more than a few of them. The Saratoga on which the Siskos are living at the time of the Battle of Wolf 359 is a Miranda-class starship with a five-digit registry number.
It could also be that the system for assigning registry numbers changed over time. Maybe pre-tos they were sequential, but then at some point, maybe 3-digit numbers were for science vessels and 4 for explorers, and within those systems the first one or two digits mean something and the next two are sequential. Given that the numbers are presented at random with regards to ship age or class and the only consistent thing about them is that over time, the numbers tend to get longer.
The Kelvin has been described as a colony supply vessel which could also help explain its four-digit number that begins with a 0. It would also help explain why a ship in service a couple of decades before the Constitution-class starships are first commissioned can carry nearly a thousand passengers and crew during a routine assignment whereas later starships seen in TOS and later chapters of the franchise carry signifcantly fewer personnel.
I like this idea. It also helps to show the evolution of the starships, given that they are built and manned with more increasing special tasks in mind.
The Kelvin would sport heavy phase cannon or phaser batteries due to its frequent visits to the frontier of Federation space near the Klingon and other hostile borders. Starfleet basically gives a frontline starship's firepower to a colony supply ship to protect the colonists en route to their new homes or back to other Federation planets.
There's gotta be someone on the Federation council driven crazy by this. "Couldn't we just not put all these colonies next to hostile borders?"
That would have been pretty impressive, especially with an appropriate "whoosh" type of sound effect in surround sound.
Kor
I read an article a while ago about how German UBoats were numbered out of sequence on purpose, because if the allies captured U-718 for instance, and the registration was sequential, they would know the Germans had built at least 718 UBoats.
I could see starfleet doing something similar with their ship registries.
(Not 100% sure it was the Germans but you get the idea)
I could see starfleet doing something similar with their ship registries.
(Not 100% sure it was the Germans but you get the idea)
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I'd be fine with this system of numbering starting with the formation of the unified Federation Starfleet:
Three digits: early starships and then science and survey vessels.
Four digits: 23rd century starships and heavy explorers.
Four digits but the first is 0: colony supply and defense ships.
Five digits: 24th century vessels of any design and mission parameters.
Three digits: early starships and then science and survey vessels.
Four digits: 23rd century starships and heavy explorers.
Four digits but the first is 0: colony supply and defense ships.
Five digits: 24th century vessels of any design and mission parameters.
Even without hostile borders, there still might be pirates.