That Starbase 11 wall chart - noe in slide form

[BK613]

It seems clear to me that the idea was to show five older ships with very high 16XX registries, and five newer ships with very low 17XX registries, to imply that there was a recent shift in the Starship Class lineage from the previous class to the Constitution class. So unlike what Jein did, the 17XX ships should all be Constitutions, and the 16XX ships should all be another older class, but the same class. And no 18XX ships, because something even newer than the Constitution class shouldn’t exist yet.

Which would consistent with Jefferies' numbering scheme, which I assume would be in play here, considering that this is the first episode production-wise to introduce other Starship numbers. Kirk serving on the older 13xx design years ago fits as well.

Unfortunately, there is then the possibility that the Intrepid NCC-1631 is not a Constitution class, if we link Stone’s dialogue to the ship that’s almost complete.

It's always made more sense to me to pull a work crew off of a ship with weeks and weeks of work still to go—easier to absorb the delay—than pull a work crew off of one that is undergoing that last minute scramble to get the ship out of the yard. So i would go with 1703 or 1709 for Intrepid.

If we assume that the 17xx numbers are like the Enterprise and the high number at SB11 is 1718 then in Season 2 "Metamorphosis" it would imply that there have been losses as Kirk says there are twelve like the Enterprise...

Season 1 episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday." 1718 could be under construction rather than under repair and not in the fleet yet.

I thought that was in "The Trouble with Tribbles" where Scotty is viewing a "technical manual" and the monitor hood obscured "Constitution", "Star Ship" and "Primary Phaser"?

My understanding is the graphic was produced for 'Space Seed' but not used in that episode and later repurposed for 'The Trouble with Tribbles'.

 

[DSG2k]

I personally would not insinuate anything from SNW into this chart, as that was clearly not the intention.

Concur. Indeed, that Sombra thing means that every visually identical ship could be a different class, which is just messy.

Moreover, while Jefferies et al. had the idea of classes limited to 100 examples numbered sequentially, we don't know if that idea was in play during the making of this chart. All we do know is that Jein's unfortunate assessment of this chart showing only Constitution Class ships has been retconned onto the chart by Okuda, and this (in concert with all the other non-sequential class registries, not to mention Constellation 1017) would tend to supercede the Jefferies idea.

As far as NCC-1700, it is shown as an unnamed vessel on this chart and as a Constitution Class heavy cruiser on diagrams in the TOS films and as a Constitution even in TNG. Folks assign it the name USS Constitution per Jein, thus presumably lead ship of the Constitution Class, but this creates problems explaining the NCC-16XX Constitutions, not to mention Constellation 1017 and possibly Eagle 956. If you go with Constitution 1700, it seems easier to me that it be a second Constitution Class to bear the name.

One nice potential detail about the possibility of the numbers on the chart not being what we thought is that there's a chance of escaping the Jein-Okuda retcon for at least a couple of the ships. Given the low count of Constitutions and their supposed importance, it has never made sense to have the whole lot in one place like this and all simultaneously under repair or retrofit.