The TMP Refit....questions/discussion.

[Tribble puncher]

I'm pretty sure some of this has been discussed, but I can't seem to find any Threads......

Is there any on screen or canon evidence that most Fed starships at the time received as extensive of a refit as the Enterprise did? or is it mainly fan speculation?

Personally, In my "head cannon", it never made much sense to replace ships in that manner, esp. when so little of the original ship survives the process, plus you are down one ship whilst its being rebuilt. why not just build a whole new ship, while the new one is being constructed, the old one is still out there patrolling and such, no gaps in the line.

I've felt that the Enterprise Refit was more of a Public Relations Stunt/Fed Propaganda piece. The Enterprise was already a legend in it's own time, I'm sure Kids on Fed worlds were Thrilling to the Adventures of Kirk and such, wanting to be a Starship Captain when they Grew up. So The Headline on the Federation News Service might read something like "Like a Phoenix from the ashes, The Legendary U.S.S. Enterprise flies again." I'm guessing the Admiralty of Starfleet coupled with a then Military Friendly President had a Hard On for Shiny new ships to wave in front of the Klingons and Romulans. Only reason, I can think that almost seemingly everything was overhauled that we saw in the films. Just an intergalactic pissing contest between the major powers. (Might explain why the very same "Almost Totally New Enterprise" was slated for the bone yards just seemingly a few years later.) The Admiralty had a new, bigger Boner for the Excelsior Class. (It's the only thing that makes sense to me)

Thoughts/Answers on this Rambling of sorts?

 

[publiusr]

So help me, but I though the refit itself might have been flying around for 20 years (for all those novels) and that folks just lived longer.

I never paid much attention to stardates either, tho'

 

[C.E. Evans]

I like the idea proposed in Shane Johnson's Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise (1987) that the refit started off as just an engine upgrade that kind of went out of control. One problem kind of led to another (new warp pylons for the new nacelles, a new secondary hull back for the pylons, etc.), and before too long, the whole ship wound up being redesigned, but it originally wasn't supposed to be.

 

[Longinus]

I think the refit was kind of a test bed. They used their best ship, the Constitution class, to test all this new tech. The actual end products were the Miranda and Constellation classes.

 

[Unicron]

Jackill's sources had the refits being successfully done on all the FJ classes, uprating the Saladin, Hermes, Ptolemy and Federation classes. V3 in turn had Excelsior family designs replacing these classes. I like to imagine personally this would have happened around the turn of the 23rd century at the earliest, when the Excelsior class had proven a solid workhouse and it would make a degree of sense to make a new tech standard. These could help maintain the core of the fleet until they began developing some of the TNG-era technologies and design aspects around midcentury.

 

[Shawnster]

The Reliant's registry number, NCC 1864, is believed to appear on the repair chart in Commodore Stone's office in Court Martial. http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x20hd/courtmartialhd011.jpg

If this is the case, then either the Reliant originally looked like the Enterprise and was likewise refit, or the Reliant looked like it did in TWOK back in the TOS era.

 

[Tribble puncher]

The Reliant's registry number, NCC 1864, is believed to appear on the repair chart in Commodore Stone's office in Court Martial. http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x20hd/courtmartialhd011.jpg

If this is the case, then either the Reliant originally looked like the Enterprise and was likewise refit, or the Reliant looked like it did in TWOK back in the TOS era.

Interesting find, I would suggest that it must have looked like it did in TWOK. It's hard to make out all the numbers but I thought they had an NCC-1937 listed also, which would suggest that the Excelsior was on the drawing board by then perhaps? I still don't think they would pull 100s of ships off the line to disassemble them and then rebuild a new ship on top of very little of the old...that's twice the work for half the ship? I mean, from a logistical standpoint I fail to see the advantage. Perhaps I'm missing something.

 

[SWHouston]

The Federation history is replete with ignored tech advancements. I think they thought if it's old or clunky, it's not much of a threat. I almost fell out of my chair when I herd Riker call for Warp 13.

 

[Timo]

A pair of points, one on real world parallels and the other on lack thereof:

1) At the time of the TMP refit, the UFP supposedly was at peace with the Klingons, by the treaty signed after Organia. Not that the treaty would actually get any mention in this era, but still. What the TOS episodes tell us about the Organian Treaty gives the impression that it limits what both sides can do in terms of escalation, not with absolute bans but with "fair game" balancing clauses such as competitions. And TOS shows both sides formally adhering to the treaty, and demanding that it be followed, while doing all sorts of underhanded tricks to bend and circumvent it.

It would be easy to argue, then, that the 2270s were much like our 1920s-30s, when post-WWI treaties limited naval escalation. The signatory navies thus resorted to trickery to get ahead in the game, one classic element being the refitting of obsolete old hulls (mainly battleships) into modern counterparts even when building all-new ships would have been far cheaper and more effective. Perhaps Starfleet as of the 2270s simply wasn't allowed to build new heavy cruisers?

2) I doubt Starfleet would have that much problem with obsolete ships. While some adversaries may evolve, the Trek universe is full of diverse adversaries, and a ship that falls behind in the rat race with Klingons can still perfectly well triumph over the Hilbilians and the Pr'Mitivs. Not to mention that a science ship that is capable of surveying pulsars in the 2260s will be capable of doing that in the 1232260s still, design-wise - some "adversaries" evolve in geological timescales only!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Longinus]

The Reliant's registry number, NCC 1864, is believed to appear on the repair chart in Commodore Stone's office in Court Martial. http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x20hd/courtmartialhd011.jpg

That looks more like '1884' to me.

Anyway, the history of Constitution, Constellation, and Miranda Class ships is certainly interesting. They're obviously related, but how? I like to think Constellation and Miranda are newer designs, as they're still in use in the 24th century, while Constitutions aren't. Also, the existence of Constitution class USS Constellation makes TOS era Constellation class pretty unlikely.

 

[Timo]

It could be argued that the Constellation, with "two times everything", is an attempt to use quantity to compete with quality - a design trying to match the qualitative excellence of Excelsior with cheaper duplication of existing hardware. Thus, a sort of last hurrah for this particular style of hardware. OTOH, if the class did exist back in TOS under some other name, why is the "new class ship" (the one spearheading the refit, renamed in honor of the fallen Constitution) sporting an NX registry well into the 2290s when the refitted Enterprise never did that?

Apart from that, there's little indication that these near-lookalike ships (plus Sydney) would come from different eras. All start out in much the same registry range, none is technologically distinct, none has a reputation as "old" or "fast" or "powerful" or anything much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Longinus]

Apart from that, there's little indication that these near-lookalike ships (plus Sydney) would come from different eras. All start out in much the same registry range, none is technologically distinct, none has a reputation as "old" or "fast" or "powerful" or anything much.

Well, in the movies Enterprise is referred as 'old' several times, and we know Connies are no longer in service by TNG era. It would make perfect sense for Mirandas and Constellations to be slightly newer. They're ships designed to use 2270's tech from get go, while Connie is merely a 2240's ship refitted to use that tech.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure we can really swear there are no Connies in service in TNG. There's one looking like Scotty's old crate in a museum, yes, but if ships of that class did remain in service, they would look unlike the museum specimen, negating that piece of evidence.

OTOH, "slightly" newer wouldn't help much anyway: if a 2270s ship is valid for the 2360s, what is our argument for a 2240s ship not being that, too? We'd need some absolute data on how long an individual keel tolerates standard Starfleet use, on how soon a ship maxes out on refittability, etc.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[mos6507]

At least one additional ship was refit that way, otherwise we wouldn't have had the Enterprise-A, as it's generally assumed to be a rebadge of another ship (like the Lexington). Then when you consider that the Reliant looked much like the refit, that's enough evidence to say that the refit was fleet-wide.

 

[Timo]

Or then the one design that was different from all the others (i.e. lagging behind) was refitted to help standardize things. That is, the Reliant and her class were built like that from the get-go, even back in the 2260s.

There's no telling from onscreen material alone. But ST:TMP forces us to believe that major, "era-look-altering" refitting is possible in the Trek universe, eve though it doesn't force us to think it's common. And this sort of thing has happened in reality, too - see for example the Italian Andrea Doria class of WWI battleships, refitted to match the modern Littorio class, down to aesthetics.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Longinus]

I'm not sure we can really swear there are no Connies in service in TNG. There's one looking like Scotty's old crate in a museum, yes, but if ships of that class did remain in service, they would look unlike the museum specimen, negating that piece of evidence.

Well, we can't know for absolutely sure, but that interpretation really doesn't fit the theme of the episode and that scene in particular. If refit Connies had still been in use Picard would have certainly said so to make Scotty feel better.

OTOH, "slightly" newer wouldn't help much anyway: if a 2270s ship is valid for the 2360s, what is our argument for a 2240s ship not being that, too? We'd need some absolute data on how long an individual keel tolerates standard Starfleet use, on how soon a ship maxes out on refittability, etc.

The cutoff point has to be somewhere, so it might as well be there, as it fits the observed evidence pretty well.

At least one additional ship was refit that way, otherwise we wouldn't have had the Enterprise-A, as it's generally assumed to be a rebadge of another ship (like the Lexington).

It indeed seems to be a common assumption, although strange one. Scotty's comments in FF support the idea that it was a completely new ship. Then again, I see no reason why they wouldn't have refitted all the existing Connies, there never were many of them anyway.

Then when you consider that the Reliant looked much like the refit, that's enough evidence to say that the refit was fleet-wide.

Or that Miranda was completely new class and there was no older version.

Or then the one design that was different from all the others (i.e. lagging behind) was refitted to help standardize things. That is, the Reliant and her class were built like that from the get-go, even back in the 2260s.

Possible, but I don't like it as movie-era ships would have looked out off place in TOS. Miranda can be 2270s or 80s design.

 

[Avro Arrow]

we know Connies are no longer in service by TNG era.

As Timo said, I don't think we really "know" that for sure. There was refit-Constitution wreckage at Wolf 359, and apparently the Olympia was represented by refit-Constitution wreckage too. (Although in fairness, the Olympia wreckage is much less recognizable, and could theoretically be anything.)

I think the main reason we didn't see a refit-Constitution in TNG was the same reason we didn't see a Sovereign in DS9. (And even still, the Stargazer was originally going to be a Connie...)

 

[B.J.]

We also don't know if that Connie wreckage was a ship that was actually in service or something they pulled out of mothballs at the last minute.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

That looks more like '1884' to me.

Anyway, the history of Constitution, Constellation, and Miranda Class ships is certainly interesting. They're obviously related, but how? I like to think Constellation and Miranda are newer designs, as they're still in use in the 24th century, while Constitutions aren't. Also, the existence of Constitution class USS Constellation makes TOS era Constellation class pretty unlikely.

I agree on the "1884". There is a 1672 & a 1685 on that list, and the 6's are obviously 6's.

 

[Longinus]

We also don't know if that Connie wreckage was a ship that was actually in service or something they pulled out of mothballs at the last minute.

I think it is the latter. And anyway, it was before 'Relics', even if there was a Connie in service during Wolf 359, the Borg pretty effectively decommissioned it!