Thoughts on spacecraft classification (TOS/Fandom)

[Harry]

The recent thread on what the term 'Starship' actually meant during TOS production got me thinking about the fandom use of the navy style classification for spacecraft. Specifically for the TOS period, can we tweak it to represent the apparently small-ish, not particularly military, possibly air force/police force (Jefferies/Roddenberry backgrounds) inspired agency?

First of all, it seems plausible that "Starship" is the classification used to describe the Enterprise and the "12 ships like her in the Fleet". We know that the 'starshipness' of a vessel can be identified from its "configuration" and from its power readings. We also know that Harry Mudd can pretend "not knowing it was a Starship!", possibly indicating that for a 23rd century civilian, not every big interstellar craft is a starship.

Taking some hints from what other people said in that thread , let's assume that instead of a Heavy Cruiser (as fandom calls it), the Enterprise is a Starship. From the Making of Star Trek's excerpts from the Bible, the Enterprise is described as the largest ship in the fleet, and it's captains have considerable authority. Further defining features are the ships self-reliability, going on a 5-year mission without major Starbase support; and the extensive scientific capabilities, ranging from archeology to parapsychology. I would guess that in the 24th century, the same type of ship is known as an Explorer.

Now, if the Enterprise is a Starship, what other ship types could there be? Of course, there are countless transports, tankers, tugs, merchant vessels, robot ships, etc. that are obviously not starships. There's enough room for these in the TOS universe, and they don't present much of a problem.

The sticky points would be the other, smaller spacecraft that are not quite starships. Stuff like the Franz Joseph designs, and the Surya/Miranda configurations. "Federation destroyer" especially is a term I can't imagine Spock ever saying (not without a goatee, anyway).

DS9 called the Defiant an Escort, and if I understand correctly, the 1960s US Navy also had a few classes called (Ocean) Escorts. Perhaps this is a good euphemism for the Saladin-type of (seemingly) limited offensive craft? I also like SotSF's "Perimeter Action" designations.

Frigate/cruiser types are very close to being Starships, but less oriented towards exploration, and more toward general purpose offense/defense. Would the Surya be considered a "Starship, by configuration"? I haven't made my mind up on these kinds of 'workhorse' classes.

Quick summary of suggestions:

• Starship: Constitution (later Explorers)
• ????: Cruisers, Frigates...
• ????: Larger Destroyers, such as Pompey (I believe Guenther calls them Agressors)
• Escortestroyers, Saladin.
• Scout:Hermes
• Surveyor: or Survey Ship, Science Probe, etc.
• Dreadnought?
• Carrier: The large clumsy shuttlecarriers.
• Perimeter Action: ask aridas.
• Corvette, Clipper, Patrol, ...: Misc. small stuff.

 

[Vance]

Cruiser : Mid-size multi-purpose vessel. (Consitution Class). These are often fitted for more specific roles, depending on the needs of the fleet.

Starship: A special type of cruiser outfitted for long-range exploration duty. (Again, Trek is inconsistent with this term's use. By the time of TNG, it's established that ANY capital vessel in the Federation is a starship).

Explorer: See 'Starship'. This is TNG's new classification for the 'Starship' designator.

Frigate: Smaller than cruiser, generally not as long-rage but also a multi-purpose vessel. Frigates tend to be the workhorses of the fleet, performing most of the patrol duties.

Destroyer: Usually the smallest capital vessel, used primarily for a miltary role. The destroyer is typically heavily armed and fast. Escorts are destroyers with more point-defense weaponry (such as small guns).

Scout: A 'Scout' would be an ECM, ECCM, RADAR, or EWACs type of destroyer which eschews much of its weapons.

Battleship: A heavy vessel equipped with the largest fielded guns of the fleet. Often sacrifices speed for raw power.

Battlecruiser: A ship that rests between the 'battleship' and 'cruiser' designations. It's usually either an older battleship design uprated to new standards, or a cruiser design that has been reworked for heavier firepower and heft, beyond what the 'heavy' designator would normally imply.

Dreadnought: The 'biggest' battleship. This is actually a colloquial term used more by politicians, which is why it's somewhat haphazardly used. In 'Trek' parlance, it would be the largest battleship of its era.

Surveyor: The cruiser equivalent of a scout.

Carrier: A very large ship primarily designed for secondary craft, such as shuttles. Usually well armed, but its combat role is to send out patrol and strike craft.

Perimeter Action: These are destroyers or escorts. Often called 'light', 'fast' or 'swift' destroyers by sacrificing some heft for speed.

Agressors: These are 'heavy' destroyers. Which are basically destroyer hulls with added heft.

Corvette: A sub-capital ship (smaller than a destroyer) used primarily for escort.

Clipper: A 'fast' small freighter.

Other general notes:

'Heavy' indicates a ship type that has been 'beefed up' from most of the rest of its type. It will have higher firepower (and often, but not always, lesser speed) than other ships of its type. The "Constitution Class" is an obvious exception, being still very fast while keeping the 'heavy' designator.

'Light', 'Swift', 'Fast': These all effectively mean the same thing. The ship is lighter than others of its type. This is almost always done to get more speed or maneuverability out of the design.

Keep in mind that all these terms are far more political than they are naval, used primarily for appropriations purposes -as such you have to give a pretty wide berth on assignments.

'Armed'. This designator basically means that a ship type that normally isn't known for carrying weapons (such as a freighter) has some, generally for defensive purposes.

The Excelsior, for instance, could reasonably be called a battleship, heavy battlecruiser, explorer, heavy cruiser, or armed explorer, depending on how the appropriations committee is allocating funds that year.

 

[Harry]

Vance said:
Starship: A special type of cruiser outfitted for long-range exploration duty. (Again, Trek is inconsistent with this term's use. By the time of TNG, it's established that ANY capital vessel in the Federation is a starship).

That's definitely true (hence the "TOS" in the topic title). I would assume that somewhere shortly before or after TMP, "Starship" has become the catch-all term instead of "spacecraft", and the more usual classifications come into vogue.

I think another interesting aspect that is usually not broadly considered is what the Vulcans etc. would've brought to Starfleet. Andorians may have added some odd military terms (early 2170s Battlecruisers, anyone?), but the Vulcans could be a driving force behind some of the more pacifist/exploratory terms in the 2260s.

But overall.. it's not that the usual naval classifications are wrong, but more that some of it does not fit the Starfleet that was implied in TOS.

 

[Christopher]

I don't know if anything so elaborate is needed. I mean, we don't use the word "ship" for every aquatic craft -- only for larger craft, those big enough to have their own auxiliary craft. Smaller vessels are called "boats." (And submarines are called boats by tradition since early ones were small enough to be carried on ships.)

So I've always assumed that, by the same token, a starship is a large spacecraft capable of interstellar travel, as opposed to a smaller craft or one without interstellar capability. Of course, the analogy doesn't quite hold, because there are no "starboats," but the equivalent term for a smaller vessel would be "spacecraft." I assume a traditional influence on usage as with submarines; originally, small spacecraft would not have had warp capability, and thus would not have had the "star-" prefix assigned to them. Hence they were just spacecraft, and the label stuck even after they gained warp capability, so the term "starcraft" never caught on. (Except in gaming circles, I guess....)

I just consulted the OED's SF terminology citations page:
http://www.jessesword.com:80/sf/list

It defines "star-ship" as "a spaceship capable of interstellar travel." But it defines "spaceship" as "a spacecraft, esp. a manned one under the control of its crew." That sort of complicates the issue, since fiction has tended to use "spaceship" and "spacecraft" interchangeably. But that's vernacular; formal usage might be different.

 

[Timo]

...Also, in the real world, "spacecraft" certainly doesn't carry the connotation of being crewed. In turn, there's no reason one couldn't use the word "starcraft" for small interstellar vessels. It would take a bit of getting used to, is all.

Clearly, TOS considers starships a very special breed of interstellar vessel, even within the Starfleet context. TNG never does. ENT only gives us this one starship to play with, so we can't be sure of their terminology (naturally our heroes refer to all alien vessels as starships because of their obvious parity with or superiority to their own ride), but it would be consistent to stay with the TOS idea that starships are the cream of the cream.

It would seem natural development, really, that the ships of TNG era would be so much more capable than those of the TOS era that they would all warrant the designation "starship" in practice. Nomenclature change would soon follow.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

It's just my own take on the subject, but I always kind of maintained that "starship" meant something different during TOS, that it did refer to a specific type of spaceship--a large, long-range, multipurpose Starfleet vessel.

The Enterprise's dedication plaque listed it as "Starship-class," but I think that's a reference more to the type of vessel rather than its particular design. Smaller, more limited-role ships would also be classified by their types as well like "Freighter-class", "Tanker-class," etc. A freighter wouldn't identify itself as the Federation Starship [INSERT NAME HERE] but the Federation Freighter [INSERT NAME HERE] and so on.

But by TNG, even the lil' runabouts were considered starships in their own right...

 

[Kinnison]

Is there anything in The Making of Star Trek which sheds light on this subject?

 

[Harry]

"The Enterprise is a member of the Starship Class (there are twelve of them) Registry Number NCC-1701. Starship Class vessels are the largest and most powerful man-made ships in space.[...] Although the assigned mission is for a five-year period, the ship itself has a self-sustaining travel range of eighteen years" (TMoST, p. 203)

"The story of Star Trek is partially a story of the opening up of the galaxy. Star Trek's era is a period of exploration and discovery.[...]The Enterprise-class starships have been in existence for about forty years and are now capable of surveying and exploring the uncharted remainder of the galaxy" (TMoST, p. 203)

"In addition to the twelve starships, there are lesser classes of vessels, capable of operating over much more limited distances. They are involved in commercial ventures, survey work, archeological expeditions, medical research, and so on. The starships are the heavy cruisers, the ones which can best defend themselves as they probe farther out, opening new areas... and then the others follow" (TMoST, p.204, Roddenberry quote)

Jefferies later drawings call the Enterprise a "Space Cruiser" on several occasions. (TMoST, TOS Sketchbook)

 

[Captain Robert April]

I keep remembering Merrick's line in "Bread and Circuses":

He commands not just a spaceship, Procounsul, but a starship. A very special vessel and crew.

 

[Vance]

The problem is, even within TOS, they're a bit inconsistent with its use. "Starship" seems to denote the Enterprise and her sisters at points, but are we really supposed to also believe there are only 12 (or 13) ships in the whole fleet?

Then, of course, by TWOK we see another "Starship" type completely, which is somewhat at odds with Spock's assertion of the Constellation... (by "Configuration a Starship")

 

[C.E. Evans]

Vance said:
The problem is, even within TOS, they're a bit inconsistent with its use. "Starship" seems to denote the Enterprise and her sisters at points, but are we really supposed to also believe there are only 12 (or 13) ships in the whole fleet?

If the rest of the fleet is composed of vessels not classified as starships because of their size, range, etc.

There might be some truth that the analogy of starships in TOS were closer to aircraft carriers rather than battleships...

 

[Kinnison]

Vance said:
The problem is, even within TOS, they're a bit inconsistent with its use. "Starship" seems to denote the Enterprise and her sisters at points, but are we really supposed to also believe there are only 12 (or 13) ships in the whole fleet?

"The fleet" isn't necessarily composed only of "starships."

 

[Christopher]

Kirk's line was "only twelve like her in the Fleet." Even accepting that "starship" was a special class in the TOS era, it doesn't automatically follow that ships of the Enterprise's class were the only vessel type that was called a "starship." Perhaps, instead of having the standard SF meaning of "a spaceship capable of interstellar travel," "starship" was the Starfleet equivalent of "capital ship" -- a term for the larger, more important classes of ship in a fleet. So it's a distinct category of vessel within the fleet, but more for a type of vessel rather than a single unique configuration. Spock's "by configuration a starship" doesn't have to mean "by configuration a vessel just like ours," just "by configuration a warp-capable capital ship."

Another way of interpreting Merrick's line that the Enterprise was not a spaceship but a starship: perhaps the "star" in "starship" is short for Starfleet, in effect. Merrick could've meant that it was a capital ship in the Starfleet rather than being a civilian vessel like his own.

 

[Kinnison]

I consider the fact that the Enterprise is the NCC-1701 to imply that there are a lot of other vessels. Starships were, perhaps, the biggest, most well-equipped ships, tasked with long-range exploration.

 

[Vance]

1701 vessels (assuming all were NCC) over the life-span of the Federation. That's actually not so much, when you think about it. The US navy alone NOW has 750 capital vessels in it.

And, I don't think Merrick was a civilian captain. I think he and his ship was just 'second tier' on the duty roster. Boldly going on shipping routes and regular survey missions, to seek out stuff that the Enterprise found and recorded a few months ago... etc.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

I've always seen this argument over the term "starship class" as being similar to the term "Dreadnought". I'm sure there were all sorts of different classes of battleship prior to the launch of the HMS Dreadnought in 1906, but when that ship completely re-defined the term battleship all other battleships produced at that time were nicknamed “dreadnoughts” despite their actual class name.

The Constitution Class may have a similar story, it may represent some breakthrough in starship design that redefines the term starship. The first dozen or so of this design were able to travel so much faster and further than any other ship that came before it that the rest of the fleet was “grandfathered” to pre-starship status. Then a few years later when ships like the Miranda hit the drafting table, there was a need for proper class names again.

 

[Vance]

Well, I think 'starship' wasn't really all that settled on. It wasn't in the writer's bible (which had the Enterprise as a 'Space Cruiser'). It was on the dedication plague, yes... but that may have been a relic from the pitched idea that the Enterprise was rare because she went between the STARS and not just planets.

We see a lot of things in the first season get 'reworked' here and there, such as 'Earth Ship' changing to 'Federation Starship', etc... as more and more science gets involved. I always wondered if that's why 'Starship' took on less prominence of importance as TOS went on.

 

[Kinnison]

Mister_Atoz said:
I've always seen this argument over the term "starship class" as being similar to the term "Dreadnought". I'm sure there were all sorts of different classes of battleship prior to the launch of the HMS Dreadnought in 1906, but when that ship completely re-defined the term battleship all other battleships produced at that time were nicknamed “dreadnoughts” despite their actual class name.

That's not quite accurate. Pardon me, while I descend into pedantry for a moment. The HMS Dreadnought was the first battleship to be equipped with "all big guns," of the same calibre. This was so revolutionary that other battleships with the same armament-scheme were called dreadnoughts. [/pedantry]

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I always thought of the use of the term "starship" to be similar to the term "First-Rate" of the old Royal Navy.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I've got a slightly different take on the term "starship." I don't think it's used as a "technical" term at all. It's really a form of slang... kinda like referring to an aircraft carrier as a "boat."

Seriously... thinking PRACTICALLY, is there any real difference between what "spaceship," "space vessel," and "starship" mean?

I suspect that, within the Trek fiction, this reflects more the POLITICAL language than the technical language.

For the record, I've always held that the Enterprise under Pike was a different "type" than it was under Kirk (during the 5-year-mission, not in WNMHGB, mind you). Pike specifically refers to his ship as a "Spaceship," remember. And if memory serves, Kirk refers to Enterprise by that term in WNMHGB, doesn't he?

Well, here's how I see it.

The Federation had a LOT of spacecraft of various types. Probably quite a large number of Constitution-type cruisers, in fact. These ships were outfitted for basic patrol/defense purposes, and had a crew of about 200.

Kirk was promoted to Captain and given command of Enterprise, for a single mission, to perform a probe beyond the edge of the Galaxy. This might have been a single-year mission or even less. I do not consider it part of the "five-year mission."

During that mission, of course, the Enterprise gets TRASHED. It manages to limp (using a crude non-warp FTL approach using energized subspace fields and impulse drive) to a station where they do just enough emergency repairs to get underway and make it back to a Starbase. But the ship is in SAD shape.

Meanwhile, Replicators have just been developed and are have finished their trials, and have been approved for installation into operational vessels by Starfleet Command.

What would replicators mean? You'd need a lot less on-board storage space. Less cargo bays... less food stores... less potable water tankage... less spare parts stores.

SO... what do you do with a ship that used to have a lot of its volume used for storage, when you no longer need that storage?

In the case of a set of 12 Constitution-type (note I'm not saying "CLASS"... for a reason!) vessels, Starfleet basically used that space to install the equivalent of a complete survey vessel's capabilities. Instead of a patrol vessel, you have the first practical "multi-role spaceship."

And some P.R. guy came up with the bright idea of differentiating these new, "multirole ships" as STARSHIPS to differentiate them from the "normal spaceships."

The Enterprise, being in desperate need of reconstruction and repair anyway, sort of "by default" becomes one of the ships to be upgraded. Twelve get that treatment. (Others may get it, in part, later, but not in time for the "P.R. Blitz.")

These twelve ships are sent on a widely publicized "five year mission" to explore beyond the boundaries of "secured" Federation space. They, unlike all prior vessels, are specifically designed to not merely explore and patrol, but also to INVESTIGATE... a jack-of-all-trades, if you will.

Of course, only one ship comes back essentially intact... the Enterprise. And in another "bold P.R. move" they choose to take the Enterprise insignia and make it the "all of Starfleet" one (probably the "common insignia" idea had been bouncing around for years, but nobody could ever decide on what the "common" insignia ought to be!)

By this point, of course, pretty much all Starfleet ships have replicators installed for food, spare parts, etc... and the term "starship" has become the one that's most commonly recognized by the general public. So this term has sort of "grown" into the common term for any ship capable of multiple functions... not just a small handful of "specially upgraded" Heavy Cruisers.

That's how I see it, anyway.