Two Prometheus in DS9?
- Thread starter Neoshade
- Start date
I guess the different classes of starships Prometheus is like the intentional different classes of Enterprises.
Nebula class U.S.S. Prometheus
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Prometheus_(NCC-71201)
Prometheus classs U.S.S. Prometheus
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Prometheus_(Prometheus_class)
Nebula class U.S.S. Prometheus
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Prometheus_(NCC-71201)
Prometheus classs U.S.S. Prometheus
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Prometheus_(Prometheus_class)
It's likely that the nebula-class Prometheus was de-commissioned or destroyed before the Prometheus-class prototype was launched. The new experimental ship design may not have had an official name during its development, and was only given the designation Prometheus after the previous ship was no longer in service.
IIRC, there are also concurrent USS Yeager's of different classes in DS9 and First Contact. It was just the result of the VFX teams in both wanting to pay homage to Chuck Yeager and not knowing the others were doing it, too.
That's been my take on it too.
Neither ship is mentioned by name, nor are the names seen on screen, so it's a slightly different situation from the Prometheus one, and perhaps more like the situation in "Best of Both Worlds" where there were numerous Excelsiors (study models) filling the background - or in any of the DS9 battles where multiple examples of the starship Majestic were littering the skies. Although we did rather clearly get to see a ship with the name Majestic die twice on screen...
(OTOH, even if there was a dialogue reference to the name Yeager, we could say that one ship was the Yeager and named after Chuck, and another was the Jaeger and named after Alex, or some other Jaeger, or simply after the German concept of Jäger.)
Or, since the multi-vector experiment wasn't exactly an operational starship, her name may have been an unofficial contractor name rather than an official Starfleet one.
Timo Saloniemi
Starfleet having two USS Prometheus's at the same time could be like the US Navy currently having two commissioned USS Ford's, one a carrier named after a former President, and another a frigate named after a Vietnam era seaman.
It happens.
The US Navy has currently two USS Enterprise's as well, although one of them is a actual a building.
Depending on the size of Starfleet, some fans conjecture numbers of named vessels in the ten's of thousands, multiple ships possessing the same or very similar names might be common. They all just have different hull numbers.
It happens.
The US Navy has currently two USS Enterprise's as well, although one of them is a actual a building.
Depending on the size of Starfleet, some fans conjecture numbers of named vessels in the ten's of thousands, multiple ships possessing the same or very similar names might be common. They all just have different hull numbers.
...However, one of them has USS Gerald R Ford painted on her, while the other has just USS Ford. We can see that the two starships don't enjoy that distinction.
Or can we? The VOY ship is seen very clearly, name and all. But the DS9 vessel is a generic Nebula model whose name or registry are invisible in the shots showing her docked to a lower pylon - that's why the shots can be recycled to portray the Lexington later on. An inflight shot later shows that the ventral registry is indeed customized, but there's no name on the ventral side.
The rest of the shots are from lower aft quarter, showing the pylon pennants which feature the name and the registry. But those cannot be read at standard TV resolution! We could thus pretend that this ship wasn't named just Prometheus but more like Ian Prometheus, after the famous civil rights advocate from 2217.
(Alas, the resolution is good enough to rule out a two-part name. So the best we can do is fiddle with the spelling. Perhaps Seyetlik's ship was actually named the Prunitius?)
Timo Saloniemi
well in a DS9 episode, the 5th and 9th fleet joined the defiant in taking back DS9. there where 1200 dominion ships. bashir said "we are outnumbered 2to1" SO, i had no clue there was that many star fleet ships.
its obvious theres more like 3k starfleet vessels so i can see where it would get iff on name selection. 3k diff names? bound to be duplicates.
its obvious theres more like 3k starfleet vessels so i can see where it would get iff on name selection. 3k diff names? bound to be duplicates.
The Federation has 150 members and is made up of dozens of different species, all of which have their own histories, cultures and from planet in which it can draw names from. In-universe there is little reason why Starfleet couldn't have 3,000+ unique names for its starship. In real-life however, it is easier for the show runners to be Human-centric then to have to make up random words if they don't really need to.
mmm, that seems reasonable. idk, its hard to think the names arnt diff "just because". i would like startrek to be as "realistic" as it can be.... if you can understand what i mean.
I just want to say "Ian Prometheus" is a brilliant name.
The DS9 Prometheus must have been due to be decommissioned or something, maybe about to be made a training vessel for the academy, it didn't have a Captain or Commander, the officer in charge was a Lieutenant Junior grade.
Whenever I see that ship, it reminds me of the end of Babylon 5 and that they've got a skeleton crew of low ranking officers there to hang around until they shut off the lights.
Whenever I see that ship, it reminds me of the end of Babylon 5 and that they've got a skeleton crew of low ranking officers there to hang around until they shut off the lights.
Doesn't mean he was the commanding officer, though. The E-D often had a Lieutenant (jg) in charge, too - usually either LaForge or Worf. That was when the skipper had better things to do.
For all we know, Gideon Seyetlik was the skipper of the Prometheus and held the rank of Captain in Starfleet. And if the rest of the crew was anywhere close to the hero ship norm, the First Officer and Second Officer were both lying unconscious somewhere between Seyetlik's quarters and the shuttlebay, their valiant attempts at stopping their CO having failed.
More alarming is the total lack of medical personnel to respond to the weird bouts Seyetlik's wife was having. But perhaps Gideon had given explicit instructions forbidding any interference there?
Timo Saloniemi
Alternatively, it's a brand new ship on a shakedown cruise before being commissioned properly. "Prometheus" might just be an informal name the putative NCC-71201 was given by the crew. After that was sorted, they smashed the champagne, and toasted the launch of the USS T'Kumbra.
Yet they painted it on the hull.
We might argue that NX and NCC registries are wholly separate things. That is, NX-74205 might eventually reach operational status and become NCC-79223, with the first number reflecting the timepoint for the beginning of testing and the second reflecting the timepoint for beginning of operational use.
After all, we have only witnessed the transition of a single starship from NX to NCC status in all of Trek history, and we might declare NX/NCC-2000 an outlier case, an exception to the rule.
In case of the VOY Prometheus, the hull paint in the 59000 range would reflect the ship's first bout of testing, the computer readouts in the 74000 range the current test period after a dormancy, and the ship might eventually be activated as NCC-81302. Meanwhile, operational starships by the name Prometheus or Bradbury might serve in Starfleet, and some bureaucrat somewhere would make sure that these ships were slated to be retired before their NX namesakes reach operational status.
Timo Saloniemi
After all, we have only witnessed the transition of a single starship from NX to NCC status in all of Trek history, and we might declare NX/NCC-2000 an outlier case, an exception to the rule.
In case of the VOY Prometheus, the hull paint in the 59000 range would reflect the ship's first bout of testing, the computer readouts in the 74000 range the current test period after a dormancy, and the ship might eventually be activated as NCC-81302. Meanwhile, operational starships by the name Prometheus or Bradbury might serve in Starfleet, and some bureaucrat somewhere would make sure that these ships were slated to be retired before their NX namesakes reach operational status.
Timo Saloniemi
Oh.
I thought it was just one of those with stock footage where we don't really see the name of the ship. It's not an episode that's high on my rewatch list.
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