USS Antares Question (ATTN: Okuda?)
- Thread starter Vance
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A G registry would make sense when the ship is almost a carbon copy of the TAS drone transports that had G prefices.
But perhaps the registry of the Antares was supposed to remain unreadable, so that it could be seen in close-up in "The Ultimate Computer" where the same CGI model (sans the forward crew compartment) would play the part of the Woden, NCC-G21?
Timo Saloniemi
But perhaps the registry of the Antares was supposed to remain unreadable, so that it could be seen in close-up in "The Ultimate Computer" where the same CGI model (sans the forward crew compartment) would play the part of the Woden, NCC-G21?
Timo Saloniemi
I considered that, but I think the Antares registry would be fully visible in full screen. The largest image on startrek.com (the comparison shot) has it almost clear as NCC-G21, but it's still questionable.
When it's redressed as the Woden (which looks likely), it would be relatively trivial to replace the registry and vessel name masks when compared to lobbing off the crew section and still making her look right.
And, yes, I want a better set of orthos for her, too.
When it's redressed as the Woden (which looks likely), it would be relatively trivial to replace the registry and vessel name masks when compared to lobbing off the crew section and still making her look right.
And, yes, I want a better set of orthos for her, too.
Unfortunately Okuda has confirmed that he used the arse-headed NCC-501 for the ship (though it really doesn't look it to me). I have to admit, I passionately hate Okuda's extremely petty (I personally was offended by "Franz Joseph") and arse-headed ("Jein's list makes sense, REALLY!") registry scheme.
Ah well, for my own stuff, I'll just ignore his registries anyway.
Ah well, for my own stuff, I'll just ignore his registries anyway.
It's pretty easy to ignore/deny the Antares registry. And even the Exeter one from "Omega Glory" is shot from angles that theoretically allow us to continue to believe in the FJ numbers. The big problem will be "Ultimate Computer" and its multitude of big starships. I don't think we can avoid the Jein registries there...
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Well, most people know this, but I wanted to explain the registry issue for the few who PMed me asking about it.
In 1973, Franz Joseph came out with the Star Trek: Technical Manual, the first book of its kind. It included a few new ship designs, and a large number of starship registries. Despite having a few errors, the book - and every single page - was signed off by Gene Roddenberry as 'official' and that was maintained for quite a few years. TM diagrams and information last through the first four Star Trek movies.
Also in the 1970s Greg Jein decided to match up his read of the wall chart in 'Court Martial' with all the known Constitution class ships in the series. There are two major problems with this. First, his read of the chart was terrible. Second, it assumes the idea that all the Constitution class ships were under major repairs, at the same starbase, at the same time. That's not impossible, but fairly ludicrous.
Anyone, at some point during the 1970s or 1980s (I'm not sure when), Mike Okuda sent a letter to Franz Joseph asking about some issues with the technical manual. He got an 'in character' form reply which apparently deeply offended Okuda.
Now, when Roddenberry reassumed control of Trek, in the name of TNG, he started to go out of his way to invalidate - in quite petty ways - previous Trek works that he had no involvement in. This included the Technical Manual. Okuda came to work for Trek officially at about this time.
See where this is going?
From then on, Okuda has deliberately chosen registries that conflict with the Technical Manual for no other reason THAN that purpose. He also relies on his 'reinterpretation' of Jein's list to fill in holes, despite how problematic that is. And, of course, when neither is available, he'll randomly chose numbers based on nothing at all.
Examples include the NCC-501 to conflict with the Saladin class, the NCC-1600's ships to conflict with FJ's registries for Constitution class ships, the NCC-602 Oberth to conflict with the Hermes class.
In 1973, Franz Joseph came out with the Star Trek: Technical Manual, the first book of its kind. It included a few new ship designs, and a large number of starship registries. Despite having a few errors, the book - and every single page - was signed off by Gene Roddenberry as 'official' and that was maintained for quite a few years. TM diagrams and information last through the first four Star Trek movies.
Also in the 1970s Greg Jein decided to match up his read of the wall chart in 'Court Martial' with all the known Constitution class ships in the series. There are two major problems with this. First, his read of the chart was terrible. Second, it assumes the idea that all the Constitution class ships were under major repairs, at the same starbase, at the same time. That's not impossible, but fairly ludicrous.
Anyone, at some point during the 1970s or 1980s (I'm not sure when), Mike Okuda sent a letter to Franz Joseph asking about some issues with the technical manual. He got an 'in character' form reply which apparently deeply offended Okuda.
Now, when Roddenberry reassumed control of Trek, in the name of TNG, he started to go out of his way to invalidate - in quite petty ways - previous Trek works that he had no involvement in. This included the Technical Manual. Okuda came to work for Trek officially at about this time.
See where this is going?
From then on, Okuda has deliberately chosen registries that conflict with the Technical Manual for no other reason THAN that purpose. He also relies on his 'reinterpretation' of Jein's list to fill in holes, despite how problematic that is. And, of course, when neither is available, he'll randomly chose numbers based on nothing at all.
Examples include the NCC-501 to conflict with the Saladin class, the NCC-1600's ships to conflict with FJ's registries for Constitution class ships, the NCC-602 Oberth to conflict with the Hermes class.
I don't know how much of this can be attributed to personal animus (is there any verification on that point?) and how much comes from the fact Paramount doesn't own the copyright to FJ's work. They used some of it in TMP-TWoK-TSFS, but after that didn't they get a request from FJ's daughter to not use it any more?
Still, it's annoying when these revisions and the newer shows use registry numbers conflicting with the Tech Manual, especially when it's avoidable. I mean, for pete's sake, if you don't want to/can't use the FJ numbers for Constitution registries, use the same 17xx's and swap them around. That'd at least be true to MJ's stated intent for them. The Jein stuff cannot be taken seriously.
IMO - Okuda's ALWAYS had his head up his butt when it comes to registry numbers. The prime example? That the 'Enterprise' is the ONLY Federation starship with a letter after its registry number (and when the U.S.S. Yamato got a '-G' in it's first appearance, that was because the SFX house missed a production note).
Personally, given that the Federation was re-using Ship names (Defiant, Yorktown, Intrepid, etc. were ALL ship names that existed in TOS and TNG); the retention of the original registry plus a letter to denote it was the second, third, fourth, etc. to bear the name made a certain amount of sense; but then we have the Okuda declaration that ONLY the 'U.S.S. Enterprise' registry had this convention.
Personally, given that the Federation was re-using Ship names (Defiant, Yorktown, Intrepid, etc. were ALL ship names that existed in TOS and TNG); the retention of the original registry plus a letter to denote it was the second, third, fourth, etc. to bear the name made a certain amount of sense; but then we have the Okuda declaration that ONLY the 'U.S.S. Enterprise' registry had this convention.
Noname Given said:
IMO - Okuda's ALWAYS had his head up his butt when it comes to registry numbers. The prime example? That the 'Enterprise' is the ONLY Federation starship with a letter after its registry number (and when the U.S.S. Yamato got a '-G' in it's first appearance, that was because the SFX house missed a production note).
Personally, given that the Federation was re-using Ship names (Defiant, Yorktown, Intrepid, etc. were ALL ship names that existed in TOS and TNG); the retention of the original registry plus a letter to denote it was the second, third, fourth, etc. to bear the name made a certain amount of sense; but then we have the Okuda declaration that ONLY the 'U.S.S. Enterprise' registry had this convention.
I gotta agree with Okuda on this one.
While I would have rather that there were no letter suffixes at all, I prefer that Enterprise is the only vessel accorded this honorific. It makes it stand out that much more, considering what that name is connected to in the history of the Federation. If they were doing this with EVERY ship name in the fleet, it would no longer be a special honor.
Or you could use the FASA system, in which many repeated names had a II or III designation after them. Quite a few of the Constitution/Enterprise class ships were eventually succeeded by Excelsiors, and later other ships, and FASA gave numerals to these instead of letters. Only the Enterprises received the letters.
While this may seem to be a Franz Joseph versus Mike Okuda and Greg Jein issue, it really is Matt Jefferies and Franz Joseph versus Okuda and Jein. It was Jefferies that came up with the scheme that FJ fleshed out -- the beginning numbers of the NCC having meaning related to type of ship and design history. He had a method to the thing that FJ didn't tread on -- destroyers and scouts were 500s and 600s, heavy cruisers 1700s and 1800s, transports were 3800s and 3900s. Jefferies would have said these numbers referred to the fifth and sixth, seventeenth and eighteenth, and thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth starship designs. Both the FJ and MJ schemes can complement each other -- the Jein and Okuda numbers are much harder to make sensible.
While I would love to agree with absolutely everything aridas sofia said above, we cannot forget the one other starship whose registry we saw clearly:
BUT it doesn't conform to the Matt Jefferies and Franz Joeseph schemes.
In a word: bugger. Because I really prefer the Franz Joeseph scheme.
Of course, the real reason is because it was easy to swap the numbers about and they would not want the audience to be confused about what ship they were looking at.
BUT it doesn't conform to the Matt Jefferies and Franz Joeseph schemes.
In a word: bugger. Because I really prefer the Franz Joeseph scheme.
You're right, of course. But to be a stickler for detail, the ship that had that "1017" number was portrayed by an AMT model, which is different from the models used to portray the Enterprise. I know that was not likely the intention, and that they probably wanted the audience to think that was the same type of ship as 1701, but the fact is it was different.
There were four models that portrayed the Enterprise on screen in the original series, and one of those was the AMT model (the four include the three inch model from Catspaw). Not trying to be a well informed bully that wears his knowledge on his sleeve for all to see and praise
, just being a stickler for detail like you. 
Plus, the two main models of the 1701 differed from each other about as much as the AMT model differed from either of them.
Alas. But it would have been very interesting to see the remastered/reimagined Constellation retain her NCC-1017 number yet feature greater design differences than the AMT model did!
The big problem with slapping various As or IIIs onto the names of ships is that it limits the universe mightily. How come all the TOS ships just "happened" to be the first ones with those particular names? How come Kirk wasn't flying the Enterprise IV or the Enterprise-F?
The navies that inspired Star Trek, the ones that fought in WWII, didn't believe in the use of the Roman numeral suffix. Which is why people sometimes get confused when, say, the Lexington is sunk in 1942 yet valiantly fights on in 1942-45. It would only be in obscure pieces of accounting that one could find a tiny (ii) to mark the second ship within a short period to carry the same name. And even then, odds are that she'd actually be the nineteenth ship with that name overall.
Timo Saloniemi
The big problem with slapping various As or IIIs onto the names of ships is that it limits the universe mightily. How come all the TOS ships just "happened" to be the first ones with those particular names? How come Kirk wasn't flying the Enterprise IV or the Enterprise-F?
The navies that inspired Star Trek, the ones that fought in WWII, didn't believe in the use of the Roman numeral suffix. Which is why people sometimes get confused when, say, the Lexington is sunk in 1942 yet valiantly fights on in 1942-45. It would only be in obscure pieces of accounting that one could find a tiny (ii) to mark the second ship within a short period to carry the same name. And even then, odds are that she'd actually be the nineteenth ship with that name overall.
Timo Saloniemi
Actually it was NCC-1305-E, and the memo came from Berman, didn't it, and it was Okuda himself who made the 'mistake'? I never minded ANOTHER ship getting an honorific... and it would somewhat serve to deflate how 'special and unique' the Enterprise was. After all, the Enterprise wasn't SUPPOSED to be unique.
Well, the Constellation was a rush job, and the numbers were chosen because they were already part of the model sheet. The use of the registry was a bone of contention even back then.
But, an 'exception' for Constellation can be explained easily. Having all the registries just randomly thrown together (ala Okuda and Jein) is darn nigh impossible.
But, an 'exception' for Constellation can be explained easily. Having all the registries just randomly thrown together (ala Okuda and Jein) is darn nigh impossible.
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