As said by BillJ, turbolift locations changed. It may be kirk just forget the ship's deckplans (the ship is big, he hasn't been there for years and probably kirk stayed most of his time abord int he saucer section), but there are other incongruities
Was Enterprise the 1st Constitution to have a refit?
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As said by BillJ, turbolift locations changed. It may be kirk just forget the ship's deckplans (the ship is big, he hasn't been there for years and probably kirk stayed most of his time abord int he saucer section), but there are other incongruities
There's a lot of space between "every single corridor changed" and "not a single corridor changed" (which isn't what I was suggesting, anyway). Perhaps the transporter rooms were moved or renumbered, or a landmark between the transporter and the shaft Kirk was looking for was removed. Or, yes, some of the turboshafts were rerouted.
Roddenberry's novelization of The Motion Picture stated that the original Enterprise was, when it completed its 5YM, the ONLY ship to do so. It was thus, at least as far as Roddenberry was concerned, the first to be refit and possibly the only one to be refit.
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^ I always thought "Enterprise class" refered only to the simulator. Meaning, it was designed to mimic the Enterprise, therefore that's its class.
Especially since the Enterprise-A, which was identical to the refit 1701, was specifically said to be Constitution class (the technical schematics Scotty is reading in ST VI before he finds the blood stained uniforms).
Especially since the Enterprise-A, which was identical to the refit 1701, was specifically said to be Constitution class (the technical schematics Scotty is reading in ST VI before he finds the blood stained uniforms).
^ That's one interpretation. 
But I think we have had statements over the years that the people who worked on TMP and TWOK did consider it "Enterprise Class" behind the scenes... I'm thinking Probert has said something to that effect, at least. (This is touched on at this page on MA.) But of course, the only place where that actually made it on-screen was the one sign in TWOK.
In that sense, the "Constitution Class" designation from TUC is more of a retcon.
But I think we have had statements over the years that the people who worked on TMP and TWOK did consider it "Enterprise Class" behind the scenes... I'm thinking Probert has said something to that effect, at least. (This is touched on at this page on MA.) But of course, the only place where that actually made it on-screen was the one sign in TWOK.
In that sense, the "Constitution Class" designation from TUC is more of a retcon.
Turbolifts changing locations is no big deal: it's like changing the location of a specific control panel or a transformer cabinet. That's inherent in the nature of the turbolift, which does not require massive infrastructure, just some holes in the walls and ceilings to fly through. Sure, relocating some of those holes may involve lots of work, but nowhere comparable to relocating something as inflexible as an elevator shaft in today's buildings. (Unless turboshafts for some reason are used as load-bearing structures, or important power or air or coolant trunks or whatever.)
The interiors are just cosmetics. What changes radically is the shape and size of every single hull component: the saucer, the cigar, the neck (plus of course the pylons and the engines). That's not cosmetics, that's plastic surgery. Yet how deep into the body it goes is unclear. The saucer could just have been extended by adding all-new rim structures, and the top and bottom vertices sawed off so that all-new superstructures could be mounted there. But apparently the designers felt the need to affect the curvature of the upper bulge, too, which would be a job much bigger than the rest of it combined. Would some sort of an internal skeleton survive the process? In the saucer, perhaps - but the secondary hull is shown to be hollow, devoid of an internal skeleton. The loads are carried by something close to the outer hull, and necessarily this something from TOS was then completely discarded, because the outer hull no longer is where it used to be!
The inability to hit the right intermix from the get-go just tells us Scotty was right about the engines needing a test flight. It doesn't tell us whether all engines need that, or just the first ones off the production line. For all we know, fifty-two Constitution class ships had had their engines modernized and properly tested and their very personal intermix formulas fine-tuned until ST:TMP came along and Scotty had to cope with a truncated test consisting of just a couple of hours insystem at fractional warp.
If, OTOH, engines straight off the production lines could establish a pattern for the entire fleet, why wouldn't the testing have indeed been completed straight off the production lines, before the engines were even delivered to the San Francisco yards? Apparently, there is a great deal of intergration effort involved.
It's pretty much a case of zero conclusive evidence and complete personal freedom of interpretation whether NCC-1701 was the first or the last ship to be refitted that way. We missed out on most of Starfleet not only between TOS and TMP, but also during TOS. Ships like the ST:TMP one could have been common back during "Where No Man Has Gone Before", or just a glimmer in the eye of a designer during "Turnabout Intruder". The E-A, with its blatant TOS style GNDN piping and "less altered" shuttlebay, may have been a much older refit than the E-nil. Etc.
Timo Saloniemi
The interiors are just cosmetics. What changes radically is the shape and size of every single hull component: the saucer, the cigar, the neck (plus of course the pylons and the engines). That's not cosmetics, that's plastic surgery. Yet how deep into the body it goes is unclear. The saucer could just have been extended by adding all-new rim structures, and the top and bottom vertices sawed off so that all-new superstructures could be mounted there. But apparently the designers felt the need to affect the curvature of the upper bulge, too, which would be a job much bigger than the rest of it combined. Would some sort of an internal skeleton survive the process? In the saucer, perhaps - but the secondary hull is shown to be hollow, devoid of an internal skeleton. The loads are carried by something close to the outer hull, and necessarily this something from TOS was then completely discarded, because the outer hull no longer is where it used to be!
The inability to hit the right intermix from the get-go just tells us Scotty was right about the engines needing a test flight. It doesn't tell us whether all engines need that, or just the first ones off the production line. For all we know, fifty-two Constitution class ships had had their engines modernized and properly tested and their very personal intermix formulas fine-tuned until ST:TMP came along and Scotty had to cope with a truncated test consisting of just a couple of hours insystem at fractional warp.
If, OTOH, engines straight off the production lines could establish a pattern for the entire fleet, why wouldn't the testing have indeed been completed straight off the production lines, before the engines were even delivered to the San Francisco yards? Apparently, there is a great deal of intergration effort involved.
It's pretty much a case of zero conclusive evidence and complete personal freedom of interpretation whether NCC-1701 was the first or the last ship to be refitted that way. We missed out on most of Starfleet not only between TOS and TMP, but also during TOS. Ships like the ST:TMP one could have been common back during "Where No Man Has Gone Before", or just a glimmer in the eye of a designer during "Turnabout Intruder". The E-A, with its blatant TOS style GNDN piping and "less altered" shuttlebay, may have been a much older refit than the E-nil. Etc.
Timo Saloniemi
I've often thought that rebuild seems more of an apt description for what happens to the Enterprise rather than refit. With all the added bits and pieces could the superstructure even survive? I tend to think about what happened to Henry VIII's pride and joy, the Mary Rose. She had bits and pieces stacked up on each other, extra gun emplacements and it made her unbalanced and eventually led to her sinking. You can't just keep adding bits and chopping bits.
I tend to agree. The Enterprise "refit" was just too massive to be considered a refit. The saucer is a different size, the location of the warp drive was moved. I tend to think they kept something that didn't much matter to promote it as the "NCC-1701".
To me, she really should have been designated the "1701-A". She was a new ship.
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Clearly, they built and installed a new saucer. When that was completed, they built and installed a new engineering section. And then new nacelles.
It was the same refit style used on the USS Theseus.
It was the same refit style used on the USS Theseus.
Came here to say this.
I don't believe the A (as seen in TFF and TUC) used a single TMP set, did it? Her interior is completely different.
Used the TNG corridors, which were the TMP corridors repainted, IIRC.
The 1701-A is canonically a Constitution class starship if the plans being studied in The Undiscovered Country represent the actual 1701-A. Likewise, assuming the simulator in TWoK was meant to simulate the ship the trainess were training to fly, the Enterprise class simulator was canonically simulating the Enterprise class starship... Enterprise. So, 1701 refit is Enterprise class. But 1701-A is Constitution class. Which actually makes sense if Enterprise was the first vessel refit and thus the ship that named the new class, but then upon its destruction the class name shifted to the next starship to be refit, which obviously was Constitution.
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...And also in case the ship eventually named E-A was refitted first, either to a standard spearheaded by the recent refit of the Constitution or then to an all-new standard that Starfleet didn't feel was so radically different that it needed its own subclass name - and NCC-1701 was then refitted, but this time with so many (internal) innovations that a subclass name was warranted. This might be the preferable take considering how the E-A looked "older" in parts. Although that could be just because Starfleet first tried out "all-new" and found it too much newness to their liking, settling for lesser modernization in the later refits.
The other, frequently ruminated alternatives include
1) all the refits being Constitution class, but also being known by their specific subclass names, except these would only get a mention in very, very special situations where the fine differences actually made a difference (playing Kobayashi Maru against an Enterprise would be different from doing so against a Tikopai or a Constitution (IV) or whatever); most documents would ignore the subclass identity
2) all the refits being Constitution class, but the individual ships being so distinct in their characteristics that specific simulations would be required for each (this being supported by all the bridges and assorted other interiors we saw indeed being quite different from each other), meaning a class trained on the Enterprise would in fact lack the skills required for flying the Yorktown
3) starships being more or interchangeable and their class or subclass identity meaningless, but different missions calling for different types of training - and the Enterprise would be receiving an entire new crew (as implied by McCoy) that gets trained as its own, separate, well-integrated class
Timo Saloniemi
The other, frequently ruminated alternatives include
1) all the refits being Constitution class, but also being known by their specific subclass names, except these would only get a mention in very, very special situations where the fine differences actually made a difference (playing Kobayashi Maru against an Enterprise would be different from doing so against a Tikopai or a Constitution (IV) or whatever); most documents would ignore the subclass identity
2) all the refits being Constitution class, but the individual ships being so distinct in their characteristics that specific simulations would be required for each (this being supported by all the bridges and assorted other interiors we saw indeed being quite different from each other), meaning a class trained on the Enterprise would in fact lack the skills required for flying the Yorktown
3) starships being more or interchangeable and their class or subclass identity meaningless, but different missions calling for different types of training - and the Enterprise would be receiving an entire new crew (as implied by McCoy) that gets trained as its own, separate, well-integrated class
Timo Saloniemi
I like this except I don't see the logic of renaming a class due the destruction of the initial vessel. The TOS-E was supposed to be the only ship of the original 12 Constitution class ships to have survived yet it is still referred to as a Connie.
Personally I think the canon scenes describing the Bridge Simulator as an Enterprise Class and the blueprints describing the diagrams as belonging to Constitution class was merely a screw up in set decorations and props not being coordinated between two movies filmed many years apart.
Funny, just last night I was looking again through the Star Trek Sketchbook, and on one of Matt Jefferies' sketches for Enterprise, he mentions the numbering scheme for the ships, and has a note saying something to the effect of, "Modernize or Modification, 1701A".
In the old days, even the slightest modification of a ship's conning tower would almost be grounds to designate it as a new ship class, but I don't think Starfleet does that. I think Starfleet simply regarded the TMP Enterprise as a variant of the Constitution-class. The Enterprise-B was probably considered a variant of the Excelsior-class too.
But then there's the Soyuz-class. At first glance, it can easily pass for a Miranda-class as it shares a similar layout, but it wasn't called that. Despite its similarity, the Soyuz might have been designated a separate class if it had a different mission than the Miranda. Maybe the Soyuz-class was a limited role design whereas the Miranda-class was a jack-of-all-trades design.
But then there's the Soyuz-class. At first glance, it can easily pass for a Miranda-class as it shares a similar layout, but it wasn't called that. Despite its similarity, the Soyuz might have been designated a separate class if it had a different mission than the Miranda. Maybe the Soyuz-class was a limited role design whereas the Miranda-class was a jack-of-all-trades design.
It could be that these things just fall to the whims of whomever is in charge, at any given time.
That's pretty much what I said in regards to the TMP Enterprise still being called a Constitution-class after her redesign. Starfleet does things differently.
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