Your home owners association doesn't get you car.
Wait … it doesn't? Are you saying Gene lied to me?!
Was NCC-1701 active for 40 years?
- Thread starter Brannigan
- Start date
Wait … it doesn't? Are you saying Gene lied to me?!
At this point, it's silly quibbling over semantics.
It may be semantics, but it might also be truth.
We have no evidence that all ships operating within the Federation are Federation ships.
We do have evidence that member worlds have ships that are registered to their own homeworlds even into the 24th century.
Therefore it is possible that were are other ships within the Federation that can bare famous ship names, during the 22nd through 24th centuries, that are not necessarily properly classified as Federation ships.
Does this mean there was another Enterprise between 2161 and 2245? Who knows. Is it possible there was another ship named Enterprise that is not properly called a Federation ship in that time frame? Yes. In fact it is possible for there to be a ship named Enterprise while the various NCC-1701 starships are in service because whatever it is would not be in Starfleet. The Space Shuttle Enterprise, Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise, and the Space Plane VSS Enterprise all existed at the same time.
We have no evidence that all ships operating within the Federation are Federation ships.
We do have evidence that member worlds have ships that are registered to their own homeworlds even into the 24th century.
Therefore it is possible that were are other ships within the Federation that can bare famous ship names, during the 22nd through 24th centuries, that are not necessarily properly classified as Federation ships.
Does this mean there was another Enterprise between 2161 and 2245? Who knows. Is it possible there was another ship named Enterprise that is not properly called a Federation ship in that time frame? Yes. In fact it is possible for there to be a ship named Enterprise while the various NCC-1701 starships are in service because whatever it is would not be in Starfleet. The Space Shuttle Enterprise, Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise, and the Space Plane VSS Enterprise all existed at the same time.
The simplest truth is that not all Federation ships are Starfleet ones. Civilian ships from the various members worlds are also Federation ships.
Are all ship registered in the European Union, European ships? Properly speaking? No.
They are registered in their country of origin and are named as such, be they French, German, British, Italian, Dutch, or whatever. (Though actually, most ships are registered in placing in Africa or Central America for tax reasons these days...they are called by their operating company or national origin typically).
They are registered in their country of origin and are named as such, be they French, German, British, Italian, Dutch, or whatever. (Though actually, most ships are registered in placing in Africa or Central America for tax reasons these days...they are called by their operating company or national origin typically).
It's just a case of calling ships from the Federation Federation ships. Anything else, as I said before, is just splitting hairs or quibbling over terms.
Not really. If a ship isn't registered to the Federation it isn't a Federation ship. Even if for some reason that did not seem like a substantive difference, it does matter to the issue at hand, which is ship naming conventions. There have been HMS and USS Enterprises in simultaneous service for decades. To an alien, they can both be colloquially called Earth ships, but they can both be called Enterprise as they are not registered into or part of the same Fleet.
Which again begs the question: Why didn't Starfleet build any more U.S.S. Enterprises between the decommissioning of the NX-01 and the commissioning of the NCC-1701? Even if there was another Earth ship named the Enterprise, that wouldn't necessarily impede Starfleet from having one as well, as you point out.
Starfleet having a ship named Enterprise on the "navy list" would prevent them having another starship named Enterprise. Be it the NX-01 in reserve, or a courier ship that runs from Earth to Jupiter. However that would be another ship named Enterprise in Starfleet, but definitely not a "starship". The NX-01 could also have been left as "active" in the way USS Constitution is "active" today. But even in reserve she would be on the "Starfleet list" until removed (scrapped, sold, placed as a museum, but not sitting in mothballs waiting for possible use, at least not with the name "Enterprise").
An alternative being that the Earth Starfleet and the Federation Starfleet are not fully integrated in during this period of time. The remains of UESPA staying around until the end of the 23rd century. Another Earth ship Enterprise would not count towards being a Federation ship Enterprise, even if Earth is part of the Federation at that point, by the nature of the services.
Another alternate being President Archer, for some reason, keeping that name from being used by Starfleet (names are still selected by the Secretary of Starfleet (or closest equivalent to the Secretary of the Navy) under the direction of the President of the Federation).
A final alternate is that the name was used by other member worlds space forces and Starfleet decided to respect that and not have one of their own until the 2240s. Not sure why this would be, but there you go.
An alternative being that the Earth Starfleet and the Federation Starfleet are not fully integrated in during this period of time. The remains of UESPA staying around until the end of the 23rd century. Another Earth ship Enterprise would not count towards being a Federation ship Enterprise, even if Earth is part of the Federation at that point, by the nature of the services.
Another alternate being President Archer, for some reason, keeping that name from being used by Starfleet (names are still selected by the Secretary of Starfleet (or closest equivalent to the Secretary of the Navy) under the direction of the President of the Federation).
A final alternate is that the name was used by other member worlds space forces and Starfleet decided to respect that and not have one of their own until the 2240s. Not sure why this would be, but there you go.
...And lest the obvious be forgotten (I'm fairly good at stating that), there's the possibility that nobody thought the name Enterprise would be worth lobbying for, and without lobbying, the name never came up at random.
Starfleet just doesn't seem all that obsessed with having a ship named Enterprise at all times. There's the nil-A-B "lineage", which might have everything to do with Kirk's reputation and none with standard Starfleet naming practices, but we don't know of the name being continuously carried from B to C, and we know it was not carried from C to D - there was a gap of two decades. The D-E "lineage" again seems to be a Picard thing...
The Stargazer was a famous ship as well, according to LaForge (he read about her in the Academy), but we never heard of Starfleet using that name again after the 2354 loss of that vessel.
Timo Saloniemi
Starfleet just doesn't seem all that obsessed with having a ship named Enterprise at all times. There's the nil-A-B "lineage", which might have everything to do with Kirk's reputation and none with standard Starfleet naming practices, but we don't know of the name being continuously carried from B to C, and we know it was not carried from C to D - there was a gap of two decades. The D-E "lineage" again seems to be a Picard thing...
The Stargazer was a famous ship as well, according to LaForge (he read about her in the Academy), but we never heard of Starfleet using that name again after the 2354 loss of that vessel.
Timo Saloniemi
While the USS Enterprise was still in service, there was at the same time a HMS Enterprise in service with the British Navy. Plus there are various ships named Enterprise in the civilian world too.
YMMV.
But still don't see it working that way.
Yeah, that's pretty much how I see it. Depending on when exactly the NCC-1701 was built, there was probably just no impetus to name another ship Enterprise, as the legacy of that name wasn't really established in the Trek universe until James T. Kirk.
Who knows, perhaps there was even a stain of some sort on the name? We know Starfleet thinks positively of the carrier CVN-65, using her as a decorative motif in several places, and of the STS orbiter (which in that universe apparently actually orbited and docked with Space Station Freedom). But some other Enterprise from beyond the 1980s, perhaps CVN-93 or SSBN-1102, might have been infamous for failing to perform, or for fighting for the bad guys. And neither the ringship nor the first warp five explorer was enough to restore the reputation, at least not beyond "neutral".
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
You really think there aren't any civilian ships in the Federation?
I think you are reading that wrong. The idea is that there are civilian ships in the Federation, but only some are registered to the Federation while others are registered to their home planets. Their sovereign home planets. There is a difference that is measureable and proper. Otherwise, why would those homeworlds have ambassadors to the Federation. They are still independent worlds linked via treaties for the most part. Starfleet is their mutual defense, but they still have ships of their own that properly do not belong to the Federation despite the planet being a member of the Federation.
You really think ALL civilian ships are "Federation" ships?
As i've stated before. My car isn't a U.S. car. Its registered in Ohio. If i goto Texas they don't look at it as a U.S. car. Texas sees it for what it is. A car from Ohio. I just happen to be part of the USA.
Yes it doesn't answer the issue of why Starfleet didn't have another ship called Enterprise between 2161 and the 2240's/50's. I think most likely they would have. In the comics there is at least one Enterprise in between them.
It was already a famous ship name long before the NX-01. It only becomes more legendary through the pivotal and historic exploits of Archer's Enterprise. So I think there should be at least 2 ships by that name after Archer and before Pike.
No reason to think that there aren't civilian Federation ships.
