Poll What class ship were the scout ships in TMP?

[Admiral Archer]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture remains an oddity for several reasons. One of them is that it just so happened to be the first Star Trek live action production since The Original Series, so a lot of rules about continuity had yet to be established. For example, the movie clearly references the Franz Joseph Star Fleet Technical Manual via comm chatter regarding the scout ships USS Columbia NCC-621 and USS Revere NCC-595, which the manual describes as being Hermes-class ships. However, since this is a book and not on screen evidence, should the Hermes-class designation even be considered a part of the main continuity? There is real world precedence for off screen ships appearing only in literature later becoming part of the greater Star Trek visual lore.

Spoiler: Lower Decks Spoilers

The USS Titan, for example, originally appeared in novels by Pocket Books as a Luna-class ship, which became part of the visual continuity in the season 1 finale of Lower Decks

But this is an exception to the usual rule, which leads us to consider the possibility that the scout ships were of another class altogether. Oberth-class ships served as scout class vessels, and the USS Grissom had a three digit registry number, just like the USS Columbia and USS Revere. Then again, the same could be said for the Antares-type introduced in the remastered version of the TOS episode "Charlie X".

If your head isn't hurting from reading all that, what do you think? What class of ship are the USS Columbia and USS Revere?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Of course they were the Hermes-class from the STTM. That was literally the intent when the movie was made, ditto the Dreadnought Entente which gets a callout.

Several pages from the Tech Manual, as well as Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's Star Trek blueprints were used on display screens in the classic movies.

 

[StarCruiser]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was conceived and produced before the fallout between Franz Joseph (real name "Francis Joseph Schnaubelt) and Gene Roddenberry occurred.

As stated above by F. King Daniel - the scouts were obviously meant to be the Hermes class scouts in the Tech Manual since the names and hull number match. The Dreadnought Entente also is called out by correct name and hull number so, must be a Federation class Dreadnought.

I couldn't care less if the current idiots in charge want to disagree with that. It's in the audio track, and the use of TM references (along with some FASA material later on) throughout the TOS films makes the TM and TOS Blueprints canon, whether they like it or not.

 

[Timo]

Happily enough, there are no contradictions yet. A couple of registry numbers allocated by FJ to Hermes variants have been given new life as Oberth numbers, but those numbers never appeared on screen in the FJ role. (I'm much more bothered by NCC-1877 now being given a name in contradiction with a certain fan publication - although they got the design right, more or less!)

However, whatever the Oberth is, it's not a "scout class vessel". The whole point in ST3:TSfS was that the Grissom could be mistaken for one. If she actually were one, Chekov would have no right to appear surprised at the sight of a scout, and Kirk would have no option but to be certain that his navigator had seen the Grissom.

Timo Saloniemi