It's a Constitution-class ship built with heavy artilery
Who knows if the old Enterprise has just as much armor power as this one does! Was it ever stated?
What Class Starship is Nu-Enterprise?
- Thread starter Red Ranger
- Start date
It's a Constitution-class ship built with heavy artilery
Who knows if the old Enterprise has just as much armor power as this one does! Was it ever stated?Which is more or less the definition of "sister ship".
As a direct consequence, much of what was said about the ships seen in TOS is fairly irrelevant to arguments about the makeup of the 2260s Starfleet. We only saw one class of ships, and heard about one class of ships. Doesn't mean there wouldn't have been other classes, and doesn't tell us anything at all about the nature of those other classes. Kirk's ship class wasn't stated to be unique in any manner, or similar to other classes in any manner, or better, or worse, or bluer, or more fluffy. All we know is that there were a specific number of ships in that class - something that will obviously hold true for every class out there.
Kirk was a fairly junior skipper being sent to do a lot of "dirty work": hunt for other ships that had gone missing, map distant reaches of space, play a minor sideshow role in the big war that was not to be in "Errand of Mercy", act as testbed for untried technology. Initially, Kirk was even tasked with sailing out of our galaxy altogether. This might suggest that this expendable officer's ship belonged to an expendable class as well, and was among the smaller ones in Starfleet arsenal (because that's a fairly safe definition of "expendable").
Overall, we saw very few other ships during Kirk's career, until ST3 where ships both smaller and larger than Kirk's Enterprise were finally in evidence. We also heard in ST6 that the one and only ship that was bigger than Kirk's, the Excelsior, was "a big ship" according to our heroes. That sort of suggests that such large vessels weren't really the norm, but it's far from definite.
Timo Saloniemi
Where in STVI does anyone say Excelsior is the "only" ship bigger than the Enterprise? Heck, in STIII you can see the rear portion of a docked ship as the Enterprise enters the dock (one of the old Planet of the Titans study models), and it looks bigger than Enterprise and Excelsior.
The NuEnterprise is still a Constitution-class vessel. Some things never change, even if they end up looking a lot different.
What it basically comes down to is that at point of attack where the timeline split, the constitution project was already in its early phases. When the Nerada showed up, the original design could not cut it against this new threat so either they built a larger ship than originally planned. The design was different and it was delayed about a decade, but the project name of constitution was still attached to it.
Agreed. The Nu-Defiant, for example, has the same number (NCC-1764), but in this universe it is a Miranda-class ship. Linky
In the final scenes of the final act, McCoy says "My God, that's a big ship!" giving the Excelsior special status. And the technologically savvy Scotty seems to agree with the doctor's assessment (although he might be saying that the ship is less than two meters tall, too). We can't really assume our two heroes would be such hillbillies that this would be their first exposure to a "big ship" in a Starfleet that operates dozens upon dozens of those; it's more likely that "big ships" are a rarity.
But as said, that's our only piece of even semi-hard evidence either way. So STXI creates no contradictions by featuring larger ships than TOS did.
Although I'm in the camp of "<300 m Kelvin"ists, really. The deck structure of that ship doesn't seem to differ from that of a TOS-style Saladin, save for the shorter neck and the lack of an underhang on the saucer rim. Even the shuttlebay dimensions roughly seem to agree.
Alternately, sheer randomness resulted in the name Constitution going to a small ship and, say, the name Challenger to a large one in the TOS universe, but vice versa in the STXI universe.
We still lack any evidence that the design of the nuConstitution was in any way affected by the Narada encounter. Indeed, the skipper of the nuEnterprise, an expert on the Narada, sees no connection between his ship and that ancient enemy when said enemy finally reappears. We also lack evidence that the TOS universe would not have featured ships of the nuConstitution design, or other designs similar to that in size and role.
Timo Saloniemi
"That's a big ship" means nothing more than it's bigger than theirs - which it is, by quite a margin. It is in no way definitive about anything at all. And besides, if they can retcon in a whole Enterprise in before Kirk's, I don't think Scotty and McCoy's conversation is an insurmountable obstacle.
IIRC Scotty was less than pleasent in his opinion of Excelsior in STIII, yet it became the next-generation flagship (Enterprise-B) and then the workhorse of the fleet for over 100 years. If you took him literally back then, you'd be quite disappointed looking at the future shape of Starfleet.
IIRC Scotty was less than pleasent in his opinion of Excelsior in STIII, yet it became the next-generation flagship (Enterprise-B) and then the workhorse of the fleet for over 100 years. If you took him literally back then, you'd be quite disappointed looking at the future shape of Starfleet.
None of that negates the fact that "big" was the defining attribute of the Excelsior, though. And in the context, "big" necessarily means "exceptionally big", or else the size wouldn't be worth mentioning, let alone making an exclamation about.
Yes, it perfectly allows for big ships in the 2230s or the 2250s. But it does undermine the idea that big ships would be common in the 2290s. Perhaps there was a marked decrease in size and number of the biggest ships in Starfleet, just like there was in the USN 300 years earlier?
Timo Saloniemi
Yes, it perfectly allows for big ships in the 2230s or the 2250s. But it does undermine the idea that big ships would be common in the 2290s. Perhaps there was a marked decrease in size and number of the biggest ships in Starfleet, just like there was in the USN 300 years earlier?
Timo Saloniemi
Similar threads
