I seem to think I recall someone mentioning that the Yorktown was renamed Enterprise A after Star Trek 4. Anyone know for certain?
What was the prior designation of the Enterprise A?
- Thread starter Johnny7oak
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Many different sources suggest the Enterprise A was a renamed ship. Yorktown has for some reason become the most popular, despite the impossibility of this as the Yorktown was shown out on duty in the movie, it's captain is the guy who contacts Starfleet about his engineer rigging up a solar sail to restore functionality after their encounter with the probe. Other former names for the Enterprise A include the Ti-Ho (which was even recently used in the novel The Autobiography of James T Kirk) and the Atlantis.
Canonically, there's nothing confirming or debunking the theory.
Canonically, there's nothing confirming or debunking the theory.
The Yorktown is a likely candidate in the sense that her entire crew was about to perish. Possibly it did, right before the Whale Probe departed and restored power to the ships it had crippled, leaving a functional but somewhat outdated ship conveniently vacant when Starfleet needed an Enterprise replica for a gift to Kirk.
This assuming the Yorktown of the same class as the Enterprise, an assumption not supported or contradicted by the movie or the various episodes.
Timo Saloniemi
This assuming the Yorktown of the same class as the Enterprise, an assumption not supported or contradicted by the movie or the various episodes.
Timo Saloniemi
Star Trek V does treat it as a new ship (none of her problems are put down to her being an old model but more as teething problems for a new construct) but considering it's not flat out said, the unlikeness of Star Fleet knocking one out that quickly (though that might explain why she's so shit) and VI treating her as an old ship ready for retirement I think everyone just ignores that and goes for the rename option.
Although the Yorktown was shown on duty early in the film, we really don't know how long it took to manage the aftermath of the Whale Probe incident. It might have been weeks, or perhaps months, before the Council and President could turn their attention to Admiral Kirk and company.
As one man's opinion, I don't think the Enterprise-A was outdated, nor do I think she was in service prior to TVH. While we know that the Excelsior was the future of Starfleet, that ship was the prototype, and was only just getting ready for trial runs during Star Trek III. Given that, it seems reasonable that Starfleet wouldn't be so quick to begin phasing out the Constitution class that had been the backbone of the fleet for so long. My surmise is that the Enterprise was a late-model scratch build (perhaps one of the last ones, though), and that Scotty's comment, "I think this new ship was put together by monkeys!," should be taken at face value.
As for what the new ship was supposed to have been named -- or was named, assuming its livery had been in place prior to POTUFP ordering the change -- is anybody's guess.
As one man's opinion, I don't think the Enterprise-A was outdated, nor do I think she was in service prior to TVH. While we know that the Excelsior was the future of Starfleet, that ship was the prototype, and was only just getting ready for trial runs during Star Trek III. Given that, it seems reasonable that Starfleet wouldn't be so quick to begin phasing out the Constitution class that had been the backbone of the fleet for so long. My surmise is that the Enterprise was a late-model scratch build (perhaps one of the last ones, though), and that Scotty's comment, "I think this new ship was put together by monkeys!," should be taken at face value.
As for what the new ship was supposed to have been named -- or was named, assuming its livery had been in place prior to POTUFP ordering the change -- is anybody's guess.
My deduction about the Ent-A is that it was just an older ship that was going to be decommissioned anyway, but at the last minute it was given to Kirk as a reward for saving Earth, and renamed in his honor. The Excelsior class ship that ended up being the Ent-B was originally supposed to be the Ent-A until this happened. That's why it was so quickly decommissioned.
As everyone has mentioned already, there is no canon proof of the Ent-A's history. The ONLY evidence I can find to back up my theory is that at the end of TVH, the ship's bridge was the old-style TMP bridge, while in TFF, it suddenly has a new bridge. This could imply that between the two movies the ship received a refit, something that a brand-new ship would not need.
As everyone has mentioned already, there is no canon proof of the Ent-A's history. The ONLY evidence I can find to back up my theory is that at the end of TVH, the ship's bridge was the old-style TMP bridge, while in TFF, it suddenly has a new bridge. This could imply that between the two movies the ship received a refit, something that a brand-new ship would not need.
That's actually a really good point... But the inner Trekkie in me MUST rationalize the change....
Or perhaps Scotty decided that the Mark-Whatever bridge module they installed for Kirk's nostalgic benefit was faulty and the reason for so many of the problems the ship had originally, and so ordered the installation of the Mark-Whatever2 -- which was as yet incomplete when Nimbus III imploded.
So they just cleaned out the bodies, sprayed a little deodorizer and....voila, new ship?
Yeah...if someone told me that I was going to be the new captain of a ship where the entire previous crew had all just died days or weeks before, I think I'd be a little freaked out. Plus, I'm pretty sure that the Yorktown's crew didn't die, since the elapsed time between her captain's message to Starfleet and the power being restored was, like, the same day.
I don't think they died either. That would be a little dark for that particular movie.
Enterprise A was not the Yorktown; Star Fleet were building spaceships as fast as airplanes by then. More than likely it was a constructed ship in the Constitution class line and was later named Enterprise.
That doesn't settle anything. Unless something was established on-screen, none of what Roddenberry thought or what some books state matters.
Unless one of those books was designated as the series bible (canon=bible). Did Star Trek ever do anything like that, decree that official books were canon?
For what it's worth, the Enterprise-A is described as "shiny and new" in Harve Bennett's Star Trek IV screenplay, though of course this could simply mean "shiny and new" from Kirk and Company's viewpoint.
Still, that, coupled with Scotty's "new Enterprise" dialogue onscreen in The Final Frontier (coupled with Bennett's own mention in interviews of the NCC-1701-A having recently completed at least a 6-month shakedown cruise as the fifth movie begins) leads me to think that the ship was always intended to be a relatively new build at the time period of The Voyage Home, regardless of whatever Roddenberry may have thought.
Still, that, coupled with Scotty's "new Enterprise" dialogue onscreen in The Final Frontier (coupled with Bennett's own mention in interviews of the NCC-1701-A having recently completed at least a 6-month shakedown cruise as the fifth movie begins) leads me to think that the ship was always intended to be a relatively new build at the time period of The Voyage Home, regardless of whatever Roddenberry may have thought.
Actually series bibles tend to get contradicted the most by the actual show. That's just the nature of television. And even Okuda stated in the Encyclopedia & Chronology (probably the most "official" sources there are besides the show itself) that most of what they contain is largely conjectural and could be invalidated by future productions.
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Of course she needn't be either a new ship or one built from scratch for the occasion. Starfleet may well have still been producing constitution hulls on a standard production basis, after all that it's been debated down the years we still don't know for sure how many were built or when production actually ceased.
She could easily have been on the "line" so to speak anyway but without an allocated command crew (and command crew is all we are looking at, only the "gang" were involved in TSFS and TVH, not the 200 odd rank and file bods). Given their impressive (if somewhat chaotic) track record of using connie class ships to do things like, well, save the universe and stuff they probably seemed a better bet cut and pasted into the bridge than assembling a new and less tested crew with all the associated personality and "getting to know you" issues.
She could easily have been on the "line" so to speak anyway but without an allocated command crew (and command crew is all we are looking at, only the "gang" were involved in TSFS and TVH, not the 200 odd rank and file bods). Given their impressive (if somewhat chaotic) track record of using connie class ships to do things like, well, save the universe and stuff they probably seemed a better bet cut and pasted into the bridge than assembling a new and less tested crew with all the associated personality and "getting to know you" issues.
Agreed, and I tend to go with the preponderance of offscreen sources over the years (Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, the FASA Star Trek IV RPG Sourcebook, the 2014 "Celebrating Ships of the Line" article on StarTrek.com, others) which all agree with the theory that the Enterprise-A was a recently-built starship, intended to be christened one thing, but at the last minute redesignated with Admiral Kirk's former ship's name.
Most have the NCC-1701-A's construction work being finished in late 2285, with the Cetacean Probe's arrival occurring in early 2286 (per the Okuda Chronology). Mr. Scott's Guide, for example, describes the USS Ti-Ho as having completed its deep-space trials and arriving back at Earth just as the Probe struck, and getting repainted/rechristened however many weeks or months later pass between Kirk's rearrival and the trial-scene. And other sources follow similar lines, the 2014 StarTrek.com article mentioning her official commissioning taking place in 2286:
http://www.startrek.com/article/celebrating-the-ships-of-the-line-uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-a
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