Where did the Enterprise NCC-1701A come from?

[Timo]

Which would indicate a REALLY hasty refit since only a matter of weeks passed between The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier

We don't know how much time passes, not really.

1) Scotty huffs and puffs about the time Kirk said "Let's see what she's got" as if he hasn't had time to discuss the issue before - but Uhura's response could just as well indicate Scotty has been saying the same thing for the past two years, over and over again.

2) Kirk gave Scotty three weeks to patch up the ship. But we don't know when the clock started ticking. Scotty says the ship has returned from her shakedown cruise, the length of which is unknown.

3) There's the stardate, 8454. The previous movie had 8031 to mark the start of the main body of the adventure, but the epilogue of our heroes receiving the E-A is undated. (We have no clear idea of what stardates in TOS mean, but we could just as well assume there are a thousand units per year, just as in TNG - because that would nicely match the TOS length of about five thousand SD units with the five-year mission. A difference of 450 units would then be about five and a half months.)

So, nothing really solid. But if it only took three weeks to redo the bridge, then we must accept it's very modular - either the entire room can be swapped whole, or then each console sector can be independently swapped for another, or for a turbolift station.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Trimm]

Visual evidence: At the end of TVH, the ship has a bridge reminiscent of the older TMP Enterprise bridge. At the beginning of TFF, it has a brand-spanking new bridge. I take this to mean that the ship was an older vessel which had been upgraded at some point between the two films.

Or, just possibly, getting a new bridge module was part and parcel of working the kinks out of the ship.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

We don't know how much time passes, not really.

Captain Kirk has to take the Enterprise-A to Nimbus III under orders after declaring the ship a disaster. I can't imagine Kirk taking the ship much farther than Pluto willingly before making a u-turn and heading back to spacedock. Captain Kirk doesn't run a half-assed ship (unless, of course, he's ordered to, as per Admiral Bob)

It is possible that the Enterprise-A was out for an extended shakedown cruise before returning to port. It's also possible that the breakdown happened much later on. But, I think if it had, Scotty would've been bitching about THAT order, instead of a comment Kirk made on the ships initial launch. Scotty seems to specifically be referencing Kirk's order at the end of The Voyage Home, not some order given off screen.

 

[Maurice]

Where did it come from? Well, when two starships love each other...

 

[Galileo7]

If only there was a long lost deleted scene from TVH or TFF explaining the original of the 1701-A.

By the time of TUC the 1701-A [bridge] had been retrofitted again...perhaps to correct the problems experienced in TVH and TFF.

 

[doubleohfive]

I've always accepted that it was a rebranded USS Yorktown.

 

[BillJ]

I've always accepted that it was a rebranded USS Yorktown.

I tend to go with the Ti-Ho explanation from Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise. But there isn't any one explanation that is more right than another.

EDIT: Perhaps it is the Yorktown saucer, the Ti-Ho secondary hull with newly built warp nacelles! I think that covers all the bases. It might explain why the ship is such a mess.

 

[Dukhat]

I've always accepted that it was a rebranded USS Yorktown.

That's cool if you think that, but honestly I've never understood why people think this. Is it just because we see the captain of the Yorktown talking about making a solar sail to generate power? So, why is his ship any different than all the other ships that were disabled by the probe?

 

[doubleohfive]

Probably because I've never given it much more thought than "Hey, it's probably the Yorktown." -- an economy of energy expended proportionate to the query.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Visual evidence: At the end of TVH, the ship has a bridge reminiscent of the older TMP Enterprise bridge. At the beginning of TFF, it has a brand-spanking new bridge. I take this to mean that the ship was an older vessel which had been upgraded at some point between the two films.

Or, just possibly, getting a new bridge module was part and parcel of working the kinks out of the ship.

That's more likely. We've known for some time that bridges are separate modules that can be swapped out and replaced easily. I'm sure that's what happened here.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always accepted that it was a rebranded USS Yorktown.

That's cool if you think that, but honestly I've never understood why people think this.

Different people like different things, including different ideas.

Roddenberry may have proposed that the Enterprise-A was previously the Yorktown both as a nod to his original name of the ship during the early development of TOS and what seemed to him a rational reason why there was another Constitution-class ship ready to go at the end of Star Trek IV. Other people have other ideas that work well for them, including it being an all-new build that just was on hand at the end of the movie.

 

[Dukhat]

Different people like different things, including different ideas.

Er, yeah, I get that. My point was that I didn't understand the logic of the choice based solely on what we see in the film.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Different people like different things, including different ideas.

Er, yeah, I get that. My point was that I didn't understand the logic of the choice based solely on what we see in the film.

Er, you didn't get what I said about what Roddenberry, did you? That's where the idea really originated from.

It was from that another idea came about utilizing the movie that the Yorktown was in Spacedock undergoing repairs when she became the new Enterprise and was launched before she was really ready--maybe for P.R. purposes--explaining her problems in the next movie.

But as said earlier, she also could just have been an all-new build that had teething problems. Pick whatever idea works best for you and don't worry about those that don't.

 

[Dukhat]

Er, you didn't get what I said about what Roddenberry, did you? That's where the idea really originated from.

And I'm sure everyone who saw the film was an expert in Roddenberriana like you are.

It was from that another idea came about utilizing the movie that the Yorktown was in Spacedock undergoing repairs when she became the new Enterprise and was launched before she was really ready--maybe for P.R. purposes--explaining her problems in the next movie.

And again I will ask that based solely on the film, what made the Yorktown's problems any different from any other ship that Starfleet picked that particular one to be the next Enterprise? (hint-there's no correct answer.)

 

[C.E. Evans]

Er, you didn't get what I said about what Roddenberry, did you? That's where the idea really originated from.

And I'm sure everyone who saw the film was an expert in Roddenberriana like you are.

Why be snippy?


Nobody is forcing you to accept the idea or even like it. Heck, it wasn't even known to most fans, just something Roddenberry said in an interview that got circulated a little bit, so that remark's uncalled for.

EDIT:
Oh, you added extra stuff in your post.

And again I will ask that based solely on the film, what made the Yorktown's problems any different from any other ship that Starfleet picked that particular one to be the next Enterprise? (hint-there's no correct answer.)

Does it really matter one way or the other in the long run? (Hint--it doesn't matter at all).

 

[Dukhat]

Why be snippy?

I think we were both being snippy. I'll cease and desist.

Does it really matter one way or the other in the long run? (Hint--it doesn't matter at all).

Since it can't be proven one way or another, no. But proof wasn't what I was asking about.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Why be snippy?

I think we were both being snippy.

All I did return what I was given.

Does it really matter one way or the other in the long run? (Hint--it doesn't matter at all).

Since it can't be proven one way or another, no. But proof wasn't what I was asking about.

Then your arguing over it doesn't make sense as from the start (and said more than a few times in this thread) it was just a case of people choosing an idea that best works for them.

 

[Ithekro]

If one keeps to "Mr. Scotts's Guide to the Enterprise", than the new ship is equipped with transwarp drive, similar to USS Excelsior. Just a smaller unit designs to fit in the more typical Starfleet vessels rather than the much larger Excelsior design.

This would help explain the rapid trip towards the Galactic Core. A functional transwarp style drive would help, but that also brings into question the odds of getting Enterprise (out of all the starships) to Nimbus III. If Excelsior is brand new, and the new Enterprise is basically new, than transwarp drive is also new to the fleet, and thus these might be the only two ships fitted with such a drive at the time. And while Excelsior had difficulty chasing the older Enterprise two films earlier, the Enterprise's engines seem to be just fine (according to Mr. Scott). Though it is possible that the problem is just the computer systems, much like Excelsior's problem was computer related, due to Scott's removal of parts.

If the new Enterprise has a transwarp drive (or sorts), the vessel may or may not be new. It may still be a refit of an old style Constitution, or a starship built in the refit style, but still several years old. We never did find out if Starfleet was having more Constitutions built during or following Kirk's Five Year Mission. We don't even know when, or if there was a last one built. Some assume USS Defiant was a new ship due to its higher hull number of NCC-1764. It could have been new, or if could have been a decade old. We know Enterprise was an older ship even in Kirk's Five Year Mission.


One cannot easily tell what USS Yorktown was in the film. It is assumed to also be a refit Constitution at that time as that is one of the names picked to be of that class back in the TOS days. It is also generally assumed that any remaining older Constitutions were refit as some point after USS Enterprise was completed in TMP. But it would take a lot to get someone to rename Yorktown into Enterprise given that Yorktown would likely have nearly as long a service record as the old Enterprise. But if they hadn't built any new Constitutions for a long time, than it might be reasonable to rename Yorktown or Taiho to Enterprise, if the name of the orignal ship was being transfered to a ship under construction (to free up the name). Enterprise may have had this same fate had Kirk not stolen it, and Starfleet decide to use the hull again, while using the name Enterprise on a new Excelsior hull ordered after the completion of USS Excelsior.

 

[urbandefault]

For all we know, it was a new build that was near completion but not assigned a captain yet. They slapped 1701-A on it and sent newly-demoted Captain Kirk out to patrol the AQ to keep him out of the way. Starfleet loves Kirk, but they don't like him.

 

[SicOne]

...But if they hadn't built any new Constitutions for a long time, than it might be reasonable to rename Yorktown or Taiho to Enterprise, if the name of the orignal ship was being transferred to a ship under construction (to free up the name). Enterprise may have had this same fate had Kirk not stolen it, and Starfleet decide to use the hull again, while using the name Enterprise on a new Excelsior hull ordered after the completion of USS Excelsior.

(nods) And when Starfleet Commandant Morrow told Kirk in ST3 that the Enterprise was not going to be repaired, I got the impression that Starfleet Command felt lucky to have the Enterprise back in working shape after Kirk went a few rounds with Khan. And that they were thinking that it would be a good time to put Enterprise in the Fleet Museum (before Kirk could subject her to more risk...), probably with battle scars intact. By this time, other ships were on the exploration front-line, Enterprise had already been relegated to a training vessel role, and they might very well have already planned to put Enterprise out to pasture, giving the ship name to an Excelsior once they had started to pump out production models. The plan (prior to TWOK) was probably to keep E as a training vessel for a few years until Excelsior got out of prototype status, then put E in the Fleet Museum and give the name to the second or third production Excelsior-class. The events of TWOK probably just accelerated that process.