Why Did Roddenberry Hate the "dreadnought" from the Starfleet Technical Manual?
- Thread starter Samuel
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Yep.
I personally have always liked the idea of specific ships having their own unique logos or insignia, as is common in many modern units today. Babylon 5 did something similar with the Omega destroyers often having unique crests.
That being said, given that Starfleet uniforms tend to be fairly plain without much decoration to begin with, I like the idea of having a unifying symbol like the delta/arrowhead vs the idea of every single ship (at least front line ships) sporting a unique insignia that's potentially harder to keep track of. YMMV of course.
That being said, given that Starfleet uniforms tend to be fairly plain without much decoration to begin with, I like the idea of having a unifying symbol like the delta/arrowhead vs the idea of every single ship (at least front line ships) sporting a unique insignia that's potentially harder to keep track of. YMMV of course.
There was nothing canonical about every ship having their own insignia. There's plenty of room to interpret them as fleet insignia, as authors such as @Christopher have done.
The idea that Starfleet would "honor" the NCC-1701 by adopting its insignia from TMP onward was always ridiculous to me.
Besides all of these insignia mentioned already, there was also canonically the "fish" insignia on the beige tunic seen in "Balance of Terror" and "Arena," though it's not clear whether that was a Starfleet uniform; if not Starfleet then clearly nevertheless Federation. The hand and dove insignia in "Dagger of the Mind" and "Whom Gods Destroy" was probably not Starfleet, in my opinion, but rather still Federation, even though the jumpsuits themselves were AFAIK the same as Starfleet jumpsuits (unless there was some subtle costume difference that I'm unaware of).
The idea that Starfleet would "honor" the NCC-1701 by adopting its insignia from TMP onward was always ridiculous to me.
Besides all of these insignia mentioned already, there was also canonically the "fish" insignia on the beige tunic seen in "Balance of Terror" and "Arena," though it's not clear whether that was a Starfleet uniform; if not Starfleet then clearly nevertheless Federation. The hand and dove insignia in "Dagger of the Mind" and "Whom Gods Destroy" was probably not Starfleet, in my opinion, but rather still Federation, even though the jumpsuits themselves were AFAIK the same as Starfleet jumpsuits (unless there was some subtle costume difference that I'm unaware of).
I sort of like my own take on the hull numbers being star system based for the first two and later three digits of their numbers. Give the hull numbers some meaning and allows for ships of lower hull numbers to be built after higher hull numbers.
For the USS Enterprise, all (as far as I know) were built in the Sol System. My take is that they inserted an addition ship into each class that gets and Enterprise after the loss of NCC-1701. But doing so throws off the hull number codes. So someone in Command, after the whale crisis came up with the idea to reuse the NCC-1701 number but put an suffix on it. The hull number would still be descriptive as a ship built in the Sol System (a 17xx hull), but for whatever reason they didn't want to insert one last Constitution-class ship into the system after authorizing what would eventually become the Enterprise-B (which may have originally be intended to be hull number 2001, but delays and threats to cancel the Excelsior-class possibly altered that, followed by the need for a new Enterprise sooner than later, results in a new coding problem. Thus the Excelsior-class ship that eventually get laid down, instead get the NCC-1701-B number to use this new code style, and thus free up other numbers.
USS Enterprise gains a "unique" status in Starfleet. While USS Yamato was going to have that honor, by the time she appears fully, she has a normal hull number, and she fits in with her sister ships for the most part. Even USS Defiant (in theory) doesn't get this honor when USS Sao Paulo was renamed to Defiant (the reused model work has her with the exact same hull number as the original, but I image the hull number is still the Sao Paulo's number in documentation, on the hull, and even on a redone dedication plaque.)
For the USS Enterprise, all (as far as I know) were built in the Sol System. My take is that they inserted an addition ship into each class that gets and Enterprise after the loss of NCC-1701. But doing so throws off the hull number codes. So someone in Command, after the whale crisis came up with the idea to reuse the NCC-1701 number but put an suffix on it. The hull number would still be descriptive as a ship built in the Sol System (a 17xx hull), but for whatever reason they didn't want to insert one last Constitution-class ship into the system after authorizing what would eventually become the Enterprise-B (which may have originally be intended to be hull number 2001, but delays and threats to cancel the Excelsior-class possibly altered that, followed by the need for a new Enterprise sooner than later, results in a new coding problem. Thus the Excelsior-class ship that eventually get laid down, instead get the NCC-1701-B number to use this new code style, and thus free up other numbers.
USS Enterprise gains a "unique" status in Starfleet. While USS Yamato was going to have that honor, by the time she appears fully, she has a normal hull number, and she fits in with her sister ships for the most part. Even USS Defiant (in theory) doesn't get this honor when USS Sao Paulo was renamed to Defiant (the reused model work has her with the exact same hull number as the original, but I image the hull number is still the Sao Paulo's number in documentation, on the hull, and even on a redone dedication plaque.)
Which is why I said it was political, not logical. A bunch of Council members are allowed an over-exuberant act if they just had their lives saved. It's not rational but it believable.
After all, from a logical POV, it is irrational for the US Navy to maintain a 200+ year-old sailing vessel as a commissioned ship, complete with an active duty crew, yet that is exactly what US Public Law 83-523 (signed by Ike in 1954) required the Navy to do. And all they had in 1954 was nostalgia, not gratitude for preventing a world-wide catastrophe.
^Of course anything can be explained in-universe, but that's not the only level of criticism that exists. Even if something can be handwaved within a story, you can still feel it was a bad idea for the creators to include it in the first place and to express the wish that they'd chosen to do something different instead, so that we wouldn't have to come up with a convoluted handwave for it.
I wouldn't take that as conclusive, though. It has long been the rule in the real world that the merchant marine and navies use similar -- if not the same -- basic uniforms, with variations of buttons, cap badges and rank insignia. Antares's badge may be fully sufficient to distinguish the merchant service from Starfleet.
Personally, the idea of encountering a Federation merchantman is much cooler for world-building than another Starfleet ship. My preference is to go with Justman and disregard the seemingly contradictory cargo vessel/transport ship/science probe vessel stuff, but I admit it has little supporting evidence.
I guess. After dropping the charges, renaming a ship and presumably reassigning its captain and a number of officers in favor of our heroes, I'm not sure what the suffix would really add. Everyone involved would know it was a new ship honoring the name, whatever the registry number. Of course the real consideration was that the movie audience understood that it was a new vessel even though it looked just like the old one, and the camera emphasizing a big letter "A" was an effective way to show that.
It may seem a odd at first glance to keep museum ships like Constitution and Victory in commission like current naval vessels, but I wouldn't say it's irrational. There are funding and support considerations that are effectively met by keeping them on the registers. Experience with Constitution was that if left to private donations or isolated Congressional appropriation the vessel was not well-maintained. There is also a certain intangible morale value for a service to connect to its own early history and celebrated accomplishments.
Right. In real life, who even pays attention to ship registry numbers, aside from a smattering of naval tech geeks and trivia buffs (or people actually in naval service who need to use the numbers for recognition or cataloguing purposes)? I've been hearing about the Titanic all my life, but I couldn't tell you its registry number offhand, because it's not something people go out of their way to bring up as a relevant detail. (Wikipedia says its Official Number was 131428 and its Code Letters were HVMP, whatever those mean.) Okay, it's a little more useful for differentiating ships of the same name, like the Enterprise carrier CVN-65 as opposed to the earlier CV-6. But in that case, using the same number over and over again with a letter at the end would just get confusing. It would be better for that purpose to give each namesake ship a clearly distinct number.
...Especially if the ships serve in distinct capacities. The mission of a CVN is vastly different from that of a CV, but the two CVNs named Enterprise have basically identical missions and the latter could theoretically be considered a successor to the former (she isn't, one of the earlier Fords is, but anyway).
The E-nil-refit and the E-A appear to be the same ship functionally. Perhaps differentiating them with a mere suffix is actually a good idea (in a Starfleet where the prefix tells us nothing about the role of the ship)? But the E-B doesn't seem like a good candidate for a functional successor to the E-A, and the E-D is a different beast altogether.
In the end, we don't need to sweat rationality here. The E-A and E-B could already be seen setting a pattern for pure PR trickery: the ship of Jim Kirk reborn, and the next Jim Kirk ship (even if without Kirk, but perhaps nobody will notice). Surely the Fleet could be excused a few rounds of this sort of subterfuge for dodging budgetary challenges or whatnot.
Timo Saloniemi
The E-nil-refit and the E-A appear to be the same ship functionally. Perhaps differentiating them with a mere suffix is actually a good idea (in a Starfleet where the prefix tells us nothing about the role of the ship)? But the E-B doesn't seem like a good candidate for a functional successor to the E-A, and the E-D is a different beast altogether.
In the end, we don't need to sweat rationality here. The E-A and E-B could already be seen setting a pattern for pure PR trickery: the ship of Jim Kirk reborn, and the next Jim Kirk ship (even if without Kirk, but perhaps nobody will notice). Surely the Fleet could be excused a few rounds of this sort of subterfuge for dodging budgetary challenges or whatnot.
Timo Saloniemi
It suffices for me.
Not in the renamed-Yorktown camp, so that's not a consideration for me. Getting a new ship was reward for Kirk & Co., the hull number is so everyone will always remember why. In universe of course.
I didn't say odd, I said from a logical POV. And from a dispassionate, logical, bean-counter POV, spending money on a 200 year-old relic is silly. The last drydocking, for example, cost $12 million dollars. Pragmatically speaking, there are more rational places to spend that money. Not that I don't support that expense but the reasons I do are emotional, not logical.
But in the ST universe they do care, because they slap that number on everything. Ship's hulls, shuttlecraft, tricorders and more.
And FWIW, the Titanic example really doesn't apply but FYI, the Registrar General of the General Register & Record office of Shipping and Seamen assigned signal codes and radio codes to each British ship. Titanic's were HVMP and MGY, respectively. Every time a ship entered or left a port, four signal flags were hoisted, each representing one of the letters of the signal code. The harbormaster would record the arrival and departure times of the ship using those flags and that code.
Except, as I said, hardly anybody pays attention to hull numbers in real life. Surely the reused name would serve that purpose, so reusing the number is pointless and redundant.
But why should that matter to the civilians and politicians? It's the sort of thing that would only be noticed by the people actually serving on the ships. So it doesn't make sense to argue that it's something politicians thought was worth doing for the benefit of the general public. It's too inside-baseball to matter to the average guy on the street.
I think there are some special exceptions to that rule. PT-109 comes to mind.
Maybe in the Federation people to remember the hull numbers (some species might not be able to get the names, but numbers work for them.)
The scene in one of the 'Lost Year' novels comes to mind. The relaunching of the USS Enterprise's saucer section from the San Francisco Yard (Hunter's Point) and it flying over Berkeley, with a crowd of people cheering it on. An unusual display, as noted by Captain William Decker. Especially from Berkeley, who even in the 23rd century tend to protest anything and everything...especially Starfleet.
The scene in one of the 'Lost Year' novels comes to mind. The relaunching of the USS Enterprise's saucer section from the San Francisco Yard (Hunter's Point) and it flying over Berkeley, with a crowd of people cheering it on. An unusual display, as noted by Captain William Decker. Especially from Berkeley, who even in the 23rd century tend to protest anything and everything...especially Starfleet.
Sorry, I'm not up on this lore. Are you saying a brand new ship was built within the last act of the movie to reward the old timers?
If you consider museums and historical preservation and restoration silly and irrational, I'll just say I disagree.
Yeah but there's no alternative. If the boat had a name, no doubt it would be known.
I don't think that was what he was saying. I think he meant that he doesn't think the Enterprise-A was the former Yorktown from the beginning of the movie, but rather a brand-new Constitution class ship that had just been commissioned at some point after the original ship was destroyed.
Personally I like to think the Enterprise-A wasn't a new ship at all, despite what Scotty says. "New" is relative. I think she's the Constitution-class USS Excelsior, now retired for obvious reasons.
That explains why she needed a complete overhaul, and was retired after less than a decade as the Enterprise-A.
That explains why she needed a complete overhaul, and was retired after less than a decade as the Enterprise-A.
Starfleet already carries names forward (USS Hood and USS Defiant come to mind). Using the hull number would differentiate from that usual process.
First pages of this thread:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/was-the-enterprise-a-actually-the-yorktown.220135/
Reader's digest version:
The Ent-A was either
a) the renamed Yorktown, or
b) another existing ship, renamed, or
c) a ship already under construction, or
d) a ship constructed between the Splashdown and the Trial.
I am in camp C because:
1) We see two refit-style nacelles on the way to the Ent-A so we know other Connies exist.
2) Kirk's enthusiastic "Let's see what she's got" fits Shiny New better that Hand-me-down Old.
3) Scotty says it's a new ship.
4) Scotty also says of the Ent-A that "they don't build them like they used too."
5) The condition of the Ent-A, like it was rushed out the door.
Other people have other opinions and I am neither trying to invalidate those opinions nor reignite this debate. This is mine and the data points I used to arrive at it.
Reread what I typed. I think we are in the weeds on this example. My original point was that Old Ironsides was kept for subjective reasons not objective ones. She evokes nostalgia and patriotic fervor but adds nothing to the combat readiness of the US Navy.
Why would they want to "differentiate" anything? What the hell is wrong with the usual process? This is the whole problem, this fannish notion of setting the Enterprise apart as uniquely better or more important than anything else in the galaxy. That's forcing the audience's affinities onto the in-universe reality in a way that undermines the credibility of that reality.
Yes. Rumors are that she was rushed through ship yard to make it ready for Kirk. Immediately after the launching ceremony, they put her back in the yard to finish her and gave her crew extended leave. Scott said:
"U.S.S. Enterprise, shakedown cruise report. I think this new ship was put together by monkeys. Och, she's got a fine engine, but half the doors won't open, and guess whose job it is to make it right?"
I heard the main turboshaft was stolen from the starbase refit and they didn't have time to repaint the deck numbers on the interiors before launch. Who will ever see them anyway? 
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