In theory, Dax might well have been around to witness the congestion of TOS era ships / TOS era Constitutions firsthand. But nothing in "Trials and Tribble-ations" suggests she'd be an expert on things 2260ish - all her comments merely echo those of the apparent real experts, Sisko and O'Brien, or the cabbageheads Odo and Bashir. FWIW, neither Emony nor Audrid sound like the sort of people to hang around with Starfleet much. We know it takes a certain number of people to make a starship move, but the definition of "move" is elusive: when the minimum number for NCC-74656 is quoted in "The 37s", the ship is stranded on the wrong side of the galaxy, and no doubt needs a heftier reserve of maintenance folks than a ship cruising across the UFP, even assuming no combat or damage. Where between the quoted hundred and the evident mere one does "crew required for standard cruising without passengers or specialists" actually fall in that century? In the others? Timo Saloniemi
Taking the ships from that new show into account changes the whole perspective most arguments about why the Constitution class ships were retired, because of ship sizes and roles. The ship size inconsistency in the new visual look is part of the issue. If the much larger ships of the new show are taken to exist in the TOS timeline, then the who idea of the Constitution as a larger-medium sized all-purpose ship is in question. If the new interpretation of the Enterprise at around 400 meters is correct, would the Excelsiors, Galaxies, etc.be scales up too, or would the jump from Constitution to Excelsior just be smaller? I prefer to assume that Discovery is in fact in timeline different enough that, though ships similar to the McQuarie design exist, they are not the sizes given in that new show.
That Kirk's or Pike's ship would not have been particularly large for her day is acceptable in all interpretations of the universe: TOS never made any remarks on her relative size, after all. And while the first-ever glimpse to a starship that is not a copy of Kirk's, in ST2:TWoK, shows a ship of equal size, the next movie already shows a much larger ship - plus a Discovery near-sister suggestively parked just around the corner... The subsequent movies don't add much to the tally of big or small ships as such: we get one additional size-mate to Kirk's in the Saratoga, but also one to Styles' in the Enterprise-B. And then it's all DSC sized ships in TNG, save for Picard's old Stargazer which is spoken of in disparaging terms, plus assorted victim ships portrayed by the smaller mo That we might now wish to lock ourselves to the perspective in which Kirk's/Pike's ship is a smallish scout type and famed for attributes other than vast size is... slightly more justified than other perspectives at the moment. But I guess we'll get more data soon, what with Pike and his ship actually being around again. Timo Saloniemi
There are no Constitution-Ships in 24th century, because the Excelsior-class replaced the Constitution-Class as new multiple-used ship. I think the Constitution-Class had too much bugs to survive into the 24th century. You see, the Constitution-Class was launched in 2241 (The Enterprise NCC1701 in 2245 with Captain Robert April as Captain). More than 100 years before Picard! In 2288 (Where the USS Excelsior without Transwarp-Engine was launched) the Constitution-Class is 47 years old. That's too old for starfleet...
Or, worse still, the class was launched before Georgiou's Shenzhou was, in the very early 23rd century, with registries in the 1000 range. April's ship is just an example of the very final production batch, built more or less to the original, outdated specs to compensate for the traditionally horrid casualties suffered by that class (averaging a total loss per year in TOS). Timo Saloniemi
I always had the impression (i don't know where i got it from) that the constellation was basically a replacement for the constitution. Miranda class in the 24th seemed like a cheap, functional science vessel. Excelsior was a middle of the road cruiser, Galaxy of course being the top of the line heavy cruiser.
From how they are talked about in Discovery, the Constitution-class is THE ship to be on in Starfleet. Even in Kirk's day, the Starship was still sort of a thing of awe, and a desirable position. Even the Commodores were defining careers by one's command of a Starship, and that being a rare thing. (and in those days "Starship" was basically a ship like USS Enterprise). The casualties in Kirk's years of this class seems to be unusual, and most are from rather superior creatures or machines that Enterprise herself only barely survived. Even a larger ship like a Galaxy would have had uses with most of them without prior knowledge. And of the ships we know, only USS Discovery could just jump away (and most cases, that wasn't a viable option due to the threat to Federation worlds whatever it was would cause if it wasn't stopped very soon by USS Enterprise.) Only USS Excalibur lost her entire crew in combat with another ship, and that was in a war games when a ship that was suppose to be firing low power weapons to simulate damage fired at full power, and was under control of a computer that knew exactly where to hit a Constitution-class ship were it would most effectively take it out of action. (A similar event happens when Khan uses his knowledge to hit key targets on USS Enterprise roughly 15-20 years later. Eventually resulting in system damage that's long term results in a Klingon ship managing to disable the starship when its in poor condition and undermanned, running with heavy automation (jury rigged at that)). By the 2290s it is likely the class is getting tired, but not in the 2250s when they are the top game in the Fleet. Even to those on the most experimental starship in the fleet. It is possible some Constitutions were still in service, but they were becoming more and more rare since production had stopped around the time full production of the Excelsior-class was underway. It is suggested that USS Republic was still in service as a training ship in the Sol System and hadn't left the system since the 2320s. The same ship Kirk served on as an ensign in the 2250s. It might have been retired when USS Enterprise was the training ship under Captain Spock (assuming the entire plan wasn't just to get a new crew on the ship for actual missions), or Enterprise and Republic swapped places every few years for minor refits to systems to keep the training up to date. But with Enterprise's loss, Republic was put back into full training duty. At least until they got another ship to also be a training ship.
Alas, that's cherry-picking, because "starship" for anybody who believes in DSC also includes midgets like the Franklin now. We know Constitution is hot in DSC. We don't know why, though. We can rule out size now, but not much else. Is she new (or recently refitted to be newer than new)? Is she old and venerable? Is she capable and well-working? Or such a dud that getting her moving is a challenge worthy of the best of the best? Does she have superior range, for those exciting deep space adventures? Superior guns? Superior numbers, so everybody gets to train aboard those (unlikely-sounding, given the gist of Burnham's prompting of Tilly)? Inferior numbers, so it's a rare privilege purely for the rarity value of it (unlikely again, because the registries just plain don't have room for ship classes markedly larger in numbers than the two dozen Constitutions of which one dozen would survive to Kirk's days at the given attrition rate)? Curiously, we don't hear the casualties called unusual, in the respective episodes or elsewhere. And we don't hear superior creatures called unusual, either. Fighting those might be the bread and butter of starship work - and even slightly lesser ones would demolish non-hero ships anyway. I guess the jury will return from recess on that soon enough. Is Pike flying the top of the game and now has to settle for a mere Crossfield? This would be likely to be clarified in dialogue early on, really. It's just that Constitutions in DSC have done nothing yet. But, curiously enough, both Pike and April have done something to earn a place in a very exclusive list of decorated starship captains. Did those feats have anything to do with Constitutions? On the other hand, Constitutions are also absent from DSC S1. Absence might stem from deep space duties, with only fellow Constitutions ever having a chance to meet these far-ranging ships. Or from combat duties, the Constitutions being the true warships of Starfleet at the time and therefore reaping glory in locations maximally distant from Lorca's weak science ship AND from those UFP weak points where Lorca has to save the day exactly because Starfleet's warships are elsewhere. Or something else in that vein. Or a completely different ship launched in 2318. Perhaps using a Republic for training is tradition (even though we get no indication Kirk's Republic would have been a dedicated training ship, especially as DSC hammers in the fact that cadets are everywhere, even aboard top secret research ships, and OTOH Kirk was no cadet when aboard the Republic). Timo Saloniemi
Pike moving over to USS Discovery likely has to due with the distances needed to be covered rather than the overall capability of the USS Enterprise. She does look damaged. Perhaps because she ran into something, or as a result of some final pieced of combat in the War with the Klingons. What is a known is that USS Enterprise does not have a Spore Drive, only USS Discovery has one, so jumping 30,000 light years is something Discovery can do, while no other ships can at this time, thus Pike pulls rank and and emergency to get his hands on a Spore Drive to complete the mission in a reasonable amount of time, rather than sometime in the next 30 years or whatever it would take any other ship to visit all the Red spots. But Discovery was definitively not designed with combat in mind. While she does her job, she's not all that proficient at it. Judging by later known accounts of USS Enterprise, she's quite capable in combat when she's not being sabotaged or has pre-existing damage (ST3). While I don't know if Mr. Scott would have been able to combat an entire Romulan task force with the Enterprise, he certainly would have given it a go quite willingly. It seems to be more than a match for a single D7 in normal combat, and probably able to handle two D7s with a skilled captain and helmsman. Three is probably pushing it, though given Mr. Scott's tenacity, he could probably do it, but getting the ship back to Federation Space might be tricky afterwards (since some of his tactics might use parts of the ship's fuel supply to take out the enemy ships).
Lots of intriguing unknowns there. Who knows about the hero ship's spore drive? Everybody in Starfleet? Virtually nobody in Starfleet? The latter is supposed to be true of the existence of the Mirror Universe, and we've been told Pike doesn't know Captain Georgiou is really Emperor Philippatine now. Is spore drive crucial to the adventure at hand? If so, will Pike be disappointed to find out the drive has been taken offline? Is he in a position to override that? Or does it suffice for Pike to sail to the nearest red dot, using conventional warp, and thus the commandeering of any random ship is enough for him? How does Pike reach the Discovery? Is his own ship so fast that she can intercept the heroes at will even though Pike departs from the location of his supposed fateful previous adventure and the heroes are doing a meek (and short) Earth-Vulcan run? Or is it a coincidence and Pike just happens to be between Earth and Vulcan to start with? Is Pike coming from Vulcan where Spock used special Vulcan resources to uncover the Red Dot Mystery? Or was he going to Vulcan so that Spock could share the alarming news with experts / with his dad? Three Klingon battle cruisers being the match of Pike's ship is indeed what we glean from TOS - lower numbers just yielded, unless they could count on sabotage or surprise superweapons. And three BoPs seems just about the limit of what Lorca's ship could handle. That doesn't make the Constitution a combat supership yet, though; it just makes the Crossfield a wuss. Which sort of goes without saying, her being a science ship and all. And the six-ship Klingon attack that brought down the Gagarin would probably have been too much for the Enterprise, too, so we don't have to think of the Shepard class and all other witnessed DSC ships matching Crossfield in wussiness. Timo Saloniemi
I feel like the ships (or, at least, the hero ships) that originated during and after TNG had a combination of enough initial detail-work with regard to deck-numbering and window-layout and budget limitations preventing giant sets that they should generally be able to keep to their official sizes (yes, yes, the Defiant and Ten-Forward, I know. Pobody's nerfect.). The TOS and movie-era ships have long needed a bit more wiggle-room when it comes to the official sizing, to the point where I've decided I welcome DSC giving the opportunity to rationalize them a little (even if I don't entirely agree with how it's turned out). Even before DSC came out, we've had the very convincing thread arguing for a larger Excelsior, the fairly-common fan decision to upscale the TOS Enterprise to 1080 feet so the shuttlebay as seen in TOS can fit in (or even larger, as in the case of Drexler's cross-section), and the problems of the Rec Deck and cargo bay not quite fitting into the TMP version of the ship. So, yeah, let's give the 23rd century a chance to stop sucking in its gut, move around some windows and shrink down some docking ports and we'll be golden.
I also asked that question earlier, too. Note that it has been said (can anyone confirm?) that Drexler scaled up the Defiant's cutaway to about the same size as this new version of the Constitution is, around 415 meters. I have held the opinion for some time that 2001's Enterprise through to the new show should be considered a slightly altered timeline and not exactly the same one as TOS-Nemesis. Before anybody gets heated about that, I understand the fact is that the CBS has said the new show is two things-"canon" and Prime Timeline. "Prime Timeline" gets its name from the character Nimoy played in the 2009 movie, scripted as "Spock Prime." 2001-2005's Enterprise happened in the "Prime Timeline," but there may have been an "Original Timeline" spanning TOS to Nemesis. Though played by Nimoy, if the JJ films also accept Enterprise as having happened, Nimoy's Spock in that movie could be from any other similar universe. "Canon" means that it is the official story that is accepted as not only having "really happened" but also revealing something of what they franchise is about. It does not prove that anything called "canon" is part of the Original Timeline, since the JJ films are "canon" to their universe. I may post that theory in another thread. In short, I feel that using size comparisons to the Crossfield any other class from the new show, or even size comparisons to the NX-01 do not reveal information that could help us know why the Constitution was retired and the Miranda stayed in production.
IMHO, yes to stay consistent with DSC. But keep in mind that all (future) ships will look different to reflect DSC's aesthetics. A sure sign you know you're in a different quantum universe is when things don't match up.
It was considered a hero ship and so it wasn't allowed to be shown on TV. Same goes for the Enterprise E. They had some really strange rules back then.
What hAppens to the sizes of the ships in a case in the briefing room? Leave it and assume DSC is in a close universe not the PU?
24th century Civilians should be able to build a (modified) Constitution Class ship for pleasure cruising, or civilian uses, like haulage or public transport, with a large enough industrial replicator.
I was watching The Mark of Gideon (TOS), and to my surprise, I think the reason there are no Constitution-class ships in TNG is revealed! The design was compromised, someone else had it. The Gideon-planet copy is so similar that Kirk does not realize that it is a fake for several hours. For him that is essentially having an imposter pose as his girlfriend and not noticing for several hours! A number of nearby episodes in Star Date order deal with capture of the Enterprise ("Day of the Dove", "The Time Trap",), and that was a major plot point of "The Enterprise Incident," not that much earlier. Klingons have been aboard and seen its tech. Romulans have been trying to study it for years, and maybe stole an early Star Ship design to make the BoP. And now, some random planet has an exact copy, or a captured lost cruiser rebuilt to look like the Enterprise. The admiral tells Spock not to beam down and start a war. A war with the constrained local population, or a war with another threatening power who wanted Gideon to be part of their government? It would be major egg-on-the-face of Starfleet to retire the Constitution right away, so they refitted it, changed it enough for security until its replacement, the Excelsior, could become a reality. The Miranda would be newer then, and stays around because it is different and re-configurable enough to keep it out of enemy hands. I also am one of the fans who favors imagining that many of the background Mirandas we see in DS9 are really Centaurs. Oh yeah, and... WHEN ADMIRAL MORROW SAYS THE ENTERPRISE IS 20 YEARS OLD, IT HAS BEEN JUST OVER 15 YEARS SINCE THIS EPISODE; HE'S NOT REFERRING TO THE REFIT, HE MEANS IT HAS BEEN ABOUT 20 YEARS SINCE THE DESIGN WAS COMPROMISED. HIS LINE FINALLY MAKES SENSE!! I love it when a lesser-known episode can take on some greater significance that makes it seem more important