Why no Constitution class ships in the 24th century?

[Unicron]

There's also the last mission in Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, where an old enemy of Kirk's gains power on his home planet and joins the Federation on purpose, solely to get revenge by having access to ship technology. He uses a Constitution to effectively be a false Enterprise and attack other vessels, though nobody seems to pick up on it easily.

 

[Mytran]

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

While I can't fully agree with your Gideon conclusion (Kirk was likely drugged out of his wits for most of the episode and Spock spotted the duplicate corridor as a fake straight away) I absolutely love the way you tie Morrow's statement into the countless times the Enterprise itself was compromised.

 

[blssdwlf]

Well, that and airships. Alternate timelines always seem to have a lot more zeppelins.

LOL... Totally!

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.

Have we seen the DSC Enterprise in battle yet in DSC? For all we know, DSC's Enterprise could wipe the floor with a dozen Klingon ships. They might have the same names but it's a different reality with different details.

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?

Yep A DSC Enterprise-D would be gargantuan with a briefing room to match in size

 

[DEWLine]

How did the government of Gideon get their hands on that much data on the Constitution class to begin with?

 

[DEWLine]

"...some random planet..." just barely on the outside of the Romulan Neutral Zone, if we assume that "Delta Dorado" in Worlds of the Federation was meant to be Delta Doradus. And is accepted as a valid location for Gideon...

http://whitten.org/index.php?x_c=11...ormal&image_size=2000&max_line=0&trek_names=1

 

[blssdwlf]

How did the government of Gideon get their hands on that much data on the Constitution class to begin with?

Well the episode describes the Feds have been negotiating with the Gideons long enough to request Kirk to personally come visit the planet. I'd say during all that negotiation time the Gideons scanned orbiting Federation starships (likely other Connies) to get enough details to build a fake version on the ground. Consider that the Gideons are able to shield their planetary activities from starship sensors it would suggest they have some better tech available to them.

 

[David cgc]

I mean, the replica isn't that impressive, technically. All they have to duplicate is the look, not how anything functions, and that could be done by, say, Hollywood set designers in the late 1960s.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

I mean, the replica isn't that impressive, technically. All they have to duplicate is the look, not how anything functions, and that could be done by, say, Hollywood set designers in the late 1960s.

LOL!

I agree with the poster who said Kirk is probably drugged. This adds a whole new dimension to the conversation on birth control and consent in that episode.

Very interesting though, the comment about Gideon being near the Neutral Zone. If that's true, even the highly detailed model could be a small threat if it fell into the wrong hands.

 

[blssdwlf]

Highly detailed but "completely inoperative" according to Spock.

IMO, it's only a threat if an adversary got a hold of the actual part to analyze and reverse engineer which is why the Romulans were so interested in capturing the Enterprise intact in "The Enterprise Incident".

 

[Kerock]

Maybe Kirk blew them all up by then

 

[Mytran]

I agree with the poster who said Kirk is probably drugged. This adds a whole new dimension to the conversation on birth control and consent in that episode.

Yep, that was me!
I assume it happened in the missing 9 minutes that Kirk can't account for. He beamed down into the council chamber, got drugged into unconsciousness, had the virus in his blood stolen and was beamed into the fake Transporter Room with the memory impairment drugs still in his system.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I've seen some fan-created Constitution-III class ships, circa early-24th-century, that are really nice.

I'd like to think there are still active Connies in the mid- to late-24th-century. Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they're not there, and mothballed vessels were probably pulled out of mothballs as crises hit (Wolf 359, the Dominion War).

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

I've seen some fan-created Constitution-III class ships, circa early-24th-century, that are really nice.

I'd like to think there are still active Connies in the mid- to late-24th-century. Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they're not there, and mothballed vessels were probably pulled out of mothballs as crises hit (Wolf 359, the Dominion War).

I'm inclined to like this solution, that many are still in service, with the odd sideways nacelles and huge cargo doors like on the desktop models in TNG. However, for dramatic purposes in ST:4, I always assumed that NCC-1701-A was the last new-build Constitution, and that this was why the 3-piece model kit said class: Enterprise when Scotty's diagrams said Constitution class: of Constitution class ships in service, the Enterprise was the only one.

 

[David cgc]

I've seen some fan-created Constitution-III class ships, circa early-24th-century, that are really nice.

I know there were a lot of issues with Star Trek Online's original ship models, but an aspect of the gamification that I liked was adding visible phaser strips and other 24th century detailing to the Constitution, Miranda, and other older ships. Those sorts of tweaks probably should've been on the "real" versions of the older ships used in the TNG-era shows. As it is, the only visible upgrades we saw were the Mirandas and Excelsiors having TNG-style always-on glowing nacelles rather than the only-lit-at-warp version from the movies.

 

[Dukhat]

I know there were a lot of issues with Star Trek Online's original ship models, but an aspect of the gamification that I liked was adding visible phaser strips and other 24th century detailing to the Constitution, Miranda, and other older ships. Those sorts of tweaks probably should've been on the "real" versions of the older ships used in the TNG-era shows. As it is, the only visible upgrades we saw were the Mirandas and Excelsiors having TNG-style always-on glowing nacelles rather than the only-lit-at-warp version from the movies.

While I agree with your logic, I think one of the reasons they didn't make changes like that was because they probably thought that the TOS films would continue to be produced for a far longer time than they actually were, so they would need the models unaltered for the 23rd century time period.

 

[Lord Other]

Throwing in my two cents.. From my perspective Albertese's conjecture to me would make perfect sense. With the aging Connie / Enterprise class starships from the first groups/blocks built reaching the end of their effective service lives, and newer build units (from circa 2271 onward) probably coming up for refit, I could see Starfleet seeing mothballing them as a viable option. The ships would go through an extensive review, and older vessels like Republic could be put into "Homefleet Training Vessel" status (like Enterprise before her), used as a part of a museum, or decommissioned and broken down to be recycled. Newer vessels I could see being put into a reserve fleet as a result of the Khitomer Accords- kept up and maintained, perhaps updated with experimental technology as test beds, but essentially docked unless needed. This would explain the Connie/Enterprise class wreckage in "The Best of Both Worlds" and easily explain where parts of the "Frankenstein Fleet" came from. Pun intended.

 

[Timo]

I mean, the replica isn't that impressive, technically. All they have to duplicate is the look, not how anything functions, and that could be done by, say, Hollywood set designers in the late 1960s.

And indeed the premise has grown significantly more acceptable with the years, after an initial notch.

1960s: Hey, it's an impressive duplicate, but this is scifi - they achieved it with some futuristic magic we need not worry about (even though we can understand the production limitation reasons behind it all). Perhaps we will have that magic in one or two centuries, too...? Naah. But no problem there.
1980s: We have little to do but debate Trek, so this looks utterly implausible, a stupid 1960s conceit (and production limitations just highlight how cheap and crappy this show was, in our 1980s terms).
2000s: What was the issue again? I could walk with my smartphone cam through Kirk's ship or browse the internet for interior pics, then have my computer perfectly reproduce the innards in glorious 3D; all I need future tech for is the construction phase plus a bit more computing power.
2020s: I really can't see the issue. Crowdsourcing with my neighbors (and suckering a few thousand fans for funds) I could 3D-print the whole thing in a weekend. Really, it would be utterly implausible if the Gideonites missed a detail!

Yep, that was me! I assume it happened in the missing 9 minutes that Kirk can't account for. He beamed down into the council chamber, got drugged into unconsciousness, had the virus in his blood stolen and was beamed into the fake Transporter Room with the memory impairment drugs still in his system.

Indeed, the drugging seems absolutely mandatory from the plot viewpoint. Plus, Kirk obviously isn't at his sharpest at any stage there. Odona could be whispering in his ear "Everything is perfect here, now isn't it?" and he'd readily agree. It's not as if he points out or hunts down specific telltales like the acid stain in the Mirror Universe desk - he just nods a lot to everything being fine.

But the choreography has to be a bit different. After all, it's a central plot point that Kirk was beamed to the fake starship, not to the chambers - it's by reusing the initial coordinates that guided Kirk's beaming that Spock locates the fake ship.

Why was that? Why not beam Kirk down to the council chambers? Perhaps because Gideon has no transporters, and the traffic jams are something horrid, so moving Kirk from there to the set in the allotted time would have been a chore. I mean, they had to excavate for the supposedly underground fake ship at some location not already taken by existing structures; the government cave might be one they would be willing to sacrifice, yes - but if that wasn't big enough, if other concerns dictated the excavation, then the coordinate subterfuge would be necessary.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

Wouldn't the replica have been good enough to have the hum of the ship so that Kirk didn't notice easily. Kirk's the type that would feel his ship through his feet and the hum in the air.

 

[Timo]

...And would expect that of his ship. So the two states of mind he can be in:

1) He feels it's all wrong, in which case perfection wouldn't help. He'd feel that way aboard his real ship, too, were that in the hands of the Gideonites. Or for no reason at all.
2) He feels it's all right, in which case imperfection won't matter. He'd try and feel at home anywhere, and only jarring mistakes in the execution would take him out of his reverie.

Kirk has a lot on his mind here. There's the gal, there's the fever, there's the aftereffect of the initial sedation and/or memory clouding, there's the possible additional drugs. All this could heighten the degree to which he gets stuck with 1 or 2. And we have plenty of precedent to our starship-operating or starship-commanding heroes trusting their ship over their colleagues (especially oddly absent ones). Perhaps Kirk hangs on to the certainty of being aboard his own ship while exploring the other, more possible ways in which the universe can have gone so badly wrong.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

But the choreography has to be a bit different. After all, it's a central plot point that Kirk was beamed to the fake starship, not to the chambers - it's by reusing the initial coordinates that guided Kirk's beaming that Spock locates the fake ship.

Why was that? Why not beam Kirk down to the council chambers? Perhaps because Gideon has no transporters, and the traffic jams are something horrid, so moving Kirk from there to the set in the allotted time would have been a chore.

Hmm, good point. I guess they did some impromptu medical treatment on the floor of the transporter room, then leaned him up against the wall legged it before he woke up.