Wow, I just got it! NX-01

[Commodore_Rook]

Wow, I can't believe it just occured to me: Not only was the ship called Enterprise and ties into the legacy of Star Trek, but even the number: NX-(01) ties into the NCC-17(01)! I never figured the connection and was so obvious! Duh!

I was just thinking why did they number it "01" and I saw the connection! Funny how these revelations just pop into your head when you least expect them! lol

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

Wow, I can't believe it just occured to me: Not only was the ship called Enterprise and ties into the legacy of Star Trek, but even the number: NX-(01) ties into the NCC-17(01)! I never figured the connection and was so obvious! Duh!

I was just thinking why did they number it "01" and I saw the connection! Funny how these revelations just pop into your head when you least expect them! lol

They also did the '01' because it was the first ship. I saw the connection ages ago, when first aired here in the UK.

 

[Saquist]

I personally don't think so.
If they did it was lame.

 

[PsychoPere]

You're really reaching here. NX previously was used to denote an experimental ship; when the ship was moved to full production after the experimental design was approved, the NX was redesignated to NCC (example: U.S.S. Excelsior, NX-2000 to NCC-2000). In ENT, NX-01 arose from the NX Project, Earth Starfleet's efforts to break the warp two barrier (NX-Alpha, NX-Beta, and NX-Delta). In the case of NX-01 specifically, the class itself was called the NX-class and Enterprise was assigned the NX-01 registry because it was the first ship of that class. When Columbia, the second of the NX-class ships, was launched, it was assigned the registry NX-02. I highly doubt there was any decision to give it an NX-"01" registry because Kirk's Enterprise had a registry of NCC-17"01." The "01" in the registry of the Enterprise in this series was simply due to that ship being Earth's first warp 5 starship.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I seriously doubt the class names, test ships and all the related technobabble was invented prior to the producers and writers giving Enterprise the number "NX-01". They did it because, first and foremost, it sounded cool and they came up with the backstory, and how it fits into Trek lore, later on. It's much like the name "DVD" being picked because it sounded cool and futuristic. They came up with what it stood for later on (hence either Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc)

Wasn't Matt Jeffries' original plan for NCC-1701, that it was supposed to be the first ship (01) of the seventeenth (17) starship model? I know that never made it to the series itself (thanks to the recycled "1701" decals being rearranged "1017" for the Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine"), but still...

 

[od0_ital]

Wow, I can't believe it just occured to me: Not only was the ship called Enterprise and ties into the legacy of Star Trek, but even the number: NX-(01) ties into the NCC-17(01)! I never figured the connection and was so obvious! Duh!

I was just thinking why did they number it "01" and I saw the connection! Funny how these revelations just pop into your head when you least expect them! lol

Took ya long enough, geez...

 

[PsychoPere]

I seriously doubt the class names, test ships and all the related technobabble was invented prior to the producers and writers giving Enterprise the number "NX-01". They did it because, first and foremost, it sounded cool and they came up with the backstory, and how it fits into Trek lore, later on. [...]

You're right, I also reached with unnecessarily bringing the NX Project backstory into the situation. Looking back at that post now, I can't recall why I even added all of those details. The bottom-line situation would be the old standby of experimental ships from previous movies and ships having NX registries, and this was Earth's first warp 5 ship, so logically it became NX-01.

 

[I am Surak]

Psychopere is right. The "X" or "Y" classification is used by all defense contractors for their experimental airplanes. It is only logical that the writers/producers used 20th century standards in naming the first warp 5 technology ship.
Production models usually get alpha numerical designations with NCC-1701 being the "C" type version of the production series. The second "C" designates the third improvement of the "C" version and 1701 being the production number.
After several improvements the ship would no longer be a "C" type and the next ship built would then be NDA-01.

 

[Commodore_Rook]

My next question is, why did they make it the "NX" class??? To confuse us all or to tie it in as a nod? I know the NX class has nothing to do with say NX-2000 Excelsior, but did they do it on purpose to use NX as a nod to the past NX program and use NX for all future experimental prototypes or was it just a happy coincidence??

 

[Commodore_Rook]

Another little tie-in is the Space Shuttle Enterprise (OV-101) is yet another "01" ship with the name Enterprise!!

 

[P0sitr0nic]

NCC... C is the 3rd letter... so, N 3 3 ... NX... X is the 24th letter.

1701 ... 17, + 3 + 3 + 01, is 24, the X!

It all makes sense!!!

 

[PsychoPere]

Wasn't Matt Jeffries' original plan for NCC-1701, that it was supposed to be the first ship (01) of the seventeenth (17) starship model?[...]

Memory Alpha's Registry entry does cite that, yes. It also says that, in the real world, "N" is a U.S. origin code, with "C" indicating a civilian aircraft; Jeffries added the second "C" for aesthetics.

My next question is, why did they make it the "NX" class??? To confuse us all or to tie it in as a nod? I know the NX class has nothing to do with say NX-2000 Excelsior, but did they do it on purpose to use NX as a nod to the past NX program and use NX for all future experimental prototypes or was it just a happy coincidence??

Most likely to provide an in-universe "nod" and origin to the use of NX as an experimental designation on the future in-universe ships that we had already seen from a production standpoint.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Plus, TOS had established older ships having similar class names, like the DY-class (Khan's ship) and the J-class (Pike was crippled on one while saving cadets).

 

[Timo]

...Although whether those were "real" letter codes or just shorthand for more traditional names, we can't tell.

That is, if somebody today mentioned the NY class of ships, my first assumption would be that this refers to the New York class. J class? More probably Jay class!

For all we know, DY is a letter pair that by the Trek 1990s has gained a standing similar to NY or UK or US or CK or BP: any man of the street can immediately expand the shorthand to the original length, at least in the correct context. Since the DY class appeared at a time when Earth was undergoing great deviations from "our" timeline, namely the Eugenics Wars, the letter pair might have gained a special significance at that time. Perhaps it comes from the first letters of Khan's capital city? Perhaps from the name of his movement? And that's ignoring the most obvious origin, namely the name of the company that built the series.

It might be a tad difficult to establish Archer's ship as being of the Annex class at this point, I guess. But "NX class" might be similar to "AEGIS class" today, not a "real" class name as such but merely an alternative designation that matches or overlaps one or more "conventionally" named ship classes such as Ticonderoga, Arleigh Burke, Fridtjof Nansen or Alvaro de Bazan or Kongo.

Psychopere is right. The "X" or "Y" classification is used by all defense contractors for their experimental airplanes. It is only logical that the writers/producers used 20th century standards in naming the first warp 5 technology ship.

To be sure, X is used for purely experimental planes that will never see any practical use, while Y goes for prototypes of aircraft that will hopefully see production and operational use some day. (Although originally X and Y went to competing prototypes... And some of that thinking might have remained when TOS was written.) And N is used for aircraft that began their life as "regular" ones but assumed a permanent testbed status later on, while J goes for nonpermanent testbed status.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

Well, we do know that in the 24th century SF uses NX as a designation for experimental class of starships.
Having a ship being called 'NX class' could mean that it wasn't until the Federation was founded that SF decided to exclusively use the NX for experimental class ships (the first ones that is, whose names usually become the designation of the new class of ships).
Pre-Federation StarFleet would be able to use the NX designation for whatever they wanted.

I don't see a problem really.
Besides, the NX class from the mid 22nd century might have been retired pretty soon after the founding of the Federation with but a few being built overall (unless the retrofit that Doug Drexler released with the secondary hull allowed the design to exceed Warp 5.2... which it probably would with but sufficient advances to the SIF).

If the build time was to be taken into account (the one we got from the show itself) it would take SF (after the whole Columbia being stuck in drydock due to engine trouble) roughly 3 years to construct one.

Leaving StarFleet to construct only about 2 more before founding the Federation if they were making them one at a time and not simultaneously (though we do know they have more than one construction yard in orbit, leaving us with the most likely explanation that after 2154 and before 2161, there were a lot more of the NX class ships out there in addition to smaller ships fighting the war with Romulans).

 

[Timo]

Well, we do know that in the 24th century SF uses NX as a designation for experimental class of starships.

Not quite. The United Earth Starfleet uses it for an operational class of starships. Which happens to be an explorer class of starships, supposedly the first ever for the UESF. So there we have an alternate explanation for the letter X in combination with the number 01...

In contrast, one would assume that the UESF had by that point had plenty of experimental ships, some of them one-offs, some prototypes for the many ship classes we witnessed in UESF use. The Warp Five Explorer should have been something like NX-72, then, rather than NX-01!

Besides, the NX class from the mid 22nd century might have been retired pretty soon after the founding of the Federation with but a few being built overall

The NX-01 design might have proven to be a dud, really. If she were the first-ever operational incarnation of the Warp Five drive, the second incarnation would probably be worlds above her in every respect. It wouldn't be difficult to accept the idea that not only NX-01 but the entire class would be retired by the time of "TAtV", and that it would have lingered that long only because the Romulan War called for it to.

(Incidentally, if NX-01 were formally considered to be "Enterprise class", as the systematic designation would go today and supposedly in the UFP Starfleet, and if it survived past 2161 and transferred from UE to UFP, then we'd have a nice explanation as to why none of the UFPSF Enterprises have been the first ships of their respective classes: the class name has already been "used up"!)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

One more time.

In the 23rd - 24th Century, the ship registry prefixes go thusly:

N = Federation
CC = Starfleet vessel
X = Experimental prototype
AR = Civilian research vessel

There are a few others, but you get the point.

22nd Century ships don't use this system. The registry prefix indicates the starship class. Prior to the NX class, there was NW, NV, etc., etc., with the number indicating which one off the production line the particular ship is.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I read in a Novel once that "April's" Enterprise was so far off the mark from the design specifications of the NCC 1700, that they had to call it the NCC 1701.

Voyager's fourth season finale had a fake Starfleet vessel in it called the Dauntless. It's registry number was Nx-01-a.

 

[Timo]

AR = Civilian research vessel

Or Starfleet VIP shuttle, as in ST6.

Prior to the NX class, there was NW, NV, etc

Never mentioned, nor implied. In fact, when other UE Starfleet hardware is referred to, we hear the names Neptune class and Triton class, but never a letter-code designation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

When Enterprise makes it back to Earth under fire, the ships that came to her aid had registries of NV and NW.

As for the TOS ship having 1701 as her registry number, that only means she was the next one in line after 1700. I'd think that would be bloody obvious.