The new/old Enterprise shouldn't be NX-01. It doesn't have to be the very first starship. Maybe the first successful starship. Sort of like the first landing on the moon was by Apollo 11, not the ill-fated Apollo 1. Or how Daystrom explained that multitronic units one through four were failures, hence M-5. There should have been some lost ships and some test vehicles earlier in the series if interstellar travel is still as wondrous and dicey as it's supposed to be here. It doesn't make sense that Earth gets it right the very first time, even if the Vulcans helped.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Well, I would say that there absolutely had to be other ships before the Enterprise in service, as Starfleet at this time had been in operation for about 15 years I believe. The only explanation being that they used a different registry system, previous ships may have been in the fashion of 'UES Magellan NCN-103', or something like that, for example...
The NX-01 is simply the beginning of a new phase of starship for Earth Starfleet. That's how I see it.
Posted by MeGotBeer (Member # 411) on :
Cochrane apparently got the warp engine working the first time he took it up to test 'er out.
I don't see you bitching about that, now do I?
Posted by Reginald Barclay (Member # 594) on :
Okay, you want me to "bitch"?
Cochrane had the first successful manned warp flight. We know nothing about the rest of the era. It's like saying the Wright Brothers did fine with their first flight. What about all the other guys who died after plunging off cliffs with their homemade wings? Or haven't you seen all the black and white films from the turn of the century?
On top of that, you don't know if Cochrane did any unmanned tests. You know nothing of Cochrane's past. Where was he born? What was he before he became mankind's savior? Maybe he did send up an unmanned test vehicle. Maybe it succeeded and he never saw it again. Maybe it exploded and he had nothing left to test but the Phoenix. Remember, he had very few materials. It took months for Lily to scrounge up enough titanium for the cockpit. How many Titan missiles do you think he had at his disposal? Starfleet is a different matter. They'd be stupid not to test things out thoroughly before sending a full crew out into the unknown.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Completely agreed. This is why I said, in my opinion, that the Enterprise is not the first Starship. Just the first that utilizes this registry system.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
They're probably going to explain exactly how this ship fits into the grand scheme of Earth ship up until this point fairly early on in the series guys... As Qui-Gon said, "We should be patient."
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:The new/old Enterprise shouldn't be NX-01. It doesn't have to be the very first starship.
I believe, from what's been stated so far, that the Enterprise is the first starship to utilize a Warp 5 engine. Presumably there are other Starfleet starships with slower engines already in use which weren't experimental prototypes. However, I do see your point. Allowing a crew to go gallivanting around a dangerous galaxy in the only prototype Warp 5 ship in Starfleet is stretching reality a little. If anything, I would have made several prototypes, not just one.
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
BTW: Anyone knows if they're going to use the TOS warp scale or the TNG scale?
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
I don't think anyone does. Of course, given the fact that writers have only ever invoked those warp scales when they needed to drop-in a number that had little relevance on the story rather than religiously adhering to them when laying out a plot, I don't think it's really been a big issue.
As for Enterprise being the first Earth starship with a Warp 5 engine and this being unwise and the whole bit, I think it's unreasonable to translate such a description into meaning that the engine system onboard is totally untested and Enterprise is the first man-man object to reach such speeds. It's quite likely that they've shot a whole manner of test vessels, probably both manned and unmanned, to such speeds. Enterprise, however, is the first fully-equipped starship that can use such an engine to actually carry a full crew and equipment load "out there" beyond previous distance limits.