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Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Hey, I was just watchin' TSFS and I found that in addition to the Hermes, Saladin, and Ptolemy classes, we've also seen those 'Transport Container' things too.

In the beginning, right as Kirk is pacing the bridge and his voice-over is saying "The death of spock is like an open wound..." he walks by a female technician who's looking up at a screen. Just as Kirk's body blocks the view, the screen switches to a side view of the ptolemy, w/ cargo module in tow. It's still visible as his body passes out of the way.

This is the pic from FJ's technical manual from the page w/ all the ships in profile together. So, from this we know:

1. That the modules are indeed called "Transport Containers"
2. That the one in tow of that particular Ptolemy is numbered NCC-4000.
3. All that 'Mk. I, Mk. II, etc.' info from that page.

Any-who, that's just a little tidbit I thought I'd share. Now I can add NCC-4000 to my ship list.

Oh, BTW, there's another little thing:
We had confirmation thet the Enterprise and her sister ships were Constitution-class vessels long before TNG or STVI.

In the scene where Chekov is looking at a display of the Ent, when they're tracking down the disturbance in Spock's quarters, the first screen shown is the page from FJ's Tech. Man. The display reads:

CLASS I HEAVY CRUISER
Constitution-class Starships

Pretty neat, huh? Oh, and BTW, I along w/a lot of others have noticed something a little funny about that display. It's the original configuration Connie, rather than the refit! (Of course, this can just be explained by the fact that the computer just uses the same display it always has for that particular function, so it doesn't indicate the fact that the configuartion of the ship has changed.)

-MMoM

Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

I don't like the idea, that a transport container gets a registry.

[ July 23, 2001: Message edited by: Spike ]

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Yeah, but I guess we really don't know all that much about the internal workings of the system. They say 'Starfleet Transport Command' on them, so there's obviously some sort of special branch/etc that we don't know the specifics of.

Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :

You have a knack for finding info, Mim. And if Data's scout ship can have it's own registry, so can a cargo pod.

Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

quote:
. And if Data's scout ship can have it's own registry, so can a cargo pod.

Well, but that's a ship and the other is just a container.

Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :

Well, that is correct, except you need something to keep track of the pods.
Hold on--NCC-4000? That's a bit high for the time period. And I think it should have a different registry prefix, like NAR-4000 or something.

Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

We could say it's the container of a Ptolemy-class vessel with the registry NCC-4000.

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Except that the Ptolemy towing it is NCC-3801.

Oh wait, you mean say it's a different ships pod, right? I get it now.

Anyways, NCC-4000 isn't much more of a stretch than the NCC-3801 we already accept as the Ptolemy.

I've recently been thinking about that Scoutship, BTW. It might not be an actual ship all it's own. It might be just an auxiliary, a glorified shuttle. I nthat case, the registry would be the mother ship's. The Ticonderoga, perhaps?

Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :

And who the heck says that the designation of Constitution-class is TNG-era? I knew that before TNG started.

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

I remember discussing the possibility that the Scout ship actually belonged to the Ticonderoga. Even so, it should have had a name. It appeared to be warp capable and just as much a starship as a Danube Class runabout.

Posted by Mr. Christopher (Member # 71) on :

Excellent deduction, Orlinger! Too bad someone else has suggested that before.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Can we get some screencaps of the NCC-4000 number? I want to be sure it was actually on screen, and that it wasn't cut off like the Hermes, Saladin, and Ptolemy names were...

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

Some of the transport containers were actually "Starliners," self-contained ships all their own with impulse drive, deflector dishes and a main bridge. They could be used as lifeboats if something were to happen to the tug. I don't see a problem with registry in this case, as it is a ship.

Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :

Here are my thoughts:
1. The container registry was made up by the authors for that ship, because at the time they didn't know better.
2. The scoutship probably wasn't from the Ticonderoga, but part of that expedition who were monitoring the Ba'ku. According to the novel, the Ticonderoga was dispatched to the planet sometime after the beginning. I also believe the scout ship should have a name, but none is apparent.

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Thank you, Marshal Veers.

I had just thought Ticonderoga because that's the only ship we know of from Insurrection. Oh, well.

Vogon Poet: IIRC, the designation Constitution-class first appeared in the FJ technical manual. However, it wasn't canonically confirmed (said on screen) until some episode of TNG. It was also on a diagram of the Ent-A in TUC. (The one Scotty was looking at in the galley.)

But as I said, it was also in STIII.

Fabrux: I know I'm not the first to think of it, thank you.

TSN: The registry isn't exactly visible on screen, but we know it's there because the display is of this picture from the technical manual.

Dukkie: Yeah, that was kinda cool, the way they had the sensor dish on the front and the Impulse modules on the back. Too bad THAT wasn't on a display. It's also a constant torture to me that we have seen all of this stuff, BUT NOT THE FEDERATION-CLASS DREADNOUGHT!!!!! The closest we've come is hearing about one of them (The U.S.S. Entente NCC-2120) in TMP.

[ July 23, 2001: Message edited by: The Mighty Monkey of Mim ]

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Monkey: Perhaps you forgot to finish reading my post. I'm well aware of what registry was on the diagram in the book. But whether that part of the diagram was on the screen or cut off is another matter entirely.

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

How can it be cut off? It's right smack in the middle of the picture! It isn't like off to the side where it would be 'cut off.' It couldn't be cut off without a chunk out of the middle of the screen being missing.

Or did you mean that the movie guys might have removed the registry? Let's face it, they didn't bother to modify those pictures at all. They just backlit them and flashed them on the screen.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

I mean I don't know how big the screen is compared to the picture. For all I know, the only things visible could be the saucer, the pylons, and the very front tip of the pod...

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

It is also possible to say that the registry of the ship was in fact NCC-380 and the pod read "Ed's Removals". It boils down to the resolution of the image - if it's below the grain size of the original film, then no matter of future
technowizardy can prove that the screen originally read NCC-4000.

However, I currently prefer the idea that the first container on that configuration was actually a starship of its own, one of those fancy starliners, whereas the later containers were just registry-less shells...

(bear in mind that we don't know what a starliner looks like, until we spot that specific page of FJ's manual on some movie background display!)

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Hey, weren't 'Starliners' mentioned in TNG one ep?

Posted by targetemployee (Member # 217) on :

An unnamed starliner is mentioned in "Too Short a Season".

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

quote:
It's also a constant torture to me that we have seen all of this stuff, BUT NOT THE FEDERATION-CLASS DREADNOUGHT!!!!! The closest we've come is hearing about one of them (The U.S.S. Entente NCC-2120) in TMP.

Well, that all depends on how you view canonicity in the absence of an actual sight of a described ship. The usual definition of "canon" as it pertains to most people here is: If the ship in question appeared on the screen, then it exists, therefore it is official.

Now there could have been an episode of TOS where Kirk or Spock described how a dreadnought looks in vivid detail, but the ship dosn't get shown. How do you deal with that canon-wise? As far as I'm concerned, we already have good evidence of the dreadnought being canon without it being seen.

1. Both the Columbia & the Revere are mentioned by name and registry. Although not seen, these are taken right from FJ's manual.

2. Three (or four if you count the starliner) of FJ's ship classes, including the classes of the two aforementioned ships, are seen on a display.

3. The name of one dreadnought (U.S.S. Entente) and it's corresponding registry is spoken in dialogue. True, it could be a different design than what was shown in the manual, but why? The other ships were the same designs.

IMO, the Federation class dreadnought Entente, and its corresponding design in FJ's manual, is canon.

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Well, there's a problem with that. Here is all the canonical info we know from the FJ Technical Manual:

-Scout USS Columbia, NCC-621
(Source: TMP)

-Scout USS Revere, NCC-595
(Source: TMP)

-Dreadnought USS Entente, NCC-2120
(Source: TMP)

-Class One Destroyer USS Saladin, NCC-500, Saladin-class, and the design and technical specifications thereof. (Source: TWOK)

-Class One Scout USS Hermes, NCC-585, Hermes-class, and the design and technical specifications thereof. (Source: TWOK)

-Class One Transport/Tug USS Ptolemy, NCC-3801, Ptolemy-class, and the design and technical specifications thereof. (Source: TWOK)

-Transport Container NCC-4000, and the design and technical specifications thereof. (Source: TSFS)

You see, we don't know class information for any of the TMP ships. None of their info in the technical manual other than thier types, names, and numbers was in the film. Even though the MAnual says that the Revere was a Hermes-class and the Columbia was a Cygnus-class, and the Entente was a Federation-class, that info isn't canonical because it wasn't in the film. And while the designs of all the ships portrayed in the manual except the Dreadnought were seen on screens in TWOK and TSFS, the Dreadnought herself was not.

However, I am still very interested to know more about the 'Dreadnought' seen in an episode of TAS, which might be the key to matching it with a canonical design. Anybody?

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

That was my point: It depends on how you view things, and how loosely or definitively you define "canon". Some people here don't put any stock in ship diagrams on display screens because the actual studio "model" of the ship was not seen. The same goes for desktop models for set decoration. I, on the other hand, am very liberal when it comes to these things. The simple fact that they mentioned the Entente makes it canon to me.

IIRC, the TAS dreadnought looked exactly like a Constitution. Someone here made a statement that the episode it was featured in gave the impression that the ship was scaled up ten or twenty times, though. Utter hogwash, of course. That would have made it at least as big as the Enterprise-D, not to mention the inherent problems with upscaling.

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

quote:
Some people here don't put any stock in ship diagrams on display screens because the actual studio "model" of the ship was not seen. The same goes for desktop models for set decoration. I, on the other hand, am very liberal when it comes to these things.

As am I. However, it's not exactly being 'liberal.' Anything seen on screen in any form is canon. Those who say displays and desktop models aren't canon are simply wrong.

quote:
The simple fact that they mentioned the Entente makes it canon to me.

The Entente IS canonical. So is its designation of Dreadnought, and its registry number. But NOT the class designation of Federation-class, and NOT the design as portrayed in the Technical Manual. These things were not mentioned/heard onscreen in ANY form. They appear ONLY in the FJ Technical Manual, which is a non-canon source.

As much as I'd like to see it canon, it just hasn't happened yet. Some future film or episode may make it canon, though, and I'd very much like that.

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

quote:
Those who say displays and desktop models aren't canon are simply wrong.

In your opinion.

Without starting a major argument, I really do see your point. I even agree with it, to an extent. And that extent is, sometimes you can't always take what you see as literal canon. If you did, then those names on the Excelsior's dedication plaque also being on the plaque of a ship built one hundred years later is kind of stretching things

Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

There were no names on the Excelsior's Dedication Plaque.

Plaques without names:
Enterprise
Enterprise-A
Excelsior
Hathaway
Tsiolkovsky

Plaques with names:
Brattain
Defiant
Enterprise-B
Enterprise-D
Enterprise-E
Pasteur
Phoenix
Prometheus (the class ship)
Relativity
Sao Paulo
Sutherland
Valiant
Voyager

Gene Roddenberry for example disappeard on the newer plaques IIRC. A Gene Roddenberry was Chief of Staff in 2293 but arround 2345 Les Landau was Chief of Staff. On the 2360's plaques it's again Gene Roddenberry. This could be another GR or the same from 2293. If he is the same, he will be between 80 and 130 years old. But who knows? Maybe his mother was a Vulcan.

SCNR

[ August 15, 2001: Message edited by: Spike ]

Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :

quote:
-Class One Destroyer USS Saladin, NCC-500, Saladin-class, and the design and technical specifications thereof. (Source: TWOK)
-Class One Scout USS Hermes, NCC-585, Hermes-class, and the design and technical specifications thereof. (Source: TWOK)
-Class One Transport/Tug USS Ptolemy, NCC-3801, Ptolemy-class, and the design and technical specifications thereof. (Source: TWOK)
-Transport Container NCC-4000

As someone mentioned before (IIRC it was TSN) some information were cut off.

[ August 15, 2001: Message edited by: Spike ]

Posted by Stingray (Member # 621) on :

The other problem with the Adm Gene Roddenbarry thing is that he was in charge of radically different designs in separate shipyards.

You have to just accept some things as tributes to be ignored; Tasha Yar waving from the shuttle bay, 47, and the Admiral Gene Roddenberry.

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Just what's wrong with an Admiral Roddenberry, or several? It could have been his freaking son. There was also a Captain Gene Roddenberry, commander of the V.K. Velikan, a DY-1200 class vessel launched in 2160 on a mission to explore
strange new worlds. (Source: "Up the Long Ladder" [TNG]) An ancestor, obviously. Just about everything can be explained, and you can't just say "it isn't canon" because you don't want to put the effort into it.

On the whole, it's very un-Trekkie like.

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

quote:
IIRC, the TAS dreadnought looked exactly like a Constitution. Someone here made a statement that the episode it was featured in gave the impression that the ship was scaled up ten or twenty times, though. Utter hogwash, of course. That would have made it at least as big as the Enterprise-D, not to mention the inherent problems with upscaling.

The Dreadnought was an inflatable ship (?) created by the Enterprise's computer, while under the influence of some strange nebula. She was a lot bigger:
http://www.mainengineering.hispeed.com/tas_pj_11.jpg
As to why the Enterprise would be carrying huge inflatable versions of herself, I guess it has something to do with Halloween
(one interesting side-note: a novelization of this episode made the Dreadnought into a Federation class...)

And for your amusement:
http://www.mainengineering.hispeed.com/tas_pj_09.jpg

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

For the interested:
"Velikan" turned out to be 'spirit' or 'giant' in Croatian, so at least the name of the ship makes sense.

The only thing I can find about V.K. is that it seems to be some amateur radio prefix concerned with Australia

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

quote:
Just about everything can be explained, and you can't just say "it isn't canon" because you don't want to put the effort into it.
On the whole, it's very un-Trekkie like.

Again, as I said before, in your opinion.

Fabrux was correct when he said that you're just going to have to accept the fact that not everyone here will agree with your sweeping generalizations, no matter how right you think you are, or even that I may think you are.

That's all I will say about this.

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Hey, was there a reg on that balloon or was it just "1701"?

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

I would suspect that the nacelle registry was framed out of this shot, and the saucer one certainly cannot be seen. And the shot here does not conclusively show a size difference - we'd need to see the shot where the balloon inflates to catch the registry or the true size. Anybody have those pics available? MainEngineering doesn't, AFAIK, nor does Curt Danhauser's site.

In any case, the Alan Dean Foster novelisations take a few liberties with all the episodes. For example, this dreadnought here is indeed specified to be Federation class in the novelisation, but it is also told to have three nacelles, just like the FJ design.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Belay that. Curt's site does have a picture that apparently comes from a later point of the inflation sequence, and it proves that the saucer of the balloon ship indeed reads "NCC-1701 USS Enterprise". Go and see here.

Oh, and the size of the balloon is still inconclusive. Only episode dialogue would make it clear whether the balloon was bigger than the real ship at all.

Timo Saloniemi

[ August 16, 2001: Message edited by: Timo ]

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

So that dummy balloon ship wasn't actually referred to as a dreadnought in the episode, it was only a duplicate of the Enterprise (albeit with a reddish tint instead of the Enterprise's blue)?

So much for on-screen evidence of a dreadnought...

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

HeHe. Oh well...

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

I personally like Boris Vallejo's design:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0671038524.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :

Ok guys.
Mike Okuda's office.
Find the tapes he plans to put in the monitors for the backgrounds in Star Trek: Nemesis.
Make a tape of Federation-class schematics.
Sneak it on the lot of the movie, its get played

We can see a dreadnought behind the [edit]'s head, and boom, We... Are.. CANON!!!
*laughs insanely for about twelve minutes before being ejected from the computer lab*

[ST10 spoiler removed -TSN]

[ September 06, 2001: Message edited by: TSN ]

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

Are you bored, Mike?

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

"We can see a dreadnought behind the [edit]'s head, and boom, We... Are.. CANON!!!"

At this point, I am 5 seconds away from screaming very loudly, tracking you down, and beating you to death with a very large stick. You stupid, stupid twat.

[ST10 spoiler removed -TSN]

[ September 06, 2001: Message edited by: TSN ]

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

What's the matter w/you, Psy? How very unbecoming of a FRIGGING STAND-UP COMEDIAN such as yourself.

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

Captain Mike: Let me explain what you did, and what TSN did. In your post about trying to make the dreadnought canon, you inadvertently made a comment about something in Star Trek X which is called a "spoiler." Some people here do not want to know any information, rumors or truths, about things Star Trek because they would rather wait and be surprised when they actually watch the show or movie. So TSN edited your comment.

Spoiler warnings: Read it, learn it , live it.

Posted by Stingray (Member # 621) on :

Whew, thanks for the save, TSN.

::scowls at CaptainMike::

grr...

Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :

Sorry

Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :

Didn't have to call me a twat though, did you?

Posted by MeGotBeer (Member # 411) on :

NCC-1305-E is the correct registry!!!!!

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

I am the most lovable person in the world.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Which makes it kind of odd that you don't even come close to being the most loved. You might be in the top billion, though...

Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :

Woo.!!!!

We're not the worst...!!!

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Pft. Everyone loves me.

Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :

Forgive him. He is under the the misguided impression that he is some kind of FRIGGING STAND-UP COMEDIAN!

-MMoM

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Correction. A lovable friggin' stand-up comedian.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Is that like your misguided impression that that joke is anything even remotely resembling humorous?

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Ooh, handbags.

(from Liam, your friendly, neighbourhood, lovable, humourous stand-up comedian.)

("Humourous" looks wrong. But so does "humorous". Why does God taunt me like this? With words that look wrong? Why?)