quote:

---

Originally posted by Irishman:
Yeah, I think Reverend did those for the ASDB site. He did a TOS version and then imagined what a TMP-era refit might have looked like. To me, that makes it look too much like a large Starfleet ship. I wonder if it might ought to look more simple and less greebly?

---

Correct.
This one took allot of figuring out on the part of the ASDB team since it presents such a perculiar problem.
To reconcile all the conflicting descriptions, we decided to adapt the concordence sketch into a sort of "surveyor transport", which is basically a surveyor equipped to handle reletivly large cargo loads for long journeys and/or to resupply distant outposts with new sensor systems, probes, whathave you. Primerally though, it was meant to be a surveyor. image 1
regarding the size, it's actually smaller than you might think. As can be seen in this here scale chart.
image 2
As for the refit, the thinking there was to kill two birds with one stone and have this Antares be the prototype for the Antares-Class, of which the Hermes was a later version of. It seamed to fit ok, what with the Redemption fleet being a bit rag-tag and past it, an old surveyor would fit in there nicely.

[ January 09, 2005, 10:32 PM: Message edited by: TSN ]
 

---

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
OTOH, it could also be that the ship was solely a freight mover, and "Science Probe Vessel" (note capitals) is similar to "United Starship" or "Her Majesty's Ship". That is, the "Science Probe" thing is merely a partial spelling-out of UESPA, the operating organization of that vessel. The Enterprise would also be a Science Probe vessel in that sense, at least in "Charlie X" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday"...

That would only leave the "surveyor" part, which might mean the ship was sent on a survey errand - for which she was apparently ill equipped, failing to note the Thasians or anything.

Not that I'd consider her an Antares class transport anyway. That would be way too much of a coincidence!

Timo Saloniemi
 

---

Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
 
Since the crew weren't wearing current Starfleet uniforms, but rather uniforms of some type, is it possible they held some sort of semi-official status? Starfleet (or Federation) Merchant Marine, perhaps?
 

---

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
I'd rather not "disqualify" the "Where No Man.." uniforms that way. There's no way an "unofficial" service would be allowed to wear outdated Starfleet uniforms and their rank insignia aboard a Starfleet ship - Kirk would surely have arrested Ramart for the offense! So Ramart's tunic would have to be non-Starfleet, meaning "WNMHGB" never happened.

Instead, I'd go the other way and try and minimize any discontinuities between the two uniform styles. The presence of two uniform styles would be no different from the presence of two styles in TNG seasons 3-4 or DS9 and VOY. I'd even go as far as saying that the rank braid schemes are identical... Both Captain Kirk in "WNMHGB" and Captain Ramart in "Charlie X" would hold the rank of Commander. (Incidentally, that would make Ramart Kirk's junior, as is proper, while Ramart in all likelihood should have superiority by service years if they both were Captains)

Timo Saloniemi
 

---

Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
 
Hm. That would mean that Spock and others in "WNMHGB" would hold the rank of lieutenant...
Say, that's just crazy enough to work!
 

---

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
I tend to agree with Timo's suggestion (possibly not about the rank scheme, but about the uniform's in general).

If it took 2 years for the flagship of the Federation to get enough collar-equipped uniforms to clothe the entire crew, I can see a old falling apart ship taking even longer in the 23rd century to get the latest duds.

(Even then, I tend to assume that the with-collar jumpsuit and the with collar two piece uniforms were really the same thing, as it's the only way to explain Wesley and O'Brien having them. But that's another topic.)
 

---

Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
 
I always assumed the Antares from TOS could have been the prototype of the often mentioned Antares-class (those triangular Alien-of-the-week-ships). It would make sense that races like the Bajorans buy some old Starfleet cargo vessels after the occupation and create a merchant fleet.
Take the triangular ship and replace the boxy nacelles with old TOS nacelles, adjust the color a bit and you have a good old-fashioned Starfleet transport. Furthermore, the Aurora was of a (somewhat) triangular shape so the idea isn't too far-fetched.
 

---

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
But do we really want to say that every USS Foobar we see is the flagship of Foobar class?

That goes against the wisdom that whenever you introduce a ship with cool name A, you have the ship be of a class that has a cool name B, so you get two cool names with the price of one...

Plus, it IS something of an odd coincidence.

Timo Saloniemi
 

---

Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
 
Maybe Starfleet likes the name Antares.
 

---

Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 
I'll be the first to admit that from a continuity standpoint, the Charlie-X Antares being the class prototype for the Hermes is a little convenient.
However, if you look at it from another perspective, is it such a huge coincidence that an old Surveyor that crossed paths with the old E-Nil ONCE was the first in a class that included a late ship built late in the run (early 24thC) that would cross paths with another Enterprise about a century after the original Antares was destroyed?
In the history of Trek there are a great many events that are even greater coincidences than this, if indeed it even qualifies as coincidence.
For instance, the fact that Scotty just happens to be found by the Enterprise or that Cochrane encounters both Picard and Kirk's crew? Or that just about every time traveller from the 23rd & 24th Century that we've seen has ended up on 20th Century earth? Or that ships such as Bozeman or Hood keep cropping up in the company of the Enterprise of the day? Or that Kang, Kor and Koloth just happen to be the main Klingon adversaries in TOS and also turn up later together on DS9? Or that Khan just happens to be found by Chekov, who is "working for" Kirk's former partner & son? The list goes on and on and on.
In the grand scheme of things I think the Antares ranks as a pretty minor coincidence.

As for the uniforms, we've seen numerous instances in TNG, GEN & DS9 where more than one uniform is in use at the same time and for a while in DS9 it looked like they were making a clear distinction between Starship and Starbase uniforms. So I have no problem with the crew of a Starfleet operated Surveyor having a slightly different tunic, at least for a time between phasing between the different styles.

As for the "Bajoran" & Xhozah (sp?) Antares-Class I prefer to think of them as non-Federation ships manufactured by a neutral race and sold over the course of several centuries (maybe even millennia) to whom ever wishes to buy.

quote:

---

But do we really want to say that every USS Foobar we see is the flagship of Foobar class?

That goes against the wisdom that whenever you introduce a ship with cool name A, you have the ship be of a class that has a cool name B, so you get two cool names with the price of one...

---

Of course not, that would be pushing credibility.
The reason that I made this choice in the case of the Antares was because it is such a convoluted issue and I chose what I thought and still think was the simplest, clear cut solution.
This is a special case and should be treated as the exception as opposed to the rule.

For instance I don't think that the Korolev which appeared in the ST:VI graphics is the prototype for the Goddard, likewise the Springfield and Challenger.
 

---

Posted by Cpt. Kyle Amasov (Member # 742) on :
 
Here's another question: If there has been, for example, an Excelsior-class in the 23rd century, could there be another ship class of the same name some time in the future? This could be quite confusing, especially if class 2 enters service while class 1 is still active. On the other hand it's not that much more confusing than giving ships names that have already been used or are still in use (think of the Prometheus).

The reason I ask: if we assume that a) the TOS-Antares was a Federation vessel, possibly not commissioned but run by Starfleet like the 24th century "NAR-Oberths" and b) the freighters that were named "Antares-class" were of the same class as the TOS-vessel, just heavily modified and refitted over the years, could it be possible that - at some point after the TOS-Antares and her class ended active service for the fleet and were sold or decomissioned - Starfleet built another class, not related in any way to the TOS-class, and the prototype just happened to be the USS Antares NX-.....? Could there be two (or even more) Antares classes?

I thought about the naming of ships some time ago, and I really don't see how it works. Let's say there's a USS Challenger. Does it bear the name to honor the space shuttle, the several naval vessels, or maybe the Apollo module? There could be a colony or planet of that name, too. Or a famous person? Does everyone and everything get his/its own USS Challenger? If USS Challenger (the one named for the naval vessel) is destroyed and Starfleet comissions another Challenger, is that one named for something else, the space shuttle maybe? Or do they all have to "share" the ship?
The Antares brings that question back to my mind. Maybe we just don't know it but there has been an important battle against the Klingons at Antares and one of the most famous Starfleet captains was a Captain Antares, could it be Starfleet decided to put two ships of the same name into service, maybe even at the same time? If that's their policy, problems like the obvious appearance of two ships of the same name (as mentioned above, Prometheus, or Melbourne) could be easily explained.

Which, of course, has nothing to do with the initial question. I have to apologize if this takes the thread into a direction that was not intended...
 

---

Posted by newark (Member # 888) on :
 
To add to the confusion, the official web site StarTrek.com identifies Charles Evans' transport in the official episode summary as S.S. Antares .
 

---

Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
 
Regarding what Kyle was trying to say, it's possible for class 2 to have the same name as class 1, provided all ships of class 1 are no longer in service. An example is from the US Navy, where there will be a Virginia class nuclear sub and all ships of the previous Virginia class (a cruiser class, IIRC) have left service.

As for what a ship is named after, generally it doesn't really matter since there wouldn't be two ships with the same name operating simultaneously under the same organization.
 

---

Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dat:
Regarding what Kyle was trying to say, it's possible for class 2 to have the same name as class 1, provided all ships of class 1 are no longer in service. An example is from the US Navy, where there will be a Virginia class nuclear sub and all ships of the previous Virginia class (a cruiser class, IIRC) have left service.

As for what a ship is named after, generally it doesn't really matter since there wouldn't be two ships with the same name operating simultaneously under the same organization.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timo:
That goes against the wisdom that whenever you introduce a ship with cool name A, you have the ship be of a class that has a cool name B, so you get two cool names with the price of one...

---

Except the Defiant. But they couldn't get around that one.
 

---

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
You mean that Valiant-class "escort" cum Borg-fighter in DS9?

AFAIK, even published fanfic (until now) has been pretty consistent about not reusing class names: there's an Advance class both in the Spaceflight Chronology and Ships of the Star Fleet, even though the latter otherwise pays homage to the former, but that's pretty much it. Plenty of names out there to choose from.

OTOH, there are many confusing cases of later individual ships using names of earlier classes; some real-world navies try to avoid those, while others do not. Can we have a USS Excelsior who isn't of Excelsior class when there are many Excelsior class ships still in service? The argument will establish the class identity of the vessel mentioned in "Interface". Ditto with Constellation and the ships in "The Abandoned" and "Waltz".

I rather think Starfleet would avoid naming a ship USS Antares if there already was an Antares class in service - although perhaps not necessarily, for example if the class wasn't in Starfleet service.

Timo Saloniemi
 

---

Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
 
Since we've been talking about civillian ships, maybe Antares Class is like us today saying Chevy Malibu or Ford Mustang. Malibu and Mustang being the "class" of the car.

Car dealers today have various models that are in production for years and years, then stop production for a while only to start again later. As technology progresses, the styles change. My wife's 2000 Malibu looks nothing like my buddy's old Malibu from the late 60s
 

---