posted
If the E-A was launched in 2286, and was scheduled for decommission in shortly after the talks at Kitomer, in 2293, what was the political climate like then??? Why only a 7 or 8 years of operational life before decommissioning???
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Registered: Sep 2000
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
What about the Enterprise-A? That was supposed to be the Yorktown!
No, it was supposed to be AYorktown, not necessarily THEYorktown. I've decided to utilize a theory recently put forth by Steve Pugh:
"The E-A was a newbuild Constitution from the 2270s which was never quite completed. Either she suffered some accident during production or the budget ran out. She sat around a dockyard for a dozen years until Starfleet decided to give Kirk a prezzie for saving their ass. Hastily outfitted and brought up to date and with a dodgy registry number slapped on her (her original planned registry might have been reassigned in the intervening years) she was taken over to Spacedock for the end of ST IV. No wonder she was in a right state during ST V. Add all the above mentioned stress and damage to a botched job of refitting done to an hull that had been left untended for a decade and you get a ship that's ripe for early retirement."
Using that line of reasoning, my universe states that the Enterprise-A was a remaindered hull from 2272, formerly intended to be a newbuild, USS Wasp (NCC-1831), the first of a planned 12-vessel run of new ships. However, the job was cancelled & the hull placed into storage. Fast-forward 14 years to the "Whalesong" incident. Kirk is "punished" by being demoted to the only rank he was happy at & is given a new ship. The old Wasp is hauled out of the mothball yards, shoved up to spec for the time (or as much as they could handle) & formally christened Enterprise.
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Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Sounds interesting. However, I'm not sure there needs to be any special reason behind the pre-Enterprise A's relative decrepitness. In other words, the idea that the ship was any Yorktown seems unnecessary.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Why does it have to be such a rush between the time they arrive with the whales until they get the E-A?
They would have had to have recovered (remember they'd all been through in II and III) Then the completion of the trial... deliberations... then bringing them in for sentencing. On top of that there was probably a delay between them leaving the court room and being on the spacedock pod... from a minute to months!
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posted
Why does it seem hard to believe? The Yorktown could have been just like the E-nil, upgraded and all. After being his the by the giant tootsi roll, fried her systems and was brought into spacedock. The Yorktown could have been renamed E-A because another Yorktown could have been building. Also Connie refits could have been a failed class fo starship, so they were rapidly being decomissioned. To punish Kirk, they renamed Yorktown that was going to be decommissioned, the Enterprise. Less that ten years later, with a E-B almost finished, it's time for the last Connie refit to be decommissioned.
This works for me. But I like the other theory as well.
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1) The highest registry number ever seen for a refit Constitution is 1895, while the lowest is 956. This suggests that few, if any, ships were built after the 2260s (the Entente, operational in 2272, is NCC-2120), and that some might be as old as 2196, when the Daedalus-class was decomissioned (remember that "The Making of Star Trek" includes the Valiant in their list of ships like the Enterprise, which probably wasn't a new Valiant as the ship on the list was destroyed likewise, else the list wouldn't intend to list twelve ships like the Enterprise and end up with thirteen. The book also says that some of these ships are as much as 40 years old.)
2) The day of the refitted Enterprise is *surprisingly* over in Star Trek III (2282), despite its being "almost totally new" only ten years ago, despite the fact that most of its technology remained in use for more than 90 years later, despite the fact that a two-week repair would've made the ship spaceworthy again.
2) Another such ship (Ent-A) was decomissioned only ten years later, again, despite all the reasons mentioned above.
3) No such ships were ever seen in the 23rd Century (the hull in BOBW is no proof as it could've easily been another kitbash).
The evidence suggests that:
A) Starfleet had a problem with the Constitution-class as a long time ago and stopped building them, going by the highest seen registry. However, something accelerated their decomissioning in 2282. Since many other Constitutions could've easily been damaged like the Enterprise was in 2282, it follows that quite a few would've been decomissioned in the 2280s already. After all, why wouldn't *their* day be over too?
B) That wasn't merely a technical flaw because the Mirandas and Constellations survived, while the refit Constitutions were mostly new ships. If it were one, nobody would've been surprised about the 2282 decomissioning.
C) Something delayed this decision after 2282; although there is no evidence that other ships were built afterwards, they would not be retired until 2292.
The Excelsior-class is almost certainly the answer; it clearly replaced the Constitution-class as a flagship class in 2292, and was probably intended to do so as early as the 2260s, when it was being planned. It's only that the promise of transwarp drive, probably a surprise development, was so high that Starfleet considered replacing all the Constitutions with the Excelsiors much earlier than scheduled, in 2282 or so. The failure of transwarp drive merely meant that the replacement would be postponed until the original date: 2292.
Why? The refit Constitutions still reused components from the old ships, some of which are refits of refits of refits. However, the main issue may not so much be the age of the compoments (which would've been replaced quite a few times over the years), but probably that the basic arrangement/crew size/profile is as old as 2196. Going by the registry numbers as well as the 40-year age for some given in "The Making of Star Trek", all this would've been quite outdated by 2292.
It's also possible to argue that the Constellations were another such improvement, although they clearly are smaller and not quite as obvious a replacement as the Excelsior.
[ April 21, 2002, 19:56: Message edited by: Boris ]
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
One can quote *two* major and somewhat unexpected developments that hit Starfleet at the time the Constitutions began so mysteriously disappearing. Both of them appear to be "bipolar", with a major up followed by a major down:
1)The Excelsior introduction and the transwarp fiasco 2)The ramping up of the Klingon conflict and the sudden Khitomer peace
Development 1 might prompt a gradual phasing-out of the older ships, but I have hard time believing that Starfleet would switch over to the Excelsiors within a decade or two of ST3. Perhaps the Constellations were a stopgap development created when Starfleet realized the Excelsiors wouldn't be ready in time and couldn't be relied on to succeed? Much like the simpler Kynda class cruisers the Soviets built in case the complex Kirov battlecruisers would fail...
Development 2 could offer an easy explanation to the retiring of the E-A. Starfleet could have become overbloated during the escalation to the feared war. With the Klingon threat gone, Starfleet would obtain major savings by retiring all older ships, even if they were still operable - there would be all those "war-surplus" ships with far less hours on their spaceframes, and it would make even less sense to retire THOSE.
Also, the peace treaty may have come with a price: Starfleet may have been asked to cut down the number of ships (or cruisers specifically), and scrapping a Constitution would save an Excelsior.
The 2270s-2290s weren't "normal times" for Starfleet by any measure. It seems only fitting to have something odd and drastic happen there to these prominent starship classes and their retirement or procurement policies.
capped
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Member # 709
posted
could be that the Enterprise-A was still new and good as a ship, but Starfleet made the move on a purely political basis for getting the new E-B out as their flagship.
The novel "Ashes of Eden" says that the E-A was stripped and sold as a patrol vessel to a politically neutral government on Chal (this fits with the USN's current practice of disposing of still useful vessels to smaller countries' navies) It could be that newer-build Constitutions were still servicable, but didnt meet the standard that SF needed for its frontlines and were considered 'surplus'..
Its also possible that many other Constitutions that were possibly built in the 2270s/80s continued in service on 20-30 year lifetimes and we didnt see them, and the decommissioning of the E-A was an exception, not a rule.
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Registered: Sep 2001
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CaptAlabin
Ex-Member
posted
I like #2 of Timo's post. The ending of such hositilities certainly downsized Starfleet as mentioned into the briefing at Starfleet HQ in TUC. Combine it with Captain Mike's idea, that would seem more plausible. Starfleet possibly wanted the Enterprise name to be freed up for the new Excelsior Class. The name Enterprise and the man Kirk seemed to ring through the eyes and ears of the Klingons, Starfleet wanted to use the name Enterprise best to the advantage of themselves, especially with the big fanfare at the launching of the Enterprise-B. So it could be a symbolic triumph over the Klingons.
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posted
I'm thinking that the moth-balling the fleet was mentioned early on in the movie so it could be acted out at the end. You'd have to ask the writers, but it seems like the intention was to show the Enterprise crew standing down as a responce to the treaty that had just been signed.
However, the decommissioning of the ship was only mentioned at the end of the movie, which is odd. Before that, it as only the crew that was due to stand down. In fact, Spock's line to Valeris about taking his place as science officer implies that the ship was going to continue in service.
The decommissionig of the ship seems to be a direct responce to the signing of the treay.
posted
Good point, Aban. I think it indeed was intentional...
Symbolically, it would mean a great deal to the treaty if the ships that had last faced each other in hostile terms would be the first to be retired, “punished for their naughtiness”. This symbolic hand-washing would cost Starfleet very little, if it didn’t need the E-A (assuming it had too many ships to begin with) and didn’t want to pay for the repairs, however minor. Retiring Kirk and his warmonging (from the Klingon POV anyway) crew would also be a smart move.
I'm still personally a proponent of the idea that the E-A was a refit of an older Constitution, so that an additional reason is offered for the seemingly low operational value of the vessel to Starfleet. And as long as I believe that, I'm willing to buy the Paramount idea that the ship used to be the Yorktown. This isn't impossible to believe (even if it takes a grain of salt or two), and it's what is believed by some nice people who do a good job at keeping us Trekked up.
posted
What I've never liked about the "Yorktown" theory was that there was a Yorktown already in STIV. Are we suppossed to assume Starfleet flew out and got the dead vessel, flushed out the bodies, flew it home and repainted it in time for Kirk? Seems a bit of an insult to the memory of those who served on it.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Here's a thought: what if the reason that 'Fleet wanted to retire the Enterprise in ST3 was that the entirely new "A" was already built? They wanted to surprise Kirk with a new ship. Presumably the ship would have been built elsewhere, so Kirk wouldn't have seen it while docking in Spacedock...
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Yeah, but, Omega, it COULDN'T be a "new" (as in, it had to be a previously registered & named) ship, no matter the case. Well, it could've been but then you have to wonder why it was decomissioned after such a short life span.
And, no, I don't think that's a likely scenario -- Kirk was from all account a senior Admiral, I doubt he could've been kept out of the loop. And why would they surprise Kirk? If this was in the works, it would've been for a great deal of time before Star Trek II ...
... meaning it would've been a surprise for Spock. Personally, I've always felt a lot of the reasons for the ship's decomissioning was the damage it took during the battle with the Reliant. So, they'd've had to take the USS Whatever back to Spacedock in a hurry before Enterprise arrived ...
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