Maybe then, we can come back to the 'blocks' of registries. Maybe the 1700's are for the connies, its just that a few others WERE assigned 1700 registries, but decided to take older, unused registries like 1017 and 16xx or what ever.

I have always read both the Whitfield and Joseph books with wonder since childhood. It is always disheartening to me to see them taken to task so.

Nothing about TOS was ever 'perfect' or 'accurate'. I don't think Gene Roddenberry was GOD. But Star Trek WAS his brainchild. When writing a book of a type ( The Making of _insert favorite tv show_) not yet published, why not go to the source? That source-like it or not-was Gene Roddenberry.

In the 2240's Starfleet starts building a new type of starship, this class is the first of three batches, the first stating in 2243 (2 years before E-nil is commissioned) 2250's for the Bonhonmme class and 2260's for the Achenar class. The basis behind this is to when the last of the first batch is commissioned by this time technology will have been advanced far to put this first batch behind, so a second is built while these ships are in service so when the second batch is done, the first batch is brought in and the second batch fill in. The third finishes while the second batch is sent in for a refit while the first and third batch fill in then the first goes in and the seond fills in.

The old USS Eagle NCC-956 and USS Constellation NCC-1017 are old ships with a service life almost coming to an end along with their classmates. Starfleet use these ships to refit them up to the Constitution specs (hey Star Trek 1 did it) This is only a test to see how much better they are compared to a scratch built Connie. Tests show that the ships are 80% as strong but Starfleet decides against it. In 2250's the issue is brought up again and the USS Republic NCC-1371 is brough in for refit, not much of an improvement. However in the 2260's Starfleet brings in the previous class prior to the Connie class for a refit to Achernar class. Since the similarity between the two classes the 1600's type was easily refitted to the Connie config. About 10 to 12 ships of the 1600's type was refitted.

It needs to be flshed out for inconsistencies but it works. The original Connies of the 2240's would be structurally different than the Connies of the 2250's so when Kirk mentioned only 12 ships of this type he meant the 2240's not the entire complement of ships. That's my two cents...

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The Eagle, and the Constellation could have been DRASTICALLY different, with even a 'ball' for the 'saucer' like the Daedelus Class ships!

I've doodled my share of pre-TOS ships, and a "Horizon class" made out of a Constitution secondary hull, a flattened-sphere primary hull mounted on a very short neck, and two nacelles slightly smaller than the eventual Constitution ones, on extremely short pylons close to the hull, would seem to do the trick. A relatively sleek starship would result, nicely between Daedalus and Constitution in design philosophy.

Starfleet would then try out several different ways to fit a saucer hull into that design. Not all of them would have to look like Constitutions - perhaps the Eagle and the Republic never much looked like the Enterprise, and only the Constellation (the only low-rego ship we actually saw on screen) actually resembled the end product?

Like the whole secondary hull full of jelly!?!

"NCC" would be the Starfleet prefix for their Cruisers. The "17" indicated the 17th Federation cruiser design. "01" indicated the first production hull built after the prototype.

We have a non-canon 16th cruiser design in the Baton Rouge, and they were more-or-less externally comparable to the TOS Enterprise as the TOS Enterprise was to the movie Enterprise -- a little smaller, a little less refined, a little lower tech. Most of the Constitution class' breakthroughs were evidently internal, and probably due in no small part to the breakthrough of Duotronics.

The non-canon Horizon class was essentially a larger version of the Daedalus, with registries in the low 1000s. This is what the Constellation originally was, and I even wrote a story about Captain Decker saving his ship and crew in the face of nasty odds, getting promoted to Commodore, and using his clout to have the Constellation refit using the new Constitution prototype as a template.

And then there was also the non-canon Archon class, which was a refit of the Horizon, replacing the spherical primary hull with the first large-scale saucer hull. They had registries in the 1300s, and the Republic belonged to this class.

Bear in mind this is all fandom stuff, and much of it is not in keeping with the current official party line, but I like it so much better than said party line...

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

I said -- "Unfortunately... He spoke almost entirely to Gene himself, a man who had the unfortunate tendancy to, when posed with a question to which he dind't know the answer, pull something out of his ass on the spot."

To which our Caitian pal said -- "I have always read both the Whitfield and Joseph books with wonder since childhood. It is always disheartening to me to see them taken to task so.

"Nothing about TOS was ever 'perfect' or 'accurate'. I don't think Gene Roddenberry was GOD. But Star Trek WAS his brainchild. When writing a book of a type ( The Making of _insert favorite tv show_) not yet published, why not go to the source? That source-like it or not-was Gene Roddenberry."

I, too, have been the proud owner of the Star Fleet Technical Manual, the Enterprise deckplans, and The Making of Star Trek for long years now, but my love for Star Trek is more than devotion to any single individual associated with it -- even Gene himself. He had a wonderful idea for the show, and wrote some good episodes himself, but when it came to the ship, Gene's only real input was that it wouldn't use conventional sci-fi or real-world propulsion effects, that the main bridge was to be on the top of the primary hull, and that it would have a large engine room. Everything else was created by Matt Jeffries, and in my decidedly-unhumble opinion, Mr. Whitfield made a serious error in not talking to Mr. Jeffries for the bit on what's where on the big 'E'.

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

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"Replicate some marmalade, Commander - helm control is toast!"