posted
This whole thing reminds me of a wonderful quote...
"Arguing online is like running in the Special Olympics... Even if you win, you're still retarded."
Truly, if there's anything I'd want to do with a time machine (after scanning the contents of the Library at Alexandria), it would be to go back and stop the VFX twits who made the Constellation from making such an easily-preventable mistake... *sigh*
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
^ Yeah, that'd be nice (go on, make it NCC-1710, you know you want to...) on to buisiness...
Ritten: "I was showing that not only are there blocks, there are also suffixes....
a suffix has no limit on the blocks produced under it...."
Sorry I misread .
"So there was a Constitution-class USS Constitution w/ a registry of NCC-1700. Big deal. I'd like to see any real evidence whatsoever that calls this ship the class ship of the Constitution class. I'd also like to see any evidece you have to prove that there was no Constitution-class USS Constitution w/ a registry below NCC-956."
So; a ship with registry indicating it was built c.2200 is the class ship. And only 12 of this class were built over the next 50-60 years? I'm not entirely sure that this is any more plausible than the refit idea.
I like the constitution family idea...
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
I dont think we're going to make much more headway on the issue.. i prefer the 'registries are non-sequential, but vaguely chronological' theory that Constitution 1700 and Enterprise 1701 were the first ships in 2245, then subsequent ships built through different appropriations (perhaps at different yards) were given unused, older registries.
Going by the old razor that the simplest explanation is the best explanation certainly eliminates the theories that there were other classes that had simlar saucers or stardrive hulls and were upgraded to Constitutions (or the dubious explanation that like-appearing vessels were actually of different classes that just LOOKED the same ).. besides, if the Enterprise was considered old (needing that drastic refit at 25 years and being decommissioned at 40), how could we justify the Constellation 1017 not only being 40-50 years old but also having been completely restructured? Possibly the yards that built Eagle 956 and Constellation simply had been appropriated to build vessels with older registries, ships that were later cancelled and the registries unused. So when the time came to build newer ships, the old numbers were next on the list to be taken.
coming up with fantastical explanations is only confusing the issue more.
And I have to say i still agree with Veers.. its spelled 'registries', not 'registaries'
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
CaptAlabin
Ex-Member
posted
I have to agree with Registries.
IP: Logged
Even if we stick to just the canon, the question is what is the simpler explanation? That the original Constitution was destroyed and replaced by another ship so famous that it appeared in historical databanks/manuals twice (TOS, TNG), not to mention the coincidence of having a xx00 number that the Excelsior of the era had as well
or
that the Constellation and the Republic simply aren't Constitution-class (the latter we have no evidence for, the former could easily match the Danube/Yellowstone relationship, not to mention the fact that the Republic was an inaccurate AMT-kit).
BTW, there's no evidence that the class nomenclature in Kim's alternate universe was anything but realistic, else we'd expect other elements to be unrealistic likewise. Kim didn't complain.
Boris
[ April 22, 2002, 11:25: Message edited by: Boris ]
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
Well, except that we know the Brittain thing was a mistake, because the people involved admitted as much. But the problem with any registry scheme is that it has to be imposed on TOS, rather than derived naturally from it. So none of these registries are, strictly speaking, mistakes, at least not mistakes on the behalf of the creative types producing them, because they had no idea we would come along 35 years later and try to get it to work in conjunction with a scheme invented decades later.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Bad Sol. No biscuit. I'm going to have to include a link to my Trek essays page in my sig, so I don't have to assume all the old-timers here are fully conversant with my theories.
The system "we're trying to impose on TOS" is the system Matt Jeffries created for the damn show, and used when making the (in)famous "Court Martial" wall chart. The VFX guys slapping the rearranged decal from the AMT kit onto the Constellation filming miniature is exactly the same sort of error that allowed the Yamato to be given a registry of 1305-E in contradiction of Okuda's intentions for that series and ship.
Don't collapse the Jeffries registry-block system with the FJ registry-block system. The two look vaguely similar at first glance, but FJ never thought to consult with Jeffries and so his system (which is the one used by fandom up through the advent of TNG) is at best only a flawed interpretation of Jeffries'.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
I generally use the mix of both. The ships with regstries outside the 1700+ system are considered ships of unused numbers or refitted ships. Of course to explain why I think this, I would have to explain my whole Constitution/Enterprise classes and the general political system of the 23rd century that I made up for my shelved website.
But thats just me.
-------------------- Matrix If you say so If you want so Then do so
Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
E-mail it to me, Matrix. I'm curious to see what you've come up with. And bear in mind that if we adopted Jeffries' system for the period up to about 2285, the only canon registries that would clash are the Jenolan, Revere, Columbia, and Grissom. Four out of how many?
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
That isn't what I'm suggesting at all. Whatever Jeffries system was, it was never made explicit in the show, or implicit for that matter. If it was, no one would bother arguing about it.
But even if we want to say that the Enterprise was the first ship of the 170th class, or the 17th class, or the 701st ship of the first class, that doesn't change the very basic fact that whatever system you may find in TOS is not the same as you'll find in TNG or elsewhere, and that any attempt to make sense of one in light of the other is always going to have, at its heart, some set of inconsistencies.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
I know it isn't the same. I expounded on this at length not too long ago in a thread in this section about TOS ships... To put it in fifty words or less, I don't believe either system (Jeffries' or Okuda's) should be applied to the era in which they didn't work -- after all, trying to impose Okuda's system on TOS results in lots of headaches, and trying to impose Jeffries' system on the 24th century is just stupid.
There.
Explicit, implicit, or utterly missed, these are the two systems the people responsible for such things invented for their respective shows, and they decorated their sets accordingly. Lack of communication has resulted in what we have now:
�One system for one era... �One system for another... �One system created by a fandom author from an imperfect understanding of the older system - and then used by most other fandom shipwrights for fifteen years without challenge... �And one system created by a game company by giving a monkey a calculator (BTW, I have little love for FASA's numbering scheme)...
I'd just as soon throw out the systems created by people who didn't work on the shows, personally. And of the two systems that are left, rather than seek to promote one to the elimination of the other, I find it much easier to say that there was some fleetwide restructuring in the late 23rd century from one system to the other. If the Grissom, Columbia, and Revere were given different prefixes, and the Jenolan's registry number changed, that would eliminate all the glaring errors save for the well-known Constellation screw-up. No other problematic registries appeared prominently onscreen. I don't count the mission status display from Star Trek VI, as I still haven't found the damn thing... And besides, the only number I have a problem with on there is the new Constellation's '1974' registry. This is the best example besides the Constitution mess that I can point to for why Okuda's system shouldn't be shoehorned into the Jeffries era. It would fit perfectly at 1900, the prototype for the Cruiser class between the Miranda and Excelsior classes
Now, I am tired and so am going to bed. --Jonah
[ April 23, 2002, 02:28: Message edited by: Peregrinus ]
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
It is probably possible to pretend that Starfleet employed the alter egos of Jeffries, Joseph and Okuda, in that order, to create its starship registry schemes. A chronological overlap between them would explain some of the inconsistencies quite nicely. The remaining oddities (that in reality are due to the modelmakers giving their own random input) could then be the Scheming Senator or the Wealthy Backer or the New Visionary Leader messing things up for individual vessels or classes, until Starfleet reverts to the Good Old Way.
A gradual evolution from Jeffries to Josephs to Okuda isn't impossible to accept, mainly because there's so little evidence for Jeffries or Josephs on screen (but still enough to make it clear that the Okuda system hasn't always been in use in Starfleet). It even sounds realistic, comparable to the ways the USN or USA(A)F designation and registry systems have evolved. And this evolution still remains slightly more simplistic than the real-world equivalents, which makes it typical Trek.
quote: Originally posted by Peregrinus: And bear in mind that if we adopted Jeffries' system for the period up to about 2285, the only canon registries that would clash are the Jenolan, Revere, Columbia, and Grissom. Four out of how many?
You forgot Entente; NCC-2120 in 2271, years before Excelsior.
-------------------- The difference between genius and idiocy? Genius has its limits.
Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Entente was not years before Excelsior in 2271 if you accept that the Excelsior would have to be around for some years before ST2. --- In this case the Excelsior Project could have started early enough to allow them to grab the 2000 NX, and the Entente was finished a few years later [but before 2271] to receive 2120.
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
