posted
S.S. was short for steam ship. Steam ships were in use from the early 1800's to the mid-1900's. One of the more famous of these steam ships was the S.S. Great Eastern which laid the Atlantic telegraph cable in 1865.
There was no evidence in Star Trek that every ship with Federation registry and not of Starfleet had a S.S. prefix. This prefix may be used only for a specific agency or consortium. My conjectural opinion was the S.S. may be short for space ship.
We have another prefix which was only used once in Star Trek. In "The Corbomite Maneuver", I heard the prefix "United Earth Ship Enterprise", or U.E.S. Enterprise. A very minor continuity error.
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Well, since U.S.S. stands for United Space Ship, as per "The Cage," I say S.S. simply stands for Space Ship, and that's why I use it as a placeholder prefix for ships with unknown prefixes in my Federation and Pre-Federation shiplists.
-MMoM
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Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
is it so hard to accept that some ships just might NOT have prefixes? i think assigning an arbitrary designation to ships that canonically should have none is a disservice to the research-oriented theme of your list.
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Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: Well, since U.S.S. stands for United Space Ship, as per "The Cage," I say S.S. simply stands for Space Ship, and that's why I use it as a placeholder prefix for ships with unknown prefixes in my Federation and Pre-Federation shiplists.
-MMoM
The Cage also has a hemlsman who indicated the speed the ship had reached by the professional method of holding up his fingers. And Spock shouting "THE WOMEN!" I think it's safe to ignore bits of it.
And anyway, Kirk called it the "United Star Ship Enterprise" on at least two occasions, and since he's more "recent" it makes more sense to take that as the meaning.
Although a thought strikes me. The usual "open hailing frequencies" greeting goes something like:
"This is Captain James T Kirk of the USS Enterprise" "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise."
Did anyone ever say:
"This is Captain Poopoo Blahface of the Federation Starship USS Enterprise"?
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
There are the "Starship U.S.S. Enterprise - United Federation of Planets" hull pennants on the 1701-A and later ships, which would somewhat count. In retrospect, if U.S.S. does mean United (FoP) Star Ship, those signs are pretty redundant...
Registered: May 2002
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quote: The Cage also has a hemlsman who indicated the speed the ship had reached by the professional method of holding up his fingers
Well, he had too. Otherwise, the background music would have drowned him out...
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Registered: Feb 2002
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