quote:Originally posted by newark: I would like to raise a small point. In the illustrations showing the various dedication plates over the years, Mr. Okuda stated very openly he didn't understand the original Enterprise's plate. He didn't know what "Starship Class" means. This is rather surprising for the answer can be found in the Making of Star Trek.
Damn him for not reading every book ever written on TOS! He should burn to the ground.
To be fair, "Making of Star Trek" is a fairly fascinating book. But to check, at any point do they refer to the Enterprise as a "Constitution-class starship"? Because if they do, I am curious as to why it was never said in "TOS" (and where the idea came from). And if it isn't, then why hasn't all subsequent canon ship info been burned to the ground for daring to suggest such a name?
Also, can we stop this "J-class starship" thing? Please? It's really, really annoying.
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Hm... If "baffle plate" is a real term, and is defined as mentioned above, perhaps baffle plates were the predecessors to using dilithium crystals to regulate the M/A reaction. If this were the case, a disappearing baffle plate would certainly be as catastrophic as it was in "Charlie X".
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And "Why not?" brings you thirteen minus points.
OTOH, what about calling her SPV Antares, NAR-xxxxx? How canonical is the USS part? "Space Probe Vessel" could be the equivalent of "United(federationofplanets) Star(fleet) Ship", an indication that the ship belongs to a certain agency (in this case, the United Earth Space Probe Agency). It need not tell anything about the type of the ship. She could remain a simple cargo vessel, one that just happens to haul cargo for the UESPA and not for Starfleet or Dytallix or Yoyodyne. And her existence would in no way influence the later (earlier/parallel?) existence of a USS Antares, NCC-xxxxx.
OTTH, it might not be a good idea to disregard the "space probe" part from the mission profile of the Antares. What would a regular freighter have been doing near Thasus and happening upon Charlie Evans? And her crew did wear Starfleet uniforms, even if an outdated style.
posted
What reference DOES give the class as Constitution? and what references give the Constitution the number 1700, which would usually mean it's the class ship (having the lower number)... but then again, what about the two ships with even lower numbers. In TOS, they actually refered to the Enterprise as the Starship class. Granted, that doesn't mean much in a fleet of several classes of starships with a century of star travel history. Another point of interest, is that the Enterprise had a Captain, while in the Ultimate Computer ep. had a Commodor commanding the fleet, assumably from his flagship, unless he was just commanding from the bridge of another captain's ship.
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If you really want to throw things out of whack, you might also consider Matt Decker of the Constellation. He was also a Commodore. But my assumption was that he was recently promoted to that rank, but Starfleet didn't have a position available that's better suited for him in his new rank, so he remained the captain of his ship.
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quote:Originally posted by Dat: If you really want to throw things out of whack, you might also consider Matt Decker of the Constellation. He was also a Commodore. But my assumption was that he was recently promoted to that rank, but Starfleet didn't have a position available that's better suited for him in his new rank, so he remained the captain of his ship.
Or possibly that he was commander of a small task group that was on dispersed border patrol duties or something (I can't really remember the episode so...). He might have had say a light cruiser and two or three destroyers/scouts under his command that just happened to be elsewhere.
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My own explanation of the TOS dedication plaque is that at the time, the terms CLASS and TYPE were thrown around quite liberally so what you end up with is a ship's type being displayed on the dedication plaque instead of the more specific class. Evidently at this time Starfleet couldn't decide whether to base themselves on the navy or the air force. As chance would have it, I did a plaque for the "Charlie X" Antares a few months ago, the "class" designation is nice an neutral I think.
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Matt Decker and the Constellation was in the episode with the Planet Killer/Eater. His crew died when Decker put them down on a planet and the Planet Killer destroyed it. He died when he stole one of the Enterprise's shuttles and tried to stop it. The Constellation was later successfully used.
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Ahh yes, the original Unauthorized Shuttle Launch�!
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quote:Originally posted by CaptainMike: so, basically, no one ever referred to the Batris as Antares-class.
Okay. But that really has nothing to do with the argument. Regardless of whether the Batris was Antares-class or not, the Xhosa WAS. Notice that nowhere in my statements is there any dependency on the Talarian freighter being an Antares. I merely point out that I do not believe it to be a coincidence that the Batris was termed as such in the first Encyclopedia, and then later on DS9 a vessel of similar configuration shows up with a dedication plaque calling it by that name.
In any case, what I've said still stands. There is (IMO) an implied connection between the Antares-class freighter Xhosa and the TOS-era Starfleet, which I believe is clearly a result of Okuda's belief that the Antares from "Charlie X" is a class ship.
Timo: At that point in TOS, the "United Earth Space Probe Agency" was simply another name for Starfleet. The Enterprise herself was said on at least two occasions to operate under the UESPA's auspices. I don't really think that it was supposed to be some separate service.
-MMoM
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Yeah, I know. But the "At that point" explanation doesn't hold water within the Trek universe itself, since we now know of a pre-TOS Starfleet (and also of a pre-pre-TOS UESPA, for that matter). Temporally, UESPA and SF must have been parallel. Functionally, who knows?
"Space Probe Vessel" just sounds like the sort of a formal designation that could have become devoid of a meaning. I mean, who in his right mind would say "probe vessel"? Interpreting it as an expression similar to "United Star Ship" frees our hands to further speculation, and simplifies our picture of what the Antares really was.
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The situation is quite a mess now. This is not a bashing of Star Trek or Star Wars. It is a comparison.
The prequels to Star Wars, though they were duds in the scriptwriting and characterization departments, were great at portraying a world before the trilogy we know from our youth. They faced the same quandry as the producers of Enterprise encountered-how to do a prequel when the modern advancements in technology render the original's depiction of technology obsolete? (Here I am thinking of the use of computers in the first trilogy and other small details that stand out now.) They succeeded. We are able to see the development of technologies used in the first trilogy, the political story of the birth of the Empire, and the family history of the Skywalkers.
Now to not bash Star Trek, but I do need to ask this question. Why couldn't the producers attempt the same level of success? As lamented often here and on other boards, the first is very vague on technology as oppossed to later series. There was a noticeable lack of Trek babble in the first. I see this as an advantage. With a lack of data, the producers could have created a prequel universe that was true to the original-small ships operating out of UESPA which employed nuclear weapons and other less advanced technologies and still hold true to Star Trek: The Original It would be set in a time when Earth was coming into its own and finding species near to Earth. As it stands, Enterprise is an anachronism or the first series is. Take your pick.
(I have made my pick-Enteprise is an anachronism and is not canon.)
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I for one am happy (or not really; more like "content") with the idea that there's a technological plateau there that expands throughout the six SW films, or all the Trek shows.
For Trek it is even more fitting, as the Trek galaxy is not a tightly integrated monobloc: there are "ancient", "old" and "new" races there, not to mention visitors from the future, all of which interact and individually contribute to a whole. This means that there is no such thing as "new tech" - the Boojumian Empire must have invented gadget X or phenomenon Y ages ago, so the invention of warp drive should near-immediately provide Earth with that knowledge, too. It would be patently silly for Earth not to have photon torpedoes or cloaks (or attempts at creating or purchasing those) a century after getting interstellar.
In fact, there's too *little* of this plateau in Trek, and too *much* chronological advancement, to my tastes. Virtually nothing should have been left for the Feds to "invent", and virtually everything for them to "find", through the work of people like Roger Korby or Carter Winston, or through traders and ambassadors. (I can comfort myself by saying that the plateau is full of pits, perhaps because a big war wiped the slate clean in Earth's vicinity just before the Vulcans and the Earthlings got starborne. But I don't want to do that myself - Paramount should do it for me!)
That doesn't mean I'd be happy with the lack of distinction between ENT and TOS and TNG. ENT should certainly be a chrono-logical entity when it comes to interstellar politics and the organizing of Starfleet, signing of alliances, triggering of hostilities... These should reflect the fact that ENT predates TOS predates TNG. ENT should be working more actively to relay this idea to the audience.
Too bad the show fumbled at the very start, and chose "Starfleet" as the name of Archer's organization, and "starship" as the designation of his vessel. Not that I feel that Archer should have been a UESPA employee - but I would definitely have wanted a different organization, even though I have nothing against it operating phaser-armed and transporter-equipped ships.
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: My own explanation of the TOS dedication plaque is that at the time, the terms CLASS and TYPE were thrown around quite liberally so what you end up with is a ship's type being displayed on the dedication plaque instead of the more specific class.
This is also my interpretation of Archer's line that "Enterprise is an NX Class starship". I'm hoping it will turn out you can simply replace 'NX' with the word 'Experimental' and that the good ol' NX-01 will become known more commonly as Enterprise Class. And that future ships of this class will display NCC registries.
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