posted
It's a bit odd though that ships with general terms as names should all be in english- stuff like "Discovery" would have a Vulcan or Andorian equivalent...but we never see those. I guess there might be some ship named (for example) Fearless in Andorian precluding the same name being used in english or another ship- just to avoid confusion via translators.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
One question I've had for awhile is how they handle instances of common names, since, unlike the US Navy (at least in most cases) they don't use the full name when naming a ship after a person.
So, how do you differentiate between the Excelsior class USS Washington named after the president and general, the New Orleans class USS Washington named after the city, the Ambassador class USS Washington named after the state, and the runabout USS Washington named after the river?
I figured that when Starfleet made its transition from centralized naming to each shipyard having semi-autonomous control, they simply stopped worrying about it, and the high minded enlightened souls of the Federation have mostly outgrown the vestigial tradition of naming your transportation device, except for the purely practical aspect of having something to call yourself when you talk to another ship.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I think there is a matter of encouraged ship's pride to consider as well- each ship attempting to be the very best and having a ship's name and history to rally around is a great psychological tool for team building and morale.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Masao: When did the naming schemes run off the rails? What ship and what writer can we blame? What was the effect, if any, of The Star Trek Encyclopedia, which placed previously class-less ships into classes and gave names to previously unnamed classes?
Personally, the only people I *know* of who spent time working out a consistent naming scheme in any sanctioned capacity, even peripherally, are the original TOS production staff (memos reproduced in TMOST) and Franz Joseph (who's work was borrowed for several movies). I don't believe most of the writers or producers of non-TOS Trek were aware that there should be naming schemes for ship classes, and my evidence for this is we see very little substantiation for thematic naming of ships of different classes onscreen. And there are plain mistakes and illogic, the most notable examples being the Istanbul and Constantinople being members of the same class while being names for the same city and the Enterprise class reverting (without exposition) back to the Constitution class in the movies.
Other than, of course, "cruisers" which Starfleet tends to name after "famous ships", which in effect can be almost anything (including cities, states, explorers, politicians, etc.). Which is kind of a get-out-of-jail-free card. As long as everything is a "cruiser". Excuse me, "starship".
quote:Originally posted by Masao: All the other ships were unseen and were only assigned to classes years later. Most of these ships were assigned to classes that didn't match. So, I guess it is all Okuda's fault!
Its been discussed by various parties that there are chronological and canon difficulties with some of the Encyclopedia entries (among other "official" publication), but this is actually a separate problem (perhaps best termed, "class assignment chaos) that exacerbated the "no class naming scheme" problem a bit, but didn't create it. If we can prove the writers came to Okuda and had him select names for the ships while writing the episodes, then he would be responsible for that, but my guess is that they didn't.
I think there are several causes for this problem:
No planned Class/Ship/Registry scheme. Possibly during production TOS, other than the list of ship names. Rejection of the Franz Joseph scheme, post STII (or thereabouts). Whether this was due to GR or Mr. Okuda, or both, is speculation. FJ was the official scheme, fully detailed (as far as it went), and then he was 'waporized'. Possible transient production staff during the movie era (contributes to lack of consistency and long-term planning). No planned Class/Ship/Registry scheme during TNG/DS9/VOY(& ST:E?).
So, while the fans had FJ and expanded upon his system in their own productions, the franchise remained oblivious to the need for a preconceived system. Ship names are made up ad-hoc, and is it no surprise that in the end nothing makes any sense. Add to that the tendency for there to be omissions, slip-ups, and blatant mistakes in the "official" published guides, and what you get is chaos. The fans continue to point out the mistakes and inconsistencies, and continue to be ignored. Ultimately the fans have broken down into two camps the FJ camp that reveres his effort to standardized the class/name/registry system and the fans who have expanded on it, and the people who are under the impression that the Jein/Okuda current-franchise system presented in the (more recent) "official" publications and TOS-R is "canon" despite its chaotic and (at times) contradictory nature.
Personally, I consider the issues with registry number anomalies to be much more annoying and serious, as it generally can only be retconned using "ship upgrades" as an explanation, but that's probably another thread. At least it provides lots of job security for nit-pickers.
Registered: Jun 2010
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