Sisters of the Enterprise: how many (confirmed) ships?
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- Опубликовано: 24 янв 2023
- In this video, we will attempt to tally-up the Constitution-class starships of Star Trek's classic and movie eras, and produce a list of the sister-ships of the Enterprise. These are canonical ships - confirmed ships that appear on screen.
If you believe I have missed any (such as the USS Essex or the USS Kongo), then feel free to mention the missing ship in the comments (it is possible I missed one).
Enjoy!
#culture #StarTrek #StarshipEnterprise #Blender 
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Back in the late 60s/early 70s AMT released their officially licensed Enterprise model. Now this is key: What came in the kit were decals for all 12 Constitution class starships. You can build your model and name it any one of the twelve. This is from memory, the twelve were Constitution, Enterprise, Lexington, Yorktown, Potemkin, Exeter, Farragut, Valiant, Excalibur, Defiant, Hood, and Kongo. Officially licensed means these ship names is what the Great Bird of the Galaxy himself signed off on. Later names like Eagle, Endeavor etc... could be batch 2 vessels.
There were 14 on the decal sheet. You forgot Constellation, Intrepid and Republic.Defiant wasn’t on the decal sheet.
And yes, Kongo is one of those.
Um were you have the Defiant should be the Repulic,I should know cause I myself still have a couple of those old decal sheets. And the Defiant is registry 1764 making it a much later upgraded design of the Constitution class of ships which was the IX class and then you go into the IXA & IXB classes of the ships that were later designed with various upgrades 🖖😎👍.
@@Scott__G Yes, you are correct. I forgot Intrepid especially. Memory sucks. Thanks for clarifying.
Also the late, Constellation NCC 1017
Exactly!
Roddenberry himself said something to the effect of: he didnt ever think people would be looking at everything this closely.
what we see is inconsistencies created by the writers that nobody cared about at the time...
while the speculation is fun, too many people get waaaaaaaay to wrapped up in it!
Some inconsistencies are due to episodes being written by different writers.
@@DanBen07
And many of those are due to some of those different writers having some stupid ideas. Then another writer decided to expand on the previous Stupid Idea and made it even stupider.
What Kirk actually says in ‘Tomorrow is Yesterday’ is, “There are only 12 like it in the fleet.” The phrasing is a bit ambiguous in that it could be taken as 12 including the Enterprise or 12 plus the Enterprise. I only mention the latter because if there were indeed 13 active Constitution-class ships in the mid-first season, then you don’t have to choose between the Republic and the Farragut, you can have both!😉
That is such a good point. I chose to go with twelve-including-the-Enterprise, as thirteen is an unlucky number in mariners' circles (although given that so many Constitution-class starships were lost, perhaps the real total of the classic era WAS thirteen!). Assuming Republic and Farragut were Constituion-class, then the twelve-plus-the-Enterprise option would fit. But who knows? It's fun to speculate!
Agreed. It also does not include ships that had been built after TOS.
Also doesn’t include ships that were Constitution-like but had modified somewhere along their production or built as “refits” from the keel up.
@@WeTravelbyNight I agree that the Human-centric Starfleet is unlikely to set out to intentionally have a fleet of 13 Constitution-class ships but given that ships were likely being lost by, and added to, the fleet on a fairly regular basis, I think it can certainly work as a 'snapshot' of the fleet's strength in mid-first season. Off the top of my head, at least 3 ships would be destroyed in the next couple of years (Intrepid, Constellation and Defiant) along with 2 more 'maybes' (depending whether the Excalibur was salvageable after the M5 debacle and the Exeter was successfully retrieved and decontaminated). And that's just from incidents the Enterprise was directly involved with. So Starfleet would have to be building at least 2 per year just to keep up with losses!
@@thosewhocando TOS happen over twenty years after Enterprise was constructed. Those were already old ships back then, as it was prior to Phase 2 revolution. Enterprise refit into TMP style design extended they use next two decades. But class was decommissioned after Undiscovered Country due to design flaws. We do not see proves that Constitution was ever constructed in additional numbers. It was replaced by improved Decatur class, but even those were not constructed in larger number.
The other question is ships that existed at a point of time.
Losses and new construction also need to be considered.
It is entirely possible for a class to have losses before all the ships are completed. It certainly happened in WW2 with aircraft carriers and cruisers.
There were twelve at the time. That doesn't mean they stopped making them. If you're really serious about protecting a vast Starfleet, and definitely if you're serious about exploring space, you're going to make more than twelve of your best ship.
You would think but they didn’t. Star Fleet has never been big, at least the part that could be considered the military side, even though they never truly had a military fleet.
@@kevinwebster7868 Well lets check that theory out. There were 14 Constitution Class Starships that were considered Heavy Cruisers of the Mark 9 class that were commissioned on the Federation Charter. Then there were 19 destroyers that were basically the same saucer with one warp engine. Then there were 20 Dreadnought Star Ships that were considered Battleships, and had a defensive mission vs exploration.
Of course this all comes from the Technical Manual that was written 8 to 10 years after Star Trek the show, so in a sense you can say that Star Fleet has never been big.
I would like to point out that when they fought the Borg at Wolf 359 they had 112 ships, and around close to 500 against the Dominion. So who is to say if that is big or not.
I guess it would depend on how big the Romulan, or Klingon, or Cardasian fleets are at the time.
@@stltrekmodels.4157 That's if we count the Eagle, Republic and Essex, though, of which details are unsure.
But potentially, by 2290, there could have been 55 launched, maybe more.
And there was only 40 ships, at Wolf 359.
And an upper limit of 8800 vs Dominion, per non-canon RPG sources.
@@kevinwebster7868 Star Fleet has always been likened to a paramilitary force like the US Coast Guard.
@@chrissonofpear1384 Non canon RPG sources are worthless. Backstage sources have suggested at least 30,000 by TNG, Registry number suggest a possible 60,000 by TNG, assuming a roundly 50 year lifespan of hulls, as most ships in the ten thousands where commissioned in the late 2320's 2330s. Or up to 70,000 of starfleet recycles registry numbers.
Good job pulling all the on screen evidence together. Fun to see so many commentators "correcting" you while referring to all sorts of documentation outside the show itself. There is so much available, often contradictory, often endorsed by show creators and then sometimes later unendorsed. Very nice to see everyone being polite about it though. Sometimes fandom really is great to be a part.
Fandom is awesome - many are highly intelligent people and like to dig down into the detail.
This is why it’s so sad for me to see ST getting trashed the way it is. There isn’t going to be a next generation of people who will be able to have these exchanges when we are gone.
Even if people are NOT polite about it, that would speak to a passion that isn’t inspired by the current crop of spin offs.
The Star Trek Technical Manual, published in the 1970s, the is an entire page of names and registry numbers. This seems to indicate that the Constitution class was still building at the time of TOS.
True
Back in the early 70's as a child I was given a model kit (AMT I believe) of the Enterprise. Not sure if that would be considered cannon but one name that I still remember to this day as an optional decal was the Kongo.
The name has been around for a while, but unfortunately we haven't seen it on screen. I would love to see it (perhaps it isn't too late?), as it's a cool name for a refit Constitution. I might put the Kongo into a future video, just for the fun of it!
Yep. The decal sheet included with the kit included all 12 names. Kongo among them. So you're 100% correct my friend.
@@WeTravelbyNight If Gene Roddenberry himself signed off on the licensing you don't have to see it on screen. Kongo is in fact one of the twelve. (See my above post).
@@valdore5939 I have one of those decal sheets sitting in front of me right now. There are 14 names listed… the 13 mentioned in TOS _and_ the Kongo. These same 14 names are listed in the Franz Joseph “Star Fleet Technical Manual” along with registration numbers (with Constitution listed as class ship per Greg Jein) the reg. numbers were changed in the “Star Trek Encyclopedia” and then for the remastered TOS.
@@Scott__G 14? Dang. So much for my memory then. Lol. The last edition of the AMT E I had was the 25th anniversary. And that was ages ago. Tbh. Today, I'd actually pitch them, and go the aftermarket route. Thanks for clarifying bud.
It’s possible that the 12 referred to didn’t include the enterprise, it’s also possible that several where under construction during tomorrow is yesterday and is also possible multiple where destroyed before
The 12th class Connie is the USS New Jersey NCC-1975. The last of her line, built DURING the time of TOS.
Yes and never getting the Refit!
We saw it in the Fleet Museum❤
In the Picard series season 3, they reveled the USS New Jersey, It was an original TOS ship, no refit. Parked in the Starfleet museum.
That name came from Terry Matalas. He is from New Jersey, so that's why it's called that.
Also Enterprise A (I don't want to argue i just want to shout out one of the best Constitution Class Refits and we all know the Bridge of Refits are different so there is no point in arguing)
When you look at the Miranda class and the Excelsior class they both appear to be "100 year class starships". Assuming the Constitution Class was also a 100 year class starship, the class could very well have been. Nearing the end of its life in Star Trek VI. While the Mirandas and Excelsiors were just starting their lives and going out of service at the end of Deep Space Nine. The Arleigh Burke class destroyers have been in production for over 34 years with 20 still planned so a production span of 5 decades is totally reasonable.
Also, remaining for decades in service is quite normal for todays navy ships. Like USS Missouri was a World War II battleship that was refurbished and modernized in the 1980s and served even in the first Gulf war.
Miranda class only had a service span of 30 years with refits every 5 year. USS Reliant was only 21 years old and wrath of Khan being built in 2264. It replaced the Anton class and itself was replaced by the Akira, Apollo, and Cheyenne classes. Since 2270 Starfleet made 809 Miranda-class. The reason the Dominion War had so many Miranda and excelsior classes is they was pulled out of retirement and easy to modify and refit. For some reason Starfleet was low on ships When The War started and wasn't willing to commit many of their newer classes like the sovereign, intrepid, Yeager, New Orleans, or defiant classes. By Wars end only 3 defiant, 1 Intrepid, & 0 of the other 3 entered the war. And 384 Miranda class lost.
@@leaaronsanchez We see at least two Miranda class ships before the Dominion War in TNG. Everything that wasnt on screen isnt "canon".
@LeAaron Cooper do you have any resources to site? I am pretty sure there is enough canon to show that the Miranda's were in service for 120 years and the excelsiors were in service for 100.
And if we go into aviation it becomes even more ridiculous. The B-52 bombers are a design of the 1950s and are supposed to fly another 50 years. And planes like the Boeing 737 and 747 are designs of the 1960s and are still being built with updated systems.
I'm glad Greg's article got a shout out. It's fascinating to see what speculations were going on back in the early days of fandom
It's a fascinating article, and what's more it suggests possible alternate paths Star Trek might had taken.
I'm not sold on it, but it's well worth preserving the info, either way.
Kind of prefer the Franz Joseph method, with tweaks.
It's like what we do now, but lacking a lot of the resources that the Internet and hi-res streaming and DVD allows.
Greg Jein's biggest error, IMO, was assuming all starships were Connies and not something else. Especially since by that time the Animated Series had aired and we got to see ships classes like the automated drones and the S.S. Huron.
The old Star Fleet Technical Manual offered some detail on starships; the classic Enterprise was designated a Mk IX-A heavy cruiser, of which a total of 12 were listed, with four more listed as 'replacements' for ships destroyed.
But there were dozens more ships listed in the Mk IX-B, -C, and if I remember correctly, -D variants.
One might reason that these were mission-specific ships; basically the standard Mk IX spaceframe, power units, and hulls, but fitted-put for specific roles. Enterprise and her -A sisters were multi-purpose exploratory vessels, but the other Mk IX variants were likely configured for Federation security, border patrol, and peacekeeping functions. Much as modern-day navies of the world.
I really like that manual though the world seems to have forgotten about it. It had so much detail that has been ignored.
It was fan fic written in the 70s. Pretty good tech drawings and pretty complete, but the ships were not all based in the show. Some drawing went against the writers rules for the show....and were obviously ideas for or from kitbashing AMT plastic models for conventions and fan meetings.
@@STho205 Not entirely true. Franz Joseph was authorized by Gene Roddenbury and NBC to write the book and it was considered canon up until Star Trek II with parts of the book's schematics seen on screen. FJ and GR had a falling out over the book and copyright issues and IP issues. The Tech Manual lost it's official canon state after that when the Greg Jein book and numbering system based off the "Jenky" Commodore Stone Starbase Chart took over and became canon.
There's another explanation: the Constitution is a vast family with lots of variants, so we could see lots of starship that "looked like" Constitution, but *techinically* not Constitution. This theory actually being somewhat confirmed in SNW: the Sombra-Class is apperantly a such variant, with less crew, less payload and higher cruising speed, but looked almost identical to the Constitutions.
They SHOULD have made the Sombra less identical to the Connies, maybe a TOS-style predecessor of the Decatur/Belknap types?
NCC-1710 is the USS KONGO. There's also a theory that an earlier, similar to the Constitution Class existed called the Bonnhomme Richard class and that class was later upgraded to Constitution class standards this given the registry numbers below NCC-1700.
It would explain why Star Fleet's hull numbers are all over the place.
Strange New Worlds establishes that there is a near identical class know as the Sombra-class, which is likely a nod to the old fan fic and Franz Joseph technical manual material.
I think the predecessor NCC 16XX class ship should be the USS Aster. Aster is Latin for star. See where I'm going with this? This is why the ships are sometimes called "Star" ship class...a Universal Translator autocorrection error, where Aster was translated instead of being passed verbatim as an English loan-word! Aster-class vessels look the way the Enterprise did in TOS under Captain Pike...Bussards that don't glow (armored covers, legacy of the previous Klingon War) antennae tips on the nacelles, gooseneck monitors on the bridge, etc. Enterprise was supposed to have been built the way she was under Kirk, but logistics delays happened, however, with foresight, those upgrades were simple drop-in replacements. Refitting older Asters was not as feasible, most of them were outright replaced once OEM Connies became available.
It's been feasibly suggested that the NCC-1017 Constellation was an earlier design upgraded & rebuilt to Constitution specifications, along with the Constitution class starships with registry numbers before the NCC-1700 Constitution. This makes more budgetary sense, for Star Fleet to cut costs by building half of the class new and the other half from upgraded older cousin designs.
I call the earlier design "USS Aster". Because of a Universal Translator programming glitch, instead of being passed through as-is, the name was autocorrected to "star"...causing these vessels to become known in some quarters as _the_ Star ship-class. The definite article, you might say.
@@xheralt ha. like it.
Starfleet reuses it's NCC numbers (sometimes attaching a letter to it - Enterprise A) which could explain the odd NCC numbers of ships like the Eagle.
Yup. Starfleet reuse names of famous ships. From TMP era when ships become modular and they could be keep in service indefinitely. Starfleet decided to add letters, most likely for older ships kept in reserve or for ceremonial purposes. As they start running out of good names.
That always upset me, because you didn’t see that happen with the Yorktown (the Essex class aircraft carrier), or anywhere in US Naval history. The name may be the same, but the ID number was always different.
That only started happening with them taking the Yorktown and renaming it to honor Kirk and Crew, and the original Star Ship that they were on after they saved the earth.
Now there are a few instances where it was done again, however it is supposed to be in extreme circumstances. They kept using the letter designation for Enterprise because of its fame and history so they could keep the same hull number.
Before using it on Enterprise-A though I had proposed that ships like USS Constellation was honored with the hull number of 1017 to commemorate a ship with that name and one that had significant historical significance as in a Battle during the Romulan War, or something like that. This would be a better explanation then the prop hand at desilu studio that assembled the 1/650 plastic model from AMT just switched the decal numbers around because they didn't want to pay money for custom decals although they did for the ships name.
956 is even. ;-)
@@TheRezro they were always modular (at least in Jeffries’ original designs), but yes. Starfleet would’ve always preferred upgrades over entirely new spaceframes whenever possible - fleet expansion and making up for total-losses should be the only reason to construct entirely new ships. This is also why the kitbashes in DS9 never bothered me, as it makes sense for Starfleet to stick together what works while they fix the rest, even if they’re suboptimal in that configuration.
There is always the possibility that more were built to replace the lost ships.
I always assumed the 12 ships were specifically those built and launched around the same time to carry out the series of 5 year missions like the Enterprise, not literally the only 12 Constitution class ships that were ever built for all of time.
Really well done and well researched!
This was just the right side of nerdy for me to like and subscribe! Great video - thank you!
I think of them like aircraft carriers in the US navy, there's always at least 1 or 2 under construction intending to replace one being decommissioned. Or in this case one that has been lost in the line of duty. As a few have been. Seems the Constitution has a class life of around 70-90 years or so.
I remember also hearing about the Hornet and the Kongo as well.
Not mentioned on the tos series.only the amt models.that came out in the early 70's.
In the novel crossover, which is a TNG novel. It's a continuation of the episode relic sort of. Captain Scott steals the museum ship(that Picard talked about) Yorktown. Activates the cloaking device they stole in the original series and goes to save Spock and romulan territory with it.
As the original 12 were sent out on five year missions, some were lost as we saw in TOS. It makes sense that new/additional Constitution class ships were built to make up for these losses, and also to expand the fleet as the Federation expanded as well
In SNW, the Farragut has been established into canon as a frigate strongly resembling a Burke class.
Maybe? But, you Do Know, she was, according to the Star-Fleet guide book, based on Franz Joseph's vision of ship designs for a 'Connie' styled ship of, at-the-least, a Light Cruiser, if-not an Exploration/Heavy Cruiser. Sadly, while FJ had a great 'Ship's List' that fomed a decent, organized FLEET, we get JJ showing up, and... Well, look at his X-wing Turbine Intakes, and you can see how Illogical-anti-Vulcan he is... You take your 'Canon' and "reset" it, to FJ's Trek, 1st, then add-in how other Ignorant souls have 'rebuilt' the "canon" , and we get chaos, not a 'planned Fleet'.
@@ericbrammer2245 JJverse is irrelevant. alternate pocket-universe, soon to collapse and disappear.
Franz Josef’s Star Fleet Manual had dozens listed. But in the new ship in the Search for Spock was a newly constructed Constitution Class, so they were being produced at least until the Excelsior class variant replaced it
I was about to mention that manual. It did have at least three batches (as memory serves), with the third batch being huge. It also said that some of the destroyed ships were rebuilt (such as the Constellation II, etc.).
@@mcarp555 yes. Exactly. But they assigned a new Navel Construction Contract number. So no “bloody A,B,C or D”
Yes and no, Raven. The Enterprise in Search For Spock was the refit. However, the Enterprise at the end of Voyage Home was a new build ship. At least according to Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise.
@@Fizwalker
You are correct. The refit 1701 went down at the Genesis planet. My mistake. The A was revealed at the end of Star Trek IV. That said, it was new construction, a replacement meant for Yorktown-A. It was then granted to Kirk as the Enterprise-A due to the heroism Kirk and his crew displayed in Star Trek III. The fact that Star Fleet couldn't predict the damage Enterprise took in the Wrath of Khan is why no replacement for 1701 was being preparred. That there was for the Yorktown may have been due to that ship never receiving the upgrades 1701 received at the start of the Motion Picture
@@ravenmoon5111 granted this book is no longer canon--Thank you FASA for screwing this up.... >.> --Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise named the new build ship, USS Ti-ho and stated that it had a different model of transwarp drive. I only learned that it was the Yorktown-A while building a model of the post-Voyage Home Enterprise.
As for the replacement Enterprise, as of the ships return to earth at the beginning of Star Trek III, it would probably still be some time before a new Enterprise was commissioned. It's the nature of navies that they don't have the new built replacement done when the old one is retired (USS Enterprise CV-6, CVN-65 and CVN-80 are the poster children for this. Neither CVN-65 was ready when they scrapped CV-6. CVN-80 will be commissioned at the end of this decade, while CVN-65 has been decommissioned.) So it's questionable whether they'd have had a new ship ready even had the original Enterprise just been decommissioned and not blown up. You could also have made an argument that the next Enterprise would have been an Excelsior class ship then rather than after Star Trek VI. Granted the events of Star Trek IV, and Kirk's reputation with a Constitution class ship, oh and that they wanted it done *NOW*.
According to the original Star Fleet Techincal Manual, there were 14 MK-IX Heavy Cruisers(Constitution Class). This was the group that Enterprise belonged to. There were 4 replacement ships constructed. There was the MK-IXA HeavyCruisers(Bonhamme Richard Class) of which, 16 were constructed. There was, also, the MK-IXB Heavy Cruiser(Achenar Class) of which, 111 were constructed. All three classes shared the distinctive Constitution Class space frame. All of the ships mentioned here are on one of those three lists.
That was probably published after the Star Trek handbook which I had as a kid around 1969 or so. So much has been published since then. I consider that early book authoritative for it's time.
USS Bonhamme Richard and USS Achenar.
I have the Starfleet technical manual. Nowhere does it say 111 Heavy Cruisers of any class were built.
@@jv-lk7bc: My apologies. In Chapter 1, Section 4, Page 11(TO:01:04:11), it states: The following ships of the MK-IXB Class were authorized by the Starfleet Authorization of Stardate 5930: What followed was the list of 111 Achernar Class Starships.
The Republic was a "class room" ship used to train cadets and was never meant to leave the solar system.
7:10 On ‘Relics’ we can confirm through ‘Picard s3 ep. 6’ that the constitution class at the museum is 1975 USS New Jersey now.
This is a great video, thank you for making it and sharing it, I love star trek tos so much, thank you again.
The ship in Court Martial added in the remaster is the Intrepid NCC-1631 🖖
Just curious, definitely not questioning you. How do you know this? Did you inspect the frames from the shot? Inferred from the episode? Mentioned in notes?
@@godofbiscuitssf I asked Mike Okuda :-)
@@GeekFilter So, gospel then. Thanks!
@@GeekFilter Be nice to get the same for the Measure of a Man chart, if possible.
A lot of uncertain names on there (USS Amber? USS Brunswicker?)
Commodore Stone gives orders to a work crew on the Intrepid to work on the Enterprise first .
My "theory" is that the Connies with low registry numbers such as the Eagle, Constellation and Republic began life as single nacelle Frigates such as the Saladin and Hermes classes which outwardly were identical. Since the Constitution design with the extensive 2nd hull proved successful, to save time and money, ships such as the Constellation were modified and then matched up with Constitution Star Drive sections that had been pre
manufactured and kept in storage as spares.. In case maybe a Constitution was forced to abandon her Star Drive due to an emergency. In "The Apple" Kirk suggests this to Scotty because it may be the only option for escaping the "Vaal" mechanism. Of course in those days, most Starfleet Vessels were all Constitution variants, all based on an identical "saucer" main section.
When a vessel designed mainly for combat was needed, Starfleet came up with the 3 nacelle Federation Class Dreadnought with a larger main section. While her main bridge was nearly identical to the Connie & her variants, it was located down on the middle level. There was also a Connie type bridge in the 2nd hull. The Ship could separate with the main section still being warp capable since the middle nacelle was mounted on it and there was a warp core system available there.
I have a problem with that (single- or 3-nacelle ships) because Matt Jefferies mentions that two nacelles were need to "balance" the warp field.
Exactly! In all of Jefferies’ drawings, they were completely modular. Both for fast repairs, and future upgrades. (He even did a drawing of swapping the circular nacelles for rectangular ones!)
There’s no reason to think that any saucer couldn’t go on any engineering hull, which couldn’t go with any set of nacelles. Some combinations may be more space-efficient or fuel-efficient than others, but by the design philosophy of Jefferies, they should all at least _work!_ (This is of course exemplified by the refit having entirely new nacelles and engineering section.)
@@timsmith2525 that was Roddenberry I believe, who hadn’t decided on that rule until TNG. Designers such as Andrew Probert had to work within those limitations.
Jefferies just operated on visual appeal, so symmetry appeared early on for that reason, and Roddenberry liked it and asked him to stick with the twin “engine pods” (as they were called at the time) while working out the rest.
There was a Constitution class involved in the Battle of Wolf 395, and the Peregrine, a Sambra sub-class in an episode of Strange New Worlds.
Yes and that subclass makes me wonder how many of the ships in this video weren't actually Constitution class vessels, but some other that merely looked the same. Thanks for bringing it up.
And according to fan films, the ship Picard tells Scotty about and seen at Wolf 359 is the constitution class USS Constar NCC 1036
In TOS there is no USS Constitution mentioned and the class of ship the Enterprise is plaqued as is "Starship Class" in almost every episode on the plaque beside the turbolift
@@STho205 true, the name Constitution was swapped so to say with the space shuttle then named Enterprise. If I remember correctly and that's not just a pop culture myth.
@@Rocket_Try the AMT model kit in 1975ish suddenly had a whole set of *14 starship names* in the small box issue revision #5 and the instruction set listed the roster of 14 ship names and a set of suggested numbers NCC-17 01, 02, ...14. Constitution was on this list, but a #00 was not printed. Nor were the other numbers you see in the show.
1975 was when Joseph published the technical manual with 1700...so did they jive...not really...but they appeared at the same time so likely the same fan-fiction ideas or some notes from Phase II planning or TAS or just independent imagination.
The first kit I bought just had Enterprise printed in the already curved NCC 1701 numbering....no alternatives unless you wanted to build Constellation by switching digits and were good at hand printing Constellation. BTW the pylons fell off so.....
Second kit I bought had the big sheet mentioned above all printed straight....requiring you to curve them or apply them straight.
In the series if the numbers in order indicate age of the ship, then Constellation at 1017 and several others have lower numbers than Enterprise.
As to NASA homage
That was before the shuttles got built. I saw the Enterprise piggyback test shuttle at our decommissioned USAF base in 1977. Were the names already planned in 1975, don't know.
your analysis makes a lot of sense. as for there being several 'Constitution' class ships all being repaired at the same time at one starbase, that starbase might been the basic repair depot for that class. Not unusual as many air bases are setup to do repair for just one type of plane. Also if there is some upgrade an airbase might be designated for just that upgrade.
Possible, buty still stretched. Kirk was capable to avoid class refit for almost a decade. So it is still unlikely that all of them would be there at the same time.
The Farragut is a ship that resembles something like a TOS version of the Miranda. The republic is the museum ship and occasionally gets used for cadet training in the SOL system. It’s never mentioned if it’s a refit or not. But in DS9 it is mentioned that the republic is over 100 years old.
No it's a conni as there named in GENES making of book do your research !
@@glyndaley5844 I’ll have to look it up again on specifics. But we all know there is conflicting information on ships in cannon, including 1701-A origins of the Yorktown or taiho
@@aaronatwood9298 no READ GENES MAKING OF ITS THERE IN BLACK N WHITE 12 CONIES ! AND IN TOS THERE WERE NO MIRANDA CLASS that was a new ship 4 the 2nd movie .
@@glyndaley5844 In Beta canon at least Miranda was older then Constitution, dating back to 2230's (Anton, plus Phase II: Malachowski and Helios). But they become mass produced in 2270's, as Federation needed large number of reliable multi-purpose ships, after war with Klingons. Constitutions were already old and quite specialized ships, as such were basically replaced by Excelsior. Most of Conies was decommissioned after 2290's due to design flaw.
@@TheRezro look I don't give poo about that rubbish I go by OH GENE RODENBERRY AND MAT JEFFRIES ! And the official Canon making of book about TOS ! PUBLISED IN 1969 ! THAT BOOK SAYS STARFLEET WAS ONLY 12 STARSHIPS OF THE CONSTITUTION CLASS ! NO MIRANDAS thats fans fiction not NOT ! GENES OR MATS vision only star ship class other than CONSTITUTION was the Scout with one warp nacel and deflector on lower soucer that's all .
Well, that was a nice video. Along with the informative exposition, I liked the animation--esp. as taken with those Tholian web images. Very nice work sir!
I don't get why people think the Constitution must have been NCC-1700, with the others in the class going up from that. Wouldn't the registries be assigned at the time the ship was commissioned, not by class? Every other Enterprise, except the A, is an entirely different class of ship rather than adhering to any sort of registry number for that class. Not to mention NX type ships that never make it into full production. And sometimes multiple ships will be in production at once, but for one reason or another they're not completed in order.
At the time Kirk mentions 12 constitution class ships they were still building them. So in the end there may have been many more than just the 12 he mentioned.
If you take into the consideration of the storyline, Mirandas and Excelsiors were cranked out by the hundreds. Since the Excelsiors took over being the backbone of Starfleet's capital ships it can only seem to reason that the Consitituions would've taken the same path in their time. Kirk said only 12 like it...but Starfleet had hundreds of ships...they just never really showed them. Personally, with a growing Federation coupled with Klingon and Romulan aggression and threats, I'm quite certain that hundreds of Connies would've been built and fielded.
My headcanon is Kirk was referring to a specific model of Constitution Class Starship. More were built, but with slight variations the way Sherman tanks in WW 2 had multiple models for different purposes.
@@Lonovavir Not unlike today's naval ships. Take three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and put them side by side. They are all the same make and model but each has its differences. This would explain the NCC prefix on all starfleet vessels....the "Naval Construction Contract"" would highlight these differences on each ship (Enterprise NCC-1701 would have different equipment than Constitution NCC-1700). When you think of it, cars are just like that. Starfleet has already shown numerous vessels that were designed for a specific purpose (Oberth and Nova-class)
At the time Kirk mentions it: there is no Federation yet. The term starfleet has not been used. Typically United Earth or Earth Space Probe Agency (NASA esque term)....
And the biggie:
Enterprise is "Starship Class" and would be till the last episode of the series.
I've been told that in the Blu-ray release of Court Martial the ship repair chart was altered. NCC-1664 was change to NCC-1864. There's a screen shot on Memory Alpha and it's difficult for me to see what it is.
NCC-1864 was the USS Reliant, a Miranda class light cruiser. (STII) I really liked her, nice little ship.
I've read an article that stated that 13 Constitution class were assigned to the Galaxy Exploration Command arm of Star Fleet and sent on 5 year missions. Other Constitution class ships were assigned to Star Fleet Defence Command with at least 1 ship assigned to Star Fleet Training Command (as evidenced in Wrath of Khan when Enterprise was crewed by trainees under Capt. Spock).
Solid analysis, thank you! Cheers 🥂
The alleged reason that the USS Constellation was given the 1017 number was because the shows Producers wanted it to be clear on the B&W TV's of the time that it was a different ship.
1701 & 1710, they felt would not have been distinguishable enough on most 19" B&W TV's.
And they were using an early version of the AMT kit to represent the Constellation. So they could just use the numbers from the kit Decals.
That's weird. B&W TVs actually have more resolution than color TVs. Composite video was crappy. B&W TVs have S-video clarity. With a strong signal, anyway. Computers can display 80 column text on a black and white TV while they are limited to 40 column text on a color TV. That's probably why early computer monitors were monochrome. A simple RCA cable was all you needed.
@@robertgaines-tulsa You have to take into account that back then most TV Exec's went on the assumption that the viewers had the attention span & intelligence of a 12 year old. Also, 99% of the TV's back then were working with Rabbit-Eared Antennas which meant that the picture was somewhat fuzzy most of the time.
@@robertgaines-tulsa That`s now, back in the 60`s the resolution on TVs was a lot lower, (Cathode ray screens, remember). Here in the UK we were using the old 405-line system until well into the 1960s and the 625-line system took over. The US was, I think using the 625-line system a bit earlier but the resolution was still a lot lower in the pre-digital era.
Always loved it when we saw other Constitution class ships in the TV series, they were always usually wrecked or abandoned and it always made the Enterprise a super safe and secure place to be.
Not according to Scotty.
Wasn't Enterprise the only one of the original twelve to return from it's 5 year mission? The others were all lost.
@@michaelmcwilliams5475 I think so.
@@michaelmcwilliams5475 No, that was a bit of a fandom myth. Roddenberry kinda-sorta encoded this in the forward of the Motion Picture novelization, but there's never been any real canon statement to the effect that the Enterprise was the only one that made it and the Enterprise as well as other Connies made it through multiple 5-year missions beforehand.
In speculation, I think there were many variants of the class, built for different jobs. If we go with the launch date as 2245, then it's reasonable to suggest that USS Constitution NCC-1700 was launched in 2240, allowing for a couple of years for testing and Enterprise was the first production ship of the class. It seems reasonable to suggest that Enterprise underwent 2 refits prior to the 2260s, based on the 2 pilot episodes. Giving design and development, there could have been sub models produced with different jobs, hence the registration of USS Intrepid. Science vessels, such as the later Oberth class, seem to only have a 3 digit number for their registration, so seems likely that Intrepid was purely designed as a Science vessel. Considering the planned and subsequently rejected sequel, Phase 2, it's reasonable to suggest that there were further refits before what is seen from TMP onwards. So there could have been many variations produced over the years, a mark 1, mark 2 and mark 3. So that could account for the extra ships in the class, they were later developments of the Constitution class ship. That's my take on it anyway.
Really crazy - good work.😁👍
The Star Trek website says
"Constitution-Class Starship
Initially commissioned circa 2245, this type of Federation starship is one of the most well-known. The original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 is of this class.
Others have included the U.S.S. Excalibur, NCC-1664, the U.S.S. Exeter, NCC-1672 and the U.S.S. Potemkin, NCC-1657."
The Star Trek website says"
Constitution-Class Refit- Other vessels from this class include the Enterprise-A and the U.S.S. Yorktown."
lots of nice stylistic elements, enjoyed it.
I think you need to look at how the US navy builds Burke class DDG's Flight 1(21 ships), 2 (7 ships), 2A(37 ships),and now flight 3, So you would have the first 13, the a follow on batches with upgrades (as the class proves its toughness), the the TMP refit followed by more refits of surviving ships plus new ships as the Federation expands. plus the other major classes like the Miranda and the sitting Duck sorry Oberth class
"Twelve like her-.....," could also suggest 12 configured like the Enterprise for exploration, expanded labs and research. Kirk remarked the Enterprise had the best scientific labs in the fleet I believe. If the Defiant's registration 1764 is any indication as the latest ship is a minimum of 65 constitution class starships not including the lesser registration ships. The Intrepid registration 1631 has also been a point of conjecture as actually bearing 1831 and the Endeavour as having the registry 1895 both being Constitution class starships. Both ships further the idea that there were more "Constitution" class starships, however, consider Reliant is 1864 so following Connie's simply by registration is a challenging task.
There is not an Enterprise class starship there is the refit of the Constitution class per Scotty's schematic in Star Trek Undiscovered Country, at least not yet. Fandom and Fasa corporation created the Enterprise class references.
Well done overall. For Kongo references research the original Star Trek model ships list, the Kongo is 1710, Starfleet Battles by Task Force Games, Star Trek Continues and Star Ship Exeter.
This was really awesome.
There's no reason Starfleet couldn't build more ships, though silhouettes of the Eagle, Emden and Ahwahnee appear much smaller than the Endeavor and Potemkin in the ST6 maps, which means they could be other, smaller, types.
They most likely would prefer to build more modern classes, like Decatur or Sombra.
What you also have is that there were other classes of ships that looked the same but were different classes. Maybe some of the ships of lower ncc numbers were of lets say the Republic class. Then a batch of the constitution class. I personallly propose that enterprise was buit as a ship of the Starship class. Then after a refit of the USS constitution had that ship rechristened as constitution class. The Enterprise underwent the same refit (crew went from 203 to 430) and arnament went from Lasers (in the cage) to phasers. Then they refit the Enterpeise before TMP and you get the Entperise Class. Final note is to remember that in TOS the plaque next to the turbolift says Enterprise is "Starship Class" not consitution class though may be from her original Christening.
In SNW the Farragut was a "Farragut" type. Though that was an alternate timeline, and it seemed in TOS that every Federation ship was identical
That's because they only ever had one major model to work with. Hence all the ships the Enterprise encountered were Constitution-class, because if they didn't use stock footage of the 11 and 3 foot studio models, they shot new footage using the commercially available AMT model of said ship.
Also, although the Farragut is seen in an alternate timeline, there's nothing to indicate that it is not the same one mentioned in "Obsession". In fact, it's very logical that in time, Kirk would've become her captain, if he'd never become captain of the Enterprise, especially given how much Kirk admired Captain Garrovick.
As a kid watching TOS the word "Starship" had a note of reverence, as if you were talking about a specific type/class of ship instead of spaceship. The Enterprise and her sisters were a very special build of ship, like a battlecruiser in space. Over time, Starship became the nomenclature for all Starfleet vessels.
So when Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan came out, I was confused on what the Reliant was. I didn't think that Starfleet would build a different configuration of ship. So in my headcanon I thought that Khan and crew had salvaged an Enterprise class Starship somehow and put it in its onscreen configuration!
As a near-teen, back in the 70s, I bought this book at a retail bookstore.
It's a gem. The ships of the Constitution Class can be found there, based on the technical manual, of course. Also, some of the numbers vary based on destruction, heisting other under-construction hulls (the US Navy did it a number of times, even in the 60s, as in reassigning submarines), and other reasons. Some of the class are sub-variants, and the class grew to over 40, IIRC. Sadly, the owners of the Trek franchise have a nasty allergy to using canon or accepted-as-canon fan-generated and renown writers content in the TV series and on-screen stories or plots. It would have been nice if the Classic Constitution class got the kind of love we got from Star Trek: The New Voyages, Star Trek Continues, USS Farragut, and similar, which shared the reproduced sets, saving money, and wnabling great, well-tuned,homage-paying episodes.
The 1701 refit/and -A were nice, but Trek kwpt moving too fast and the actors aged, and the studio wasn't interested in branching a clasic Trek and the STTNG track later, for a long, too long, time.
www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/sftm.php
omg me too. wow, grace. we're the same. :) 🤡
I have a copy of the 1975 star trek technical manual, in which Franz Joseph lists *one hundred and seventy-three(!)* constitution-class ships and their registry numbers. The book is technically non-canon (kinda? Parts of it are, so I guess it's semi-canon?), but it's still a crazy thought to speculate about.
The Franz Joseph stuff was liberally used in displays on-screen in the movies and later series, so it's kinda canon.
@@jkleylein yeah, I know it's weird. Like I was saying, the ships themselves are technically canon but none of the information by Joseph has been confirmed to be.
@@pyronuke4768 To be fair, a lot of those listed ships were 'planned' I think, maybe not finished.
And I think it was more like 143?
@@chrissonofpear1384 it could've been 143, I'll have to count them again.
How about some logic. There were 12 in tomorrow was yesterday. The Federation expanded so they built more. Next hall registry. When a ship was named as honor of a prior ship, they used that ship's number. That's why Decker's ship was 1017. Later they added the letter a-b-c etc. Also, I have seen smaller versions of a constitution class ship.
My head canon is that the USS Constitution was the lead ship, and that the ships with registry numbers lower than 1700 where originally other classes which were refitted into Constitution Classes, maybe in response to the Klingon War seen the first season of Discovery. Enterprise, Constitution, and other ships with a registry number higher than 1700 were built from the keel up as Constitution class ships.
You totally forget in ST3, Kirk asks about a refit on the Enterprise, but the Admiral says the Enterprise is more than 20yrs old, and there will be no refit.
Nobody forgets that, but everybody ignores it because it makes no sense.
F15 fighter aircraft have been going since 1975 with upgrades and redesigns, but they still look like F15 Eagles. Tech can change and things improve without altering the basic configuration. Even the 1701 had a refit with new nacelles and deflector dish years after Kirk's mission, but others of the type could have been built between his adventures without redesign depending on purpose
When you take all statements in the serieses and movies into account you find many inconsistencies. Once I tried to calculate the age of the Enterprise before the refit. The original Enterprise has been built around 2245. Star Trek TMP plays in 2273. Here we have already 28 years. In every show of the Franchise they give you numbers without giving much thought into it. They don't take into consideration that there are some fans who have seen every single show or movie of Star Trek and try to bring some sense into it. Don't forget that next year Star Trek gets it 60th anniversary. So we must live with a lot of inconsistencies when they say for example something in Strange New Worlds and forgot what they said in TOS over 50 years ago.
I like this channel because the narrator is not yelling at me. When you have a mic, you can use your indoor voice.
I remember the Star Fleet Technical Manual had all the ships listed, even the ones that went missing. I want to say it included more than just the Constitution class ships.
The Republic is mentioned in Deep space nine and is still in service as a cadet training ship, the same thing they tried to do the Enterprise before it was badly damaged.
It also mentioned as an old ship that hasn't left the system in a very long time and I'm pretty sure it was said to be over a 100 years old.
According to Matt Jeffries NCC 1701 was the Navel Construction Contract number to the 17th starship built and 01 the first Constitution Class built.
That's what I recall. It should mean all Connies are 17XX. I could see the 16XXs being some Connie variant, a predecessor which perhaps looks a lot like a Connie - the way a lot of warships, airliners etc look alike because they are an optimal design. Problem is that it should make the 18XXs the Miranda class and 20XX the Excelsior class, and clearly we have issues with that here.
@@michaelhughes6189 The "issues" are always caused by new writers and prop makers who thing they have a better ideal, such as changing uniforms, changing Command from gold to red. Changing warp nacelle design. Change Comm badge designs. Everyone new working at Trek had ideals for "Improvement". Even with Pike's Enterprise someone said the dome above the bridge looked to high so cut it down. Change is the only universal constant. LLAP.
@@michaelhughes6189 But the Constellation is 1017. Yeah, it was easier for the model builders to cut the decal once in the center (1710 would require two cuts-and be more difficult to align), but coming up with a plausible, in-story explanation is more challenging.
If I recall, at least in apocrypha, there was also the Republic, which was unfortunately subject to the indignity of being turned into a training ship, and eventually, in a more dignified capacity, destroyed fighting the Borg in the battle of Wolf 359
I think we need to look at "Starship Class" as a pretty broad category, like "aircraft carrier", of which stuff like "Constitution Class" is a subset, like how we differentiate a Nimitz Class carrier from a Kitty Hawk Class. This also brings up a key part of differentiating ship classes: It's not just how they look, it has to do with their capabilities. The aforementioned Kitty Hawk Class aircraft carrier and Nimitz Class carriers look identical to the untrained eye, but their capabilities are very different (for instance, the Nimitz Class is nuclear powered). I cite this because I believe the case can be made that the Constellation is not, in fact a Constitution Class, but is an example of a slightly older starship class, based upon the radically lower registry number and a number of subtle structural differences (this would also include ships like the Republic, which DS9 intimated was still in service as a cadet training vessel, which seemed to be its purpose when referred to in "Court Martial").
This gives us the Constitution with a registry of 1700, the Enterprise with 1701, later ships following on, while ships that were either under construction when the Constitution class was approved being upgraded to Constitution Class specs, or just changed to the newer class before construction began while keeping their original registry numbers.
The refits are a bit of a nightmare, but suffice it to say that when the Enterprise was refit, she ceased to be a Constitution Class and became a prototype for future refits, the Enterprise Class (as indicated by the "Enterprise Class" sign outside the simulator room in Star Trek II. Later refits, however, followed a somewhat different tack internally, particularly in the Engineering section, with these differences being standardized throughout the ships that were refit, with these ships, including the Yorktown/Enterprise-A keeping the designation of Constitution Class.
I'm still trying to figure out where the Eagle fits in....
I have a hard time imagining how the ST:TMP Enterprise can be a "refit" of the TOS Enterprise. I'm okay with replacing the nacelles, but the lines of the primary and secondary hulls are different-and the interior is way too different. But then again, during WW-II there were ships that began construction as cruisers and were converted to aircraft carriers. BTW-Love the carrier analogy!
@@timsmith2525 Star Trek Continues answered that issue by having the Enterprise beat to living hell before she got back, so any refit would be a complete rebuild anyway.
In any case, the final movie refit can be seen as a bit of mission creep, as Matt Jefferies original version was a more realistic refit, keeping the original saucer, but replacing everything else, as the design was largely modular to begin with, the the lower hull basically being just a glorified nacelle.
You are right that in the same type of ship you have multiple classes based on build groups, years and specific design. Some USN battleships are their own class, with no sisters. The type of ship is Cruiser or Hvy Cruiser.
However TOS Enterprise is formally "Class: Starship" on the build plate/plaque in every episode and hanging on Nexus Kirk's kitchen wall in Generations.
The whole Constitution Class stuff got invented in the mid 70s when the show and Saturday cartoon was off the air in 1st run.
It got embraced by gamers, fan novels and AMT model builders after they created a 14 ship decal set in 1974 (if I remember the right year)
@@STho205 Little known trivia: The term “Constitution Class” comes from a monitor graphic (that technical journal of Scotty’s, to be specific) and was noted in the first fan edition of the Star Trek Concordance in 1968.
@@CaptRobertApril mk9/01 in Tibbles...but that contradicts the build plate that remained with the set for the entire series, as well as references in the scripts. As most post production art on the viewscreens is somewhat whimsical and has been recreated more distinctly in CBS CGI...often with changes.
There is also the USS Kongo NCC-1710, Star Trek Continues.
The name USS kongo was used on a sticker in a model kit you could buy once and put on the front of the ship if you don't want to use USS Enterprise.
🖖😎👍Also they were all registered with 1700 numbers up to 1711 except for Constellation 1017 and the Republic 1371, And then NCC-1712 Started the Bonhomme Richard's class of a upgraded version of the ships...
source or its bs.
@jv-lk7bc ,The original Starfleet technical Manuel from the early 70's written and illustrated, by Franz Joseph, with all of the actual registry names and numbers of each starship and its class of ship and so forth!.
The Farragut in Strange New Worlds is a lighter class of ship, without a secondary hull. It could quite easily have been a Conny in the TOS era. Back then it was assumed Starfleet ships were all the same.
SNW is set just a handful of years before TOS. references in either to Farragut is almost certainly the same ship
(plus thats the whole point of a callback)
maybe you made assuptions about all starfleet ships beign the same. that doesn't make it canon (and hardly makes sense).
Its well known the TOS budget didn't cover anything but the bare bones, model-wise. They even used store-bought models in shooting! Theres a lot implied but never seen.
Now the chart featured in the episode court-martial does not necessarily automatically mean all those ships were in for repair at Starbase 12. Likelihood spread out throughout Federation space amongst numerous starbases and Inver repair. More importantly Kirk did not say that they were exactly the same nor was it inferred so they're easily could have been more ships of the class but also with subclass characteristics that the Enterprise and those other eleven ships would be identical to. Plus of most of the batches of ships featured on screen on the original series there are some that inherit their names from American Naval tradition, some that inherit their names from British Naval tradition as well as some that by all appearances fpr2 inherit their name from German or Russian naval tradition. And if you look at next Generation although totally different class of ship the Yamato blown up in Contagion shows that there are ships with naming conventions following that of Imperial Japan
And I believe that the "Brisbane" is mentioned at one point, (I think that was in TNG)
Are you aware that "Enterprise" was originally a Royal Navy warship's name?
That whole list in the context of this essay is nonsensical. If this is the whole heavy cruiser fleet...is every one in drydock for repair at the same time.
Be it at Starbase 12 or all bases, that means the fleet is missing all the heavy cruisers at once...the best ships in the fleet at the time.
It is just a production splash screen to make the scene evocative of real.
🖖😎👍USS Constitution NCC-1700 was the first ship of its class and thier was a total of 14 ships according to the Star Fleet technical Manuel by Franz Joseph of the ships designed by Matt Jefferies. Any ways a nice job done all and very well informatively explained indeed👌.
I am not fun at parties, but I found the pdf to the Star Trek technical manual of 1975 and there are indeed 14 original heavy cruisers like the Enterprise but a total of around a 100 heavy cruisers, most of which were built at later dates than the Enterprise, but were essentially in the same mold. A couple of the ships, out of the original 14, were missing or destroyed, though.
I was wondering if anyone was going to mention the Franz Josef technical manual. I loved that thing when I was a kid; too bad I didn't keep it. Probably would have been worth some money.
I myself own 3 of them the oldest one is falling apart and then I still have another original one in supreme condition and I have the paper back one as well as the Starfleet medical one of the same Era.
I got the blueprints to the Enterprise for Christmas when I was about 9 and wanted to build it in my backyard until I found out it was 3 football fields long.
Yes I used to own those as well until someone took out 2 of sheets from it and later on just giving them away to one of my friends there said take them anyway sheets missing or not, which to me they were just worthless after that 🤔
The Lexington had 4 circular windows on the bow on the saucer section in the remastered version, not 3
I believe there was more being built all the time. When we see the enterprise under Kirk she has already had a refit from when Pike was in command, so I believe she was updated to be like a second batch of connies when she was from the first.
The Enterprise under Pike was not the same configuration as the Enterprise as Kirk commanded it in the "galactic barrier" mission, but the two were close... still the same basic capabilities, with a few minor upgrades.
After the barrier disaster, the ship had to receive a major refit, however... making it a whole new class, even if on the same hull. ,(This could explain the "Starship Class" in the dedication plaque... Enterprise, as refit BECAME the the class, so named after the first ship in that new configuration, the Constitution.)
@@carybrown851 hmmm i suspect the only differenc between both Enterprises can be seen in the Buzzard collectors on both Enterprises that Pike and Kirk commanded if im not mistaken?
I find it hard to believe that as these ships are deployed, get damaged/destroyed, etc., Starfleet is just going to shrug and say, "well, I guess we're out of heavy cruisers. Whaddya gonna do?" Surely, it would have to be that there were 12 of this new type at the moment Kirk uttered that statement. Think of any navy: at any given time, there are older and newer iterations of various ship classes serving side by side. For instance, the U.S. Navy has thousands of ships in its current fleet with many more mothballed, scrapped, converted to museums. They have something like a dozen aircraft carriers alone with three more under construction --including a new Enterprise. I would guess that Starfleet would be roughly analogous.
Excellent research
5:31 There is a Republic mentioned in DS9 i don't know if it's the same ship you mentioned.
DS9:Valiant. "JAKE: So this was a training ship. Like the other one, the, er, the Republic.
COLLINS: Not quite. The Republic's an old ship. I don't think she's left the Terran system in fifty years."
Just Googled Republic. Star Trek website has a page for it and says
"Republic, U.S.S.
Constitution-class Federation starship, registry NCC-1371. While serving aboard this vessel, Ensign James Kirk reported a careless mistake made by Ensign Ben Finney. Finney later claimed that this kept him from receiving a promotion for three years. The Republic eventually became a training ship."
If you look at the history of Essex-class carriers and their variations (long-hull, short-hull, post-war modifications like new islands, angle decks, or hurricane bows) you can easily see how a single class of ships can be modified and their service lives extended. As far as the hull numbers go, CVE escort carriers would often jump numbers when a batch of ten or twenty would be built for our lend-lease partners (i.e. Britain). Great video!
Turns out the mysterious twelfth ship is the U.S.S. New Jersey, NCC-1975. Never received the same refit as her other sister ships and was put in the Fleet Museum. Farragut was a different class of vessel altogether.
I had always thought there were 13 in the original run (mark I) of the class. In the episode Tomorrow is Yesterday Captaim Kirk tells Captain Christopher "there are 12 like it in the fleet." This sounds as though he is saying the Enterprise is one of 12 more, total of 13. And I am sure they would have made more ships after the original 13 were produced, hence the Kongo and Eagle amoung others. The AMT model kit for the original Enterprise had 14 names with it, including all you stated plus the Kongo.
I have to agree with you.there is 13 constitution class starships.i think the 13th one is the USS valiant.
There are also possible ex-constitution class ships, ships that were lost totally but parts where reused starships are well-known for modular bridges. So it may have been used for our ships and renamed. It could be that Starfleet did with its ships the same thing as model makers do kitbashing when necessary.
How about the idea that there were multiple classes of the same type? A real world example would be the Tennessee and Maryland classes of U S battleships. They were all pretty much the same except for the main guns. Perhaps the 1700 series was a major upgrade to the 1600 series starships.
Great Video
By Piccard Season 3, I would guess the Constitution class in the museum would be the U.S.S. New Jersey - NCC 1975.
I say we pull a Lucas and retcon a few of these ships into other classes. Seeing the same model on the screen over and over gets kind of dull.
The _Republic_ - a classic Constitution-class ship under the command of Cpt. Richard Patterson - appeared in "Star Trek: 25th Anniversary". It fought the _Enterprise_ in a simulated battle at the start of the game, and then at the end was -destroyed- severely damaged by the Vardaine-built _"Enterprise 2"_ under the command of Dr. Ies Breddell. All hands were lost.
(Edit: It wasn't totally destroyed, just severely damaged. Despite multiple hull breaches, the ship remained mostly intact and could theoretically be repaired and returned to service.)
According to the Star Trek Blueprints by Franz Joseph (released by Ballantine Books (c) 1973), the 14 Constitution class ships were:
1371 - Republic
1700 - Constitution
1017 - Constellation
1701 - Enterprise
1702 - Farragut
1703 - Lexington
1704 - Yorktown
1705 - Excalibur
1706 - Exeter
1707 - Hood
1708 - Intrepid
1709 - Valiant
1710 - Kongo
1711 - Potemkin
I'm a purist: I only want to include ships mentioned in the original series. The Intrepid, Constellation, and Defiant were lost in TOS (A loss rate of 1 ship per year?), so there might have been more than 12 ships prior to Tomorrow is Yesterday, but they aren't mentioned.
And when shown in the Ultimate Computer some of those named ships have drastically different numbers.
Excalibur was 1664 in the show if i recall.
Defiant when shown was 1764.
@@STho205 Yep. I think Franz Joseph was trying to keep them all in the 1700s with the Constitution (class ship) being 1700. Of course, the blueprints were created almost 10 years after the show ended. I think it's impressive he was able to incorporate the sets into feasible blueprints. Some of the interesting things in the blueprints: There's an auxiliary bridge as well as a bridge in the secondary "engineering" hull. The secondary hull was fully functional without the saucer section (and vice-versa, albeit the saucer was incapable of warp speed). The ship's computer was huge. There were 4 transporter rooms in the primary hull as well as emergency transporters (for abandoning ship) and cargo transporters. Both hulls had independent medical sections. There was a swimming pool and bowling alley in the secondary hull (one wonders how the water stayed in the pool with all the bouncing around the old E did; on the other hand bowling during an attack probably resulting in lots of 300 point games).
@@xyzzy5821 sure, but they weren't in the show. The numbering was mostly random. Is this Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek or FJ's illustrated for nerds Star Trek. My wife owned a copy:)
Back in the early 1970's, there was a hand book for Star Trek published and it described many things about Star Trek, the Enterprise and crew and hat photographs of some of the props and from the series. At that time it reported there were 12 constellation class star ships. Being a young fan, I got a copy of it. I also sent off for some of those A shaped badges that were on the shirts of the actors in the series. I imagine there have been modifications and changes to Star Trek cannon since those early days.
Maybe constitution class shapes refer to a "type" of ship, not just a class. Excelsior could be in starfleet terminology a "Battle cruiser" when it comes to tactical deployment and a Constitution is a "Heavy Cruiser". The constitution shapes could be various Heavy Cruisers. Would neatly line all that up.
Personally I agree with something like.. Pre-refit Constitutions that were refit, newly built refit Constitutions to replace elderly hulls or a group of pre-connies because maybe the Excelsior program had delays ramping up to full production and Starfleet needs ships.
Building the models since they came out in ‘67. Still building and kit bashing till this day. But back in the day the only reference we had was Fran Joseph Star Trek Technical Manual and that’s what I’ve stuck with. I like the consecutive numbering. Then in late 80’s Ships of the Starfleet Vol. 1 came out and that became my second go to reference book as far as names=registration numbers.
There is another possibility with the "early" hull numbers -- those that preceeded 1700. Those ships could have undergone refits up to the Constitution class or had been used as initial test beds for systems in a similar fashion to what we did with the space shuttle and Enterprise (OV-101) being the 1st flight unit while Challenger (OV-099) was a test bed vehicle brought up to flight standards
Unfortunately, Star Trek: Discovery establishes that a brand new, state-of-the-art ship can have lower numbers than an older class of ships. The Crossfield-class USS Discovery and Glenn had NCC-1031 and 1030.
@@mikedicenso2778 is not uncommon to see that
Consider even with modern ships
We recycle numbers after a while
The New Jersey shown at the space dock museum
on Star Trek Picard season 3 would fill this gap
Great video and hypothesis
Star trek follows US naval registration doctrine of randomized registration numbers. Randomized registration numbers proved most beneficial in WW2 as the allies were able to determine how many German U-boats they had because the German navy used sequential registration numbers.
The only thing that would put me off of having Kirk serve on Constitution Class ships before is that the whole storyline of a young Lieutenant Kirk hesitating to fire, and that hesitation haunting Kirk, implies that by the time Kirk is a Captain, on Enterprise, these ships are vastly more capable than they were just 10 to 15 years prior. We do know at least in semi canon, that the Enterprise got one major refit from the pilot episode to the first Kirk episode, both in real life and in the Trek Universe.
Take a drink every time he says "NCC".
This is so cool. Thank you for making this presentation.
May I offer for consideration, the American long range bomber, the B52, which has been in military service since the mid 1950's due to its reliability and relative low cost of maintaining versus manufacture and maintenance of the newer B1B and B1C, and Stealth Bombers.
There are actually two "Enterprise" sub-classes with some other intermediate class such as a Constitution II and others. The first of the Enterprise, these are ships with the specifications of the Enterprise refit. And the second one (the one that changes the name of the Yorktown that was being built to the Enterprise class), is the one that would be that Enterprise II class, which would be based on a class that emerged from the Enterprise I class, with many improvements that would later be corrected again with new equipment such as the black control boards (which can be used as any console type necessary) that were introduced in the Excelsior class and new warp nacelles, corrected and improved on the original nacelles, also with the inclusion of some improvements born from the experience with the Excelsior-class nacelles themselves, which in turn are a reconstruction of the failed original "transwarp" nacelles of the Excelsior NX.
This "Enterprise II" class would actually be the last interaction with the headsets that show direct similarities to the Enterprise refit. Before Starfleet shifted its focus entirely to the Excelsior class and its successor classes.And this would be the reason why there are so many that show similarities to the Enterprise, because the Enterprise I Class, the Constitution II, the Enterprise II and those in between these last two classes, all of them share a very similar visual aspect, especially on a scale as small as a silhouette in a battle plan. There's also one who makes it to the Battle of Wolf 359 alive. Whether it's one of the last, or was removed from a museum as an emergency measure, is another story.
One of the greatest failings of Star Trek was that they never seemed to ask any Naval personnel how things actually work in real fleets. The "hull registry" issue is an example. The term "hull registry" actually came from the similar term used for civilian aircraft - in the Navy we call them pennant numbers. Currently many smaller fleets use sequential numbers, such as the RCN's City or Halifax class. But back when the Royal Navy was quite enormous, there was never any worry about or effort to create sequential numbering. For instance, the 1932 D class destroyers had the following pennant numbers:
DUNCAN - D 99
DAINTY - H 53
DARING - H 16
DECOY - H 75
DEFENDER - H 07
DELIGHT - H 38
DIAMOND - H 22
DIANA - H 49
DUCHESS - H 64
As can be seen, there was no thyme or reason in the sequence. The use of a variety of "Flags superior", the letter in front greatly increased the number of variations and theoretically Starfleet would have done the same. It makes absolutely no sense having every type and class of ship with the same "NCC" other than for continuity for the fans (sadly lacking elsewhere in Star Trek).
And the whole idea of attaching a pennant number to a particular name is never practiced by real navies, eg Enterprise NCC 1701-A, B, C, D. Not only is it cumbersome and difficult to manage with no real benefit, it's also entirely unnecessary if the previous ships are out of commission. It's only practical use would be if both the older and newer ships of the same name were all in service at the same time.
Just one of the many nonsensical things in Star Trek that a quick chat with a seaman could have sorted out.
Counterpoints:
1) Star Trek is an American show, and in the U.S. Navy the "hull classification symbol" (as they call it) does in fact follow a logical numbering sequence.
2) The point about prefixes is fair. On the other hand, there's no reason Starfleet has to follow the same classification conventions as a wet navy, any more than the navies of different countries do (refer to point 1).
3) Up to the year 2378, the Enterprise is the only vessel in the fleet to have a legacy number. Yes, it's frivolous; but as long as they don't do it for _every_ ship name, it's manageable. And again, Starfleet is free to develop its own conventions (per point 2).
@@d.b.4671 Valid points, but just because the USN uses sequential pennant numbers doesn't mean that this is somehow the norm and thus the federation would do likewise. And the USN's hull classification system includes letters that signify the warship type, even if they're not actually painted on the ship. Many other nations use a flag superior to signify the warship type: "D" for destroyer, "F" for frigate, "P" for patrol, etc. Given that it's meant to represent a multinational future, Star Trek's Federation is very American. Yet another failing, I'm afraid.
Mind you, all this pales when faced with "Discovery", Picard", "Strange New Worlds." They leave me speechless with the nonsense that passes for scripts.
I know the Endeavor was used as a test bed for new systems, she is still considered a Connie but got a neck mounted torpedo launcher (single tube) new defector dish and warp nacelles that more closely resembled the refit ones. The rest of the ship looked like a standard Constitution class. She was part of the second block of 12 ships of the class to be constructed (This comes from studio drawings for the proposed second trek TV series or phase 2)
As to the ship in the fleet museum, two of the Trek novels reference its origin. It's speculated that the event that led to the Enterprise refit was a terrorist attack that took out the bridge. The saucer section was replaced as a result. Another novel takes place after the episode Relics. Scotty never made it to the Northrum colony. He goes on a rescue mission to get Kirk who died in the generations movie but who's body was reanimated by the Borg. Scotty needing a ship to do the task steals the Yorktown from the museum. He uses the shuttle that Picard gave him and tied it into the Yorktowns system to control the ship from the shuttle. In the process Scotty discovers that the old saucer section from the Enterprise was used to make this ship when he finds the commission plaque in engineering. For Scotty he was back home.
Good Video. NCC 1701 is the weird ship ever and I can't point to the game or the audio book but Enterprise is the first constitution class ever built and given the designation NCC 1701 then Star Fleet built the Constitution second and gave it NCC 1700 I don't know why they did it this way but the did and I can't remember the audio book I check out of a public library witch told that story. Also From star fleet battles a ship with the number 1600 is usually a light cruiser and any ship with a number 2000 or higher is a dreadnaught or Excelsior class. I learned a lot thanks for the video.
There is a Kongo in the Constitution class. Way back in the 70s, the authors of the Tech Manual had the foresight to use Native American, Japanese, Chinese, African (maybe an homage to science that existed hundreds of years before the USA was even founded), and other race/ethnicity/nation names, since Trek was created to show humanity, not just the Red, White, and Blue USA in space. But, due to the reality of the times, budgets, and studio sensitivity to politics, there was simply no way Trek would make it to episode 20 if it posited a Chinese-crewed sister ship (the non-existent Vulcans did), or the Vietnamese and Russian and Spanish hybrid crew (making that up, here).
But, it was safer to posit Orions, telepathic or squeaky dolphins, Vulcans, and others as crews. Indians got Space Seed, but only in the form of a villain, and the actor wasn't even Indian or Pakistani.
Anyway, it's also always possible to reconfigure the virtually ubiquitous saucer section to serve as tractors, tugs, hybrid cruisers, frigates, and space scouts. I particularly loved the cargo transport containers that fitted at the bottom of the neck of the saucer's dorsal connector.
Trek was and still is RICH, bountiful with stuff we'll never see on screen because, well, audiences of today prefer shiny, blinky stuff, not recreated sets that by intent are set in the construction realities of the 60s. I would live to see the tween-decks inclinded companionways, the airlocks, more lounges, the bowling alley, the swimming pool, the larger arboretum, the ships computers at 2 or 3 deck levels, and more. Oh, and the Bridge heads (restrooms) and in-deck emergency eacape hatches, the astronomy telescope abaft the Bridge.... And the OTHER 3standard transporter rooms, the emergency transporters, and the cargo transporter rooms, and the shittle maintenance bays. Not enough money, and maybe too many politics eps in Trek doomed it to ~79 eps?
Ahhh, those pages of the Manual(s)...