Talk:Constitution class starship

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[edit] Canon issues

Is it ever shown on screen Eagle and Kongo were a) confirmed to be Constitution class vessels and b) even mentioned in Star Trek VI? If not, that isn't canon and these two should be removed from the "confirmed" list. 23skidoo 04:34, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I am unsure as to the class of those ships, but they are mentioned in Star Trek VI and listed in the Star Trek Encyclopedia as having been in said movie (the class may be mentioned in the encyclopedia as well, but I do not have mine with me to check). The scene in question was cut from the theatrical release and only seen since in certain edits of the movie. Indrian 04:37, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Are the registry numbers confirmed and canon? Memory Alpha lists Intrepid as NCC-1631, not -1831, and calls Hood, Defiant, and other #s not canon. --trekphiler, 17/11/05

Re "speculation" about Constitution: if we accept Enterprise was launched 2245, how does a ship 700 registry #s earlier (Constellation? cf "Doomsday Machine") fall in the same class? I'll accept Constitution & Enterprise are a common class... Has a canon (or authoritative) list of launch dates ever appeared? --trekphiler, 21/11/05

Related to canon issues, has it been established in canon that the Constitition ever carried the registry NX-1700? It might be a logical extrapolation, but we're once again supposed to stick to canon here. 23skidoo 00:06, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I should note one possibility for the NCC-1701A's origin: Since NCC-1701 was scheduled to be retired, a brand new ship could have been scheduled to bear the name all along. Star Fleet might not disclose this until the last minute -- even to Kirk.--Will 06:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

On 1700- we have no name for the vessel offically. the wall display in court martail only displays regestry numbers- no Names. move this ship out of the confirmed catagory. The wall display does'nt even specify class.

Template:Spoiler This is not canon, but one of the books, TOS: Final Frontier, talks about how NCC-1701 was originally contracted as NCC-1700, Constition. However, by the time the yard was ready to begin construction, the new library computer became available. This made many technologies scheduled for NCC-1700, already called revolutionary, absolete. So the contract was cancelled and replaced with NCC-1701. The computer turned the transporters from a manual process taking 5-10 minutes into an automatic one taking seconds. The computer also revolutionized warp travel. Previous ships, inlcuding NCC-1700, needed to drop out of warp constantly to look for obstacles. They could not interpet scans at warp speeds without the computer. Captain April in the book is mainly an engineer who brings in a security specialist as a first officer. April wants to call the new ship Constitution despite the new contract. However, his first officer convinces April to use "Enterprise." The officer's name? George Samuel Kirk. He was James T. Kirk's Dad. Jim Kirk is an 8-year old in the book. Please note that all of this is in direct conflict with current canon. Too bad. I liked the book's version better.--Will 06:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dominion War Constitution class

Pulled this:

It is unknown if the refitted Constitution class is still in service in the 2370s; however, it is likely, considering the continued active service of the Excelsior and Miranda classes, both from the same era. There is a variant of the class known to be in use, that of a saucer with a normally attached neck from the bottom of which two nacelles are supported by pylons. This variation was designed and produced at the McKinley Orbital Spacedock; no names or registry numbers of the ships are known.

As from the fact that the first sentence sounds a hell of a lot like speculation, which episode was this no-secondary hull starship in? And if it was actually in an episode and not just in the DS9 Technical Manual or something similar, it sounds a hell of a lot like a completely different class, not a Constitution variant. AlistairMcMillan 16:26, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

WATCH THE BEST OF BOTH WORLD PART 2, A CONSTITUTION CLASS PRIMARY HULL IS VIEWED BURNING UP ON THE ENTERPRISE-D'S VIEW SCREEN.

[edit] Aft torpedoes

I was not aware the Constitution class had aft torpedoes. Perhaps that point needs to be reconsidered

"however, they were quite capable in combat against ships of most enemy powers of their time, with an armament consisting of six photon torpedo launchers (four forward, two aft) and three dual-turret phaser banks."

Jesuspower 14:14, 12 May 2005

The Defiant in ENT "In a Mirror, Darkly" part II had some sort of aft weapons according to dialogue and on-screen appearances; she has phasers and torpedo launchers which Defiant used against the Tholian shipyard. --Blue387 19:49, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Specification list

How much of the specification list is actually based on canon sources? If I remember correctly, Shuvinaaljis and Leeding Engines both come from Mr. Scott's Guide, which is non-canon. Where does McKinley Orbital Spacedock come from as a shipyard? How much of this is guesswork and supposition? AlistairMcMillan 17:50, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Named for...

On this page we say the starship USS Yorktown is named after the USS Yorktown, but on the Yorktown page we say that we are assuming it is named after the Battle of Yorktown. Which is it? And do we possibly have a source?

How about all the other "Named for" entries? Do they have sources? AlistairMcMillan 00:48, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

I wrote most of the "named for" entries based on information (dialogue, items seen on screen, from episodes, the encyclopedia, various websites including Memory Alpha and EAS. I suggest we leave it as it for now as citing everything I wrote would be difficult to cite if deleted. Do you want me to cite everything I write even if it is canon and from something like Memory Alpha? --Blue387 07:08, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

All the "named for" entries need clarification. "Named for USS Saratoga" tells me nothing when there's no mention of which Sara (especially after a starship with that name has been lost). When the names derive from famous ships, such as Challenger, Endeavour, or Hood, this is less an isssue; even then, earlier ships might share the name & cause confusion for those (unlike myself...) familiar with others. --trekphiler, 16/11/05

For now at least we should make the two pages consistent. You are aware that we are supposed to cite sources all the time. Granted I'm can't hold myself up as a great example, but... Anyway, Memory-Alpha has different standards than Wikipedia, so copying information from there might not always be a good idea.

BTW I responded to your query at Talk:List of Starfleet ship classes. Any comment? If you don't have any objection then I'll move the Saber class back to the merged page as per the WP:FICT semi-policy. AlistairMcMillan 10:20, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't steal information and I limit my information from directly from canon and my sources on ship names primarily include Memory Alpha, EAS, the Encylopedia and Spike's Star Trek Site. Second, I personally don't agree with it but I reluctantly accept the moving of the Saber class page. I would like to change the names of the Romulan, Klingon and Cardassian (and other) ship pages to "List of XYZ ship classes" to be more consistent with "List of Starfleet ship classes." I also suggest a page on Starfleet and alien shuttlecraft. Also, why is the Borg cube called a "Borg cube ship"? I thought adding "ship" was redundant compared to simply a "Borg cube"; I've never heard Captain Janeway or anyone say "Borg cube ship". I would also like to suggest a rule: any starship that has appeared only once onscreen (such as the Soyuz or Valdore) and/or has less than two appearances in a canon source such as episodes or the Encyclopedia (prominent vessels) should be on the ship list page. Ships such as the Steamrunner have appeared on screen several times and I wish the encylopedia people came out with a new encyclopedia that listed weapons locations to solve our arguments ("The XYZ class starship has XYZ phasers and XYZ torpedo launchers.") and other items to solve minutiae issues like the Nebula class. Is some sort of mediation required? --Blue387 19:49, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Concur. The Miranda page suggests not one class, but three, or perhaps more, given detail variations. Obviously, "ST" writers don't understand how ship classes are defined, and have never heard of naming systems... --squadfifteen, 16/11/05

As I recall, the so-called "Enterprise-A" was a new design, not a Constitution. --trekphiler, 16/11/05

Memory Alpha has "Enterprise-A" as Constitution-class by her dedication plaque, as seen in "ST V" & "ST VI",
It also has NCC-1764 Defiant as Constitution-class, by her visible dedication plaque (without a source). --trekphiler, 17/11/05

It's intriguing to me "STTOS" with Constitution comes closest to an actual naming system: historical ships. (I reject Excalibur as named for Arthur Pendragon's sword; she was a ship, & it is the earlier ship she would be named for, regardless whether the earlier Excalibur was named for the sword...) --squadfifteen, 16/11/05

I removed the breakdown of potential non-Constitutions from here as too Trek-specific & posted it to Memory Alpha's ship registry comment page. --trekphiler, 17/11/05

[edit] Intrepid

I removed this

USS Intrepid (NCC-1631)
Named for the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the Vulcan-crewed starship Intrepid is destroyed by a spacefaring organism in 2268 (TOS: "The Immunity Syndrome").

because I realized watching the repeat the other day that the Intrepid doesn't actually appear; I don't know of anything in canon that establishes this ship's class. If there's a reference, can someone please cite it in this blurb?

Additionally, someone recently posted this comment:

<!-- Registry changed from 1831 to 1631. Different sources list both. Most appear to favour 1631-->

What are these sources? Who are these most sources doing the favoring? Rather than making an arbitrary/debatable decision, it would be better to identify that there is a conflict, identify the conflicting sources, and let readers render their own decision as to which registry is "correct" (or point specifically to a citeable secondary source that makes that assertion).

--EEMeltonIV 14:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] class of the refit

The dedication plaque of the A as shown in the Encyclopedia doesn't say "Constitution class", just "Second Starship to bear the name". I think some possibly some diagram Scotty was seen looking at in VI nails it down. Morwen - Talk 18:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia has this this list of names and numbers by the way :
  1. Constellation: NCC-1017
  2. Constitution: NCC-1700 (supposedly visible in freeze-frame in Space Seed)
  3. Defiant: NCC-1764
  4. Eagle: NCC-856
  5. Endeavour: NCC-1895
  6. Enterprise: NCC-1701
  7. Enterprise (2): NCC-1701-A
  8. Essex: NCC-1697
  9. Excalibur: NCC-1664
  10. Exeter: NCC-1672
  11. Hood: NCC-1703
  12. Intreprid: NCC-1831
  13. Lexington: NCC-1709
  14. Potemkin: NCC-1657
  15. Republic: NCC-1371
  16. Yorktown: NCC-1717

Of the ones that weren't just taken from the screen, it notes that they got numbers and names from a chart seen in Court Martial. Few also from Star Trek IV. Also some names derived from the production office list by way of the Making of Star Trek. Tomorrow is Yesterday says there are only 12 of them in srvice at the time. Morwen - Talk 19:31, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Star Trek VI screencap?

Can anyone find a screencap of the chart which shows Eagle/Endeavour/etc? Does it indicate ship classes (and if so how?) silhouettes? Morwen - Talk 14:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[1] - All ships save the Excelsior and Springfield, according to MA, are represented by "Constitution class" icons, whatever that means. Hmm/grumble. --EEMeltonIV 15:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Gah. I suppose that's good enough to assume they are Constitution-class. I note that it's quite likely we'll get registry numbers in the remastered The Ultimate Computer and The Omega Glory confirmed. I got the Ships of the Line art-book (with text by Okuda) that gives registries for some of these: if any vary from the Encyclopedia usage I'll stick them in, but this seems unlikely. I also will put the list data from the Starfleet tech manual somewhere : at least one of those which wasn't on Jein's list (the USS Kongo) got confirmed by VI, so it's not like this has been totally forgotten. Morwen - Talk 15:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. How is it looking now? I'm not sure that a single unified table or a list is the best format for this: it might be better to rewrite in prose. Morwen - Talk 16:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and the 1631/1831 thingy has a relatively simple explanation. This would have been Greg having misread the screencap originally, and correcting himself later. Morwen - Talk 16:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Memo list

Making of has: memo from DC Fontana on August 8, 1967, suggesting

  • Enterprise
  • Exeter
  • Essex
  • Excalibur
  • Lexington
  • Yorktown
  • Endeavour (with a 'u')
  • El Dorado
  • Excelsior
  • Saratoga
  • Constellation

also suggests

  • Hornet
  • Wasp
  • Farragut
  • Hood
  • Bonhomme Richard
  • Monitor/Merrimac
  • Tori
  • Lafayette
  • Ari
  • Krieger

of these, Bob Justman prefers

  • Enterprise
  • Essex
  • Excalibur
  • Lexington
  • Yorktown
  • Endeavour
  • Eagle
  • Constellation
  • Hornet
  • Wasp
  • Lafeyette

Justman also suggests Saratoga, and "another English carrier, a French carrier, a Russian carrier, and certainly a Japanese carrier". He also thinks they should have a Vulcan name.

The body of Making text then says

  • Enterprise
  • Exeter
  • Excalibur
  • Lexington
  • Yorktown
  • Potemkin
  • Republic
  • Hood
  • Constitution
  • Kongo
  • Constellation
  • Farragut
  • Valiant
  • Intrepid

Morwen - Talk 20:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)