Original 12 Constitution class ships

[TheSubCommander]

Of course. The class ship doesn't have to be in active use, but it still has to have existed at some point, even if it was only a prototype.

IMHO, I actually like the thought that the Constitution was in active service. It helps to propound the thought that there was nothing inherently special about the Enterprise - that it was just another ship of its class. Of course the Enterprise had an exceptional crew, nobody's denying that, but the actual SHIP was just one of many. I think that was the intention after all.

Besides, the class was - out-of-universe - named after the real life USS Constitution, 'Old Ironsides', so I'm sure the Trek version was an important, active ship as well.

I personally would also prefer the USS Constitution NCC-1700 (?) be an active ship, in the same way the USS Excelsior was for the Excelsior class, and the USS Galaxy was for the Galaxy class ships. I was just saying that it's possible to have had the Constitution as a test ship, that wasn't on regular deployment. But even as a test bed ship, it still is important.

 

[Lance]

This depends on whether Kirk's TOS ship was of Constitution class or not, of course.

Several canon visuals identify the refit configuration with the name "Constitution class", but it might be that the thus implied USS Constitution was built directly to that configuration and never was a sister ship to the TOS-configured Enterprise. Whether this putative ship was the one to spearhead the "refit-configuration batch" chronologically, i.e. preceding ST:TMP, or gained the status of class ship by virtue of being the first (only?) newbuild of that configuration, can then be further speculated upon.

However, canon dialogue identifies Kirk's TOS bridge with that of the Constitution class in TNG "Ethics" already, and then DS9 "Trials and Tribble-ations" dialogue establishes the class identity of the TOS vessel for good.

Timo Saloniemi

'Constitution Class' is a retcon of sorts. And many of the pre-TNG reference works erred towards the Movie Refit configuration being rechristened 'Enterprise Class', owing to the original intention of refitting the ship essentially growing to instead replace it wholesale.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But ST VI shot that one in the foot.

 

[Captain Rob]

My very first model kit of the Enterprise that I got as a little kid in the early 70's had a decal sheet with a bunch of ship names on it. Along with enough numbers so that you could make any numbers you wanted. When the model kit came out during the series' run. Did it have all of those names on it then? Since that model was intended to be the Enterprise, and used to construct Constellation. Therefore Constellation and the other names on the decal sheet were meant to be the same class as Enterprise. Since that model kit was used on-screen I would tend to consider that decal sheet quasi-canonical.

 

[Warped9]

My very first model kit of the Enterprise that I got as a little kid in the early 70's had a decal sheet with a bunch of ship names on it. Along with enough numbers so that you could make any numbers you wanted. When the model kit came out during the series' run. Did it have all of those names on it then? Since that model was intended to be the Enterprise, and used to construct Constellation. Therefore Constellation and the other names on the decal sheet were meant to be the same class as Enterprise. Since that model kit was used on-screen I would tend to consider that decal sheet quasi-canonical.

No, the original runs did not have those additional names. My first two kits in the very early '70s only had markings for the Enterprise. Later they began releasing them with the additional names and numbers and the font style was also different.

 

[Commishsleer]

My very first model kit of the Enterprise that I got as a little kid in the early 70's had a decal sheet with a bunch of ship names on it. Along with enough numbers so that you could make any numbers you wanted. When the model kit came out during the series' run. Did it have all of those names on it then? Since that model was intended to be the Enterprise, and used to construct Constellation. Therefore Constellation and the other names on the decal sheet were meant to be the same class as Enterprise. Since that model kit was used on-screen I would tend to consider that decal sheet quasi-canonical.

No, the original runs did not have those additional names. My first two kits in the very early '70s only had markings for the Enterprise. Later they began releasing them with the additional names and numbers and the font style was also different.

Where did they get those names from then? Was it made up by the toy manufacturer?
I've retained my decal sheet from my model - the model dissolved .
So is there anything to say either way whether this is a legitimate list?
How about the Franz Joseph blueprint? Does that hold any names? How legitimate is that publication?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Where did they get those names from then? Was it made up by the toy manufacturer?
I've retained my decal sheet from my model - the model dissolved .
So is there anything to say either way whether this is a legitimate list?
How about the Franz Joseph blueprint? Does that hold any names? How legitimate is that publication?

I can illustrate this topic with some old pics I have on hand.

Vintage AMT Decal Sheet:

Franz Joseph NCC numbers:

Greg Jein's list from "Jonathan Doe Starship"

The Star Trek Concordance listing (published 1976):

 

[GSchnitzer]

A small point a clarification....

That's not technically "Greg Jein's list" of starship names. That list is Ruth Berman's list of starship names which she appended as a footnote to Jein's "Jonathan Doe Starship" article--a list she compiled from Greg's article and from various production memos as reproduced in The Making of Star Trek.

Also, note that Bjo Trimble identified the scrip for "Space Seed" ("SS") as the source of the Constitution-class data point.

Find more about the "Space Seed" script and associated Constitution-class graphic here:

http://startrekhistory.com/article4.html

Where did they get those names from then? Was it made up by the toy manufacturer?
I've retained my decal sheet from my model - the model dissolved .
So is there anything to say either way whether this is a legitimate list?
How about the Franz Joseph blueprint? Does that hold any names? How legitimate is that publication?

I can illustrate this topic with some old pics I have on hand.

Vintage AMT Decal Sheet:

Franz Joseph NCC numbers:

Greg Jein's list from "Jonathan Doe Starship"

The Star Trek Concordance listing (published 1976):

 

[Forbin]

Anyone who has ever dealt with decals on a model kit knows that something like making 1710 out of 1701 is no big time consuming problem. I've built a number of those old AMT kits and it would have been no effort at all to make 1710 out of 1701. With two kits on hand you could have had 1700, 1711, 1717, 1770 or 1771. Or I'm sure AMT would have happily supplied extra decal sheets if MJ or the TOS production staff had requested it.

Another possibility, albeit a more time consuming one, would have been to create a custom made stencil of the desired numbers and letters. I still think a steady hand could have painted a new registry number, much more easily than making a stencil, that would have served sufficiently for their purposes.

All the decal-rearranging discussion is kind moot, since they obviously had to make a "USS CONSTELLATION" name decal anyway

 

[Captain Rob]

Can we really consider the Excalibur as being destroyed by M-5? When Captain Kirk had M-5 scan the Excalibur, we saw that the hull was essentially intact. Even though the scans showed that the entire crew had been killed. We never saw any closeups of any damage to the ship. But we can assume that the hull had been holed by phaser fire and all power systems disabled. She had been reduced to a lifeless and drifting hulk. Much like the Constellation had been by the Doomsday Machine. But Constellation had lots of visible damage. And was still able to get underway on impulse power with help of a small damage control crew.
Perhaps after the episode was over, repair crews were able restore some systems and get Excalibur towed to a starbase.

 

[Timo]

...Or perhaps the M-5 had been efficient and destroyed the starship with minimum effort, blowing carefully positioned holes on the (unseen) ventral size so that all the atmosphere and all structural integrity was lost for good.

In naval fighting, there's a difference between a ship that has been shot to hell and a ship that will never sail again. Typically, a ship whose entire superstructure is missing and the deck aflame is essentially fine after a bit of dockyard time, while an intact-seeming ship whose keel has been broken by a torpedo or a near-miss has to be scrapped.

On a similar vein, the Exeter might be fine after a quick scrub, or then forever useless to anybody except a crew constantly clad in spacesuits or a team of volunteers who carefully immunized themselves at Omega IV. The Defiant might be lost forever, or then a Starfleet Corps of Engineers team might tow her out of the interphase on their spare time. Etc.

What happened to the Intrepid, BTW? Did the Space Amoeba crush and digest her, or just (mentally) crush and digest her crew? All we see the Enterprise suffer from is a gradually worsening power failure, which might well end in a silent but intact hulk drained of every last bit of (self-)destructive power.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Rob]

If whatever was left of the Intrepid was still inside the space amoeba. Was probably disintegrated when that probe full of antimatter was torched off. Or maybe since the amoeba was a lifeform. After it was through with killing the crew and draining away all of Intrepid's energy. The dead hulk of Intrepid could have been "pooped out" as waste. Creepy thought.

 

[Maurice]

To the ongoing quibbling over if the Constellation was supposed to be the same class as the Enterprise given the use of an AMT kit, let's not forget that the Enterprise herself was represented by an AMT kit in "The Trouble With Tribbles". Clearly, that model kit is supposed to be the Enterprise, ergo the kits representing the Constellation is meant to be the same ship type. By that same tack, the 33" model of the ship differs from the 11 footer but no one says that's a different ship.

 

[Timo]

There's the fact that Kirk looks for Decker in "Auxiliary Control" but seems to miss the very room altogether, almost marching past it. Subtle design differences within the class, or indication that the class is sharply divided in subclasses?

Certainly there's nothing worth glorifying with the name "proof" there, either way. We can argue that identical-looking ships are drastically different in origin and/or design, as there's plenty of real-world precedent to that (refits intended at unifying and simplifying a diverse fleet, diversification of a single hull type to multiple roles with changes in internal gear). But we can also argue that subtly or grossly different ships in fact represent one and the same class, by the same real-world token.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

Ships of the same class can be rather different even when completed. They get more different as they get refits, repairs, and other work done on them in their service life.

Even classes that only have two ships in them, like most of the American and Japanese battleships built in the 1910s. Some are different enough that someone could spot the difference between two ships of the same class by a mast being different, or a hatch being in a different place from one to the other. This doesn't ven go into classes of ships that look similar to other classes built one after the other.

 

[Lance]

I know it's not television material, but it's worth noting that the video adventure game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for PC depicts Republic as a Constitution Class.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

To the ongoing quibbling over if the Constellation was supposed to be the same class as the Enterprise given the use of an AMT kit, let's not forget that the Enterprise herself was represented by an AMT kit in "The Trouble With Tribbles". Clearly, that model kit is supposed to be the Enterprise, ergo the kits representing the Constellation is meant to be the same ship type. By that same tack, the 33" model of the ship differs from the 11 footer but no one says that's a different ship.

Solid points. Some confuse inaccuracy from the production end (the AMT kit not being a match for the 11 footer) as suggesting another class of ship. As much as the production of the series has been explored for nearly a half century--including the miniature work--there should be no confusion over this minor issue.

Most fans I know just accepted all the Enterprise-like ships as being the same class of vessel.

 

[GSchnitzer]

I think the source of the 14 ship names from the (later version of the) AMT decal sheet is this comment from The Making of Star Trek book by Stephen Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry:

"The following names have been established for starships: Enterprise, Exeter, Excalibur, Lexington, Yorktown, Potemkin, Republic, Hood, Constitution, Kongo, Constellation, Farragut, Valiant, and Intrepid. The latter four are listed as destroyed in various episodes."

My very first model kit of the Enterprise that I got as a little kid in the early 70's had a decal sheet with a bunch of ship names on it. Along with enough numbers so that you could make any numbers you wanted. When the model kit came out during the series' run. Did it have all of those names on it then? Since that model was intended to be the Enterprise, and used to construct Constellation. Therefore Constellation and the other names on the decal sheet were meant to be the same class as Enterprise. Since that model kit was used on-screen I would tend to consider that decal sheet quasi-canonical.

No, the original runs did not have those additional names. My first two kits in the very early '70s only had markings for the Enterprise. Later they began releasing them with the additional names and numbers and the font style was also different.

Where did they get those names from then? Was it made up by the toy manufacturer?
I've retained my decal sheet from my model - the model dissolved .
So is there anything to say either way whether this is a legitimate list?
How about the Franz Joseph blueprint? Does that hold any names? How legitimate is that publication?

 

[Captain Rob]

Seeing that list of names. Especially the ones of American significance. Makes me wish that the US Navy would return to naming aircraft carriers (the premiere ships of the fleet) after famous battles or previous highly decorated ships. Instead of politicians. I might make an exception for Farragut. He was a famous Civil War Admiral who said "Damned the torpedoes...Full speed ahead." The current real life USS Farragut is a destroyer.
I just watched "Battleship Potemkin" last weekend on Netflix. I had heard it was a famous silent movie and a Soviet propaganda film. Not too bad. Was curious why the name was famous.

 

[Maurice]

I agree about naming ships after Presidents, etc.

Like Kirk's "Beam me up, Scotty," Farragut never said the words most commonly associated with him. He actually said, "Damn the torpedoes. Four bells, Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed." Where "torpedoes" were mines.

You saw Potemkin and all you have to say is "not too bad"? That film, sir, is a milestone in the art of editing and montage cutting.