What We Still Don't Know About The 24th Century
- Thread starter slappy
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I should point out that in the novel, Worf commands the Enterprise 18 years prior to the events of ST: PIC proper so it really could be anyone and anything should am Enterprise appear in S2.
Nobody on the show seems to have read the novel - Michael Charbon certainly hasn't. Worf being Captain is a pretty dull obvious way to take it.
The Enterprise should still be in service at this time. There seems to be a pattern of it supposed to lasting up to at least 40 years, and Ent-E is closing in on 30 years.
USS Enterprise (2245-85)
USS Enterprise-A (2386-93)
USS Enterprise-B (2393-?)
USS Enterprise-C (?-2344)
USS Enterprise-D (2363-71)
USS Enterprise-E (2372-2399?)
Unless it got destroyed, the Enterprise-E should still be in service, although who knows? Maybe they would have both the E & F in service, even if it doesn’t make any sense. Or the Ent-E/Sovereign-class is considered old and has been retired for Ent-F/Odyssey-class, even though the Federation had been using Excelsior-class ships for nearly a century.
USS Enterprise (2245-85)
USS Enterprise-A (2386-93)
USS Enterprise-B (2393-?)
USS Enterprise-C (?-2344)
USS Enterprise-D (2363-71)
USS Enterprise-E (2372-2399?)
Unless it got destroyed, the Enterprise-E should still be in service, although who knows? Maybe they would have both the E & F in service, even if it doesn’t make any sense. Or the Ent-E/Sovereign-class is considered old and has been retired for Ent-F/Odyssey-class, even though the Federation had been using Excelsior-class ships for nearly a century.
Just revising your list.
Honestly, this chart doesn't give any kind of realistic conclusive pattern of how long the average Enterprise lasts. It could last 10 years, it could last 40. And the lifespan of the Enterprises B and C are completely ambiguous. Each ship could have been in service for 25 years, or one ship could have been in service for 1 year and the other for 50. So the chances that the Enterprise-E is still in service as of 2399 is, at best, 50%.
Honestly, this chart doesn't give any kind of realistic conclusive pattern of how long the average Enterprise lasts. It could last 10 years, it could last 40. And the lifespan of the Enterprises B and C are completely ambiguous. Each ship could have been in service for 25 years, or one ship could have been in service for 1 year and the other for 50. So the chances that the Enterprise-E is still in service as of 2399 is, at best, 50%.
You guys missed Enterprise NX-01: 10 years (2151-61), even though it was shown to still be spaceworthy after 100 in "E2"
True. Of course, the only reason why it lasted just 10 years was to keep 'teh canon!' secure so that the NCC-1701 was the first Federation starship (even though that ended up meaning that no new Enterprise was ever built in the 84 years between 2161 and 2245.)
I was only accounting for Federation starships named Enterprise, not Enterprises as a whole. That’s why I omitted the NX-01. And yes, it is true that it can last 100 years, as E2 proved. The Excelsior-class lasted for at least 90 years itself. But unless the Excelsior-class Ent-B was temporarily brought out of mothballs to be the Federation flagship during the Federation-Cardassian war shortly after the Ent-C was destroyed, its likely that ship was retired some time prior to 2344. Just because a ship can last a century in use doesn’t mean it will be.
The chart is still useful though, as it shows how long the Enterprise can be expected to be in service. I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that the Federation expects to use a ship for up to 50 years, at least.
The NX-01 is probably considered a pre-Federation ship anyways, so its flagship status was relegated to just Starfleet. And just because it was decommissioned, don’t mean it wasn’t used again.
Plus, they may have never built another Enterprise until the NCC-1701 out of respect for Archer and his crew.
Vice Admiral Nakamura in "The Measure Of A Man" said:
That 500 year period covers 1865-2365, meaning the NX-01 is included.
Based on visual evidence in TNG, DS9, and VOY, the Excelsior class in general was long-lasting, being in use right up to the last episode of Voyager. Which absolutely does not explain why the Enterprise-B is no longer in service. Many other Excelsiors are still active in the 2360's and '70's, so why not the B? There are only two explanations: either it was prematurely lost or destroyed, or it was decommissioned on purpose on a specific date in order to allow another newer ship to take its place. Considering that unless politics were behind the decision, I'm not sure why the B would ever have needed to be decommissioned, especially since the Enterprise-C didn't seem to be anything special (it only achieved notoriety by its destruction.) So I hypothesize that the B was already destroyed by the time the C was commissioned, so it would not have existed after the C was destroyed to bring out of mothballs to replace the C during the 20 years between the C's destruction and the launch of the D. I think there was simply no ship called Enterprise in service between 2344 and 2364.
I'm pretty sure the Galaxy class was supposed to be able to last at least 100 years in service. And hell, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVN-65 lasted 51 years in active service -- it would be pretty sad if the Enterprise-E couldn't last a mere 27 years.
Another possibility is that even if the Enterprise-B was not outright destroyed, she may have been so badly damaged that she was no longer considered spaceworthy, and Starfleet may have decided it was a better use of resources to recycle her components and pass along the name to a new Ambassador-class starship. So, a bit less exciting of an end, but possibly also a bit less violent/repetitive-of-what-happened-to-C-and-D.
This is under the assumption that the Ent-E didn’t have an encounter with the Narada in an attempt to protect Spock and the Jellyfish. It could have had one and was destroyed in the process, and we are in another era where no Enterprise has been produced in some time.
Not sure what the reasoning would be though. At least the Federation-Cardassian War was ongoing at the time between the Ent-C and Ent-D – and fits into a theory I have that the Enterprise is supposed to avoid participating in wars at all costs due to its status as the Federation flagship (Federation-Klingon War, Federation-Cardassian War, Dominion War).
I doubt the Enterprise of any alphabet will make an appearance until the series finale.
Fair -- it's not a huge difference. But I was imagining a scenario where 1) the crew weren't killed and 2) maybe the surviving hull is on display in a Starfleet museum somewhere, next to the NX-01 and the 1701-A. Just looking for a scenario less morbid than "destroyed."
Were there any other Narada-class ships built? NEM was pretty unclear about the construction process for her. I'm not sure why any Romulan or Reman ships would try to thwart the Jellyfish, though; by that point, the Jellyfish would literally be the last hope to prevent their worlds from being destroyed.
Well, sure, if you really want to find a scenario where the Enterprise-E has been destroyed, it's easy enough to imagine any number of them.
Personally, I'd rather that we finally get a starship Enterprise that hangs around for more than few years.
Are there rights issues CBS has to deal with is the reason 1701-E is can not shown? Outside of ST: Picard, I can't grasp these rights issues when it comes with TOS outfits or aesthetics of previous productions.
Not really. The design is owned by CBS, and they've already shown the Enterprise-E in PIC in desktop model form. So there's no rights issues. It's more about their desire to show the ship again or create a new design, which I'm sure CBS's marketing department would want.
The Narada is not the Scimitar. One is a Romulan mining vessel retrofitted with Borg technology and mechanical tendrils; the other is a Reman warbird retrofitted with a thalaron radiation weapon.
Your post suggests that Nero was not acting deranged or irrational while his homeworld was in imminent danger. The ST ‘09 Countdown comics suggest he beamed mining explosives onto Olympia-class hospital ships and blows them up because he doesn’t believe their arrival after the destruction of Romulus was by accident, even though he also arrived too late to take on Romulan refugees. He asks for help from Commander D’Spal at the Vault, who gives him an upgraded cloaking and weapons system (like General Chang’s BoP in TUC) that included Borg technology for his mining vessel – which enables him to attack Federation, Klingon and Cardassian ships that come to help with the evacuation.
And he goes after Spock and the Jellyfish because he didn’t ignite the red matter in time to prevent the supernova, as that’s a key plot point in ST ’09 – to get the red matter to ignite it on Vulcan as payback for the destruction of Romulus, even though Spock believed at the time Nero was still a good man at heart.
Well, sure, if you really want to find a scenario where the Enterprise-E has been destroyed, it's easy enough to imagine any number of them.
Personally, I'd rather that we finally get a starship Enterprise that hangs around for more than few years.
In the comics, the Narada heavily damages the Ent-E’s engineering section and warp nacelles when its shields are down while they are trying to beam back an impaled and critically injured Worf. And he was injured by a mechanical tendril after beaming aboard the Narada with Klingon warriors to stop Nero at the Romulan-Klingon border.
Of course, the ST: Picard-Countdown comics, Last Best Hope and PIC rectons some of this. Worf was Captain of the Ent-E and not Data; Picard became an admiral and not an ambassador to Vulcan; and Picard was retired when the supernova happened instead of still actively serving in Starfleet, working on the unauthorized red matter plan on Vulcan, and on the Enterprise to oversee the mission.
But other elements from the ST ’09 comic are entirely plausible, including the Narada attacking and severely damaging the Enterprise. Maybe the damage was extensive enough that it forced an early retirement and the production of the Odyssey-class Enterprise-F. It doesn’t prevent Worf from being captain of the Ent-F either.
D'oh! I definitely confused the one big stupid Romulan ship for the other. Oops!
(Not really a fan of either design, but whatevs.)
More specifically, because I had confused the Narada for the Scimitar, I was thinking in terms of what a professional military would do rather than in terms of what one irrational person might do.
That wouldn't be my personal preference, but it is, as you say, entirely plausible, yes.
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