Why did they take so long to make the Enterprise D?
- Thread starter tim0122
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I dunno, I’m intrigued by the unknown stories that might be right in front of us. The E was lost under (to us) mysterious circumstances and the F was retired early, then the G is a rebranded smaller ship with a questionable crew…what’s going on there, and what’s the flagship in this era? Is it the same as during the earlier 2-decade period? Could be some good stuff there.
You mean like what they did with that shitty Section 31 movie? No thanks. I don't trust these showrunners to give us anything like what we would expect from that era.
The NCC-1701 was retroactively made to be the flagship in SNW. The 1701-A was just a filler ship until the B was built, and the B had much fanfare that I wouldn't be surprised if Starfleet considered it the Federation flagship of the time. We don't know the status of the 1701-C, but it's possible that its very reason for existence was to be the new flagship when the B was either destroyed or retired. The 1701-D was quite definitely the flagship, as was the E. I can only assume that the F was also a flagship, but then things get murky thanks to bad writing.
I very much doubt that the Federation would stop naming one of their ships Enterprise just because it might have pissed off some Klingons.
Oh, I very much doubt that as well. If Matalas had gotten his way, you better believe that the G would have been known as the flagship.
Yes, but this isn't real life, and Starfleet isn't remotely like the Navy.
I don't see them coming up with stories that would be any different than what they did with Section 31. Just mindless action and forgettable characters.
Meh, if at first you don’t succeed… I’m not putting Trek in the mausoleum just yet.
But it was. And that reinforced the decades old fan theory that all Enterprises are flagships. The one so popular for so long that it made it into the canon.
Huh? The original had a pretty historical 5 year mission, then saved the Federation capital world in TMP, then thwarted a genetically-engineered superman from terrorizing the galaxy with a WMD. Filler it was not.
I mean you have the original (retroactively), the B, C, D, E, and F all as flagships. It’s not a far leap from there.
“Some Klingons”? The Federation milking the C’s heroism for universal peace with its greatest adversary is an easy bargain to make.
Until there’s a LEGACY series it’s up in the air and I’m doubting that ship’s the flagship, thank you very much.
Eh, I don’t necessarily disagree, but you never know. 31 didn’t seem to be a big success, so maybe they’d course correct with the next one. Plus, every incarnation of the Kurtzman era seems rather different from the previous one—by design. Maybe if they didn’t do something with this is might be great.
Or if some writers did in the Trek lit.
But honestly, I’m not even thinking about any of that. It’s just an intriguing course of thought to take and discussion to have with fellow fans. Just having some fun on a fan bulletin board. It’s what we’re here for, right?
The NCC-1701-A did none of those things. Which was the ship I was referring to.
Right.
It did though cross the Great Barrier, stop the assassination of the Federation President, and expose the Starfleet—Klingon—Romulan plot, plus whatever else it did after it was handed over to another crew.
There’s a question. What happened to the ship after STVI?
The movie goes:
UHURA: Captain, I have orders from Starfleet Command. We're to put back into Spacedock immediately, ...to be decommissioned.
…
Captain's log, U.S.S. Enterprise, stardate 9529.1. This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man, where no one, ...has gone before.
Was the ship decommissioned or the crew at the end of STVI? If it was just the crew, was it still the Enterprise until the B came along? Who were that crew on the A?
Plus there could have been adventures between STV and STVI. Surely some of the comics might have covered some there too. It was a pretty different ship between those two movies. With no Sulu either. Who knows what illustriousness was had there?
None of which changes the fact that it was a filler ship until the B was completed.
And the ship got decommissioned. Its crew didn’t (although it was ambiguous that Spock wanted Valeris to succeed him as first officer, unless he simply wasn’t aware that Starfleet was going to decommission the ship so early, as was apparent at the end of the movie.) The A was decommissioned the same year the B was commissioned. The only crew the ship would have had was a decommissioning crew.
I don’t understand what you mean by filler ship. It was the flagship of its day. Was the D a filler ship until the E was finished being designed? The Enterprise was supposed to be decommissioned in STIII. What would have been the flagship at that point? You may be thinking none but I don’t see it that way.
I think it would have gone to another ship. Hell, maybe to another Constitution Refit as the Excelsior was still experimental. It might have gone to another Constitution Refit renamed Enterprise but under another crew. (It only went back to Kirk & Co. because they saved the planet.) But there might always be a continuity of flagship.
The A was still a ship of the line, it was crewed by maybe the most storied crew in Federation history, and it was still saving the day in adventures known and unknown for 6-7 years from STIV (2286) to STVI (2293). It was the flagship.
Maybe.
But even there I bet you they could fit in some adventure during the decommissioning. This is Star Trek, baby.
Based upon the evidence, the next Enterprise was going to be one of the new Excelsior classes. But the Whale Probe incident changed things. The Federation wanted to award Kirk with a new command for saving Earth, so they rechristened either an older Connie or the last new Connie off the line as the Enterprise-A, while the Excelsior class ship that was originally going to be the Enterprise-A would now be the B. So the A was just a temporary command until the B was commissioned, which was why the A was decommissioned after only a few years.
Starfleet is a sentimental organization.
We got Enterprise-A quickly because it was kind of a new thing to do, and they underhandedly honoring Kirk with his demotion.
Enterprise-B was probably already on the way to getting built in 2286, to replace Enterprise, which was set to be decommissioned. But then the A was slapped together either by renaming a ship or cobbling together a new one quickly, before getting retired quickly in 2293 in favor the Enterprise-B... which I really think was SUPPOSED to be Enterprise-A.
Now even in that timeline, Enterprise was already an Academy training craft in 2285, and probably had been for several years. So the REAL gap between Enterprise-Nil and Enterprise-B (the Enterprise-A seems like something of an aberration) was at least a decade to 15 years.
We have no idea when B gave way to C, but probably fairly quickly. B launched in 2293, and C was LOST in 2344... I would err on the side of the Enterprise-C being a fairly new vessel. There's nothing really in canon for that, it's just kind of a gut feeling/vibe. So i'm going to make up numbers here, let's just say the Enterprise-B had a 30-year run, being out of service by 2323-ish. If E-C was on the newer side in 2344, that gives a solid decade or so lead time for Enterprise-C.
Now... all these numbers are just numbers but to get to my original point; Starfleet is sentimental. Enterprise-A existed for the sole reason of giving Kirk another Enterprise, much in the same way that Sao Paulo was just renamed Defiant to let Sisko have another Defiant.
Enterprise-A... was kind of a shitbox judging by ST5. So it was probably always going to have a short lifespan. Enterprise-B came about because the OG crew were all still around and the Federation could use that as fanfare for a new flagship. They kind of HAD to retire the E-A for being a craptastic, previous generation ship. But they still wanted an Enterprise, so... E-B was born.
B to C remains a mystery, but C does makes some sense for a gap. C was lost with all hands. There was little fanfare to be had for a new Enterprise. You couldn't get all the photo ops and such as you did with the E-B. You can't have the valiant crew of Enterprise-C there for the maiden voyage of Enterprise-D. The Enterprise name became kind of sad for awhile.
Eventually, the E-D does come around. Eight years later, it bites the dust. But... the crew was still alive. Picard is a legendary Captain. Yeah, they get another Enterprise immediately. Sentimental Starfleet.
Worf gets Enterprise-E destroyed some years later, despite claims that it was NOT his fault. Enterprise-F gets launched at some point to be retired in 2402.
E-E MIGHT have been done for in 2284 during the Prodigy events. It was in pretty rough shape. That still leaves a very short service for the Enterprise-F. My headcanon until something proves me wrong is that the Odyssey-Class ended up being a failure. It may have tried to push the envelope too much and had some severe issues on a fundamental level, leading to it being retired so quickly.
Again with the sentimentality, it would have certainly been a longer period from F to G, but... events happened. Titan was at the right place at the right time involving the right people to snag the Enterprise name. As a side note on that, some have argued that it was some kind of insult to the Titan crew to rename the ship, but... that's not true at all. Maybe from a 2025 US Navy perspective, but not from a 2402 Federation Starfleet perspective. Your ship getting the name "Enterprise" is essentially the ship getting a medal of honor hung on it. It is the single greatest honor a starship and her crew can get.
I've never liked the idea of Yorktown being recommissioned as Enterprise, OR at the same time Enterprise-A being like, just a new production ship. (The ship being Yorktown is sort of dark, implying that that the crew probably died in ST4...)
I've always held that the Enterprise-A was a quickly cobbled together ship, especially judging by it's state in ST5. Like, Constitution-Classes were NOT being built anymore. They were old news. They wanted to give Kirk a ship, but they also could like, be toooo on the nose with it. Giving Kirk Excelsior was probably too much. He's supposed to be being "punished". It's also entirely possible Starfleet was still trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with Excelsior. It had only been a few months since ST3, so it might have just been out of commission.
What they might have had were... a couple of decommissioned Constitution's. Enterprise WAS, after all, set to be out of service in ST3. They were in various states of disrepair, so Starfleet kind of just... chopped-shopped a couple and cobbled together a "new" Constitution for Kirk.
We got Enterprise-A quickly because it was kind of a new thing to do, and they underhandedly honoring Kirk with his demotion.
Enterprise-B was probably already on the way to getting built in 2286, to replace Enterprise, which was set to be decommissioned. But then the A was slapped together either by renaming a ship or cobbling together a new one quickly, before getting retired quickly in 2293 in favor the Enterprise-B... which I really think was SUPPOSED to be Enterprise-A.
Now even in that timeline, Enterprise was already an Academy training craft in 2285, and probably had been for several years. So the REAL gap between Enterprise-Nil and Enterprise-B (the Enterprise-A seems like something of an aberration) was at least a decade to 15 years.
We have no idea when B gave way to C, but probably fairly quickly. B launched in 2293, and C was LOST in 2344... I would err on the side of the Enterprise-C being a fairly new vessel. There's nothing really in canon for that, it's just kind of a gut feeling/vibe. So i'm going to make up numbers here, let's just say the Enterprise-B had a 30-year run, being out of service by 2323-ish. If E-C was on the newer side in 2344, that gives a solid decade or so lead time for Enterprise-C.
Now... all these numbers are just numbers but to get to my original point; Starfleet is sentimental. Enterprise-A existed for the sole reason of giving Kirk another Enterprise, much in the same way that Sao Paulo was just renamed Defiant to let Sisko have another Defiant.
Enterprise-A... was kind of a shitbox judging by ST5. So it was probably always going to have a short lifespan. Enterprise-B came about because the OG crew were all still around and the Federation could use that as fanfare for a new flagship. They kind of HAD to retire the E-A for being a craptastic, previous generation ship. But they still wanted an Enterprise, so... E-B was born.
B to C remains a mystery, but C does makes some sense for a gap. C was lost with all hands. There was little fanfare to be had for a new Enterprise. You couldn't get all the photo ops and such as you did with the E-B. You can't have the valiant crew of Enterprise-C there for the maiden voyage of Enterprise-D. The Enterprise name became kind of sad for awhile.
Eventually, the E-D does come around. Eight years later, it bites the dust. But... the crew was still alive. Picard is a legendary Captain. Yeah, they get another Enterprise immediately. Sentimental Starfleet.
Worf gets Enterprise-E destroyed some years later, despite claims that it was NOT his fault. Enterprise-F gets launched at some point to be retired in 2402.
E-E MIGHT have been done for in 2284 during the Prodigy events. It was in pretty rough shape. That still leaves a very short service for the Enterprise-F. My headcanon until something proves me wrong is that the Odyssey-Class ended up being a failure. It may have tried to push the envelope too much and had some severe issues on a fundamental level, leading to it being retired so quickly.
Again with the sentimentality, it would have certainly been a longer period from F to G, but... events happened. Titan was at the right place at the right time involving the right people to snag the Enterprise name. As a side note on that, some have argued that it was some kind of insult to the Titan crew to rename the ship, but... that's not true at all. Maybe from a 2025 US Navy perspective, but not from a 2402 Federation Starfleet perspective. Your ship getting the name "Enterprise" is essentially the ship getting a medal of honor hung on it. It is the single greatest honor a starship and her crew can get.
I've never liked the idea of Yorktown being recommissioned as Enterprise, OR at the same time Enterprise-A being like, just a new production ship. (The ship being Yorktown is sort of dark, implying that that the crew probably died in ST4...)
I've always held that the Enterprise-A was a quickly cobbled together ship, especially judging by it's state in ST5. Like, Constitution-Classes were NOT being built anymore. They were old news. They wanted to give Kirk a ship, but they also could like, be toooo on the nose with it. Giving Kirk Excelsior was probably too much. He's supposed to be being "punished". It's also entirely possible Starfleet was still trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with Excelsior. It had only been a few months since ST3, so it might have just been out of commission.
What they might have had were... a couple of decommissioned Constitution's. Enterprise WAS, after all, set to be out of service in ST3. They were in various states of disrepair, so Starfleet kind of just... chopped-shopped a couple and cobbled together a "new" Constitution for Kirk.
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I attribute that to how we ourselves have evolved in under 20 years.
Back in the day a good wristwatch used to be an heirloom.
Now people go through their Apple Watches every two years.
As technology evolves so do people's idea of emotional attachments to things.
25th century onwards the concept of a flagship itself should be pretty outdated.
Current Trek writers are allergic to Canon, they completely forgot Old Admiral Janeway brought back 25 years worth of advanced tech back to the past.
ENT, even with the Temporal Cold War being a driving point, forgot they could link to Adm. Janeway's actions as the flashpoint for the TCW.
That's why a ridged forehead Klingon crash landed on Earth 90 years before Klingon First Contact should have been a thing.
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