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What does U.S.S stand for ?

vaylottevaylotte Member Posts: 69 Arc User
in The Academy
In regard to a ship what does U.S.S stand for ?
I'm guessing it's United Systems Ship or something right ?

Comments

  • eazzieeazzie Member Posts: 4,229 Arc User
    edited March 23
    United Space Ship
    The Making of Star Trek explains that USS means "United Space Ship" and that "Enterprise is a member of the Starship Class". Licensed texts, on-screen graphics, and dialogue later describe the ship as a Constitution-class vessel.

    What does NCC stand for on Star Trek?
    NCC-1701: the Enterprise serial number finally decoded - digitec
    As far back as 1975, technical illustrator Franz Joseph Schnaubelt gave the answer in his book "Star Trek: Blueprints" (ISBN: 978-0345258212. U.S.S. Constitution NCC-1700. In short, NCC stands for "Naval Construction Contract."
  • phoenixc#0738 phoenixc
    phoenixc#0738
         Member Posts: 5,845 Arc User
    Another piece of trivia is that the "United" originally referred to "United Earth", not the UFP because Roddenberry imagined that there would be close interstellar cooperation between allies but never thought much beyond that. It was Gene Coon who came up with the United Federation of Planets later on as a loose interstellar government a little tighter than the UN is nowadays but not as tight and centralized as a single-nation government (somewhat similar to the current EU I suppose) and used ambassadors instead of senators and whatnot (as seen in Journey to Babel).

    Originally the idea was to use different ship styles for the different member governments in the Federation but shooting models were so expensive at the time (mainly because of guild rules) that they ended up using the Enterprise model for just about everything, including ships that were supposed to be older than the Enterprise, or alien-made.

  • spiritbornspiritborn Member Posts: 4,373 Arc User
    edited March 24
    I don't think it was never mentioned on screen so everything we say is speculation, that said those aren't without any merit as they're speculations based on what the production people or people connected those people have said.
  • inferiorityinferiority Member Posts: 4,404 Arc User
    spiritborn wrote: »
    I don't think it was never mentioned on screen so everything we say is speculation...
    If I recall correctly, the "U.S.S." prefix was explained in an episode of TOS but I don't recall which.
    I'm inclined to think 'Tomorrow Is Yesterday', but I'm not even close to 50% certainty...
    - - - - I n f e r i o r i t y - C o m p l e x - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    Everyone has a better name and Youtube Channel than me...  :/
  • phoenixc#0738 phoenixc
    phoenixc#0738
         Member Posts: 5,845 Arc User
    inferiority wrote: »
    spiritborn wrote: »
    I don't think it was never mentioned on screen so everything we say is speculation...
    If I recall correctly, the "U.S.S." prefix was explained in an episode of TOS but I don't recall which.
    I'm inclined to think 'Tomorrow Is Yesterday', but I'm not even close to 50% certainty...

    I think Kirk introduced the ship several times as "The United Star Ship Enterprise" during ship-to-ship communications iirc, though earlier he identified it as a UESPA ship which implies a more UN Peacekeeper or NATO style instead of a completely homogenous organization.
  • vaylottevaylotte Member Posts: 69 Arc User
    Thanks peeps ! :)
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