Whats the Real Age of the Enterprise NCC 1701

ryuranger · June 2017

hay Guys I was just reading on some timelines and the guy who dose the http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/ Really needs to look more into the Original Enterprise history a lot more and here is why. The Enterprise was Lunched in 2245 under the Command of Robert April on witch he was the first captain for her first Five Year Mission then came Captain Pike for 10 years then after a small Refit Captain Kirk in 2266 and when Kirk got the Enterprise she is all ready 21 years old but for star-ships its like Dog years so she is an old lady when Kirk Got her. in 2270 she went under Major 18 month Refit that means she was disabled and resembled with new tech So.... The Enterprise her self pretty much get the clock set back a few years I think thanks my theory anyways

rattler2 · June 2017

Larger ships would be expected to last longer than smaller ones. Especially long range explorer ships.

Also... formatting? I didn't want to say this before but your posts tend to end up being a wall of text that is sometimes hard to understand.

Unknown · June 2017

This content has been removed.

starswordc · June 2017

> @ryuranger said:
> hay Guys I was just reading on some timelines and the guy who dose the http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/ Really needs to look more into the Original Enterprise history a lot more and here is why. The Enterprise was Lunched in 2245 under the Command of Robert April on witch he was the first captain for her first Five Year Mission then came Captain Pike for 10 years then after a small Refit Captain Kirk in 2266 and when Kirk got the Enterprise she is all ready 21 years old but for star-ships its like Dog years so she is an old lady when Kirk Got her. in 2270 she went under Major 18 month Refit that means she was disabled and resembled with new tech So.... The Enterprise her self pretty much get the clock set back a few years I think thanks my theory anyways

Punctuation and line breaks are your friends.

theraven2378 · June 2017

She was 40 years old when she was lost over Genesis

smokebailey · June 2017

crashdragon wrote: »

In ST3, she was to be said 20 years old and she wouldn't be having the refit Scotty thought she was going to under go as they felt she had her day.

The Commander of Starfleet told Kirk and Scotty this in the Torpedo bay just after she docked.

The commander seems he has trouble counting....unless he meant the refit itself, which was 15 or 16 years after the V'ger incident.

It was 20 years old or so by the time of TOS.

lordrezeon · June 2017

The "20 years old" comment was probably a continuity flub by writers who weren't overly familiar with the series. It has always been a long standing juggling act to get writers and producers who have an interest in researching the source material before jumping in.

Most of the franchise since TOS has preferred to have each crew receive the newest shiniest ships in the fleet, so the movie writers probably never even considered that Kirk wasn't the Enterprise's first captain.

I personally don't pay the line much attention as the intentions of the dialogue still remain the same. The Enterprise was an old workhorse and Starfleet wanted to focus on modernizing the fleet instead of wasting resources on old obsolete designs (remember the Excelsior was intended to totally revolutionize propulsion technology and by the time of TNG ship speeds had pretty much doubled from Kirk's era).

ryuranger · June 2017

I agree about the Formatting just don't have to point it out. With it in mind what I means With Kirk in Command of the Enterprise since took Command in 2265 and by then she went under a refit as well that expanded her range. So I think The Admiral could have meant Kirk's Time of Command of the Enterprise and its time for her to Retire because Kirk wont

lordrezeon · June 2017

Kirk wasn't actually in command of the Enterprise in Star Trek 3 though, he hadn't been for many years. This was back during the time when he was an Admiral chained to a desk, hence why he was so restless in TMP and depressed in TWOK. Retiring the Enterprise would have very little to do with Kirk's current status as he wasn't actually a member of its current crew.

I think the Enterprise's older model warp drive was probably the real culprit behind the refusal to repair her. Command just didn't see the point in investing resources into dead end equipment. It would be like a player in STO investing lots of dilithium in fancy mid tier consoles right before upgrading to the next tier ships.

kingarthur81 · June 2017

I for one, consider Captain Robert April to be canon, so the Enterprise was closer to 40 years old. The comment by Admiral Morrow, was a goof by Harve Bennett, who wrote ST3. He probably never watched The Animated Series...

brian334 · June 2017

And in The Cage Lt. Tyler(?) mentions to the illusionary survivors of a crash 18 years before that "We've broken the time barrier." Which is to say, they invented warp drive between the loss of the ship that brought Vena to Talos IV and the arrival of Enterprise, and they also had time to perfect the drive enough to achieve Warp 6.

Kirk himself says "There are only twelve like her," in a later episode. Back then each Starship, (originally the ship class from which Enterprise came,) had a Greek letter for the ship's emblem, so Enterprise was the fourth ship of the Starship class. (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta...) It is unclear if USS Starship was a prototype or the first active duty vessel of its class, but my money is on prototype, so the Constitution, Constellation, Essex, and Enterprise were the first four active duty hulls of the class. Roddenberry changed the dedication plaque to Constitution Class for the movies, but on occasion a major refit to a line of ships results in a sub-class or new class of ship.

In TOS Enterprise is several times referred to as "the newest" or "the most technically advanced" class of ship in Starfleet, which would not be true if it were 20 years old.

Because all of this was overlooked or re-written by later canon, soft canon, and fan theories, it is easiest to say the Trek Comics starring April and Pike are the current canon, which makes Enterprise about 20 when Kirk assumed command.

artan42 · June 2017

brian334 wrote: »

And in The Cage Lt. Tyler(?) mentions to the illusionary survivors of a crash 18 years before that "We've broken the time barrier." Which is to say, they invented warp drive between the loss of the ship that brought Vena to Talos IV and the arrival of Enterprise, and they also had time to perfect the drive enough to achieve Warp 6.

Kirk himself says "There are only twelve like her," in a later episode. Back then each Starship, (originally the ship class from which Enterprise came,) had a Greek letter for the ship's emblem, so Enterprise was the fourth ship of the Starship class. (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta...) It is unclear if USS Starship was a prototype or the first active duty vessel of its class, but my money is on prototype, so the Constitution, Constellation, Essex, and Enterprise were the first four active duty hulls of the class. Roddenberry changed the dedication plaque to Constitution Class for the movies, but on occasion a major refit to a line of ships results in a sub-class or new class of ship.

In TOS Enterprise is several times referred to as "the newest" or "the most technically advanced" class of ship in Starfleet, which would not be true if it were 20 years old.

Because all of this was overlooked or re-written by later canon, soft canon, and fan theories, it is easiest to say the Trek Comics starring April and Pike are the current canon, which makes Enterprise about 20 when Kirk assumed command.

The comics are not canon. TAS is.

brian334 · June 2017

I last saw TAS sometime before the Bicentennial, so I'll take your word for it. I'm still painfully ploughing through Voyager at the moment, trying to find episodes I missed, but TAS will be next on Insomnia Theater.

captainchaos66 · June 2017

I remember reading somewhere that the Enterprise was actually the Constellation or Constitution renamed after a refit. I have no recollection of where exactly I read this, but I do remember reading it.
Since it hasn't been mentioned by anyone else, I can either A) it's not canon and was in a TOS book I read many years ago

my memory is playing trick on me.
Regardless, I too have always found this idea that they would be decommissioning the Enterprise after only 20 years a bit curious. I also recall reading that after the V'ger event, Kirk took her out on another 5 year mission. This may also come from an old TOS book that I read, and is likely not canon. In fact I'm reading " wagon train to the stars" which is a 6 book series that takes place after V'ger, prior to STII. Kirk leads a convoy of colonists out into unexplored space. In the series it takes over a year just to arrive at the planet. Then the Enterprise is on patrol in the area for about 6-8 months, then figuring another year to head back to federation space. That's quite the voyage in itself, whether it's canon or not,, lol.
Another option, that's been mentioned sort of, is the writers needed a reason for Kirk to steal the ship as a HUGE part of the movie. Starfleet choosing to decommission her is the PERFECT motivation for Kirk to steal her for one last adventure.
The Enterprise is always, sometimes subtly sometimes not, portrayed as a " Romantic type" interest for Kirk. From the outside that might sound creepy, but I believe it was done on purpose. Just like the Enterprise IS a character in TNG, it's Kirk's reason for living in TOS.
Kind of digs into a bit of philosophy and anthropomorphism. ( thank you google).
That's my two cents

artan42 · June 2017

captainchaos66 wrote: »

I remember reading somewhere that the Enterprise was actually the Constellation or Constitution renamed after a refit. I have no recollection of where exactly I read this, but I do remember reading it.
Since it hasn't been mentioned by anyone else, I can either A) it's not canon and was in a TOS book I read many years ago
my memory is playing trick on me.
Regardless, I too have always found this idea that they would be decommissioning the Enterprise after only 20 years a bit curious. I also recall reading that after the V'ger event, Kirk took her out on another 5 year mission. This may also come from an old TOS book that I read, and is likely not canon. In fact I'm reading " wagon train to the stars" which is a 6 book series that takes place after V'ger, prior to STII. Kirk leads a convoy of colonists out into unexplored space. In the series it takes over a year just to arrive at the planet. Then the Enterprise is on patrol in the area for about 6-8 months, then figuring another year to head back to federation space. That's quite the voyage in itself, whether it's canon or not,, lol.
Another option, that's been mentioned sort of, is the writers needed a reason for Kirk to steal the ship as a HUGE part of the movie. Starfleet choosing to decommission her is the PERFECT motivation for Kirk to steal her for one last adventure.
The Enterprise is always, sometimes subtly sometimes not, portrayed as a " Romantic type" interest for Kirk. From the outside that might sound creepy, but I believe it was done on purpose. Just like the Enterprise IS a character in TNG, it's Kirk's reason for living in TOS.
Kind of digs into a bit of philosophy and anthropomorphism. ( thank you google).
That's my two cents

The A was apparently the USS Yorktown recommissioned as the Enterprise. This is not canon however the KT Enterprise A is indead a repurpose of the unknamed 'more advanced ship' still under construction at Starbase Yorktown with the possibility that it was going to be the Yorktown Class USS Yorktown as the Starbase is not a regular shipyard. I'm guessing that the KT refit is probably now the Enterprise Class.

artan42 · June 2017

I'm not going to risk editing my post due to the big but it's always possible that it's still the Yorktown Class. Not all Starfleet ships have the class named after the first ship. The NX (and the non-canon names of NC and NV classes for the Sarajevo and Intrepid) are not the Enterprise Class not is the TMP refit and the Vengence is the first ship of the Dreadnought Class.

smokebailey · June 2017

captainchaos66 wrote: »

I remember reading somewhere that the Enterprise was actually the Constellation or Constitution renamed after a refit. I have no recollection of where exactly I read this, but I do remember reading it.
Since it hasn't been mentioned by anyone else, I can either A) it's not canon and was in a TOS book I read many years ago
my memory is playing trick on me.
Regardless, I too have always found this idea that they would be decommissioning the Enterprise after only 20 years a bit curious. I also recall reading that after the V'ger event, Kirk took her out on another 5 year mission. This may also come from an old TOS book that I read, and is likely not canon. In fact I'm reading " wagon train to the stars" which is a 6 book series that takes place after V'ger, prior to STII. Kirk leads a convoy of colonists out into unexplored space. In the series it takes over a year just to arrive at the planet. Then the Enterprise is on patrol in the area for about 6-8 months, then figuring another year to head back to federation space. That's quite the voyage in itself, whether it's canon or not,, lol.
Another option, that's been mentioned sort of, is the writers needed a reason for Kirk to steal the ship as a HUGE part of the movie. Starfleet choosing to decommission her is the PERFECT motivation for Kirk to steal her for one last adventure.
The Enterprise is always, sometimes subtly sometimes not, portrayed as a " Romantic type" interest for Kirk. From the outside that might sound creepy, but I believe it was done on purpose. Just like the Enterprise IS a character in TNG, it's Kirk's reason for living in TOS.
Kind of digs into a bit of philosophy and anthropomorphism. ( thank you google).
That's my two cents

Wel, several novels called the Enterprise a "Constellation Class", probably due to the Constellation itself having low numbers....though the ship's numbering has nothing to do with age.

Who knows.

brian334 · June 2017

X in a registry number indicates a prototype vessel. If additional hulls are built after the prototype testing program they use regular registry designations. There can be more than one. I recall seeing five F/A 18 Hornets with the X at Little Creek back in the early 80's.

Over the years there have been drastic changes the list of ship names and the order in which they were built, along with various ways of explaining the apparently random jumps in registry numbers, (which were caused by reusing the Enterprise model and covering its registry with stickers,) in the class from which Enterprise hails.

artan42 · June 2017

Not in Earth Starfleet. Ships were given single or double letter class names. The J Class freighter is another example. The registries then followed from the class name. It's not until later on NX was used to indicate an early ship and then it's only the prefix. In the case of the NX Class the name means nothing more than the class name as we can tell from the J or Y Classes and from the NC-27 (Sarajevo).

As for registry numbers. There's no pattern, the numbers are just made up as the writer's go along. Fans trying to squeeze a pattern out of them are fighting a loosing battle.

brian334 · June 2017

artan42 wrote: »

Not in Earth Starfleet. Ships were given single or double letter class names. The J Class freighter is another example. The registries then followed from the class name. It's not until later on NX was used to indicate an early ship and then it's only the prefix. In the case of the NX Class the name means nothing more than the class name as we can tell from the J or Y Classes and from the NC-27 (Sarajevo).

As for registry numbers. There's no pattern, the numbers are just made up as the writer's go along. Fans trying to squeeze a pattern out of them are fighting a loosing battle.

The letter class designations are similar to the Royal Navy naming vessels of a class after a common theme, such as the flower class corvettes or the tribal class destroyers. There was no HMS Flower or HMS Tribal; ships of the classes were simply given names like HMS Gladiolas and the HMS Afridi, (the real class lead ships' names.)

Thus J class may refer to the tenth class of freighter designed by the ECA but it more likely refers to the practice of naming vessels of the class with names which begin with the letter J, such as was commonly done in the RN, for example, with the Duncan class being known as the D class destroyers.

Enterprise in the eponymous show was a prototype. It and its sisters were intended as testbeds for future development. That Enterprise was instead pressed into active duty with limited weapons and defenses is a way of demonstrating this using the "show, don't tell" method of writing. Their purpose was to help Starfleet determine what was needed in a ship of exploration. Once completed, those tests would either prompt changes which create a new class entirely, or show that the prototype is ready for full production of the class, the ships of which would no longer use the X designator which means 'experimental.'

And I agree that writers used whatever is convenient or sounds good when picking registries, but fans being fans, there have evolved all kinds of explanations and justifications for what has been seen on screen. However, the Original Series had a lack of ship models, and the Enterprise models were used for all of the Connies shown in the series. Because they lacked CGI back then it was difficult to redo the hull registry, so whatever was put in had to either use up the same space or at least cover it. Thus, 1701 became 1717 for the USS Yorktown, even though Kirk had previously said there were only twelve ships like Enterprise.

lordrezeon · June 2017

If you follow the current comics by IDW, the JJ-Enterprise was built using refurbished parts from a previous Enterprise commanded by Robert April. I personally think it is just a desperate attempt to shoehorn in a TAS reference where it no longer applies.

kingarthur81 · June 2017

JJ-Trek screwed things up for the sake of making a "cool movie".
What they should have done was have Robert April as the captain of the USS Kelvin, with George Kirk as his first officer.

artan42 · June 2017

kingarthur81 wrote: »

JJ-Trek screwed things up for the sake of making a "cool movie".
What they should have done was have Robert April as the captain of the USS Kelvin, with George Kirk as his first officer.

That would have screwed things up for no reason. April was the Captian of the Enterprise in TAS not the Kelvin. JJ also didn't TRIBBLE that up. The Enterprise was launched 30 years into an alternate timeline as a different class of ship. To expect things to play out the same in both universes is a daft idea. It stretched credibly that the entire TOS crew ended up on the same ship. To expect that ship (a completely different class launched at a different time) to follow the Prime version is ridiculous.

Edit: Also bare in mind two other things. JJ has nothing to do with the KT comics (or indead any ST beyond the first two films and even then barely any of ID) and secondary the comics are not canon. No comics are.

robofearth · June 2017

I've been following Trek since about 1980, and always thought the Enterprise was about 40 years old by the time she was destroyed. I remember reading that Roddenberry wanted a ship "with some history", and if you accepted TAS as canon she would be about 40 years old. I never had a problem with the "there are only 12 like it in the fleet" comment, and the fact they were considered the most powerful ships in Starfleet even though they were 20 years old in TOS.

I look at it this way: The most high profile, largest surface ships in the US Navy today are the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. The oldest, the Nimitz herself, is still active even though she was commissioned 42 years ago. Since then she's been refitted and updated numerous times to keep her state of the art, and now has 9 sister ships which include 2 subclasses (Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan). With all their refits no two ships are alike though to the untrained eye they look the same. The first ship of the next class, Gerald Ford, is nearing completion. (Ford is supposed to replace the already-decommissioned USS Enterprise CVN-65, the 2nd ship will replace Nimitz, and the 3rd ship, CVN-80, is to be named Enterprise).

I kind of think of the Constitution class starships the same as the Nimitz carriers - big platforms that were continually modernized until the state of the art advanced so much it simply became more effective to built a new class (Excelsior). Maybe some Constitutions were lost before TOS, and many were built after, up to and including from the ground-up to resemble the Enterprise we saw in the movies. Like the Nimitz class carriers will soon experience when the Ford class becomes more numerous, as the Excelsiors became operational the Constitutions, beginning with the less technologically advanced ships, were retired, with their crews likely reassigned to the new ships replacing them.

By the time TNG started most likely the Constitutions were gone, and the late-model Excelsiors and Mirandas were the "old but reliable" workhorses of Starfleet.

starswordc · June 2017

robofearth wrote: »

I've been following Trek since about 1980, and always thought the Enterprise was about 40 years old by the time she was destroyed. I remember reading that Roddenberry wanted a ship "with some history", and if you accepted TAS as canon she would be about 40 years old. I never had a problem with the "there are only 12 like it in the fleet" comment, and the fact they were considered the most powerful ships in Starfleet even though they were 20 years old in TOS.

I look at it this way: The most high profile, largest surface ships in the US Navy today are the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. The oldest, the Nimitz herself, is still active even though she was commissioned 42 years ago. Since then she's been refitted and updated numerous times to keep her state of the art, and now has 9 sister ships which include 2 subclasses (Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan). With all their refits no two ships are alike though to the untrained eye they look the same. The first ship of the next class, Gerald Ford, is nearing completion. (Ford is supposed to replace the already-decommissioned USS Enterprise CVN-65, the 2nd ship will replace Nimitz, and the 3rd ship, CVN-80, is to be named Enterprise).

I kind of think of the Constitution class starships the same as the Nimitz carriers - big platforms that were continually modernized until the state of the art advanced so much it simply became more effective to built a new class (Excelsior). Maybe some Constitutions were lost before TOS, and many were built after, up to and including from the ground-up to resemble the Enterprise we saw in the movies. Like the Nimitz class carriers will soon experience when the Ford class becomes more numerous, as the Excelsiors became operational the Constitutions, beginning with the less technologically advanced ships, were retired, with their crews likely reassigned to the new ships replacing them.

By the time TNG started most likely the Constitutions were gone, and the late-model Excelsiors and Mirandas were the "old but reliable" workhorses of Starfleet.

This is supported by the TNG Technical Manual, actually: it says somewhere that the Galaxy-class was designed with a 100-year service lifespan in mind, with major refits and upgrades scheduled once every ten years.

lordrezeon · June 2017

My personal head-canon on the Constitution classes abrupt decommissioning was that it was due to the arms reductions stipulated by the Khitomer Accords. Starfleet had to reduce the size of the fleet so it axed the older ships and compensated by modernizing the rest of the fleet to the latest models (Excelsior and Miranda classes), which is why those ships were so prolific even by the Dominion War.

Of course this is just my theory, the real reasons are probably far more mundane (special effects budgets, etc).

brian334 · June 2017

Never underestimate the power of an SFX budget.

kingarthur81 · June 2017

artan42 wrote: »

kingarthur81 wrote: »

JJ-Trek screwed things up for the sake of making a "cool movie".
What they should have done was have Robert April as the captain of the USS Kelvin, with George Kirk as his first officer.

That would have screwed things up for no reason. April was the Captian of the Enterprise in TAS not the Kelvin. JJ also didn't **** that up. The Enterprise was launched 30 years into an alternate timeline as a different class of ship. To expect things to play out the same in both universes is a daft idea. It stretched credibly that the entire TOS crew ended up on the same ship. To expect that ship (a completely different class launched at a different time) to follow the Prime version is ridiculous.

Edit: Also bare in mind two other things. JJ has nothing to do with the KT comics (or indead any ST beyond the first two films and even then barely any of ID) and secondary the comics are not canon. No comics are.

We're talking 2233 here. It is quite possible that Robert April, may have commanded ships before the Enterprise.
In fact non-canon sources establish this.
I simply proposed this as a possible way to have included Robert April in the Kelvin timeline.
Not shoe-horn him in like the comic did.
It would have been a possible explanation, as well, as to why it took so long to build the Enterprise.
According to non-canon, April developed the plans for the Constitution-class vessel.
Perhaps whithout April, construction was delayed/postponed.

Whats the Real Age of the Enterprise NCC 1701

Comments