Oddly enough, 'NX-01' never occurred to me
July 3rd, 2009
Signs that I'm a geek (#12,354 in an ongoing series.)
Upon seeing this MetaFilter post…
A five meters long 1/72 scale model of the USS Enterprise is looking for a new home
… my first thought was, "NCC-1701 or NCC-1701-D?"
Supplementary question: would it have been more or less geeky if my first thought had been "Constitution class or Galaxy class?"
July 6th, 2009 at 03:02
It couldn't have been NX-01, because that wasn't a "USS." (Geekier.)
"Supplementary question": More geeky if you considered the possibility of Excelsior-class (E-B) or Ambassador-class (E-C). Lesser points for Enterprise-E. Most points for Enterprise-J.
July 6th, 2009 at 06:52
I concede re NX-01: well played, sir…
As to Enterprise B/C/E, fun as it was to see them make their appearances in an episode here or a film or two there over the years I just don't think any of them is what naturally comes to mind upon hearing the phrase 'USS Enterprise.' Sure, your second thought would naturally go in that direction, but it would be perverse not to think of the two ships with the most screen time first. It'd be like hearing the word 'Sith' and thinking of Darth Maul before Darth Vader!
[Re E-J, I don't think it counts if we never saw an exterior shot of the ship in flight.]
July 7th, 2009 at 00:47
"…it would be perverse not to think of the two ships with the most screen time first…."
True, but I've never claimed not to be perverse.
However, I do grant your point.
"[Re E-J, I don't think it counts if we never saw an exterior shot of the ship in flight."
? I linked to a picture. Admittedly, it was a very quick shot in that one episode, but there it was. (I'm so glad that Manny Coto boot-kicked all those endless stupid "Temporal Cold War" plots; the fourth season of Enterprise was so excellent compared to all the seasons before it! If only they'd hired him from the start!)
July 7th, 2009 at 06:43
IIRC that picture of E-J is a still image of the vessel that was on display on the wall of the room in the scene where Archer was pulled into the middle of a battle and told how important it was that he not go on a suicide mission that would result in his not being around to inspire the formation of the Federation.
Unless I blinked and missed it (possible) or my memory is failing me (very possible), we viewers never saw the E-J itself in action, we merely saw a portrait of the E-J. For my money, that places it in the same category as the Enterprise XCV 330: we've seen a portrait of the ship, we know it exists in some timeline or other, but we've never had the pleasure of watching it in motion, flying across our screens and giving us a good look at it from the viewpoint of someone watching it go by on the way to make some history.
To my mind, an interior shot doesn't cut it. A ship can't earn iconic status if we never got to have the camera's POV sweep from stem to stern at some point.
July 7th, 2009 at 21:53
"Unless I blinked and missed it (possible) or my memory is failing me (very possible), we viewers never saw the E-J itself in action, we merely saw a portrait of the E-J."
Well, Archer was on the E-J. Archer is, in the future of the Enterprise-J, taken to a room with a window or viewscreen, and sees the battle (for a few seconds) it was in. See here. (My memory for trivia did not recall that it's the "Battle of Procyon V.")
"To my mind, an interior shot doesn’t cut it."
Far be it for me to argue with your mind. :-)
Can we get any more Trekkie geeky than this?
Though I'd point out that alternate timelines are now as canony as it gets. :-)
July 7th, 2009 at 23:50
Yeah, there's a certain sick irony to the fact that now that the JJ Abrams reboot has swept away ST:[TOS|TNG|DS9|VOY] and all the other feature films the only on-screen Trek that is still canonical is Enterprise…
Part of me wonders what would happen if Abrams used That Bloody Theme Song in his NuTrek sequel. (Answer: if they managed to keep the news from leaking, Trekkie heads would explode in unison in cinemas across the land on opening night.)
July 8th, 2009 at 04:42
"Yeah, there’s a certain sick irony to the fact that now that the JJ Abrams reboot has swept away ST:[TOS|TNG|DS9|VOY] and all the other feature films the only on-screen Trek that is still canonical is Enterprise…"
I don't think that's right: there are simply (at least) two different canonical universes side-by-side. Although really, there are more, since there's also the Mirror Universe, and the reboot pretty much retroactively established that every example of time travel in the ST universe created a "real" separate parallel universe.
That's the way the creators of the new movie claim it, and I don't think that's at all an unreasonable interpretation, myself.
(I have a lot of other problems with elements of the movie making no sense, but not this issue.)
July 8th, 2009 at 06:52
OK, the original continuity is still there in a parallel universe, but with the Abrams version of Trek's continuity being the only game in town for now the original timeline been sidelined as a source of future stories.
(Unless, of course, the of Abrams' next effort turns out to be Star Trek: The Search for Vulcan and sees Spock-Prime team up with SylarSpock to jump even further back in time, save Romulus, undo Nero's actions and reboot the reboot.)
(Except, I'd imagine, in the tie-in novels which I assume are still free to tell stories in the various settings far away from the Enterprise-as-seen-on-TV that were created so that the writers can kill and maim their major characters without screwing with the franchise.)
July 9th, 2009 at 01:24
"…but with the Abrams version of Trek’s continuity being the only game in town for now the original timeline been sidelined as a source of future stories."
Nope.
"…which I assume are still free to tell stories in the various settings far away from the Enterprise-as-seen-on-TV…."
There are those, but the primary novels are just continuing the mainstream continuity (which has gone on past the series into also sorts of later permutations of wars and whatnot, I gather.)
There's also this.
July 11th, 2009 at 15:04
What's up with Spock Prime, btw.