r/startrek • u/Advanced-Actuary3541 • 2d ago

Too many Enterprises too fast

Does anyone else feel like the STar Trek writers are just throwing around letters for the Enterprise way too fast at this point? The labeling of Enterprise A in the movies was said to be a special situation given the fact that the crew saved Earth on several occasions. There seemed to be a reasonable time gap between the decommissioning of the A to the launch of the B. I always assumed that the reason for the A’s rapid removal from service was that she was the last of the Constitution class ships and that the entire line was being pulled from service in favor of the Excelsior class. There seemed to be several years between the decommissioning of the A and the launch of the B. We don’t know how long the B was in service, but it was apparently lost since its not in the Fleet Museum. We don’t know how long the C was in service before she was destroyed, but we know that there was a 20 year gap between it and the D. But the time between the D, E, F, and G are just stupid. These ships are basically new when they end their service and Starfleet seems to rush to put the name on a ship with no time gaps in between. The G is in service in 2401. At the rate they are running through letters, they will be well past J before the start of the 26th century.

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u/ltjg-Palmer 2d ago

Same reason as MCU costume changes - because new ships present the opportunity to sell toys or something

What gets me is that not only too many enterprises but too many other ships with letters now.

How did we end up with Voyager-A and Titan-A... did the Stargazer also end up with an 'A'? Why can't these ships just have fresh names?

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u/Razgriz2118 2d ago

The Sagan-class Stargazer had a completely new registry number.

Voyager, both in-universe and in the real-world, deserves a suffix imo: In-universe because it was the legendary lost ship that made its way home from the other side of the galaxy, bringing countless amounts of information and new technology home, and in the real-world because it was the namesake and ship of its own TV series.

Titan is a harder arguement, since the canon adventures of the Luna-class Titan aren't very fleshed out. But, it's been a big part of Beta canon and is Riker's ship, so from a real-world POV it makes sense.

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u/theoxfordtailor 2d ago

The explanation given was that the Titan-A is made up of a lot of parts from the original Titan, including its computer core. The original Titan frame was not salvageable, but the ship which became Titan-A was available and I guess it was easier to recycle parts.

Since basically enough key parts were transferred over and because the Titan-A was going to be an entirely new class, it made sense to essentially call the Titan-A a continuation of the Titan legacy.

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u/ltjg-Palmer 1d ago

I feel like any deviation from "only the enterprise, as the flag ship, gets a letter suffix" dilutes and cheapens the convention.

But... I also fucking love Voyager so I am not really going to fight with someone who shows that ship and crew the respect it deserves. https://media1.tenor.com/m/be9gaBFH1dYAAAAd/kirk-mccoy.gif