Ship names and Numbers

[dix]

I became sufficiently interested in these discrepancies to do a little research. I knew many of the names that ADB uses come from the Star Trek Technical Manual by Franz Joseph (which is where ADB originally got its licence from in 1979-the licence with Paramount came later, after SFB became popular)but I was increasingly curious. Frankly, I'd never bothered comparing them before because the canonical NCC list is about as messed up as the one ADB uses.

From Memory Alpha:
Constitution Class Starships:
USS Constellation (NCC-1017)-This one is there in ADB's list and is correct.
USS Intrepid (NCC-1631)-Discrepancy-ADB=NCC-1708 (NCC-1708 is consistent with the Star Fleet Technical Manual (published 1975); The NCC-1631 comes from the Star Trek Encyclopedia, 1994, which is not strictly canonical, and was used in REMASTERED ST:TOS, 2008)
USS Potemkin (NCC-1657)-Discrepancy-ADB=NCC-1711 (NCC-1711 is consistent with the Star Fleet Technical Manual, 1975; NCC-1657 was established in ST:VI The Undiscovered Country, 1991)
USS Excalibur (NCC-1664)-Discrepancy-ADB=NCC-1705 (NCC-1705 is consistent with Star Fleet Technical Manual, 1975; NCC-1664 originates from Greg Jein's article, The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship, 1973, and was used in Star Trek Encyclopedia, 1994, and again in REMASTERED ST:TOS, 2008)
USS Exeter (NCC-1672)-Discrepancy-ADB=NCC-1706 (NCC-1706 is consistent with Star Fleet Technical Manual, 1975; NCC-1672 was first used in REMASTERED ST:TOS, 2007)
NCC-1700 (Presumed to be USS Constitution)
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)-Right
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A)-Right
USS Hood (NCC-1703)-Discrepancy-ADB=NCC-1707 (NCC-1707 is consistent with the Star Fleet Technical Manual; The NCC-1703 comes from the REMASTERED ST:TOS, 2008)
NCC-1707 (Was supposed to be a refit constitution named Intrepid, but was not shown on film, ST IV: The Voyage Home, 1986)
USS Lexington (NCC-1709)-Discrepancy-ADB=NCC-1703 (NCC-1703 is consistent with Star Fleet Technical Manual, 1975; NCC-1709 originates from Greg Jein's article, The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship, 1973, and was used in Star Trek Encyclopedia, 1994, and again in REMASTERED ST:TOS, 2008)
USS Defiant (NCC-1764)-Discrepancy-ADB=NCC-1615 (NCC-1615 is not consistent with Star Fleet Technical Manual, 1975, which does not list the ship at all; NCC-1764 originates from Greg Jein's article in T-Negative magazine, 1973, and was used in Star Trek Encyclopedia, 1994, in "In a Mirror, Darkly" 2005, and again in REMASTERED ST:TOS, 2008)

There are more Constitution-class registries, besides (those above are the ones shown conclusively on screen), but many of those come from Greg Jein or Michael Okuda and many of those were taken from the Star Fleet Technical Manual, anyway.

It is interesting that the Defiant, which was not listed in the Technical Manual, does not have an ADB registry of NCC-1764, corresponding to the show. However, it turns out that in the Technical Manual NCC-1764 is used for the USS Galina and ADB had already listed NCC-1764 as the USS Atlantis for SFB: Module R5 in 1992.

 

[Pete]

I mentioned this to a TV buff I know as an oddity, and he told me that 1764 was only chosen for Defiant some time after the original episode, so at the time of filming she had no registry number.

 

[phoenixhawk]

Thanks for saving me the research time dix. I'll stick with on-screen and memory alpha as "official" references. 8)

 

[Nerroth]

To be fair, it should be pointed out that the NCC list in the Star Fleet Technical Manual was done first. The point at which the Paramount/CBS Franchise diverged (in terms of cooking up "new" NCC numbers for various ships) was after the agreement with ADB was signed.

Why would it be the fault of ADB for sticking with the licenced material they do have access to, as opposed to throwing it out and trying to copy what the Franchise has done (even if it wasn't something that treaded into don't-go-there territory licence-wise)?

In the Star Fleet Universe, the NCC list you see posted by ADB is the "official" list for this setting, and it should make no apologies for being different to what the Franchise may have set up for its own timeline/s.

(Not that any of that has to stop you from doing whatever you see fit for the ships on your own tabletop, of course.)

 

[Sgt_G]

Dix, as even you yourself noted, ADB used the 1975 FJ Tech Manual as the starting point for nearly everything SFB, including ship names. If anything conflicts with it, they ignore it.

ADB does accept nominations to add new names to the list, but they want justification especially for Federation ships. If the sole reason giving to add a name is "this is what the Memory Alpha web site says", it probably won't fly. In fact, they might be forced to reject it due to copyrights even if you said "and it's a great idea because of the real-world history about the person the ship is named after."

(I got one name added to the list: the police cutter J. Wilson, named for a local cop shot dead in the line of duty. The police department used funds raised in his name to buy dash-cams for all their police cars, so if something like that ever happens again they can find the slime-sucking scumbags and throw their butts in jail for the rest of their miserable life.)

As to why most names are Human / English ... it's simply that most SFB players are American or at least from English-speaking countries. While it might be cool to have French or German words, or even Hindi or Chinese words, as ship names, most players wouldn't be able to pronounce it. Likewise with "alien" words. Steve said he doesn't want a bunch of made-up unpronounceable gibberish.

As to why no Vulcan names, consider they Vulcans would take offense to naming ships of war after their heroes, being that they are a people of peace and logic.

 

[dix]

ADB used the 1975 FJ Tech Manual as the starting point for nearly everything SFB, including ship names. If anything conflicts with it, they ignore it.

Yep, that summarized what I meant quite nicely. My rambling blather aside, I was curious though why the Defiant, which never appeared in the tech manual, or ADB's ship list (until recently), was not given the NCC number corresponding to that shown on screen. Now, it's quite reasonable that ADB would not do so for licencing reasons as ADB is quite protective of it's own IP and it's licence from Paramount. However, in researching the origin of the NCC-1764 reference, it arises that there is a conflict between ADB's list and the SFTM. NCC-1764 is the number for USS Galina in the SFTM but is used for USS Atlantis in the ADB list. Curious. Is there a rationalizationfor this disagreement? Are there other cases of the ADB list not agreeing with the Tech Manual?

I do not own a copy of the Star Fleet Technical Manual, so I cannot check, but I wonder: is there something in there to the effect of, "planned but not built" that this falls under? If so, that could quite easily explain the name difference.

On the subject of "alien" ship names, IIRC (from reading an online list from SFTM that I can no longer find) there were several registries for ships that had names of constellations or stars. It would be nice to have some of those sprinkled around in the ADB list. Of course, aliens would have different names for their home systems and colonies but I would have no problem using the "human translations" instead.

 

[scoutdad]

My rambling blather aside, I was curious though why the Defiant, which never appeared in the tech manual, or ADB's ship list (until recently), was not given the NCC number corresponding to that shown on screen.

While I'm not an employee of ADB and can't state for certain... my guess would be thusly:

The CA names / NCC numbers are based on the FJD SFTM. There was no Defiant on that original list. The original list of heavy cruisers runs frm 1700 to 1727. From 1728 to 1750, you are in the realm of CBs (Heavy Command Cruisers). Then starting with 1751 (USS Kirov), you are into the Heavy Battlecruisers.
In the mid-1970's when the game was created , that's all the Federation Heavy Cruisers known to exist. Since then, then number has expanded to include many more CAs... NCC-1600 through NCC-1649. This is when the Defient was added to the list and given the number NCC-1615.