[Roysten]

I remember us discussing the crazy TMP timeline in another thread, the chronology whilst being official is a bit silly, it puts a year happening between WOK (2284), SFS (2285) and TVH (2286) where they probably all happen over the course of a year at most.

The Enterprise-A seemed to have several refits over the 6 years it was in service, the interior seemed completely different in every film.

More like Saurinan Brandy, Spican Flame Gems, and Orion Slave Girls....

How about Kanar, Ketracel-white and Risans for his 60th...

[therichieboy]

Originally Posted by Zardoz

More like Saurinan Brandy, Spican Flame Gems, and Orion Slave Girls....

....and..........green!

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by MagaditH

Would you rather decommission rather then repair and resupply?

Keep in mind that decommission doesn't mean that the ship is taken out of Starfleet completely, nor does it mean that the ship will never be used again in Starfleet. It simply means that the ship is taken out of active status. Unless she was slated to head for the breaker's yard, the Enterprise would likely have been put in the mothball fleet. The ship could then be reactivated at a later date as needed. After major wars, it's typical for ships to be decommissioned. Many are scrapped, but many are also kept in mothballs and reactivated later. In some cases ships are reactivated as much as 30 years after decommissioning.

[kevin]

Well that would fit with places like the yards seen in 'Unification, Part I' where we saw derelict Miranda Class Starships in the background.

I mean, even the line 'the Enterprise is twenty years old' makes no sense when the Star Trek timeline is looked at based on generally accepted dates anyway.

But maybe she would have been reassigned to something other than deep space assignments.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by kevin

But maybe she would have been reassigned to something other than deep space assignments.

You mean like taking cadets on training cruises?

The thing about Unification is that was a scrap yard. That's different than a mothball fleet which is properly called a reserve fleet. The ships are stored and are maintained in sufficient working order so that they can be reactivated in emergency situations. One example of such a place is the Puget Sound Naval Yard in Bremerton, Washington. Had the Enterprise been destined for a reserve fleet upon decommissioning, she probably would have been sent to drydock for repairs and a small refit before being sent off to the reserve fleet.

A more accurate example would be the case of the Defiant prototype in DS9 which was pretty much placed in storage after the project was essentially put on hold. Another example would be the USS Sovereign as described in the manual for the Bridge Commander computer game although the back story for the Sovereign has yet to be confirmed on screen and in all likelihood will never be fleshed out on screen.

There is one piece of onscreen evidence to indicate the possible existence of a reserve fleet in Star Fleet. During the initial Star Fleet briefing in Star Trek 6, there was one flag officer that asked if the result of the proposed peace talks would result in "mothballing the star fleet". Now after Star Trek 6, the Enterprise-A was in all likelihood decommissioned and immediately stricken from the Star Fleet registry instead of being placed in a mothball fleet. In which case she could have been scrapped or placed in a museum. Or if she was to have gone to mothballs instead of being stricken, then it's possible that she would have been given a new name and hull number; however given the unique nature of the Enterprise hull number, the number could just as easily been kept the same along with the name. This would have been done in anticipation of the Enterprise-B, as having two ships of the same name in the registry can cause confusion. Just having two ships of similar names tends to cause confusion as was the case of the USS Hamilton and USS Alexander Hamilton in WWII. When the US entered the war, all Coast Guard assets were transferred to the Navy. This included the cutter, Alexander Hamilton which was named after the first secretary of the US treasury. The Navy already had a destroyer named after LT. Archibald Hamilton. Both ships however were usually referred to as Hamilton for short. As a result, there was an incident where orders were sent to the wrong ship resulting in the Coast Guard Cutter, Alexander Hamilton, begin sent out into the North Atlantic instead of the destroyer. After realizing the error, the Navy sent out a fleet wide communication stating that in all future communications, the cutter would be called Alexander Hamilton and the destroyer would be called Hamilton.

Edit: going back to the whole question of a refit. Strictly speaking, refit means to fit out or supply again; to obtain repairs or refresh supplies or equipment. Anytime a ship comes into port, it's going to get a refit. The term refit that Star Trek fans use colloquially when referring to the transformation of the Enterprise from TOS to TMP really shouldn't be called a refit. It's a modernization. It's just like when the battleships were recommissioned in the 1980s and had electronic warfare suites installed as well as other systems, that was referred to as a modernization and not simply a refit. Upgrade is also an appropriate term, though modernization tends to fit better in terms of the scale at which the Enterprise was upgraded.

[MagaditH]

Damn it... You make to much sense.

Your right. The TMP Enterprise shouldn't be called a refit.

[TJJones]

Originally Posted by Roysten

I remember us discussing the crazy TMP timeline in another thread, the chronology whilst being official is a bit silly, it puts a year happening between WOK (2284), SFS (2285) and TVH (2286) where they probably all happen over the course of a year at most.

I think the current consensus is that TMP took place in 2273 (thanks to a line in the TNG episode "Q2"). TWOK and TSFS took place in 2285, while TVH took place in 2286.

So, there are about 12 years between TMP and TWOK, enough time for a five-year mission, Kirk supposedly retiring and returning to head up the Academy, and the Enterprise being assigned as a training vessel under Captain Spock.

Of course, now that we know Kirk's canon birth year (2233), we can say he was actually celebrating his 52nd birthday in TWOK!