@@LoreReloaded I dunno... Klingons can be downright ingenious if it allows them to kill things... I mean...they created a retrovirus to humanify Klingons so they could be imbedded into Starfleet as spies and assassins. They "Don't Speak of It" but they did it...
@@digitalis2977 They needed a Spock... and it's not too likely a Klingon as mathematically godlike as Spock would be doing anything but making better disruptors. Additionally, if they did figure it out, there's probably some Klingon moral code preventing it. What honor is there in eliminating one's enemy whist they lie in the cradle?? (though 23rd Century Klingons are less "honorable honor of honor" and more "give me Genesis or give me death!")
@@LoreReloaded Or maybe just like the Federation they have their ideals they 'd rather die than compromise. "Defeating someone by traveling back time is not honorable!". House Duras though might disagree with that :-)
Beyond that, the Constitution class has: 1.) The most powerful weapons in Starfleet as it can snipe a fly millions of miles away w/o harming anything else beyond a nanometer AND turn the surface of an entire planet molten in a matter of minutes. 2.) The fastest ship in Starfleet being able to go from Earth to the Galactic Core or the Galactic Edge (25,000LY each) in DAYS. 3.) Captains that can seduce any sentient female lifeform in nearly any Universe.
Well, to be fair, we don’t know if the Enterprise arrived at the Galactic Edge in days. For all we know, they could have started traveling there in 2265 and only arrived in 2266
Which begs the question... What does "God" need with a starship, anyway? We never did get an answer, IIRC. Yet, the deception alone automatically made it a villain that required destruction? Yeah, not the best Trek movie.
@@taitano12 No, trying a deception did not warant death in itself. However trying to murder the away team torturously - wich also implies he would try to take the enterprise by force - justifies violence. If he does not stop before he is dead, that was his mistake. And as far as we know he is not dead, meerely "dispersed"
@@taitano12 bad movie although, him not answering and then trying to kill the away team because they wouldn’t give him the ship did kinda make him the villain and the fact that he needed the ship implied that he was stuck or imprisoned there on purpose.
That clip in which Sisko talks about saving civilians at all cost to yourself is interesting when you think about the time that he made a civilian planet uninhabitable just to defeat Eddington and the Maquis.
it's not the interesting, Sisko is the most self-righteous, and self-important Captain of Legacy Era Trek. Kirk is the libido obsessed frontier cowboy. Picard is the one who will dismiss common sense in a conflict, and allow a foe to commit atrocities before his eyes because "diplomacy." Janeway, aka Shrillway is the one who would, if given the opportunity, rule the UFP as a dictator and trample on your individual rights because...Janeway means "right"... and Archer is the school boy joyriding in his father's car hoping they don't take the keys from him when he gets home.
My understanding of it was that the Constitution class was the last non modular design for Starfleet ships. It was decommissioned because it was obsolete compared to the modular designs of the Miranda and Excelsior.
It's so powerful they decided retire all of them. And while they were doing that they were under close guard meaning you only needed 5 guys to steal one.
I think the Constitution class out live its design capabilities. Through out its service life. Star Fleet upgraded them as far as they could go until there design efficiency became a problem. Technology can only make things so small until you need more room for newer designs. More space for computer memory banks, new systems or increased system capabilities that require more crew to operate which leads onto crew quarters and places were crew can exercise or relaxed (think holo decks). Medical staff, engineering and so on and so forth.
I think the Excelsior outlived its design more, it was still in service for a century, while the legendary Constitution-class was already obsolete, which is a shame, the Connie is such a gorgeous ship.
constitution class was kind of a "solid frame" ship, where it was built to run best on everything it came with. that worked great; for a while, but as technology improved more and more, it started to become outdated. trying to update it was untenable because changing 1 thing about it decreased the efficiency of the rest of the ship. with newer classes such as Excelsior, like Gerald Mentioned, the ships were easy to update and "sectioned" so you can take pieces off and replace them with better-designed ones. therefore, a new starship could sort of "grow" as time marched on and new technologies and inventions became available to make a ship work better. she was and still is a fine ship, and her simple design made sure she was reliable, but she was just too simplistic as the old era ended and the new era began. as Scotty once put it, "the more you complicate the plumbing, the easier it is to clog."
I would ignore the time travel stuff, and point to a more practical in universe explanation. There were only a handful of Constitution class ships in service at any given time. Most probably were destroyed or decommissioned. Whereas the miranda class was built in huge numbers and had a less bulky more modular design.
@@mickeynonya9837 that was probably an inaccurate statement because he couldn't go out him to go back with knowledge of the future that was accurate. Note to said there are only twelve like it in the fleet. Emphasis on the words LIKE IT. On the show itself you had the following ships Constellation, Exeter, *Defiant, Intrepid, *Lexington, *Yorktown, *Excalibur, *Hood, Potemkin, Farragut, and presumably Constitution. which means there's at least one other ship out there that is built presumably exactly like the Enterprise. When he said they're only 12 like it in the fleet that means twelve ships exactly like it with the same purposes and capabilities size etcetera. Now the size would probably be a given regardless but other factors may or may not be as important because in the pilot the cage the Enterprise self only 203 crew, by the time Kirk took over it had 430 crew members. Presumably similar numbers for all the ships in the fleet meaning when Decker beam to screw down to the third planet in that system before the Doomsday Machine destroyed it he consigned 429 of his fellow crew members to certain death. And when the M5 computer in control of enterprise killed all life aboard the Excalibur, it meant 430 crewmembers likely were lost, although the ship itself looks like it did not suffer irreparable damage. An astropolitical body the size of the Federation would not put all of its eggs in a basket of just twelve vessels to defend it. Obviously there are other classes of Starship in service as well as certainly variants of the Constitution class. Note when I listed the ships above oh, I put an asterisk by the ones that were almost certainly exactly built like the Enterprise because their registry was in similar sequence. According to most other sources out there in the Star Trek universe ships like the Farragut and Potemkin had a much lower registry number of 1647 and 1657 respectively, and of course the constellation it's registry number was only 1017, although when they were putting the model together for the episode they just flipped the numbers around for the Enterprise. Which means that they are likely much older ships. But there are almost certainly more Constitution variants in service than just the twelve specifically mentioned and implied.
yes, but explain how the Constitution Class is the class that attracted an unprecedented amount of giant green hands, solar system sized microbes, intergalactic doomsday machines, and many instances of lost ships and other inter-phase problems. I think his theory is pretty sound.
@@jlalejos Well, the Prometheus deserves hate. It's literally nothing more than a Nerd's Wet-Dream Power Fantasy. The only thing missing from it are anime waifus painted on the various hulls...
@@digitalis2977 I feel personally attacked but I love the Ridiculousness of the Prometheus class I understand why most people hated it is silly when you think about it I never heard liked it when Federation ship split up even with the Galaxy into the saucer section
@@proudamerican183 although the Anbassadors neck was rather thin, their necks were thicker, they were larger ships with better shielding. The excelsior s neck was the width of the secondary hull and the Galaxy’s was somewhat triangular shaped.
I found this amusingly plausible, and I was not *entirely* certain whether you were being facetious until the end there. I suspect that the in-universe reason was likely that, between the Miranda and Excelsior classes, the Constitution was simply left without a role. The former had a larger internal volume and the design was more readily modified to serve various roles, while the latter was a far larger and more potent heavy cruiser (people talk about Excelsior's shields handling that photon torpedo hit better, but few seem to talk about how it took the Praxis blastwave like a champ - possibly with its shields down, or not completely raised, considering how long it tended to take shields to come online during that era). Add in that the Constitution had been the highest profile (war)ship in Starfleet for decades, this made it the perfect sacrificial goat when the Federation committed to "dismantling the battlefleet" in the wake of the Khitomer Accords. Add the scrapping of the derivative Hermes and Saladin class scouts and destroyers, as well as the handful of Federation class dreadnoughts (questionably canon, yes, but I'm including them here since documentation for these classes was seen on-screen in a couple of movies), and they have made a visible good faith effort to get rid of the big bad warships, while leaving the less aggressive looking newer designs to take their place. Meanwhile, the Miranda class? "Oh, those are *totally* ships of peace. See, we took off the roll-bar arsenal and everything." Of course, the nice modular systems meant that re-arming the Mirandas wouldn't take very long. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few warehouses filled with arsenal roll-bars for all the ships in service, just in case. It could explain why all the Mirandas we saw in the Dominion War were Reliant-style builds, rather than the grab-bag of configurations we saw in TNG. It might also explain why we don't see them firing the roll-bar phasers - the torpedo tubes were useful, and could be easily upgraded by stocking them with modern torpedoes and updating software, meanwhile, the phasers in the hull would have been upgraded over time, but the ones on the roll-bar may have been neglected during the "golden age" and thus were outdated and under-powered. (Stray musing: It's a pity that they didn't/couldn't upgrade those to a pair of Defiant-style phaser cannons. That would have given the old Mirandas some serious punch. They weren't using power for warp propulsion during the battles, so it should only be a matter of getting the power up to the emitters, rather than not having it available at all. However, unfortunately this would have probably expanded the refit beyond what the Federation would have the time or resources for. Gotta get the torpedo pods on the ships and kick them out of dry-dock quickly so the next batch can be armed.)
I think your answer is much more plausible than what the video says. I for one always imagined they were still out there but instead of now being the main ship in statfleet they were ships that cadets trained on and the less important mossions in Starfleet were carried out by them because they were so outdated and slow.
I guess this makes the destruction of the Enterprise D more palatable. Think of how powerful the Bird of Prey is considering it can travel through time. Thanks Lore!
Also towards the end of Star Trek First Contact the crew of the Enterprise E said they were able to replicate the way the Borg created Temporal Particles and return to the 24th century.
True, but the trip did drain the dilthium crystals of the bird of prey. Of course Scotty did point out it was the type of crystals, mined from Praxis, that was the problem. An interesting hypothesis, but makes little sense in the long run.
Plottwist: Star Trek has been about a (Secret) Time War all along! Maybe even connected to a certain other show. (Whoniverse Time War did spread into other multiverses)
But in that Mirror Universe, it was so unstoppably powerful that it was still in use and being maintained 100 years after being stolen from the Tholians by Empress Hoshi I.
@@lorzon so a ship with tech 100 years in advance of anything else is more powerful than those around it? I'm shocked. Shocked! Well, not that shocked...
Interesting theory; but, that problem could be fixed by replacing the warp core with a different model. The more probable reason is the neck of the ship. It too small and therefore too vulnerable. Virtually every subsequent ship design either had a much broader neck or no neck at all.
Not to mention they were putting a lot on the transwarp system of excelsior. There could have been a change in warp dynamics newer ships may have been more 'aerodynamic' in warp travel and the shape and materials of the connies made them too flimsy for higher warp.
in all fairness a lot go TOS is overpowered compared to tng and post tng trek. - federation moving continents for terraforming - galactic barriers - the milky way galaxy (yes all of it) not having any wars - the galactic barrier - literal magic (yes thats a thing) (animated series)
@@hobomike6935 no! that is a dumb argument... just because a caveman can't tell the difference between lightning and magic, that doesn't make lightining magic.
Basically CBS and Paramount didn’t want any reminder of Gene’s Star Trek So the Constitution Class hence it’s name Constitution was to be erased from existence. Kinda like what’s happening to the U.S.
That would make more sense if the constitution class Enterprise didn't feature in the last 3 of CBS's post-Rodenbery movies, and their most popular post-Rodenbery TV show.
Interesting theory. How about this idea. In ST3 when Kirk was informed Enterprise was to be decommissioned. It wasn’t due to the Constitution Class was becoming obsolete but the Enterprise, the last of the 12 original Constitution Class which also went thru a lot of stressful situations. The ships frames or ‘bones’ has become brittle. Enough so it was decided to retire her. Not the Constitution Class in general.
The thing is we don't know what the history of NCC-1701-A was prior to it's refit and recommissioning. We know what it was like right after in ST-V. That particular Constitution might have been at the end of it's service life especially after taking a beating from a cloaked Bird of Prey.
@@tonybarnett2371 the NCC-1701-A was originally the USS Ti-Ho (NCC-1798), a Constitution-class II starship which was a test bed for transwarp technology alongside the USS Excelsior. Which kind of explains all of its faults in Star Trek 5.
Except for the fact that there is an old constitution class used to train cadets as mentioned in the DS9 episode "Valiant"! The USS Republic which hasn't left the terrain system in decades! Boom Bisonhawk1 out lores Lore!!!
If the Connie is OP to the point it made the Federation too nervous to keep using it, then that would make for a pretty forgiving training ship. It would also send a message to the other powers that the Feds may be playing nice for now, but they haven't forgotten about these ancient death machines, so those other powers better mind their manners.
The Republic is actually, according to most sources, older than the main members of the Constitution class; she was upgraded to roughly match the class.
funny video. but legitimately: there's miranda old and there's connie old. consider that the connie was built in the 2240s the miranda the 2270s (i did a whole video on the miranda and why a TOS version doesn't make sense.) and also because the ships would have been in mothballs for so long they were probably in a poor state of repair and not worth reactivating.
officially, (from what i remember, anyway) at the time of decommissioning, the constitution class was anywhere from 25 to 40 years old, the class had gone through at least 2 and possibly 3 Fleet Refits (April Era, Pike era, Kirk era tos and then post tmp kirk era) the neck was not sufficiently armored (ST2:WOK) (look at the neck of its replacement, the excelsior class, it is WAY thicker due to lots of armor) and design philosophy was moving towards more modular designs (something is broken? pop it off and plug in a new part) there were only about 12 connies in service at any one time. the connie had to be built from scratch, whereas the newer modular designs could be built from sections manufactured all over the federation and then just assembled at the yard. in a way, the connie class as a whole was a prototype for many future designs as well as the last of a obsolete design philosophy. despite all of this, the Constitiution Class FRAM 2 (kirk era TOS) is still my fave ship (FRAM: Fleet Refit And Maintenance) speed and weapon power? not gonna say cause i don't know enough. O.K., lecture mode off, time for me to shut my pie hole.
You mean the class that was half the TOS Starfleet? That got owned constantly? I'm not sure it was a super ship. More likely most of the class got owned and were just too expensive.
Would you want to fly on a Miranda-class ship, or a Constitution class? And with all the people in Starfleet, and only 12 Connie ships, all those crews have to go somewhere.
Don't place too much trust in those numbers. In TNG against the Borg the Federation is only able to muster 40 ships, and they talk about Starfleet will take years to recover from those losses. It's also the reason why Riker stays on Enterprise; after Wolf 359 Starfleet simply didn't have any ships for him to captain. Fast forward a couple of years; Starfleet sends fleets with thousands of ships against the Dominion. The same goes for personnel. In TNG he whose initials (WC) are what we in my country put on the doors of toilets competes against three prospective candidates for Starfleet Academy because an entire sector can only send one candidate. Who do you staff thousands of ships if you're this picky about whom you train? These show: Continiuity is not exactly the strongest suit of the Star Trek Franchise.
@@MrAranton We all know the real reason is budget. Also you can argue in universe they had more chance to prepare for the Dominion and used a lot of previously mothballed ships which is why we see a lot of Miranda's and Excelsiors.
@@TalesOfWar While budget is important, you can go different directions even within constraints. TOS and TNG didn't have the budget (or technological means) to depict space battles with thousands of ships; but they still could have made different creative choice to suggest a much larger Starfleet. They chose not to do that and went for the "small, incredibly elite" vibe instead. The budget didn't force them to introduce the insane recruitment requirements.The budget didn't force them to have every officer go through Starfleet Academy - as in the one in San Francisco - and not say opposed to one of several Acadamies spread all over the Federation. Introducing an "Oxford vs Cambridge"-like rivalry between the Starfleet Academies on Earth and Andoria would have been cheap and easy to do. Or the fact that Kirk and Picard never run into another Starfleet ship whose captain they don't know at least by reputation. Just have them look up from the computer who is in command of the approaching vessel.
Look at today's tech - phone companies put so much bloatware on phones they may not work right, and they're always crying about how much data costs. ISP's due the same with data & throttling it...until for both you have a pandemic where it's a crisis need to have unlimited data and "suddenly" data caps and other network limitations can go away? You can also see some vehicles on the road with governors in them so service people can't drive over particular speed limits (along with them being tracked by GPS and such). Wouldn't surprise me that the UFP/Starfleet would specifically put in barriers/limiters to time travel in their ships post-TOS era...look at how hard the Ent-D blew up when a Miranda accidentally stuck in a time loop hit it?
I remember the "Cult of the Connie," from back in the day. In the 90's, someone on Spacebattles.com had done some calculations based on the Enterprise's shield performance during TOS. The conclusion was that a TOS era Constitution class' shields could withstand a dozen shots from the Death Star's superlaser before collapsing. Not to mention the 1960's SFX budget was so low, that of course, anytime Enterprise fired her phasers, whatever she shot at was obliterated...most of the time...as the plot allowed.
I wish these ships were parts of a home defence fleet, dozens of older ships that form an old guard. That does mean they probably would be get wiped out by the borg, but I like the idea.
More likely it was ancient; look at the ships we decommission after around 20 to 30 years max; the Constitution would have been what? A hundred odd years old at the time of TNG? Long past it's useful lifespan.
Miranda and Oberth classes debunk that theory, both are as ancient as the connie refit, possibly slightly older. the real-world reason is probably, by the time TNG was filmed, the models for the Connie were either destroyed, lost or sold and no budget was there to recreate them [by that time the movie Enterprise was an Excelsior for a few films]. the other older ships they still had 1 or more models of so they were still used. The in-universe reason is closer to the "respect for the Enterprise" thing mentioned by others: The Constitution Class was the main-line heavy cruiser of its day. That role was taken up by the Excelsior, an upgrade in all senses, which was mass-produced like model-Ts, the only more common Federation ship being that Miranda. Fast forward a half century and you get the uncommon but soon surpassed Ambassador-Class and finally the Galaxy-Class heavy cruis- I mean Explorer.
@@Lightman0359 The movie Enterprise was NEVER an Excelsior-class (aside from the Enterprise-B in Generations). The Constitution-class refit was used alongside TNG, as ST4 came out just before TNG started and ST6 came out around season 5. So the model would have been there if they wanted to use it. I believe the real-world reason was that they simply wanted to keep the Connie for TOS and not have it be a pokey little oik of a ship in TNG. Similar to how they kept the Sovereign-class for the TNG movies only and we never see one in any of the TV series.
@@Helbore That's pretty much what I heard too about the appearences of hero ships. The Stargazer was even originally suppost to be a Connie but in the end the production crew made a case for introducing a new class instead. In universe we typically don't see any in TNG or DS9 probably just because there were so damn few to begin with. Even during the Connie's golden age.
Love it reminds me of a DS9 roleplay I ran ages ago where the crew(players) started off on a Akira but ended finishing the dominion war in a old Constitution class
It was started it just before the war kicked off and they managed to survive to the end. There final ship was the USS Defiance NCC-1799-A constitution class refit
The B'Rel class was used for time travel in Star Trek IV. The more likely reason is that the Miranda was cheap and efficient to maintain (like a Destroyer). The Constitution class is a vessel of the line at the end of its run and it was simply not efficient to maintain instead of newer designs. The Excelsior refit was (on paper) the Constitution but better.
Three reasons I can think of; 1) So few were built and none survived to that era 2) Execs loved them so much, couldn't bear to use and destroy them 3) There may be a copyright or IP issue involved...
You could ask the same question about the Sovereign Class. The Constitution Class was a Federation contemporary of the D-7/K'Tinga series Klingon cruisers and given the size of the Federation, it would make sense that there was a large number built as Tactical Cruisers to deal with Fleet actions as well as exploration roles. With regard to time travel, quite a few types when tweaked could do such actions, but such actions would only be Last Resort for fear of damage to time-lines. By the time of ST3 the Enterprise was a 40yr old ship with the Excelsior Class about to come on line as a Advanced Tactical Cruiser and the mainstay of the cruiser fleet, so it makes sense that the Constitution Class would assume secondary duties alongside other ships of the same generation such as the Miranda Class and Constellation Class. Also in ST3, the Enterprise was in a bit of a state, maybe too much of a state to warrant repair and upgrade.
I think this channel suggested in another video that the transwarp drive on the Excelsior failed to reach its goal but demonstrated faster speeds that could be implemented throughout the fleet as the new standard engine. Due to the design of the Constitution, this new engine would require an overhaul of the internal structure. Seeing as how that class just got through a refit and is already obsolete, that class was retired. Everyone was jumping on the bandwagon of the Excelsior design since it was superior in combat and faster. I find that reasoning to being more plausible. I've also heard suggestions that the Constitution class as well as the D-7 were retired as part of the peace accords seeing how they were poster child rivals in the Federation and Klingon Empire conflict. A symbolic gesture. There is a multitude of theories to explain the connie's retirement. This dangerous time design theory is intriguing, one that I haven't heard of before.
I'll take the 'end of an era' explanation over the time machine theory any day. Or maybe it made more sense to scrap the decommissioned ships for parts when retrofitting the other ships. Due to their size maybe Star Fleet figured they could get materials like fiber, bulkheads, etc., and make more smaller ships ready for flight than have a few larger ships for the war.
the USS Enterprise TOS/Refit/A had a warp core stronger than the Galaxy class, was the most used, easy to work on, was able to install a cloaking device and engineers had a blast with upgrading the bridge aswell as the system...too bad we never seen the aft torpedoes or phasers at work on the refit or A...would of love to see them canons in action...
What if Scotty is force retired from starfleet because that reason also preventing them from rebuilding the 23rd century fleet using 24th century technological advancements capabilities?
I frakking love headcanon like this. It explains EVERYTHING. Doesn't it? Motion Picture: A massive THING headed towards Earth. Sends a Constitution Class. Wrath of Khan: Constitution Class gets its bum handed to itself in tiny plastic bags while her shields are down. Scotty holds the ship together. Search for Spock: Constitution Class is able to be run by a beyond low skeleton crew. Final Frontier: Even in shambles, a Constitution Class is sent. Undiscovered Country: Potential war with the Klingons? Send an "aging" Constitution Class, with an "aging" crew. She stood toe-to-toe with a Klingon Bird-of-Prey that could fire while cloaked. Contrast that with NCC-1701-D, who got embarrassed by a similar Bird-of-Prey.
My theory I like to work with is that the Constitution class was built at a time when it would need to be able to survive out on the frontier without any support from Starfleet for years at a time, so it was designed to be really good at everything. Pretty much the Mary Sue of starships. But this made the ship very costly to build, and difficult to upgrade. That's why the refit was practically a brand-new ship. But it still had that problem of not being easy to upgrade so as it aged it couldn't be adapted to other roles such as freighter or purely science vessel very well. On the other hand, the Miranda class, which I assume is a newer design that took elements from the Constitution class but was made to be cheaper and more flexible, is much more modular and can be adapted to focus on specific roles and that's why there are so many variants. This also makes updating the ship much easier as well. Starship design after the Constitution class tended to lean more and more toward this philosophy.
I was thinking that myself why does the Constitution class Enterprise Travel through Time so Easily and the Other Ships of the Next Generation Era either don't know how or Can't, This is a Perfect Explanation Thanks Lore.
Miranda Class- Can do most things Constitution Class ships can do, but in a smaller and an easy to produce package with better weapons mountings. (Mega Phasers and torpedo pod) Excelsior Class- Designated successor to the Constitution Class. My theory here is also that Admirals of the TNG/DS9/VOY Eras grew up with the Excelsiors and kept them out of nostalgia as opposed to say, the Ambassador Class. That being said, Ambassadors and Sovereigns are also quite rare in Canon Trek. Flagship classes (Constitution, Ambassadors, Sovereigns) are rare and are often held back as a reserve fleet during conflicts/wars and kept out of the way to forge alliances with perspective allies and if need be, reconstitute the Federation in case of its downfall. The time travel aspect may be a side or hidden aspect.
I always theorized that the Connie's were decommissioned due to the Khitomer Accords. The Federation wanted D7's out of service and in exchange the Klingons negotiated for the Constitution's to be out of service. I also theorized that the Connie's were recommissioned during The Cardassian and Dominion Wars in the 24th century.
D7s were already outdated and largely replaced by K't'ingas before the Khitomer Accords, and K't'ingas continued to be used into the DS9 era at the very least. D7s still continued in service well past the Accords as well. Constitution-class refits were also largely replaced by the time of the Khitomer Accords as well, with the USS Enterprise slated to be retired following its battle with the USS Reliant. It was estimated that it would only take 2 weeks to do the repairs needed. The refit it underwent 15 years prior required 18 months to rebuild the ship. It would seem there's some other reason for taking the Constitution class off the field if they're unwilling to spend a whole 2 weeks fixing a ship. Other Starfleet officers seemed... unimpressed with the capabilities of the Constitution Refit as well, so it's clearly not a powerhouse anymore. Not to mention that the Enterprise had been relegated to training duty shortly after its refit. The Enterprise A didn't fair much better, being only active for 7 years before decommissioning, and likewise only really used for 'safe' assignments.
While we don't see it on screen, the Discovery crew remarks on there being a new Constitution class ship in the 32nd century federation headquarters. But maybe that's some weird secret project Kovich or Section 31 stuff! Anyway, fun theory!
I feel like it the same as warships from 200 years ago ... as newer more advanced ships were made we stopped using them. We still see them from time to time, but they aren't the everyday ship
I literally laughed out loud at this video, then I thought, huh......We really don't see any Sovereigns other than the Enterprise-E in DS9 and Voy either. Thank you Lore Reloaded for exposing why we don't see Sovereigns in the Dominion War. Once a ship shows the ability to travel through time on their own the rest of the class is mothballed.
What an interesting idea. Great way to cover for the actual reason, Rick Berman wanting to rewrite trek history and making it a mandate that no references to TOS or the ships so he could make TNG "stand on it's own". Except for the occasional guest appearance to boost ratings that is. ;)
"YOU'RE INSANE!" lol, it is kind of interesting to think about if starfleet can just take a bird of prey around a sun, why couldn't the klingons ever figure it out, or the romulans, after stealing or buying a bird of prey... surely they could figure it out, and the klingons would sell them a bird of prey if they offered more ships in return..
It was made for battle and long term exploration. It doesn't usually need an escort, but it became obsolete as ships designed for that purpose seem to get dated quickly and the excelsior pretty much was it's successor. It was very demanding on resources too and the Khitomer Accords, the Klingons pretty much wanted them to mothball the class anyway as a gesture of peace
What began as a routine post-mission overhaul and refurb quickly got out of hand when Scotty submitted a list of "modest" improvements inspired by his encounters with Nomad, the Kalandens, and the Kelvans, all of whom were able to push the "E" well past warp 10 without any physical modifications whatsoever. Even without time travel, a warp 12 starship with shields that could withstand a direct hit from V-Ger would be a disruptive game-changer that probably did more to force the Klingons to the peace table than even the Praxis moon explosion. Easy to see the Klinks requesting that the entire class of ships be banned as a condition for lasting peace, and easy to see the UFP agreeing to it so the Klingon diplomats could save face by extracting an "honorable" concession. Besides, the less glamorous Mirandas were just as capable and upgradeable, yet cheaper to build, and the Excelsior was already on the drawing board.
I think it's more likely that they were superseded in every way by the Excelsior class. Starfleet was probably finding them cramped and also they were very old (wasn't the original Enterprise 60 or so when it was destroyed?) They certainly weren't building any more of them, and as we've seen Starfleet is VERY good at losing ships. So it may have just been attrition. For all we know, the last surviving ship may have been lost at Wolf 359. The one that I find WAY more confusing is why we never see any Ambassador class ships. They are only mentioned or appear in 6 episodes, only one of which was in any significant way. And those are MUCH newer.
In my head canon, the surviving Constitution-class ships (and other older classes) have either been mothballed, placed in reserve status, loaned to Federation member worlds, used as "props" for fleet museums, sold to private interests, or are used as training vessels. Only the registry is changed. And, any vessel that is beyond salvaged is scrapped for parts and/is recycled (to construct new ships). Also, like with trans-warp beaming, the formula for time travel is highly classified, and most-likely fall under specific regulations (i.e. General Orders), or under the purview of specific agencies (either S31 or the Temporal Investigations Authority).
Beats my theory. I figured the Connie was decommissioned because the effects crew hated working with the shooting model, and or Roddenberry hated every movie after the first one. LOL
Brings up a wrinkle in STO's continuity, as the "Connie" is brought back into service. As per the in-game lore, these are all new-builds with modern tech inside, but even so, they were made to be as close to the originals as possible. Given the wrecked one in cannon continuity, I would at least assume they might've dragged a few out of mothballs or even built new ones, we just don't see them as often as say an Excelsior as they were downgraded from heavy cruisers as they were in their prime, to something like a light cruiser or a destroyer, even a border cutter, so they weren't in front-line service but were still useful.
Ready the book "Star Trek DTI: Forgotten History." DTI is the Department of Temporal Investigations, and it gives a picture perfect reason why no other Constitution class ever time travelled. It matches up everything elegantly.
"Damnit Daniels, how many times have I told you to stop including the planet-busting superweapon in your designs!" "But sir! I think it will be really important in, like, eighty years..." "DANIELS!!!"
Fascinating. This point just really makes me wish for a Star Trek "Time Cops" type show even more. My head-canon provides for *at least* some visitations from future Starfleet personnel upon 23rd Century peeps. Admirals, definitely, and also Spock... and probably Kirk too. While the Enterprise was one factor in the "E-Z 2200s Budget Time Machine," remember that Spock pulled the same, or a similar, thing off with a Klingon Bird Of Prey... a ship so shitty, multiple characters in multiple generations have said as much. Spock being able to time travel at will given a high-warp-capable ship and a star means he's gonna get visited and Kirk would as well just because he violated time seventeen times... or more. Really I'd just like somebody to come out in this IP and say what the difference between authorized time travel and unauthorized (saving some whales and telling a cigar probe to go away verses Janeway getting caught in antics that make little sense). It'd be cool also to see said late-third-millennium/early-fourth-millennium Starfleet guys realize that their effectiveness is a drop of water in an ocean... meaning policing temporal incursions is almost a moot point because they happen way too often.
this actually does make some sense. even now, we have tech that's just beyond everything else we have just enough to be TOO good at the job. not only that, some tech/ skills we had in ancient times we've lost. just look at all of the mega structures like EVERY pyramid. even with today's tech, building those would be VERY difficult. so building a starship so well, that it could become a time machine is within the realm of possibilities, even in the real world. we've already tried building actual cloaking systems on naval ships, according to some accounts. ;)
My thought on the decommissioning of the Connies has been that it was analogous to the treaty limitations imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty in the 20th century. Maybe Starfleet could only field so many ships of a certain tonnage/type perhaps as part of the Khitomer Treaty. In that case they might have chosen to invest solely in smaller numbers of newer designs (ie Excelsior class). The Mirandas and Oberths might not have had the same sort of limitation despite also being older designs. And then later maybe the restrictions were relaxed, allowing for larger numbers of Excelsiors to be built in the 24th century; making more ships of a class still in service.
Or could it be that there was a relatively small number of this class built (27 all in including all the confirmed and uncertain ships listed in Memory Alpha) with the majority of them either being destroyed before their end of life or otherwise having been recycled in the intervening years since the class was retired. After all, the upgrades to the Enterprise (seen at the beginning of The Motion Picture) ended up being so extensive and costly that it was cheaper to build a new vessel rather than upgrade the older models. As far as I know only the Enterprise and the Yorktown (which became the Enterprise NCC 1701-A) were given this extensive upgrade procedure.
Well they got a major problem with the Klingons and their Birds of Prey...But then again , you never see a Klingon realize it , but Worfs Brother came awfully close to accidently doing it while fighting the other houses, and so did Worf and Martok when they fought the Dominion...
I think the decision for decommissioning the Constitution Class came down ultimately to the vulnerability of the neck that connects the primary hull to the stardrive section. Any sustained phaser or disruptor blast would tear the ship in half at its weakest point, throw in a direct hit from a slavo of photon torpedoes ... and the rest is history. At the same time, with the invention of the new vertical warp core ... the connecting of the Constitution Class left little in the way of protection of the warp core, and the ship's complement of photon torpedoes was also stored in the neck as well, just above the torpedo bay. So ultimately it would prove to be disasterous if any Constitution Class ship was hit directly in this area. The Enterprise in Wrath of Khan narrowly avoided such a disaster when it took the full brunt of the phaser blast to the torpedo bay instead of the neck, but if the Reliant had aimed the phasers higher, Enterprise would have been toast. When Starfleet decided to scrap the Transwarp project and fit Excelsior with a regular warp core, they no doubt realized that the connecting neck on the Excelsior Class provided greater protection all around, especially for the warp core. It's just a theory, but a logical one when you think about it.
More reasonable is their necks were so thin as to make them obsolete. The neck is only about 11 feet across. Interior dimensions would be a fraction of that.
I think theres a far simpler alternative, the only resource that still matters to the Federation. Manpower and opportunity cost. The Connie was retired from service while the Excelsior and Miranda stayed on because it was squeezed out from either end, once you have enough Excelsiors for high-end assignments like border patrol or long range exploration the Connie is looking for a role, well we could move it into smaller tasks like moving cargo between starbases and friendly planets, maybe anti-piracy/smuggling patrols? But for those tasks the Connie is complete overkill and the Miranda, which is also available in abundance can do the job with a crew 1/4 of the size. Any job that you'd like the Connie to do means finding 400+ crew to do it with, you can make arguments for automation etc but after a certain point the sheer size of the ship means that to get eyes on all the proper maintenance items you'll have some lower limit on crew which is still probably double the equivalent Miranda. There may also be a factor of the winds-of-change era between ST6 -> TNG and including early TNG whereby the peace treaty with the Klingons imposed some limitations on building brand new hulls, think Washington Treaty style. Therefore if you've got some upper tonnage limit on starships due to treaty limits then again you dont want to waste it on Connies where Mirandas will do fine. I think in the future the Galaxy class would be squeezed out by the Nebula class for similar reasons (although this is more debatable, the Nebula is something like 80-90% the size of the Galaxy anyway) but even without treaty limitations in the post Dominion War era you may still opt for retaining the new super heavy ships and the older smaller cheaper (to crew) ships to round out your fleet rather than keeping what are now mid-sized mid-capability starships cruising around. I just realised the washington treaty idea may also explain the longevity of the K'tinga class for the Klingons due to the same peace accords...
Naa, the constitution have simply been surpassed by the Excelsior, too costly for an older model, Miranda are the cheapest, more modern and robust version. Starfleet stop producing the constitution in favour of the Excelsior and recycle the common part in the Miranda line, ultimately discover that the Miranda can be upgraded with new Excelsior type "transwarp" warp engine (probably just a new type of warp coils) that can't be properly installed on a Constitution by it's older design and warp field geometry.
You do have a good point though... pragmatically they could just swap out the engines to ones that work differently and wham bam you can't time travel anymore.
In my opinion it at less to do with time travel (probably because I hate time travel) but more with the Connie's chassis design, I think that at some point during it's service a critical weakness in the design was discovered one that would most likely be to difficult to remedy. That or my favorite option, the Connie simply became obsolete. Think of it this way, decades ago the Ford model T revolutionized transportation much like how the Connie revolutionized space travel, however as time went the model T was updated time and a time again but was eventually out classed by it's successors. the same thing happened to the Connie.
I believe the answer is much simpler. 1. In the tos era it is stated that there are only 12 ships like Enterprise in the fleet. Depending how you take that statement that means 12 or 13 ships at that time. At least 3 I can think of are destroyed or lost in the tos series, and another the origional Enterprise in ST3. If you assume 12 built that leaves 8. 2. I seem to remember that only Enterprise survived its 5 year mission. I don't know how many Connie's were sent out but thats got to reduce the number a bit. Yes its likely there were some new builds but I still think they were rare in the fleet. 3. The miranda class has more internal volume than the constitution class at around 45% to 50% less materials to build. Also we see in Wrath of Khan that a Miranda can go toe to toe with a Connie in combat. So instead of refiting a possible handful of Connie's as many of the parts are usable and of the sane design as the mirranda they likely just scrapped most of the remaining Connie's at refit time for parts to refurb and put into new build Mirandas. The Royal navy did this often with parts of ships in the dreadnought era, particularly with weapons and turrets. You could make possibly 3 and a bit miranda class for 2 Connie's and be at an advantage. 4. The Excelsior class was online and took over the Connie's role. Which likely lead to point 3 above.
Just watched Star Trek IV:The Voyage Home. While watching it Kirk and his swashbuckling crew used Klingon BIRD OF PREY, to slingshot their time warp. Now it's possible ANY warp capabile ship COULD be used, but the formula only existed in Spock's mind, that he never made the formula known to anyone else. It would explain why no one else knew about it.
Or a far more likely explanation is that the constitutions were retired early as part of the demilitarisation due to kithomer accords with klingons. Then during the Dominion war they didn't see frontline service as a) they were very obsolete, some have been in mothballs for nearly 70 years by the 2370's b) crewing requirements (400+, or about the same as new Akira class) and c) there were plenty of newer more modern and powerful Excelsior's and Miranda's in mothball, these would be easier to reactivate and upgrade as there were ships of these classes still in service in the 2370's and d) we don't know definitely that they weren't reused for some purpose during the Dominion war, we just know they didn't see frontline service, they might have been used as auxiliaries like transports/ supply ships or training vessels. If there were some sort of God ship they would have been thrown against the Borg in the battle of sector 001 in 2373.
![АЛАУДИНОВ у Скабеевой: эти их ВСУ нас НЕ ДОГОНЯТ 😁 [Пародия]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/an0anqU4WGQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Meanwhile, in a Klingon Bird of Prey slingshoting around a sun...
Yea, Klingons aren’t that smart though
@@LoreReloaded I dunno...
Klingons can be downright ingenious if it allows them to kill things...
I mean...they created a retrovirus to humanify Klingons so they could be imbedded into Starfleet as spies and assassins.
They "Don't Speak of It" but they did it...
@@digitalis2977 They needed a Spock... and it's not too likely a Klingon as mathematically godlike as Spock would be doing anything but making better disruptors. Additionally, if they did figure it out, there's probably some Klingon moral code preventing it. What honor is there in eliminating one's enemy whist they lie in the cradle?? (though 23rd Century Klingons are less "honorable honor of honor" and more "give me Genesis or give me death!")
@@LoreReloaded Or maybe just like the Federation they have their ideals they 'd rather die than compromise. "Defeating someone by traveling back time is not honorable!". House Duras though might disagree with that :-)
@@LoreReloaded that's pretty racist, yo
Beyond that, the Constitution class has: 1.) The most powerful weapons in Starfleet as it can snipe a fly millions of miles away w/o harming anything else beyond a nanometer AND turn the surface of an entire planet molten in a matter of minutes.
2.) The fastest ship in Starfleet being able to go from Earth to the Galactic Core or the Galactic Edge (25,000LY each) in DAYS.
3.) Captains that can seduce any sentient female lifeform in nearly any Universe.
Except Horta.
... though maybe he just didn't try?
Well, to be fair, we don’t know if the Enterprise arrived at the Galactic Edge in days. For all we know, they could have started traveling there in 2265 and only arrived in 2266
Yeah, I can relate. Especially William Shatner is a very harismatic captain😂😂😂 So, I totally agree with argument #3
The Constitution Class was so OP even "God" decided he needed a starship
Which begs the question... What does "God" need with a starship, anyway? We never did get an answer, IIRC. Yet, the deception alone automatically made it a villain that required destruction?
Yeah, not the best Trek movie.
Unless faced with a doomsday machine. Then u just ram another almost destroyed ship down its throat and pray.
@@taitano12 No, trying a deception did not warant death in itself.
However trying to murder the away team torturously - wich also implies he would try to take the enterprise by force - justifies violence.
If he does not stop before he is dead, that was his mistake. And as far as we know he is not dead, meerely "dispersed"
@@taitano12 bad movie although, him not answering and then trying to kill the away team because they wouldn’t give him the ship did kinda make him the villain and the fact that he needed the ship implied that he was stuck or imprisoned there on purpose.
@@cmj0929 He said he was imprisoned. But that could have several meanings. Imprisoned could just mean stuck.
That clip in which Sisko talks about saving civilians at all cost to yourself is interesting when you think about the time that he made a civilian planet uninhabitable just to defeat Eddington and the Maquis.
Yeah, but I don't think anyone died in that exchange, they just had to swap planets with some Cardassians right?
@@Xalgucennia Supposedly nobody died but it seems kinda unrealistic that they could evacuate the entire planet so quickly.
Maybe personal vendetta's dont fall under Star Fleet guide lines. Wouldnt be the first time the Federation over looked such things.
Exactly where my mind went as well!!
it's not the interesting, Sisko is the most self-righteous, and self-important Captain of Legacy Era Trek. Kirk is the libido obsessed frontier cowboy. Picard is the one who will dismiss common sense in a conflict, and allow a foe to commit atrocities before his eyes because "diplomacy." Janeway, aka Shrillway is the one who would, if given the opportunity, rule the UFP as a dictator and trample on your individual rights because...Janeway means "right"... and Archer is the school boy joyriding in his father's car hoping they don't take the keys from him when he gets home.
My understanding of it was that the Constitution class was the last non modular design for Starfleet ships. It was decommissioned because it was obsolete compared to the modular designs of the Miranda and Excelsior.
It's so powerful they decided retire all of them. And while they were doing that they were under close guard meaning you only needed 5 guys to steal one.
Unless it was anticipated and “approved”.
A chimpanzee and two trainees were the required crew, iirc.
"Now you're thinking with time machines."
I think the Constitution class out live its design capabilities. Through out its service life. Star Fleet upgraded them as far as they could go until there design efficiency became a problem.
Technology can only make things so small until you need more room for newer designs. More space for computer memory banks, new systems or increased system capabilities that require more crew to operate which leads onto crew quarters and places were crew can exercise or relaxed (think holo decks). Medical staff, engineering and so on and so forth.
I think the Excelsior outlived its design more, it was still in service for a century, while the legendary Constitution-class was already obsolete, which is a shame, the Connie is such a gorgeous ship.
constitution class was kind of a "solid frame" ship, where it was built to run best on everything it came with.
that worked great; for a while, but as technology improved more and more, it started to become outdated. trying to update it was untenable because changing 1 thing about it decreased the efficiency of the rest of the ship.
with newer classes such as Excelsior, like Gerald Mentioned, the ships were easy to update and "sectioned" so you can take pieces off and replace them with better-designed ones. therefore, a new starship could sort of "grow" as time marched on and new technologies and inventions became available to make a ship work better.
she was and still is a fine ship, and her simple design made sure she was reliable, but she was just too simplistic as the old era ended and the new era began. as Scotty once put it, "the more you complicate the plumbing, the easier it is to clog."
I would ignore the time travel stuff, and point to a more practical in universe explanation. There were only a handful of Constitution class ships in service at any given time. Most probably were destroyed or decommissioned. Whereas the miranda class was built in huge numbers and had a less bulky more modular design.
100% correct
Only 12 Constitution classes were in existence during Kirk's time.
@@mickeynonya9837 that was probably an inaccurate statement because he couldn't go out him to go back with knowledge of the future that was accurate. Note to said there are only twelve like it in the fleet. Emphasis on the words LIKE IT.
On the show itself you had the following ships
Constellation, Exeter, *Defiant, Intrepid, *Lexington, *Yorktown, *Excalibur, *Hood, Potemkin, Farragut, and presumably Constitution. which means there's at least one other ship out there that is built presumably exactly like the Enterprise.
When he said they're only 12 like it in the fleet that means twelve ships exactly like it with the same purposes and capabilities size etcetera. Now the size would probably be a given regardless but other factors may or may not be as important because in the pilot the cage the Enterprise self only 203 crew, by the time Kirk took over it had 430 crew members. Presumably similar numbers for all the ships in the fleet meaning when Decker beam to screw down to the third planet in that system before the Doomsday Machine destroyed it he consigned 429 of his fellow crew members to certain death. And when the M5 computer in control of enterprise killed all life aboard the Excalibur, it meant 430 crewmembers likely were lost, although the ship itself looks like it did not suffer irreparable damage.
An astropolitical body the size of the Federation would not put all of its eggs in a basket of just twelve vessels to defend it. Obviously there are other classes of Starship in service as well as certainly variants of the Constitution class.
Note when I listed the ships above oh, I put an asterisk by the ones that were almost certainly exactly built like the Enterprise because their registry was in similar sequence. According to most other sources out there in the Star Trek universe ships like the Farragut and Potemkin had a much lower registry number of 1647 and 1657 respectively, and of course the constellation it's registry number was only 1017, although when they were putting the model together for the episode they just flipped the numbers around for the Enterprise. Which means that they are likely much older ships. But there are almost certainly more Constitution variants in service than just the twelve specifically mentioned and implied.
yes, but explain how the Constitution Class is the class that attracted an unprecedented amount of giant green hands, solar system sized microbes, intergalactic doomsday machines, and many instances of lost ships and other inter-phase problems. I think his theory is pretty sound.
Constitution class the most powerful ships in starfleet
Excelsior class : Am I a joke to you?
Yes it is.
Maximum velocity in 3 2 1. Clunk, sputter, clunk.
@@mickeynonya9837 To be fair, Scotty did rekt that one . . . and Scotty is the best mechanic.
@@proudamerican183 yeah he wrecked it so good that Starfleet was like f transwarp Drive
Excelsior class had a few problems of it's own, but fans of the excelsior often overlook them lol
*Laughs in Section 31*
"...creating Frankenstein Monstrosities of Satan..."
*Rages in Daniel from Spacedock*
Curry class is a monstrosity and nothing is changing that
He loves the yeager but hates the Prometheus class
@@KamepinUA It's LITERALLY just an Excelsior that someone didn't follow the instructions on...
@@jlalejos Well, the Prometheus deserves hate.
It's literally nothing more than a Nerd's Wet-Dream Power Fantasy.
The only thing missing from it are anime waifus painted on the various hulls...
@@digitalis2977 I feel personally attacked but I love the Ridiculousness of the Prometheus class I understand why most people hated it is silly when you think about it I never heard liked it when Federation ship split up even with the Galaxy into the saucer section
It’s the neck. Somebody realized how vulnerable it was.
Excelsior and Ambassador and Galaxy all have necks. Your point is invalid.
@@proudamerican183 All their necks are a lot less skinny than the Constitution's though
@@proudamerican183 although the Anbassadors neck was rather thin, their necks were thicker, they were larger ships with better shielding. The excelsior s neck was the width of the secondary hull and the Galaxy’s was somewhat triangular shaped.
@@Chris-et2fm Are you high? Their necks are absolutely not skinnier than the Constitution.
@@proudamerican183 Read again, I was saying the Constitution's neck was skinny
I found this amusingly plausible, and I was not *entirely* certain whether you were being facetious until the end there. I suspect that the in-universe reason was likely that, between the Miranda and Excelsior classes, the Constitution was simply left without a role. The former had a larger internal volume and the design was more readily modified to serve various roles, while the latter was a far larger and more potent heavy cruiser (people talk about Excelsior's shields handling that photon torpedo hit better, but few seem to talk about how it took the Praxis blastwave like a champ - possibly with its shields down, or not completely raised, considering how long it tended to take shields to come online during that era). Add in that the Constitution had been the highest profile (war)ship in Starfleet for decades, this made it the perfect sacrificial goat when the Federation committed to "dismantling the battlefleet" in the wake of the Khitomer Accords. Add the scrapping of the derivative Hermes and Saladin class scouts and destroyers, as well as the handful of Federation class dreadnoughts (questionably canon, yes, but I'm including them here since documentation for these classes was seen on-screen in a couple of movies), and they have made a visible good faith effort to get rid of the big bad warships, while leaving the less aggressive looking newer designs to take their place.
Meanwhile, the Miranda class? "Oh, those are *totally* ships of peace. See, we took off the roll-bar arsenal and everything." Of course, the nice modular systems meant that re-arming the Mirandas wouldn't take very long. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few warehouses filled with arsenal roll-bars for all the ships in service, just in case. It could explain why all the Mirandas we saw in the Dominion War were Reliant-style builds, rather than the grab-bag of configurations we saw in TNG. It might also explain why we don't see them firing the roll-bar phasers - the torpedo tubes were useful, and could be easily upgraded by stocking them with modern torpedoes and updating software, meanwhile, the phasers in the hull would have been upgraded over time, but the ones on the roll-bar may have been neglected during the "golden age" and thus were outdated and under-powered. (Stray musing: It's a pity that they didn't/couldn't upgrade those to a pair of Defiant-style phaser cannons. That would have given the old Mirandas some serious punch. They weren't using power for warp propulsion during the battles, so it should only be a matter of getting the power up to the emitters, rather than not having it available at all. However, unfortunately this would have probably expanded the refit beyond what the Federation would have the time or resources for. Gotta get the torpedo pods on the ships and kick them out of dry-dock quickly so the next batch can be armed.)
I think your answer is much more plausible than what the video says. I for one always imagined they were still out there but instead of now being the main ship in statfleet they were ships that cadets trained on and the less important mossions in Starfleet were carried out by them because they were so outdated and slow.
I guess this makes the destruction of the Enterprise D more palatable. Think of how powerful the Bird of Prey is considering it can travel through time. Thanks Lore!
Also towards the end of Star Trek First Contact the crew of the Enterprise E said they were able to replicate the way the Borg created Temporal Particles and return to the 24th century.
This makes no sense because the crew had little difficulty with time travel using a Klingon B'rel-class BOP in Star Trek IV.
True, but the trip did drain the dilthium crystals of the bird of prey. Of course Scotty did point out it was the type of crystals, mined from Praxis, that was the problem. An interesting hypothesis, but makes little sense in the long run.
The constitution class has a duranium hull, Starfleet upgraded to tritanium, making refits rare and costly
Plottwist: Star Trek has been about a (Secret) Time War all along!
Maybe even connected to a certain other show. (Whoniverse Time War did spread into other multiverses)
Yet, the USS Defiant was lost to the Mirror Universe. Very intriguing.
But in that Mirror Universe, it was so unstoppably powerful that it was still in use and being maintained 100 years after being stolen from the Tholians by Empress Hoshi I.
@@lorzon so a ship with tech 100 years in advance of anything else is more powerful than those around it?
I'm shocked. Shocked! Well, not that shocked...
I like it, it retroactively makes the OG more special. It's head canon now.
Interesting theory; but, that problem could be fixed by replacing the warp core with a different model. The more probable reason is the neck of the ship. It too small and therefore too vulnerable. Virtually every subsequent ship design either had a much broader neck or no neck at all.
well they could install a warp core from the defient
Not to mention they were putting a lot on the transwarp system of excelsior.
There could have been a change in warp dynamics newer ships may have been more 'aerodynamic' in warp travel and the shape and materials of the connies made them too flimsy for higher warp.
I loved the constitution class i always wanted what a 24th century constitution class looked like anyway.
in all fairness a lot go TOS is overpowered compared to tng and post tng trek.
- federation moving continents for terraforming
- galactic barriers
- the milky way galaxy (yes all of it) not having any wars
- the galactic barrier
- literal magic (yes thats a thing) (animated series)
sufficiently advanced science is magic
@@hobomike6935 no! that is a dumb argument... just because a caveman can't tell the difference between lightning and magic, that doesn't make lightining magic.
Basically CBS and Paramount didn’t want any reminder of Gene’s Star Trek So the Constitution Class hence it’s name Constitution was to be erased from existence. Kinda like what’s happening to the U.S.
That would make more sense if the constitution class Enterprise didn't feature in the last 3 of CBS's post-Rodenbery movies, and their most popular post-Rodenbery TV show.
Interesting theory. How about this idea. In ST3 when Kirk was informed Enterprise was to be decommissioned. It wasn’t due to the Constitution Class was becoming obsolete but the Enterprise, the last of the 12 original Constitution Class which also went thru a lot of stressful situations. The ships frames or ‘bones’ has become brittle. Enough so it was decided to retire her. Not the Constitution Class in general.
The thing is we don't know what the history of NCC-1701-A was prior to it's refit and recommissioning. We know what it was like right after in ST-V. That particular Constitution might have been at the end of it's service life especially after taking a beating from a cloaked Bird of Prey.
@@tonybarnett2371 the NCC-1701-A was originally the USS Ti-Ho (NCC-1798), a Constitution-class II starship which was a test bed for transwarp technology alongside the USS Excelsior. Which kind of explains all of its faults in Star Trek 5.
@@mickeynonya9837 May I ask where you found this information
Scottys guide to the enterprise, which was released shortly after ST4
@@mickeynonya9837 But that book is non-canon
Except for the fact that there is an old constitution class used to train cadets as mentioned in the DS9 episode "Valiant"! The USS Republic which hasn't left the terrain system in decades! Boom Bisonhawk1 out lores Lore!!!
If the Connie is OP to the point it made the Federation too nervous to keep using it, then that would make for a pretty forgiving training ship.
It would also send a message to the other powers that the Feds may be playing nice for now, but they haven't forgotten about these ancient death machines, so those other powers better mind their manners.
The Republic is actually, according to most sources, older than the main members of the Constitution class; she was upgraded to roughly match the class.
funny video. but legitimately: there's miranda old and there's connie old. consider that the connie was built in the 2240s the miranda the 2270s (i did a whole video on the miranda and why a TOS version doesn't make sense.) and also because the ships would have been in mothballs for so long they were probably in a poor state of repair and not worth reactivating.
Some morons in STO would like to whine at you about having T6 Connies in 2411.
@@Corbomite_Meatballs yeah no. just no. damn things should be coming apart at the seams
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Flew a T2 connie as the start of the cruiser types, named it 'ancient deathtrap'
officially, (from what i remember, anyway) at the time of decommissioning, the constitution class was anywhere from 25 to 40 years old, the class had gone through at least 2 and possibly 3 Fleet Refits (April Era, Pike era, Kirk era tos and then post tmp kirk era) the neck was not sufficiently armored (ST2:WOK)
(look at the neck of its replacement, the excelsior class, it is WAY thicker due to lots of armor) and design philosophy was moving towards more modular designs (something is broken? pop it off and plug in a new part) there were only about 12 connies in service at any one time. the connie had to be built from scratch, whereas the newer modular designs could be built from sections manufactured all over the federation and then just assembled at the yard. in a way, the connie class as a whole was a prototype for many future designs as well as the last of a obsolete design philosophy. despite all of this, the Constitiution Class FRAM 2 (kirk era TOS) is still my fave ship (FRAM: Fleet Refit And Maintenance)
speed and weapon power? not gonna say cause i don't know enough.
O.K., lecture mode off, time for me to shut my pie hole.
You mean the class that was half the TOS Starfleet? That got owned constantly? I'm not sure it was a super ship. More likely most of the class got owned and were just too expensive.
Didn't they only make 12 of them? They made hundreds of the Miranda. I imagine they were either destroyed or scrapped for parts.
Would you want to fly on a Miranda-class ship, or a Constitution class? And with all the people in Starfleet, and only 12 Connie ships, all those crews have to go somewhere.
Don't place too much trust in those numbers. In TNG against the Borg the Federation is only able to muster 40 ships, and they talk about Starfleet will take years to recover from those losses. It's also the reason why Riker stays on Enterprise; after Wolf 359 Starfleet simply didn't have any ships for him to captain.
Fast forward a couple of years; Starfleet sends fleets with thousands of ships against the Dominion.
The same goes for personnel. In TNG he whose initials (WC) are what we in my country put on the doors of toilets competes against three prospective candidates for Starfleet Academy because an entire sector can only send one candidate. Who do you staff thousands of ships if you're this picky about whom you train?
These show: Continiuity is not exactly the strongest suit of the Star Trek Franchise.
@@MrAranton We all know the real reason is budget. Also you can argue in universe they had more chance to prepare for the Dominion and used a lot of previously mothballed ships which is why we see a lot of Miranda's and Excelsiors.
@@TalesOfWar While budget is important, you can go different directions even within constraints. TOS and TNG didn't have the budget (or technological means) to depict space battles with thousands of ships; but they still could have made different creative choice to suggest a much larger Starfleet. They chose not to do that and went for the "small, incredibly elite" vibe instead. The budget didn't force them to introduce the insane recruitment requirements.The budget didn't force them to have every officer go through Starfleet Academy - as in the one in San Francisco - and not say opposed to one of several Acadamies spread all over the Federation. Introducing an "Oxford vs Cambridge"-like rivalry between the Starfleet Academies on Earth and Andoria would have been cheap and easy to do. Or the fact that Kirk and Picard never run into another Starfleet ship whose captain they don't know at least by reputation. Just have them look up from the computer who is in command of the approaching vessel.
So in reverse would Starfleet and the federation DELIBERATELY place design flaws or limitations on ship's that prevent time travel?
Look at today's tech - phone companies put so much bloatware on phones they may not work right, and they're always crying about how much data costs. ISP's due the same with data & throttling it...until for both you have a pandemic where it's a crisis need to have unlimited data and "suddenly" data caps and other network limitations can go away?
You can also see some vehicles on the road with governors in them so service people can't drive over particular speed limits (along with them being tracked by GPS and such).
Wouldn't surprise me that the UFP/Starfleet would specifically put in barriers/limiters to time travel in their ships post-TOS era...look at how hard the Ent-D blew up when a Miranda accidentally stuck in a time loop hit it?
I remember the "Cult of the Connie," from back in the day. In the 90's, someone on Spacebattles.com had done some calculations based on the Enterprise's shield performance during TOS. The conclusion was that a TOS era Constitution class' shields could withstand a dozen shots from the Death Star's superlaser before collapsing. Not to mention the 1960's SFX budget was so low, that of course, anytime Enterprise fired her phasers, whatever she shot at was obliterated...most of the time...as the plot allowed.
Ohhhh you mean the Yeager class....
Wasnt the stargazer ment to be constitution class but there was a typo in the script. So the constellation class became a thing.
I wish these ships were parts of a home defence fleet, dozens of older ships that form an old guard. That does mean they probably would be get wiped out by the borg, but I like the idea.
More likely it was ancient; look at the ships we decommission after around 20 to 30 years max; the Constitution would have been what? A hundred odd years old at the time of TNG? Long past it's useful lifespan.
The Royal Navy generally replaces ships after 20-25 years. We're already looking at the replacements for the Type-45's
Miranda and Oberth classes debunk that theory, both are as ancient as the connie refit, possibly slightly older. the real-world reason is probably, by the time TNG was filmed, the models for the Connie were either destroyed, lost or sold and no budget was there to recreate them [by that time the movie Enterprise was an Excelsior for a few films]. the other older ships they still had 1 or more models of so they were still used.
The in-universe reason is closer to the "respect for the Enterprise" thing mentioned by others: The Constitution Class was the main-line heavy cruiser of its day. That role was taken up by the Excelsior, an upgrade in all senses, which was mass-produced like model-Ts, the only more common Federation ship being that Miranda. Fast forward a half century and you get the uncommon but soon surpassed Ambassador-Class and finally the Galaxy-Class heavy cruis- I mean Explorer.
@@Lightman0359 The movie Enterprise was NEVER an Excelsior-class (aside from the Enterprise-B in Generations). The Constitution-class refit was used alongside TNG, as ST4 came out just before TNG started and ST6 came out around season 5. So the model would have been there if they wanted to use it.
I believe the real-world reason was that they simply wanted to keep the Connie for TOS and not have it be a pokey little oik of a ship in TNG. Similar to how they kept the Sovereign-class for the TNG movies only and we never see one in any of the TV series.
@@Helbore That's pretty much what I heard too about the appearences of hero ships. The Stargazer was even originally suppost to be a Connie but in the end the production crew made a case for introducing a new class instead.
In universe we typically don't see any in TNG or DS9 probably just because there were so damn few to begin with. Even during the Connie's golden age.
Love it reminds me of a DS9 roleplay I ran ages ago where the crew(players) started off on a Akira but ended finishing the dominion war in a old Constitution class
Sounds like an interesting game, Would you all have died if you set foot on a Miranda class? :)
@@Xalgucennia the dm transporting you all to a Miranda class vessel is the equivalent of rocks falling and killing the party
It was started it just before the war kicked off and they managed to survive to the end.
There final ship was the USS Defiance NCC-1799-A constitution class refit
@@mrlescure what is the equivalent of them sticking you on an Oberth then?
The B'Rel class was used for time travel in Star Trek IV. The more likely reason is that the Miranda was cheap and efficient to maintain (like a Destroyer).
The Constitution class is a vessel of the line at the end of its run and it was simply not efficient to maintain instead of newer designs. The Excelsior refit was (on paper) the Constitution but better.
Three reasons I can think of; 1) So few were built and none survived to that era 2) Execs loved them so much, couldn't bear to use and destroy them 3) There may be a copyright or IP issue involved...
The Naked Now was due to unique circumstances and Assignment Earth was a slingshot
No.. naked now wasn’t unique.. at all. I literaly show the clip where it’s normalized and they say they can do it whenevs :p
The Naked Time
You could ask the same question about the Sovereign Class. The Constitution Class was a Federation contemporary of the D-7/K'Tinga series Klingon cruisers and given the size of the Federation, it would make sense that there was a large number built as Tactical Cruisers to deal with Fleet actions as well as exploration roles. With regard to time travel, quite a few types when tweaked could do such actions, but such actions would only be Last Resort for fear of damage to time-lines. By the time of ST3 the Enterprise was a 40yr old ship with the Excelsior Class about to come on line as a Advanced Tactical Cruiser and the mainstay of the cruiser fleet, so it makes sense that the Constitution Class would assume secondary duties alongside other ships of the same generation such as the Miranda Class and Constellation Class. Also in ST3, the Enterprise was in a bit of a state, maybe too much of a state to warrant repair and upgrade.
2:24 Yet the Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible.
I think this channel suggested in another video that the transwarp drive on the Excelsior failed to reach its goal but demonstrated faster speeds that could be implemented throughout the fleet as the new standard engine. Due to the design of the Constitution, this new engine would require an overhaul of the internal structure. Seeing as how that class just got through a refit and is already obsolete, that class was retired. Everyone was jumping on the bandwagon of the Excelsior design since it was superior in combat and faster. I find that reasoning to being more plausible.
I've also heard suggestions that the Constitution class as well as the D-7 were retired as part of the peace accords seeing how they were poster child rivals in the Federation and Klingon Empire conflict. A symbolic gesture. There is a multitude of theories to explain the connie's retirement. This dangerous time design theory is intriguing, one that I haven't heard of before.
I'll take the 'end of an era' explanation over the time machine theory any day. Or maybe it made more sense to scrap the decommissioned ships for parts when retrofitting the other ships. Due to their size maybe Star Fleet figured they could get materials like fiber, bulkheads, etc., and make more smaller ships ready for flight than have a few larger ships for the war.
In my best Bones voice, "Pretty dam sound thinking outside the canon box."
the USS Enterprise TOS/Refit/A had a warp core stronger than the Galaxy class, was the most used, easy to work on, was able to install a cloaking device and engineers had a blast with upgrading the bridge aswell as the system...too bad we never seen the aft torpedoes or phasers at work on the refit or A...would of love to see them canons in action...
The constitution class ship is the mainstay of section 31
That's actually a really interesting point. Especially since we saw a complete change of engineering and the engines in general.
What if Scotty is force retired from starfleet because that reason also preventing them from rebuilding the 23rd century fleet using 24th century technological advancements capabilities?
I frakking love headcanon like this. It explains EVERYTHING. Doesn't it?
Motion Picture: A massive THING headed towards Earth. Sends a Constitution Class.
Wrath of Khan: Constitution Class gets its bum handed to itself in tiny plastic bags while her shields are down. Scotty holds the ship together.
Search for Spock: Constitution Class is able to be run by a beyond low skeleton crew.
Final Frontier: Even in shambles, a Constitution Class is sent.
Undiscovered Country: Potential war with the Klingons? Send an "aging" Constitution Class, with an "aging" crew. She stood toe-to-toe with a Klingon Bird-of-Prey that could fire while cloaked. Contrast that with NCC-1701-D, who got embarrassed by a similar Bird-of-Prey.
My theory I like to work with is that the Constitution class was built at a time when it would need to be able to survive out on the frontier without any support from Starfleet for years at a time, so it was designed to be really good at everything. Pretty much the Mary Sue of starships. But this made the ship very costly to build, and difficult to upgrade. That's why the refit was practically a brand-new ship. But it still had that problem of not being easy to upgrade so as it aged it couldn't be adapted to other roles such as freighter or purely science vessel very well.
On the other hand, the Miranda class, which I assume is a newer design that took elements from the Constitution class but was made to be cheaper and more flexible, is much more modular and can be adapted to focus on specific roles and that's why there are so many variants. This also makes updating the ship much easier as well. Starship design after the Constitution class tended to lean more and more toward this philosophy.
I was thinking that myself why does the Constitution class Enterprise Travel through Time so Easily and the Other Ships of the Next Generation Era either don't know how or Can't, This is a Perfect Explanation Thanks Lore.
Miranda Class- Can do most things Constitution Class ships can do, but in a smaller and an easy to produce package with better weapons mountings. (Mega Phasers and torpedo pod)
Excelsior Class- Designated successor to the Constitution Class. My theory here is also that Admirals of the TNG/DS9/VOY Eras grew up with the Excelsiors and kept them out of nostalgia as opposed to say, the Ambassador Class.
That being said, Ambassadors and Sovereigns are also quite rare in Canon Trek.
Flagship classes (Constitution, Ambassadors, Sovereigns) are rare and are often held back as a reserve fleet during conflicts/wars and kept out of the way to forge alliances with perspective allies and if need be, reconstitute the Federation in case of its downfall.
The time travel aspect may be a side or hidden aspect.
Can you do an addendum to this regarding the Defiant in “In a Mirror Darkly”?
My favorite class of starship. From TOS to the movie refit.
I always theorized that the Connie's were decommissioned due to the Khitomer Accords. The Federation wanted D7's out of service and in exchange the Klingons negotiated for the Constitution's to be out of service. I also theorized that the Connie's were recommissioned during The Cardassian and Dominion Wars in the 24th century.
D7s were already outdated and largely replaced by K't'ingas before the Khitomer Accords, and K't'ingas continued to be used into the DS9 era at the very least. D7s still continued in service well past the Accords as well.
Constitution-class refits were also largely replaced by the time of the Khitomer Accords as well, with the USS Enterprise slated to be retired following its battle with the USS Reliant. It was estimated that it would only take 2 weeks to do the repairs needed. The refit it underwent 15 years prior required 18 months to rebuild the ship. It would seem there's some other reason for taking the Constitution class off the field if they're unwilling to spend a whole 2 weeks fixing a ship. Other Starfleet officers seemed... unimpressed with the capabilities of the Constitution Refit as well, so it's clearly not a powerhouse anymore. Not to mention that the Enterprise had been relegated to training duty shortly after its refit. The Enterprise A didn't fair much better, being only active for 7 years before decommissioning, and likewise only really used for 'safe' assignments.
While we don't see it on screen, the Discovery crew remarks on there being a new Constitution class ship in the 32nd century federation headquarters. But maybe that's some weird secret project Kovich or Section 31 stuff!
Anyway, fun theory!
I feel like it the same as warships from 200 years ago ... as newer more advanced ships were made we stopped using them. We still see them from time to time, but they aren't the everyday ship
I literally laughed out loud at this video, then I thought, huh......We really don't see any Sovereigns other than the Enterprise-E in DS9 and Voy either.
Thank you Lore Reloaded for exposing why we don't see Sovereigns in the Dominion War. Once a ship shows the ability to travel through time on their own the rest of the class is mothballed.
Technically the E didn't time travel on its own, it was inside the Borg temporal rift/wake or whatever you want to call it.
@@TalesOfWar what about on the way back to the 24th century?
@@charliemckellips That's a very good point I completely forgot about lol.
Don’t forget the last constitution class was sent to Bajor as a goodwill. Dismantled to be a building.
i love this line of thought about why it was decommissioned. excellent thought experiment!
What an interesting idea. Great way to cover for the actual reason, Rick Berman wanting to rewrite trek history and making it a mandate that no references to TOS or the ships so he could make TNG "stand on it's own". Except for the occasional guest appearance to boost ratings that is. ;)
"YOU'RE INSANE!" lol, it is kind of interesting to think about if starfleet can just take a bird of prey around a sun, why couldn't the klingons ever figure it out, or the romulans, after stealing or buying a bird of prey... surely they could figure it out, and the klingons would sell them a bird of prey if they offered more ships in return..
It was made for battle and long term exploration. It doesn't usually need an escort, but it became obsolete as ships designed for that purpose seem to get dated quickly and the excelsior pretty much was it's successor. It was very demanding on resources too and the Khitomer Accords, the Klingons pretty much wanted them to mothball the class anyway as a gesture of peace
What began as a routine post-mission overhaul and refurb quickly got out of hand when Scotty submitted a list of "modest" improvements inspired by his encounters with Nomad, the Kalandens, and the Kelvans, all of whom were able to push the "E" well past warp 10 without any physical modifications whatsoever. Even without time travel, a warp 12 starship with shields that could withstand a direct hit from V-Ger would be a disruptive game-changer that probably did more to force the Klingons to the peace table than even the Praxis moon explosion. Easy to see the Klinks requesting that the entire class of ships be banned as a condition for lasting peace, and easy to see the UFP agreeing to it so the Klingon diplomats could save face by extracting an "honorable" concession.
Besides, the less glamorous Mirandas were just as capable and upgradeable, yet cheaper to build, and the Excelsior was already on the drawing board.
I think it's more likely that they were superseded in every way by the Excelsior class. Starfleet was probably finding them cramped and also they were very old (wasn't the original Enterprise 60 or so when it was destroyed?)
They certainly weren't building any more of them, and as we've seen Starfleet is VERY good at losing ships. So it may have just been attrition. For all we know, the last surviving ship may have been lost at Wolf 359.
The one that I find WAY more confusing is why we never see any Ambassador class ships. They are only mentioned or appear in 6 episodes, only one of which was in any significant way. And those are MUCH newer.
Starfleet is well known for creating frankenstein monstrosities of Satan? Now that's a novel way of describing Voyager.
In my head canon, the surviving Constitution-class ships (and other older classes) have either been mothballed, placed in reserve status, loaned to Federation member worlds, used as "props" for fleet museums, sold to private interests, or are used as training vessels. Only the registry is changed. And, any vessel that is beyond salvaged is scrapped for parts and/is recycled (to construct new ships). Also, like with trans-warp beaming, the formula for time travel is highly classified, and most-likely fall under specific regulations (i.e. General Orders), or under the purview of specific agencies (either S31 or the Temporal Investigations Authority).
Beats my theory. I figured the Connie was decommissioned because the effects crew hated working with the shooting model, and or Roddenberry hated every movie after the first one. LOL
Brings up a wrinkle in STO's continuity, as the "Connie" is brought back into service. As per the in-game lore, these are all new-builds with modern tech inside, but even so, they were made to be as close to the originals as possible.
Given the wrecked one in cannon continuity, I would at least assume they might've dragged a few out of mothballs or even built new ones, we just don't see them as often as say an Excelsior as they were downgraded from heavy cruisers as they were in their prime, to something like a light cruiser or a destroyer, even a border cutter, so they weren't in front-line service but were still useful.
Ok this was fascinating. I never considered it in this light. Very cool!
You're a mean one Mr. Reloaded.
I always figured they stripped them down and refit the saucer sections into more mirandas. lol
Ready the book "Star Trek DTI: Forgotten History." DTI is the Department of Temporal Investigations, and it gives a picture perfect reason why no other Constitution class ever time travelled. It matches up everything elegantly.
"Damnit Daniels, how many times have I told you to stop including the planet-busting superweapon in your designs!"
"But sir! I think it will be really important in, like, eighty years..."
"DANIELS!!!"
Fascinating. This point just really makes me wish for a Star Trek "Time Cops" type show even more. My head-canon provides for *at least* some visitations from future Starfleet personnel upon 23rd Century peeps. Admirals, definitely, and also Spock... and probably Kirk too. While the Enterprise was one factor in the "E-Z 2200s Budget Time Machine," remember that Spock pulled the same, or a similar, thing off with a Klingon Bird Of Prey... a ship so shitty, multiple characters in multiple generations have said as much. Spock being able to time travel at will given a high-warp-capable ship and a star means he's gonna get visited and Kirk would as well just because he violated time seventeen times... or more.
Really I'd just like somebody to come out in this IP and say what the difference between authorized time travel and unauthorized (saving some whales and telling a cigar probe to go away verses Janeway getting caught in antics that make little sense). It'd be cool also to see said late-third-millennium/early-fourth-millennium Starfleet guys realize that their effectiveness is a drop of water in an ocean... meaning policing temporal incursions is almost a moot point because they happen way too often.
this actually does make some sense. even now, we have tech that's just beyond everything else we have just enough to be TOO good at the job. not only that, some tech/ skills we had in ancient times we've lost. just look at all of the mega structures like EVERY pyramid. even with today's tech, building those would be VERY difficult. so building a starship so well, that it could become a time machine is within the realm of possibilities, even in the real world. we've already tried building actual cloaking systems on naval ships, according to some accounts. ;)
Nothing will ever outclass the Connie Refit!
That’s a pretty cool idea. Though they also achieved a different method of time travel that worked with a Klingon Bird of Prey, twice in a row.
My thought on the decommissioning of the Connies has been that it was analogous to the treaty limitations imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty in the 20th century. Maybe Starfleet could only field so many ships of a certain tonnage/type perhaps as part of the Khitomer Treaty. In that case they might have chosen to invest solely in smaller numbers of newer designs (ie Excelsior class). The Mirandas and Oberths might not have had the same sort of limitation despite also being older designs. And then later maybe the restrictions were relaxed, allowing for larger numbers of Excelsiors to be built in the 24th century; making more ships of a class still in service.
This idea falls apart when you consider they did the same time travel with the HMS Bounty.
Or could it be that there was a relatively small number of this class built (27 all in including all the confirmed and uncertain ships listed in Memory Alpha) with the majority of them either being destroyed before their end of life or otherwise having been recycled in the intervening years since the class was retired. After all, the upgrades to the Enterprise (seen at the beginning of The Motion Picture) ended up being so extensive and costly that it was cheaper to build a new vessel rather than upgrade the older models. As far as I know only the Enterprise and the Yorktown (which became the Enterprise NCC 1701-A) were given this extensive upgrade procedure.
It can travel through time, go to other universes, makes people cry, and kills by the thousands. It's the 23rd Century equivalent to Truck-kun.
Didn’t they mention a new Constitution class when Discovery arrived at Starfleet headquarters? Perhaps they finally removed the time travel components
Well they got a major problem with the Klingons and their Birds of Prey...But then again , you never see a Klingon realize it , but Worfs Brother came awfully close to accidently doing it while fighting the other houses, and so did Worf and Martok when they fought the Dominion...
I would also like to add that is possible that the temporal accords might have had a direct result in that?
I think the decision for decommissioning the Constitution Class came down ultimately to
the vulnerability of the neck that connects the primary hull to the stardrive section. Any sustained phaser or disruptor blast would tear the ship in half at its weakest point, throw in a direct hit from a slavo of photon torpedoes ... and the rest is history. At the same time, with the invention of the new vertical warp core ... the connecting of the Constitution Class left little in the way of protection of the warp core, and the ship's complement of photon torpedoes was also stored in the neck as well, just above the torpedo bay. So ultimately it would prove to be disasterous if any Constitution Class ship was hit directly in this area. The Enterprise in Wrath of Khan narrowly avoided such a disaster when it took the full brunt of the phaser blast to the torpedo bay instead of the neck, but if the Reliant had aimed the phasers higher, Enterprise would have been toast.
When Starfleet decided to scrap the Transwarp project and fit Excelsior with a regular warp core, they no doubt realized that the connecting neck on the Excelsior Class provided greater protection all around, especially for the warp core. It's just a theory, but a logical one when you think about it.
They got rid of it so we did not see Constitution clas ships used as cannon fodder. That was saved for the Miranda class. Pure explodium.
Hands down the most beautiful enterprise of them all
More reasonable is their necks were so thin as to make them obsolete. The neck is only about 11 feet across. Interior dimensions would be a fraction of that.
I think theres a far simpler alternative, the only resource that still matters to the Federation. Manpower and opportunity cost.
The Connie was retired from service while the Excelsior and Miranda stayed on because it was squeezed out from either end, once you have enough Excelsiors for high-end assignments like border patrol or long range exploration the Connie is looking for a role, well we could move it into smaller tasks like moving cargo between starbases and friendly planets, maybe anti-piracy/smuggling patrols? But for those tasks the Connie is complete overkill and the Miranda, which is also available in abundance can do the job with a crew 1/4 of the size.
Any job that you'd like the Connie to do means finding 400+ crew to do it with, you can make arguments for automation etc but after a certain point the sheer size of the ship means that to get eyes on all the proper maintenance items you'll have some lower limit on crew which is still probably double the equivalent Miranda.
There may also be a factor of the winds-of-change era between ST6 -> TNG and including early TNG whereby the peace treaty with the Klingons imposed some limitations on building brand new hulls, think Washington Treaty style. Therefore if you've got some upper tonnage limit on starships due to treaty limits then again you dont want to waste it on Connies where Mirandas will do fine.
I think in the future the Galaxy class would be squeezed out by the Nebula class for similar reasons (although this is more debatable, the Nebula is something like 80-90% the size of the Galaxy anyway) but even without treaty limitations in the post Dominion War era you may still opt for retaining the new super heavy ships and the older smaller cheaper (to crew) ships to round out your fleet rather than keeping what are now mid-sized mid-capability starships cruising around.
I just realised the washington treaty idea may also explain the longevity of the K'tinga class for the Klingons due to the same peace accords...
Naa, the constitution have simply been surpassed by the Excelsior, too costly for an older model, Miranda are the cheapest, more modern and robust version.
Starfleet stop producing the constitution in favour of the Excelsior and recycle the common part in the Miranda line, ultimately discover that the Miranda can be upgraded with new Excelsior type "transwarp" warp engine (probably just a new type of warp coils) that can't be properly installed on a Constitution by it's older design and warp field geometry.
You do have a good point though... pragmatically they could just swap out the engines to ones that work differently and wham bam you can't time travel anymore.
Well. This hot take blew my mind :) LOVED IT!
In my opinion it at less to do with time travel (probably because I hate time travel) but more with the Connie's chassis design, I think that at some point during it's service a critical weakness in the design was discovered one that would most likely be to difficult to remedy.
That or my favorite option, the Connie simply became obsolete. Think of it this way, decades ago the Ford model T revolutionized transportation much like how the Connie revolutionized space travel, however as time went the model T was updated time and a time again but was eventually out classed by it's successors. the same thing happened to the Connie.
I believe the answer is much simpler.
1. In the tos era it is stated that there are only 12 ships like Enterprise in the fleet. Depending how you take that statement that means 12 or 13 ships at that time. At least 3 I can think of are destroyed or lost in the tos series, and another the origional Enterprise in ST3. If you assume 12 built that leaves 8.
2. I seem to remember that only Enterprise survived its 5 year mission. I don't know how many Connie's were sent out but thats got to reduce the number a bit. Yes its likely there were some new builds but I still think they were rare in the fleet.
3. The miranda class has more internal volume than the constitution class at around 45% to 50% less materials to build. Also we see in Wrath of Khan that a Miranda can go toe to toe with a Connie in combat. So instead of refiting a possible handful of Connie's as many of the parts are usable and of the sane design as the mirranda they likely just scrapped most of the remaining Connie's at refit time for parts to refurb and put into new build Mirandas. The Royal navy did this often with parts of ships in the dreadnought era, particularly with weapons and turrets. You could make possibly 3 and a bit miranda class for 2 Connie's and be at an advantage.
4. The Excelsior class was online and took over the Connie's role. Which likely lead to point 3 above.
Just watched Star Trek IV:The Voyage Home. While watching it Kirk and his swashbuckling crew used Klingon BIRD OF PREY, to slingshot their time warp. Now it's possible ANY warp capabile ship COULD be used, but the formula only existed in Spock's mind, that he never made the formula known to anyone else. It would explain why no one else knew about it.
This would explain why STO temporal agency would end up using stock upgraded connies
Or a far more likely explanation is that the constitutions were retired early as part of the demilitarisation due to kithomer accords with klingons. Then during the Dominion war they didn't see frontline service as a) they were very obsolete, some have been in mothballs for nearly 70 years by the 2370's b) crewing requirements (400+, or about the same as new Akira class) and c) there were plenty of newer more modern and powerful Excelsior's and Miranda's in mothball, these would be easier to reactivate and upgrade as there were ships of these classes still in service in the 2370's and d) we don't know definitely that they weren't reused for some purpose during the Dominion war, we just know they didn't see frontline service, they might have been used as auxiliaries like transports/ supply ships or training vessels.
If there were some sort of God ship they would have been thrown against the Borg in the battle of sector 001 in 2373.