I was reading some fan comments about the "problem" of where (not to mention when) the Enterprise and, ostensibly, the other Constitution class ships were actually constructed. On the one hand we have the original idea that they were built in Earth orbit. On the other hand we have the JJ-verse idea that they were constructed Earth-side and somehow launched into space. On the third hand (in commemoration of Lt. Arex) we have Axanar saying that they were built at Axanar, which helps build up their story. Of course, what ST really needs is more contradictions, so this has only caused to help that out with more disagreements. Adding in "non-canon" stuff only makes it worse between registry numbers being out of sequence and other tales that don't appear onscreen.
I was going through the old TAS stuff recently and while most might not consider it "canon", I feel its pedigree is better than most simply because it was produced, written and acted by the TOS gang, albeit with limited resources; and while they flew a bit fast and loose with some of their own earlier concepts, it holds true to its roots pretty well. Two things struck me as significant to later incarnations of ST:
1) While not shown in use, it was mentioned that the Klingons have the cloaking device at their disposal. This is about ten years before STIII "introduced" it to the Klingons (originally by Kruge stealing one from the Romulans by way of the BoP, which was dropped from the storyline).
2) Captain April (now seventy-five year old Commodore April) states that he had watched the components of the Enterprise being constructed at the Earth Naval Yards in his youth. This was an interesting choice of words. He said "components" not "ship". Earth Naval Yards also implies a ground installation (at least to me) rather than a space based one.
This got me thinking. Perhaps JJ wasn't so far off? (Oh, the blasphemy!
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Let's face it, construction in space is hard, even in the 23rd century. Between needing constant life support and time consuming and expensive zero G training, not to mention upping the chance of death even in a minor accident (again due to that bulky and expensive life support gear), it seems plausible that given their ability to control local gravity that it would be likely that certain parts of the ship were constructed planet-side. There, they could lighten or even remove all weight from the materials while allowing the workers the freedom of movement and ability that they are accustomed to during construction. Then, with the same gravity control (and probably some industrial transporters), they raise the parts into orbit for final assembly. So, engines and nacelles are produced one place in the yard, while saucer in another and secondary hull in another, etc.
Now, as far as Axanar goes the question remains: if this is true, why would they haul the components to another star system to assemble them? Well, there was a war on and Admiral Ramirez said that the new class of ship was proving more difficult than they had anticipated. It is possible that they felt that it was more secure at the center of the Federation and that it also cut down travel time between the races that were helping complete them. They had over a dozen races working on the Ares class, who knows how many were working on the Constitution class. Once the basic hull structures were completed they very well may have warp ferried them to Axanar for completion and installation of systems, which themselves were built on other worlds.
Topic: Star Trek Axanar (Read 32480 times)