The only real oddity of the registries is that there are so many
Exelsior and
Miranda classes running around with high registries - which neatly dovetails with the oddity of their continued presence. The obvious solution: It's a hull form that was produced again as successful for a given role, much like the D7 and BoP hulls used extensively by Klingons for an incredibly long period of time. EAS has a nice article on it.
Now, let's take for one moment Leo1's suggestion that the NCC numbers are actually XX-X-XX, production run number, type number within production, and hull number, and try to make it consistent with the registry list on Memory Alpha and Ex Astris Scientia (which may not be complete between the two of them, but cover 200-some NCC/NX registries).
First, we have a problem with the low-digit NCCs. That's a 4-5 digit format, and we started counting at "1" around the time of the
Constitution class (1017). Assume the prior numbers make the same pattern - X-X-X, run, type, number. When we reach 325 and 330, though, we reach a problem - these are both
Antares types. So we then have to assume it's X-XX, production series number with no typing.
The existence of NCC-189 implies the existence of 90 ships manufactured during production run 1 that began with NCC-100. If we work this through the whole series of canonically observed NCCs, we get a minimum of almost 7000 ships contracted. But what if there's a typing number in between? When we move to the four-digit sequence, if we try labelling X-X-XX, type, hull number, and production run, then we again run into a contradiction; the
Constitution class uses 1-0, 1-5, 1-6, and 1-7, while
Mirandas,
Constellations, and the
Soyuz class all share 1-9. So it has to still be XX-XX, where the first digit is a batch number of some kind, if it's that sort of system.
Now, around 3000 is the point where we might suspect a registry number scheme change to a system capable of accommodating gaps of entire thousands-series within a span of short decades due to cancelled contract series (perhaps 4000 and 5000 were entirely cancelled, along with 22000-25000). We know that Starfleet is still producing "keeper" ships -
Constellations proved reliable enough to have an 80 year service lifetime without hull rebuilds. So we have three choices: (A) XX-X-XX, (B) A new count XX-XXX starting with 2 or 3, and (C) the same system, XXX-XX, with a sudden inexplicable expansion in batch number frequency. Our registry system could be changed at production class 2-XXX (with the
Excelsior's NCC number then representing a total change) or 3-XXX.
We just can't fit a hull series number in there. It doesn't fit - we get both type I and type II errors. 61-9-XX includes a
Saber and a
Nebula, and that's far from the only example of different classes sharing three digits.
If we assume all registries are consistently XX-XXX (batch-number), our observed minimum contracted ships number rises to about 35000. If we assume there's a change at 2-XXX or 3-XXX or so, we get 34000. The batch numbers can be used to cut the total number of ships by up to an order of magnitude if you assume that
absolutely no unobserved batch numbers were missed, but that's problematic. Our batch numbers with two-digit batches include 130-odd observed batches - with an average of less than two representatives per batch - or 50-odd batches with an average of 4 representatives per batch. This includes some apparently large batches we've only seen one representative of - 13XXX, 429XX, et cetera.
The truth is that registries
don't require the UFP to have built 70,000-odd ships, but if you try to work with Leo1's suggestions and correct for actual data, you're looking at the order of having X0,000 NCCs assigned - somewhere in the tens-of-thousands order of magnitude.
The Dominion War is far more important - especially when we consider that the scope of Starfleet's operations make it difficult to assemble a fleet in a hurry. (Common pro-Wars claims to 1000
c being fast would require
eight years to go from one end of the Federation to the other - which means that you really need Starfleet to have around a million warships. Common DS9 examples run a couple months, but much of the fleet is operating outside Federation territory on exploration missions.) The fact that Starfleet had to counterbalance a force of 30,000 ships late in the war, even with help from Klingons and Romulans, when they at best could match the Dominion 1:2 due to their larger ships, really strongly suggests the Alliance was able to field 15,000+ ships against the Dominion. The Klingons were recovering from several other wars, the Federation had ships already spread out over the entire quadrant on various missions, and the Romulans really weren't able to field that much in comparison to the two greater powers - "The Die is Cast" shows us how badly enormous and expensive D'deridexes performed against Jem'Hadar ships in a straight fight.
These would also be issues in a war with the Empire; the Federation would only be able to field Dominion-War scale fleets in tactical actions; but the Federation has a bigger depth of backfield than it is being granted.
Mith wrote:Strange is pretty much just trolling the thread for some reason. I don't even really know why. He seems less interested in an acutal debat and more in just tossing shit around.
Then why didn't the moderator warn
him? Isn't that against the SB.com rules?
