Talk:Registry


 * Also see discussion at Forum:What does NCC and NX mean?.

Page approach
I'm going to try to make sense of the different pages with similar content (NCC, List of registry codes and this one). Especially the nomenclature needs to be cleaned up ('registry code' vs 'registry prefix'). -- Harry 23:22, 27 Sep 2004 (CEST)


 * I'd suggest "registry number", after the fashion of "side number" or "tail number" in aviation. --trekphiler, 17/11/05


 * Could the Romulans IRW and the Klingons IKS be added?-Rebelstrike2005 22:34, 11 Feb 2005 (GMT)


 * Not on this page -- neither of those is associated with any registry number -- perhaps a unified page for simply registry related concepts -- simplify the page name so all information can be contained on it, and leave the more specific names (registry number and registry codes) as redirects to it. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 00:12, 12 Feb 2005 (GMT)


 * Do we know that the 'W' in IRW stands for warbird? It could be 'warship'-Rebelstrike2005 14:41, 12 Feb 2005 (GMT)


 * I've seen the NCC referring to Naval Construction Contract, too, but never in a canon source. It was in connection with USN aircraft, as I recall.  I also recall reading Gene made the same connection, hence the NCC usage.  --trekphiler, 17/11/05

Ship numbers
While I recognize why it was done, the registry numbers are nonsense. The so-called "Enterprise-B" would never be identified 1701B, nor referred to as "B", any more than CVN-65 is "Enterprise-B", when she is the second aircraft carrier by that name. And I flat refuse to believe Starfleet has built over 74000 ships, which Voyager's NCC-74656 demands. (Picture building 74000 supertankers and you have an idea of the industrial effort required.) --trekphiler, 16/11/05


 * I don't see any reason that Starfleet should be required to follow the registry rules of the US Navy.


 * I also think its kind of small minded to think that just because 21st century humans couldn't build 70,000 ships now, they'll never be able to. -- the point of Star Trek is that, in the future, by cooperating with all intelligent life, we'll probably be able to do amazing things that people thinking in the limitations of the US and 21st century technology will unfortunately never be able to imagine. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 14:28, 17 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Small-minded? I'm presuming a ship with capabilities fantastic today. It's precisely because of that I disbelieve the large numbers. The energy consumed in building a ship like Picard's Enterprise must be incredible, & even at a vastly increased scale, humanity's resources would not be limitless. My comparison, I think, is valid: nuclear carriers & supertankers are at the limits of human capabilities today, & thus are rare; so, too, would ships like Picard's Enterprise be at that time. --trekphiler, 17/11/05

All ships in the Federation would not be Starfleet ships (unless I am much mistaken), and shipbuilding would be very much reduced, I'd argue, due to increases of complexity, capability, and cost by orders of magnitude. My supertanker example, I think, stands: in the '30s, dozens of ships would be needed to do the job one VLCC could do. The entire Task Force 58 at Leyte Gulf in 1944 would be overmatched by CVN-65 Enterprise. (Which makes nonsense of the "thousands" of ships in fleet actions of "DS9"...) Picture a ship a thousand or ten thousand times more complex and capable than a modern nuclear aircraft carrier, and multiply it by 74000; do you believe that? I don't. --trekphiler, 16/11/05

I do. Anything else you said here seems patently irrelevant. The Dominion War was scaled much larger with any hisotrical wars you're familiar with -- why assume it was limited by 1940s human capabilities.

I'm not limiting it to 1940s capabilities. You've missed my point. CVN-65 Enterprise is vastly more capable than CV-6 Enterprise was in 1944. NCC-74205 Defiant is incomparably more capable than CVN-65. This argues for smaller numbers, not larger. If anything, "DS9"'s writers were using the 1944 example in an effort to be impressive, without understanding how much capabilities have changed. --trekphiler, 17/11/05


 * It occurs to me that the registry numbers don't necessarily mean the ship was built. A registry number could be reserved for a 'planned' ship that ends up not leaving the drawing board, or only having the beginnings of its hull assembled. Also, registry numbers could be applied to ships that are annexed into Starfleet--any ships the Bajorans have when they join, for example, could be inducted into the unified numbering scheme. Speculation, of course. And even then, the number still seems kind of high. SpaceCommie3000 09:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That's an interesting guess. What are the facts on this? Are there any references on what these mean or are we building it all on assumption? There seem to be very few direct citations in the article itself and as I stated in the Changes section of this talk-page, these assumptions are affecting information on other pages. Jaf 00:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Jaf


 * Not every starship is a Sovereign or Galaxy. Runabouts are included in the registry.  And probably so are a lot of other very small ships.  If the 1000 or so Federation worlds averaged a dozen small ships, you're looking at 12,000 starships right there.


 * But I disagree that a registry number of 74656 demands that 74656 ships have been built. Is there anything in canon that states that registry numbers are assigned sequentially and without gaps?  As a software developer for over 20 years, I have seen a fair share of ID numbering schemes.  Schemes can change in mid-stream.  Groups of numbers can be pre-assigned but never used.  Numbers can have embedded significance and/or check digits.  In Starfleet's history, any or all of these could occur. From my perspective, it seems FAR more speculative to assume that a registry number of 75000 means that every single number between 1 and 75000 must have been assigned to a starship in sequential order. I think the fact that low four-digit numbers co-exist with high five-digit numbers (Starships at Wolf 359) indicates that a purely sequential scheme is unlikely.


 * It's also possible that during wartime Starfleet could deliberately misidentify the name or number on a ship as a way to confuse its enemies. It wouldn't really matter to Starfleet ships.  They would have a better way of identifying each other than getting real close and reading the hull.  But an enemy analyzing warp signatures and trying to identify the source ship might be confused.  I don't think this likely, but it would explain those pesky discrepancies.;) --StarFire209 02:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

you all got it wrong. here ill explain. since i actually read the manuals that are regarded as canon.In regards to ship registry numbers. the number is a combination of hull class and hull number. for example the dreadnought's and battleships tended to have a set set of digits where as a battle cruiser had a smaller number of digits. the A B C D and E were reserved for the enterprise alone in honor of its long service to the federation, in the federations life time and its seven models of enterprise they only had a few crews that went from one model the next upgrade. Kirk was one such captain and Picard another. just for reference. so in all totaled earth produced ten ships with the Name ENTERPRISE. the four digit 1701 was a historical one so the federation recycled it to the next ship to bear the name and tacked on a letter to denote its continued value to the service of star-fleet. take for instance the USS defiant. it was lost in a reality shift in the mirror universe episode. it wasn't until DS9 that a second ship was given the name but it had a limited service career before hand so did not earn the reputation the Enterprise had. so received a new hull registry. so to break it down the higher the number does not denote number of hulls the number is most likely the last two or three digits to denote number of hulls where as the first set is probably the hull classification number denoting hull class ergo corvette through battleship


 * One huge problem here with your argument. No manuals are regarded as Canon. -- sulfur 12:56, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I think there's a pretty simple explanation for the high number of registry numbers in the 24th century. Runabouts have their own registries, as raiders, like the one Chakotay used, probably had and maybe even Peregrine class fighters and aeroshuttles. Similar types of craft may not have had their own registries in the 23rd century. We definitely know for sure Starfleet didn't build 73.000 full-fledged starships between the USS Excelsior and the USS Voyager. This being an 80-year period during which the Federation, and presumably Starfleet as well, kept expanding would require Starfleet to have massive amounts of starships at the end of this period, even with an average service life of only 20 years (we've seen several classes in use for much longer) they would have well over 20.000 starships at the beginning of the Dominion War. With such a fleet they should've been able to crush the Dominion Alliance which had 30.000 ships in the alpha quadrant, mostly weak bug attackships, after the Breen joined in (the fresh Breen ships along with the Dominion's extraordinary shipbuilding capabilities excludes the possibility that their fleet was much larger at the beginning of the war). With the Klingons (who's fleet is at least in the same league as the Federation's) fighting on the Federation's side the Dominion War would've been over very quickly. Using the known balances of power in the galaxy and the fleet sizes mentioned during the Dominion War, I estimate Starfleet probably had downward of 8000 starships at the time.

213.93.101.238 21:25, June 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * "humanity's resources would not be limitless", is why you are SMALL-MINDED, Star Trek is about a UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS, key word is PLANETS, as in multiple lifeforms, Vulcans and Andorians are NOT HUMAN BEINGS, and as shown in ST:Ent both have been Warp capable for 100's if not 1000's of Earth years, if in real life, the Dark Ages never took place we might have had nuclear powered ships in the 1912 (and not a ships like RMS Titanic), and in 1960 we might have an Antimatter powered navy ship named Enterprise (and not the nuclear powered one today) in 2012 instead of just completing the International Space Station I might be editing this talk page from planet orbiting a star in the Orion constellation, my point is this with shows like Star Trek the creator is showing us one thing IF WE LOOK OUT FOR EACH OTHER AND LIVE IN PEACE, NOTHING WILL BE LIMITED TO OUR MINDS OR HEARTS. -- User:Marc Chase

USGS?
Just a thought, but could USGS stand for United States Geological Ship? It's entirely possible that they are still in operation even in the 24th century, although on a much larger scale. --Mada101 13:30, 25 Sep 2005 (UTC)

USGS stand for United States Geological Survey. so it could be they morphed it in to United Systems Geological survey or something along those lines

Classes
Does anyone know which ship was first to receive the FRAM refit? I'd suggest the changes were so extensive as to remove any vessels so refitted from the Constitution class entire. I'd also argue, despite superficial similarity, it's unlikely NCC-1071 Constellation, NCC-1371 Republic, and NCC-1701 Enterprise were actually the same class. Recall the American submarine classes Gato, Balao, and Tench; superficially similar (indeed almost indistinguishable), they were different enough in detail to be separate classes. If canon establishes Constitution as NCC-1700, Constellation cannot be the same class, not when she is 700 contract numbers earlier; similarly, neither is Republic. --squadfifteen, 16/11/05

One possible excuse permits the above case, as I see it: NCC-1700 Constitution replaces a same-named ship, permitting confusion; nevertheless, a different class. --squadfifteen, 16/11/05


 * I am inclined to limit the Constitutions thus:

Constitution NCC-1700

Enterprise NCC-1701

Hood NCC-1703

Exeter NCC-1706

Lexington NCC-1709

Kongo NCC-1710

Yorktown NCC-1717

plus one or two unnamed ships. I am disinclined to include NCC-1764 Defiant and NCC-1831 Intrepid because they are too high-numbered, given the size and complexity of Constitution (and what I've read of Gene's intent there only be 12 of her class at a time), unless we accept they are replacing losses (in which case, why not reuse existing names? or do they?).


 * I further exclude NCC-956 Eagle and NCC-1071 Constellation as too low-numbered; they belong to a different class, perhaps joined by NCC-1371 Republic (which I would construe as lead ship of a later group, given Constitution; on that basis, Eagle might be, too).


 * Furthermore, I propose a third group:

Farragut NCC-1647

Potemkin NCC-1657

Excalibur NCC-1664

Endeavour NCC-1695

These are likely replacing losses in the Republic class.


 * I suggest the relationship between these ships is comparable to Gato: changes in weapons spec, propulsion, mainframe, hull framing, and so forth, but superficially identical except in detail.  (Perhaps examination of canon photographs would reveal?)  --squadfifteen, 16/11/05

As I recall, the so-called "Enterprise-A" was a new design, not a Constitution. --trekphiler, 16/11/05

It's intriguing to me "STTOS" with Constitution comes closest to an actual naming system: historical ships. (I reject Excalibur as named for Arthur Pendragon's sword; she was a ship, & it is the earlier ship she would be named for, regardless whether the earlier Excalibur was named for the sword...) --squadfifteen, 16/11/05


 * I'm sorry. Memory Alpha:Policies and guidelines states that MA is not a vehicle for speculation -- we can't really assume any ships we didnt see or didnt learn the capabilities of actually were modified different or similarly to other vessels. We only try to include information from the episodes and movies, not guesswork based on an unrelated Navy. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 14:28, 17 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * Excuse me for taking seriously the "complete Star Trek site" claim. The "guesswork" is based on internal evidence & a legitimate parallel (or do you think Starfleet has no historical antecedents?).  I've seen posted information from outside the canon; I'm just trying to reconcile what I observe.  Too "small-minded" for you?  --squadfifteen, 17/11/05


 * Captain Mike is just full of shit. He loves to speculate more than anyone I've heard. And yes, Star Trek borrows heavily from current naval traditions.--Mike Nobody 01:55, 18 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Classes were explained in Scotty's guide to the federation. as were hull number sequences its part contract number part hull class number part ship designation the first digit i assume to be hull class. ergo 1000 is the beginning of the displacement rating. making the first ship in that class the designator, say heavy cruiser or medium cruiser the second would denote the seventh hull in that class. the last two would be number of hulls in that class. and no the federation wasn't in the habit of replacing hull names with refits or replacements till after the loss of the Enterprise NCC 1701. her career and the public demanded she be renamed to Enterprise A. that is it on the renaming argument. when the new classes came out and the Enterprise B a Excelsior class ship it had all new technology that as new classes of hulls came out names began to be reused based on career but not hull designations. only the Enterprise had such a prestigious career to warrant keeping her old contract number. look it up. in three books published by wizards of the coast its explained. and does make sense ---Darkomen1 3/23/09

Canadian registry
Was the Canadian ships' registries ever mentioned on Trek? If it wasn't, then it doesn't belong here. --From Andoria with Love 03:31, 31 Dec 2005 (UTC)

NC
It says here that NC is used for ships of the Earth Starfleet. What canon evidence is there of this? The only registries I can think of from Enterprise are NX-01 for Enterprise, and NX-02 for Columbia. Since the Columbia is not a prototype like the Enterprise, I argue that NX does not mean prototype for Earth Starfleet, but rather a ship of the NX class. At the very least, I don't remember ever seeing NC-?? in Enterprise. --OuroborosCobra 11:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * NC-05 --Alan del Beccio 11:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

NSP?
There is no mention of the NSP prefix for the T'Pau (NSP-17938), a Vulcan ship from the TNG episode "Unification." This should be included.

Changes
First off... let me clear up several misconceptions. the Enterprise did spend two and a half years in refit. it was still of the constitution class. but it got blown up. with all the new goodies. Kirk got a brand new Enterprise class looks like the refit Constitution. but its brand new thats the one that took fifteen years to get around to. he is also the first to captain three models of starfleet hull, Constitution on her last five year mission. the Enterprise A and the Enterprise B just before he was snatched up in the nexus incident. and yes the Enterprise A was renamed to that it was supposedly to be registered under a new hull number and name and yes the renamed in honor of the previous ship is true. thats in about four or five wizard of the coast books. Darkomen1 3/23/09

There are a couple of pages around here where we assume two ships with the same name and of the same class are different ships because they have a different registry number, while this seems likely, I don't know if i'm satisfied. Frankly, I don't know of a canon reference to the fact that a registry number cannot be changed. Why should we assume a ship cannot be re-registred? Jaf 00:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Jaf


 * Is there any basis to assume the opposite? Do we know of any Federation ship that had its registry changed? At the moment, I can't think of any... -- Cid Highwind 13:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) Enterprise spent 2 1/2 years in refit but a few months later, we have a new Enterprise.  Why refit an old ship if you could build a new one in a fraction of the time?  So it's reasonable to assume an existing ship became Enterprise-A.  There's some debate as to what ship was renamed/renumbered but it's pretty much accepted that one was. --StarFire209 02:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * First, the 1701-A was launched around 15 years (depending on how you figure the chronology) after the 1701's refit, not "a few months later." Second, the ship could have been under construction for some time, perhaps with the intention of giving it a different name, but when it was decided to decommission the 1701 Starfleet also chose to name this new ship in honor of the old one. It need not be a renamed/reregistered ship at all (though that argument can be made as well, there really isn't enough on screen evidence to be 100% sure). – General Grant 06:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

My hope was that assumptions could be avoided from either angle. Jaf 13:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Jaf


 * In this specific case, how would you do that? You either write the article as if it is the same ship, or as if it is a different ship. In each case, you could add a background note stating that the opposite might be the case, but that doesn't change the fact that you have to decide for one or the other first... BTW, what ships are we talking about here, exactly? At the moment, I can only think of the Miranda class USS Saratoga (NCC-31911). -- Cid Highwind 13:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it was the USS Hood (NCC-1703) that got me thinking about it and when I then here and found few sources on this article. Jaf 13:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Jaf


 * This would explain the USS Yamato.

You can add USS Ahwahnee to this list. Jaf 04:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)Jaf


 * How so? Those are not the same class. One of them, we do not even know the class. --OuroborosCobra talk 05:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more clear. It was the possibility I was thinking about. Not knowing the class means they can be the same class. Jaf 13:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)Jaf

PNA explanation
This page is a mess and needs a serious overhaul. Much of it can only be speculation, while the rest is just kind of thrown anywhere and everywhere throughout. --Alan
 * I overhauled the page per request and removed the PNA, as I believe the user's problems were addressed.--Tim Thomason 00:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Much better, thanks! --Alan 00:57, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

YLT prefix
From what I recall, the Encyclopedia, while by no means infallible, says that the YLT prefix was used for a Yridian transport. The Episode escapes me but it may have been in TNG or on a ship listing in DS9. I'm at work at the moment so I can't check. Can someone verify this? Thanks. - Captain MAJ =/\= 13:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

RMS
The RMS refers to the British Royal Mail not the Royal Navy. Start date of 1912 also incorrect. --StarFire209 23:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

NAR prefix
As far as I can ascertain the "NAR"-prefix, whatever it signifies (I do not believe it stands for "None Authorized Registry"), has always been used to signify vessels or constructions commissioned by civilian authorities of either Earth or UFP. The drydock as used in sported the designation "NAR-30974", as was shown in some pictures taken at the 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection auction, however this doesn't contradict any preconception, since civilian yards do and always have done construction work for the military in the real world. Unless somebody has a counter example can we agree upon that?--Sennim 20:12, July 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * All we know, bg-wise is that NAR was initially invented to separate merchant vessels from starfleet's "navy" vessels. A merchant vessel can be any non-military ship that transports cargo and passengers. But in the real world merchant ships can also be used as auxiliaries to navies in delivering military personnel and material. NAR prefix letters are an in-joke and come from National Association of Rocketry which is not what it is supposed to stand for in-universe. There is no in-universe extrapolation as of yet. It's not surprising that a drydock can have a NAR-prefix as the Deep Space K7 station had a NCC-prefix. --Pseudohuman 16:16, July 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * I would suggest NAR stands for NAval Reasearch vessel


 * Naval Auxiliary Registry is more realistic, since not everything with a NAR registry is associated with research or a vessel, but then again, this is all speculation. While we're at it, I'd much rather have NCC stand for Naval Certification Code and NX stand for Naval eXperiment. Someone should start paying me so these can be for the realz. - 21:55, January 21, 2012 (UTC)

Praetorial Warbird
How do we know that PWB stands for "Praetorial warbird"? Where does that term from from? - Mitchz95 (talk) 01:05, November 8, 2012 (UTC)

USS Sherlock Holmes NCC-221B
I removed this sentence:

In some ships the letter was after the number such as the registry NCC-221B of the USS Sherlock Holmes.

The reason I removed this is because I have seen messages to the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) in the series where the registry is given as, NCC-1701D. I don't think it's possible with the information we have on the Sherlock Holmes to judge whether this is an isolated case, where a letter is not separated by a hyphen, or this is a case where the writer chose to drop both the hyphen and the space, ex. NCC-1701-D to NCC-1701 D to NCC-1701D. (The messages are from and .)Throwback (talk) 01:49, June 16, 2013 (UTC)