Talk:USS Excelsior

Other USS Excelsiors
I've found that there are several starships bear the same name:


 * USS Excelsior (NCC-77246)
 * Galaxy-class with the third nacelle and the large phaser cannon, similar to the alternate USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)


 * USS Excelsior (NCC-78943)
 * Sovereign-class - Given that the similarities of the Sovereign class and the original USS Excelsior prototype are similar to the USS Sovereign prototype.


 * Its great that someone created these, but unless they are canon or appeared in a licensed Star Trek release that can be cited, they really can't be added to Memory Alpha. Is there a source for these? -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk
 * Google does wonders in this type of situation:
 * USS Excelsior (NCC-77246) - hidden frontier
 * USS Excelsior NCC-78943 - did not match any documents.
 * -- Alan del Beccio 16:49, 17 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * Those two Excelsiors are uncanon to the Star Trek timeline. The first Excelsior, as mentioned above, is part of the fan-made Hidden Frontier series, which we do not include information of. The second Excelsior is also uncanon and incorrect, as we only know of two canon Sovereign classes: Sovereign and Enterprise. Thus, both of those should not be mentioned/linked. - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 19:44, 17 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * Which is essentially what I said. ;) --Alan del Beccio 04:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Arms on the chair
I was watching search for spoke the other night and something occured to me. As the USS Excelsior was preparing to enter transwarp drive, I've noticed that all the arms on the chairs on the bridge were closed, as in grabbed by the crew and brought in closer, almost in a seat belt like fashion. My question is why? Don't inertial dampeners make seatbelt like device in a starship useless?


 * This exact same thing was shown in when the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) encountered a wormhole effect after entering warp. James Kirk put on the restraint as the circumstances could've provided unknown turbulence (which was visible). As the crew was about to use a brand new form of faster-than-light travel, it would be unknown what kind of turbulence could be encountered, hence why restraints were used. - Enzo Aquarius 02:35, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Internal dampeners are supposed to protect the crew from shocks, however as we've seen many, many times, even on newer starships (Defiant, Voyager etc) they do not compensate quickly enough in battle or unforeseen events, so seatbelts were quite a good idea, and still were when the Enterprise-E was refitted after it's battle with the Scimitar.

Origin of the Name
Does anyone know how the Excelsior got its name? Is there an official source, like Enterprise was named for the American carrier of WWII? Or is it just a pretty-sounding word that Roddenberry found while browsing the dictionary? - Spatula 22:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Excelsior is the Latin term for "even higher", which fits pretty well for the ship. Other sources for the name could be: a short poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a 1950s skydiving project known as Project Excelsior, the city in Minnesota, the town in Wisconsin, a district of San Francisco, a town in South Africa, a motorcycle manufacturer, the signature of Marvel Comics writer Stan Lee, and the official state motto of New York. For the record, though, Gene Roddenberry wasn't the one who came up with the name, but more likely Harve Bennett. --From Andoria with Love 01:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I also found those. (wikipedia, right?) So we don't know for certain if there was an official source? - Spatula 21:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The name was part of the "Constitution class starships" list from behind-the-scenes TOS material -- from there, the name was mentioned in Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual as a Constitution, and also on model decal sheets, before the name was used for the NCC-2000 ship. -- Captain M.K.B. 21:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Appearances
I removed from the list of USS Excelsior appearances, because the ship isn't in that film. Is it? Igotbit 17:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Not that I'm aware of, either someone got confused, or they were referring to the studio model, which is a partial reuse of one of the Excelsior miniatures(I think)--mo nkey2: twice the monkey 17:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Voyager appearance
Isn't this a bit weird? How can we be seeing the Excelsior if this is all taking place in Tuvok's mind? -- Deep Space Nine Forever 20:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * We are seeing his memories of being on the Excelsior. --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  21:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Thorndyke
The following is in the Background Information section:


 * "Curiously in the German dubbing of Star Trek III Uhura's comment on the new Excelsior provides and insight into who was material to the creation of the ship and reads (re-translated) as follows: "Look at that: Thorndyke's [or Thorndike's, respectively] idea!" This was obviously done for lip-sync reasons. It is, however, in rather blatant contrast to Uhura's original words, which did in no way include such a hint."

Who or what is Thorndyke? Please explain. --Topher 21:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Having written the aforementioned paragraph I can only say this: I do not know. Thorndyke was in my view unmistakably made up in order to create an adequate adaption of Nichelle Nichols' very emphasized 'th' in "Look at that!" for the German dubbing. To come to the point: In German there is no letter and no word that would cause a person to use their tongue like anglophones do with 'th'. Since Nichols' 'th' is very strong in her brief comment it could not simply be translated and dubbed like in most other sentences. Therefore the 'Thorndyke solution'. It's rather elegant compared to other occasions of 'interesting' dubbing in that particular movie. For example: Dubbed and re-translated Kirk's simple "Enterprise confirms." when approaching the spacedock would read like this: "I thank you in the name of the whole crew." Fascinating. Let alone the cheeriness those words are spoken with - strong contrast to the original. But that was simply the established way of dubbing at that time in history. It has gotten a whole lot better since (to a point where one can say that an English sentence is mostly simply translated and spoken in German) but I want to share a few other examples of this "troubleshooting" with you. To all those who know the Original Series in German and English it is funny and makes them smile at how silly dubbing (especially in the Sixties and Seventies) could be at that time - for no reason. (At the time of TNG this trend has virtually wound down.)Re-translated, the German dubbing comes up with the following solutions for (don't ask me why) apparently untranslatable English sentences (well, in fact they must have been simply too boring for the studio):


 * Kirk: "Don't you piss in your shirt, peewee."


 * The following examples are all taken from "That Which Survives" (or in German: "Dangerous Planet Girls")


 * Spock: "I banged my noggin against the edge." (after unintentionally colliding with a console)


 * Kirk (to Spock): "What do you know about women, you frigid?!"
 * Kirk: "Mr. Sulu, you're too often with Checkov. He's only telling you penny dreadfuls about Russia."


 * There are tremendous amounts of other examples. I hope you got a little insight. :) – Ambassador 11:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like some people got lazy when it came to dubbing Star Trek. They decided to make the lips match rather than the words and/or intent. Having said that, and now understanding the situation a bit more, I would suggest the background note be changed to:


 * "In the German dubbing of Star Trek III, Uhura's line, "Look at that!" was changed to "Look at that: Thorndyke's idea!" This could provide insight into who was responsible for the creation of the ship. Done for lip-syncing purposes, common practice when translating Trek into German, the name Thorndyke was invented solely for this purpose and did not come from any other canon source."

This would make it more explicit that Thorndyke was not some minor character that they didn't remember from another episode or movie, but simply an addition of the people who dubbed the film. It is actually quite interesting that this information would be canon on the German Memory Alpha, but here it's just a background note. — Topher 21:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I just changed it (with a few variations). It really sounds better than my original paragraph. :) – Ambassador 17:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Removed
I removed this:


 * ''It shall be noted that common bunkrooms were shared by both genders. A DVD viewer could see in the scene where everyone sleeping is thrown off of their bunks when the ship is hit by Praxis' shock wave, that a man and a woman are rolling on the floor. This is possible to view carefully by pausing the DVD and pressing Fast-Forward to review frame-by-frame.

Aside from not being in the wrong point of view, it really doesn't fit into the article anywhere. A footnote, perhaps, but not a whole paragraph and the means of finding it. Otherwise, it really has nothing to do with the ship itself in the current 'flow' of the article. --Alan del Beccio 22:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You usually never hear of both genders sharing a common bunkroom. Even if co-ed bunkrooms were regular setups within another Federation specie, I don't think the other species (including especially us Terrans) would have been comfortable with that setup. Being that Excelsior was made on a Terran construction facility, and most of the command are Terrans, would they not permit that? --K. Shinohara 01:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Its the future. They've moved beyond stupid things like gender taboos in sleeping situations.  Hossrex 10:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

FA discussion
Extremely well-written, well-organized and (as far as I can tell) complete article for one of the most famous starships in Trek history. Also, it's not over-long or over-detailed as some articles tend to be; an easy read, yet it's informative, interesting and comprehensive. It has a decent background section, as well. And yes, I skipped the whole Peer Review crap because, let's be honest... it would be a waste of time. If someone sees something they think needs fixing during this nomination process, they can fix it. Having said that – have at it! --From Andoria with Love 04:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * USS Excelsior:


 * Support (duh) --From Andoria with Love 04:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Support - comprehensive yet succinct, and with detailed background information. – Cleanse 10:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I oppose your good intentions, but support your choice of elegance and style. --Alan 16:00, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Support - With the caveat that the apocrypha could be expanded to include the ship's depiction in the DC comics, particularly Kirk's temporary command. According to Memory Beta, there were additional appearances/references in "Forged in Fire", "Its Hour Come Round", "The Captain's Daughter", "The Fearful Summons", "Enigma", "Burning Dreams", and "Light of the Day". -- Connor Cabal 18:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * or see:  --Alan 18:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. Very easy read. How is it a famous ship it made 2 important onscreen appearances.--Long Live the United Earth 00:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Support as well. Great article. Willie LLAP 03:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Featured --Alan 23:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Question?
Why is the page USS Excelsior not USS Excelsior (NCC-2000)? Should I move it to USS Excelsior (NCC-2000)?


 * Because no other "USS Excelsior" exists, meaning that a disambiguated title is not necessary.
 * No.
 * Please sign your posts. Thanks.
 * -- Cid Highwind 16:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Later Service?

 * While there's no absolute proof that the Excelsior mentioned in "Interface" was the same ship but given the complete absence of any canon indications of the existence of another USS Excelsior or of this ship's retirement or destruction this is most likely a reference to the NCC-2000.

This seems implausible. NCC-1701 was due to be decommissioned after 20 (or 40) years, 1701-A after seven (though this is complicated by apocrypha that suggest it was another (perhaps somewhat older) ship that had been rechristened), and in "All Good Things", it was only Admiral Riker's influence that prevented 1701-D from being decommissioned after 32 (according to the Chronology). In any case, it's reasonable to assume that the 85-year old Excelsior would no longer be in service, despite the absence of direct evidence of this fact. Mechasaprophyte 23:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 1701 and 1701-A were being retired at the same time that the class was being replaced and apparently withdrawn from service. The Excelsiors and Mirandas were never withdrawn. All Good Things was a Q created alternate timeline with a lot of things that made no sense. --OuroborosCobra talk 13:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * This is non-sense Excelsior class ships have not been decommissioned by the time of "Interface" as Enterprise D meets up with Excelsior class ships on several instances, about half a dozen are destroyed in the Dominion war and on nearly destroyed the defiant

Name change
I think we should add the number of the ship to the name of the article as we now know there was a later USS Excelsior in the 24th century with the numbering NCC-21445. --BorgKnight (talk) 17:04, July 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * We probably should do so for consistency- perhaps along with a disambig link at the top of this page. 31dot (talk) 17:10, July 6, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming we should put NCC-2000, but we may want to establish a redirect with NX-2000. 31dot (talk) 17:11, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

Yes add in the NCC-2000 to the article name. I forgot about the NX-2000 number but yes a redirect would be the best call for that. Also the new article on the USS Excelsior of the 24th Century should be renamed adding the number there as well for that ship which as I said is NCC-21445. --BorgKnight (talk) 17:17, July 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * The 21445 has been renamed, along with all links updated. I've established redirects for both the (NCC-2000) and (NX-2000) names of this one, but there are 200+ links that will have to be updated before any move takes place. Once that move happens, "USS Excelsior" should be redirected to the disambiguation page at "Excelsior". -- sulfur (talk) 18:45, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

Do each of the 200+ links have to be updated manually? --BorgKnight (talk) 18:51, July 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * Our naming conventions currently don't claim that every ship article title needs to contain the registry, and I think doing that here would be a bad idea, for the reasons just stated by sulfur - and additionally, because most if not all searches for "USS Excelsior" will be for NCC-2000. It doesn't make sense to make that title a disambiguation page in that case. --Cid Highwind (talk) 18:54, July 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * [edit conflict] - I oppose any rename of this page, as this Excelsior is clear more prevalent than the other one, and thus can be kept at this title with a simple disambiguation link placed at the top of the article. - 18:56, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

I understand what Cid Highwind is saying but if you look you can see that Starships with the same names as others have their registry in their title name and where there is not a registry available either the class of the ship or the year/century it existed in is placed in the title. It may not have been set down as a naming convention but it what has been done. If we don't change the title of this article with the registry it will be one of the only ones that didn't follow this trend. I think it should be changed as this is what has been generally done with ships with the same name. I understand that a lot of links will have to be updated but I still think it should be done. --BorgKnight (talk) 19:27, July 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * I see Archduk's point and actually thought of it myself- while I support changing the 21445 I'm right now indifferent to changing this one. I can see both sides of it. 31dot (talk) 19:28, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

Ok so well leaving it means there isn't a strict naming convention to starships that have a name that is the same as others and I don't think that is right. I do understand your point about it being more prevalent but I think a consistent naming convention should be set in place for these Starships --BorgKnight (talk) 19:37, July 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * BorgKnight, your interpretation of the how and why of the naming convention seems to be incorrect, as the convention for disambiguations, anything inside the parentheses, is that they should only be used if one of the subjects isn't prominent enough to warrant the natural title. Starships just tend to require this more than other article types, but there is no specific naming convention for just starships that requires the use of a disambiguation, nor is there a need for one. -  21:03, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

Alright yes I do to get what you mean. I understand that there is no naming convention for just starships. It does seem that the practice has been to put the registry in parentheses next to the name of the ship so as to differentiate from others of the same name. Now I haven't seen an instance of it not being done with any ship that does not have the same name as another.

Also when you say about it being prominent are you saying how the NCC-2000 Excelsior is more known that the other? If so then I don't think that is a good reason going against a name change because the ship is more known that it's successor.--BorgKnight (talk) 22:00, July 6, 2013 (UTC)
 * The NCC-2000 was seen in several films and a major plot point in two of them- the 21445 was mentioned once verbally and appeared in a graphic. 31dot (talk) 22:38, July 6, 2013 (UTC)


 * Exactly. We have some cases of "equally prominent" starships with the same name (USS Enterprise), other cases of "equally non-prominent" starships with the same name (USS Hood), and at least one case where one starship is (IMO) more prominent than the others, but there are several of them so that a simple two-way disambiguation wouldn't work (USS Defiant). In all these cases, a disambiguation suffix is necessary. Here, we have exactly two starships, of which one is definitely more prominent than the other. We're dealing with it just as we're dealing with other objects having the same name - just that our otherwise "standard case" of disambiguation (two objects, one prominent) happens less often with starships. -- Cid Highwind (talk) 23:34, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

I agree yes that a disambiguation page would be a good idea for the two ships. But the three examples you gave, each one of those starships have in their article titles the registry number or something to differentiate it from the others, regardless in how one starship is more prominent that the other. That's why I think the NCC-2000 should be added to the article title of this page. --BorgKnight (talk) 23:46, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone reached a decision with this or given it anymore thought? --BorgKnight (talk) 15:37, August 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * As this is (by far) the most prominent of the ships, it should logically stay here by our conventions. As such, I think that things are good in the current situation. -- sulfur (talk) 16:02, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

Ya I understand what you mean. It would take a lot of work to change so many links.I still do believe it should have the registry added to the article title though but I understand where you are coming from. --BorgKnight (talk) 16:06, August 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * Again though, the prominent articles do not have a disambiguation in their title, and that's what the 'NCC-2000' or 'NX-2000' is in that context.
 * Note: I've added disambiguation links to the top of the two Excelsior articles now. -- sulfur (talk) 16:09, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

Which articles are considered prominent? --BorgKnight (talk) 16:36, August 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, for example, this one over the ship seen only a a viewscreen. Kyle is another example. The Columbia starship, the Phoenix warp ship, Sarek (Spock's dad), Orion (the species), Star Trek: Voyager (the TV series), Vulcan (the species), Bible (some random book).
 * Of those, the best examples are likely the Columbia, Phoenix, Kyle, and Bible articles. -- sulfur (talk) 17:47, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

What makes those the most prominent articles? --BorgKnight (talk) 20:43, August 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * Screentime, in-universe and/or franchise relevance, just to name a few that immediately come to mind. --Cid Highwind (talk) 20:55, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

Ah yes I thought as much. --BorgKnight (talk) 21:00, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

I have removed the notice for the name change as it seems the general consensus is to keep the name as it is --BorgKnight (talk) 16:39, August 13, 2013 (UTC)