Powet Alphabet: E is for Enterprise

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Star Trek has created a wonderful universe for fans to enjoy, and all along the only theme reoccurring as consistently as a captain screwing ladies and technobabble is some kind of ship named “Enterprise”. With a seemingly limitless number of ships bearing that name, I will attempt to explore some of the more memorable ones, but before thinking about all those space ships, it’s important to note that many real vessels carried the name even before Star Trek revolutionized the world of science fiction.

``All those vessels were called 'Enterprise'`` - Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The above scene from the horrible “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” is just a glimpse of the many ships that have carried the name “Enterprise”. When thinking of the word as meaning an undertaking or endeavour, it is an inspirational word fitting for a starship, or a simple sea faring vessel. From the begining of the 18th century until today 15 ships of the Royal Navy have carried the name “HMS Enterprise” or “HMS Enterprize”, starting with a 24-gun frigate captured from the French Navy. This particular ship is featured in the opening credits of “Star Trek: Enterprise” as well as in Jonathan Archer’s ready room. A number of aircraft carriers have also carried the name. Many of these existed prior to Star Trek, but after the show’s great success, real ships would be named after the fictional Enterprise. This is precisely what happened when a huge letter writing campaign convinced President Gerald Ford to name the first space shuttle “Enterprise”. This shuttle unfortunately never did fly in space, though apparently it will in the Star Trek universe.

NCC-1701. No blody A, B, C, or D

Forget about that real stuff though, you all want to know about the star ships! The USS Enterprise was the ship to be on in the 23rd century. It was such a cool ship, that they made a show about it. “Star Trek” was like nothing anyone had seen beforehand in 1966, and this first starship to bear the name (in our timeline I mean) became instantly iconic. This wasn’t some aerodynamic craft that looked like it was designed to fly in an atmosphere! It was more like a flying saucer with junk hanging out of it because you know what? There’s no air resistance in space so it doesn’t really matter if it’s a bit awkward looking! Going through a number of Captains her most famous would be James T. Kirk, a sexy man who seduced many a lady thanks to the prestige of being a Starfleet captain. A good sized ship for it’s time, it had a crew of 430. The ship lasted through all 3 seasons of Star Trek, and then after 3 movies it was destroyed by auto destruct to avoid being jacked by some pesky Klingons!

USS Enterprise NCC 1701 from the old show perverted by new effects

Because people are stupid, some people thought the old model of the Enterprise used in the old show didn’t look slick enough. Because of this, scenes from the original show were redone in 3D for a remastered version. Luckily the DVD and Blu-Ray versions of the show can be watched in a mode which uses the original effects. That George Lucas crap ruined Star Wars and we’d best not let it ruin Star Trek too.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A

After destroying the Enterprise in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”, the crew fly around on a Klingon Bird of Prey for a while, going back in time, making jokes and getting a whale. That movie’s well and good but it’s not about the Enterprise so it’s totally out of scope. Upon returning to duty the next assignment they are given is no other than… the Enterprise! Looking quite similar to the old ship, this one bears the similar name USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A … and this naming convention would continue for quite a while. After only a couple of movies, one of which is really bad, the ship is decommissioned. This seems like a really wasteful move on the Federation’s part, but what do I know about starships? Not much… next comes B, but bear with me as I go through these ships in the order in which the fiction was presented to us.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D

This was the defining Enterprise of my childhood. The USS Enterprise NNC-1701-D, flagship of the federation, with it’s great crew lead by the always sexy British sounding Frenchman Jean Luc Picard. With a population of over 1000, things have come a long way since Kirk and his gang were kicking around space in that old model. Not only is this thing bigger and better, but it has the added bonus of being full of families that are coming along for the trek through space which almost ensures them a horrible violent death. The Enterprise D not only gets close to being destroyed a lot, but thanks to various time travel situations and fun things like that it’s actually completely destroyed a bunch of times before it really kicks it at the end of “Star Trek: Generations” by nose diving into a planet. Even the planet they crash on is obliterated in another time travel saved alternate timeline, killing the crew and their families for one last time.

Enterprise D Saucer Separation

Not content to just get blown up into a million pieces the Enterprise D can also bust into 2 pieces with the cool saucer separation feature! Basically that big saucer full of women and children can split itself off while the guys always putting the ship in a place where it could get destroyed sit in the battle bridge and try to get themselves killed.

Alternate Future Enterprise D

Although the ship does not survive anywhere near 25 years after the end of the events of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” we do see a glimpse of what could have been in an alternate future presented in the series finale “All Good Things”. Proving once again that most ships with the name Enterprise have a longer shelf life than Twinkies or the Enterprise A this thing is still kicking after all this time upgraded with a cloaking device, another nacelle and Admiral William Riker at the helm who, despite a bit of grey hair, is in better shape than the real Jonathan Frakes is actually in today, or oddly in that flashback from the Enterprise finale which actually took place quite a bit earlier…. I guess it’s all those future drugs or maybe they found another copy from a transporter accident…

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-C

The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-C is in one of the coolest episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” named “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. Basically, a time rift brings the Enterprise C to the “present” where the Enterprise D was examining the rift, but by them being taken out of the timeline the present changes and everything’s all dank and bad ass and Tasha Yar is alive again. Woo! But there’s a twist! Guinan knows that everything changed, and the world she remembers is way better, so they need to send that ship back to almost certain death! Well to make a long story short, Tasha Yar pulls a Harry Kim, goes on the ship therefore avoiding death in her timeline, but ends up hooking up with a Romunlan and has a daughter who looks like her only Romulan and shows up later. Anyway… since Guinan seems to remember changes in history, is she super pissed off in the J. J. Abrams universe that’s totally messed up? Oh did I mention the Enterprise C also looks super cool? Yeah, it’s awesome.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B

Now we’re back into movies. “Star Trek: Generations” bridges the gap between old and new, and it starts us out with the launch of the brand spanking new USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B. It’s Captain is the nerd from Ferris Bueller and John Connor’s step mom and a round ear’d Tuvok are amongst the ship’s crew. The ship rescues Guinan and a bunch of other people from this Nexus ribbon thing which eventually sucks up Kirk, leaving history to think he’s dead. I guess people thought that was a big deal, but then he came back, and died shortly after. As Enterprises go, the Enterprise B is by no means the coolest ship by that name.

Sailor Ship Enterprise on the Holodeck

Now here’s a weird one. Apparently instead of taking a guy to lunch when he gets a promotion people in the future have weird cosplay parties on boats, which is what they did when Worf got promoted on this old sailing ship bearing the name Enterprise. Due to it’s size the ship could not rightfully be a recreation of any actual historical ship having shared it’s name so it’s assumed to just be a generic ship created for the purposes of this program. Since current technology doesn’t have holodecks, a real ship named the “Lady Washington” was used for the movie. This ship was also featured in the hit movie “Pirates of the Caribbean” (the good one) as the “HMS Interceptor”.

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E

Now on to a better movie, “Star Trek: First Contact”. With the Enterprise D having been destroyed, they christen a new ship the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E! The natural progression of the alphabet with which you are no doubt familiar if this isn’t your first Powet Alphabet article. Anyway, this ship goes through all kinds of adventures going back in time and getting almost overrun by the Borg only to go back to the present to ignore an important war and spend some time saving a bunch of backwater technology hating Amish people from tight skins creepy guys and then doing this thing with a guy who thinks he’s a clone of Picard. In the arguably canon comic book prequel to the latest Star Trek movie “Star Trek: Countdown”, we learn of the future of all of our beloved “Star Trek: The Next Generation” crew which includes B4 now completely Spocked out as Data who is Captain of the Enterprise E. That’s all really awesome until you remember that because of the time travel none of the Star Trek you like ever happened.

Enterprise NX-01

Where to start with “Star Trek: Enterprise”? Prequels suck. I really don’t think they ever intended to have an older ship called Enterprise but here we have the Enterprise NX-01. I guess this avoids the lettering system that’s already established because this is a pre-Federation ship not having USS or NCC-1701 in it’s name. The guy from Quantum Leap is the Captain and the most likable members of the crew are the creepy smiley Doctor Phlox and the Captain’s dog Portos. The ship gets decommissioned in it’s shitty and premature season finale that has the aforementioned flabby Riker in it and gets Stardates wrong which is something I only know because of Captain Picard Day. The ship looks pretty cool I guess but a lot of fans were upset that basically this is a much older ship that just looks like the natural progression of the much newer shipped. This problem of course exists because it’s a prequel and prequels suck!

ISS Enterprise NX-01

The show usually sucked but among some of the cooler episodes was their venturing into the mirror universe. When this was first presented in the old “Star Trek” show that alternate Enterprise didn’t really look different but the ISS Enterprise NX-01 is a whole different kettle of fish. It’s got nice colours and stuff… it’s pretty cool. And of course it’s the mirror universe so the crew dresses slutty, which is something “Star Trek: Enterprise” loves to do!

USS Enterprise NCC-1701-J

I’ll be honest I don’t think I ever saw this episode but I guess Captain Scott Bacula Quantum Leaps to the distant future to the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-J at some point and though we don’t see the exterior of the ship we do see this schematic somewhere so… here you go. Watch it if that seems interesting to you.

Bizarro USS Enterprise NCC-1701

I really wouldn’t want to finish on a sour note so let’s talk about that new movie which was pretty cool. Since there was an alternate timeline created when a Romulan mining ship went back in time destroying the USS Kelvin (NCC-0514) that seems to have drastically changed the design of the still similarly named USS Enterprise NCC-1701. Aside from it’s obvious design changes making it much slicker looking than the one we’re all used to there are a ton of lights added throughout the interior and exterior of the ship which cause incessant lens flares. It’s crew, through magical fate and completely different circumstances, ends up being identical to what it was in the other timeline, which is convenient for audiences and box office.

So there you have it. Lots of cool ships called Enterprise, though by the new movie’s canon, the only ones you probably care about will never exist. That’s not really a positive point to leave it on but here we are. Go watch some old Star Trek. The HD transfers on those Blu-Ray sets actually look really amazing.

I obviously can’t cover everything there is to know about ships named Enterprise, so check out these great resources for more information:
Memory Alpha: The Star Trek Wiki with far more than anyone ever needed to know about Star Trek
Ships named HMS Enterprise
Ships named USS Enterprise

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