dbugg posted a link to the official site's latest "Glarkware lite" designs. This item is the NX-02 Columbia patch on a shirt.

The Columbia motto is "Audentes Fortuna Juvat". My Latin's way too rusty to translate. Can anyone else figure it out?

Latin is a funny language. A single word can have multiple meanings.
Well, all languages are like that in some ways.
I'm not an expert, so I can't be absolutely certain.
My best guess is that it means.

Audentes= The Bold or Courageous

Fortuna= Chances, Luck, or Prosperity.

Juvat= Pleased or Delighted.

In the Trekster context, this is probably best translated as:
Fortune Favors the Bold.

iuvo = to help or to assist or to aid, so yes "Fortune favors the bold." It should technically be "iuvat."

Me likee. Better than Enterprise's motto, IMHO.

That makes sense. Thanks, chancellorjake.

What's Enterprise's motto? It's not on the patch.

Don't know about Enterprise's motto, but the motto on the other ship patch, Audentes Fortuna Imperii, probably means Fortune Favors the Empire.

No, because Iuvat = Favors. To my rusty Latin, "Audentes Fortuna Imperii" makes no sense. There are three nouns and no verbs there.

Audentes = The Bold/Daring (direct object)
Fortuna = Fortune (subject)
Imperii = of the Empire

Unless they thought they were conjugating the verb "impero" which means "to command, to govern, to impose." But that would be "Audentes Fortuna Imperat" and would mean "Fortune commands the bold." Or perhaps they were trying to say "The Empire dares fortune." But that would be "Imperium Audet Fortunam." Whatever they were trying to say, it doesn't seem to work.

What about "...Fortune commands the Bold"?

As in "...better to be lucky than brave". The Empire always had a sneaky-side, a knife in the back is better than open face-to-face combat. Unlike the Klingons' sense of honor and formal duels; the MU Empire seems to reward dirty tricks and secret assassignations.

I need to think about it, it's been almost thirty-years since I seriopsly tried to think "Latin".

Nope. Like I said, there's no verb in "Audentes Fortuna Imperii." Fortune commands the bold = Audentes Fortuna Imperat.

I don't get the point of this thread. Is it to translate things into Latin?

No, if you read the first post, which is only nine posts above yours, this thread is people trying to figure out what the ship Columbia's, motto is. So, either you aren't reading the whole thread, which is a no-no, or you're being purposely obtuse and a bit snotty.

I did read the whole thread, including the title, and the thing that confused me was how small bore the thread was. TWoP threads tend to take up much larger topics than translating one phrase into English; I was trying to figure out what that topic was. If that's obvious to everyone else, then put me down as obtuse, but not purposely, and certainly not snotty.

This thread is about the ships in Star Trek. Talking about the ships can include talking about their mottos which are in Latin.



People have been trying to figure out what Columbia's motto is based on the patch in the image Cleo linked to.

I think a lot of old posts got purged recently. I know there was more in this topic when I revived it for this discussion, but it's not here now.

Anyway, the topic is ships. The pretty ones, the cool ones, etc.

For example: I think Enterprise-A is the prettiest ship Trek's ever had. Discuss.

Audentes Fortuna Juvat is a quote from Virgil (who should know his Latin) and is also used by NASA:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=12798

As for ships, I think Voyager looks like a giant squid.

Enterprise-A is the one they get at the end of Voyage home, yes? The one that started off Search for Spock as the Excalibur?

Guess I'm old-fashioned, but my faves are still the Constitution-class ships.

I've always though tthat the pre-Enterprise Earth starship in the opening sequence looked "oddly" like the original Romulan birds of prey from ST:TOS; a central hull with wing-like sponsons supporting the warp-engines. It's the one that was re-edited as bombarding the planetary target in the MU credits.

TPTB seems to have abandoned that design for the Klingon-derived Bird-of Prey from the movies, but the original "birds of prey" were Romulan. That's why it's so odd that the Romulan drone was so insectoid, rather than the "Raptor's Wing" of Vulvcan legend, and the Human-Romulan War before Kirk's time.

Personally, I think the redesigned Enterpise with the raked sponsons looked better than the Constitution-class Enterprise of ST:TOS...purely an aesthetic opinion, The raked sponsons look like they are designed to take thrust and the re-shaped pylon eliminates what looks like a overstressed-join to the main hull.

I think...if my geek memory is working, that the Enterprise-A is the design from the very first movie, and that at the end of Voyage Home they give them another one of the same model. And i think it's still just an update of the Constitution class from the TV series, that is, I think it keeps the class name.

Then the Ent-B is I think a slightly modified Excalibur class ship, we see it in Generations.

Ent-C is Ambassador class, we see it in Yesterday's Enterprise.

Ent-D is of course the TNG TV series Enterprise, Galaxy class, the one I call the grey whale. I never liked that ship's color or proportions at all.

Ent-E is Sovereign class, it goes back to the more classic look, with a white hull and more sweeping lines. We see it in the TNG movies, I think starting with First Contact.

For my money, the Constitution upgrade, or Enterprise-A is the nicest. That clean round blue deflector lens is pretty, and I think it has the best proportions, with the swept nacelle supports and the saucer size. After that, maybe the Soveriegn, the latest one.

However, I think my single favorite Trek ship is the Romulan Warbird introduced in TNG. The big green ones with the broad separated upper and lower "wing" hulls, bowed together and linked at the very tips, with the big birdlike "head" ? Very, very cool looking.

Thanks, Hugin; after TOS, I get the letters confused. Probably because I skipped all the series in the interim.

The more I think about it, I believe I can see your point about the new-and-improved Constitution class from TMP/TVH. The Excalibur/Enterprise, AIR, was pretty cool-looking.

Still, there's just something about those Constitution-class ships...guess it's cause that's what I grew up with, so that will always be the Enterprise to me.

Sorry for being unclear. I tend to use "Enterprise-A" as shorthand, when what I really mean is Constitution-refit class, from the movies.

I think it's got sleeker lines than the TOS version. The nacelles are angled back instead of sticking straight up, mostly, plus they use that movie-era nacelle design, which I just like more than the bright red spots of the TOS design.

I think it's less that you were unclear, Cleo256, than that I'm stupid. Not watching any of the series between TOS and Enterprise, I wasn't sure when/where the lettering started; I just made the guess that it was the Excalibur, not realizing that it was actually the feature-film Enterprise.

Thanks to one and all, though, for clearing this up for me.

Also, I'm a doofus. The Enterprise B isn't Excalibur class, it's Excelsior class.

Actually, I think the Enterprise A is what they get at the end of Voyage Home. The ship in ST:TMP is the same Enterprise as TOS, but refitted as Cleo suggests. That's why I get a twinge when it is destroyed in ST:WOK. It is our original friend.

True (although it was destroyed in Search for Spock), but they're the same design. You can only tell the original Enterprise from the Enterprise-A by the registry number. Or knowing what movie you're watching.

If I remember from the old Technical Manuals that they used to print; both the ST:TOS straight sponson Enterprise and the up-graded swept-sponson Enterprise used the NCC-1701 designation. The replacement Enterprise was NCC-1701(a), and it's original commissioning name was given in the Tech. Manual. It was one of a second batch of Star Fleet heavy cruisers built to the same specifications of the re-built swept-sponson class.

Which is odd since you would think that after 25-years Star Fleet would have had new ideas and technologies for the next generation of starship. Conceptually, the Enterprise and the other survivors of the 12-ship Constitution-class should have been rebuilt to match the next class of deep-space starships...not the other way around. Although there was the throw-away line about the Excelsior-class not being a sucessful design initially. And the Intrepid (Khan's ship)design was cetainly nothing special....basically short and dumpy.

OOOOh, spank me! You are right about the design though, Cleo. I have to tell you that I always wished that the had skipped the "upgrade" story, and dealt with the new looking Enterprise as they did with the new looking Klingons - it just was.

ETA:

Which is odd since you would think that after 25-years Star Fleet would have had new ideas and technologies for the next generation of starship.

TGC, I have never figured out why they would upgrade as opposed to desigining a new ship. of course there is the B-52 . . .

TGC, it's never been made clear if the refit-Constitutions were all new or all refitted or both. Just a thought.

One of the Tech. Manuals listed both the refitted Constitution-class and the additional new construction. There were originally 12 Constitutions built...some were lost or too damaged to refit, and then there wre maybe 20 or 25 additional swept sponson starships patterned on the refitted Constitutions.

One of the volumes referred to the refitted vessels as Enterprise II-class, since it was the first one so-rebuilt. That would be in-keeping with Royal Navy tradition that once a ship was radically reconstructed as part of a series, it became the name-ship of that new class. The US Navy doesn't usually follow that system....ships remain in their class regardless of refit. Although the USN does change their pennant-number when they change designation such as frigate to cruiser or gun-cruiser to missle-cruiser.
The early writers of the Tech Manuals tried to flesh-out the ships' regestries of the various classes and added several hundred vessels tp Star Fleet over the various editions. Technically by early canon, Star Fleet only had the original 12 starships...and it was implied that they were specially purpose-built as uniquely Star Fleet vessels; 11 with human crews and one with a Vulcan crew. After-all, Star Fleet was not originally supposed to be a military operation, but more a diplomatic and exploration arm of the Federation. That presupposes that the individual member planetary governments had their own fleets. But the writers kept making Star Fleet and the Federation larger and larger; reducing the member-planets to defenseless and ineffectual independent players. In a way ironically mirroring how the High Command took over as the dominant and eventaully only governing body on Vulcan.

Star Trek Canon has always suffered from too many people playing in the sandbox. Not only is continuity a problems, but there's disagreement over the role and scope of both Star Fleet and the Federation. The early stuff implies that it's a handful of advanced worlds...like a interplaneray NATO. Then somehow it morphed into an all-inclusive United Nations with hundreds of member and factions. Each newly-written colony or populated world had "millions" of inhabitants to "save"...and so it grew like a mold in gelatine.

ST:TOS makes much more internal logic when viewed not as a huge UN-type organization...but more the Atlantic Charter Allies of WW2. Most of the funding and muscle is from Earth, it's colony worlds, and the Vulcan homeworld; with a few junior partners like Andor; ....basically Captain CQ' "federation". Though even in ST:TOS the Andorians are portrayed more as "allies of" than as "partners in" the Federation. I remember one early explanation of the Federation crest having three prominant stars in it's center as representing Sol-system (Earth), Alpha Centari (the human Centari colonies), and Vulcan's Epsilon Eranadii(sp?). Later this morphed into Earth, Vulcan and Andor.

ST Canon's worse than comic-book canon; it requires Talmudic study and great skepticism.

Very good points, TGC. Just a note: The three large stars didn't appear on the UFP seal until TNG, and I even saw a theory that they referred to Earth, Vulcan, and the Klingons. This was early on, before it was clear the Klingons weren't in the Federation. Franz Joseph (see below) gives five founding members, Earth, Alpha Centauri, Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar (he uses odd names for the last three, but his intent is clear). He's clearly trying to draw a parallel with the UN, though. ENT has all but Alpha Centauri, and maybe others.

Just to give names to all this: Franz Joseph's "Star Fleet Technical Manual" is the one that listed hundreds of ships in each class. The book was actually considered semi-canon at one time (see here, for example), but no longer is. For an article about the "original" ships, see here.

Joseph refered only to the first "run" of "Class I Heavy Cruiser" as "Constitution Class." Another run had a few dozen ships, and a third had hundreds. He also had multiple classes and hundreds of ships of other design and purpose.

The second "official" Technical Manual was "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise," by Shane Johnson. Again, this is not canon. Johnson refers to the Constitution-refits as "Enterprise Class," and states that the 1701-A was a newly built refit-class, named "U.S.S. Ti-ho." I have seen similar sources referring to "Enterprise II Class" and the "Yorktown" as 1701-A's original name (from a line in ST IV, I'd guess), but I can't remember what they are. Also, see this article on ST IV ships.

Finally, yet another article from that site, it seems that there's canonical evidence both for saying that the Constitution-refits are called "Constitution" (from ST VI) or "Enterprise" (from ST II). The evidence for the latter is not 100% convincing- it may refer to the ship, in my opinion, and the word "class" may refer to a model of simulator, not ship. Read there and you'll see what I mean.

Khan's ship was Reliant (not to be confused, although it often is, especially by me, with Defiant). I don't remember it's class, but I don't think it's Intrepid because Voyager is Intrepid class, and I've never known them to re-use class names in Trek.
That's a pretty bold interpretation of the line. As they fly toward their ship at the end, someone on Kirk's crew speculates that maybe they'll get the Yorktown. Then they see a ship named Enterprise. It's possible that they did get the Yorktown and it was renamed, but it's just as possible that they got another ship entirely. The dialogue certainly doesn't make that clear.

Reliant was Miranda class. I've always had a soft spot for that one, because...well, because it was Khan's ship and ST: II was great, but also, the ship always seemed...plucky to me. Terrier-like. Not sweepingly beautiful or majestic or all that powerful, but willing to give it a scrappy shot.

I was disappointed that the Nebula class, which is the big TNG "underslung nacelle" type, was, IMO, even uglier than the Galaxy class, and lacked the charm of the Miranda as well.

Interesting, because in TOS, the Intrepid is a Vulcan ship. It's the one destroyed in The Immunity Syndrome.

Guess by Voyager, the Vulcans and humans were exchanging quite a few things.

The Constitution-class USS Intrepid, which was eaten by a giant space amoeba(!), was the first all-Vulcan-crewed Starfleet ship.

The Intrepid-class USS Voyager, first flown a century later, was, IIRC, intended as a long-range scouting craft, to be used in expanding the edges of known space. (I guess Janeway just didn't know when to quit...)

One thing that the Empress Sato will not have is a defenseless planet to bombard. One thing that I do trust humans to be, is paranoid and suspicious.

One problem they've always had in recent years with ST is that much of "our" technology has leap-frogged what they thought would take centuries. Our computers and medica;l scanning capabilities are already approaching ST:TOS' in many fields. The Pentagon's DARPA is already field testing "charged" hull plating for the Army's next generation of tanks and APC. And some of the air-borne laser-weapons systems for "Star Wars" could be mounted in a ship's hull if we had the engine technology for Impulse and Warp-drive.

Sadly, if either the MU-universe or the ST-universe opened a passage to "our" timeline in 100-years or 200-years...the shoes could be on either feet. In some regards our technology would be far advanced; yet if we can't find the engine technology we'll still be Earth-bound. In 30-35 years, our computer and telecommunications technology will approaching the "Singularity", yet we will be lucky if Virgin Galactic can even offer an orbital destination other than a tiny space-platform for zero-G sex.

There's always been a time- and technology-lag between when you can do something, and do it economically-enough to actually do something useful with it. You have to have the ability, need and the finacial means. NASA never did build it's vast fleet of shuutles as they orginally invisioned, capable of $20-million round-trips to orbit...too expensive and no economic need. Nor did they build the amazing 1950's winged-rocket scheme of VonBraun's that the McCally paintings illustrate at the Air & Space Museum.

Some day, a ST-inspired researcher will in the answer to inertial-damping/gravity maniplulation. It would not even surprise me if they find a warp/jump/hyper-drive theory long before they can build the Impulse drives to get them into robit to build the FTL starships. "I have faith of the...." *ducks*

Once you can make large hulls fly from Earth's surface to orbit and back, then we'll already have the other technologies to build our first generation Star Fleet vessels. (You think they will be able to call it anything else?)

The first orbit-capable warship-Enterprise will be a cross between surface-to-orbit feighter and the current Amphib assault ship USS Wasp capable of planetary assault-landings with aircraft and landing craft.

... was also eaten by a giant space amoeba.

Wasn't the original designation for 1701-A as "Ti-Ho" also in the TNG Technical Manual? Does anyone know what that ship name means? Most Constitution-class ships are named after wet navy capital ships, but I don't know any with that name.

There's plenty of evidence that there is no Enterprise-class. ST6:TUC is the most conclusive, where Scotty looks at blueprints for 1701-A that are clearly labeled Constitution-class. "Mr. Scott's Guide" (which I once had, but sadly lost) was a very nice, detailed, thorough discussion of the operation of the ship, and called it Enterprise class, but this is not canon. The TNG Technical Manual, which is supposedly canon except where it conflicts with film, says 1701-A is Constitution class as well.

It's not canon, but wouldn't tradition dictate that the NX-01 and NX-02 Columbia would be Enterprise-class?

I like it when groups of ships follow naming conventions. Like how DS9's Runabouts are all named for rivers on Earth. Or the way the NX series seems to named after Space Shuttles. Enterprise was the first shuttle built and Columbia was the second. Of course, Enterprise was named after TOS, so the meta-ness of that gets a little dizzying.

You'd think. But somewhere in the first or second season (I want to say it was "Fortunate Son") Archer refers to it as "NX-class" which doesn't make any sense at all, but he said it, so I guess we're stuck with it.

And, Cleo, all space shuttles are named after sailing ships.

At the end of ST IV, I think they mention Excelsior, not Yorktown. Yorktown was mentioned much earlier in the movie as a ship disabled by the probe.

grammarbitch, the TOS Intrepid wasn't a Vulcan ship, but a Starfleet ship manned by them. And Irish Wolf, I remember once reading that Voyager was built to solve the problem of warp speed that came up in the last season of TNG. I don't know if that ever made it onto the screen, though. Certainly the Defiant was built specifically to face the Borg, even if it only seems to have done that once.

Sheap, I don't think the question of what 1701-A started as is dealt with in the TNG Manual.

Actually, since the NX is an "experimental" ship, it sort of makes sense that it doesn't have a "class name." (Actually, it might not even have a name at all, but just be "the NX-01.")

It seems a little weird to have an "NX-02" as well. You'd think that if the design is still in the "experimental" stage, you wouldn't rush to make a second one, and if it's *not* still experimental, Columbia would be NCC-0001 or something, the first of the "Columbia" class.

Just as an aside, if you really want to get in-depth into the ship classes and lineages and all that kind of stuff, the best site I've found for it is www.ditl.org. It's created as if it were a Trek-era technical library, with TONS of info, but also a lot of good analysis, series guides, stuff like that. The site author also resolves a lot of the contradictory stuff that shows in the different tech manuals.

Back to ship aesthetics, I'll always have a soft spot for TOS Enterprise, the starship that started my fascination with starships. I was pleased to no end at how great the Defiant came off in the M.U. 2-parter.

I liked the Movie Enterprise's lines and details, but I could never get over the fact that it was too drastically different to reasonably be a refit.

After initially thinking that the main hull looked too bloated, I slowly became infatuated with Excelsior's design. It was my favorite for a long time, but once I got some detailed toys and could really study it, I decided it was too flimsy.

I was put off by Enterprise-D's curves. Yeah, too curvy. And the nacelles are way too short. And why is the saucer wider than it is long?

Enterprise-C was supposed to be the morph midway point between Ent-B/Excelsior and Ent-D, but it was just plain butt-ugly.

I like Ent-E. It's lines and proportions are more believable to me.

Voyager looks too phallic. And those nacelles are way way way too small.

Defiant initially seemed cool to me, mostly for its specs, but now I just find it dull and featureless.

Some of my favorite Federation starship designs are the one-offs from Voyager: Prometheus, Equinox, (fake) Dauntless and even the Delta Flyer. These designs managed to take the familiar Starfleet elements and combine them in interesting ways.

Aw, lets's just try to make a top 5:

1. Prometheus
2. TOS Enterprise
3. ENT-A
4. ENT-E
5. Delta Flyer

I have a love/hate thing with the Prometheus. On the one hand, I like it's angular design, looks more militaristic, which suits it's mission profile. But I despise the "multi-vector assault mode" thing. Personally, I'd sooner build three distinct ships that could datalink to coordinate their attack patterns. One single ship would be a more efficient hull than a three-part ship.



On some angles, the Ent-D looks gorgeous, a swan-like ship, but most of them, she looks front-heavy, unbalanced. I still like her, but I understand the criticism.



I agree. Again, the ship looks unbalanced.

Probably my favourite TNG-era Starfleet design is the Nova class, the USS Equinox. The Akira and Steamrunner are also nice designs.

I remember a (pretty valid) complaint when ENT began that the NX-01 was too flat and lacked dimension when viewed head-on or from the side. This made me realize that one of the reasons that NCC-1701 worked so well on screen is that it looks great in profile and 90% of the time it was viewed at this angle on TOS.

So even though all the long pylons would seem silly from a functional viewpoint, they are critical to the aesthetics of a Starfleet ship. And supposedly, necessary to keep the strong warp fields far from the human occupants. Conversely, even though a compact ship like the Defiant is the most functionally efficient, it is pretty dull onscreen, and it stretches credibility given what we supposedly know about warp nacelles.

Another critical element of Starfleet design is the main deflector. Defiant's deflector is the one detail that allows it to pass as a Starfleet vessel. Reliant's complete lack of a deflector spoils an otherwise interesting design. 1701-A's big blue round deflector is one of its most beautiful features. But 1701-E's deflector should be bigger and lower. Right now it looks like all it would do is fry the captain's yacht.

Regarding Prometheus' "MVAM": In the "ST: Armada" PC games it was usually beneficial to separate your saucers in battle, just to give you more firing platforms. But, yes, you could do the same thing by building more, smaller ships. Three Defiants could easily kick Prometheus' ass. Raising this issue also points out the glaring omission of "strike fighters" in Starfleet. If you're building a fleet of warships (to fight the Borg or Dominion or whatever), where are your "aircraft carriers"?

The Akira class was the aircraft carrier...Akira has fly-through hangar bays, you can see them really well in some of the concept art for the ship.

The lack of "aircraft carriers" and pretty much any dedicated warships has allways been a weakness is the ST universe. Roddenberry didn't want Starfleet to be the military branch of the UFP. He wanted the Enterprise to go around exploring and being able to do whatever he wanted it to do. Which is fine but since roughly half of all episodes have Kirk and the gang killing various aliens it always bugged me that SF wasn't clearcut military. Wouldn't there be some sort of Geneva Convention in outer space with rules about who is a soldier and who isn't?
That is why I always like the way that the Starfire books and games dealt with the separate issues of exploration and the military aspect that a multisystem govt. would require. There is a fleet of lightly armed exploration ships with kick ass sensors and things like that. There is a separate fleet of "gunslingers" to cover the exploration fleets ass and other various military jobs.

Wouldn't this thread be better off moved to the new Star Trek subforum?

She was also supposed to mount 15 torpedo launchers. I like the Akira, but the stated abilities of the ship seem a little exaggerated, especially given her moderate size.



I always rationalized the lack of carriers as that fighters were not built in large numbers, and only used for station defense until the Dominion War, when they suddenly had to be put into offensive operations. Also, fighters are not optimal designs in the Trekverse and were only used by the Federation because they were so quick to build. Why build carriers if fighters weren't considered frontline combatants and they were individually warp-capable anyway?

My biggest beef was the lack of proper fleet command ships and flag bridges. So we had Sisko trying to command a fleet (?!?) from the bridge of the Defiant. That's one thing B5 did well in "Shadow Dancing", Sheridan was seperated from ship command and only responsible for fleet operations.

The only times I can remember anything that you could call a fleet ever being used (outside of DS9) was when the Borg attacked the Fed and when Picard had to shut down the Romulan/Klingon border. So with that half ass of a navy I guess ad-hoc is acceptable so why bother with all those REMF's or flag staff?
I agree that you could justify not having an aircraft carrier type of ship but once again outside of DS9 SF does not have any warships just well armed science ships. In TOS and TNG in pretty much every single fight the Enterprise was 2 or 3 times bigger than the Romulan, Klingon, or whatever ship they were fighting. All those sensors and medical equipment take up a lot of space.

Still, one could probably have made an ad hoc flag bridge using an astrometrics lab. You've got a large holographic display to show the fleet, set a few stations to communications and other stations you'd need and you've got a half-decent flag bridge. Be better than having Fleet and ship operations stumbling over each other on one bridge, and tasking an officer with commanding his ship and a fleet.

Didn't TNG have a fleet scene in "UNIFICATION".. They didn't show the fleet just the symbols on the view screen.