Why Starship Registries Don't Make Sense! (Rant)

[@M1kec2000]

CVN means aircaft carrier, nuclear-powered. The CV part of the designation is what distinguishes the vessel as an aircraft carrier, and the N designates that the carrier is nuclear powered. That N designator is pretty universal across the US Navy, such as CVN, SSN, SSBN, CGN, etc. Obviously, if the designation lacks the N, then the vessel is non-nuclear powered.

[@thomaszinser8714]

Although, interestingly, the N didn't always mean nuclear-powered. The first carrier USS Enterprise, CV-6, was briefly redesignated CV(N)-6 near the end of WW2 to indicate that she was a ship capable of engaging in night-time operations.

[@Deepkeel]

So... would that mean that fusion powered vessels would be --VF?

[@thomaszinser8714]

@@Deepkeel If there's ever a fusion-powered vessel, the USN will decide what suffix would be suitable. Pretty sure -F is available, though, so they'd likely go for that since it's straightforward, leading to CVF, SSF, CGF, DDF or whatever else. If it's small enough, maybe we can get FFFG.

[@M1kec2000]

@@thomaszinser8714 Very true, but i didn't want to bring it up since venom was speaking about the modern navy. Ship designations even in our time have become complicated; CV-6 Enterprise i think, in addtion to being a night-time capable carrier, was also designated as an attack carrier, carrying the designation of CVA. I know that was a definite fact for her successor, CVN-65 Enterprise, as she was briefly CVAN-65. thankfully someone in the Navy thought that maybe they went too far down the rabbit hole with all of these designations and applied the KISS concept to it. As far as the Trek registries. . . .ugh, I bet every fan has a take on it. Ever since I was younger, NCC itself meant three different things - Naval Construction Contract, Naval Construction Code or Naval Contact Code (Ha! and the Federation says they're not a military). For the majority of time following Trek, I went with the Naval Contact Code as a means on contact individual ships as that made the most sense, since, as obviously stated, the numbers are all over the place and make no as far as a sequential construction group.

[@M1kec2000]

@@Deepkeel We'll find out when the Navy gets around to building a nuclear fusion powered carrier. Although, and this is just my take away, I would imagine it would still fall under just the CVN category, simply because it's still a nuclear powered ship, I don't see a reason to distinguish between nuclear fusion or nuclear fission powered. But then again, it's the Navy, so who knows. Just look at the history of cruiser designations, which oddly enough, spawned the carrier designation we all know today.

[@FandersonUfo]

the level of series continuity you would like was barely considered in 1966

[@RobertHaavind]

The NCC number is only important to petty bureaucrat in starfleet some numbers were reused in the show I can not think of what they are off the top of my head. Realistically you would have to have millions of ships to cover and protect the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across and 1,000 light-years thick. But understand how much volume that is.

[@FandersonUfo]

@@RobertHaavind - I think back in the 1960s Rodenberry intended us to think that Star Fleet in all it's existence had only launched 1700 ships before Enterprise was given the reg number NCC-1701 - when I watched the show back then the idea of a million ship fleet would be considered far fetched

[@olaminabryan8026]

Only consistency between episodes in the 60s was captain kirk and crew the enterprise phasers and shields. This is too far😂

[@keirfarnum6811]

True. They just thought it was a show that would run for a few years and be forgotten. They never dreamed Star Trek would become a phenomenon.

[@Ioreck]

@@RobertHaavind Well the Federation as it exists in the late 24th Century is "only" 8,000 light years (according to Picard in First Contact, whether that's cubic or simply length we don't know) but that's still a truly massive volume of space to cover.

[@darthquigley]

Behind the scenes, this numbering scheme comes from Gene Roddenberry being a pilot and not a sailor. At the time, most aircraft in the USA had registration numbers starting with NC- and then a bunch of digits. He just added another C to make it more futuristic. NX is also a real registration prefix used for experimental planes.

[@venomgeekmedia9886]

@@darthquigley yes NX strongly corresponds to Fx which was for prototypes

[@NemoGraynameA8]

Also the numbers make sense, too. It's "design number" "serial number" So 1701 is "17th design, 1st production" with 00 representating the prototype. Im not sure why TNG abandoned that scheme. Although I've noticed Star Trek Online brought it back, with their prototype ships having NX and always ending in 00 unless its a significant registration number, which in case it's inherited from the previous ship to hold the name and registration with a -Letter after.

[@James-rm7sr]

@@NemoGraynameA8 Exactly to me the system makes very much sense to me. The Federation is unlikely to have millions of ships or thousands of ships. As such ships would take a certain amount of time to build.

[@moffjendob6796]

The Soviets would use random numbers on ships, submarines, and projects and basically hide the progression and numbers deployed. Perhaps some old habits die hard for Admiral Chekov. :P

[@Jay-ln1co]

I'm glad in real life we don't have these problems. *puts on his M1, shoulders his M1, and gets in his M1 to cruise down the M1*

[@mikeward1701]

Registry numbers work fine; • When you have access to the Federation/Starfleet database which contains the ships class, specifications, capabilities, etc. you can use the registry to quickly retrieve the ship information. • When you’re a foreign power who does not have access to the database, it gives you an identifier for that ship but doesn’t give away its secrets. As we are not privy to exactly how the Federation assigns registries, we have to do some deductions based on observable patterns; • Registries are likely assigned in batches, in the same way construction orders are generally made for several ships at a time. • Registry blocks can be assigned to specific ship classes. • Ship names with providence get to inherit a legacy registry. The problem with chronological ship numbering is it allows a foreign power to calculate the potential size of a navy, see the German tank problem. Gaps in numbers, arbitrary/symbolic assignments, and reservations for future/classified use all help mitigate this.

[@GeofftheIronwolf]

CVN stands for CV= Carrier, N= Nuclear. 78 stands for the 78th carrier built for the US Navy. Hope that helps.

[@blockmasterscott]

I had no clue that’s what the number means. Thanks!

[@caktitaqiwicaksana6018]

The abbreviation "CV" came from Cruiser aViation apparently.

[@flyingfiddler90q]

​@@caktitaqiwicaksana6018 And CA was already used for seaplane tenders "Cruiser, Aviation", so for ships carrying wheeled aircraft they just used the next letter "Cruiser, aViation"...

[@johannbezuidenhout2976]

@@caktitaqiwicaksana6018 A lot of early US carriers used repurposed Cruiser hulls (cancelled builds due to treaty changes) with a aircraft deck slapped on.

[@dajonaneisnoah8714]

I have an idea. What if the numbers are purposefully jumbled up to prevent foreign services from being able to easily track how many ships Starfleet has, and of what class? The Federation knows how many ships it has, and has databases of which ships are part of which classes. Thus, for Starfleet, any given NCC- number will immediately pull up a ship's record, but a foreign power trying to guess how many ships of which class the Federation has would be unable to use the NCC- system as a guide. This would also explain the Franklin, NX-326, a registry which makes no sense given the Enterprise (a later ship designated NX-01), but if they were trying to confuse the Romulans as to the size and disposition of the United Earth fleet...well, now they have no way to tell if any given NX-class ship is of the "Enterprise class," Freedom Class, etc.. Trying to track the number of ships via registries becomes an exercise in frustration and futility. Meanwhile, Earth knows what all those ships registries mean. Instead of "This makes no sense," it may be "This is confusing by design."

[@nigelbotterill1936]

That is why army regiment numbering often aren't sequential. So when the enemy see the 32 and 43 infantry regiment's they're like oh crap they mush have loads of regiments.

[@frankowalker4662]

I like that idea.

[@youdontneedtoseehisidentif4939]

You may be interested in reading about the "German tank problem" ;)

[@farshnuke]

This is a good idea. I hope venom sees it and incorporates it.

[@DerekLee688]

My guess/headcanon on the meaning of the NCC numbers is to tell what shipyard built them. Ships built in the Sol system would be the 1000 series, a Vulcan/Andorian yard would build like a NCC 3000 series ship, and maybe a new generation of shipyard would build a bigger number. Say the shipyards big and advanced enough to build Galaxy, Sovereign, or Odyssey class ships put out five digit NCC numbers.

[@lunatickoala]

During the TV run of TNG, ships in the "present" had 7xxxx registry numbers while older ships had registry numbers below 70000. It was consistent with registry numbers being incremental. While having one universal register for all Starfleet ships doesn't provide much information, it still serves the function of giving each ship a unique identifier. The registry number was based on aircraft tail codes which don't care about aircraft type, just that aircraft are uniquely identifiable. The registry number in TNG does indicate the approximate age of the ship. Jenolen (NCC-2010) would have been built shortly after Excelsior which makes sense for when Scotty would have gotten on board. The Excelsior-class Charleston (NCC-42285) had a registry that indicated that it was built in the decades between TOS and TNG. The problems really only began after TNG ended its broadcast run. First Contact introduced the Akira-class but gave them 6xxxx registry numbers. While it's possible they're older than the Galaxy-class, that'd mean that Starfleet still didn't have a modern fleet around Earth to fight the Borg and other threats. Plus the design isn't in line with other pre-TNG ships and looks closer to the Sovereign-class. It's more likely that the numbers were simply out of sequence. DS9 and VOY added more out of sequence ships such as when a production error giving the very new Prometheus an old registry number (NX-59650). PIC then threw the sequence out the airlock with ships like Syracuse (NCC-17744) and Excelsior II (NCC-42037). Cue XKCD: "there are N Starfleet registry systems, we need a universal one" -> "there are now N+1 Starfleet registry systems".

[@DarinRWagner]

I agree with the registry numbers no making sense... BUT "naval construction contract" was never in-continuity. It was used in a Star Trek game, iirc.

[@venomgeekmedia9886]

@@DarinRWagner so do we have any idea what that means?

[@DarinRWagner]

@@venomgeekmedia9886 No... presumably it has something to do with the ship being a "starship." I've surmised that the "CC" part of "NCC" could signify that the vessel is capable of traveling at multiples of the speed of light... since "C" is the speed of light in some formulas (most notably E=MC squared). But that's just Darin's conjectural head canon.

[@Carwyn.Morris]

​@@DarinRWagner​@venomgeekmedia9886 yes I always presumed it was more for the engine type used in the vessels as there are ships in the federation that don't have NCC numbers, such as the Fortunate which was ECS-2031or the SS Xhosa doesn't have an NCC number.

[@seanmalloy7249]

6:10 -- "all seventeen-something" -- Well, except for the USS Constellation, NCC-1017, destroyed in the episode "Doomsday Weapon", which had that number because of the limitation in what Desilu had to work with -- an AMT USS Enterprise model, and they only had '0117' as available numbers from the decal sheet for the hull number.

[@Revkor]

which if they just did 1710 issue soilved

[@seanmalloy7249]

@@Revkor I believe that they wanted to convey the Constellation as being a noticeably older vessel than the Enterprise, but still being Constitution class. Which sort of tosses the hull-numbering into a cocked hat, given that the class ship, the Constitution, was NCC-1700.

[@XennialTV]

@@seanmalloy7249 Has it ever been proven or stated that the first ship of a class is named after the class?

[@blazewardog]

​@XennialTV In the US Navy (and I think others), it's actually the opposite - the class is named after the first ship of the class. The whole class thing is shorthand for "similar to ship X". Ex The Enterprise-E is a Sovereign like ship. Before ships were made factory-wise it made a bit more sense as ships weren't really identical and navies ordered them like "I want 5 80 gun three deck ships that have a long range" rather than "here are some blueprints, I want 5".

[@RoadWarrior77]

The funny thing is that while he was saying all Constellation class ships were 17 something, he was zooming in on a Constellation class ship whose number was 1672.

[@splicetape9435]

I personally have gone with for the 23rd century the Constitution class was the 17th major class constructed. The 24th century has the numbers in some random pattern to make the fleet appear larger to hide the true numbers and make a potential enemy second guess attacking an Oberth if she potentially has 75,000 bigger sisters to protect her.

[@NemoGraynameA8]

The first two digits are the design number, not the constructed number. So USS Enterprise NCC-1701 is the first production of the 17th design Star Fleet has made for cruisers.

[@ServantOfOdin]

The thing is, such a number also exist. I recall one of the newer books differentiating between 3 different numbers: -The NCC-number, which basically just is there to give a hull a unique number (can be reshuffled, like when a ship distinguishes itself, name and number get reused but with a letter-suffix) -The S/N-number, which is what you could call a serial number that gives all the vital data (class, type, model, running number within its class); but only used in official documents because Star Trek computers are smart enough to add these things on their own. -The Prefix-code, which is the backdoor that Kirk & Spock used to hack into the Reliant. All three numbers are different, no number from one ship reappears in the other number of that ship. I.e. the 1701 would ONLY be the NCC, but not appear in the S/N-# or the Prefix-code. Again, I don't remember where I read that, it was not an old 60s or FASA book, it had the Nova and Akira depicted in it as schematics.

[@reze0n]

Part of the 24th centuries registry woes could be attributed to small craft like Runabouts having registry numbers, causing them to balloon upwards very rapidly. The numbers jumping around with classes can be partly explained with some ships being mothballed and then recommissioned later with new numbers.

[@MrEricmopar]

Serial numbers can also indicate which yard it was built in

[@masterskywalker7141]

In my Timeline NCC numbers are very very strict to how they're applied. For some classes like Federation, Shangri-La, or Hornet/Wasp for 23rd century, you'd have NCC-2500, NCC-2100, etc. I also have many numbers from Canon changed like the Excelsior II, Edison, and Sagan classes. The In-universe explanation is Starfleet wanted to begin mass production by the 2310s and skip blocks because others might use varying prefixes like NAR, NCIA, NI, or something else. For 24th century ships it is relatively simple, first 2 numbers are the year, and last 3 are the hull number for that year. For 25th century ships and going past the 31st century beginning in 2400 you'd have the added 6 digit which marks the 1st century using 6 digit registries. I really don't care a darn for what Star Trek has to say about registries and On-screen confirmation because then different writers, producers just screw it up. That's my way of doing it. What is that Starship lineage thing at 11:22?

[@X16Y22]

I was four years in the German Navy and always believed CVN stands for Carrier Vessel Nuclear, but just looked it up and apparently the 'c' stands for Cruiser. Fascinating!

[@thomaszinser8714]

It's complicated. CV isn't an acronym, to be clear, but rather a designation, going back to the 1920s. The original idea was that the 'baseline' of some type of ship would be a single letter repeated. So, a DD is a Destroyer, a BB is a battleship, and yes, a CC would be a cruiser (specifically, a battlecruiser, with light and heavy cruisers being CL and CA respectively). CV is thus, yes, indicating that carriers were seen as part of the general cruiser family of the time (which also makes sense given the intended role of carriers was essentially purely scouting for the fleet at this point), but the C doesn't per se stand for cruiser either.

[@SergeantC2]

As I understand it, CV originally stood for Cruiser, Voler (Voler being the French word for aviation), hence, essentially, Aviation Cruiser. The N denotes Nuclear power.

[@AT2Productions]

The "C" is interchangeable between Cruiser and Carrier, it depends on the hull purpose and rest of the designator. The "V" in CVN in the US Navy stands for "heavier than air craft." The current breakdown would be that CVN breaks down to Carrier, Heavier-than-air craft, Nuclear-powered. The conventionally powered supercarriers (Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes) at the time of their decommissioning were CV. Prior to that they had CVA and CVS designations, the A and S representing attack and submarine warfare respectively.

[@lynngreen7978]

My dad was on Kittyhawk, and taught me that it was Carrier as well. Another commenter noted the first Carriers were modified Cruisers

[@AT2Productions]

@@lynngreen7978 I was part of the last full crew of CV-63 before I came back to the states in 2008. And yes, historically aircraft carriers started out as conversions, mostly from cruiser hulls. Thank you Washington and London Naval Treaties. But as purpose designed aircraft carriers became a thing, the "C" to begin the designation still made sense, so it stuck.

[@LesterPanic]

It always occured to me that writing out the letters NCC was technically redendant, since they're *all* NCC outside of a few experimentals. I wonder if it's a tradition that started after some intern took things too literally. Like, I told you to write my name on a cake, and they wrote "My Name" on the cake sort of thing.

[@sailingmaster]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I seem to remember the old Franz Joseph Star Trek Technical Manual saying somewhere that NCC stood for Naval Construction Contract. I dunno.

[@hunterpdx7061]

You aren't misremembering. I was going to say the same thing.

[@blockmasterscott]

I was thinking this too!

[@GlenDevan1970]

Well, he says that in 1:53

[@blockmasterscott]

@@GlenDevan1970 Holy Smokes, I missed that, thanks for the info! 👍

[@ycplum7062]

Yep. And I think it is stupid to use the contract number as a registry number.

[@kyrozudesoya1829]

If I was going to make up a space fleet I'd do it like this: Ship name here, then SRN ##-##-#####. The first number would indicate what order it had been constructed in its class. The second would indicate the shipyards where it had been built. Then the last would be the actual reference number to find the ship in the database and find basic information about it; it's class, it's mission, it's projected flight plan, etc. As I understand it "star date" doesn't really mean anything either. They just made it sound futuristic for the show. The audience ends up putting more thought into it than the writers did, though sometimes that's a good thing. Also Happy New Year! Listening to this was entertaining.

[@CaptShriver]

Is a good rant and it needs to be discussed. It's not discussed enough. Thank you for speaking out about it. I mean that. Sincerely, been watching your stuff for like 4 years now you rock

[@Blackened30]

As nice as internal consistency with hull classification symbols would be, that's asking a lot for a tv show created during a time where realism and internal consistency weren't things. There's no consistency between classes either, names like cruiser and battlecruiser and the generic "starship" are just thrown out and I'm sure the writers had no idea what these designations mean. Its all about what sounds cool. Fans and later content like Starfleet Battles have tried to make sense of this mishmash, but I wish anyone good luck with that because its all trying to create order out of chaos. If Star Trek were created today in the Babylon 5 or Space: Above and Beyond mold it would have more of the consistency you'd like.

[@scottarthurjr.1818]

CVN refers to three separate parts of the design scheme for the US Navy. C refers to the hull shape being a "Cruiser" or Fast (28+ Knot) ship. The V (V was selected because it looked like the bottom end of a downward pointing arrow) refers to the air group being "Heavier Than Air". The early days of the sea power debate saw the air plane as a poor option compared to lighter than air blimps. So, a surface sea tending ship had to be the "At sea base" for these aircraft. And. the easy one is a capital N refers to nuclear powered. The first use of the letter (n) in parentheses was a suffix to indicate that the ship was capable of night action / fighting. As the war continued, and night action was a requirement the (n) suffix was eventually dropped, and all the fleet carries were listed as CV (fleet) or CVE (escort). Other letters were added in the late 40's to early 60's to differentiate sub-categories; but after CVN-65 Enterprise was launched, even these were dropped and the modern system we use today was created.

[@nekophht]

Amusingly, you miss the CVL that sits between the CVE and CV. The Independence-class and Saipan-class are sad.

[@DavidVincent-f5l]

The factory dockyards could also have a numbered designation. So, ah, nevermind.

[@GodPikachu]

with regards to the prefix "NCC", if you instead interpret it as meaning "Naval Contract Commission", this means that the number that follows is simply one automatically allocated as being "available" in the naval registry. In a similar vein, civilian ships that have been surplused/struck from the starfleet registry, for example the USS Raven (NAR- 32450) are allocated the NAR prefix, possibly meaning "Naval Auxilliary Register" or "Naval Authority Register", identifying these ships as being registered within the UFP, but not affiliated with the Federation starfleet.

[@Lilfarmrboy]

I think the numbers (at least when it comes to ST Picard, Sovereign, & Ambassador classes) are done in the same way modern day US railroads number their locomotives. It's routine for the RR's to group the same class of locomotives in a concurrent number scheme. When a locomotive goes in for a rebuild some 15 to 20 years later they are often re-numbered to a different number. Theres usually a block of numbers that are reserved for all locomotives that are rebuilt to the new standards and those numbers are usually concurrent with one another.

[@Ty-yt3lj]

Not even for a rebuild, the Great Western Railway renumbered the entire 48xx class to make room for a few experimental rebuilds of 28xx’s that went nowhere

[@DouglasHarveMarose]

Honestly messy model number and registry number systems are pretty true to reality, with most model and production numbers being a combination of production line and prototype numbering from the manufacture . Also numbering and naming systems change over the course of time, with older model and registry numbers being grandfathered in often times. I'm not saying you don't have a point, but real military's also have the same issues.

[@barrybend7189]

M1 comes to mind during the inter war era.

[@alderwolf7687]

A big problem with Star Trek is how it bends over backwards to justify things done in the original series that were done for no real reason at all other than reflecting things people would recognize and because it seemed right at the time. Lazy writers went along with it without question and those who tried to bring common sense were destroyed by the Star Trek zealot puritans who abhor change. Ship design is one of the biggest victims of this.

[@StarshipEternity]

One thing I've been doing is basically see what the prototype ship is identified with, keep my own ship close to the number or within the range of ship classes, and vomit a number that sounds cool. It may not make sense but I kinda like to keep certain numbers within certain eras. Like I don't expect an NCC-9 billion in the ENT era so keeping around 1000 or below makes more sense to me.

[@Anarchist86ed]

When my friend wrote her science fiction universe, she addressed this. D.S.E.V. Meant: Deep Space Exploration Vessel. The number after would mean which number it was built. For example: D.S.E.V. 01 meaning it was the first ship built. Deep Space Exploration Vessel 01, or 02, 03 and so on. Most ships don't have an actual name, just their designation and number built. Only ships on unattached use would be given names. Such as the D.S.E.V. James Cook, which would not be using a construction number as it's more of a personal use ship, not part of an organization. The ships aren't given a class, they're just designated for their use although they could look different. D.S.C.T. would be: Deep Space Colonial Transport. Or: A.C.V. would be Active Combat Vessel which means a ship of war that's actively engaging in military use. D.T.V. would be Diplomatic Transport Vessel which is what political figures would travel on.

[@katherineberger6329]

"N" is the national prefix for the Federation. The Romulans and the Klingons using "NCC" contact codes would be the sci-fi equivalent of using a false flag. "CC" designates a ship as an active commissioned starship of the Federation Starfleet. "X" is for a test ship (class leaders that use NX are usually but not always redesignated NCC when their class is commissioned).

[@Auraborias]

I can think of a way to like "fix this" The system would look like this: NCC-1701 / [Quadrant][Shipyard][Role][Command Number][Fleet Number], giving info on where a ship was built, its role, and its fleet assignment. So quadrant it was built (or currently assigned), so Alpha Quadrant (A) Beta Quadrant (B) Gamma Quadrant (G) Delta Quadrant (D) Place of it being built, Utopia Planitia (U) Andor Shipyards (A) Tellar Shipyards (T) Byzantium Shipyards (Y), Outside Federation, or built and controlled by member worlds (S) Vulcan for example Battleships (B), Dreadnoughts (D), Light Battlecruisers (L), Escorts (E), Science Ships (S), Medical Ships (M), Special Operations (X) eg section 31. For fleet number could be changeable so the sector its meant to be in, or what part of the fleet its in, special assignment. For example, the Enterprise could be NCC-1701 / AUB-L-01-xxxxx. this tells it was built in the Alpha Quadrant at Utopia Planitia, classified as a battleship, and assigned as flag ship. For the defiant it would be, NCC-74205 / AUE-L-05-xxxxx. For the Excalibur Federation Dreadnought NCC-72001 / BTD-01-xxxxx. I bet the federation would have some strange names so they can avoid calling there ships war sounding names like Battleship, or Dreadnought. And you could also call the NCC-xxxx a hold over from United Earth where the number of the ship is the only thing that mattered due to the small size of the fleet. And it was later reformed. maybe you could say it was always the case but they never printed it on the hull, maybe the NCC number is just symbolic, another name for the ship. Thats the head cannon im going with for now, NCC means close to nothing anyone due to the size of starfleet, and they have just got another digital system that can identity ships with things like transponders or communications.

[@GodPikachu]

CVN means "Carrier Vehicle, Nuclear". for example, the WW2 era enterprise was CV-6 (oil/diesel powerplant), its replacement launched in 1961 was CVN-65, the first vessel of its type to be powered by a nuclear reactor. Its upcoming new replacement due to launch in 2028 will be CVN-80.

[@danielseelye6005]

CV = Cruiser Volare (cruiser that carries heavier than air aircraft)

[@James-rn7dx]

They kind of line up in Star Trek Picard because they had a lot of the people from the older shows working on things like that. Interestingly the Excelsior 2 class ships have registries in the 42XXX range which should have been used decades ago. My head cannon is that they sometime skip large blocks of numbers and then go back to them later.

[@farshnuke]

It'd make sense that they reserve blocks incase they are needed to churn out stuff in a hurry. Actually that would add up with them being Excelsior 2s. "We need a lot of ships in a hurry, activate the 42x range and use the Excelsior 2 design we've got lying around"

[@NemoGraynameA8]

​@farshnuke the first two numbers are the design number. So 42001 would be the first production hull (42000 is the prototype) of the 42nd cruiser design (or maybe the 420th design?)

[@farshnuke]

@ I fail to see how that's relevant to the point being discussed. The NCC number could refer Number of Cranberries Crushed but since they are so often incremental it's odd to have lower numbers around at a time of newer numbers.

[@paull7561]

Certain ship name's have a permanent N.C.C number followed by a letter attached to them in Star Trek for example: Enterprise 1701 then followed by A, B, C, D, E, F, so on and so forth.

[@The1stImmortal]

Leaving aside the issues the 90s show had with maintaining continuity around the numbers, it makes sense to me - the contract number may be sequential or near sequential, it may not, but it's ultimately a reference to the unique number on the form used to order the ship. Prestige numbers being the exception, retaining the namesake number with a -X letter suffix (and presumably an original construction NCC number being mapped somewhere in history) Now, an order for a ship may come from the same office as a batch, and get sequential or near sequential numbers. Or they may come from different offices which were given batches of allocated order numbers in different ranges, and so they seem all over the place. So like one facility may have 400 numbers ready to go because they make a lot of ship orders, another might have a dozen, another might have a hundred. These wouldn't be *used* sequentially overall, but you'd get clusters of them being used in proximity. But it allows you to trace the original contract, if you're Starfleet, and from there find the history of the vessel (including things like command codes if authorized and other data to validate the ship before you is the one it claims). They would, to civilians, look basically like vehicular number plates (and indeed such plates are often allocated similarly to how I described above)

[@tisFrancesfault]

I do think its just a straight serial number, which, presumably has the details of the ship in a database. One good thing about it, is it reinforces the idea that Starfleet is in fact, massive.

[@robertkalinic335]

These numbers are like free lunch for enemy intelligence, just removing any ambiguity about ship location and numbers for no good reason.

[@ISAF_Ace]

My assumption was that they were sequential numbers for when the ship was ordered in the TOS era, by the time we’re in the TNG era, it’s been overhauled to be more useful. My rationalisation is that they’re now used to identify the batch the ship came from within its own class. The first 2 numbers are the ships class ID number, the middle shows its batch, and the last are its production number so you can identify when it was built in the construction run compared to others of its type. Take the USS Phoenix 65420, nebula would be the 65th class of ship in service, it was built in the 4 production run, and it was the 20th ship in that run. A nebula built at the start of the run would be completely different to a nebula down the line so it would help identify in class tech differences, like how a chinook made today is basically a different type of rotorcraft to the ones built 60 years ago. Does this work? Absolutely not, confirmed ships which are first of their class like Ambassador and Galaxy tear this apart with registrations like 70637. It would also lead to ships with duplicate NCC numbers, although rare. It’s just the most logical explanation I can think of if I was put in charge of overhauling the registration system.

[@emilmlodnicki3835]

I always ignore NCC numbers when I do my Terran Empire ship textures. I only use the Name and made it as big as the Starfleet numbers.

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

in terms of numbers, the way I headcannon the classifications is that it is actually the final digits which suggest rating of a vessel, all ships of a certain rate get a particular range of number (flag-ships being 01 plus letter, others having various lower numeral groups)... of the first two or three numbers, they generally denote a class, but a sub-class might have either a neighboring number or a related number - say an improved 7class will become a 17class or the 14 class might have modifications of the 142class and the 145class... within the service ships there is a slight modification with three numbers for the role of the ship as a rating. thus, the role of the California class seems to be denoted by a designation of the something-zero-something final numbers for more second-contact oriented ships, 500 somethings for the more maintenance oriented ships and 0-something for the scientific support vessels, the last designation seems to appear in some Oberths too. it also seems the last numbers of many cargo vessels is either a 000 or a 00something seems also that in the earlier stages of exploration, before a large fleet with set classification rankings was a thing they used 3digit codes which denoted production class and a two digit personal number for each ship

[@keirfarnum6811]

You fire your head cannon at the classifications? Does that give you a headache? Does it do much damage? Do you fire cannon balls or shells? My head canon is that you head cannon is cast in bronze and fires grapeshot. Can you tell me if it’s correct? Forgive me. My flock of snarks got loose.

[@Sumsuch000]

Maybe Star Fleet use fleet yards other than the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards to construct some of their ships, and different yards use different NCC numbers.

[@volrosku.6075]

CVN as i understand it is Fleet Carrier Nuclear in us parlance hence why prior to the unclear powerplants the numbers would be CV to use CV-06 as an example

[@thomaszinser8714]

Well, CV just meant an aircraft carrier in general. That said, in practice it did mean a fleet carrier, because smaller varietals ended up getting called CVL or CVE (light carrier or escort carrier, respectively).

[@DarinRWagner]

"Carrier Voplane Nuclear." "CVN" however is not to be taken as an acronym or as initials, but rather a SYMBOL. That's what they taught us in the US Navy, anyway.

[@rjthom5]

CV stood for Carrier of Vehicles if I recall correctly. They slapped the N on for nuclear powered carriers, but did not start over the numbers

[@thomaszinser8714]

@@rjthom5 It did not. CV was never an abbreviation or an acronym. It was simply a designation, in the same way that DD is just a designation for Destroyer or BB is for Battleship. The way the system worked is that the 'baseline' version of a given type of ship would be designated with the same letter repeated, and the second letter would indicate variation. So, from DD, we get DE and DL. From BB we also get BM (monitors). CV indicates that a ship is in the Cruiser family (hence the C, see also CA, CL, CG, CLAA, etc), and carries heavier-than-air craft as the primary function (hence the V, see also AV [auxiliary aircraft tender]).

[@rjthom5]

@@thomaszinser8714 Ah, good to know. Thanks for the correction

[@athena139c]

One thing that did happen with the USN in the transition to the missile age was the separation of numbering schemes for new missile ships from the numbering series of the preceding gun ships. By the 1950s hull numbers for destroyers had reached into the 900s and well over 100 for cruisers (granted these numbers were bloated by cancelled contracts the hull numbers of which would not be recycled). Likely because of this, the first missile conversions of older hulls started back at 1 with the conversion of heavy cruisers Boston and Canberra going from CA-69 and CA-70 to CAG-1 and CAG-2 as an example of this. Maybe Starfleet could benefit from a resetting of the numbering scheme along these lines in the early 25th century.

[@reecewestmoreland6137]

i just like giving my ships in STO fun registry numbers to look at.

[@xyreniaofcthrayn1195]

As far as I know it's more or less NCC armada-fleet-battle group-flagship position on the hull. The actual iff ping sends out the full NCC-AFBgFp as well as production number whether or not it's merely using an older registered identification name and lastly a unique code to the vessel at the start of communications at the discretion of the coms officer and the captain.

[@lnlraven079]

In typical fashion, these numbers are not given to the name of the ship but when a ship class is authorized by Starfleet. They are assigned numbers for instance the Essex class carriers start at CV-9 and end in the 20s for the first section of ships. The CVL-23 was given to the Independence-class up to 44, and then you get the second batch of Essex, then a further couple of Independences, and finally we get a couple for the Saipan class up to the Present day these numbers are given to the ships with CVN=69 being of the Gerald R. Ford class and CVN-71 I think being the Enterprise. Hence Naval Construction Contract #1701 is the Constitution Class Enterprise, #1650 is the Ares, and #2000 is the Excelisor. These numbers in Star Trek follow this model. When a number is reused using the Enterprise of NCC-1701-C it's the Ambassador Class ship they are building. Therefore it messes everything up. Not that Starfleet has 60,000 vessels if you look at Voyager's registry number. It's the number the construction yard was given for a class of ships. The UK uses a similar system with its construction yards as well. Hence why the cruiser Belfast had to modify its name because of the Type 26 frigate that will be known as the Belfast. In the 21st century, it's used as a registration code. Or you'd have Scotty going nuts in the holodeck, trying to figure out what his ship was.

[@NemoGraynameA8]

The first two numbers in TOS Star Trek are the design number. I'm guessing by voyager they are in the tripple digits of designs so Voyager would be design 746, production number 56. 56 Intrepid-Class still seems excessive but if she was design 7465 production number 6 then the number would be 746506

[@numberyellow]

oh bloody hell, man.... it doesn't HAVE to tell you anything about the ship, it's essentially a glorified inventory number.

[@qubex]

What absolutely baffles me is that in Star Trek Discovery's final season they have the NCC registry remaining current in the 32nd century... that would be analogous to a historic navy maintaining consistency from the 1100s until now.

[@Relav1364]

New Year... Old rant?! I've see. And heard this rant many times... For me, the numbers are only in my head

[@michaelmutranowski123]

I've never given much thought to the NCC numbers in Star Trek. I know the Enterprises number but I could not tell you the NCC number of Voyager to save my life.

[@generichardson4771]

the NCC registry as Gene Rodenbery said in an interview he made the registry what it is after seeing the registry numbers and letters of planes and suggested see this plane starting with NC what if we just add another C make it NCC

[@SolarWraith]

Indeed.

[@kdrapertrucker]

Actually it came from Matt Jefferies, the man who designed the enterprise, he was a pilot and wanted to give the ship an "N number" I.D. like American civil aircraft have but added "CC" to it.

[@lachbullen8014]

I just looked it up on Google carrier Nuclear V is the designation of Us navy in marinecore squadrons heavier-than-air aircraft..

[@codycroft6311]

I used to hate the whole idea of 17 being type of ship and 01 being the hull number in that class. But it's grown on me. Obviously at some point in TNG it got tossed out an airlock but the scheme makes sense. Consider 1700-99 reserved for Connies, then they make the Miranda which takes off well and they crank out a bunch so as Reliant is the 64th ship of the Miranda (18) class. 19 is something we didn't see or early Constellation class ships. Excelsior gets 20. I does seem a huge time of growth in 2320-2340 happened and so starship construction boomed and the numbers got screwed up or new stupid rules got into place. That's my head cannon right now anyway.

[@codycroft6311]

Come to think of it, could have designs out there where they reserved say 1900-99 but only made one or two for what ever reason totally taking out 100 hull numbers in the scheme with only a couple ships in there. Could have a whole era where numbers went fast but few ships made for production.

[@extreamaussieguy2968]

I do remember that the Starfleet command games actually did use the modern classifications for ships with thr first two games diving into sub variants of the main designations (i.e CA for the main constitution refits but then having CAR as an additional refit class for the connie) Honestly it was even more confusing as the Connie seem to have heavy & light variants with many random sub variants to the variants. This was somewhat fixed in number 3 where they did away with the sub variants and just stuck with the main designations (FF, DD, CL, CA, BC, BB and DN)

[@stevenlayton4493]

I'm not sure I saw the episode shown at at 8:35!

[@l77scmaro2]

For the record, "CV" in the US navy originally referred to a variation of a cruiser hull given that most aircraft carriers were built off a "cruiser hull". Later, after WWII CV came to refer to "aircraft carrier". There is no official "super carrier" desigation as far as I know. CV(N) origionally referd to the USS Enterprise capiablity of night opperations. Now it refers to aircraft carriers that are nuclear powered.

[@DaHitch]

It makes perfect sense from an intelligence perspective. During WWI The Germans used sequential serial numbers for vehicle (tank) hulls, engines, gearboxes, etc. When the Allies captured/destroyed those vehicles they kept track of those serial numbers and through statistical analysis could figure out how many vehicles the Germans had, and how many they produced per month. By using a seemingly random numbering system factions who are adversary towards the Federation can't work out how many ships UFP has. :D

[@terranempire2]

Civilian ships seem to have their own convoluted system the NAR number.

[@kamenriderblade2099]

Treat the NCC #'s like a license plate scheme for internal StarFleet use only. It has no bearing on ship quality/type/features/role. NCC-#'s can be reused when one vessel retires & a new ship takes it.

[@johnlavery3433]

One thing you might not have considered is different eras have different ways of doing things with regards to NCC numbers. The IS navy has its standard DDG numbers for their destroyers, with the last to be DDG 142 before the new DDGX class is built, then USS Zumwalt-class is DDG-1000

[@Revkor]

early on the writers might have tried abit but by TNG it went random. Heck new Jersey is literally the showrunner's birth year.

[@occultatumquaestio5226]

Are Star Trek starship registry prefixs nonsensical? Yes. Am I still going to at least partially try to make sense of them anyway (to the vexation of my sanity)? Also yes. A neat continuity rant video for this new year of 2025. Now just wait until you recall about the prefixes NX, NAR, and NCV. Among others.

[@akihitokoizumi2474]

Makes more sense if NCC stands for Navigation Control Code. Make a non starfleet agency responsible for giving all ships codes. Government agencies like to do this kind of mess.

[@redhairdavid]

what other method could there be to get a navy other than a construction contract? perhaps an alien culture where the people build ships and give them to the navy without any previous contract or list of needs or wants? or just finding other peoples ships? you mentioned "all these ships were built under contract for the navy, probably" what other option could there be?

[@thomaszinser8714]

CVN stands for Carrier (Nuclear). CV is an identifier for carriers in general, the N is a suffix to indicate a nuclear-powered ship (see also nuclear submarines being called SSN and the handful of nuke cruisers being CGN). That said, I think you're somewhat universalizing based off of modern US and USN practice, historically, a lot of ships have essentially been assigned arbitrary numbers, or given numbers purely in sequence.

[@keirfarnum6811]

Someone above explained that it actually started as “Cruiser”, not “Carrier”. Carriers were originally considered “cruisers” because cruisers in general were mostly used as a screening/scouting tool (like cavalry) and carriers were cruisers with planes acting as forward scouts. They didn’t use carriers as the main element of a battle group back then as they do now. It was just another type of cruiser for the Navy at the time. Of course that might have changed since then and it might now be “carrier”. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@thomaszinser8714]

@@keirfarnum6811 You're absolutely right, and I actually point that out in other places, I was just oversimplifying because getting into the entire history of how US ship designations evolved and got to what we have nowadays is, well, a bit of a complex mess, to say the least, and CV being the designation for a ship designed specifically to carry heavier-than-air vehicles is just the simpler way to explain it all.

[@JBDunham-c6b]

I play a Star Trek rpg where each ship class has a registry range. So you can keep track of what class a ship is by the NCC Number

[@c0dy85]

CVN= Aircraft Carrier, Nuke

[@Ty-yt3lj]

I honestly assumed the Federation did what railways did, namely some mess of a system done arbitrarily and only following consistency in batches (for instance NCC-1700-1711), with some other system to denote everything else.

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

CV means Cruiser Voler. Allegedly, the Voler was taken from French and means "Fly". The N means Nuclear Powered. So a CVN is a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. CG is a Guided Missile Armed Cruiser while CGN is a Nuclear Powered Guided Missile Cruiser. BB is a Battleship. CC is a Large Cruiser or Battlecruiser. DD is a Destroyer. DDG is a Guided Missile Destroyer. FF is a Frigate. FFG is a Guided Missile Frigate.

[@natemadill2390]

If NCC stands for Naval Construction Contract at the bare minimum there has to be a database where these numbers can be used to access the contract and information of construction for the ship

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

I would honestly suggest that that, for the 5 digit numbers, the first 2 numbers are the year of construction. The last three are sequence number.

[@1TitanicFan1]

The part of the registry numbers that irritates me the most is the complete lack of consistency. The writers almost never bothered to see if the name had been used previously. Like why and the hell is the number on DS9 Defiant different than TOS Defiant, if the ship was the 2nd Starfleet vessel to use the name, then it should have been NCC-1764-A not NX-74205, or NCC-75633. That is not even getting into the issues with the lack of class numbering consistency, I'm looking at you USS Constellation NCC-1017. But your argument is sound, the NCC-(Insert Number here) should be the ship's CONTRACT number, not its designation. For example, I will use what shipyards use IRL, this ship's hull number is "NCC-1703" She is commissioned as the USS Hood and is given the official designation CA-04. CA stands for a US heavy cruiser, and 04 means that she is the 4th heavy cruiser ever built. (Additionally, you could change CA to CGA (guided missile heavy cruiser) or something else that would better represent the role of the given ship) At this point though, the NCC is so well engrained you could never get rid of it. Also, as a discrepancy for ships in a class having a either very high number or low number compared to the class leader I can use an example that the USN faced after the cancellation of the Ohio class SSBNs. Okay so the US Navy wanted 24 Ohio class SSBNs so they ordered all 24 of them. Later, the USN canceled the last 6 (19-24). Because the USN ordered the hulls, those hulls were given hull registration numbers, (example: SSBN-746) This could explain why you see a large jump in hull numbers from other ships in any given class. Another addition to this is that Starfleet could be retroactively going back through its "Missing Registry Numbers" and assigning them to newly ordered ships to "fill in the gaps" in the history of the ship registry. Or maybe I'm a Naval Architect student getting too excited about a TV show written by folks in Hollywood. Edit: We could also take the EXACT definition of what NCC is probably used as, aka: Hull Number, and explain away any discrepancy as, "Oh that ship was ordered or stated construction after the original batch and that's why is hull number is so much higher"

[@JaredLS10]

One thing of note is Navy Ships do not have an IMO Number like civilian ships so they are only designated by name and hull number / vessel type for example U.S.S. The Sullivans (DDG-67).

[@EricMcConnaughey]

According to the old Franz Joseph ST book from the early or mid 70s, NCC means Naval Contract Commission. Every class of ship, whether cruisers, destroyers, tugs, whatever, had a unique series # for that class. Enterprise was a Constitution -class heavy cruiser, all vessels of its class had a series 17xx identifier. Defiant, from the Tholian episode, was NCC-1764. According to some lore I remember reading a loooooong time ago, Enterprise, under Kirk, was the only one of twelve CA's to survive the full five year mission. In recognition, StarFleet declared her registry would NOT be retired when the ship would eventually be scrapped. But rather a new class vessel would be given the same name and registry, continuing the honors. Hence, 1701- bloody A B C and D. StarFleet also designated Enterprise as fleet flagship. As far as carriers, there are really good articles on Wikipedia about naval vessel designations, but here goes. Once armored warship hulls became the next big thing after the Civil War, navies need new ways of identifying ship classes. Designation AC meant armored cruiser. We that worked for all of about five minutes when different size cruisers were introduced for different duties. Eventually, CA meant heavy cruiser, CL meant light, BC meant battle cruiser an in between heavy cruiser and battleship. Well, when airplanes got thrown in the mix in the 1920s, new designations were needed. CV meant Cruiser, aViation. CVA meant heavy carrier, CVL was light carrier, CVE was escort carrier. Then the Americans had to screw it all up again by putting nuclear reactors in their ships. Hence, CVN. There are almost certainly a lot of pedants with tree trunks up their butts who will take issue with my explanation. Two things; first, this a very quick, basic explanation. Second, PPPPHHHHTTTTHHHH !! To everyone, if want more info, start at Wikipedia.

[@NemoGraynameA8]

In the American navy CA stands for "Cruiser, Armored" CL for "Cruiser Light" CC for "Cruiser, Command" (often called Large Cruiser such as USS Alaska) and CV stands for Cruiser, aViation because CA was already used (Technically it's the French word for aviation but whatever) I'm not sure which navy used AC, but it's not any of the major European nations I'm aware of.

[@ZontarDow]

Another reason the numbers don't work is that frankly Starfleet is just too small. The US Navy at present has around 470 war ships meaning if the globe was at a similar level of armament that would be 11190, multiply that by dozens of similarly sized founding or core member races the Federation Starfleet should by all rights have hundreds of thousands of ships due to the sheer need for them for defending the border, dealing with natural disasters, coast guard duties, law enforcement and that's before even getting into diplomacy, exploration and scientific research. It's actually one of the reasons I like The Orville and wish it had been accepted by CBS as a Star Trek series as it was originally pitched as, since they seem to remember this scale issue that comes with stellar nations given they had an offhanded comment about struggling manpower issues due to the fleet needing people for 3000 ships in the first episode. I'm not saying Starfleet should be as militerised as the real world navies it takes inspiration from, but I do think that if so much of it takes after an idealized America in space it may as well use America as a measuring stick for numbers like how many ships Starfleet should have or how many civilian cargo ships and passenger liners should be flying around.

[@ncsquatch2514]

In STO i named my first ship after my hometown and used the year of its foundation as the NCC#. The USS Lincolnton NCC 1785

[@orionpax2115]

In my mind, that NCC designation is to refer to starfleet, I imagine in a large database of federation associated starships, they have several different organizations of ships they have to keep track of , espa, Vulcan science academy, ect. I imagine it was more practical in the early federation when member species still had well funded personal space organizations, as for the numbers meaning something, I don’t see that as necessary seeing as it would be a code you read through a database, and then you’d get all the info you need, I don’t know why you’d use the serial code for that sort of identification and we certainly never see anyone in the show referencing the serial as anything other than a registry number.

[@kwad8]

I feel like you missed a major key issue with NCC numbers. The name and name are linked. Hence why Enterprise is NCC 1701 then A-E. So Early on the number may have made sense but when names get reused so does the number which means future classes will have a random smattering of numbers.

[@thomaszinser8714]

Except that this isn't consistently done either. The DS9 Defiant, for example, isn't NCC-1764-A, despite there having previously been a USS Defiant, a Constitution-class ship.

[@Jerkwad152]

So, following naval ship codes, starship registries ought to work out something like this: BB-1701-D USS Enterprise, Galaxy-class battleship CA-1701-E USS Enterprise, Sovereign-class heavy command battlecruiser CL-74656 USS Voyager, Intrepid-class light cruiser CB-63549 USS Thunderchild, Akira-class fast attack cruiser It's obviously not a direct one to one parallel, since they're not boats in the ocean, but I got it as close as I could.

[@nekophht]

If you want the historic battle cruiser code from the USN, it's CC. Later CC was reused for a command cruiser role briefly before disappearing again. Likewise, CB is actually large cruiser historically. Think of a heavy cruiser, but even bigger and carrying guns larger than 8". USN built one class, had two make it into service of it, and both were promptly decommissioned post-war. We briefly had CVBs (Midway-class) until super carriers became more of a thing, and so large carriers because normal carrier sized and didn't need a special code for size. But let's be honest - you didn't do BC for battle cruiser, so I'm just happy for that. ^^

[@NemoGraynameA8]

The Galaxy-Class would probably be CA for Cruiser, Armored as she isnt meant to stand in the line of battle (hence the name Battleship) since she isn't meant to operate with a battlegroup (other Galaxy classes) and escorts (smaller ships) are considered optional. DN (dreadnought) would also be acceptable but since her primary purpose is deep space patrol/exploration I'd only accept that destination for the Galaxy-class that were built during the dominion war which lacked the long range accommodations and scientific support of their peace time sisters. Sovereign would be CC for "command cruiser" as she also isn't meant to stand in a line of battle (where we get the battle in battle cruiser from) but she is meant to form the core of a fast attack group as it's flagship. (She also lacks long range accommodation and science facilities so DN might fit as well) Finally the Akira class would be CVE (Cruiser, aViation, escort) or DVE (Destroyer aViation, escort) I'd probably go with DVE because the Akira class is armed well enough that her avation is for support rather than her primary means of attack. DVG (Destroyer, aViation, Guided missiles) would also work as her primary armament is a massive number of torpedo launchers.

[@redbaron4542]

I made a federation type faction for some rp. Ships registry numbers follow a simple rule: Type-Class number-unit number. The flagship for example has the number SD-24-01. SD is the type, its the 24th ship class of that type and the first of its class.....

[@AdamMGTF]

Ncc is less confusing than USS... But is understandable given its a tv show made in America in the 60s-now. It's less confusing in cannon than the weridly occasional use of imperial units. Which again is explained by America in the 60s-now

[@krim7]

Still watching the video but... I feel like the explosion of registry numbers comes from the fact that the equivalent of mini-vans started to get their own registry numbers. Which, as you said in your opening, makes the numbers totally useless for determining anything interesting or noteworthy about the ship. They are basically just Starfleet Asset Tags.

[@nekophht]

Just to point out, we have movie era Connies that have NCC-20xx numbers according to the Operation Retrieve briefing charts. ...also what looks like a movie Constitution contour icon but a three digit registry (that guy must've gotten rebuilt a few times). Also, I do believe the NCC listings page on Memory Alpha lists a number of 8xxxx or even 86xxx registries from TNG's TV run that were listed/scrolled past on various monitors. Just to make things more frustrating. :D I like to think N is Fed/Starfleet (NCC, NAR, etc), and the last C was originally "cruiser" (light/heavy/large), and there was at some point an E for "Escort" (destroyer/frigate sized ships) counterpart. Then over the decades, the various designations were folded into NCC so by TNG it's basically a generic designation for Starfleet ships, which can explain some of the registry jumps as a huge pile of usable ships from a discontinued registry getting added to the existing registry list. Add in that it kinda seems like NAR uses the same registry system to an extent and stuff like runabouts having an NCC number, plus ships lost/vanished while exploring/etc, and I could easily see it as the rough equivalent to a generic hull code for Starfleet ships without claiming 20-30k+ active major ships (ie, not runabouts). Numbers-wise... they get assigned when a ship is ordered, not when it's laid down or enters service. So something might get ordered then put on hold for a few decades before entering production, some times in a vastly different appearance (see First Contact fleet). Or alternately you end up with the Ahwahnee > Sovereign thing where the Cheyenne ship is 73620 and the Sovereign is 73811. I really wish they'd gone with the production notes idea that it was NCC-75000 for Sovereign. But yes, it's sufficiently internally consistent to seem like there's a system, but it's all shrugs and "sounds right" in reality.

[@JimmyBlether]

The notion of having every ship numbered sequentially is pretty stupid from my perspective, despite in the past I am pretty sure I thought it was "fine," partially down to over time I've became better aware of the scale of space and how Starfleet having far less than 1701 ships (because not every ship is operational/in commission at that time) at the time of the launch of the original Enterprise (assuming it's the 1701st ship made) is far, far too low. This only gets worse once you remember that freighters operated by Starfleet also get their own "sequential" NCC numbers too, and they should outnumber quite a few of the other more "common" classes we see which are classed as say, heavy cruisers, destroyers, etc. I'd go as far as saying the space that makes up the Federation is just too huge for even the sub-hundred-thousand odd ships at the time of Picard and in fact the "reasonably sized fleets" you see in a number of Anime SF shows like reboot SBY (specifically the fleets as seen in 2202) or both versions of LoGH are perhaps the bar you'd be wanting to get to for "practical" interstellar warfare. That's my 2 cents anyways.

[@kakkrotto]

So, thinking outside the box: Makes sense that’s is a serial number, tracking internally for the Federation. They can choose to re used the number on a name of a ship or in the rare instances like the enterprise, re- assign the same code with the a prefex, the idea might be more moral/psychological been able to identify hero ships quicker. On the side of quick identification, in theory, having a universal naming system, makes things easy to memorise, as it’s rhythmic, so if you have a short snappy system with a consistent prefex, your “could” indentfy a ship quicker off a set pattern and number? Another theory but practical and would make sense. Not having prefex tailored to class types and roles means an enemy would have to do more intel on each ship, making it harder to choose targets. So the USS test ship NCC 23745 nebula class ecm ship, is not the USS test Ship NCC 24789 Oberth class science vessel. It can lead to miss identification on the enemy part. Typing this makes it harder to explain my point! Sorry!

[@princecharon]

I'm pretty sure NCC meaning 'Naval Construction Contract' was either never official at all, or is one of those things that got canonized at some point after drifting through the fandom for decades. I will say that 'NAR-' and some other prefixes were used in text in the TNG era, though I'm not sure that they ever got mentioned in dialogue or appeared clearly on screen.

[@borg111]

The numbers are hard to track because starships can inherent their numbers based on lineage. NCC-1701 belonged to a constitution class, an Ambassador class , a Galaxy class, a Sovereign class, etc. So numbers carry over classes, making them difficult to track.

[@MrAranton]

I always thought „NCC“ was akin to seeing the letters „F“, „DK“ or „D“ on a car. Those tell that the car is registered in France, Denmark or Germany. In that context all „NCC“ is meant to convey is the fact that you‘re looking at a Starfleet vessel (as opposed to a civilian ship or many one operated by any of the planetary governments within the Federation). That way numerical codes could be used more than once; an NCC-1701 might coexist with an SS-1701. As for the numbers being chaotic - that might be the result of whatever the duck allowed Starfleet to go from being able to muster 40ish ships to the battle of Wolf 359 to being able to muster thousands of ships to fight against the Dominion.

[@AgeCobra]

They were taken from the US airplane registration system which stats with N

[@pauld6967]

I am an Old School Trekker and wholeheartedly embrace the classic definition of the acronym N.C.C. being Naval Construction Contract. It has always been my belief that the number DOES NOT reflect how many hulls of that class exist (as is done with U.S. Navy ships) but literally the Contract # for the construction of that vessel. Thus, any illogic in numbering is a fault of the contracting process rather than errors/anomolies with ship registry numbers being sequential.

[@NemoGraynameA8]

That follows real life USN conventions. Ships ordered get a number (ie BB-49 through BB-54 for the canceled South Dakota class battleships) and if canceled that number gets skipped. (Which is why the USS North Carolina was BB-55 despite being the first battleship built after BB-48 West Virginia) Also the first two digits are the design number. So NCC-1701 is "design 17 production number 01" (00 is for the prototype)

[@pauld6967]

@NemoGraynameA8 Yes, you can say "prototype" but I am like many who kind of hand-waive/set aside any proof-of-concept vessels and consider the true start to begin with the lead ship of a particular class. Of course that opens up the can of worms between nations who count the first hull laid down versus the first hull actually completed versus the first actually commissioned into service which is the "proper" criteria. 😄

[@donald347]

Star Trek registry numbers are essentially just proper names with numerals instead of letters- they can be encoded but can also just be arbitrary just like a person's name.

[@Mike.Knight69]

I always knew it as “Naval Construction Code” and the USS being “United Space Ship”

[@benjaminstout941]

CVN 78 means Carrier, V is a designation for fixed wing aircraft (non helicopter), and N means it is nuclear powered.

[@benjaminstout941]

Former US Navy sailer.

[@AdamMGTF]

I dont know much about the us navy today but as i understand it from historians, CV = Crusier for C. CVN = Cruiser Nuclear powered. The V is lost to history at the moment and has been speculated as "Voloche" being french for flight or something similar (i dont speak french). Another vague thought was the V representaed wings ie the v of a bird in flight but that makes no sense given the other us designations off pre ww2 were first letters of the class of ship. D for destroyer B for battleship C for crusier etc

[@exc911ence_channel]

I liken them to the license plates on your car. They're just identifiers.

[@MrEricmopar]

Carrier V Nuclear (The V indicates fixed wing aircraft) H helos and this is going way back Z for lighter than air, like blimps

[@merafirewing6591]

Gene Roddenberry should've stuck with American Navy Registry Numbers.

[@MIKEJK84]

I have an idea to explain the coding. My theory is that it actually is a code. That gives more information of the ship. NCC-(17)(01) The first 2 numbers represent the actual construction District or area, For instance, federation ships built on and around Earth would have a 01 Representing Earth is the first construction location. 17 representing Jupiter station. And as time goes on through history, more construction sites are constructed. But once a certain number cap is reached, the construction site is then decommissioned. Or a code is reset 17 becomes 24 Giving more information to the Actual timeline, the ship was built. The final numbers represent construction contract number, Or the order the ship Started construction.