Sunday 05 February 2012

The Ringship Enterprise

Ever since it appeared on display in the Enterprise Recreation Room of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, fans have wondered about the mysterious “ring ship” which was supposed to be a predecessor to the familiar Enterprise. It did not reappear until Star Trek: Enterprise, when a similar painting hung on the wall of the “602 Club” in the episode “First Flight”. The same painting appeared in the episode “Home”.

No further canon information is available about the design, yet the book Star Trek Maps describes it as a “starliner”. Supposedly, these were “Earth’s first attempts at manned interstellar probes [...] launched during the 2050s at various target stars within fifteen light years of sol. Only one, the UESP Enterprise, reached its destination—the sunlike binary pair of Alpha Centauri—before they were overtaken by the new faster-than-light spacecraft. The 120-meter-long Starliners had a crew complement of 35.”

The Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology features a similar design and calls it “Declaration class”. According to the Chronology, this vessel was in service between the years 2123 and 2165 and carried a complement of 950. This must be a gross exaggeration, however, for even the original Constitution class Enterprise carried not even half that number!

Origins

The design of the “ring ship” was in fact based upon an early Matt Jefferies design for the original Enterprise. After Gene Roddenberry rejected his intial design, which too much resembled a flying saucer in Roddenberry’s opinion, Jefferies came up with the “ring ship” of which he produced several sketches. Roddenberry rejected this design too, and this led to Jefferies developing the ship we now know as the Constitution class.

 

N. Ottens
14 November 2008

Sources for this article include:
• Goldstein, S. & F., Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (1979)
• Taylor, G., “Spaceship of the Rings,” Trekplace (2004)
• Sackett, S. & G. Roddenberry, The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1980)
• Solow, H.F. and Y. Fern, The Star Trek Sketchbook (1997)
• Star Trek Maps (1980)
• Images courtesy of Trekcore.