If you're a long-time fan of the Star Trek the original series (TOS) like I am, then you probably own, or once owned, the Franz Joseph Starfleet Technical Manual. Among many other things between that manual's covers that we Trek geeks got overly excited about when that book was published were a handful of pages listing starship names and registration numbers for five classes of ships -- dreadnoughts, heavy cruisers (the class to which the Enterprise belonged), transport tugs, scouts, and destroyers. The page dedicated to heavy cruisers listed the original Constitution-class ships, of which the Enterprise was one, as well as a few other classes. While these other classes and the ships that belonged to them could not at the time of publication be considered canon, some of them have since appeared on screen in Star Trek films and/or television episodes in the form of blueprints or on lists of vessels, thus making at least their designs canon.
One of the classes of heavy cruiser that appeared on that page was the Bonhomme Richard-class, and one of the ships of that class was the U.S.S. Endeavor, NCC-1716. Note the spelling -- no 'u' before the 'r'. Memory Alpha, The Star Trek wiki, states that there have been five Federation starships to bear the name Endeavour...with the 'u' -- NCC-1895 (listed on the Operation Retrieve chart in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), NCC-25330, NCC-39272, and NCC-71805 (those three from the TNG/DS-9/VOY era). The fifth is listed as existing in an alternate reality, so let's forget about that one. My point here is this: The spelling of the Endeavor in the Technical Manual was a typo. It should have been spelled with the 'u', so that ship is actually the first Starship Endeavour to have been in service with Starfleet. So, when was it in service?
Well, we know from years of canon and "reverse engineering" of the official canon timeline that the Enterprise was launched in 2245 under Captain Robert April. She was later commanded by Captain Christopher Pike, probably for two consecutive five-year missions, and then by Captain James T. Kirk, beginning in 2266. In the TOS episode Tomorrow is Yesterday, Kirk tells USAF Captain Christopher that there are 12 ships like the Enterprise in Starfleet. The Technical Manual lists 14. That episode originally aired in January of 1967, so lets assume that the events it portrays occurred in January of 2267. That means that a couple of more Constitution-class ships were launched sometime after that -- let's say later in 2267 or perhaps 2268. According to the Technical Manual, the Bonhomme Richard-class was the next class of heavy cruiser to be brought into service.
This is where everything becomes a little more speculative -- a little more of my creation rather than inferred semi-canon. When James Cawley launched Star Trek New Voyages, he stated that the series was continuing the original five-year mission, beginning at the beginning of year four -- 2269 - 2270. By that time the Bonhomme Richard-class heavy cruisers could have begun to join the fleet. My novelette The 11th Hour takes place between the live-action episodes The Child and Kitumba, which are episodes 5 and 6, if you exclude the proof of concept Come What May -- Mr. Cawley is on record as stating that that doesn't count as an episode -- and count Blood and Fire parts 1 and 2 as one episode. That likely places them in 2269.
I mentioned the Operation Retrieve chart from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country above. If you look at that chart, pictured below, you can see from the silhouette near the upper right corner of the U.S.S. Endeavour, NCC-1895, that that ship is a "refit" heavy cruiser -- the same class of ship that the refit Enterprise was in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Memory Alpha states that The Undiscovered Country takes place in 2293. That means that the U.S.S. Endeavour, NCC-1716, could have been in service for up to 24 years, 2269 - 2293, before being replaced by NCC-1895. That is what I chose to go with when I decided to introduce the Endeavour in The 11th Hour.
As for the design of NCC-1716, I cannot thank my good friend Kenneth Thomson enough. Ken is a fellow fan and an excellent 3D modeler. I told him what I wanted, what changes I wanted to the original Enterprise design, and he built for me the model that you see in the images above.
I also mentioned in yesterday's post that I have plans for the Endeavour and her crew. What plans are those? Thank you for asking. As I've said, elsewhere if not in my previous blog post, I am planning to write at least three more Star Trek Phase-II novelettes. Perhaps four, as there is one of which I'm not yet sure. After those are finished and released, assuming that I can find the time between the writing of my Solfleet and KhiMara novels and the launching of my two future novel series, The Realm and Sentient, I'm plan to shift my Trek writing from Star Trek Phase-II, which has ceased production thanks to the new CBS/Paramount fan-film guidelines, to what I'm calling Starship Endeavour. Will those stories also be free to download PDFs? Possibly. That all depends on the results of a few inquiries that I have not yet made.
Great article. Love those images. In my fantasy, Star Trek could've had a spinoff series dedicated to the crew of a sister ship such as the Endeavour--kind of like what Law & Order, CSI, and NCIS did.
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