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Like the title says, what does the USS stand for when used with Federation ships? I'm curious.

United Stars Ship

That is all.

Tribun wrote:United Stars Ship

That is all.

Huh. It's like they took United States Ship and went, hrm, States isn't right, and thumbrubbed Stars in there.

United Star Systems is another possibility.

United federation of planets Star Ship ?

HRogge wrote:United federation of planets Star Ship ?

That would make the most since, but you'd think that Federation and Planets are big enough nouns to be included in the acronym.

Incidently, Ex Astris Scientia seems to be of the opinion that it's United Stars Ship.

United Star Ship. All though i beleive kirk said on occossion Unied Space Ship

The characters have said "United Star Ship" in TOS, so I imagine that's what it stands for.

Could it be that United is short for UFP but Starfleet just didn't like the sound of "UFPSS Enterprise"? I certainly don't.

My question is: What does the "NCC" in the registry number stand for?

new constitution class, iirc. with the letters used to signify the class of starship involved. similar to the alpha-numeric designation on fighter craft used by the airforce.

Uraniun235 wrote:The characters have said "United Star Ship" in TOS, so I imagine that's what it stands for.

Could it be that United is short for UFP but Starfleet just didn't like the sound of "UFPSS Enterprise"? I certainly don't.

If they've said it in TOS, then that's good enough for me.

So it is all clear now?

Ma Deuce wrote:My question is: What does the "NCC" in the registry number stand for?

I understand it stands for Naval Construction Contract.

Kirk said in the TOS episode "Court Martial" that him and Ben Finney had both served aboard the "United Space Ship Republic". I think that pretty much clears it up.

Gil Hamilton wrote:

Ma Deuce wrote:My question is: What does the "NCC" in the registry number stand for?

I understand it stands for Naval Construction Contract.

It doesn't stand for anything. The prefix was invented by Matt Jefferies. He put in the "N" for aircraft regesitered in The USA the C for civilian aircraft and the second "C" because it looked good.

Crazedwraith wrote:

Gil Hamilton wrote:

Ma Deuce wrote:My question is: What does the "NCC" in the registry number stand for?

I understand it stands for Naval Construction Contract.

It doesn't stand for anything. The prefix was invented by Matt Jefferies. He put in the "N" for aircraft regesitered in The USA the C for civilian aircraft and the second "C" because it looked good.

I remember reading somewhere that NCC was created by Gene Roddenberry. It was suppose to combine the Soviet and American hull classification letters for a general purpose cruiser.

This is from EAS:

NCC: Starfleet, active service
NX: Starfleet, experimental

There is no canon explanation. But Naval Construction Contract makes sense. And while I have heard in-canon the phrase "United Star Ship," I also considered the possibility that Starfleet ships are named after historical ships from Earth, so if it was named after an American ship it gets USS, if it was British it gets HMS, if it was Canadian it gets HMCS, what have you. And just for the hell of it, I'll mention that we heard Martok call his ship "IKS Rotarran."

Repeated Google searches for "naval construction contract," including searches that ruled out any page containing "star trek" or "starfleet," still did not yield a single non-Trek reference. If it's used in building real ships, or the aircraft carrier Enterprise is NCC 1701 (which I heard when I was in the Navy), there is absolutely nothing I can find online about it.

Metrion Cascade wrote:There is no canon explanation. But Naval Construction Contract makes sense. And while I have heard in-canon the phrase "United Star Ship," I also considered the possibility that Starfleet ships are named after historical ships from Earth, so if it was named after an American ship it gets USS, if it was British it gets HMS, if it was Canadian it gets HMCS, what have you.

Too bad there's been a USS Yamato, USS Melbourne, etc etc etc.

In TOS, USS came to be identified with "United Space Ship". Diane Duane, in her novels, interpreted it as "United Systems Starship".

NCC has been interpreted in various non-canon sources as "Naval Construction Contract" and "Navigational Contact Code".

Metrion Cascade wrote:Repeated Google searches for "naval construction contract," including searches that ruled out any page containing "star trek" or "starfleet," still did not yield a single non-Trek reference. If it's used in building real ships, or the aircraft carrier Enterprise is NCC 1701 (which I heard when I was in the Navy), there is absolutely nothing I can find online about it.

The first carrier Enterprise was CV 6. The second is CVN 65. I assume the NCC numbers are equivilant to naval hull numbers. NCC 1701 was made up by Matt Jefferies because his private plane's registry number was NC 171 or something similar.

Howedar wrote:

Metrion Cascade wrote:There is no canon explanation. But Naval Construction Contract makes sense. And while I have heard in-canon the phrase "United Star Ship," I also considered the possibility that Starfleet ships are named after historical ships from Earth, so if it was named after an American ship it gets USS, if it was British it gets HMS, if it was Canadian it gets HMCS, what have you.

Too bad there's been a USS Yamato, USS Melbourne, etc etc etc.

Presumably they could be named after ships that haven't been commissioned yet, but it's moot. Starfleet never used anything other than USS, and we've heard United Space Ship and United Star Ship.

I initialy thought that USS means United States Ship. To me the Enterprise-D was operated by the Americans of 24th century.

Well, considering how Trek has favoured American culture over that of other nations, it practically was.

Unbelievably Stupid Spacefarers?