The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship was an article about starship registries , published in the fanzine T - Negative Nr . 27 of April , 1973 and written by Greg Jein as a " Trekkie " , long before he became an official , long - serving , " Star Trek " studio model builder . The article had apparently been circulating among fans for some time prior to that date , as it was sent in to the magazine by several people , including Jein himself , as a response to a reader question in an earlier issue of the magazine . With most of its contents adopted and elevated into canon by the " Star Trek " franchise , Jein ' s article became one of the very few , but most influential nonetheless , pieces of " fan fiction " , to be adopted by the official franchise . Determining starship registries . In the article , Jein attempted to create a list of starships with their respective registry numbers . Since no such lists existed at the time , he chose to use the registries seen in the first season episode of as a basis for his list . However , as he explained , he " " combined confusion , circumstance , and innuendo to produce illogic , but it relatively ( in the loosest possible sense ) forms a semi - cohesive pattern . " " Jein started by determining the names of the starships first . Taking names from " The Making of Star Trek " and the " Star Trek " episodes , he arrived at the following list : He then claimed that the " Constellation " , " Defiant " , " Farragut " , " Kongo " , " Republic " and " Valiant " were unlikely to have appeared on the Starbase 11 chart , due to them being either not yet constructed or no longer in active service . Removing these ships left twelve , exactly the number of starships mentioned by Kirk in the first season episode . Jein then matched these 12 names to the 10 numbers on the chart by using a reverse alphabetical ordering , arriving at the following matches : Although he himself admitted there was little logical reasoning behind this ordering , it did lead by chance to several interesting matches . The 1701 was correctly assigned to the " Enterprise " , and the 1700 was very conveniently matched to the USS " Constitution " , the presumed first ship of the . Furthermore , the " Intrepid " had the longest bar on the chart , perhaps indicating it had finished repairs , as the plot for " Court Martial " suggested . Incidentally , Jein ' s observation of a " " Constitution " - class " struck a cord with production staff ers and fans alike , and it was " understood " to have established the " Enterprise " and her sisters belonging to the " Constitution " - class ever since , thereby replacing the somewhat non - committal " " Starship " - class " designation , even though a conformational canon reference had to wait until 1982 . In conclusion , Greg Jein presented a " projected list " of starships , each accompanied with a registry number with names and classifications not seen in " Court Martial " , as well as including one vessel never mentioned before ( or later for that matter ) in any official works or production sources . The names not established in the series proper , he took from the three lists Writer / Story Editor D . C . Fontana and Producer Robert Justman proposed at the start of the production of the second season of " The Original Series " . Registry numbers not featured in the series , Jein made up , taking care to have them correspond with the classification numbering . The single unreferenced ship , the USS " Tashik - Sotra " , was an acknowledgment of Justman ' s annotation on his proposal of 9 August 1967 , where the latter remarked , " " In addition , I think a name ought to be made up that would be of Vulcan origin . " " While not adopted , some of Justman ' s notion was carried over to having the " Intrepid " a crew that was almost entirely composed of Vulcans . ( " The Making of Star Trek " , pp . 164 - 165 ) The classification of these ships was based on information from a technical diagram labeled ' Primary Phaser L , R ' , constructed for the script requirements of the first season episode , but only seen very briefly and partially in the later season two episode . The graphic was actually created by Art Director Matt Jefferies , who used his own extensive aviation library as his source . Depicted were two varieties of hydraulic fluid reservoirs , used by the US Air Force at the time . The diagram was endowed with a caption , gleaned by Jein for his article after he had obtained a trimmed clipping from Lincoln Enterprises showing the graphic in its entirety , that read : Taking his cue from the " MK IX / 01 " specifier from the graphic caption , Jein postulated that this was a newer design variant , or sub - class , with the " Constitution " being the first , prototype MK IX ( sub - ) class vessel with the " Enterprise " as it second member , hence the " 01 " addition to both the registry " NCC - 17 " and the technical journal graphic as seen . The vessels with lower registry numbers he assigned lower variant class specifiers accordingly , though he had made an error with the " Constellation " ( having it switched with that of the " Republic " would have made his list entirely consistent ) . As he had already established that the producers of the " Original Series " proceeded from a class launch in the mid - 2220s ( " The Making of Star Trek " , p . 203 ) , much older " Constitution " s with a lower registry number could have existed , being either destroyed or decommissioned prior to 2245 , the by the production staff generally accepted – though not firmly confirmed – launch year of the " Enterprise " . Noteworthy was , that the original designer of the " Enterprise " and its registry number , Matt Jefferies , has endorsed the rationale behind Jein ' s numbering system to some extent , " " The reason we gave for the choice " [ NCC - 1701 ] " afterwards was that the " Enterprise " was the 17th major design of the Federation , and the first in the series . 17 - 01 ! " " ( " " , p . 62 ) , The class variations in the diagram featured on the right may or may not have an exact similar appearance to the " Enterprise " . Acceptance of Greg Jein ' s numbers . These registry numbers , and in some cases , the ships in this list that were not actually seen on " Star Trek " , have made their way into official works . The first major adoptions of these numbers were in Bjo Trimble ' s first commercial 1977 reference book edition of the " Star Trek Concordance " and in the FASA role - playing game in the early 1980s , both of which , as licensed products , considered " official " at the time . In the 1990s , licensed , and to date still by the " Star Trek " franchise maintained as official , reference works by Michael Okuda in particular , most notably his , started using these numbers as a tip - of - the - hat to Greg Jein who had become the regular studio model vendor for by that time ( ànd who had provided Okuda himself with reference models for representation in his to fill in gaps in " Star Trek " history ) , as Okuda himself stated on a later occasion , " " I might note that some of the ship registry numbers came from Greg Jein ' s interpretation of the starship chart in Commodore Stone ' s office in " Shore Leave " ( TOS ) " [ sic ; The actual episode with Commodore Stone is " Court Martial " , not " Shore Leave " ] " . " " Up until that point in time , Memory Alpha deemed these numbers conjectural and / or , and not part of the established canon . However , the producers did seem to regard these numbers as the official ones . This was emphasized by Mike Okuda himself , as he specifically mentioned Jein ' s article as the " only " non - official , outside reference source in the official " Encyclopedia " ( 3rd ed . , pp 85 - 86 ) , without acknowledging or using any other . The 2006 remastered episode versions of " The Original Series " featured several of the original vessels with visible registry numbers , which had previously been indiscernible in their original appearances , and they were all based on the list as it was published in the " Encyclopedia " . Where applicable in the remastered series , Visual Effects Supervisor Okuda made use of the opportunity to marry Jein ' s numbers to their respective ships , and these at least are as such considered elevated to canon by Memory Alpha . They concern the following vessels and their respective appearances : This accounted for all the visually established , unnumbered , " Constitution " - class vessels seen in the original run of the series – though the " Intrepid " was originally not featured there visually , but especially retcon ned into the remastered version – , save one . The one exception was the USS " Potemkin " ( NCC - 1657 ) for which a registry number had already been provided by Okuda himself for representation on the Starship Mission Assignments charts and the briefing charts of Operation Retrieve , seen and unseen in . But since he had already propagated this registry in his subsequent reference works , he chose to leave the registry for the ship as is . Alternatives . A major perceived inconsistency with the scheme presented by Greg Jein is the apparent existence of ships with registry numbers lower than the number of the class ship ( the " Constitution " s NCC - 1700 ) . Furthermore , and Jein repeatedly reminds the reader of this , the above scheme is not particularly scientific or logical , and is mostly derived from conjecture and random chance . Yet , as explained above , what Jein ' s detractors had at the time consistently failed to fathom was , that he actually had accounted for the numbering discrepancy . A fan - appointed so - called " major competitor " on the subject of " Constitution " - class registries had previously been the " Star Fleet Technical Manual " by Franz Joseph , published in 1975 . In his book , Franz Joseph listed the " Constitution " - class starships , sometimes as member of some sub - class , with much more consistent registry numbers ranging from NCC - 1700 to NCC - 1843 . Franz Joseph also used a variation of the ' Mk IX ' classification . To add to the confusion , the " Star Fleet Technical Manual " was at one time " also " regarded as " official " , just like the later FASA material . There were on screen references to the " Technical Manual " ships in , with the ( NCC - 1715 ) as an example of a starship with a Franz Joseph - derived registry number . For these reasons , many fans preferred Joseph ' s list above Jein ' s , resulting that there had been no clear consensus on the issue at the time . And indeed , even Okuda made use of Joseph ' work for his " Operation Retrieve " charts , having stated , " " Other registry numbers came from Franz Joseph ' s " Star Fleet Technical Manual " or his " Starship blueprints " . " " However , since he concurrently had made the " Jein ' s interpretation " remark on the very same occasion , this was a stark indication that he only had become aware of Jein ' s article in the time period that he was working on both the " The Undiscovered Country " and the " Encyclopedia " , and Okuda from there on end has strictly adhered to Jein ' s article . It was the very last recorded occasion that Joseph ' s work was ever referenced as a production source . Furthermore , Okuda ' s contributions to the remastered project and the formal " debunking " of Joseph ' s work seemed to have settled the matter once and for all . While a dwindling number of die - hard fans still adhere to the work , the official franchise has formally distanced itself from the " Technical Manual " , dismissing it as " unofficial " and relegating the work to apocrypha status , as it had done with every other ( in - universe ) reference work , prior to the " Chronology " . ( ) Apart from these two major lists , there have been a few cases in which on screen references to " Constitution " - class starships have ignored any of the systems . The most notable example was the USS " Constellation " , whose exceptionally low registry number , " NCC - 1017 " was the only one visually established in the original run of the " Original Series " . It , although introduced before any of these lists were set up , has set the precedent for starships using registry numbers lower than that of their class lead ship ( in reality the decal sheet of the 1966 first edition AMT " Enterprise " model kit , no . S921 and from which the " Constellation " filming model was constructed , only contained the NCC - 1701 number and the ship ' s number was constructed by reshuffling the one decal ) . The other example was the USS " Potemkin " , which was given the registry NCC - 1657 in " The Undiscovered Country " , as already explained .