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Chains of Consequences: By Any Other Name

There is one episode of the David Suchet seties which features a flashback during which Poirot is in some South American nation during a period of particularly troubled times politically. Naturally, he is of course arrested by the new junta and being taken away by soldiers in a truck. Two English travellers who he had met the night before at the hotel he was staying at calls out as he is placed in the truck:

”Don’t worry, Monsieur Poirot! We’ll go straight to French embassy and they’ll have this sorted out at once!”

Only for Poirot to call out in clear alarm as the truck drives away:

BEEEEEEEELGIUM!!!!
 
There is one episode of the David Suchet seties which features a flashback during which Poirot is in some South American nation during a period of particularly troubled times politically. Naturally, he is of course arrested by the new junta and being taken away by soldiers in a truck. Two English travellers who he had met the night before at the hotel he was staying at calls out as he is placed in the truck:

”Don’t worry, Monsieur Poirot! We’ll go straight to French embassy and they’ll have this sorted out at once!”

Only for Poirot to call out in clear alarm as the truck drives away:

BEEEEEEEELGIUM!!!!
Argentina - which was a suitable use, as Hastings being in "The Argentine" is frequently mentioned in the books, though I don't think they ever set scenes there like in the adaptation.
 
No Starship Enterprise, what's the space shuttle being called? "Yorktown" isn't really a very spaceship name
 
No Starship Enterprise, what's the space shuttle being called? "Yorktown" isn't really a very spaceship name
It’s called Enterprise after the aircraft carrier and then the real life starship Enterprise will be later named after it. Star Trek’s been through this already.

EDIT: More seriously, it’s probably just called the Columbia, and the naming scheme remains the same as IOTL — named after great exploration ships, with one other one picked. Officially, NASA considers Enterprise to fit into this naming scheme, because what is the starship Enterprise if not a great exploration ship?

EDIT2: Never mind. I’ve done some reading, and apparently it was originally supposed to be the Constitution.
 
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EDIT2: Never mind. I’ve done some reading, and apparently it was originally supposed to be the Constitution.
I was going to say Star Trek got that part right too, but I'm not sure when the term "Constitution class" rather than "Starship Class" came in.

We do never seem to get to see the class ships in Star Trek do we? Except the Excelsior as that came first, and I think DS9 did actually have the USS Galaxy in. Something always a bit special about an NX designator.

1587473830810.png
 
I was going to say Star Trek got that part right too, but I'm not sure when the term "Constitution class" rather than "Starship Class" came in.

We do never seem to get to see the class ships in Star Trek do we? Except the Excelsior as that came first, and I think DS9 did actually have the USS Galaxy in. Something always a bit special about an NX designator.

View attachment 19929
The term "Starship Class" floated around at the start, of course, but it was only ever used in dialogue to refer to starships as a generic term, and that quickly just became the form. "Constitution-class" appears on a diagram in either "Space Seed" or "The Trouble With Tribbles", I can't remember which, but you can't actually see the words on the diagram, but that does mean that the term existed very early on. IIRC the term is never used in dialogue before TNG.

That being said, the USS Constitution is the flagship of the US Navy, and was then, as well, and one of the most famous vessels in our nation's history, so I wouldn't read too much into both Star Trek and NASA, both filled with US Navy veterans behind the scenes, grasping for the same reference.
 
The term "Starship Class" floated around at the start, of course, but it was only ever used in dialogue to refer to starships as a generic term, and that quickly just became the form. "Constitution-class" appears on a diagram in either "Space Seed" or "The Trouble With Tribbles", I can't remember which, but you can't actually see the words on the diagram, but that does mean that the term existed very early on. IIRC the term is never used in dialogue before TNG.

That being said, the USS Constitution is the flagship of the US Navy, and was then, as well, and one of the most famous vessels in our nation's history, so I wouldn't read too much into both Star Trek and NASA, both filled with US Navy veterans behind the scenes, grasping for the same reference.
Well yes - it's like how Enterprise ended up having the first two ships of its class named after space shuttles, so follow-up novels and fanon named the rest after space shuttles to, but that's just because they were using Enterprise anyway and then the second one was a tribute to the recent Columbia disaster. Full circle there.

The trouble nowadays, as I mentioned in the article, is that Enterprise is so ineluctably associated with Star Trek that it doesn't appear in fictional contexts where you'd expect it to, like if every other ship is named after a WW2 American aircraft carrier.

(I only learned recently that Roddenberry wanted all the Constitution-class ships named after WW2 carriers of all nations, hence there was meant to be a USS Kongo for Japan and a USS Eagle for the UK - obviously he picks the British carrier with the least British-sounding name...)
 
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