Posted by Robert Archer in SS Bonaventure

Posted by Ben Simons in SS Bonaventure

Posted by Travis Good in SS Bonaventure
Hello:

I am the new XO of the SS Bonaventure and could not find out why it is called “SS” instead of “USS”? I thought SS meant Space Station but the Bonnie is a ship. I have looked at the specs and history and found nothing. Can you please assist me? Plus I asked the Captain and she did not know. Thank you.

Travis Good
Commander, XO
SS Bonaventure

Hey Travis,

Thanks for pointing it out - that was my understanding too.

I’ve looked at the history and charter, including Edict 52, where it was comissioned as the USS Bonnaventure but the charter states the SS Bonnaventure. So, it could merely be an error somewhere, but there are other reasons that I have also been told including that it could be something to be resolved by TECH. It could also be something to do with the era, as it’s a pre-federation ship. Those are the possibilities I’ve got from talking to other members of the club, as I wasn’t here myself when it happened but will try and find out if this was in error or deliberate, and the reasons why if the latter is the case.

Ben Simons
Dockmaster
Engineering Department

From what I understand it is due to the era being its an Enterprise era ship from my time as edir a few years back the USS in the edict to me has always been a mistake from force of habits of USS for our TNG era ships. Nick can correct me though obviously.

Robert Archer

From the 2004 entry for the Bonnie in my Ship Histories project ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aAVfskiRdXlBq-mOXvIUycIThf7Xz03tRkhNfAvwWAk/edit?usp=sharing ):

Although the ship was originally commissioned as the USS Bonaventure, the ship started calling itself the SS Bonaventure at some point after this time, although there was no formal edict at the time changing the ship’s name.

In actual canon, in ST:ENT, the ship never used “USS” before the name. From Memory-Alpha ( https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS ): Shortly before Star Trek: Enterprise began its initial airing, Rick Berman implied that Enterprise NX-01 was purposefully without the “USS” prefix because it wasn’t a Federation starship. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 134, p. 13) The use of “USS” by Starfleet before the formation of the Federation was only seen on a computer graphic in the Enterprise episode “Divergence”. This graphic had both the Enterprise and the Columbia designated with the USS prefix, which may have been a mistake on the part of the graphics designers, as neither ships’ hull designation used “USS”.

Daniel