History Main / FantasticShipPrefix

** The {{Kaiserreich}} used the prefix SMS (Seiner Majestät Schiff / His Majesty's Ship); you'll sometimes see this prefix applied to the ships of Nazi Germany as well, but this usage is technically incorrect as it should only apply to ships of the 1871-1918 Imperial era.

*** NX: Starfleet experimental. Often used for the lead ships of a class, or ships that are the testbed of new technologies. The ''Excelsior'' first appears as NX-2000 while she is running trials and carrying an experimental warp drive. Later she is granted active status and her registry changes to NCC. USS ''Galaxy'', the lead ship of the Enterprise-D's class, is listed in the Star Trek Technical Manual as having an NX prefix but is later seen in Deep Space Nine as NCC-70637, it's unknown whether this was the same situation or whether the intention of the production staff changed later.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' generates a prefix based on a civilisation's name (which, in turn, is generated based on the primary species' name and the government type) at the time it is generated. You can change it when you design a civilisation as with every other name or title, although unlike civilisation name you can ''not'' change the default manually once the game has started -- you'll have to edit the names of each and every vessel you own and build going forward[[note]]This becomes slightly annoying in 1.3, as switching governments there re-runs the government name/adjective/ship prefix generation for player nations as it does for AI nations[[/note]].

** While Starfleet ships use an existing prefix, their registry numbers have various original designations which usually begin with 'N'. Here is a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NUGgtaQh-4 breakdown of Federation registries]].

** Romulan ships use IRW (Imperial Romulan Warbird).

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' generates a prefix based on a civilisation's name (which, in turn, is generated based on the primary species' name and the government type) at the time it is generated. You can change it when you design a civilisation as with every other name or title, although unlike civilisation name you can ''not'' change the defauly manually once the game has started -- you'll have to edit the names of each and every vessel you own and build going forward[[note]]This becomes slightly annoying in 1.3, as switching governments there re-runs the government name/adjective/ship prefix generation for player nations as it does for AI nations[[/note]].

[[folder: Web Original]]

** While Starfleet ships use an existing prefix, their registry numbers have various original designations which usually begin with 'N'. Here is a [[youtube.com/watch?v=3NUGgtaQh-4 breakdown of Federation registries]].

** While Starfleet ships use an existing prefix, their registry numbers had various original designations which usually began with 'N'.

*** The full list of Federation prefixes is: NCC (commissioned Starfleet) [[note]]Generally taken to mean [[WildMassGuessing Naval Construction Contract]][[/note]], NX (experimental)[[note]] [[WildMassGuessing Navy eXperimental]][[/note]], NAR (civilian merchant), NDT (civilian transport), NC (civilian general), NSP (Vulcan science), NFT (civilian transport), and NGA (commercial transport), with N appearing to be simply the Federation national prefix for all registry numbers.

Compare FantasticHonorifics and FantasticRankSystem. To [[AvertedTrope avert]] this trope, see the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_prefix Ship Prefix]] page on Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}.

A short string of letters, usually 2-5, that appears just in front of the name of a ship. These indicate what kind of ship it is or who it belongs to (USS -- ''United States Ship'' -- is a ship with the US Navy, HMS -- ''His/Her Majesty's Ship'' -- the Royal Navy, and RMS -- a ''Royal Mail Ship'' owned by various owners under contract with the eponymous Royal Mail).

* Federation military vessels in the ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' universe all carry the prefix GFS (Galactic Federation Ship). The personal spacecraft of bounty hunters in the series (Sylux's ''Delano 7'' from ''Metroid Prime: Hunters'' as well as the various Hunter-class gunships from the ''Prime'' series) do not use this prefix, as they're owned by civilians, albeit under contract to the Feds.

* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'''s registry is XMC-10-284. Each High Guard ship class has its three letter code, but the personal number is given for only a few.