USS George Washington

The USS George Washington (CVN-69) was a United States of America / aircraft carrier seagoing vessel in US Navy service on Earth in the 20th and 21st centuries, named for President of the United States of America George Washington. This vessel was succeeded in name by such vessels as the 23rd century Federation starships USS Washington.

When Counselor Deanna Troi had an empathic vision of a primitive Earth ship being destroyed, she browsed through a computer's history file looking for vessels that could be the one she saw. When the search reached the supercarrier Washington, Troi announced that the image was the most similar to the ship in her vision that she had seen thus far. The comparison to Washington's size and mission profile allowed Data to extrapolate futher and, by cross-referencing with the names of the crew Troi remembered, Data determined that Troi's vision was of the Soviet Union aircraft carrier Sergei G. Gorshkov (which was of similar size and makeup as Washington.)

Background
The Washington was based on a real ship that was not yet in service at the time of the book's writing in 1987. Author Diane Carey probably based this on timetables that the Navy predicted early in the ship's construction. Compared to reality, Carey was only off by four months when she wrote the dialogue the computer read back, indicating a January 1992 commission date, when the real Washington was commissioned early in July. Information in this article about the Washington's naming and real-life service dates is based on historical data, as only the ship's registry, name and launchdate were mentioned in the novel. In the novel, the ship is referenced as belonging to the Enterprise-class, despite the fact that the real-life vessel's designation was as part of the Nimitz-class of vessels.