Star Trek: 10 Secrets About The USS Enterprise-F You Need To Know
A starship with an illustrious heritage that was gone before her time.
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00:00One of the great things that I get to do as a host here on Trek Culture is I get to go
00:05super, super into detail about all of these ships that, in my head, I'm just flying around.
00:12That's why lists like this, written by our own Clive Burrell, is so much fun. With that in mind,
00:18I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture, and here are 10 secrets of the USS Enterprise F you need to know.
00:2610. Verity on High
00:29The arrival of the Enterprise F in Star Trek Picard wasn't actually the first time in canon
00:35that we saw an Odyssey-class vessel. IDW's graphic novel prequel series to Picard featured the USS
00:42Verity, NCC-97007. This was assigned to Admiral Picard to assist in the Romulan evacuation
00:52program, the precursor to the supernova that would kickstart not only the Kelvin universe,
00:58but also a lot of the action in Picard and beyond. As noted in an article for IDW itself,
01:04Star Trek Online's Thomas Moroney, the person who adapted the design to fit Star Trek Online,
01:10stated that in this period of history there were two Odyssey-class ships created. One was the USS
01:17Verity, the other was the USS Odyssey. They were created as a direct response to the Riemann
01:23Scimitar, and this was Starfleet's version of a heavy cruiser. The further we look into this,
01:32the backstory states that actually the Odyssey-class was put on hold so that all of the
01:37resources for designing and building this fleet of ships could be put into the Verity to rush that
01:42into service for the Romulan evacuation. However, with the subsequent failure of the Romulan
01:48evacuation and the destruction of Utopia Planitia shipyards, the Odyssey itself was
01:55somewhat forgotten and the Verity was mothballed. We have a couple, then, of different backstories
02:00to the Odyssey-class depending on whether you follow Star Trek Online or whether you follow
02:04IDW's story, but it does remain that the Enterprise F is the only Odyssey-class ship
02:11that has received any significant screen time in the episodes of the card.
02:16Number nine, thanks for the support. Taking inspiration from the Enterprise F's online
02:21heritage, the one that we saw in the show did in fact feature a small docked support craft at the
02:29aft. In the spot that historically would see the shuttle bay on such ships like the Constitution
02:34class, we get the Aquarius-class support ship. This is analogous to the Aero Shuttle on Voyager
02:42and the Calypso Captain's Yacht of the Enterprise D, and like those, we never really got to see it
02:49do anything in the few minutes of screen time that the Enterprise F got. In Star Trek Online,
02:55the ship was actually destroyed in 2410 by Captain Sean, but naturally it was redesigned,
03:03rebuilt, and re-docked. The ship wasn't just a support craft in terms of getting people off the
03:09ship if needs be, it was different from a runabout in that way. It could actually enter a battle on
03:14the support side of the Enterprise F as well. Both the Aquarius and the Odyssey-class actually got
03:21their names from the Apollo 13 space mission. They were named after the lander and the command module.
03:28Of course, that would go on to make sure that we would all remember the phrase,
03:33Houston, we've had a problem. Number eight, now for the stats. The best resource for information
03:39on the Enterprise F is Star Trek Online and the official breakdown that's given for the ship there.
03:44Built at the Utopia Planitia shipyard, the Enterprise F was armed with 18 Mark-12 phaser
03:50arrays, four variable payload warhead launchers, two phaser turrets, and two heavy phaser cannon
03:56mounts. A bit of beefed-up firepower for the Enterprise F then. One thing that the design
04:01carried over from both the Galaxy and Sovereign-class ships was that it had the ability to
04:05separate its saucer section. This was a little bit different. Where the Enterprise D's saucer
04:11section was used effectively as a life raft to help people escape a battle scenario, the saucer
04:17section of the Enterprise F was designed to become a separate, fully operational battleship if the
04:24situation required it. It was in a way then closer in design to the experimental Prometheus
04:31class. There was, of course, an array of shuttles. There was also an Argo, which you will remember
04:36from Star Trek Nemesis, and there was several Yellowstone-class runabouts. Now, the Yellowstone
04:42was slightly different from the Danube-class and was only seen once before in Star Trek Voyager's
04:48non-secretaire. There is also a captain's yacht and, of course, the previously mentioned Aquarius.
04:55Number seven. Feeling shunned? It only took 33 years, if you don't include the silent appearance
05:03in Star Trek Lower Decks, but Elizabeth Shelby returned to Star Trek. She had gone from the
05:10promotion-hungry Borg expert from Best of Both Worlds to become a full admiral who was ceremonially,
05:17at least, in charge of the Enterprise F during the Frontier Day celebrations. The Picard logs
05:22that were released online suggested that the ship has had a variety of captains over its lifespan,
05:28but in Star Trek Online, the Enterprise F is commanded by the Andorian Captain Vakel Shon.
05:35This makes him the third non-human commander of an Enterprise, after Spock in The Wrath of Khan,
05:42and Worf, if that little wink and nod is what we think it is, in the episode Vox.
05:49There are, of course, other variations. In Peter David's novel Imzadi from 1992,
05:54it suggests the Enterprise F is in service around 2408 and is commanded by none other than Data.
06:01The later DS9 series, Millennium, would also suggest that there was an Enterprise F,
06:06but this ship was a defiant class that was built after the destruction of the Enterprise E.
06:11It was initially commanded by Jean-Luc Picard, later commanded by William Riker,
06:16until it too bit the bullet.
06:186. Competitive Edge
06:20The Enterprise F design actually came about from a competition run by Star Trek Online
06:26to celebrate its first anniversary, aptly named Design the Next Enterprise. This wasn't the first
06:32time that a competition like this had been run. The pocketbooks had actually run a similar
06:37competition, with the Luna-class USS Titan coming from that, designed by artist Sean Tarango.
06:43The success of the Luna-class competition contributed to convincing CBS that this
06:49Design the New Enterprise idea was a good one, and so they ran with it, and they got
06:54thousands of entries, which were then narrowed down to about 25, before eventually being narrowed
07:00down to a final four. The criteria for the design was relatively straightforward. Effectively,
07:06when you looked at it, you had to think iconic Federation starship. So, two nacelles, deflector
07:14dish, primary hull, saucer section. With all of these aspects being included in his design,
07:20Adam Eel actually won the overall competition. Some of the other close to the first place
07:28entries included Jason Vector Lee's four-nacelled ship that would actually be repurposed and reused
07:36as the USS Chimera in Star Trek Online, commanded by Captain Nog. Number five, screen time. The
07:43Enterprise F just misses out on the honour of having the shortest amount of screen time of any
07:52of the Enterprises. That honour goes to the Enterprise J, which we only really saw a design
07:58graphic of and a bit of the corridor that Daniels and Archer were standing in in Enterprise's third
08:04season. The Enterprise F appears in the last two episodes of season three of Picard, Vox and The
08:11Last Generation. Now, it was shown quite heavily in the trailers and the marketing campaign, but
08:16it was also very quickly stated that it wasn't going to be the hero ship of the season, so as to
08:25kind of tease audiences, but also not set them up for, well, not seeing very much of it. The F was
08:32seen earlier in the season as a graphic on the file that Roe Laron gives to Picard, but apart from
08:42these few fleeting glimpses, we don't really get to see very much of it. Also, the return of the
08:48Enterprise D in the very last scene of Vox and of course The Last Generation does somewhat eclipse
08:55the Enterprise F just a bit, and considering that the Enterprise F was to be decommissioned after
09:02Frontier Day, it's unlikely that we're going to see her again for a while. Number four, size of it
09:09now. The Enterprise F reflected the way Enterprises had been going. You know, when you
09:15think the Enterprise B was bigger than the Enterprise A, C to the B, D, and then E is longer
09:22than D, but D is technically a bigger ship. But yes, it reflected the time of Starfleet's need
09:29for these larger vessels, be they for exploration or with the advanced dangers of the Dominion and
09:36the Borg, and I suppose the Romulans, Starfleet needed more battleships. The Enterprise G,
09:43on the other hand, reflected this new, more peaceful era of Starfleet's history, so it was
09:50deemed to shrink the size of the flagship and it would then become this Neo-Constitution class,
09:58which we had of course seen in the season as the Titan A. Things must have got a little hairy again
10:04as the years went on, because the Enterprise J is roughly the size of Earth's moon. All right,
10:10that's a bit of an overstatement, but it is considerably larger. The Enterprise F is 1,061
10:16meters long, as opposed to the Enterprise E, which was 685 meters. The Enterprise D was only 641
10:24meters long, but as I stated, it was rather larger in other respects. This makes the Odyssey class
10:30the largest class of ship that had been seen in the prime timeline up to that point. It does have
10:36fewer decks than the Enterprise D, 32 as opposed to 48. This, however, is in part due to its
10:43lengthier, more streamlined shape. This makes the Enterprise F around two and a half times the size
10:49of the original Constitution class, which itself only had 23 decks to fit 430 crew. As they state
10:57in Trials and Tribulations, they really did pack them in on these old ships, just for fun. If we
11:02hop over into the Kelvin timeline, the USS Vengeance would still dwarf the Enterprise F. It
11:08is 1,450 meters long. That's a big ship. Number three, crafty construction. One of the defining
11:17features of the Enterprise F is the double neck that it boasts, as opposed to the singular neck
11:24of almost all previous ships. According to the bonus issue of the Enterprise F from Eaglemoss's
11:31Star Trek Starships collection, Adam Eel's design was favoured because it was big and majestic.
11:37There were design cues from the Galaxy and Sovereign classes that made it feel familiar,
11:42and the double neck was the icing on the cake. Eel himself had revisited the work of original
11:47Enterprise designer Matt Jeffries, as well as the futuristic ideas of Doug Drexler for the Enterprise
11:54J, and of course Andrew Probert's design of the Enterprise D. He kept the overall shape quite
12:00similar to what had gone before. The primary hull was raised and separate from the secondary hull
12:05via this double neck. The nacelles were attached with backward facing pylons. Quite simply put,
12:13it looked like an Enterprise. Cryptic's Thomas Moroney then made a couple of slight alterations
12:19when designing the ship for Star Trek Online. He widened the neck, for example, and he swept back
12:25the saucer a little bit over the engineering hull. To date, this is the only ship in canon
12:30that has this kind of distinct design. Number two, short shelf life. According to Star Trek Picard,
12:37the NCC-1701F was only in service for about 15 years. It was being decommissioned in 2401's
12:45Frontier Day following a disastrous Monfette gambit that saw a catastrophic systems failure
12:52ship-wide. It was deemed easier just to decommission the ship than to repair it. Now, if that sounds
12:59like a bit of a short life for a ship, consider that the Enterprises A, B, C, D, and E all came in
13:08under that 15 year lifeline. In fact, D had the shortest lifespan at only seven years,
13:15whereas the original Enterprise, if we include the refit as well, was going around for about 40 years.
13:23That record is not likely to be broken anytime soon. The Picard logs that preceded Star Trek
13:28Picard revealed that the ship had been commissioned in 2386. Executive producer and showrunner Terry
13:35Metallis stated that Admiral Shelby's posting of the Enterprise F was purely for the ceremonies
13:42of Frontier Day only. There was a series of unnamed in the show captains who had command
13:48during the Enterprise's lifespan. In Star Trek Online, however, the Enterprise F was only
13:53commissioned in 2409, which meant that the Enterprise E probably had a longer lifespan,
14:01although its final fate may still have not been Worf's fault.
14:061. No to the upgrade
14:08The Enterprise F's appearance in Star Trek Picard cements itself in prime canon that we have seen
14:15it, it has been out there, and it got, well, seven layers of hell kicked out of it by the Borg. But
14:23we won't think about that for the moment. What it does is that with the decommissioning of the
14:28Enterprise F on screen, it means that what happened in Star Trek Online is very unlikely
14:37to happen. Well, it can't because the Enterprise G has already been commissioned.
14:40In Star Trek Online, the Enterprise F received a major overhaul and refit following the closing of
14:47the Iconian War. These refits included more prominent impulse engines, changes to the
14:53nacelles and the pylons, and a change of the overall paint scheme, and that's just on the
14:57outside. These were seen for the first time in the episode Cilia and Charybdis.
15:03Now, Eaglemoss's Star Trek Starships collection did in fact release a model of this refit Yorktown
15:10class. Eaglemoss released two variants of the original Enterprise F, one in the largely black
15:18and white livery that's seen in Star Trek Online, and one in a more traditional Starfleet grey.
15:24The producers of Star Trek Picard decided to go with the online version,
15:28which means, funnily enough, that grey model of the Enterprise F can really only be found
15:35as an option within Star Trek Online. And there you have it. There is the secrets of the Enterprise
15:39F that you need to know. What did you think? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks so much
15:44again to Clive Burrell for penning this list, and thank you so much to Martin for making this video
15:49look pretty. You're all awesome and wonderful folks. Please remember to follow us over on
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16:24remember, there are good people left. You might be one of them. Thanks very much.
16:29Heavy phaser cannon mounts.