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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
00:04super 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.
00:26Number 10. Verity on High. The arrival of the Enterprise F in Star Trek Picard wasn't actually
00:33the first time in canon that we saw an Odyssey-class vessel. IDW's graphic novel prequel series to Picard
00:41featured the USS Verity 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 but also
00:58a lot of the action in Picard and beyond. As noted in an article for IDW itself, Star Trek Online's
01:05Thomas Maroney, the person who adapted the design to fit Star Trek Online, stated that in this period
01:12of history there were two Odyssey-class ships created. One was the USS Verity, the other was the USS Odyssey.
01:19They were created as a direct response to the Riemann Scimitar. You all remember how big that was
01:26and this was Starfleet's version of a heavy cruiser. The further we look into this, the backstory states
01:33that actually the Odyssey-class was put on hold so that all of the resources for designing and building
01:39the fleet of ships could be put into the Verity to rush that into service for the Romulan evacuation.
01:44However, with the subsequent failure of the Romulan evacuation and the destruction of Utopia Planitia
01:52shipyards, the Odyssey itself was somewhat forgotten and the Verity was mothballed. We have a couple then
01:59of different backstories to the Odyssey-class, depending on whether you follow Star Trek Online or whether
02:03you follow IDW's story. But it does remain that the Enterprise F is the only Odyssey-class ship that has received
02:12any significant screen time in the episodes of Picard. Number nine, thanks for the support.
02:19Taking inspiration from the Enterprise F's online heritage, the one that we saw in the show did in fact feature
02:26a small docked support craft at the aft. In the spot that historically would see the shuttle bay on such ships
02:33like the Constitution-class, we get the Aquarius-class support ship. This is analogous to the aero shuttle
02:41on Voyager and 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, the ship was
02:56actually destroyed in 2410 by Captain Sean, but naturally it was redesigned, rebuilt, and redocked.
03:04The ship wasn't just a support craft in terms of getting people off the ship if needs be, it was
03:10different from a runabout in that way. It could actually enter a battle on the support side of the
03:16Enterprise F as well. Both the Aquarius and the Odyssey-class actually got their names from the Apollo 13 space
03:24mission. They were named after the lander and the command module. Of course, that would go on to
03:30make sure that we would all remember the phrase, Houston, we've had a problem. Number eight, now for
03:37the stats. The best resource for information on the Enterprise F is Star Trek Online and the official
03:42breakdown that's given for the ship there. Built at the Utopia Planitia shipyard, the Enterprise F was
03:47armed with 18 Mark 12 phaser arrays, four variable payload warhead launchers, two phaser turrets,
03:54and two heavy phaser cannon mounts. A bit of beefed up firepower for the Enterprise F then. One thing
04:00that the design carried over from both the Galaxy and Sovereign-class ships was that it had the ability
04:05to separate its saucer section. This was a little bit different, where the Enterprise D's saucer section
04:11was used effectively as a life raft to help people escape a battle scenario, the saucer section of the
04:18Enterprise F was designed to become a separate fully operational battleship if the situation required
04:25it. It was in a way then closer in design to the experimental Prometheus-class. There was, of course,
04:33an array of shuttles. There was also an Argo, which you will remember from Star Trek Nemesis,
04:38and there was several Yellowstone-class runabouts. Now, the Yellowstone was slightly different from the
04:44the Danube-class and was only seen once before in Star Trek Voyager's Non-Secataire. There is also
04:50a captain's yacht and, of course, the previously mentioned Aquarius. Number seven, feeling shunned?
04:58It only took 33 years, if you don't include the silent appearance in Star Trek Lower Decks,
05:05but Elizabeth Shelby returned to Star Trek. She had gone from the promotion-hungry Borg expert from Best of
05:12both worlds to become a full admiral who was, ceremonially at least, in charge of the Enterprise
05:19F during the Frontier Day celebrations. The Picard logs that were released online suggested that the
05:24ship has had a variety of captains over its lifespan, but in Star Trek Online the Enterprise F is
05:31commanded by the Andorian Captain Vakel Shon. This makes him the third non-human commander of an
05:39Enterprise after Spock in The Wrath of Cannes and Worf, if that little wink and nod is what we think
05:47it is in the episode Vox. There 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, but this ship was a
06:07defiant class that was built after the destruction of the Enterprise E. It was initially commanded by
06:13Jean-Luc Picard, later commanded by William Riker, until it too bit the bullet. Number six, competitive edge.
06:20The Enterprise F design actually came about from a competition run by Star Trek Online to celebrate its first
06:27anniversary, aptly named Design the Next Enterprise. This wasn't the first time that a competition like this had been run,
06:34the pocketbooks had actually run a similar competition with the Luna-class USS Titan coming from that,
06:41designed by artist Sean Tarango. The success of the Luna-class competition contributed to convincing CBS
06:49that this Design the New Enterprise idea was a good one, and so they ran with it. And they got thousands of
06:55entries, which were then narrowed down to about 25, before eventually being narrowed down to a final four.
07:02The criteria for the design was relatively straightforward. Effectively, when you looked at it,
07:07you had to think iconic Federation starship, so two nacelles, deflector dish, primary hull, saucer section.
07:16With all of these aspects being included in his design, Adam Eel actually won the overall competition.
07:24Some of the other close to the close to the first place entries included Jason Vector Lee's four
07:32nacelled ship that would actually be repurposed and reused as the USS Chimera in Star Trek Online,
07:39commanded by Captain Nog. Number five, screen time. The Enterprise F just misses out on the honor of
07:48having the shortest amount of screen time of any of the Enterprises. That honor goes to the Enterprise J,
07:56which we only really saw a design graphic of and a bit of the corridor that Daniels and Archer were
08:03standing in, in Enterprise's third season. The Enterprise F appears in the last two episodes of
08:09season three of Picard, Vox and The Last Generation. Now, it was shown quite heavily in the trailers and the
08:15marketing campaign, but it was also very, it was very quickly stated that it wasn't going to be the
08:22hero ship of the season, so as to kind of tease audiences, but also not set them up for, well,
08:30not seeing very much of it. The F was seen earlier in the season as a graphic on the file that Ro
08:37Laran gives to Picard, but apart from, apart from these few fleeting glimpses, we don't really get to see
08:45very much of it. Also, the return of the Enterprise D in the very last scene of Vox and of course the
08:52last generation does somewhat eclipse the Enterprise F just, just a bit, and considering that the
08:59Enterprise F was to be decommissioned after Frontier Day, it's unlikely that we're going to see her again
09:06for a while. Number four, size of it now. The Enterprise F reflected the way Enterprises had been going.
09:14You know, when you think the Enterprise B was bigger than the Enterprise A, C to the B, D, and then
09:21E is longer than D, but D is technically a bigger ship. But yes, it reflected the time of Starfleet's
09:29need for these larger vessels, be they for exploration or with the advanced dangers of the Dominion and the
09:36Borg, and I suppose the Romulans. Starfleet needed more battleships. The Enterprise G, on the other hand,
09:44reflected this new, more peaceful era of Starfleet's history. So it was deemed to shrink the size of the
09:52flagship and it would then become this Neo-Constitution class, which we had of course seen in the season as
10:00the Titan A. Things must have got a little hairy again as the years went on because the Enterprise
10:06J is roughly the size of Earth's moon. Alright, that's a bit of an overstatement, but it is
10:12considerably larger. The Enterprise F is 1061 meters long, as opposed to the Enterprise E, which was 685 meters.
10:21The Enterprise D was only 641 meters long, but as I stated, it was rather larger in other respects.
10:28This makes the Odyssey class the largest class of ship that had been seen in the prime timeline
10:34up to that point. It does have fewer decks than the Enterprise D, 32 as opposed to 48. This however,
10:42is in part due to its lengthier, more streamlined shape. This makes the Enterprise F around two and a
10:48half times the size of the original Constitution class, which itself only had 23 decks to fit 430
10:55crew. As they state in Trials and Tribulations, they really did pack them in on these old ships,
11:01just for fun. If we hop over into the Kelvin timeline, the USS Vengeance would still dwarf the
11:06Enterprise F. It is 1450 meters long. That's a big ship. Number three, crafty construction. One of the
11:17defining features of the Enterprise F is the double neck that it boasts, as opposed to the singular
11:24neck of 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. There
11:37were design cues from the Galaxy and Sovereign classes that made it feel familiar, and the double neck
11:43was the icing on the cake. Eaglemoss himself had revisited the work of original Enterprise designer
11:48Matt Jeffries, as well as the futuristic ideas of Doug Drexler for the Enterprise J, and of course,
11:55Andrew Probert's design of the Enterprise D. He kept the overall shape quite similar to what had gone
12:01before. The primary hull was raised and separate from the secondary hull via this double neck. The nacelles
12:08were attached with backward-facing pylons. Quite simply put, it looked like an Enterprise. Cryptic's
12:15Thomas Moroney then made a couple of slight alterations when designing the ship for Star
12:20Trek Online. He widened the neck, for example, and he swept back the saucer a little bit over the
12:27engineering hull. To date, this is the only ship in canon that has this kind of distinct design.
12:33Number two, short shelf life. According to Star Trek Picard, the NCC-1701F was only in service for
12:40about 15 years. It was being decommissioned in 2401's Frontier Day, following a disastrous
12:48Monfette gambit that saw a catastrophic systems failure ship-wide. It was deemed easier just to
12:55decommission the ship than to repair it. Now, if that sounds like a bit of a short life for a ship,
13:01consider that the Enterprises A, B, C, D, and E all came in under that 15-year lifeline. In fact,
13:11D had the shortest lifespan at only seven years, whereas the original Enterprise, if we include the
13:18refit as well, was going around for about 40 years. That record is not likely to be broken anytime soon.
13:26The Picard logs that preceded Star Trek Picard revealed that the ship had been commissioned in
13:312386. Executive producer and showrunner Terry Metallus stated that Admiral Shelby's posting of
13:39the Enterprise F was purely for the ceremonies of Frontier Day only. There was a series of unnamed
13:46in the show captains who had command during the Enterprise's lifespan. In Star Trek Online,
13:51however, the Enterprise F was only commissioned in 2409, which meant that the Enterprise E probably had
13:59a longer lifespan, although its final fate may still have not been Worf's fault.
14:06Number one, no to the upgrade. The Enterprise F's appearance in Star Trek Picard cements itself in
14:13prime canon that we have seen it. It has been out there and it got, well, seven layers of hell kicked
14:20out of it by the Borg. But we won't think about that for the moment. What it does is that with the
14:27decommissioning of the Enterprise F on screen, it means that what happened in Star Trek Online is very
14:35unlikely to happen. Well, it can't because the Enterprise G has already been commissioned. In Star Trek Online,
14:41the Enterprise F received a major overhaul and refit following the closing of the Iconian War.
14:48These refits included more prominent impulse engines, changes to the nacelles and the pylons,
14:54and a change of the overall paint scheme, and that's just on the outside. These were seen for
14:59the first time in the episode Cilia and Charybidus. Now, Eagle Moss's Star Trek Starships collection
15:06did in fact release a model of this refit Yorktown class. Eagle Moss released two variants of the
15:14original Enterprise F, one in the largely black and white livery that's seen in Star Trek Online,
15:21and one in a more traditional Starfleet grey. The producers of Star Trek Picard decided to go with the
15:26online version. Which means, fondly enough, that grey model of the Enterprise F can really only be
15:34found as an option within Star Trek Online. And there you have it. There is the secrets of the
15:39Enterprise F that you need to know. What did you think? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks so
15:43much again 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 Twitter,
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16:08Who knows? I have been Sean. You can follow me at SeanFerrick on the various socials.
16:13You are wonderful. You are awesome. Look after yourself until I'm talking to you again.
16:18Make sure that you live long and prosper. And in this crazy, crazy world that we're living in,
16:23remember, there are good people left. You might be one of them. Thanks very much. Heavy phaser cannon mounts.
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