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10 Legendary Star Trek Ship Kit-Bashes
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00:00Hello, Ellie here. Today's video is brought to you by Surfshark, but more on that in a bit.
00:06Hello my friends, how are you? Sean Ferrick here for TrekCulture. I've said it before,
00:09I'll say it again. You know me, I love ships. I love playing with model ships,
00:14I love seeing them fly around. Good lord, didn't any of you build ships in a bottle
00:19when you were kids? Please tell me you get the reference. I'm sure you do.
00:23With all of that, we are going to have a look at those ships that had a bit more of
00:27a,
00:27shall we say, rushed production schedule. Some of them may surprise you, others may haunt and scar
00:35you the rest of your lives. I'm Sean Ferrick for TrekCulture and here are 10 legendary Star Trek
00:41kitbashes. Number 10, the Proto-Nebula class. The USS Melbourne was introduced in the Best of Both
00:47Worlds Part 2. Well, I say introduced. The ship itself had been introduced by name in Part 1,
00:55with the appearance happening in Part 2. We have come to understand and expect a nebula class now
01:02to have that triangular shaped sensor... dome, for want of a better word, above the very galaxy class
01:09saucer section, but that was not always the case. In fact, the Proto-Nebula class had two smaller warp
01:16nacelles where that triangular piece was going to be. Two physical models of this Proto-Nebula,
01:23USS Melbourne, were built. One was going to be heavily damaged and destroyed to be shown in the
01:30debris field after the Battle of All 359. The other was then kept and used for a display piece in
01:37Captain Riker's ready room in the episode Future Imperfect. It's also the only kitbash that was seen in
01:44both the Best of Both Worlds Part 2 and Emissary as it was glimpsed through the window of Cisco's
01:50escape pod from the Saratoga. There is the long-standing story of Emissary also introducing an
01:55Excelsior class USS Melbourne, so in the universe the Excelsior USS Melbourne was already in service
02:02with this new USS Melbourne being rushed into release to face the Borg, and I bet they'd wish
02:08they'd left it in space dock. Number 9, USS Elkins. The Elkins is barely shown on screen in the Season
02:166
02:17opener of Deep Space Nine, A Time to Stand. The script called for a battered Federation fleet to be
02:22limping back toward their territory after having seven levels of shite knocked out of them by the
02:29Dominion. To fill out the numbers of this fleet, they called for several new ships to be created,
02:35one of which was the USS Elkins, which was named after VFX designer Judy Elkins. The body was based
02:42on parts from an F-14 jet, the nacelle struts were based on the Danube class runabout, and the nacelles
02:49themselves were borrowed from the Miranda class. Number 8, Intrepid Type. The Intrepid Type appeared in
02:57Star Trek Enterprise, and it's heavily based on Doug Drexler's design for the NX-01. The saucer section
03:04itself was halved, as well as the nacelles being swung up and stuck to that half saucer section.
03:12This was an example of CGI kitbashing rather than model kitbashing, and by model kitbashing I mean
03:20of course taking pieces that were commercially available. This, according to senior CG supervisor
03:26Rob Bonsoon, was a case of having to deal with creating these new designs with precious little
03:32turnaround time. In fact, this one, while it got some of the most screen time of any support vessels
03:38from Starfleet in Enterprise, they didn't really refer to it as anything until it was named Intrepid
03:44Type on screen. It was generally referred to as the one with the half saucer right up until it,
03:50with its additional numbers, helped to support NX-01 in the various battles against the Zindi,
03:56and whatever time traveling nonsense was happening that week. Number seven, the Challenger Class.
04:02The Challenger Class, so named by designer Ed Miarecki, was named after the Space Shuttle,
04:09and it was unique among Starfleet starships at the time that the two nacelles were not perfectly in
04:16line with each other. This technically broke Gene Roddenberry's rule of line of sight. In fact,
04:22Miarecki originally designed the ship with only one nacelle, but Mike Okuda would go on to suggest
04:28that maybe adding a second one would help to fill out the overall design. Okuda then said that actually
04:35he regretted that bit of advice because it made the ship look a bit like a lollipop. The Buran was
04:40one
04:40of 39 vessels that were lost at Wolf 359, and you can see it as the Enterprise slides into the
04:46field of
04:47destruction in the best of both worlds part two. What up my dudes, it's Chad Tarka. Some people think
04:53I might be a famous meteorologist, I like to think I'm just a friend of the weather. Right now I'm
04:58back on
04:59Ryza looking after my mom, and I'm about to head out there again. I really want to watch season 19
05:05of
05:05Love Decks. So of course I turn to the totally bodacious VPN Surfshark. No matter where I am, I can
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05:19But Surfshark's antivirus program keeps me totally tubular. And their righteous online security means
05:24I can keep my research private before publication. My dudes, the risk is zilch. And Surfshark offer a
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05:52comes from your friend Chad. Number six, the Jaeger class. I'm not going to lie to you folks, I hate
06:02this ship.
06:03I hate it. And because of that, I'm kind of delighted to have the model. I mean, I mean,
06:11I mean look at it. The model was designed by Gary Hutzel and it was actually praised by Mike Okuda
06:16because, I mean, whatever else you want to say about it, it is an immediately recognizable silhouette.
06:24Like you look at this and you know it's not an enterprise. The model was built from commercially
06:27available Voyager and Mackie Raider model kits. It was often seen then in various episodes of
06:34Deep Space Nine as a ship that was lazily floating by the station. Now this was never shown in a
06:41close
06:42up high definition way. So if we ever do get around to that long fabled remaster of Deep Space Nine,
06:51you have to wonder. I can appreciate the absolute ingenuity of taking these two ships and sticking
06:58them together and throwing them in the back. Doesn't mean that I like it. Number five, Curry class.
07:04The Curry class that was introduced in another of the ships introduced in Deep Space Nine's A Time to
07:09Stand was named after famed artist Dan Curry. He designed the ship to be one of the fleet that was
07:15limping its way back to Federation space with their tails between their legs.
07:19He came up with the kit bash for the Curry class in just a few hours, raiding the boxes of
07:24model kits
07:25and coming up with pieces of Excelsior and Miranda class ships. For the overall shape of the vessel,
07:31he took inspiration from World War Two landing craft. This is, they had the engines toward the back,
07:38the saucer section there, but they had the shuttle craft or the shuttle bay right up the front. So think
07:43of
07:43those landers on D-Day where the front drops down and, well, unfortunately, a lot of people never
07:50came home again. Now, despite the ship only being on screen for seconds, it was one of the ones that
07:56Eagle Moss commissioned for their collection. I have to say, I really like it. Number four, Cheyenne class.
08:02This four nacelled vessel was, if you like, something of a spiritual sequel to the Constellation class,
08:09USS Stargazer, USS Hathaway and USS Constance. This was another one of those very quick kitbashes that
08:18was put together for the Wolf 359 fleet. It has the legend of being one of the luckier ships. I'm
08:25going
08:25to say one of, I mean, the luckier ship. The Awani was the only vessel to survive the Borg invasion
08:34and
08:34the Borg destruction at Wolf 359 as it would return as part of Picard's fleet in redemption.
08:40Designer Ed Miarecki built the ship using commercially available parts of the Galaxy class
08:45and also, and it will not be the only time on this list, highlighter pens were used as well.
08:53Number three, New Orleans class. The New Orleans class had something of a false start when it came to
08:59the next generation. When it came to new designs, the Galaxy class, the Constellation class and even
09:06later on the Ambassador class were all major new designs for the series with Excelsior, Oberth and
09:13Miranda class filling out some of the gaps in Starfleet. Now this left the impression that Starfleet was
09:20generally staffed by much older vessels. So Ed Miarecki was given the task, create something new that we can
09:29use to fill out the gaps. The New Orleans class is a put together of the Galaxy class saucer section
09:36and the Galaxy class star drive section. Now the nacelle struts are swept back and up, but it wasn't
09:43enough. So the feedback came down if you've got to give it something a little bit extra and those marker
09:49pens, three marker pens were added, two to the top and one underneath to give the New Orleans class
09:55its own distinctive look. With this design it was ready to go into service, once, as the USS Kyushu,
10:03the best of both worlds part two, didn't get a lot of screen time. Number two, Springfield class.
10:09The Springfield class was another of the Ed Miarecki kitbashes that were put together for the Battle of
10:15359. The only known model that was built was to be named the USS Chekhov, named after Pavel Chekhov,
10:24but it would then only be seen burning in space. The main saucer section was based on the Galaxy
10:30Glass saucer section with, you guessed it, some more marker pens used for nacelles. However it had a
10:36separate secondary hull, complete with its own Galaxy glass inspired deflector dish as well,
10:42giving it quite a distinctive silhouette. Two changes were made to the USS Chekhov in the best
10:49of both worlds part two. The first was that the spelling of the name was changed. So rather than
10:56C-H-E-C-K-O-F, which is Pavel Chekhov, it was changed to drop the additional C and
11:04then just became
11:04Chekhov as in the playwright. The second change, when it was deemed too depressing to have the name of an
11:12original series character called out among the dead of Wolf 359, is that it was changed to the USS Tolstoy
11:19when being said out loud by Shelby. Number one, Centaur Class. The Centaur Class went from one of
11:27the briefest glimpses to becoming one of the most beloved extra designs of a starship in the franchise.
11:35The story of how it came to be is quite a funny one. Adam Buckner, who had been working under
11:40Gary
11:41Hutzel, was tasked with coming up for new designs for Deep Space Nine's A Time to Stand. Before this,
11:48however, between seasons five and six, he had gone traveling and was using this time to try and come
11:53up with new ship ideas. He was traveling in Spain and he met a young man named Guillermo. In the
11:59course of
11:59chatting, he promised Guillermo a ship of his very own. Flash forward now to production on time to stand
12:05and the order came in. It's like, look, we need a ship that's going to be seen moving fast. We
12:10don't
12:10need massive amount of detail on it because it's going to, you know, it'll be in shot, but it's going
12:15to be zipping in and out and heading off again. So Buckner taking parts of the Excelsior Class and the
12:22Miranda class put together with little extra bits stuck on and some UV strips to create the blue of
12:31the nacelles created what we then found to be the Centaur. And that could have been the end of it,
12:37but it wasn't because years later the Centaur would return in Star Trek Resurgence. It would also appear
12:46as part of the unlucky fleet that faces off against the living construct in Star Trek Prodigy.
12:53Now, both times it was refined a little in terms of the design, but still it was that original
12:58Centaur. And yes, Buckner did get a model of the Centaur to Guillermo. That's everything for our list,
13:05folks. Thank you very, very much. What did you think? Do you like lists about these sort of lesser
13:08known ships? Let me know in the comments below. Don't forget to get in touch with us over on Twitter,
13:13at TrekCulture on Instagram, at TrekCultureYT, on both Blue Sky and TikTok as well. I'm at
13:20SeanFerrick on the various socials. You are wonderful. You are fantastic. Give a bit of love
13:24to the editor who looked after this video. Zeti Dovo if Prostvitati. And to our friends in the Middle East,
13:29we pray for a quick and safe ceasefire. Everyone look after yourselves. Stay safe. Make it so.
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