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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
00:04to 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.
00:26Number 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
01:18the USS Odyssey. They were created as a direct response to the Riemann Scimitar. You all remember
01:25how big that was and this was Starfleet's version of a heavy cruiser. The further we look into this the
01:32backstory states that actually the Odyssey class was put on hold so that all of the resources for
01:38designing and building this fleet of ships could be put into the Verity to rush that into service for
01:44the Romulan evacuation. However with the subsequent failure of the Romulan evacuation and the destruction
01:51of Utopia Planitia shipyards the Odyssey itself was somewhat forgotten and the Verity was mothballed.
01:58We have a couple then of different backstories to the Odyssey class depending on whether you follow
02:02Star Trek Online or whether you follow IDW's story but it does remain that the Enterprise F is the only
02:10Odyssey class ship that has received any significant screen time in the episodes of Picard. Number nine,
02:17thanks for the support. Taking inspiration from the Enterprise F's online heritage the one that we saw
02:23in the show did in fact feature a small docked support craft at the aft. In the spot that historically
02:31would see the shuttle bay on such ships like the Constitution class we get the Aquarius class support ship.
02:38This is analogous to the aero shuttle on Voyager and the Calypso captain's yacht of the Enterprise D
02:45and like those we never really got to see it do anything in the few minutes of screen time that
02:52the Enterprise F got. In Star Trek Online the ship was actually destroyed in 2410 by Captain Sean
02:59but naturally it was redesigned, rebuilt and redocked. The ship wasn't just a support craft in terms of
03:08getting people off the ship if needs be. It was different from a runabout in that way. It could
03:13actually enter a battle on the support side of the Enterprise F as well. Both the Aquarius and the
03:19Odyssey class actually got their names from the Apollo 13 space mission. They were named after the lander and the
03:27command module. Of 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 on the
03:39Enterprise F is Star Trek Online and the official breakdown that's given for the ship there. Built at
03:45the Utopia Planitia shipyard the Enterprise F was armed with 18 Mark 12 phaser arrays, four variable
03:51payload warhead launchers, two phaser turrets and two heavy phaser cannon mounts. A bit of beefed up
03:58firepower for the Enterprise F then. One thing that the design carried over from both the Galaxy and
04:03Sovereign class ships was that it had the ability to separate its saucer section. This was a little
04:08bit different where the Enterprise D's saucer section was used effectively as a life raft to help people
04:15escape a battle scenario. The saucer section of the Enterprise F was designed to become a separate
04:21fully operational battleship if the situation required it. It was in a way then closer in design
04:29to the experimental Prometheus class. There was of course an array of shuttles, there was also an Argo
04:36which you will remember from Star Trek Nemesis and there was several Yellowstone class runabouts. Now the
04:42Yellowstone was slightly different from the Danube class and was only seen once before in Star Trek
04:47Voyager's Non-Secataire. 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 in
05:04Star Trek Lower Decks but Elizabeth Shelby returned to Star Trek. She had gone from the promotion hungry Borg
05:11expert from Best of Both Worlds to become a full Admiral who was, ceremonially at least, in charge
05:18of the Enterprise F during the Frontier Day celebrations. The Picard logs that were released
05:23online suggested that the ship has had a variety of captains over its lifespan but in Star Trek Online
05:30the Enterprise F is commanded by the Andorian Captain Vakel Shon. This makes him the third non-human
05:38commander of an Enterprise after Spock in the Wrath of Cannes and Worf if that little wink and nod is
05:46what we think it is in the episode Vox. There are of course other variations. In Peter David's novel
05:52Imzadi from 1992 it suggests the Enterprise F is in service around 2408 and is commanded by none other
06:00than Data. The later DS9 series Millennium would also suggest that there was an Enterprise F but this
06:06ship was a defiant class that was built after the destruction of the Enterprise E. It was initially
06:12commanded by Jean-Luc Picard later commanded by William Riker until it too bit the bullet. Number six.
06:19Competitive Edge. The Enterprise F design actually came about from a competition run by Star Trek Online
06:25to celebrate its first anniversary. This 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 competition
06:37with the Luna-class USS Titan coming from that designed by artist Sean Tarango. The success of the
06:45Luna-class competition contributed to convincing CBS that this Design the New Enterprise idea was a good
06:51one and so they ran with it and they got thousands of entries which were then narrowed down to about
06:5825
06:58before eventually being narrowed down to a final four. The criteria for the design was relatively
07:04straightforward. Effectively when you looked at it you had to think iconic Federation starship so two
07:12nacelles, deflector dish, 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 close to the first place
07:28entries included Jason Vector Lee's four nacelled ship that would actually be repurposed and reused as
07:36the USS Chimera in Star Trek Online commanded by Captain Nog. Number five. Screen time. The Enterprise F
07:44just misses out on the honor of having the shortest amount of screen time of any of the Enterprises.
07:53That honor goes to the Enterprise J which we only really saw a design graphic of and a bit of
08:00the
08:00corridor that Daniels and Archer were standing in in Enterprise's third season. The Enterprise F appears in
08:07the last two episodes of season three of Picard, Vox and The Last Generation. Now it was shown quite
08:13heavily in the trailers and the marketing campaign but it was also very it was very quickly stated that
08:20it wasn't going to be the hero ship of the season so as to kind of tease audiences but also
08:28not set them
08:29up for well not seeing very much of it. The F was seen earlier in the season as a graphic
08:35on the file
08:36that Ro Laren gives to Picard but apart from apart from these few fleeting glimpses we don't really get
08:45to see very much of it. Also the return of the Enterprise D in the very last scene of Vox
08:52and of course the
08:52last generation does somewhat eclipse the Enterprise F just just a bit and considering that the
09:00Enterprise 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
09:21then E is longer
09:22than D but D is technically a bigger ship. But yes it reflected the time of Starfleet's need for these
09:30larger vessels be they for exploration or with the advanced dangers of the Dominion and the Borg
09:36and I suppose the Romulans that 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
09:52the flagship and it would then become the this Neo-Constitution class which we had of course seen
09:59in the season as the Titan A. Things must have got a little hairy again as the years went on
10:05because
10:05the Enterprise J is roughly the size of Earth's moon. Alright that's a bit of an overstatement but
10:11it is considerably larger. The Enterprise F is 1061 meters long as opposed to the Enterprise E which was
10:20685 meters. The Enterprise D was only 641 meters long but as I stated it was rather larger in other
10:28respects. This makes the Odyssey class the largest class of ship that had been seen in the prime
10:33timeline up to that point. It does have fewer decks than the Enterprise D, 32 as opposed to 48. This
10:41however is 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 crew.
10:56As they state in Trials and Tribulations they really did pack them in on these old ships just for fun.
11:02If we hop over into the Kelvin timeline the USS Vengeance would still dwarf the Enterprise F.
11:07It is 1450 meters long. That's a big ship. Number three, crafty construction. One of the defining features
11:18of the Enterprise F is the double neck that it boasts as opposed to the singular neck of almost all
11:25previous
11:26ships. According to the bonus issue of the Enterprise F from Eagle Moss's Star Trek Starships collection,
11:33Adam Eel's design was favoured because it was big and majestic. There were design cues from the Galaxy
11:39and Sovereign classes that made it feel familiar and the double neck was the icing on the cake.
11:44Eel himself had revisited the work of original Enterprise designer Matt Jeffries as well as the
11:50futuristic ideas of Doug Drexler for the Enterprise J and of course Andrew Probert's design of the Enterprise D.
11:58He kept the overall shape quite similar to what had gone before. The primary hull was raised and
12:04separate from the secondary hull via this double neck. The nacelles were attached with backward facing
12:11pylons. Quite simply put, it looked like an Enterprise. Cryptic's Thomas Maroney then made a couple of slight
12:18alterations when designing the ship for Star Trek Online. He widened the neck for example and he swept
12:25back the saucer a little bit over the engineering hull. To date, this is the only ship in canon that
12:31has
12:31this kind of distinct design. Number two, short shelf life. According to Star Trek Picard, the NCC 1701F
12:39was only in service for about 15 years. It was being decommissioned in 2401's Frontier Day,
12:46following a disastrous Monfet Gambit that saw a catastrophic systems failure ship-wide.
12:53It was deemed easier just to decommission the ship than to repair it. Now if that sounds like
12:59a bit of a short life for a ship, consider that the Enterprises A, B, C, D and E all
13:06came in under
13:08that 15 year lifeline. In fact, D had the shortest lifespan at only seven years, whereas the original
13:17Enterprise, if we include the refit as well, was going around for about 40 years. That record is
13:24not likely to be broken anytime soon. The Picard logs that preceded Star Trek Picard revealed that the
13:30ship had been commissioned in 2386. Executive producer and showrunner Terry Metallus stated that
13:36Admiral Shelby's posting of the Enterprise F was purely for the ceremonies of Frontier Day only.
13:43There was a series of unnamed in the show captains who had command during the Enterprise's lifespan.
13:50In Star Trek Online, however, the Enterprise F was only commissioned in 2409, which meant that the
13:57Enterprise E probably had a longer lifespan, although its final fate may still have not been Worf's fault.
14:05Number 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
14:20kicked
14:20out of it by the Borg, but we won't think about that for the moment. What it does is that
14:26with the
14:27decommissioning of the Enterprise F on screen, it means that what happened in Star Trek Online is
14:35very unlikely to 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 nacelles and the pylons,
14:54and a change of the overall paint scheme, and that's just on the outside. These were seen for the
14:59first time in the episode Cilia and Charybidus. Now, Eagle Moss's Star Trek Starships collection
15:05did in fact release a model of this refit Yorktown-class. Eagle Moss released two variants of
15:14the original 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
15:26the online version, which means, funnily 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 Enterprise
15:39F
15:40that you need to know. What did you think? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks so much again
15:44to Clive Burrell for penning this list, and thank you so much to Martin for making this video look pretty.
15:50You're all awesome and wonderful, folks. Please remember to follow us over on Twitter, follow us on
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16:00on Instagram. Otherwise, we're just at TrekCulture on Twitter, at TrekCulture on Blue Sky,
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16:09I have been Sean. You can follow me at SeanFerrick on the various socials. You are wonderful. You are
16:14awesome. Look after yourself until I'm talking to you again. Make sure that you live long and prosper,
16:19and in this crazy, crazy world that we're living in, remember, there are good people left. You might be
16:27one of them. Thanks very much. Heavy phaser cannon mounts.
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