Oldest Starship Classes In Service in a Post Nemesis Star Trek Series

I've been outlining some ideas for a post Nemesis Star Trek series set in the early 25th century. Say around 2410-15 give or take. I've wondered what would be the oldest starship classes that would be in service for Starfleet in that era? While the Excelsior and Miranda class ships served in abundance in the Dominion War they seem pretty dated and took very heavy losses in combat so I'm figuring that they would be retired en masse after the war was over.

The Constellation class while it popped up a couple of times in regular Starfleet service during TNG (Gettysburg and one of the ships in Redemption II) it looks even more dated than the Miranda's.
I'm betting the oldest ships would be the Ambassador class and its variants and also possibly the on occasionally glimpsed New Orleans class which seemed to be from that general time period.

 

I kind of did the same thing for a series set around 2417. I'm of the opinion that after the TOS-movie era, it's now more rare than common for a starship design to be around for more than 50 years, so I placed the oldest design still in service as the Galaxy-class (although I placed there are only six of them left with no plans to build more).

 

There were more than six onscreen at one time in "Sacrifice of Angels". And this was with only two of Starfleets numbered fleets being present.

 

In my series that was more than forty years ago and all there was left by 2417 was six.

 

I might be inclined to agree with STO that there would be ENT era Vulcan starships, the likes of D'Kyr and Sh-Raan, in front line service in the early 25th. Them Vulcans build those things to last! Say, the ship declared ages-old in "Fusion" is nevertheless in active combat use in "The Forge".

As for second line, Starfleet might well retain everything that flies at warp. After all, certain types of threat don't evolve in a timescale of mere centuries: to brave an ion storm requires the same sort of hardware today and fifty million years in the future.

Would the Dominion War have culled older designs from the inventory? Or would those in fact have become more prominent, pressed to desperate service with an adjoining life-prolonging refit yet still not qualifying for the most dangerous jobs or making it to the most impromptu defensive stands or the highest speed penetrating attacks? For all we know, Starfleet as of "What We Leave Behind" is older than ever, with all the modern "BoBWII" kitbashes expended in battle but with flotilla after flotilla of reactivated Mirandas refurbished for sixty more years of action.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Sorry. I thought you were referencing the suggestion by Gene Roddenberry at one point that there were only six Galaxy class starships constructed.

 

It is indeed pointless to put any stock in registries whatsoever. Even the U.S. Navy is quite willing to make a hash of registries just to make public relations points. Look at the SSN-21 (Seawolf) class of submarines. The USN abandoned their existing registry of SSNs which was in the 700s for the Los Angeles class because they wanted "SSN-21" to mean "Nuclear Attack Submarine-21st century".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Seawolf_(SSN-21)

 

By the way, I think I mentioned the New Orleans class. I know the remains of one was glimpsed onscreen in the aftermath of the Battle of Wolf-359 in "The Best of Both Worlds II". Were there any other "cleaner" views of that ship class than that?

 

Nothing was filmed for any other Trek episode, and apparently no stock footage was reused, either (not even in "Unification") but there are backstage photos available - and it is of course possible to interpret any and all shots of very distant Galaxies as "actually" being the half-size New Orleans instead...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I'm of the opinion that it depends what you mean by "in service". If you mean, what are the ships of the line of the Federation Starfleet at that point, then I'd say with a possible exception or two, you might be right. HOWEVER, there are two other matters to deal with, and just because I don't believe I've ever seen them dealt with on-screen doesn't mean they shouldn't be.

1. Federation system defense fleets. The Excelsior, Miranda, and even Constitution-class ships may not be up to snuff for Starfleet, but they're still good enough to deal with most system police actions - anti-piracy, people doing dangerous stuff with their little private ships in the main travel lanes, etc. And possibly to fight a holding action if something bigger comes their way before Starfleet can arrive. USS Lakota, NCC-42768, is transferred, and becomes the BSD (Betazed System Defense) Cataria.

2. Strategic Allies. Mul'pesh IV is a thriving, modern, egalitarian society that would make an excellent Federation member but has some encounters with other aliens in its history that make its people reluctant. They're friendly, though. And, they also have large deposits of both dilithium and latinum in their system - which is a blessing and a curse, especially due to their proximity to outposts of the Orion Syndicate (who probably were responsible for their historical troubles). So the Federation agrees to transfer a few older but still powerful ships to them for system defense, and to provide support, and in exchange, Mul'pesh provides the Federation with some of their strategic resources. One thing you don't want to do in such situations, though, is to give such allies your VERY best - today's ally may be tomorrow's enemy. So USS Endeavor, Constitution-Class, NCC-1895, becomes the MV Pride of Mul'pesh.

Some others may be museums, and the exceptions I mentioned may be little matters of Starfleet pride and tradition, and PR: USS Excelsior, NCC-2000, may have been restored to her original specifications (including photon torpedoes, powered way down) and kept in active service even though she's outdated. Being made part of her crew is a position of honor, and each day, a civilian observers are brought aboard for a tour of the Sol System. Much as we do with the USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") today.

(Yes, I know it probably wouldn't be Excelsior given this treatment. Probably NX-03 or some such. It's just an example. )

 

I figure that by the early 25th century, the surviving ships of 23rd century design would be assigned to milk runs. If it hadn't done so already, Starfleet would be thinking of turning a few of these old ships into museums.

I think the Ambassador class would be used as a substitute for the depleted Excelsiors.

As for the Galaxy class, I can think of at least three that were destroyed onscreen. So if there was a short production run, this class is depleted.

 

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/neworleans.htm
Scroll about 2/3 down the page to the "Supplement" section.

 

I assume any ship built 2350 or later that hasn't been destroyed is still in service in the early 25th century.
I'd also think that star fleet kept building Sovereign and Intrepid class ships after the Domion War and those new ships supplanted and mostly replaced the aging Excelsiors by the end of the 24th century.

 

Frankly, based on purely in-universe reasons (rather than saving money by reusing the Excelsior and Miranda models built for TWOK) I've always thought that the Ambassadors should/would have replaced the Excelsiors as 'explorers'/'cruisers' by the TNG era never mind the early 2500s. The continued use of Mirandas as lightly-crewed transport ships would seem to be somewhat more plausible however.

 

I get the feeling that the Ambassadors are rather rare, like the Galaxy-class sort of was. That combined with that classes age would mean there are only a few of those left after the war. We know of at least three that were destroyed (USS Enterprise-C, USS Horatio, and USS Yamaguch). It is possible that they just never intended the Ambassador-class to take over the role of the Excelsior and Constitution-class profile and that was a job for other starships. The Nebula-class and Akira-class starships seem to be taking on those rolls as more are built. Perhaps the Steamrunner-class as well.

 

I think the Ambassadors were intended to replace the Excelsiors but possibly because they weren't a lot better (and potentially nostaligia from the flag officers that came up on Excelsiors) they didn't end up building them in large enough numbers to replace them. I think that the Akira-class was probably another attempt that worked somewhat better due to being something of a Connie/Excelsior & Miranda-hybrid but still not well enough to fully take over.

Personally, I think that the Intrepid-class and Sovereign-class are the most likely canon ships for the general "Workhorse (Cruiser) for the 25th Century" with a so far unseen replacement for the Galaxy-class (and Nebula-class) as the diplomatic showcase and explorer (possibly similar to TrekLit's Vesta-class).

 

I tend to look at the Ambassador-class as the Galaxy-class of its day. It was probably Starfleet's biggest starship design at the time and might have been intended for deep-space exploration missions. There might not have been that many of them built to begin with and they could even have been overshadowed by the even bigger (and possibly even superior?) Galaxy-class.

 

As we see more of Starfleet I tend to think that the Ambassador-class was the first of its type. They built them in an age when the Klingons were no longer a threat, and probably the Romulans were effectively gone. The Federation could afford to build a dedicated long range explorer for probably the first time since the NX-class was designed. The Galaxy-class was designed as a superior version of this concept, while the Nebula-class seems to be more of a workhorse built to take advantage of the technology, or as a supplemental version of the concept with an interchangeable external module.

The Excelsior was designed to take over the role of the Constitution-class starships. It is unclear if there was a starship designed to take over the Excelsior's role in the fleet, or if that role had been made obsolete by the advances of technology and the change in the political spectrum of the early 24th century when they would start to think about the potential Excelsior replacement project. Given the numbers of Excelsiors still in service prior to and during the Dominion War, and in seemingly high positions in the fleet, it is possible that Starfleet didn't have a replacement for them just yet, and just kept building more with improved technology. Only recently coming up with some potential replacements, depending on just what Excelsior hulls provides verses other starship designs.