The Excelsior - uncovering the design

Do you hold Discovery the same, with it's larger, rebooted USS Enterprise and 500m D-7 battlecruiser?

 

As far as I'm concerned, Discovery is a reboot or a parallel universe. Nothing in it has any relation to TOS or the rest of Star Trek. The scale of the TOS ships was established back in the 60's by Jefferies. And in fact, Discovery shows the Enterprise stats on screen and they used Franz Joseph's numbers. So the 289 meter length is canon, even in Discovery, for NCC-1701.

 

Discovery's Enterprise has very different proportions, so obviously those (placeholder, along with an early and different Enterprise model) statistics don't work with what we see. And they're only readable in BTS footage. The Discovery Enterprise is 442 meters long, otherwise obvious and deliberate scale cues like the bridge window wouldn't work.

 

We don’t actually know if either of those are representations of the in-universe designs seen in TOS. The battlecruiser could easily be a fourth class (at least) to fall into the D7 category, while there is still a (slim) chance that DSC’s Enterprise is yet another physical hull to carry the registry number, and Pike was in command of both hulls (which would explain those FJ-based specs), using one or the other depending on the mission profile.

Enterprise appears as a hologram on PIC, which includes literal images from the days of TNG, which references TOS in a number of places, so there is in fact an indirect connection to be ironed out.

 

No, it is readable in the final streaming version of the episode. I stick to 720p videos for the most part and it is completely readable. I imagine it is even more readable in 1080p.

 

In any case, let's leave Discovery out of the conversation. It has no relation to the Excelsior at all.

 

But since Dukat was kind enough to share that list of classes with us and I took the effort to research what they look like, let's examine the breakdown. There are 10 that I am striking from the list because they were not datable (including the study models).
1 TOS era design refit to movie.
3 movie era designs.
3 late movie era designs.
2 Excelsior inspired designs.
1 that should fall right after the movies.
7 that would fall later, closer to the Ambassador class or contemporary to it.
1 definite Ambassador Class contemporary.
2 that fall between Ambassador an Galaxy.
14 that look to be TNG era designs.
13 that pick up post TNG design element, like Soverign and Intrepid.
2 that are tied to DS9 (Danube and Defiant).

That breaks down to 10 that are undatable, 10 the are clear from Kirk and Sulu's era, and the rest are all contemporary to when they appear (designs that are less than 50 years old).

So we really come down to a handful of classes that transitioned from TMP to TNG and DS9. If we extrapolate what we see in TNG and DS9 back to the movie and TOS eras we would need the design variety that FASA gave us to come up with enough types. It certainly leaves room for Franz Joseph's 4 other classes, Ingram, and some of my favorite FASA designs like Loknar, Chandley, Baker, etc.

So the real question becomes how long should a starship last? What should be its expected service life. We are handed a situation created by the reuse of sets and models that holds a lot of Federation technology static in the years between the maiden voyage of Ent A and Ent D. And these are large and expensive ships. They would want to get their money's worth out of them (even if they don't think of it in those terms). The Constitution Class had a service life of 40 years. The class served for at least 50. I can see Starfleet adopting a new policy due to how many Constitution Class vessels they lost. Build a ship to last a century, build a lot of them over a long time. So you get Miranda and Excelsior class ships being built from 2270 to 2340. The higher registries on those classes gets up to 3xxxx to 4xxxx. The Ambassador class was only 1xxxx. You get a larger variety of ships that were experimental built in smaller numbers that were retired from service. So the majority of the fleet was these few classes and they did the brunt of the work. Other classes came and went, but 4 movie era classes kept going.

I like to think that they faired better than the Constitution Class and were gradually retired as the TNG era ships started filling those roles better. But conflict is often a motivator for pulling retired ships back into active roles. Either due to the raw need or due to loss of other ships. Retired ships might have been replaced with a newer ship with the same name so the old ship would need a new name and possibly a new registry as well. So we get a mix of a few older starships serving out their final days and retired ships refit and put back into service leading to a large number seen. So in numbers the older designs outnumber the newer ones, but there are many more newer designs, 4 times as many in fact.

I see the few instance of the NX Excelsior type as ships that were build between Excelsior and Ent B. Hood, Repulse, and probably more. So venerable Hood gets to carry the venerable doctor to see the new Enterprise. Sometime after that the ship is retired or destroyed. It is replaced with another Excelsior class named Hood (with a higher registry in the 4xxxx range). Ent B was retired long ago (at a guess 40 years before TNG) and is pulled out when either the Borg or Dominion threat necessitated it. Again a registry in the 4xxxx range. Sisko's Saratoga has a registry of 3xxxx.

Currently we don't have a situation where we have a mothballed fleet of hundreds of ships that we could call up without major overhauling. The WWII ships that were retired and not broken up languished and ended up being so outdated that they couldn't be put back in service. But in Star Trek they set it up so that technology didn't advance much so the ships from the movie era can be overhauled and brought up to spec to serve next to the TNG and Voy era ships. The systems might be a bit different, but not so different what we have experience with over the same span in the modern world.

 

There's a lot of recent discussion I'd love to weigh in on with an essay, but I don't know that it's germane to sizing the Excelsior, so I'll restrain myself unless asked by the thread starter. *lol* But as to the longevity of the class, I have some thoughts...

Starfleet seems to dump a lot of time and resources into rolling out some new linchpin flagship class every forty years or so. The development process yields ship classes from about halfway through that period that start having features of that eventual cornerstone Starship -- such as the New Orleans and Nebula having all those Galaxy-styled components before the Galaxy class itself was laid down (yes, I stick with registries being chronological to when a ship was ordered).

Kirk was head of Starfleet Operations for two and a half years prior to TMP -- which itself was only about a decade before the TWOK/TSFS/TVH block, when the Excelsior was launched. He would have known about that development project and the technologies associated with it. The class was being developed in large part because of simmering hostilities with the Klingons. Starfleet needed a new and badass Heavy Cruiser to replace the ageing Constitution class -- which, while still perfectly serviceable, was no longer a bleeding-edge front-line starship.

It makes sense to me that while various Constitution/Enterprise generation designs might still be in service for decades (Miranda, Sydney, etc.), their roles don't demand as much peak performance as the progenitor class. So when TUC happened, I can see Starfleet mothballing the Constitutions as a gesture to the Klingons, whilst keeping the new Excelsiors that they'd only just got off the skids. But since they were no longer needed as battleships to fight a potential hot war with the Klingons, Kirk -- after his replica Enterprise was retired with the rest of its class, and due to his familiarity with the Great Experiment from before -- led the team that helped turn the class into something new... Starfleet's first Explorer.

I... have many thought about the class, its design, its features, its capabilities, its variants... I also treat stuff seen onscreen as "official-ish". I know the shortcuts taken, last minute budgetary requirements (to this day, I insist the Oberth class is not the class the Grissom belonged to, just because Paramount didn't want to spring for the requested new ship class for "The Naked Now"). I have always loved the Excelsior, but also felt she was "unfinished". There are so many elements that make no sense for a fully completed starship design. That fantail is unnecessarily long and flimsy for so little apparent use. All the exposed ribs, and the cut-away tops of the nacelles seem like hull plating left off for access to structural elements. The whole warp engine assembly seems rigged for a quick jettison in case of runaway. I like to think a "finished" design plated over the tops of the engines, the neck, had pylons faired directly into the secondary hull, covered the open space between the aft shuttlebay and the neck, above, and extended the underbelly curve, below. The ship Sulu got was a hot rod. A bit like how CV(N)-65 was unlike any of the nuclear carriers that followed her.

Sidebar: The reasons so many consider Transwarp drive a failure is because it's never mentioned after TSFS until -- *cough* -- "Threshold". Meanwhile, in TNG's "Evolution", when the nanites are messing up the computer, Data mentions the last time there was a full system failure aboard a starship was over seventy-nine years previously. Which is right around the time of TSFS. Everyone also conveniently forgets that Scotty sabotaged the Excelsior's drive computer, and that it didn't just spontaneously not work due to bad design or bad science. Since the latter TOS films used the TNG warp scale, starting with TVH, some of us just think Transwarp succeeded, necessitated a recalibration of how we understood warp velocities to work, and just became the new normal. Until the term got used again in TNG and Voyager for very different things, indeed. I tend to think it's just a catchall term for something technologically within the "warp drive" paradigm (i.e., not quantum slipstream or other exotic things), but substantially beyond what was currently/previously technologically possible.

So this sturdy class was designed and built to be able to go toe-to-toe with Klingon battlecruisers and survive -- and then not needed in that role. They are, to me, the B-52s of Starfleet. Many classes have come out since, several flagship classes have introduced new technology and new techniques -- all probably intended to supersede the Excelsior class. But it just keeps being obstinately durable. I love the idea of something in Starfleet like what has happened in the real world: Air Force crew members flying the same B-52s over Afghanistan that their grandfathers flew over Vietnam. The Hathaway was mothballed in place in a remote star system after having been launched sometime circa the 2290s. The Hood and the Repulse are still pounding away doing all the necessary but unglamorous work of Starfleet, despite Captain Do Soto's tongue-in-cheek grumbling, and they're of similar vintage (yes, I go with the registry on the miniature for "Encounter at Farpoint" over the later Okudagram registry).

How long a starship lasts definitely depends in large part on what its intended role is. The Lantree started out in the 2260s as a state-of-the-art science vessel. A hundred years later, it's a sparsely-crewed, third-string supply ship. There's a sort of longevity in that, but not a lot of glory. The more a class has to rely on being top-of-the-line, the less likely it will be to stand the test of time. Similarly, classes rolled out for wartime will face a coin toss as to whether a use is found for them in peacetime. Smaller classes will likely stick around longer than bigger classes, as the resource demand of building a large-but-outmoded starship is harder to justify than a smaller one. Hence, new-built Mirandas well into the 30000s. So, to me, the Excelsior class is a bit of a fluke in that it was so well designed (or over-designed) that it was able to keep getting uprated to stay relevant for it to warrant Starfleet building more of them for decades, even after the next big flagship class -- the Ambassador -- came along in the 2320s.

(Oh, and as for size, I feel -- for many reasons -- that scaling it up about the same 15% as the TOS and TMP Enterprises need to be scaled up from their designers' given sizes works the best. That would put it around 535-ish meters -- but a lot of that is those loooooooooong engines.)

 

I agree with nearly all of that. I don't think the Excelsior was unfinished by any means, just an unusual design. And that long flat stern is echoed in the Galaxy Class (lots of flat, thin area). And I don't think the TOS and TMP need to be scaled up. I am dead set against that idea. I think scaling up the Excelsior up a bit makes it work better, but the established size works fine.

The USS Constitution kind of informs my opinions. It saw real service for a century. Launched in 1797, it served as a front line ship from its maiden voyage in 1798 to its around the world tour in 1845. From there its service slowly became less glamorous. It was a training ship at Annapolis and it's trainee crew set a speed record, pulling ahead of the steam powered tow vessel as it was taken out of the war zone during the Civil War (its sister the USS United States was not so lucky). It served as a training and receiving ship off an on. It's last major cruise was to the world's fair in 1880 where it carried a train on deck and suffered from leaks after a bad refit in the 1870's. It last sailed independently in 1881 and then was a receiving ship and barracks until returning to Boston in 1897. It then continued to serve as a receiving ship, but had the additional duty of museum ship. The last time she was used in a regular Navy role was during WWII. Following that she has been exclusively a museum ship. She remains commissioned and afloat. But it has been a lot more than a century since she had a CO with the rank of Captain.

When you apply that to what we see in Star Trek, we have older ships in lesser roles, just like they should be.

 

I think these three points make a good starting point in any deep look into a starships design.

I feel like there is a novel that has this as a plot point but I have not read it, nor remember the title.

Though the Excelsior is "finished" in my view and simply a bit unusual compared to earlier designs, I think the Ambassador is essentially the ship you are describing here. But, if the Excelsior could get the job done without the extra equipment, then Starfleet would built it, especially in wartime.

Regarding older ships being back in service:
There IS one precedence of this happening in Star Trek. The Farragut seen in Star Trek Generations is a Nebula class, but it later reported destroyed during DS9. Then, later on in DS9, the Farragut is mentioned despite being destroyed, and an Excelsior class ship is shown as if it is the Farragut.

I always thought this was an error, but Memory Alpha suggests instead that this might be a case where an older USS Farragut was used to replace the Nebula class Farragut after its destruction.

It's not exactly canon, but it fits, even though I can't claim to be in love with the idea

 

In the case of the Galaxy, there's superstructure above the fantail helping tie it to the rest of the ship. The Excelsior just has that long flat, with that unconnected blister of stuff at the end. I'll have to dig up a scan of the sketch I did ages ago to show a friend what I was talking about. It's not as extreme as it sounds.

I know. I understand your stance. I just disagree. *lol* We've both arrived at our conclusions through sound reasoning in attempting to reconcile all the conflicting raw data. Since there's no real ship out there as an objective real thing, neither position is correct or incorrect. Schrödinger's Excelsior.

Yeah, that stuck with me when I first ran across it. Made the presence of those three specific former Enterprise personnel make that much more sense. Always bugged me, "Why just them? Why not Spock and McCoy?" And so forth. I'd have to go back through my Trek novels and re-find it. I don't remember, either. Might have been the Generations novelization, might have been Shadows on the Sun... It's just been too long since I read that era. *chuckle*

Same thing I said to Yotsuya, above -- I don't mean to the extent shown on the Ambassador. I'll dig up my sketch to show what I mean.

My take on that was that they re-activated the older Excelsior-class Farragut due to wartime need, rather than it being a newbuild. I like to think the Excelsior mentioned is good old NCC-2000 taken back out of mothballs, too. I mean, they brought an old Enterprise-class ship to Wolf 359 to try and stop the Borg, after all. "Just because something's old doesn't mean you throw it away." And when Starfleet was losing ships by score, they're not going to stop to question whether an older ship can be useful.

 

My take would be that they reactivated an old ship, renamed it Farragut, and put it in service. And while it is nice and not inconceivable that the Excelsior mentioned is the original, it could be another ship. It would be like Enterprise and Saratoga later in WWII. Enterprise was a Yorktown Class Carrier when the current Yorktown was an Essex Class Carrier and the Saratoga was a Lexington Class Carrier when the Lexington was also an Essex Class Carrier. In fact 4 of the Essex Class were renamed after construction started for sunken pre-war carriers; Lexington, Wasp, Hornet, Yorktown.

 

Ironically, that's my take on the origin of the Excelsior's name. The Great Experiment development project would've started about 2265. Hull NX-2000 would have been authorized around or a bit after that, but not necessarily named. The Constitution-class Excelsior is one of the ships from FJ's list that ancillary sources actually give a bit of dimension. It was attacked by an invading extradimensional race in one short story in particular, and there's heavy implication it was destroyed or at least rendered unsalvageable. That would have been around the right time for the lead ship of this new class to be named in honor of its loss.

Mike Okuda personally feels the Excelsior-class Farragut was a reactivated older ship, already named such before. A licensed publication of the day gave it the registry NCC-2583, leading to the question of why it was mothballed while the older Hood and Repulse weren't. All of that together, with nothing to contradict in the show itself, leave me fine with accepting it as such.

 

I would expect decisions like that have more to do with "mileage" than strictly age. Then the mothball criteria is increased later, but the Lexington is already out of service. So under the new rules the Lexington is eligible for reactivation if needed.

 

To answer the question of just how many Excelsior class ships there are, here are the lists. There are 18 canon and 11 additional (ships mentioned in canon, but not identified as Excelsior in canon). I pulled in the registries from the Encyclopedia. The two models were labeled as Excelsior, Hood, Repulse, Melbourne, Enterprise, Lakota, and Fredrickson. The other ships were usually seen in a piece of stock footage or Jein's physical model or the CG copy of it. Many Excelsiors were seen but not identified.

Canon Excelsior Class
USS Berlin (NCC-14232) - ship list, not seen
USS Cairo (NCC-42136) - seen in stock footage of Mk I model
USS Charleston (NCC-42285) - ship lists, not seen
USS Crazy Horse (NCC-50446) - seen in stock footage of Mk I model
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) - shown as Mk I on sculpture wall, seen as Mk III model
USS Excelsior (NX-2000/NCC-2000) - seen as Mk I and Mk II model and Jein's Mk II Model
USS Farragut (NCC-2582) - seen as Jein's Mk II model
USS Fearless (NCC-14598) - seen in stock footage of Mk I model
USS Fredrickson (NCC-42111) - seen as Jein's Mk II model
USS Gorkon (NCC-40512) - seen in stock footage of Mk I model
USS Hood (NCC-2541) - seen as Mk I model
USS Hood (NCC-42296) - seen in stock footage of Mk I model
USS Lakota (NCC-42768) - seen as Mk III model
USS Malinche (NCC-38997)- seen as Jein's Mk II model or the CG copy of it
USS Melbourne (NCC-62043) - seen as Mk II model
USS Potemkin (NCC-8253)- seen in stock footage of Mk I model
USS Repulse (NCC-2544) - seen as Mk I model
USS Valley Forge (NCC-43305) - seen as CG copy of Jein's Mk II model

Additional Excelsior Class
USS Al-Batani (NCC-42995) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia
USS Archer (NCC-44278) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia
USS Atlantis (NCC-72007) - possibly Excelsior class due to computer screen
USS Crockett (NCC-38995) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia
USS Grissom (NCC-42857) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia in some editions
USS Intrepid (NCC-38907) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia
USS Livingston - (NCC-34099) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia
USS Okinawa (NCC-13958) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia
USS Roosevelt (NCC-2573) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia
USS Sarek - identified as Excelsior on startrek.com
USS Tecumseh (NCC-14934) - identified as Excelsior in ST Encyclopedia

Up to 7 Excelsior Class ships seen at one time in fleet scenes.

 

Yeah. I have an excel sheet with my list of Constitution Class ships. Including when they were built and what happened to them. Because of the content of TVH and TFF, I do not consider it possible for the Yorktown to have become the Enterprise. Ent A was a new ship that was either not quite finished or just started out as a lemon (you can imagine Scotty would not have tolerated that and gotten the ship in line pretty quick). I consider Ent A to be the ship Data referenced with ship wide issues. The timing works as TFF was in theaters when the episode was being written. So does the reference to 79 years which puts it there as well.

 

Is the USS Righteous (NCC-42451) from the Star Trek: Borg game considered canon, I wonder? It was professionally produced, had two canonical characters in it (predominantly John deLancie as Q and Majel Barrett as the computer voice - if that can be considered a "character" in the traditional sense), used Paramount-sanctioned sets and appeared "on-screen" (albeit computer screens). This, Klingon Academy, Starfleet Academy and other such video games showing live-action characters from the shows and movies are in an extremely gray area of the canon. More hard than soft, but still a little squishy.

 

I reject the Excelsior-class Melbourne. Since that footage from "Emissary" of the ship getting blasted by the Borg was used in Voyager for the recollection of the Roosevelt being destroyed, I assert that's what we saw, regardless of how the model was labeled. In part because the actual Nebula-class Melbourne of that same registry was not just in the battlefield shot of "Best of Both Worlds", but was also in that very sequence in "Emissary".