This is the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-4-701. It´s the 2nd ship of the Legatus-Class and the 4th federation ship, to carry the name Enterprise. Launched in the year 2330, the new ship contains many hull fragments of her predecessors on her basic framework (stored parts from the Pre-Refit original 1701, 1701-A and 1701-B , in honor of her legacy.
The main idea behind the Legatus Class was to create a Constitution Class for the 24th century, because the Excelsior Class was popular, but not flexible and elegant as the "antiquated" classes before her.
Ships of the Legatus Class:
- U.S.S. Legatus NX-10400 (Prototype-later recommissioned as NCC-10400)
- U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-4-701(later recommissioned as NCC-1701-C)
- U.S.S. Yamato NCC-5-305 (last minute replacement for NCC-1305-C)
- U.S.S. Tertius NCC-12545
- U.S.S. Hieronymianus NCC-14006
- Starfleet One NCC-01 (Diplomatic Vessel/presidential flagship in wartimes)
- U.S.S. Reed NCC-19037 (named after the late Commondore Malcom Reed)
- U.S.S. Yorktown NCC-19555 (under construction
- Unknown NCC-20000 (laying down, rumored as U.S.S. Thy'lek Shran
- Unknown NCC-21276 (in early planing stages)
Behind the scenes:
My original idea was to create an refit of the old Ambassador-Class with TNG technology, but later I decided to reimagine the whole ship class as logical intermediate step between Excelsior and Galaxy Class und mimic many design choices that made the old Constitution Class (refit) so ageless. So no phaser arrays, but phaser cannon like the Miranda-Class and the golden dish ist finally back.
Stripping down old ships and reuse the parts is by the way quite common in real life, in fact scrap metal from the World Trade Center was used to create the San-Antonio Class USS New York (LPD-21). The U.S.S. Enterprise-D had little golden ship models in her observation lounge, on my Enterprise-C the Starfleet Corps of Engineers goes full patriotic.
She shares also many elements of the original Enterprise-D Study Model, which was created back in the early days of pre-production of TNG und the Enterprise-A of the "Kelvin Timline".It´s also a note to a original concept art form Andrew Probert, who accidentally created the basic design for the Enterprise-D back in the late 70s at the pre-production of Star Trek TMP.
