Star Trek: Every Hero Ship Ranked Worst To Best
There have been ten hero ships throughout Star Trek, but let's see which left the biggest impact.
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00:00 I want to open this list by saying that over at TrackCulture, we are blessed to have a lot of wonderful voices contributing to all of our articles, all of our videos, all of our thoughts.
00:12 The thing is, we're not always going to agree on everything.
00:16 Sometimes we sit down in a room and we can all go, "Yep, this is exactly how things should be and everything is fine."
00:22 And other times, somebody will make a suggestion and they will be laughed into oblivion, as the prophets willed it.
00:29 This article was originally written by Marcus Fry, who is a wonderful, wonderful person, and because I'm going to disagree with almost every one of their points,
00:37 I think what you should do is head over to our website, whatculture.com, and check out the original article, so that you can see what Marcus thought, compare it to what I thought, and then we can have some sort of jousting competition.
00:50 With that big, lovely intro out of the way, let's get down to it.
00:55 Here is every hero ship ranked worst to best.
00:58 Number 10, La Sirena.
01:01 Before y'all think I'm a hater, bear with me.
01:05 The SS La Sirena is an unregistered Kaplan F-17 freighter that Cristobal Rios acquired after leaving Starfleet.
01:12 Now, in Picard, Jean-Luc needed a fast, dependable ship to get to where he was going, and thanks to Raffi knowing Rios, that was perfect, they sorted him out with La Sirena.
01:23 The reason La Sirena scores so low on this list is that not because there's anything particularly wrong with the ship, although the Irish hologram does have me asking questions,
01:36 it's because when compared to the others on this list, it just doesn't really stack up.
01:41 It definitely does the job, and it definitely is agile, it's got some fairly nifty weaponry, I love their transporter and the fact that it's the size of half a cargo bay,
01:52 but for me, it just doesn't hold up next to ships like Defiant, like the Enterprise, pick an Enterprise, or like some of the newer ships as well.
02:03 So for me, it's a lovely, lovely freighter, it's quick, it's cool, I really do, despite what I just said about the Irish hologram, enjoy the ship-wide hollow emitters, but it has to kick off our list today.
02:17 Number 9, the Enterprise NX-01.
02:20 Now, I can hear our happy working relationship with Doug Drexler just vanishing into the distance, but my reason for putting the NX-01 so low is it's nothing to do with aesthetics,
02:34 it's nothing to do with, well, we love Enterprise here, so it's certainly nothing to do with that.
02:39 It's that when compared to the other ships on this list, this one was a wonderful prototype, sure, and this one was a great one for getting the ball rolling, but again, it just doesn't stack up so much next to the rest, so let me go through it.
02:55 So, being set in the 22nd century gave the writers of Enterprise a unique opportunity to explore the origins of Starfleet and the Federation, as well as their tech.
03:03 The Enterprise NX-01 was great in this regard, we got to see earlier forms of many of the iconic devices used aboard every Starfleet ship in the original series and beyond.
03:12 Instead of tractor beams, they used physical grappling hooks, instead of shields, they polarised hull plating, instead of photon torpedoes, they just chucked rocks out the window.
03:20 Alright, not quite, they were equipped with spatial torpedoes which have a lower explosive yield and range.
03:25 Additionally, the transporter was a new invention, and you get to see that develop over the four seasons.
03:31 Now, all together, the NX-01 gave us great insight into the evolution of Starfleet tech, but for us, it's hampered by its very purpose.
03:42 Its purpose was to be an earlier version of Starfleet, and for that it does an absolutely brilliant job.
03:50 But, again, when you compare it to the others on this list, we love it, Enterprise, we love you, Doug.
03:56 In the words of Paramount, to Garret Wong, someone's got to be the ensign.
04:01 Number 8, the USS Enterprise 1701.
04:04 Now, if anyone's still listening to this list, I appreciate you and thank you very much.
04:10 The Enterprise 1701 is the pinnacle of starship design in the 1960s.
04:15 It was crucial for introducing a new aesthetic, a new sleek, a new mature, if you like, version of space travel when it comes to, at the time, relatively mid-budget sci-fi.
04:30 Now, while Star Trek was never invented as a B-movie, you know, bug-eyed monster of the week sort of show,
04:36 it was beautifully steeped in that kind of history, while still forging ahead with its own.
04:42 The way the nacelles sit behind the saucer section and the star drive section below is now one of the most recognisable designs in all of literature.
04:51 Matt Jefferies did a wonderful, wonderful ship design for this new series.
04:58 Now, the only reason it scores as lowly as this is because, amazing as it is, it set the template for things to come afterwards.
05:07 So, it was when you are given a wonderful prototype, you have only to build and improve.
05:14 There is no denying whatsoever that the original Enterprise is a beautiful ship.
05:20 And, for me personally, aesthetically, my favourite Enterprise is the refit 1701 and 1701A from the movies.
05:29 So, it is not that I personally think this one doesn't look great, because it does, it is the forebear for everything that came after.
05:38 It is a fantastic design, and it is a very loved eighth entry on this list.
05:45 Number 7, USS Discovery.
05:48 The Crossfield-class USS Discovery was based on the original designs for what would become the refit 1701 for the motion picture.
05:56 You can see that in the nacelles that jut out from the triangular star drive section, with that smaller circular saucer section sitting above it.
06:05 The Discovery raised some eyebrows when it was first seen in the teaser trailer for Star Trek Discovery.
06:11 The nacelles at the time were much shorter, and it much more closely resembled that original design.
06:17 When it was finally revealed in Episode 3 of Star Trek Discovery's first season,
06:22 those nacelles had taken rather a lot of Viagra and had become about half a football field long.
06:28 And yet, any issues that were presented in the initial season of Star Trek Discovery have long since been rectified.
06:37 The Discovery, and indeed the Discovery A, have very much earned their position in the Starfleet pantheon of beautiful ship designs.
06:46 Unusual, sure, but beautiful.
06:48 The interior of the ship, while sometimes a little bit cold, has warmed over the four seasons,
06:54 particularly into the fourth season, where we start to spend more time in crew quarters, particularly Saru and Burnham.
07:02 The bridge is a fantastic design.
07:04 It was a somewhat interesting choice that they decided to add what was effectively the entire interior of space dock
07:10 during the third season finale fight in the Turbolift.
07:14 However, that has since been addressed and fixed.
07:16 The design features, of course, the Spore Drive, which caused headaches for fans in Seasons 1 and 2 of Star Trek Discovery,
07:22 but now that it's been flung into the far future, it's absolutely fine.
07:26 And it is now a very, very cool piece of technology.
07:29 It allows Discovery to visit anywhere they want in the galaxy.
07:33 You know, I think it brings them up to about two light-years before the galactic barrier,
07:37 almost like that was a plot point in Season 4, eh?
07:40 Having earned its place in Starfleet history at this stage, Discovery is a strong, strong vessel,
07:47 one that took an absolute pounding against Control, and yet still manages to hold its own up against the 1701.
07:54 Hats off, Discovery. Kudos.
07:56 Number 6, USS Protostar.
07:58 Now, the Protostar is an advanced, strong, fast little ship.
08:03 Star Trek Prodigy is impressing younger and existing audiences of Star Trek
08:08 by introducing the Proto-Drive via this ship.
08:12 The ship itself is a beautifully sleek design that evokes both memories of the Dauntless, Voyager,
08:18 and some of the Kelvin Universe vessels as well.
08:21 Armed with, finally, a replicator for support ships,
08:25 which would explain so much of how Voyager managed to hang on to all of those shuttles,
08:29 this ship has managed to hold its own against the Diviner,
08:32 and against other ships around the Delta Quadrant.
08:35 It managed to help its crew escape to another quadrant while being chased,
08:38 although they did have to turn straight around after that, and for further details, watch Prodigy.
08:42 The recent trailer that was released for Prodigy's second part of its first season
08:47 showed its size up against the new Dauntless class,
08:50 which really hammered home that the Protostar is generally a test vessel or support vessel,
08:56 as it's roughly the size of several runabouts placed back-to-back.
09:01 The Dauntless dwarfs it.
09:02 Now, it's not about size, it's about use,
09:05 and the Protostar, so far, has proven a very effective, very covetable ship,
09:11 and one that we are very, very much enjoying watching its journey.
09:16 Number 5. The USS Defiant and the Sao Paolo.
09:19 The Defiant-class ship, which was introduced in the beginning of DS9's third season,
09:23 was a complete departure from everything that we'd seen before in terms of Starfleet vessels.
09:28 It was equipped with a cloaking device, thank you very much, Romulans,
09:31 and also featured a blockier, stockier design.
09:35 It was Starfleet's first warship.
09:38 Now, this went completely against what Gene Roddenberry wanted for Star Trek back in the 1960s,
09:44 and yet, times had changed.
09:46 Therefore, the need for the ships in Star Trek changed with it.
09:50 You can almost hear the Twitter users running to say,
09:54 "Not my Star Trek," and Gene would be spinning in his grave.
09:58 But think about how enduring the Defiant was.
10:01 It survived so many battles with the Dominion,
10:04 it survived a battle with the Borg,
10:06 it survived many, many tussles with the Cardassians,
10:09 as well as other various ships.
10:12 Looking at you, Klingon fleet.
10:14 It finally met its end in the second battle of Chintoka in the seventh season of Star Trek DSpace 9.
10:20 Now, although it went out firing,
10:23 it was disappointing and saddening to see that the Breen's energy-dissipating weapon
10:28 was able to take down one of our favourite ships,
10:31 which, of course, was the point.
10:33 As the shot revealed, all of the other ships behind it,
10:35 you see Galaxy-class vessels as well,
10:37 to go, "Even if the Enterprise D was there in that fight,
10:40 not like that would have done much better."
10:42 The Defiant did fantastically for the three and a half years that it served
10:45 before it was destroyed,
10:46 and the Sao Paolo, although we didn't get very much to see,
10:50 seemed to do quite well in what you leave behind as well.
10:53 Number 4, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E.
10:58 Introduced in Star Trek First Contact,
11:00 the Sovereign-class USS Enterprise-E is easily one of the most beautiful ships on this list.
11:06 The sleek design,
11:08 accentuated by the fact the saucer section goes straight into the star drive section
11:13 without a neck to target,
11:15 shows that the Enterprise-E is a follow-on, in a way, from the Defiant.
11:19 With the Enterprise-D having been destroyed in orbit of Viridian-3 in the previous film,
11:24 it was known that we needed an Enterprise that could stand up to more of a direct assault,
11:29 and the Enterprise-E's design accentuates this.
11:32 John Eaves worked very, very closely with the producers
11:36 to come up with something that would show it was still a ship of exploration,
11:40 but one that had teeth.
11:42 Now, it was tested early in Star Trek First Contact,
11:44 with the Battle of Sector 001 leading directly into the fight against the Sphere,
11:49 and then it was almost completely assimilated over the course of the film,
11:53 and yet still bounced back for Star Trek Insurrection and Star Trek Nemesis.
11:57 In both of those films, the ship took a pounding as well,
12:00 so the ship's strength is not in question.
12:02 The ship's comfort is also not in question, as it was shown across all three films.
12:07 Just how much there were creature comforts everywhere.
12:10 Didn't you see the Mentakken tapestry on the back of Picard's chair?
12:14 God, I love who watches The Watchers.
12:16 The Enterprise-E remains one of the most instantly recognisable ships in all of Star Trek,
12:22 as well as one of the most fist-pumping arrivals in all of Star Trek.
12:26 It appears in what is, for many, one of the best Star Trek films,
12:30 and it also appears in what is, for many, one of the worst Star Trek films.
12:34 So, I'm not going to name them. You decide.
12:36 With the close-up on the deflector dish,
12:38 the nacelles that got pushed back between Star Trek First Contact and Star Trek Insurrection,
12:42 and the front of the saucer section, which was completely shmuzzled,
12:45 and then rebuilt at the end of Nemesis,
12:47 this is a strong, beautiful, elegant ship that I'm kind of considering asking out on a date.
12:54 Number three, the USS Cerritos.
12:56 The California-class Cerritos was a bit of an eyeful when it first appeared in that teaser poster
13:02 a few years ago.
13:03 It was very clearly inspired by ships like the Galaxy-class and Ambassador-class
13:08 with the circular saucer section,
13:10 and then their relative lack of star drive section was a bit like,
13:14 "Wait a minute, I thought this was Starfleet?"
13:17 However, it perfectly encapsulates the purpose of the ship,
13:20 which is the Cali-class ships are the workhorse of Starfleet.
13:25 They get sent in to do the dirty work that the other ships don't want to do,
13:29 and in that respect, it is perfectly fit for design.
13:32 Now, we've seen in recent episodes just how many mazes of wiring and Jefferies tubes
13:38 and hydroponic spays and duplo skeletons are sitting on the Cerritos.
13:42 It is quite a bit larger than perhaps we first thought when we first saw it,
13:46 and it does exactly what it says in the tin.
13:49 You go in and make first contact and make friends and everything's great,
13:52 and you warp off, and then the Cerritos comes in to usually mop up the damage.
13:56 It had its entire outer hull stripped away at the end of the second season,
14:00 and was absolutely fine.
14:02 It saved much larger ships like the Archimedes.
14:05 It has always been there to get the job done,
14:09 and has still managed to take a complete and utter kicking from the Paklets on several occasions.
14:15 The Cerritos is to the Cali-class what the Enterprise is
14:19 to whatever class of ship the Enterprise is that week.
14:22 It is truly one of the stars of Starfleet.
14:25 Now, while it might not shine as bright as a Galaxy or Sovereign-class,
14:29 it is still out there keeping the light going.
14:32 Number two, USS Voyager.
14:34 The Intrepid-class Voyager was introduced in Caretaker,
14:37 the opening episode to this new series.
14:39 Voyager featured a new design.
14:41 It was an oblong saucer section,
14:44 a star drive section that was attached directly to it,
14:47 and moving nacelles.
14:48 The nacelles would rise up when the ship was going to warp,
14:51 as this was shown to make a more effective warp drive.
14:55 The ship was able to land with the struts that were revealed in the 37s,
14:59 which became the first episode of season two of Star Trek Voyager.
15:04 The one criticism that Voyager often gets is that the premise for the show,
15:08 which was the conflict between the Federation officers and the Maquis officers,
15:12 and the fact that Voyager was stuck so far away from a space dock,
15:16 is what keeps this from the top spot.
15:17 The ship was a little too clean,
15:20 so although it was fantastic, and it lasted,
15:23 and it faced against the Krennum,
15:25 and it faced against the Borg,
15:27 and the Kazon,
15:28 and, and, and, and,
15:30 and, it always looked like it had just been rolled off the showroom
15:34 floor.
15:34 Now, that is a minor gripe on my part,
15:37 because I love this design.
15:39 The deflector dish, the shuttle bay with the revolving door of shuttles
15:42 that just never seemed to run out,
15:45 which we addressed in our protostar entry,
15:47 and the fact that when we know it got home,
15:49 it became a museum,
15:51 just goes to show how enduring Voyager was.
15:55 Now, the design was used once on Deep Space Nine to stand in for the Bolero-thon,
15:59 although it would have been lovely to see it in some of the movies,
16:02 because it is such a well-designed ship.
16:05 The bioneural gel packs that became effectively the nervous system for the computer core
16:10 were an interesting idea that were never really followed up on.
16:13 There were many ideas introduced in this ship that should have gone on
16:17 to become mainstays across the board.
16:21 It features, in my humble opinion,
16:23 the most beautiful engineering set of any of the hero ships,
16:27 and also, I kind of love the bridge the most as well.
16:30 Number one, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D.
16:35 1987 saw the introduction of the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D,
16:39 designed by Andrew Probert.
16:41 This would feature a much larger design than the Enterprise we had seen before,
16:44 because this was not only a ship of exploration,
16:47 but it was also effectively a ship of diplomacy,
16:50 a ship of colonization,
16:52 a ship of conferences.
16:53 It needed the space.
16:55 It was a chonker of a ship.
16:57 It was different from what came before in that the nacelles
17:00 were much smaller when compared to the dimensions of the Constitution-class.
17:05 It was able to face off against ships like the Borg Cube,
17:08 it was able to face off against Cardassian, Klingon, Romulan vessels,
17:12 but all that time, the Enterprise-D was never a ship of war.
17:15 It was always a ship of exploration.
17:18 The brightly lit corridors,
17:20 the slower pace of life on board,
17:22 and of course, the large horseshoe tactical station
17:26 that surrounded the command chairs on board the bridge,
17:29 all led to this being the most iconic design
17:33 when it comes to Starfleet vessels.
17:35 And it seems to be the one that newer ships
17:38 tend to base their, at least, initial designs from.
17:43 The Enterprise-D went before her time, over Virdian III.
17:46 She was a victim of the film industry rather than anything else,
17:51 because the sets were designed for television screens at a 4-3 ratio,
17:55 not the widescreen format of cinema.
17:58 The ship was shown in several versions throughout its run.
18:01 We had, of course, the version that we saw in yesterday's Enterprise,
18:04 which showed a bridge that would serve as the inspiration
18:07 for the bridge on Star Trek Generations,
18:09 and also the three-nacelled version that rocked up in All Good Things.
18:13 The Enterprise-D in the Galaxy-class remains one of the most endearing designs
18:17 ever shown in Star Trek.
18:19 It is a personal warmth when I see this ship,
18:22 as I know exactly that I'm home.
18:25 Thank you very much, everyone, for listening to this list.
18:27 Thank you very much to the wonderful, wonderful Marcus Fry,
18:30 who is cursing my name and stabbing pins into my voodoo doll right now,
18:35 and that is absolutely fine.
18:36 I thoroughly recommend you go over to the website and read their article,
18:39 and then compare the points and tell me why I'm wrong.
18:42 Thank you very much to the wonderful Martin,
18:44 who had to turn my words into a moving picture video.
18:49 You're a good man.
18:50 If you agreed with this list, or if you disagreed with this list,
18:52 head on into the comments below and let me know.
18:54 Remember that you can catch us over on Twitter, @TrekCulture.
18:57 You can catch myself, @SeanFerric on Twitter,
18:59 and the various socials as well.
19:00 Now, until I see you again, make sure that you live long and prosper.
19:02 Make sure that you look after yourselves.
19:04 To our friends in Ukraine, stay strong, stay fighting.
19:06 We are with you.
19:07 Everyone have a wonderful week.
19:08 Make it so.