Civilian Federation Ship Classes

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1. The studio model of the space cruiser Aurora in TOS: "The Way to Eden" was built by simply attaching two warp engines to the conical Tholian ship, and without additional details that would have been required for it to be more credible. The idea that the Federation should suddenly use a design by the Tholians, who were unknown until a few months prior to the episode and are clearly hostile, is ludicrous. We must assume that the Aurora actually looks considerably different.
2. The new Aurora in TOS-R: "The Way to Eden" is a simple tubular design with two warp engines. Mike Okuda tells us that it is "a modified version of Mudd's ship [J class, see below]. Registry number NC-17740... The registry number is from Matt Jefferies's airplane. Actually, I have a vague memory that we may have used that number for another ship, earlier, but I wanted to do that for Matt in his own show." See Matt Jefferies's airplane on display.

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1. The SS Santa Maria could be seen landed on a planet in DS9: "Paradise", however, its exact hull shape was not revealed.
2. Swap the "w" and the "h" in "Erewhon", and read it backward to see how the name was created. The registry BDR-529 of the Santa Maria is another in-joke. It's the number plate of the Bluesmobile!

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1. The holoship ("Star Trek: Insurrection") doesn't have clearly identifiable warp nacelles, but since it was supposed to serve for long-distance transport, it must be warp-capable. The above schematic from the Star Trek Fact Files reproduces the final version of the ship, which obviously strives to compensate for the simple overall shape with way too many surface details. The schematic from Star Trek: The Magazine looks much better and more plausible and it has better visible warp nacelles, but it resembles rather the pre-production sketches than the final product.
2. The ship featured in "Star Trek: Insurrection" was equipped with a cloaking device. Since this seems to be illegal according to the Treaty of Algeron, other ships of this type (if there are any) probably do not have cloaking.
3. There is no real reason why this ship is traditionally listed at EAS as "Federation non-Starfleet". Story-wise it could well be a Starfleet ship, only that it doesn't look like one. John Eaves's early sketches of the holoship indeed show a (Starfleet) registry NX-75115. Alas, the final ship neither seems to have a name nor a registry number.

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1. Even if it wasn't the author's intention, it has been conjectured that this class of privately owned vessels (from TOS: "Mudd's Women") could be the same as the J class mentioned in ENT: "Fortunate Son" and seen in "Horizon". Capt. Keene of the Y-class ECS Fortunate talked of having his ship equipped with a new warp drive. There is no reason that the so refurbished cargo ships (Y class and J class alike) may not have been in service for another 100 years until the TOS episode. Yet, the Class-J ship appeared in "Mudd's Women" as a compact glowing light, as opposed to the rather complex shape of the J class.
2. In the remastered (TOS-R) update of "Mudd's Women" the glowing light on the viewscreen was replaced with something that looks much more like a "real" starship with two warp nacelles and a central impulse engine, all with a bright blue glow. This new TOS-R ship bears no resemblance to the J class from Enterprise either.

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1. La Sirena first appears in PIC: "The End is the Beginning". The landing gear is visible when the ship takes off again in "Et in Arcadia Ego II". The ship type can be implied from a statement by the "Red Bolian" in PIC: "Stardust City Rag".
2. La Sirena is an unregistered ship, probably unlike other freighters of this type. It doesn't become clear what exactly that means in the late 24th century. Rather than being illegal in the Federation, Rios's ship may be unaffiliated and may acquire licenses to operate on a case-by-case basis, rather than under a permanent contract.

3. The similarity of hull paint of La Sirena to Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstrat guitar is a bit too obvious to be a coincidence.

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1. Although there were occasionally alien ships with English names, I assume that this ship, apparently mostly manned with humans, is registered in the Federation (if registered at all).
2. The scale sheet made by Nilo Rodis for "Star Trek III" shows the Merchantman (as "Merchant Ship") at 220ft or 67m, and it is remarkable that on this sketch the ship looks much less complex and more shuttle-like. It is a blatant scaling error when the Merchantman in the actual movie scene appeared to be only some 20m long compared to the Bird-of-Prey. The extremely complicated structure of the finalized model without windows and access hatches that would have to be much larger and much more prominent at a length of 20m, requires that it is at least the same size as the BoP. Also, it would be much easier if the original Merchantman were the very same design as its later incarnations as various larger alien ships.

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1. In DS9: "The Passenger", my impression is that the Norkova, with its LCARS-style control consoles, is a Federation ship.
2. The Norkova design clearly emerged from the model of the Talarian freighter Batris, a purported Antares-class vessel. As the Norkova sports a new bow section and has an overall different structure, it could be a different class as well. Note that the depiction of the Norkova in the Star Trek Fact Files is wrong. The ship actually looks like the Xhosa that will appear later in DS9, only the color is different.
3. The Norkova design reappeared in VOY: "Author, Author", approaching a dilithium mining colony of the Federation. It may have been supposed to be a Federation vessel too, unlike other appearances in Voyager and in Enterprise.

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1. The civilian Oberth-class ships can be operated with a crew complement of only a few people (TNG: "Hero Worship"). It is possible that these ships are decommissioned Starfleet vessels, rebuilt with less advanced, yet more automated systems and mission specific scientific equipment.
2. Strangely, the registry NAR-18834 is exactly the same as of the SS Seattle, of TNG: "Up the Long Ladder", three seasons earlier. The registries were both on displays and not simply made up. It is either an incredible coincidence (1/100000 for a 5-digit number!), or an in-joke, or the available reproduction of the chart from "Up The Long Ladder" is incorrect. But why would anyone get exactly this one registry from anywhere else? The double registry remains a total mystery. We might explain it in a way that the old SS Seattle was renamed to Vico some time, but if the Vico is an Oberth class, the class would be in production for over 230 years!

See also Starfleet Ships L-Z

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1. The Eleos appeared in "The Next Generation" and "Disengage" and was a privately owned vessel, operated by Beverly and Jack Crusher on behalf of the medical/disaster relief organization Mariposas.
2. The Eleos is a co-design by Dave Blass, Doug Drexler, John Eaves and Terry Matalas.
3. The class name was not stated on screen and was made up retroactively for publicity images of the Eleos.

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1. The Raven was first featured in VOY: "The Raven" as a non-Starfleet ship with the non-Starfleet registry NAR-32450. The dedication plaque with the stylized depiction of a raven was labeled "The Raven" and not "USS Raven". In VOY: "Dark Frontier" the ship suddenly becomes "USS Raven" in official Starfleet records and is identified as such by Magnus Hansen himself, although the CGI model is labeled "SS Raven". A possible justification for this obvious blunder is that the ship was taken into Starfleet service briefly prior to its last mission to explore the Borg, while the dedication plaque remained unchanged.
2. The Hansens' ship was referred to as "Jefferies" on a display in VOY: "The Gift". The text on the screen reads like this: "According to arrival/departure log from the Drexler outpost in sector Omega exploration vessel 'Jefferies' left that location in 2354. No flight plan was filed and no further contact was ever established. Last known heading was 237/47." The rest is just inane blurb, but we might accept the useful part nonetheless. Either the vessel's name was switched from Jefferies to Raven (Starfleet may already have had a USS Jefferies) along with the registry and the outpost was still using an old database, or the Hansens were there in disguise.

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1. Although sometimes listed as El-Aurian designs, the vessels from "Generations" are clearly Federation ships. Why should the El-Aurians from the other side of the galaxy name one of their ships after a Federation Ambassador (Robert Fox from TOS: "A Taste of Armageddon")?
2. There is a Starfleet ship USS Whorfin NCC-1024 listed in "Star Trek VI", whose registry indicates it could be the first ship of the Whorfin class, but there is no evidence Starfleet uses Whorfin-class ships at all.

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1. Ardana is mentioned to be a member of the Federation in TOS: "The Cloud-Minders", although its caste system is in contrast to democratic principles.
2. For the remastered version of the episode a detailed CGI was constructed that closely follows the line of the original miniature. The CGI is shown from various angles and in close shots.

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1. Since there is no mention of "Apollo class" in the Star Trek Fact Files issue about the T'Pau, this suggestion from the Star Trek Encyclopedia II should be discarded. The T'Pau is probably a Vulcan design that has never been in Starfleet service.
2. It is often doubted that the T'Pau could be actually one of the three ships shown at the end of TNG: "Unification II" because the navigational deflector of the ship is missing. However, Sela clearly tells Picard that the T'Pau, along with two other ships he does no yet know of, is heading for Vulcan. Considering that the ship is urgently needed and stealing still another ship as a replacement would be an unnecessary risk, the T'Pau is apparently used without being fully operational, or the Romulans have cared for sufficient spare parts to repair the three ships under all circumstances. The Fact Files also state that the T'Pau is indeed one of the three ships of the Romulan invasion fleet.
3. A variant of the T'Pau appears in DS9: "For the Cause". This is not the original T'Pau (which has remained untouched until today) but a modification of the Tosk ship, which was created from a mold of the T'Pau. The "new" Vulcan ship retains some of the Tosk modifications, most noticeably the raised aft section. The Vulcan markings and the color were not reconstructed. There is also a detail on the ship that was neither on the T'Pau nor on the Tosk ship, covering the cockpit window of the Tosk version.

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1. The T'Plana appears in PIC: "Dominion". The ship is part of an absurdly huge plot hole in this episode. Where does the Vulcan warship suddenly come from, in a debris field of the two battles of Chin'toka that took place some 30 years ago? The ship is said to emit radiation, and there would have to be other signs that it was recently active and engaged in a battle, for Vadic not to become suspicious. Quite unlike the recording about it recently exchanging fire with the Titan says, the hull of the warship looks like it has been resting and rusting at the scrapyard for many years (and yes, I know there's no oxidization in space). Finally, since when do 24th century Vulcans have warships anyway?
2. The design is the one of the small Vulcan cruiser from Discovery but it clearly can't be the same ship type in-universe.

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1. The warpshuttle appeared only in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". According to its designer Andrew Probert the small vessel is armed with some sort of guns. Also, the paint scheme involves shades of magenta, although the vessel appears gray on screen.
2. The incredibly long registry is authentic.

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1. Variant I of the Maquis raider could be seen in TNG: "Preemptive Strike", sporting some sort of a cockpit window. This ship may have been supposed to be smaller than Chakotay's vessel, maybe 40m, but for the sake of plausibility, I assume it's just an oversized cockpit and not a smaller ship. A second difference is that variant 1 did not yet have the additional struts between the main body and the wings. Finally, the engine color is yellow on type 1 and red on type 2.
2. Chakotay's raider is of the variant II, with a structure looking like a bridge module. It appears to be just 50m long compared to the Galor and to Voyager. But we would expect it to be substantially larger considering a crew complement of at least 37 that can be inferred from mentions in later episodes. 60m is a compromise that also allows the type 1 to be essentially the same design. B'Elanna said the ship was 39 years old as of 2371 (VOY: "Caretaker").
3. Note that Chakotay's raider is probably neither a Peregrine class nor an Antares class (see Voyager Inconsistencies for more about the ship). Jeri Taylor's Pathways claims that the ship's name is Liberty (Antares class). The Fact Files explicitly and frequently state that Chakotay's raider was named Zola, as in a draft of VOY: "Parallax". On the other hand, a display in VOY: "Repression" clearly reads "Vessel Designation: Val Jean" (Valjean from Les Misérables). Well, *that* name would have suited Eddington's raider from DS9: "For the Uniform" much better...
4. Some more information on the class name comes from Star Trek: The Magazine. An article tells us of a desktop model of Chakotay's Maquis ship, as well as several displays of the ship where it is called a Ju'day-class ship (supposedly seen in VOY: "Repression" too).

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See also Starfleet Ships L-Z

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1. The small Maquis raider is a re-use of the Bajoran subimpulse raider from DS9: "The Siege" with a modified cockpit section. The new cockpit is taller, and it has a characteristic step in the side window. The Maquis version appeared only briefly at the end of TNG: "Preemptive Strike". In this episode, however, we can see the inside of one of the Maquis ships piloted by Santos, which is a slight redress of a Type-6 shuttle cockpit. This explains why the exterior of the Bajoran raider was adapted, although the ship was only barely recognizable at all.
2. The LCARS displays inside the cockpit and the human crew set this raider apart from the Bajoran version. It also seems that the Maquis version has warp drive, rather than the Bajoran one. It still possible that both versions of the small vessel are used by the Maquis and the Bajorans alike. Whether the basic design is rather of Federation or of Bajoran design remains unknown. But since the other ships of the Maquis are definitely Federation designs and they rather wouldn't take away ships from the Bajorans, this may apply to the small raider as well.
3. The usually much bigger Bajoran assault vessels participated in the Maquis attack on a Cardassian Galor class at the beginning of in TNG: "Preemptive Strike". Yet, they appeared to be at most a few meters long in this scene! It is possible they were stand-ins for the much smaller Maquis raiders aka Bajoran sub-impulse raiders. Indeed, the latter appear as Maquis ships later in the TNG episode as already mentioned, whereas there is no sign of the assault ships any longer.

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1. We can see one ship of this type, piloted by Seven of Nine, in PIC: "Absolute Candor". Although we can never get a better look, this ship type is asymmetrical.
2. Two vessels of the same type can be seen in Jack's flashback in PIC: "Disengage", awaiting the Eleos in orbit of Sarnia Prime.
3. Seven of Nine tells Picard of a Fenris Rangers "corsair" that would arrive for her. Her own ship may be a corsair and may have enough space for two or more people, but we can't really tell.

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