Great analysis - I agree with pretty much everything here and made me consider some new things! On disagreements - nah I don't think we have disagreements about Trek tech and canon - just parallel views. I bet someone already mentioned that in the FASA lore the 'transwarp drive' are speeds over warp 10 in the old warps scale - like 12-14 top speed; and the 1701-A also got this refit - all of which is 'implied' by Scotty - especially his dismay in ST3 when they told him there would be 'no Enterprise refit' - so then most ships in the lost era would have this version of the transwarp drive. And then Ent-D uses something else entirely 'ultra warp'. Transwarp as technobable was poorly appropriated in TNG era LOL.
glad you liked the video. there is a lot of contradictory information on transwarp drive. some say it failed, others say it went on to become normal warp drive. For me it was something unique which i explain in "the great experiment" basically warping space time ahead of the ship to slow time down, but this didn't change the passage of time on the ship, so the crew would effectively age faster when using the transwarp drive. so it became un-viable.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 what RS SAID he was talking about the 1st Gen of D-7s the class that came out around 2245 won't take a tos era Conine but i agree the TMP ones would give Starfleet a run for it's Credits i believe that why the Enterprise was refitted to a mark two.
Was it this Tuesday or next? Because we just have the cloaking device, well parts if it anyway, the deflector dish, will be in the following Tuesday🤞🖖🙏
I wholeheartedly agree. The Excelsior is indeed a game changer and yeah it is basically the Sovreign of the 23rd Century. Designed by a more military minded Starfleet, it has significantly superior speed, scanning, & durability and comparable firepower & maneuverability to any of its contemporaries for around 50 years. As I said in the "Great Experiment" video, similar to a Nimitz supercarrier. It definitely contributed to the 24th century pax period. Also, I like the Excelsior cloaking device theory.
This may have something to do with Starfleet recognizing that the Organians were not enforcing the Organian peace treaty in the face of multiple Klingon violations in the years between ST:TMP and ST II. The mass fielding of the K'Tinga class to match the refitted Constitution class, may have convinced Starfleet Command that a war was coming. The Excelsior seems to have been built to militarize the best traits of the Constitution class by making them bigger and more robust.
You mean the Enterprise B? Lakota was a refit because they couldn't get the added bits off the Excelsior model after Star Trek Generations. Though I do agree that it was awesome design and look.
The Enterprise-B secondary hull was designed that way by the studio to accommodate the damage from the Nexus ribbon without actually doing damage to the original Excelsior model as they only had the one.
Interesting. Makes sense, it’s funny how much people talk about these cosmetic changes when they are often made for budget reasons or some practical filming reason. Really preferred the cleaner silhouette of the original design
it would've been funny if sulu poached all the senior officers off the enterprise to go with sulu insetad of kirk . so spock, chekov, uhura, mccoy, scotty all go to the excelsior. :D
@@nunya3163 I would have been funny to have Captain Sulu have to deal with an Admiral Styles, who was still sore that Sulu was part of the "Steal The Enterprise" Incident where Scotty disabled the Excelsior under Styles command.
Having watched this again, I think that the Excelsior was a game changer because it took so long for everyone else to come up with a counter for it. In the race to build ships that are of that size the Excelsior won hands down. The fact that the ship is still a good and capable until the end of the Dominion War is a testament to its design.
You know, that makes me think of how HMS Dreadnought changed the way we built warships in the lead up to World War One. The Excelsior was effectively the Dreadnought of Star Trek.
My favorite ship. She wasn't originally built to be a flagship, but became one after proving herself. She carried the Federation through the Klingon and Romulan wars. She was broadly used by Admirals during TNG era. She was refit as a battlship during the Dominion War. There's never been a TV series with a hero ship Excelsior making it more likely to get additional screen time. Finally, you get to say "EXCELSIOR!!!" when talking about it
I've always felt the Excelsior was the best realistic sci-fi ship that Star Trek ever had. Slender but still has heft and just looks like it could take anything the galaxy threw at it. I love that sources stated the hull was far overbuilt to accommodate the Trans Warp Drive, making the skeleton of these ships incredibly strong even by 24th Century designs. That was one of the explanations why Admirals always seemed to ride Excelsior's in TNG era. The fact the Sovereign looks very much like a modernized adaptation of the Excelsiors lines I felt was homage to how they both were designed for war. Your expiation about the Cloke and the Excelsior Refits is awesome, it's the first 'New' Theories I've seen about the old girl in many years that really make sense! Well done video.
There was a reason that Admirals often choose utilize the Excelsior class as their "personal requestions" when traveling to the front lines of conflict. The only thing I would change is the verbiage of Phaser Turret to Phaser Emitter as they are two separate weapons. Phaser Turrets are literally turrets with a 360' range of fire, and are slightly less powerful than the phaser emitter(s); sacrificing power for area of effect. The Phaser Emitter that generates either the pulse or the stream generally cover an area of 280' but have more bite than the turret. Realistically they should both be capable of the same power level but this information is from B cannon onwards because sadly, we do not have phasers.
There could be many, many other factors like speed, room for staff, battlefield role... For my two cents, Starfleet has a category of major capital ships (like battleship/battlecruiser fleets in the first half of the 20th century) with Excelsior's being the smallest of those, followed up by ambassadors, galaxys and then sovereigns. Depending on fleet size and era Excelsiors are just the right size to serve as fleet flagships while not taking away space, resources and flexibility away from the frontline heavy hitters
@@TheWoblinGoblin yeah it's why the excelsior was in service so long. Striking a good balance between speed firepower and defenses. Means that it never found itself at too much of a disadvantage.
You got your techno babble mixed up. 1.) The Phaser (and any other energy weapon in trek) always is emmited by an emitter. Phasers are organized into Banks for fire control and general management. The build type of the phaser is not relevant for this term. 2.) We generally differentiate between gimbal mounted Phaser emitters, found on most pre TNG designs. That is what the conny and Excelsior mount. They sure as fck don't do 360° shooting. The power of these phasers is dependent on the general technological sophistication of the emitter system. The term gimbal is also only half right because final target adjustment is done via energy fields lensing the beam where it needs to go. You can observe this in most handphasers, where the beams flight path has little to do with where the emitter is pointing. These might fire beams or pulses depending on construction. 3.) Phaser Arrays, found on most post TNG ships are large strips of interconnected emmitters. Each emitter can generate its own charge, hold it, hold the charge handed to it by another emmitter next to it and in turn hand that charge over to the next emitter until 2 charges meet at the discharge point where energy fields will lense it towards its target. The advantage is that the Firing Control can divide an Array into differently sized sections and have multiple Discharges at specific strength towards different targets. Or have 2 charges combined run the full length of the array, resulting in lots of oomph. The crew can customize these a lot, length if charge, powersetting etc... Downside is that the whole setup is very complex and needs serious cooling.
I believe the term for the phaser strips on TNG ships is "collimator." The only places I've seen actual turrets in use for phasers are in the god-awful reboot movies, Enterprise, and Discovery (the alternate universe franchises). Ships of the TOS era used fixed-mount phaser cannons arranged in banks of two or three distributed around the saucer behind large circular gun ports (distinct from windows which were small and square). The banks were placed to cover 90° firing arcs at port, starboard, and fore positions. (None rear-facing to avoid the possibility of damaging the warp pylons.)
Definitely one of the best ships of the Federation. Strong. Reliable, long life. A good platform for peace and war. A guilty pleasure. Plus the bulky neck fixed a underlined weakness in designs since during that time, federation ships had no Armour
I never liked the neck, but the engineering hull was starting to push in a good direction that finally came to realisation in the Sovereign hulls design. Still, no argument it was a ship that propped up Starfleets efforts in the lore.
@A dudes thoughts literally how the enterprise refit is crippled in ST:2 wrath of Khan... A raking shot to the neck torpedo room where the refit warp core housing passes directly between the torpedo launch tubes protected only by the exterior hull and it's own shielding. The refit replaced the old front-to-back warp core buried deep in the secondary hull with a new transverse design which could only fit in the much more vulnerable neck. (The original constitution design had enough redundancy between the saucer and secondary hull to at least remain semi-functional so long as the neck wasn't severed completely, but the refit warp core also took up the space formerly occupied by the secondary fusion powerplant in the saucer section, which meant the impulse drive and phaser batteries had no backup power in the event that the warp core was offline.)
well that means starfleet really likes to use a particular class until it rusts apart or it really lacks creativity since it relies on one class for too long. that's just my take on this. you would think the sovereign class is the replacement for the last gen heavy cruiser starflee fielded so maybe ambassador class. I wouldn't compare the svoereign to the galaxy class because they're two different ships classes. galaxy class isn't even a heavy cruiser. or at least it doesn't seem that way
@@joeswanson733 The Ambassador always felt like a prototype for the Galaxy. Like the ships feel they had a similar design intent/were designed for similar roles. And it does kind of fit as the Excelsior was designed as a military ship originally while the Ambassador feels like it was intended to be more of a show piece/ambassadorial ship (hence the name) in much the same way the Galaxy actually was. While they could certainly fill a military roll similar to that the Excelsior was built to fill, that was not what they were intended or designed to do.
@@joeswanson733 You don't scrap ship hulls unless they're obsolete. Large hulls had plenty of space for new tech. As far as the shapes go they really didn't impact the function except as to how much you can pack into it. Compare that to modern day Navy ships. The shape and size has more to do with the tech being laid over it such as new radar systems. The follow up ships in the Federation just got bigger with the exception of the Defiant class which was a glass cannon. The Lakota which was decades old still put up a huge fight against the most modern combat dedicated escort ship of the century. Note about the shuttlebay. By this period, shuttles were being used less and less as transporter tech had been highly refined at this point. There wasn't as much need for a shuttle bay anymore. You rarely saw them in use except for long range transportation.
@@randallsanchez3161 You could also see Shuttles as more as picket/scout ships in a system. They would make it so you can see in planet shadows and to increase the range of your scanning bubble. While you could use unmanned probes, they aren't as great as having Mark 1 eyeballs out keeping a watch, plus a shuttle crew would be able to tell if they are being hacked/spoofed.
A couple of thoughts: First, the real-world reason for the bulges on the engineering hull of the Enterprise -B was so they could show hull damage w/out damaging the body of the Excelsior model----ironically, the model-makers did too good a job, and the model was damaged when they tried to remove them---this is the reason a digital Excelsior model was built for DS9 (or one of the reasons, anyway) Second, the additional "impulse" engines on the B were originally intended to be warp-speed enhancers, according to the designer--the designer identifies them as such in an interview w Trekyards, I think. This is why they line right up with the main warp nacelles---as impulse engines, they would pretty much blast right back into the Bussards. They might even have had warp-sustainer capabilities during saucer separation maneuvers---not totally sure about that, tho. Anyway, another great episode, Venom! I was always a huge fan of the Excelsior design myself, and tbh saw no good reason for the refit.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I think the "warp enhancers" were why "transwarp", as well as that, were phased out... and "transwarp" was redefined in later canon. TOS and TNG have different warp scales. TOS has a speed of the Warp Factor cubed as how many times light speed it is. TNG changed that drastically with a really odd scale that eventually made Warp Factor 10 infinite speed. Also, after the TOS era, have warp-speed ships ever "accidentally" entered any kind of wormhole by going warp speed? Never heard of it happening after that one movie? Neither have I. I think the "warp enhancers" became part of the standard design, thus no longer "warp enhancers" but just part of the warp drive and thus normalized with the new (post-TOS) scale. Just food for thought, though.
I like that warp enhancer idea - I had heard that the original concept art for the modifications had those added elements as extra shuttle bays, but the model builders misinterpreted and made them extra engines. God knows the Excelsior could use a shuttle bay or two on the saucer - but these would have the same issue as the impulse engines: very awkward to have to pilot a shuttle out of the bay and immediately have to fly around the warp nacelle.
If they were only designed to use when separated then their placement wouldn't mater otherwise. I think That the ship can separate has come up before even if it's in novel. Though I might even have been mentioned on that Voyager Episode (or it's novelisation at least).
The Excelsior class was kind of like the B-52. They found a frame that was incredibly effective at it's job, so decided to keep upgrading the internals to keep it modern, since nothing else they designed was as good at it's job. Yes, that's basically what happened with the B-52 (plus it's so good a bomber that we're disallowed by treaty to make new airframes of the class, meaning we have to keep the ones we have flying)
When I see those two ships next to each other I just think of the difference between a frigate or even a schooner and a ship of the line in the age of sail. Connie looks like she soars through space, while the Excelsior just bulldozes through. I love that ship design so much.
3:21 I don't know if you meant to say it this way, but you're very correct. The original designer for the Excelsior started the design with the question "What would the Enterprise look like if it were designed by the Japanese?"
9:38 one thing I will note the entire rear section could be one large hanger deck just underneath the bay. As there's enough room to have a hanger and maintenance bay for the shuttles.
The launch, and apparent mass production of this class was likely a significant factor in forcing the Klingons into the Khitomer Accords. The Klingons knew that an alliance with the Romulans was impossible, and given their economic situation, there was no way they could maintain a fleet strong enough to contend with both the Federation and the Romulans at the same time. Making friends with the Federation was basically their only choice.
This is actually a good point. The Ktinga was their frontline ship at the time, and if things more or less held up like TOS, the refit Constitution Class was still quite superior (with the Enterprise surviving the V'Ger weapon when the Ktingas did not) 1-on-1. And now this even more powerful ship comes along, ready for mass production. The Klingons could not possibly hope to keep up. In plane parlance, I think the Constitution Class was not unlike the F-4 Phantom, already superior to the Klingon D7/MiG-19. But then the Klingons come out with the Ktinga/MiG-21 to even the playing field some, only to see the Federation field the Excelsior Class/F-15...
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 and yet somehow in that star trek TNG episode yesterdays enterprise the federation was losing the war with the klingons like wtf. that would be like the US losing a conventional war agains he sovies in the 1980s.
@@joeswanson733 Very true! Never made much sense. But, so much can go wrong when the fighting actually starts. Look at how the Union botched things in the first two years of the American Civil War despite massive superiority. Or the Russians now. And the Klingons and Federation are much more equally matched than my two examples. I should think the Federation must have utterly botched the first years of the war. Or perhaps the Klingons beat the Federation to developing that 5th Generation (NX Class/G1, Daedelus, D-5/G2, Constitution Class, D-7, Ktinga/G3, Excelsior/G4, Galaxy, Vorcha, D'Deridex/G5) capital ships by fielding the Vorcha Class in numbers well before the Galaxy and Nebula Classes were in service.
yeah the klingons were trying to make a counter but they were just too far behind technologically. they couldn't just brute force the problem this time round.
A refit that would have solved the hanger/shuttlebay issue would have been to extend the secondary hull at its thickest point all the way back, instead of having it only go a third of the length before curving up. That would have added a _lot_ of internal space, it could basically become a carrier. It could be considered a minor refit! A 3D analysis of how much extra volume that would create would be interesting.
Actually Enterprise was designed by Matt Jaffries, Roddenberry told Jeffries what he didn't want to see. (Rockets, fins, etc) Jeffries had an Aerospace background and had press material from the all the major manufacturers of air and space craft to draw from.
Just a quick correction. The K'tinga has two torpedo launchers. Remember the beginning of TMP when the last K'tinga is fleeing it fires one more Torp back from it's aft at the ball of energy thingy before it's inevitable demise.
I had never thought about the Excelsior having that 1980s Japanese asthetic, but now that you mention it, I can't unsee it, that's a really good observation.
Cheers. One thing i believe 23rd century katinga had two torpedoe tubes. ( motion picture, one front one aft ) still half the fire power in torpedoes, and around 25 percent of phasers
It is a good ship and design. I could never really get used to it because of the ship's look. It took me a few years to get used to the Galaxy class's design. Like many older fans, I watched TNG when it first came out. I also saw the first 2 movies before that. I guess I just love the look of the Constitution refit more than any other ship design in Star Trek. However it will never beat out the space Battleship Yamato. That was the first ship in Sci-fi/anime I ever saw.
I agree. Grew up on the Original Series in syndication, then carried that mystique over into the Movie Era with the refits. But Star Blazers, and later watched Yamato subbed.
I think the elegance of Japan in relation to the Excelsior Is minimalism which as a branch of zen Buddhism basically less can be more if applied correctly nice video tho, I approve
for instance, Romulans are zen too, less is more, we esp with the old bop. in the other hand the ddiridrx was more with less, same with hl the galaxy class. Extremely inefficient pound for pound imo
I think the elegance of Japan in relation to the Excelsior Is minimalism which as a branch of zen Buddhism basically less can be more if applied correctly nice video tho
When I was a kid , I always wanted to see a Captain Sulu series after reading a comic where he is chatting with Captain Kirk via ship to ship before warping away. I would never get to see an alternative non enterprise ship until Voyager . It would have been really great to see the classic Excelsior doing the Voyager series as time tested classic.
I definitely get some HMS Hood vibes from the Excelsior class. Able to outrun anything it can't outfight and vice/versa, but there isn't much that can outrun or outfight them in the first place. Honestly sad we never really got to see an Excelsior as the main hero ship of a series/movie.
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 Not really. I mean, there's the Lakota, but you wouldn't expect a test ship for new weapons systems with a very green crew and captain to stand up to Defiant. And, I mean...the Borg. But did you see the nonsense USS Hood got up to? She was throwing hands at the very forefront of the Dominion War, fighting fights that Nebulas and Galaxys didn't dare get in to, and was consistently the only ship that wasn't explicitly a hero-ship (Defiant, Rotaran) to be in that position and survive - indeed even the battle that killed the first Defiant didn't kill her. And Hood was hardly a new ship herself - she's an older Excelsior (part of a tranche of the ships that were seemingly explicitly names after historical battlecruisers), which makes me wonder that maybe the UFP intentionally undergunned their ships between Khitomer and at least Wolf 359.
13:40 Considering when we see that section blown open, it was a Deflector Control area. "facilities for long range exploration" could just be for PR, whereas what they actually are is enhancement for the Main Deflector, giving it extra combat ability. Though its non-canon, we see the Excelsior in the DC-Comics "Mirror Universe Saga" using things like anti-cloaking pulses and tracking phasers. In-canon, we see Kirk modifying the Deflector relays to create a resonance burst large enough to simulate the antimatter discharge of a Photon Torpedo blast. So no doubt these extra relays and equipment are to give the Main Deflector some extra combat applications. Which would totally fit the era. More combat ability, cloaked behind the guise of exploration
While this could also be true and does seem likely, I like to think it's specifically because of "cloaked Excelsiors" that the Federation was banned from using cloaking devices at the treaty of Algeron.
@@alexion2001 That too could be PR. Perhaps the anti-cloaking tech is what we are really giving up in the treaty. that could be why we do not see upgraded Excelsiors in the 24th Century. We just say we dont get to cloak either, to save face. Us being able to cloak too is hardly enough to scare the Romulans… but negating their advantage would be
The Sovereign class will always be my favorite, but the Excelsior is a close second. Like you said, the sleekness and aerodynamical design is what I love about it. Apparently, Starfleet does as well since Picard takes place in 2400 and they're still using Excelsior classes.
For a long time, I always thought trans-warp was just anything over warp 8 and uses a new calculation for speed instead of light speed = warp ^ 3. The great experiment was just checking if speed over warp 8 worked with a full manned crew because I'm sure many people tested speed over warp 8 thousands of times before making a full-size commissioned starship. I think The Excelessor class did warp 9 after running in full active duty. If a full-sized starship maintaining warp 9 was a great experiment, then the "great experiment" should have been a success instead of a failure. This got me confused when the Galaxy-class did not trans-warp for some dumb reason but did have a new warp-speed calculation. I must be missing something. my 2 cents. The Excelsior did seem a lot more durable since all the Constitution-class ships at the time were all falling apart and getting decommissioned. The Constitution was revolutionary when it first came out, so this makes me think the pre-Consitution ships were extremely fragile. EDIT: From what little I gather, a handful of Constitution-class decimated the Klingon fleet at Axinar. A combination of 4 torpedo bays, faster warp, phasors, photons that can hit ships at warp speed, able to maneuver at warp speed, shields that worked & easily absorbed disruptors make a front-end assault against the D7s possible and fairly easy. if this is true, then the Constitution is at least as much a game-changer as the Excelsior. (I try to keep Constitution-class ship enthusiasm down in this Excelsior thread).
The great experiment was a partial success. After the excelsior class was done with the initial teething problems the warp scale was rescaled to account for the new knowledge of warp mechanics. Trans warp was used for Borg tech because it does what the original experiment was proposed to do.
14:19 The Bulges on the Enterprise B were added deflector components. It added space deeper in for engineering labs and internal fabrication. So yes scientific space is a bonus in the refit.
This is the first analysis of the Excelsior-class that convinced me of its purpose and beauty. Now I understand why it's lasted over a century in service.
The secondary hull has the big unused void underneath it (13:45 ), there should be a "heavy excelsior" class where that's built in and used partly to make the shuttle bay larger
Cool video man. In 2230’s star fleet gambled on accurately predicting the future of technology in regards to upgrading their fleets but they where wrong. But I’m the 2270’s they got it right and that’s why all newer ships like Miranda and excelsior lasted so long and older designs like the constitution and constellation did not.
Refit Connie has two aft phasers above the shuttle bay and four on the bottom of the engineering hull. As for the Bulges Expanded, internal volume for sensors remember this a post praxis galaxy.
I like to think of the bulges being some sort of particle projector tech, intended for exposing cloaked ships. I think this makes more sense than either the official explanation about being an exploration module, or the theory about it being a cloaking device. It's way to big to be a cloak, and modules would fit better on the back end of the secondary hull.
This video is terrific and validates all my joy about this class of starship. I fell in love with it the first moment I saw it in the theater - and to this day - no other design has captured my attention like this one. Some originals need no changes at all. This is the primary example.
Greetings, my name is Travis., from Morrisville, VT. Just wanted to say I really liked your presentation. I'm a huge fan of the Enterprise-B. Its my favorite Enterprise. Keep up the great work. Thank you. " Jolan Tru "
I could tear up an Excelsior with a K'tinga in klingon academy. Your are spot on with the mismatch in firepower but, the Excelsior can't maneuver for toffee. Thats how i used to beat Excelsior, out maneuver and stay behind it, yes there are phasers but those torpedo launchers are useless from a dorsal aft arc. But if you try and keep it at mid range and don't watch Excelsiors firing arcs, it will blow you out of the sky pretty quickly.
When I played FASA STSCS I did a couple f matchups of the Excelsior and the Nova and it tend to be pretty even, sometimes Excelsior would win thru maneuvering and concentrating it's firepower on one section, other times the nova would win if both players would not use movement and just sit there and slug it out. On another note as the Excelsior survived into the 24th c do you think the Nova lasted as long?
i have thought about that. i think the Nova would last up to the launch of the D'deridex but was then decommissioned since by the dominion war it would be too slow to serve as an escort, and to small to fight as a capital ship, plus its too big to be carried by a D'deridex
Good video but the picture of the size comparison at 05:30 is extreme unaccurate. The first two ships has a size difference of 77m and the last two ships has a difference of just 27m but the excelsior is much bigger compared to the ship above than the constitution compared to the first klingon ship (even when its difference is bigger).
Excelsior and Miranda both fabulous designs that where Starfleet's backbone. But the numbers that UFP was able to produce was what also separate from other powers as well
I find the thought that the reason Starfleet gave up cloaking devices was because everyone around them realized "Oh s***! Starfleet is actually terrifying when they use cloaks!" to be amusing. The rare times Starfleet is seen to use one, it's pretty much always used to great effect, whether all the stuff the Defiant did, or creating that phase cloak that probably actually would work perfectly if not for all the stuff that went down on the Pegasus.
at 0:31 the side cutaway of the excelsior class shows its shuttle bay to be at the back of the primary hull and it does look bigger than enterprise on the same diagram.....
I know it's been a while since you put this video out, but i HAVE to completely disagree with you about the flaring out secondary hull of the type twos (Enterprise-B Laokta types). You are correct about the Excelsior being a product of a more militaristic time for Starfleet, but it came pretty much at the very end of that militaristic time. After the Khitomer accords ALL this changed. With the Klingons no longer in a cold war with the Federation, Starfleet could finally get back to exploration as their main objective. Adding a large flared out section to the secondary hull to add in more sensors for deep space exploration on a more militaristic design makes perfect sense. It was a sign that the Excelsior was adapting to the new times. remember 8-9 years had passed since the accords were signed. So there was plenty of time to adjust the design for more exploration type Excelsior types. Also I think the flaring out also give it a connection to the Galaxy class which also has a flared out secondary hull.
The great experiment ( excelsior). Im not wild about enterprise b flare , but i remember ww2 battleship had them as an extra defense against torpedoes. It allowed for more survivors.. cloaking device is a great idea. The additional impulse engine may be the power plant. I remember in tng pegasus the federation cloak was powered but enterprise impulse engine. Not warp .
The excelsior class was forerunner if the galaxy class. Star fleet was opting for longer missions. They needed ships that could keep the crew happy on longer missions. So they needed more space.
Halo’s UNSC Infinity-class super carriers carry their own internal escort. They have vertical launch tubes for *ten* frigates. The basic idea is that they’re mobile orbital defence platforms the UNSC can send out anywhere they need a massive task force ASAP with the main ship, probably Infinity herself, using its massive propulsion system to get those frigates where they need to be, then supplying covering fire from massive arrays of guided and magnetic weapons. And occasionally powering up the ODP cannons to blow through anyway short of like a moon.
5:14 That Excelsior looks a hell of a lot longer than 367m to me - shouldn't it be more like 467m? Also, regarding the weapons - curious about the timeline change here. Always thought the 27-phaser battery was unique to the Lakota, or at least the 24th century refits. IIRC O'Brien says something along the lines of "that's a lot of firepower for an Excelsior class". The standard Excelsior carried only 12 upon launch according to Memory Alpha - still powerful, but nowhere near as overpowered at the start. Makes political sense too, imagine the ruckus the conservative pacifists would've kicked up if Starfleet even proposed a 30-phaser ship. So... What changed in the Venomverse?
Yeah the generally accepted length is ~465 metres Supported by most evidence. There are examples of it not being scaled properly but still the generally accepted size is 467m
Now the only thing I had a problem with all this is the Excelsior plans I've seen says it has a 2nd shuttle bay at the bottom of the engineering hull but at least you covered it most others don't even mention it
I used to hate the Excelsior class, because it was new. But it grew on me. It is now my favorite Starfleet vessel. It was a near perfect balance of range, speed, maneuverability, offensive and defensive capabilities. The best testament to the Excelsior's success was not only how long it remained in service... But was updated with many of the latest technologies by the time of the Dominion War and was brought back up to the equivalent role of heavy cruiser. By contrast to the Miranda class, an only slightly older ship that was hopelessly outdated and outmatched in every category.
6:50 One thing the newer movies/shows brought up that I never really appreciated because I "too" was brought up in TNG. How many of those are capable of firing independently and/or at the same time? TNG and TOS had me of the opinion they could only fire one or two of those at any given point, and the myriad of turrets was just so they "could" fire in that particular direction if they had to instead of that being extra guns being brought to bear as I am of the opinion they just shunted the warp core into "a" particular vent to fire, the whole tng "phaser strip" thing made it so it truly looks like only one or two could fire in tandem. However with the newer stuff going off like oh so many make everything in that general direction disappear through automatic artillery (phase cannons truly look more awesome than they are), I really do question, how many phaser pads does a ship really need on its hull? (barring redundancy for battle damage attrition, I always love that answer)
the bulges on the Lakota version are due to the deflector technology, IE it's deflector system was given a massive upgrade. And required more area and space. Hence the buldges.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 It was an upgraded deflector system, I can't actually find the entry now that details it so I have to call into doubt my statement now. Other than In less than a decade, the Excelsior design underwent a second, more significant overhaul, as introduced with the launch of the USS Enterprise-B. While remaining true to the original design, this new configuration added several modifications to the basic hull, including the addition of a second pair of impulse engines, an expanded scoop surrounding the deflector dish, and the addition and removal of a number of fins located on the saucer and nacelles. But I do like your idea of the cloaking device, but in the TOS it was small enough to fit on a table, but was hooked up to the deflector if I recall. Though in my own head cannon I saw the bulges as more sensor domes. After all more powerful the sensors, the farther you can see the enemy from and plan accordingly, and perhaps detect things like ionized plasma from engines on cloaked ships.
Excellent video analysis! I do like the Excelsior class! Its sheer mass and upgrades over the connie make it formidable! I dont think its got as clean a lines as the connies and proportionally from some angles it looks a little odd but that being said it would be the marker going forward for 100 years on what a front line federation ship would encompass.
When the flared section says, " Mission specific equipment modules mounting structure", it doesn't have to be "Exploration" missions. It could be for M.A.C.O. equipment or any other Military mission since it is in the same section as the "dock" that we never see used in the movies or shows. Good place to isolate top secret Black Ops missions and personnel from the rest of the ships crew.
Torpedo Bulges. The term you'd be asking Drach about. Many older Dreadnoughts and Super Dreadnoughts were refitted with them. Looks like the old ships put on a little weight.
You know it's funny that when I look at pictures of the Excelsior Refit Class U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-B and her sister ships aside from the differences in design the Excelsior Refit Class looks a little bigger than the original Excelsior Class design and I think that might be because the Excelsior Refit Class has a bigger impulse drive to the changes around the Main Navigational Deflector Dish to the changes around the warp nacelles and I think the saucer section looks a little wider than the standard model.
It's interesting you mention the cloaking device because in the books it's revealed that after or sometime during the Dominion War there's a decision known only to a few to give Starships the capacity to create and install cloaking devices in the event of an emergency at the consent of an admiral. The Enterprise E uses it for a time in a dire emergency and deconstruct the cloaking device once the situation is resolved. So the Sovereign and Excelsior are more alike
My favorite design is still the Constitution Class Refit (ST movies), but I do love to see differing designs. I'd love to see the Saber Class used in a ST-TNG era series/movie as the primary ship.
The Excelsior really is a gorgeous looking ship, even compared to modern designs. Its skeel, its elegant, its stylish, its dignified, its classy and says regardless of any age, an Excelsior commands respect by its sheer presence, and despite not being nearly as big as the mighty Sovereigns and Galaxy-Class, she is still the representation of of a very fine ship.
My only real complaint about Picard 3 the ship flying around like the millennium Falcon. I want my capital ships to be lumbering capital ships and flying into the Death Star isn’t something it can do.
One of the things I've never liked about the movie era ships (and TNG+ ships) was how they made the intermix chamber go vertically up to the saucer to the impulse engines. I realize they're trying to make something look cool and interesting for the big screen, but especially for the Constitution refit, this is bad because: Where do you put the turbolift through the neck down to the secondary hull? At least the Excelsior solves that problem, in spades. But, here's the thing: I always thought that whoever designed the Excelsior model was thinking in a much better way from an engineering standpoint. That large hub structure located between the warp engine pylons I thought housed main engineering. That makes total sense to me, because it's in a good spot to be able to jettison not only the warp core, but the entire structure of that should anything go bad, and it looks as though there's more than enough superstructure there to protect the core from damage. So why bother to have the intermix conduit go up into the saucer? Seems a bit inefficient to me, because that secondary hull is long and huge. It's the length of the Constitution without her engines! There's conceivably more internal volume in the secondary hull than there is in the entire Constitution! So why not free up all that space for two engineering spaces, one for the warp drive, and one for the impulse? Still, even with the vertical intermix system going up the neck, there's plenty of volume, because the neck seems to allow it.
Excelsior has a Regal nature. When we first see her she is the new Queen of Starfleet. When we see her in TNG she is the Elder statesmen. The Excelsior's Tactical layout I think shows not just a generational increase in capability, but also the influence of the Cloaking device on the design. Better all around firing arcs became more important than focused limited arcs. The shuttlebay, if configured properly might be able to hole 4-5 good sized warp capable shuttles. Maybe there's an Elevator to a Shuttle storage bay but probably not. We know Starfleet shuttlebays are generally very simple affairs., Strange thing is that the Shuttlebay looks almost like a module that could have been expanded, but starfleet never did that. That large bay on the excelsior I always thought of as a modular mission bay. During those big 5 year missions it could have a large cargo module added for additional carrying capacity. Quite important since replicator technology isn't so developed. I don't think I like the idea of the Cloaking device in the bulges. But The ENT-B is fresh out of dock about 10 years after Excelsior. Plenty of time to bring in a Tranche-2 upgraded spec and design which explains the additions and changes.
as i say, starfleet has had a romulan cloaking device since the 60s. theres no way they don't have one. interesting idea about the shuttlebay because your right, they do look incomplete, there's plenty of space on that top deck. i mean really why don't more star-ships just use vertical shuttle pads like on DS9
I love this ship. I play Star Trek online, and I exclusively use the Geneva class science vessel, which looks like a beefed up version of the excelsior class. And are you hinting at a future series on the treaty of Algernon? I hope so
I like the excelsior and the way you explain its design being more boat like, as the way I viewed the enterprise B is it was almost rigged up like a white star line ship in its design, but the major thing about it is that interior space wise on the engineering hull, their is alot of unused space around where the shuttlebay is, if you look at it from the back, like if you cut that bottom part off, theres not really alot there space wise, as the ship has TWO shuttlebays, one on the bottom where that gaping hole is, and the aft which is supposed to be a cargo bay atleast if the shattered universe game is anything to go off of. while the enterprise is more what you need and no more, so in actual used space, the ships might be far closer than you think, also at 8:10 the enterprise has rear phasers, its on the model, it was just never used two dots right above the shuttlebay, those are phaser banks, which it even had in the TOS form and its designer with the excelsior was told design a starship like you think the japanease would build one, so your more on point that you realize with both points what I wish is that the Enterprise would have gotten a redesign for the A honestly, like a thicker neck to offset the stretched saucer, as if you ever wonder why the enterprise seems weaker in her refit its because the neck is thinner than the TOS one despite the increased size of both the saucer and the engineering section and the pylons unlike the reliant dont quite line up with the engines nor have the same thickness at the base as the top I know as I started to do a redesign project for fun after seeing star trek into darkness and hating how the ship looked in that like the TOS enterprise is far more akin to a fighting ship than the refit was and it shows, like the pylons and the structure are more solid and the saucer seems thicker and the design was never really that concrete as the refit is a reworked Phase 2, so it never had a proper real one guys vision like thing to it like the excelsior and the TOS ship got, nor the miranda, which were all reactions to the weakness of the ship in filming hell the stargazer, a ship I like better than the enterprise came about for the same reason, as the TMP model was just too unwieldy to film in season 1 TNG plus the gridlines actually make the saucer look weaker given it no longer looks like its one piece on the concept art it looks far stronger because of the lack of it, a direct result of it being an updated design rather than a one mans vision type thing and that fact even shows up in its movies, where in one of the scenes the shield diagram for the weapons station shows the phase 2 enterprise by mistake in the second movie, namely when the trainee says shields collapsing captain, I was like why does the enterprise look off there lol also with the neck on the excelsior if they fired those torpedo launchers, the top ones, they'd take out the lower part of the lighting assemby, they were probably ment to be something else, like the entry points into the ship at the front like where the shuttles would dock, or maybe even sensors, thing that throws people off is that ribbed section that looks like the black around the torpedo launcher for the refit also John Eaves designed the enterprise B refit and the enterprise E, its why their so close together, heck if you look at a time period based on when they were penned with the enterprise it goes TOS, Refit A, D then C, and B and E, that is really its design lineage
9:33 Actually That's Shuttlebay 2 The main shuttle bay is located inside the Cutout on that Sloping bit on the underside rear of the secondary hull. 10:16, Yeah, The Main Shuttlebay is housed in That Ventral Berth
I know for me there were two things that made me realize the Excelsior was a very successful ship for Starfleet. First; the original Excelsior was commissioned in 2285 and the class was still in service during the Dominion war 100 years later. That's an impressive service life. The second was when the Lakota went toe to doe with the Defiant, a modern dedicated warship, and the battle was basically a draw (granted both ships were holding back).
Love the idea of the variant Excelsior class ships carrying cloaking devices! Makes perfect sense! Fits in neatly with my headcanon of the Soyuz class being designed specifically to detect clocked ships with all the extra sensor pods to triangulate any subspace distortions. Also fits with the Soyuz having that 3rd larger shuttlebay fitted. Imo for fighter craft that while ineffective against shields would be deadly against a cloaked (therefore unsheilded) ship.
Nice vid. I was raised on a diet of TNG myself and find myself reacquainting myself to my old Trekkie ways lately lol. I always found the Excelsior a beautiful ship and a bit of mystery in the sense that it never seemed to get the proper screen time as the main ship in a series unlike the Constitution, Galaxy, Defiant, Intrepid etc but I guess the Ambassador is even more shunned. To compare the Construction to the Excelsior. Like night and day really. Let's just focus on the Exploration side of things. The Constitution reminds me of an old WW2 destroyer or sub. Utilitarian, cramped, probably noisy and things like comforts and space were hard to find would be my guess. Indeed if you were a new crewmember, the notion of leaving your comfortable planet to spend months, perhaps years traversing space in a Constitution... well you would indeed want to have a hearty constitution for it! Personally I wouldn't be raising my hand for that adventure any more than I would to become a WW2 submarine crewmember! The Excelsior on the other hand. That looks like the opposite. It's a big, spacious ship that looks like it adds comforts and would be a tranquil place by comparison that "soaks up the miles". It can do everything the Constitution can but better, without breaking a sweat, and a lot more. Yes, I'd imagine a new crewmember would be excited about joining the crew of an Excelsior and that such a grand ship would encourage people to enlist and actually want to explore space on board a ship like that unlike the Constitution that I'd imagine would send most people running the other way. 🤣🏃 Edit- To be fair to the Constitution, I'm sure that probably felt like a big spacious and advanced ship that was a lot more comfortable and a more attractive proposition to serve on board compared to its predecessors.
I recall seeing a video where they said that the idea for the Constitution in TOS, was to remind people of an old time sailing ship, thus the shots from below, looking up at it all the time. I prefer that to the jet comparison, especially when you think of the Excelsior as the first modern Dreadnought battleship, and the Constitution as an old ship of the line.
Aside from the U.S.S. Lakota where we got to see her use her phaser banks while fighting the Defiant in Star Trek Deep Space Nine when Star Trek 6:The Undiscovered Country come out the only weapons we saw the Excelsior use was her photon torpedoes against the Klingon Bird of Prey along with the Enterprise A.
Actually not sure it had torpedo launchers in the neck. The details there would have a line of fire obscured by the main hull, so they would hit the bottom of the saucer if they were torpedo tubes. Maybe they are sensor emplacements that angle out to the side.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 It's possible. If you google the question you can find alot of discussion about it on boards, but I've never seen a definitive answer. I just keep an open mind 🙂
On the Enterprise B, I imagined the secondary hull flares reflect a transitional design between the original Excelsior and the Galaxy class where something about the development of the warp reactor has become more pancake shaped as it has developed.
@@TheWoblinGoblin I was just rewatching ST VI. Scotty shot the Colonel quite well. But I stand by my idea. The Galaxy class’ secondary hull is very flat, this points to a warp core that needs to be wide and flat compared to the Constitution’s and Excelsior’s which must have been round. I see the B’s core as being transitional. That’s my humble opinion and I’m sticking to it.
The Klingons might not have bothered to build a direct competitor to the _Excelsior_ class immediately because they enough K'Tinga class cruisers, and figured to rely on numerical superiority. There is a principle in wargaming called "the fuzzy wuzzy fallacy." Basically, it holds that quantity relates to quality at a better ratio than you might think. In other words a unit with 2X firepower is not worth 2 opposing 1X units but rather the square root of two. The reasoning behind this is that the bigger ship is still just a single ship, and its combat power degrades more from being hit, than the combat power of the two 1X ships degrades from a comparable hit to one of them. Potentially, the2X firepower ship can be completely destroyed by a single hit, where the same hit on one of the 1X ships will destroy that ship, but leave the other one active, undamaged, and therefore still combat effective. Also the bigger ship, in a fleet action where multiple ships are present, will draw fire like crazy. So, to meet the threat of this new Starfleet superdreadnought, the Klingons might simply figure to build more of their proven K'Tinga's, enough to allocate several to any _Excelsior_ class ship in any given fleet action during wartime.
19:05 I'm not even sure if we can truly say that the Galor class "succeeded" the Excelsior class. At best i'd say the cardassians caught up to the Excelsior class with the Galor. The Vor'cha probably was a stronger ship overall i agree with that. *But* one thing we should keep in mind is that the Klingons had the K'tinga class still in service in the considerable quantities up until the 24th century. So with those older klingon ships around and the Galor (in my eyes) being a match for an Excelsior class in the best case, the Excelsior was still plenty strong even then. After receiving the refits and upgrades i would say it would be a match for a Vor'cha class at least.
Which model of the Galor Class? By the Dominion War the Galor Class had progressed well past the pre-refit Excelsior Class in firepower and durability. The Galor Class was one-shot killing Birds-of-Prey, Jem Hadar Fighters and Breen frigates, something the Galaxy Class wasn't even doing with its Type X Phaser arrays. We saw Excelsior Class ships being chewed up by the Cardassian Orbital Weapons Platforms that are armed with the same Spiral Wave Heavy Disruptors as the Galor Class. I grant that the Lakota Refit is a vastly superior ship to the pre-refit models and at least on-par to the newest Galor Class cruisers.
yeah so the Galor and Excelsior were often fighting for position. when the Galor Mk1 came out it was about equal in nearly all respects. Galor 2 had an advantage but were few in number. Galor 3s were matched or even exceeded by the dominion war refit, but the Galor 4 had a decisive advantage.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 Galor and first Vor'cha when they first came out. I get what you're trying to say with the Orbital Weapons platform but i would think that those would still be a lot stronger than a Galor simply because of the fact that they had lower energy requirements and could put all the energy they had into shields and weapons. So i would put the OWP a bit higher in firepower than the Galor itself. As for the Galaxy not being able to one shot birds of prey. Well we never see it but we see Deep Space Nine one shot several Bird of Preys. As far as i know we never actually get to know which phasers are installed on DS9 but i'd guess it would be Type XI or Type XII phaser arrays. We also know that the Galaxy class likely got a refit right before or while the Dominion war so i wouldn't be surprised if they also got Type XII Phaser installed by then. In any way i'd think the Galor wasn't succeeding the Excelsior but rather catching up to it. And with successive refits managed to stay at least on par with the Lakota type if not actually outperform it by then.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 the irony of the outcome of the Dominion War for the Cardassians, despite the extreme loss of life and destruction on Cardassia Prime, is that the Cardassians were left with enormous amounts of Dominion technology thanks to the provisions of the Treaty of Bajor. Whatever technical shortcomings they still had by then were completely overcome and then some. I knew Beta canon has attempted to address the future of Cardassia, with varying success, but in reality, the Galor Type V would be a very formidable platform by fully marrying Cardassian and Dominion Tech (Type IV had some Dominion features, but not so many). A new power plant, and one can keep the two heavy spiral wave disruptors, and then throw 6-8 Dominion Polaron Beam Cannons over the hull instead of the smaller spiral wave banks for the secondary batteries. Polaron torpedoes to go with the plasma and quantum torpedoes, protected by the regenerative force fields shield arrays. The Type V would easily match the upgraded Tactical Nebula Class. And the Cardassians could do a good deal more with the already more advanced Keldon Class. One could imagine in about ten years after the War after Cardassia has been more or less fully rebuilt, the next generation heavy cruiser would be a complete synthesis of Dominion and Cardassian technology.
Besides the sleek graceful lines, the Excelsior class stylistically bridged the TOS and TNG eras. I'm old, grew up on TOS, and kinda hated the weird soft bulbus proportions of the Galaxy class when TNG premiered. I didn't feel the same about the Excelsior. It instantly looked fast and futuristic, without overdoing it. I do think all the tacked on bits for the Enterprise-B messed up the sleek lines, but it was pragmatic/necessary for a filming model... The two biggest Trek models on my desk have always been the Excelsior and Enterprise refit.
I saw somewhere that when designed it for screen, the said let’s design the enterprise if it were Japanese. And it totally makes sense to me. I always thought the sovereign was the best parts of the D and Excelsior put together.
4:50 On the matchups. You mentioned for like 2 minutes straight how the Excelsior is so much bulkier, this also means larger target. One of the advantages of the Constitution, something Kirk in Tos and soon Pike in "Strange New Worlds" will vouch on, the Constitution is much harder to hit than an Excelsior, much less an Oberth also in the Movies, and that extra bulk and girth is not armor plating, so Katinga once again becomes a mobile shark, instead of the oversized lumbering underdog, especially with Cloak ambush options. Bigger only means better if you can protect it, and the Power Core was only marginally better at mitigating actual hits while the added the bulk does almost always mean easier to hit, its like facing up against A Galaxy Class, yeah its got a gigantic power core, however its almost virtually impossible to miss capable of shielding entire other ships by simply getting in the way, with DS9 going into horrific detail the flaws in oversized Federation glass cannons. With the Ambassador Class being an outright proof of concept being "smaller" hit profile than several of its preceding flag ships. I instead follow the opinion that TOS star ships were "war ships" with TNG era vessles being Armed Carnival Cruise Ships, with the Excelsior being the first in this line of thought that first got curbed by the Borg Wars, and then outright thrown away in the Dominion Wars to prefer earlier "military" concepts of not bringing your family into a firefight, and streamlining your profile.
19:57 I never thought of the Excelsior class as the Sovereign class of the 23rd Century. Then again the Sovereign was a dominant starship in it’s time so I can see why you made that assessment. The Excelsior and the Sovereign are my top two favorite starships in all of Star Trek.
Great analysis - I agree with pretty much everything here and made me consider some new things! On disagreements - nah I don't think we have disagreements about Trek tech and canon - just parallel views. I bet someone already mentioned that in the FASA lore the 'transwarp drive' are speeds over warp 10 in the old warps scale - like 12-14 top speed; and the 1701-A also got this refit - all of which is 'implied' by Scotty - especially his dismay in ST3 when they told him there would be 'no Enterprise refit' - so then most ships in the lost era would have this version of the transwarp drive. And then Ent-D uses something else entirely 'ultra warp'. Transwarp as technobable was poorly appropriated in TNG era LOL.
glad you liked the video. there is a lot of contradictory information on transwarp drive. some say it failed, others say it went on to become normal warp drive. For me it was something unique which i explain in "the great experiment" basically warping space time ahead of the ship to slow time down, but this didn't change the passage of time on the ship, so the crew would effectively age faster when using the transwarp drive. so it became un-viable.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 what RS SAID he was talking about the 1st Gen of D-7s the class that came out around 2245 won't take a tos era Conine but i agree the TMP ones would give Starfleet a run for it's Credits i believe that why the Enterprise was refitted to a mark two.
Love the video. Would love to hear your thoughts on the USS Ingram NCC-2001 featured in the collector's edition blueprint set.
The cloaking device, that comes the next Tuesday.
The deflector dish comes in next Tuesday as well
Don't tell me......Tuesday?
Was it this Tuesday or next? Because we just have the cloaking device, well parts if it anyway, the deflector dish, will be in the following Tuesday🤞🖖🙏
Giggles
The Shields? You guessed it, next Tuesday
I wholeheartedly agree. The Excelsior is indeed a game changer and yeah it is basically the Sovreign of the 23rd Century. Designed by a more military minded Starfleet, it has significantly superior speed, scanning, & durability and comparable firepower & maneuverability to any of its contemporaries for around 50 years. As I said in the "Great Experiment" video, similar to a Nimitz supercarrier. It definitely contributed to the 24th century pax period. Also, I like the Excelsior cloaking device theory.
equally its like dreadnought. a ship that is well armed, reasonably tough, and goes at a decent clip.
I would argue that the Sovereign is the 24th century Excelsior.
This may have something to do with Starfleet recognizing that the Organians were not enforcing the Organian peace treaty in the face of
multiple Klingon violations in the years between ST:TMP and ST II. The mass fielding of the K'Tinga class to match the refitted Constitution class,
may have convinced Starfleet Command that a war was coming. The Excelsior seems to have been built to militarize the best traits of the Constitution class by making them bigger and more robust.
The Lakota refit in ds9 was awesome. Kind of like refitting the us iowa class battleships in the 1980s.
You mean the Enterprise B? Lakota was a refit because they couldn't get the added bits off the Excelsior model after Star Trek Generations. Though I do agree that it was awesome design and look.
@@sgt_s4und3r54 the effect reasons aside, the refit made it a comparably modern ship
That's a really interesting analogy
@@TheWoblinGoblin you take a good design and bring it into modern times. Keep the good features and upgrade many other things
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The Enterprise-B secondary hull was designed that way by the studio to accommodate the damage from the Nexus ribbon without actually doing damage to the original Excelsior model as they only had the one.
and then they found they couldn't remove it without damaging the original model sooooooo....
Interesting. Makes sense, it’s funny how much people talk about these cosmetic changes when they are often made for budget reasons or some practical filming reason. Really preferred the cleaner silhouette of the original design
@@quazz79 Yeah, used the wrong kind of glue and couldn't get it off.
Came here to say this as well lol
Yeah people around the nineties were obsessed with rounded edges.
My God that’s a big ship….
Leonard McCoy, Undiscovered Country.
"Not so big as her Captain." There really should have been a series with Sulu and Excelsior.
it would've been funny if sulu poached all the senior officers off the enterprise to go with sulu insetad of kirk . so spock, chekov, uhura, mccoy, scotty all go to the excelsior. :D
@@joeswanson733 yes!
I played the Playstation 2 game the shattered universe was alternate universe that show cased the excelsior
@@nunya3163
I would have been funny to have Captain Sulu have to deal with an Admiral Styles, who was still sore that Sulu was part of the "Steal The Enterprise" Incident where Scotty disabled the Excelsior under Styles command.
Having watched this again, I think that the Excelsior was a game changer because it took so long for everyone else to come up with a counter for it. In the race to build ships that are of that size the Excelsior won hands down. The fact that the ship is still a good and capable until the end of the Dominion War is a testament to its design.
Yeah in that period it had the power of a battleship but could operate like a cruiser and they could mass produce it.
STO has the Excelsior be eternal. It's one of the few transwarp ships with an improved Quantum Slipstream drive.
You know, that makes me think of how HMS Dreadnought changed the way we built warships in the lead up to World War One. The Excelsior was effectively the Dreadnought of Star Trek.
My favorite ship. She wasn't originally built to be a flagship, but became one after proving herself. She carried the Federation through the Klingon and Romulan wars. She was broadly used by Admirals during TNG era. She was refit as a battlship during the Dominion War. There's never been a TV series with a hero ship Excelsior making it more likely to get additional screen time.
Finally, you get to say "EXCELSIOR!!!" when talking about it
I've always felt the Excelsior was the best realistic sci-fi ship that Star Trek ever had. Slender but still has heft and just looks like it could take anything the galaxy threw at it. I love that sources stated the hull was far overbuilt to accommodate the Trans Warp Drive, making the skeleton of these ships incredibly strong even by 24th Century designs. That was one of the explanations why Admirals always seemed to ride Excelsior's in TNG era. The fact the Sovereign looks very much like a modernized adaptation of the Excelsiors lines I felt was homage to how they both were designed for war.
Your expiation about the Cloke and the Excelsior Refits is awesome, it's the first 'New' Theories I've seen about the old girl in many years that really make sense! Well done video.
There was a reason that Admirals often choose utilize the Excelsior class as their "personal requestions" when traveling to the front lines of conflict. The only thing I would change is the verbiage of Phaser Turret to Phaser Emitter as they are two separate weapons. Phaser Turrets are literally turrets with a 360' range of fire, and are slightly less powerful than the phaser emitter(s); sacrificing power for area of effect. The Phaser Emitter that generates either the pulse or the stream generally cover an area of 280' but have more bite than the turret. Realistically they should both be capable of the same power level but this information is from B cannon onwards because sadly, we do not have phasers.
I love star trek like any other fan. Dude, you do realise it's not real?! It's a T.V series!!
There could be many, many other factors like speed, room for staff, battlefield role...
For my two cents, Starfleet has a category of major capital ships (like battleship/battlecruiser fleets in the first half of the 20th century) with Excelsior's being the smallest of those, followed up by ambassadors, galaxys and then sovereigns. Depending on fleet size and era Excelsiors are just the right size to serve as fleet flagships while not taking away space, resources and flexibility away from the frontline heavy hitters
@@TheWoblinGoblin yeah it's why the excelsior was in service so long. Striking a good balance between speed firepower and defenses. Means that it never found itself at too much of a disadvantage.
You got your techno babble mixed up.
1.) The Phaser (and any other energy weapon in trek) always is emmited by an emitter. Phasers are organized into Banks for fire control and general management. The build type of the phaser is not relevant for this term.
2.) We generally differentiate between gimbal mounted Phaser emitters, found on most pre TNG designs. That is what the conny and Excelsior mount. They sure as fck don't do 360° shooting.
The power of these phasers is dependent on the general technological sophistication of the emitter system. The term gimbal is also only half right because final target adjustment is done via energy fields lensing the beam where it needs to go. You can observe this in most handphasers, where the beams flight path has little to do with where the emitter is pointing. These might fire beams or pulses depending on construction.
3.) Phaser Arrays, found on most post TNG ships are large strips of interconnected emmitters. Each emitter can generate its own charge, hold it, hold the charge handed to it by another emmitter next to it and in turn hand that charge over to the next emitter until 2 charges meet at the discharge point where energy fields will lense it towards its target.
The advantage is that the Firing Control can divide an Array into differently sized sections and have multiple Discharges at specific strength towards different targets. Or have 2 charges combined run the full length of the array, resulting in lots of oomph.
The crew can customize these a lot, length if charge, powersetting etc...
Downside is that the whole setup is very complex and needs serious cooling.
I believe the term for the phaser strips on TNG ships is "collimator."
The only places I've seen actual turrets in use for phasers are in the god-awful reboot movies, Enterprise, and Discovery (the alternate universe franchises). Ships of the TOS era used fixed-mount phaser cannons arranged in banks of two or three distributed around the saucer behind large circular gun ports (distinct from windows which were small and square). The banks were placed to cover 90° firing arcs at port, starboard, and fore positions. (None rear-facing to avoid the possibility of damaging the warp pylons.)
Definitely one of the best ships of the Federation.
Strong. Reliable, long life.
A good platform for peace and war.
A guilty pleasure. Plus the bulky neck fixed a underlined weakness in designs since during that time, federation ships had no Armour
No guilt, just pleasure.
@@1zeisele
Indeed.
And when upgraded with ablative Armour.. A absolute beast
I never liked the neck, but the engineering hull was starting to push in a good direction that finally came to realisation in the Sovereign hulls design.
Still, no argument it was a ship that propped up Starfleets efforts in the lore.
@A dudes thoughts literally how the enterprise refit is crippled in ST:2 wrath of Khan... A raking shot to the neck torpedo room where the refit warp core housing passes directly between the torpedo launch tubes protected only by the exterior hull and it's own shielding.
The refit replaced the old front-to-back warp core buried deep in the secondary hull with a new transverse design which could only fit in the much more vulnerable neck.
(The original constitution design had enough redundancy between the saucer and secondary hull to at least remain semi-functional so long as the neck wasn't severed completely, but the refit warp core also took up the space formerly occupied by the secondary fusion powerplant in the saucer section, which meant the impulse drive and phaser batteries had no backup power in the event that the warp core was offline.)
I've always felt like the Sovereign was the successor/replacement for the Excelsior class in-universe.
well that means starfleet really likes to use a particular class until it rusts apart or it really lacks creativity since it relies on one class for too long. that's just my take on this. you would think the sovereign class is the replacement for the last gen heavy cruiser starflee fielded so maybe ambassador class. I wouldn't compare the svoereign to the galaxy class because they're two different ships classes. galaxy class isn't even a heavy cruiser. or at least it doesn't seem that way
Yeah the two have far more in common with each other than they do the Connie and galaxy.
@@joeswanson733 The Ambassador always felt like a prototype for the Galaxy. Like the ships feel they had a similar design intent/were designed for similar roles. And it does kind of fit as the Excelsior was designed as a military ship originally while the Ambassador feels like it was intended to be more of a show piece/ambassadorial ship (hence the name) in much the same way the Galaxy actually was.
While they could certainly fill a military roll similar to that the Excelsior was built to fill, that was not what they were intended or designed to do.
@@joeswanson733 You don't scrap ship hulls unless they're obsolete. Large hulls had plenty of space for new tech. As far as the shapes go they really didn't impact the function except as to how much you can pack into it.
Compare that to modern day Navy ships. The shape and size has more to do with the tech being laid over it such as new radar systems. The follow up ships in the Federation just got bigger with the exception of the Defiant class which was a glass cannon. The Lakota which was decades old still put up a huge fight against the most modern combat dedicated escort ship of the century.
Note about the shuttlebay. By this period, shuttles were being used less and less as transporter tech had been highly refined at this point. There wasn't as much need for a shuttle bay anymore. You rarely saw them in use except for long range transportation.
@@randallsanchez3161 You could also see Shuttles as more as picket/scout ships in a system. They would make it so you can see in planet shadows and to increase the range of your scanning bubble. While you could use unmanned probes, they aren't as great as having Mark 1 eyeballs out keeping a watch, plus a shuttle crew would be able to tell if they are being hacked/spoofed.
A couple of thoughts:
First, the real-world reason for the bulges on the engineering hull of the Enterprise -B was so they could show hull damage w/out damaging the body of the Excelsior model----ironically, the model-makers did too good a job, and the model was damaged when they tried to remove them---this is the reason a digital Excelsior model was built for DS9 (or one of the reasons, anyway)
Second, the additional "impulse" engines on the B were originally intended to be warp-speed enhancers, according to the designer--the designer identifies them as such in an interview w Trekyards, I think. This is why they line right up with the main warp nacelles---as impulse engines, they would pretty much blast right back into the Bussards. They might even have had warp-sustainer capabilities during saucer separation maneuvers---not totally sure about that, tho.
Anyway, another great episode, Venom! I was always a huge fan of the Excelsior design myself, and tbh saw no good reason for the refit.
Interesting we don't see warp enhancers again. So it's quite an unusual design feature. Didn't know that was why they kept the refit model.
a practical reason is extra storage space. those could easily be Fuel or Water tanks or whatever the Replicator uses.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 I think the "warp enhancers" were why "transwarp", as well as that, were phased out... and "transwarp" was redefined in later canon. TOS and TNG have different warp scales. TOS has a speed of the Warp Factor cubed as how many times light speed it is. TNG changed that drastically with a really odd scale that eventually made Warp Factor 10 infinite speed. Also, after the TOS era, have warp-speed ships ever "accidentally" entered any kind of wormhole by going warp speed? Never heard of it happening after that one movie? Neither have I. I think the "warp enhancers" became part of the standard design, thus no longer "warp enhancers" but just part of the warp drive and thus normalized with the new (post-TOS) scale.
Just food for thought, though.
I like that warp enhancer idea - I had heard that the original concept art for the modifications had those added elements as extra shuttle bays, but the model builders misinterpreted and made them extra engines. God knows the Excelsior could use a shuttle bay or two on the saucer - but these would have the same issue as the impulse engines: very awkward to have to pilot a shuttle out of the bay and immediately have to fly around the warp nacelle.
If they were only designed to use when separated then their placement wouldn't mater otherwise. I think That the ship can separate has come up before even if it's in novel. Though I might even have been mentioned on that Voyager Episode (or it's novelisation at least).
The Excelsior class was kind of like the B-52.
They found a frame that was incredibly effective at it's job, so decided to keep upgrading the internals to keep it modern, since nothing else they designed was as good at it's job.
Yes, that's basically what happened with the B-52 (plus it's so good a bomber that we're disallowed by treaty to make new airframes of the class, meaning we have to keep the ones we have flying)
When I see those two ships next to each other I just think of the difference between a frigate or even a schooner and a ship of the line in the age of sail. Connie looks like she soars through space, while the Excelsior just bulldozes through.
I love that ship design so much.
3:21 I don't know if you meant to say it this way, but you're very correct. The original designer for the Excelsior started the design with the question "What would the Enterprise look like if it were designed by the Japanese?"
Yes it's very much from that era of tech giant Japan.
I'd like to think that the Japanese could have made it look better.
9:38 one thing I will note the entire rear section could be one large hanger deck just underneath the bay. As there's enough room to have a hanger and maintenance bay for the shuttles.
The launch, and apparent mass production of this class was likely a significant factor in forcing the Klingons into the Khitomer Accords. The Klingons knew that an alliance with the Romulans was impossible, and given their economic situation, there was no way they could maintain a fleet strong enough to contend with both the Federation and the Romulans at the same time. Making friends with the Federation was basically their only choice.
This is actually a good point. The Ktinga was their frontline ship at the time, and if things more or less held up like TOS, the refit Constitution Class was still quite superior (with the Enterprise surviving the V'Ger weapon when the Ktingas did not) 1-on-1. And now this even more powerful ship comes along, ready for mass production. The Klingons could not possibly hope to keep up. In plane parlance, I think the Constitution Class was not unlike the F-4 Phantom, already superior to the Klingon D7/MiG-19. But then the Klingons come out with the Ktinga/MiG-21 to even the playing field some, only to see the Federation field the Excelsior Class/F-15...
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 exactly.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 and yet somehow in that star trek TNG episode yesterdays enterprise the federation was losing the war with the klingons like wtf. that would be like the US losing a conventional war agains he sovies in the 1980s.
@@joeswanson733 Very true! Never made much sense. But, so much can go wrong when the fighting actually starts. Look at how the Union botched things in the first two years of the American Civil War despite massive superiority. Or the Russians now. And the Klingons and Federation are much more equally matched than my two examples. I should think the Federation must have utterly botched the first years of the war. Or perhaps the Klingons beat the Federation to developing that 5th Generation (NX Class/G1, Daedelus, D-5/G2, Constitution Class, D-7, Ktinga/G3, Excelsior/G4, Galaxy, Vorcha, D'Deridex/G5) capital ships by fielding the Vorcha Class in numbers well before the Galaxy and Nebula Classes were in service.
yeah the klingons were trying to make a counter but they were just too far behind technologically. they couldn't just brute force the problem this time round.
A refit that would have solved the hanger/shuttlebay issue would have been to extend the secondary hull at its thickest point all the way back, instead of having it only go a third of the length before curving up.
That would have added a _lot_ of internal space, it could basically become a carrier. It could be considered a minor refit!
A 3D analysis of how much extra volume that would create would be interesting.
Yeah the ventral Bay does have a large capacity. And extending it would be a good idea.
Actually Enterprise was designed by Matt Jaffries, Roddenberry told Jeffries what he didn't want to see. (Rockets, fins, etc) Jeffries had an Aerospace background and had press material from the all the major manufacturers of air and space craft to draw from.
Just a quick correction. The K'tinga has two torpedo launchers. Remember the beginning of TMP when the last K'tinga is fleeing it fires one more Torp back from it's aft at the ball of energy thingy before it's inevitable demise.
true but it can only really bring one to bear at any given time.
I had never thought about the Excelsior having that 1980s Japanese asthetic, but now that you mention it, I can't unsee it, that's a really good observation.
Nice to see some love & respect for the _Excelsior_ class.
Cheers. One thing i believe 23rd century katinga had two torpedoe tubes. ( motion picture, one front one aft ) still half the fire power in torpedoes, and around 25 percent of phasers
It is a good ship and design. I could never really get used to it because of the ship's look. It took me a few years to get used to the Galaxy class's design. Like many older fans, I watched TNG when it first came out. I also saw the first 2 movies before that. I guess I just love the look of the Constitution refit more than any other ship design in Star Trek. However it will never beat out the space Battleship Yamato. That was the first ship in Sci-fi/anime I ever saw.
I agree. Grew up on the Original Series in syndication, then carried that mystique over into the Movie Era with the refits. But Star Blazers, and later watched Yamato subbed.
I think the elegance of Japan in relation to the Excelsior Is minimalism which as a branch of zen Buddhism basically less can be more if applied correctly nice video tho, I approve
for instance, Romulans are zen too, less is more, we esp with the old bop. in the other hand the ddiridrx was more with less, same with hl the galaxy class. Extremely inefficient pound for pound imo
I think the elegance of Japan in relation to the Excelsior Is minimalism which as a branch of zen Buddhism basically less can be more if applied correctly nice video tho
yeah ktinga would lose, flashback proves that, kang was trigger happy but he backed off
When I was a kid , I always wanted to see a Captain Sulu series after reading a comic where he is chatting with Captain Kirk via ship to ship before warping away. I would never get to see an alternative non enterprise ship until Voyager . It would have been really great to see the classic Excelsior doing the Voyager series as time tested classic.
Aye such a missed opportunity.
Similarly I would have liked to see a short series following the Enterprise C
That feels like the "lost" era of Trek we've never explored
@@MediumRareOpinions if I could give your reply a thousand likes i would . Love your comment.
Sulu: "... then fly it apart!"
The Klingon D-7 has a second rear firing torpedo launcher depicted in the TMP.
Dude you’re right!! Just saw that yesterday actually.... nice catch; yeah, nice.
I definitely get some HMS Hood vibes from the Excelsior class. Able to outrun anything it can't outfight and vice/versa, but there isn't much that can outrun or outfight them in the first place. Honestly sad we never really got to see an Excelsior as the main hero ship of a series/movie.
Eye its criminal we never got a sulu series.
Ds9 only used the Excelsior as a jobber.
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 Look, Wolf 359 was a tough time for everyone lol
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 Not really.
I mean, there's the Lakota, but you wouldn't expect a test ship for new weapons systems with a very green crew and captain to stand up to Defiant.
And, I mean...the Borg.
But did you see the nonsense USS Hood got up to? She was throwing hands at the very forefront of the Dominion War, fighting fights that Nebulas and Galaxys didn't dare get in to, and was consistently the only ship that wasn't explicitly a hero-ship (Defiant, Rotaran) to be in that position and survive - indeed even the battle that killed the first Defiant didn't kill her.
And Hood was hardly a new ship herself - she's an older Excelsior (part of a tranche of the ships that were seemingly explicitly names after historical battlecruisers), which makes me wonder that maybe the UFP intentionally undergunned their ships between Khitomer and at least Wolf 359.
13:40
Considering when we see that section blown open, it was a Deflector Control area. "facilities for long range exploration" could just be for PR, whereas what they actually are is enhancement for the Main Deflector, giving it extra combat ability.
Though its non-canon, we see the Excelsior in the DC-Comics "Mirror Universe Saga" using things like anti-cloaking pulses and tracking phasers.
In-canon, we see Kirk modifying the Deflector relays to create a resonance burst large enough to simulate the antimatter discharge of a Photon Torpedo blast. So no doubt these extra relays and equipment are to give the Main Deflector some extra combat applications. Which would totally fit the era. More combat ability, cloaked behind the guise of exploration
While this could also be true and does seem likely, I like to think it's specifically because of "cloaked Excelsiors" that the Federation was banned from using cloaking devices at the treaty of Algeron.
@@alexion2001 That too could be PR. Perhaps the anti-cloaking tech is what we are really giving up in the treaty. that could be why we do not see upgraded Excelsiors in the 24th Century. We just say we dont get to cloak either, to save face. Us being able to cloak too is hardly enough to scare the Romulans… but negating their advantage would be
The Sovereign class will always be my favorite, but the Excelsior is a close second. Like you said, the sleekness and aerodynamical design is what I love about it. Apparently, Starfleet does as well since Picard takes place in 2400 and they're still using Excelsior classes.
"Fly her apart then!" - The most badass command in Starfleet history. Captain Sulu made the Excelsior legendary.
The Excelsior refit is one of my all time favorite ships in the Trek universe
For a long time, I always thought trans-warp was just anything over warp 8 and uses a new calculation for speed instead of light speed = warp ^ 3. The great experiment was just checking if speed over warp 8 worked with a full manned crew because I'm sure many people tested speed over warp 8 thousands of times before making a full-size commissioned starship. I think The Excelessor class did warp 9 after running in full active duty. If a full-sized starship maintaining warp 9 was a great experiment, then the "great experiment" should have been a success instead of a failure. This got me confused when the Galaxy-class did not trans-warp for some dumb reason but did have a new warp-speed calculation. I must be missing something. my 2 cents. The Excelsior did seem a lot more durable since all the Constitution-class ships at the time were all falling apart and getting decommissioned. The Constitution was revolutionary when it first came out, so this makes me think the pre-Consitution ships were extremely fragile.
EDIT: From what little I gather, a handful of Constitution-class decimated the Klingon fleet at Axinar. A combination of 4 torpedo bays, faster warp, phasors, photons that can hit ships at warp speed, able to maneuver at warp speed, shields that worked & easily absorbed disruptors make a front-end assault against the D7s possible and fairly easy. if this is true, then the Constitution is at least as much a game-changer as the Excelsior. (I try to keep Constitution-class ship enthusiasm down in this Excelsior thread).
The great experiment was a partial success. After the excelsior class was done with the initial teething problems the warp scale was rescaled to account for the new knowledge of warp mechanics. Trans warp was used for Borg tech because it does what the original experiment was proposed to do.
Please don't hold back on your enthusiasm for the Connies just because we are in an Excelsior thread! 😂
14:19 The Bulges on the Enterprise B were added deflector components. It added space deeper in for engineering labs and internal fabrication. So yes scientific space is a bonus in the refit.
This is the first analysis of the Excelsior-class that convinced me of its purpose and beauty. Now I understand why it's lasted over a century in service.
The secondary hull has the big unused void underneath it (13:45 ), there should be a "heavy excelsior" class where that's built in and used partly to make the shuttle bay larger
Interesting video. I can't help but wonder if a uprated Galaxy class from the Dominion War era would outgun an uprated Excelsior like the Lakota?
Cool video man. In 2230’s star fleet gambled on accurately predicting the future of technology in regards to upgrading their fleets but they where wrong. But I’m the 2270’s they got it right and that’s why all newer ships like Miranda and excelsior lasted so long and older designs like the constitution and constellation did not.
Refit Connie has two aft phasers above the shuttle bay and four on the bottom of the engineering hull.
As for the Bulges Expanded, internal volume for sensors remember this a post praxis galaxy.
I like to think of the bulges being some sort of particle projector tech, intended for exposing cloaked ships. I think this makes more sense than either the official explanation about being an exploration module, or the theory about it being a cloaking device. It's way to big to be a cloak, and modules would fit better on the back end of the secondary hull.
but not a post Tomed galaxy. federation isn't out of the woods just yet.
This video is terrific and validates all my joy about this class of starship. I fell in love with it the first moment I saw it in the theater - and to this day - no other design has captured my attention like this one. Some originals need no changes at all. This is the primary example.
Greetings, my name is Travis., from Morrisville, VT. Just wanted to say I really liked your presentation. I'm a huge fan of the Enterprise-B. Its my favorite Enterprise. Keep up the great work. Thank you. " Jolan Tru "
I could tear up an Excelsior with a K'tinga in klingon academy. Your are spot on with the mismatch in firepower but, the Excelsior can't maneuver for toffee. Thats how i used to beat Excelsior, out maneuver and stay behind it, yes there are phasers but those torpedo launchers are useless from a dorsal aft arc. But if you try and keep it at mid range and don't watch Excelsiors firing arcs, it will blow you out of the sky pretty quickly.
When I played FASA STSCS I did a couple f matchups of the Excelsior and the Nova and it tend to be pretty even, sometimes Excelsior would win thru maneuvering and concentrating it's firepower on one section, other times the nova would win if both players would not use movement and just sit there and slug it out.
On another note as the Excelsior survived into the 24th c do you think the Nova lasted as long?
i have thought about that. i think the Nova would last up to the launch of the D'deridex but was then decommissioned since by the dominion war it would be too slow to serve as an escort, and to small to fight as a capital ship, plus its too big to be carried by a D'deridex
One of the prettiest ships ever designed for a Science Fiction setting
It (and the Miranda class) just have _perfect proportions_ that "work", the lines seem to flow.
It's balanced.
Totally agree. The excelsior and the intrepid are the prettiest ships in trek for me. Far, FAR nicer than those ugly abominations in modern trek.
the excelsior is not the prettiest ship in sci fi...that would be the refi constitution class ..at least to me. that is .
She’s a beautiful ship; took some getting used to but yes sir, agreed; and that Lakota after the Dominion refit.... yes please.
@@johanwittens7712 Lolol get ya but modern Trek isn’t Trek. 🤣😃
Good video but the picture of the size comparison at 05:30 is extreme unaccurate. The first two ships has a size difference of 77m and the last two ships has a difference of just 27m but the excelsior is much bigger compared to the ship above than the constitution compared to the first klingon ship (even when its difference is bigger).
Excelsior and Miranda both fabulous designs that where Starfleet's backbone. But the numbers that UFP was able to produce was what also separate from other powers as well
Thanks for video. I am waiting for the Romulan Nova class to make a small or big screen appearance.
As am I 😉
I find the thought that the reason Starfleet gave up cloaking devices was because everyone around them realized "Oh s***! Starfleet is actually terrifying when they use cloaks!" to be amusing. The rare times Starfleet is seen to use one, it's pretty much always used to great effect, whether all the stuff the Defiant did, or creating that phase cloak that probably actually would work perfectly if not for all the stuff that went down on the Pegasus.
at 0:31 the side cutaway of the excelsior class shows its shuttle bay to be at the back of the primary hull and it does look bigger than enterprise on the same diagram.....
I know it's been a while since you put this video out, but i HAVE to completely disagree with you about the flaring out secondary hull of the type twos (Enterprise-B Laokta types). You are correct about the Excelsior being a product of a more militaristic time for Starfleet, but it came pretty much at the very end of that militaristic time. After the Khitomer accords ALL this changed. With the Klingons no longer in a cold war with the Federation, Starfleet could finally get back to exploration as their main objective. Adding a large flared out section to the secondary hull to add in more sensors for deep space exploration on a more militaristic design makes perfect sense. It was a sign that the Excelsior was adapting to the new times. remember 8-9 years had passed since the accords were signed. So there was plenty of time to adjust the design for more exploration type Excelsior types.
Also I think the flaring out also give it a connection to the Galaxy class which also has a flared out secondary hull.
A short series on the antics of the Enterprise B would be amazing, I always have loved the excelssor class.
The great experiment ( excelsior). Im not wild about enterprise b flare , but i remember ww2 battleship had them as an extra defense against torpedoes. It allowed for more survivors.. cloaking device is a great idea. The additional impulse engine may be the power plant. I remember in tng pegasus the federation cloak was powered but enterprise impulse engine. Not warp .
The limited small craft capacity of the Excelsior helps explain why the Constellation class was produced and operated contemporaneously.
yep that thicc saucer can come in very handy.
I've got a considerable amount of bulk to me, but no-one ever describes me as "impressive"! 😂
The excelsior class was forerunner if the galaxy class. Star fleet was opting for longer missions. They needed ships that could keep the crew happy on longer missions. So they needed more space.
Halo’s UNSC Infinity-class super carriers carry their own internal escort. They have vertical launch tubes for *ten* frigates.
The basic idea is that they’re mobile orbital defence platforms the UNSC can send out anywhere they need a massive task force ASAP with the main ship, probably Infinity herself, using its massive propulsion system to get those frigates where they need to be, then supplying covering fire from massive arrays of guided and magnetic weapons.
And occasionally powering up the ODP cannons to blow through anyway short of like a moon.
5:14 That Excelsior looks a hell of a lot longer than 367m to me - shouldn't it be more like 467m?
Also, regarding the weapons - curious about the timeline change here. Always thought the 27-phaser battery was unique to the Lakota, or at least the 24th century refits. IIRC O'Brien says something along the lines of "that's a lot of firepower for an Excelsior class". The standard Excelsior carried only 12 upon launch according to Memory Alpha - still powerful, but nowhere near as overpowered at the start. Makes political sense too, imagine the ruckus the conservative pacifists would've kicked up if Starfleet even proposed a 30-phaser ship. So... What changed in the Venomverse?
Yeah the generally accepted length is ~465 metres Supported by most evidence. There are examples of it not being scaled properly but still the generally accepted size is 467m
yeah 367m is a typo its 467m
It’s also stated to be 511.21 meters by Spacedock and some online sources.
@@NatureismyHome-cu6zs that is from the awful ds9 tech manual. i'd burn every copy if i could.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 Now you've piqued my interest... wonder if I should give it a look to see what's so terrible about it
Now the only thing I had a problem with all this is the Excelsior plans I've seen says it has a 2nd shuttle bay at the bottom of the engineering hull but at least you covered it most others don't even mention it
I used to hate the Excelsior class, because it was new. But it grew on me. It is now my favorite Starfleet vessel. It was a near perfect balance of range, speed, maneuverability, offensive and defensive capabilities. The best testament to the Excelsior's success was not only how long it remained in service... But was updated with many of the latest technologies by the time of the Dominion War and was brought back up to the equivalent role of heavy cruiser. By contrast to the Miranda class, an only slightly older ship that was hopelessly outdated and outmatched in every category.
6:50 One thing the newer movies/shows brought up that I never really appreciated because I "too" was brought up in TNG. How many of those are capable of firing independently and/or at the same time? TNG and TOS had me of the opinion they could only fire one or two of those at any given point, and the myriad of turrets was just so they "could" fire in that particular direction if they had to instead of that being extra guns being brought to bear as I am of the opinion they just shunted the warp core into "a" particular vent to fire, the whole tng "phaser strip" thing made it so it truly looks like only one or two could fire in tandem. However with the newer stuff going off like oh so many make everything in that general direction disappear through automatic artillery (phase cannons truly look more awesome than they are), I really do question, how many phaser pads does a ship really need on its hull? (barring redundancy for battle damage attrition, I always love that answer)
the bulges on the Lakota version are due to the deflector technology, IE it's deflector system was given a massive upgrade. And required more area and space. Hence the buldges.
Why? What was wrong with the original?
@@venomgeekmedia9886 It was an upgraded deflector system, I can't actually find the entry now that details it so I have to call into doubt my statement now. Other than
In less than a decade, the Excelsior design underwent a second, more significant overhaul, as introduced with the launch of the USS Enterprise-B. While remaining true to the original design, this new configuration added several modifications to the basic hull, including the addition of a second pair of impulse engines, an expanded scoop surrounding the deflector dish, and the addition and removal of a number of fins located on the saucer and nacelles.
But I do like your idea of the cloaking device, but in the TOS it was small enough to fit on a table, but was hooked up to the deflector if I recall. Though in my own head cannon I saw the bulges as more sensor domes. After all more powerful the sensors, the farther you can see the enemy from and plan accordingly, and perhaps detect things like ionized plasma from engines on cloaked ships.
GENERATIONS. GOLDEN COLOUR IN ONE SHOT...AWESOME
Excellent video analysis! I do like the Excelsior class! Its sheer mass and upgrades over the connie make it formidable! I dont think its got as clean a lines as the connies and proportionally from some angles it looks a little odd but that being said it would be the marker going forward for 100 years on what a front line federation ship would encompass.
When the flared section says, " Mission specific equipment modules mounting structure", it doesn't have to be "Exploration" missions. It could be for M.A.C.O. equipment or any other Military mission since it is in the same section as the "dock" that we never see used in the movies or shows. Good place to isolate top secret Black Ops missions and personnel from the rest of the ships crew.
exactly ;)
Torpedo Bulges. The term you'd be asking Drach about. Many older Dreadnoughts and Super Dreadnoughts were refitted with them. Looks like the old ships put on a little weight.
They needed a place to "get rid" of Kirk.
You know it's funny that when I look at pictures of the Excelsior Refit Class U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-B and her sister ships aside from the differences in design the Excelsior Refit Class looks a little bigger than the original Excelsior Class design and I think that might be because the Excelsior Refit Class has a bigger impulse drive to the changes around the Main Navigational Deflector Dish to the changes around the warp nacelles and I think the saucer section looks a little wider than the standard model.
It's interesting you mention the cloaking device because in the books it's revealed that after or sometime during the Dominion War there's a decision known only to a few to give Starships the capacity to create and install cloaking devices in the event of an emergency at the consent of an admiral. The Enterprise E uses it for a time in a dire emergency and deconstruct the cloaking device once the situation is resolved. So the Sovereign and Excelsior are more alike
My favorite design is still the Constitution Class Refit (ST movies), but I do love to see differing designs. I'd love to see the Saber Class used in a ST-TNG era series/movie as the primary ship.
The Excelsior really is a gorgeous looking ship, even compared to modern designs. Its skeel, its elegant, its stylish, its dignified, its classy and says regardless of any age, an Excelsior commands respect by its sheer presence, and despite not being nearly as big as the mighty Sovereigns and Galaxy-Class, she is still the representation of of a very fine ship.
The Excelsior is one of my favorite ship as well as the retro fit good job!
My only real complaint about Picard 3 the ship flying around like the millennium Falcon. I want my capital ships to be lumbering capital ships and flying into the Death Star isn’t something it can do.
One of the things I've never liked about the movie era ships (and TNG+ ships) was how they made the intermix chamber go vertically up to the saucer to the impulse engines. I realize they're trying to make something look cool and interesting for the big screen, but especially for the Constitution refit, this is bad because: Where do you put the turbolift through the neck down to the secondary hull?
At least the Excelsior solves that problem, in spades. But, here's the thing: I always thought that whoever designed the Excelsior model was thinking in a much better way from an engineering standpoint. That large hub structure located between the warp engine pylons I thought housed main engineering. That makes total sense to me, because it's in a good spot to be able to jettison not only the warp core, but the entire structure of that should anything go bad, and it looks as though there's more than enough superstructure there to protect the core from damage. So why bother to have the intermix conduit go up into the saucer? Seems a bit inefficient to me, because that secondary hull is long and huge. It's the length of the Constitution without her engines! There's conceivably more internal volume in the secondary hull than there is in the entire Constitution!
So why not free up all that space for two engineering spaces, one for the warp drive, and one for the impulse? Still, even with the vertical intermix system going up the neck, there's plenty of volume, because the neck seems to allow it.
Excelsior has a Regal nature.
When we first see her she is the new Queen of Starfleet.
When we see her in TNG she is the Elder statesmen.
The Excelsior's Tactical layout I think shows not just a generational increase in capability, but also the influence of the Cloaking device on the design. Better all around firing arcs became more important than focused limited arcs.
The shuttlebay, if configured properly might be able to hole 4-5 good sized warp capable shuttles. Maybe there's an Elevator to a Shuttle storage bay but probably not. We know Starfleet shuttlebays are generally very simple affairs., Strange thing is that the Shuttlebay looks almost like a module that could have been expanded, but starfleet never did that.
That large bay on the excelsior I always thought of as a modular mission bay. During those big 5 year missions it could have a large cargo module added for additional carrying capacity. Quite important since replicator technology isn't so developed.
I don't think I like the idea of the Cloaking device in the bulges. But The ENT-B is fresh out of dock about 10 years after Excelsior. Plenty of time to bring in a Tranche-2 upgraded spec and design which explains the additions and changes.
as i say, starfleet has had a romulan cloaking device since the 60s. theres no way they don't have one. interesting idea about the shuttlebay because your right, they do look incomplete, there's plenty of space on that top deck. i mean really why don't more star-ships just use vertical shuttle pads like on DS9
I love this ship. I play Star Trek online, and I exclusively use the Geneva class science vessel, which looks like a beefed up version of the excelsior class. And are you hinting at a future series on the treaty of Algernon? I hope so
possibly ;)
I like the excelsior and the way you explain its design being more boat like, as the way I viewed the enterprise B is it was almost rigged up like a white star line ship in its design, but the major thing about it is that interior space wise on the engineering hull, their is alot of unused space around where the shuttlebay is, if you look at it from the back, like if you cut that bottom part off, theres not really alot there space wise, as the ship has TWO shuttlebays, one on the bottom where that gaping hole is, and the aft which is supposed to be a cargo bay
atleast if the shattered universe game is anything to go off of.
while the enterprise is more what you need and no more, so in actual used space, the ships might be far closer than you think, also at 8:10 the enterprise has rear phasers, its on the model, it was just never used
two dots right above the shuttlebay, those are phaser banks, which it even had in the TOS form
and its designer with the excelsior was told design a starship like you think the japanease would build one, so your more on point that you realize with both points
what I wish is that the Enterprise would have gotten a redesign for the A honestly, like a thicker neck to offset the stretched saucer, as if you ever wonder why the enterprise seems weaker in her refit its because the neck is thinner than the TOS one despite the increased size of both the saucer and the engineering section and the pylons unlike the reliant dont quite line up with the engines nor have the same thickness at the base as the top
I know as I started to do a redesign project for fun after seeing star trek into darkness and hating how the ship looked in that
like the TOS enterprise is far more akin to a fighting ship than the refit was and it shows, like the pylons and the structure are more solid and the saucer seems thicker
and the design was never really that concrete as the refit is a reworked Phase 2, so it never had a proper real one guys vision like thing to it like the excelsior and the TOS ship got, nor the miranda, which were all reactions to the weakness of the ship in filming
hell the stargazer, a ship I like better than the enterprise came about for the same reason, as the TMP model was just too unwieldy to film in season 1 TNG
plus the gridlines actually make the saucer look weaker given it no longer looks like its one piece
on the concept art it looks far stronger because of the lack of it, a direct result of it being an updated design rather than a one mans vision type thing
and that fact even shows up in its movies, where in one of the scenes the shield diagram for the weapons station shows the phase 2 enterprise by mistake in the second movie, namely when the trainee says shields collapsing captain, I was like why does the enterprise look off there lol
also with the neck on the excelsior if they fired those torpedo launchers, the top ones, they'd take out the lower part of the lighting assemby, they were probably ment to be something else, like the entry points into the ship at the front
like where the shuttles would dock, or maybe even sensors, thing that throws people off is that ribbed section that looks like the black around the torpedo launcher for the refit
also John Eaves designed the enterprise B refit and the enterprise E, its why their so close together, heck if you look at a time period based on when they were penned with the enterprise it goes
TOS, Refit A, D then C, and B and E, that is really its design lineage
At 20:35 the klingon ship's behind looks like a happy face 😂
Love the Excelsior, but my favorite has always been the Enterprise refit! 😉
Great video, and I've personally always preferred a more militarized Starfleet and Federation in general.
9:33 Actually That's Shuttlebay 2
The main shuttle bay is located inside the Cutout on that Sloping bit on the underside rear of the secondary hull.
10:16, Yeah, The Main Shuttlebay is housed in That Ventral Berth
Huh. Most describe it as a probe launch bay?
I know for me there were two things that made me realize the Excelsior was a very successful ship for Starfleet. First; the original Excelsior was commissioned in 2285 and the class was still in service during the Dominion war 100 years later. That's an impressive service life. The second was when the Lakota went toe to doe with the Defiant, a modern dedicated warship, and the battle was basically a draw (granted both ships were holding back).
Can you please do a video on the Romulan Nova class?
Venom, you outdo yourself sir! I’m one happy Cubano....
Love the idea of the variant Excelsior class ships carrying cloaking devices! Makes perfect sense! Fits in neatly with my headcanon of the Soyuz class being designed specifically to detect clocked ships with all the extra sensor pods to triangulate any subspace distortions. Also fits with the Soyuz having that 3rd larger shuttlebay fitted. Imo for fighter craft that while ineffective against shields would be deadly against a cloaked (therefore unsheilded) ship.
Nice vid. I was raised on a diet of TNG myself and find myself reacquainting myself to my old Trekkie ways lately lol.
I always found the Excelsior a beautiful ship and a bit of mystery in the sense that it never seemed to get the proper screen time as the main ship in a series unlike the Constitution, Galaxy, Defiant, Intrepid etc but I guess the Ambassador is even more shunned.
To compare the Construction to the Excelsior. Like night and day really. Let's just focus on the Exploration side of things. The Constitution reminds me of an old WW2 destroyer or sub. Utilitarian, cramped, probably noisy and things like comforts and space were hard to find would be my guess. Indeed if you were a new crewmember, the notion of leaving your comfortable planet to spend months, perhaps years traversing space in a Constitution... well you would indeed want to have a hearty constitution for it! Personally I wouldn't be raising my hand for that adventure any more than I would to become a WW2 submarine crewmember!
The Excelsior on the other hand. That looks like the opposite. It's a big, spacious ship that looks like it adds comforts and would be a tranquil place by comparison that "soaks up the miles". It can do everything the Constitution can but better, without breaking a sweat, and a lot more. Yes, I'd imagine a new crewmember would be excited about joining the crew of an Excelsior and that such a grand ship would encourage people to enlist and actually want to explore space on board a ship like that unlike the Constitution that I'd imagine would send most people running the other way. 🤣🏃
Edit- To be fair to the Constitution, I'm sure that probably felt like a big spacious and advanced ship that was a lot more comfortable and a more attractive proposition to serve on board compared to its predecessors.
I didn't expect this. And I'm glad I was surprised.
I recall seeing a video where they said that the idea for the Constitution in TOS, was to remind people of an old time sailing ship, thus the shots from below, looking up at it all the time.
I prefer that to the jet comparison, especially when you think of the Excelsior as the first modern Dreadnought battleship, and the Constitution as an old ship of the line.
yep, i can definitely get a sail and rigging vibe from the connie.
Aside from the U.S.S. Lakota where we got to see her use her phaser banks while fighting the Defiant in Star Trek Deep Space Nine when Star Trek 6:The Undiscovered Country come out the only weapons we saw the Excelsior use was her photon torpedoes against the Klingon Bird of Prey along with the Enterprise A.
Actually not sure it had torpedo launchers in the neck. The details there would have a line of fire obscured by the main hull, so they would hit the bottom of the saucer if they were torpedo tubes. Maybe they are sensor emplacements that angle out to the side.
They could also be angled downward or port and starboard
@@venomgeekmedia9886 It's possible. If you google the question you can find alot of discussion about it on boards, but I've never seen a definitive answer. I just keep an open mind 🙂
On the Enterprise B, I imagined the secondary hull flares reflect a transitional design between the original Excelsior and the Galaxy class where something about the development of the warp reactor has become more pancake shaped as it has developed.
It's good point but still Scotty would take you to school for pancaking a warpcore ;)
@@TheWoblinGoblin I was just rewatching ST VI. Scotty shot the Colonel quite well. But I stand by my idea. The Galaxy class’ secondary hull is very flat, this points to a warp core that needs to be wide and flat compared to the Constitution’s and Excelsior’s which must have been round. I see the B’s core as being transitional. That’s my humble opinion and I’m sticking to it.
@@hemaccabe4292 I would stress Proportionally the galaxy class engineering Hull I'd still huge compared to previous classes.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 True, but the shape still implies a wider and flatter warp core proportionally.
@@hemaccabe4292 the goddamn fck? The Galaxy class' warpcore is a huge and tall mofo.
The Excelsior design is my favorite. The Constitution refit is my second.
same here
The Klingons might not have bothered to build a direct competitor to the _Excelsior_ class immediately because they enough K'Tinga class cruisers, and figured to rely on numerical superiority. There is a principle in wargaming called "the fuzzy wuzzy fallacy." Basically, it holds that quantity relates to quality at a better ratio than you might think. In other words a unit with 2X firepower is not worth 2 opposing 1X units but rather the square root of two. The reasoning behind this is that the bigger ship is still just a single ship, and its combat power degrades more from being hit, than the combat power of the two 1X ships degrades from a comparable hit to one of them. Potentially, the2X firepower ship can be completely destroyed by a single hit, where the same hit on one of the 1X ships will destroy that ship, but leave the other one active, undamaged, and therefore still combat effective. Also the bigger ship, in a fleet action where multiple ships are present, will draw fire like crazy.
So, to meet the threat of this new Starfleet superdreadnought, the Klingons might simply figure to build more of their proven K'Tinga's, enough to allocate several to any _Excelsior_ class ship in any given fleet action during wartime.
19:05 I'm not even sure if we can truly say that the Galor class "succeeded" the Excelsior class. At best i'd say the cardassians caught up to the Excelsior class with the Galor.
The Vor'cha probably was a stronger ship overall i agree with that.
*But* one thing we should keep in mind is that the Klingons had the K'tinga class still in service in the considerable quantities up until the 24th century.
So with those older klingon ships around and the Galor (in my eyes) being a match for an Excelsior class in the best case, the Excelsior was still plenty strong even then.
After receiving the refits and upgrades i would say it would be a match for a Vor'cha class at least.
Which model of the Galor Class? By the Dominion War the Galor Class had progressed well past the pre-refit Excelsior Class in firepower and durability. The Galor Class was one-shot killing Birds-of-Prey, Jem Hadar Fighters and Breen frigates, something the Galaxy Class wasn't even doing with its Type X Phaser arrays. We saw Excelsior Class ships being chewed up by the Cardassian Orbital Weapons Platforms that are armed with the same Spiral Wave Heavy Disruptors as the Galor Class. I grant that the Lakota Refit is a vastly superior ship to the pre-refit models and at least on-par to the newest Galor Class cruisers.
yeah so the Galor and Excelsior were often fighting for position. when the Galor Mk1 came out it was about equal in nearly all respects. Galor 2 had an advantage but were few in number. Galor 3s were matched or even exceeded by the dominion war refit, but the Galor 4 had a decisive advantage.
@@crownprincesebastianjohano7069 Galor and first Vor'cha when they first came out.
I get what you're trying to say with the Orbital Weapons platform but i would think that those would still be a lot stronger than a Galor simply because of the fact that they had lower energy requirements and could put all the energy they had into shields and weapons. So i would put the OWP a bit higher in firepower than the Galor itself.
As for the Galaxy not being able to one shot birds of prey. Well we never see it but we see Deep Space Nine one shot several Bird of Preys. As far as i know we never actually get to know which phasers are installed on DS9 but i'd guess it would be Type XI or Type XII phaser arrays.
We also know that the Galaxy class likely got a refit right before or while the Dominion war so i wouldn't be surprised if they also got Type XII Phaser installed by then.
In any way i'd think the Galor wasn't succeeding the Excelsior but rather catching up to it. And with successive refits managed to stay at least on par with the Lakota type if not actually outperform it by then.
@@venomgeekmedia9886 the irony of the outcome of the Dominion War for the Cardassians, despite the extreme loss of life and destruction on Cardassia Prime, is that the Cardassians were left with enormous amounts of Dominion technology thanks to the provisions of the Treaty of Bajor. Whatever technical shortcomings they still had by then were completely overcome and then some. I knew Beta canon has attempted to address the future of Cardassia, with varying success, but in reality, the Galor Type V would be a very formidable platform by fully marrying Cardassian and Dominion Tech (Type IV had some Dominion features, but not so many). A new power plant, and one can keep the two heavy spiral wave disruptors, and then throw 6-8 Dominion Polaron Beam Cannons over the hull instead of the smaller spiral wave banks for the secondary batteries. Polaron torpedoes to go with the plasma and quantum torpedoes, protected by the regenerative force fields shield arrays. The Type V would easily match the upgraded Tactical Nebula Class. And the Cardassians could do a good deal more with the already more advanced Keldon Class. One could imagine in about ten years after the War after Cardassia has been more or less fully rebuilt, the next generation heavy cruiser would be a complete synthesis of Dominion and Cardassian technology.
Besides the sleek graceful lines, the Excelsior class stylistically bridged the TOS and TNG eras. I'm old, grew up on TOS, and kinda hated the weird soft bulbus proportions of the Galaxy class when TNG premiered. I didn't feel the same about the Excelsior. It instantly looked fast and futuristic, without overdoing it. I do think all the tacked on bits for the Enterprise-B messed up the sleek lines, but it was pragmatic/necessary for a filming model... The two biggest Trek models on my desk have always been the Excelsior and Enterprise refit.
What's your take on the USS Titan design?
What about the large hangar carrier excelsiors with mega phasers...
I saw somewhere that when designed it for screen, the said let’s design the enterprise if it were Japanese. And it totally makes sense to me. I always thought the sovereign was the best parts of the D and Excelsior put together.
USS Excelsior and your work Big V make my whole.
4:50 On the matchups. You mentioned for like 2 minutes straight how the Excelsior is so much bulkier, this also means larger target. One of the advantages of the Constitution, something Kirk in Tos and soon Pike in "Strange New Worlds" will vouch on, the Constitution is much harder to hit than an Excelsior, much less an Oberth also in the Movies, and that extra bulk and girth is not armor plating, so Katinga once again becomes a mobile shark, instead of the oversized lumbering underdog, especially with Cloak ambush options. Bigger only means better if you can protect it, and the Power Core was only marginally better at mitigating actual hits while the added the bulk does almost always mean easier to hit, its like facing up against A Galaxy Class, yeah its got a gigantic power core, however its almost virtually impossible to miss capable of shielding entire other ships by simply getting in the way, with DS9 going into horrific detail the flaws in oversized Federation glass cannons. With the Ambassador Class being an outright proof of concept being "smaller" hit profile than several of its preceding flag ships.
I instead follow the opinion that TOS star ships were "war ships" with TNG era vessles being Armed Carnival Cruise Ships, with the Excelsior being the first in this line of thought that first got curbed by the Borg Wars, and then outright thrown away in the Dominion Wars to prefer earlier "military" concepts of not bringing your family into a firefight, and streamlining your profile.
Think part of the "official" reason for the longevity of the Excelsior is that the wide neck and hull made it relatively simple to upgrade.
19:57 I never thought of the Excelsior class as the Sovereign class of the 23rd Century. Then again the Sovereign was a dominant starship in it’s time so I can see why you made that assessment. The Excelsior and the Sovereign are my top two favorite starships in all of Star Trek.