@@Sephiroth144 Overrated ship you mean. The only gain to infamy is the fact the Excelsior class did something not even the Klingons could do. It killed Kirk. The class as far as I m concerned is a curse and should have been completely scuttled.
@@valor1omega Except, Kirk didn't die on the Ent-B, he died falling off a bridge. And given that the Duras sisters were helping Soran, hell, the Klingons might get an assist for the kill. And the Excelsior was the Big Dog of the Alpha Quadrant when it debuted- facts are facts, whether you like them or not.
@@Sephiroth144 No, the B is the reason Kirk was sent to the nexus and there for it is what got him killed. So how did you say it? "Facts are facts no matter how much you dislike it" The only thing it got going for it is that it bit*h slapped the supposed pimp hand of Sisko and put it in it's place. That's the only thing it's got going for it. Outside of that it is well known for killing Kirk.
I always liked how in the TOS movies The Excelsior represents the future to the Enterprise crew, serving as a sign that while they still got it, time wars for no one even them. And I love at the end they came to like the Excelsior and what it represented
I think Scotty might have something to say about that "bucket of bolts" lol, but Enterprise was his baby so I understand! Love the Excelsior and her sibblings!
@@johnkinnicutt4509 Scotty was right though. "The more advanced the drain the easier to stop it up" Besides the Ambassador fixed all of it's glaring issues look wise among other things.
@@johnkinnicutt4509 Scotty's first and only love is the Enterprise. That said I suspect the line was said in mild teasing at best. Sulu is one of his friends and it honestly would surprise me if Scotty hadn't personally gone through the manifests and mantinance reports when he heard Sulu got the post along with recommendations forwarded to that ship's engineering staff. And unlike Scotty in TNG's relics, this is a time and technology he is intimately familiar with and probably literallywrote the book on. So him popping in with recommendations might have been seen as stepping on toes, but his word would carry weight.
My take on why Excelsiors were always the ship of choice of Admirals during the TNG era was comparative to modern versus classic cars. It's like Starfleet wanted to give Captains the most modern tech/ships for their missions while in the few times Admirals left starbases they'd do it in style, travelling in a classic car/limo. It's about appearances when you're showing up for ambassadorial hosting duties.
Remember. The USS Blue Ridge which is the flagship of the US Navy 7th Fleet is the _oldest_ commissioned vessel in regular service… and it resembles an old cargo ship.
Either that, or the VFX budget for TNG wasn't big enough to allow for many new ships, so they dug out the Excelsior, Reliant, or Grissom models whenever they needed a generic Starfleet ship of the week. 😀 It's too bad they never dug out the TOS or TMP Enterprise models for 'Cause and Effect' or 'The Battle' , probably because those models were apparently cumbersome to work with.
By the TNG era the Excelsior was basically the work horse of Starfleet "hauling between starbases". In nautical terms this is the equivalent of a channel groper, an outwardly big powerful ship, but in reality old and slow. From naval experience the choice of Admirals for this type of ship is because they would always need to have a ship where they personally had ultimate authority, where they basically had a captain who is a yes man.
A lovely ship. When it appeared on screen it really looked like a big leap ahead in technology and ability. It looked potent and advanced even next to the connie refit
I've always considered it a success that led to two outcomes. First was, as you say, the recalibration of the Warp scale. The other was that starships no longer needed to "climb" through lower warp factors to reach the desired goal, they could instead "jump" there.
I think Starfleet transwarp was different than Borg transwarp. It's unfortunate the writers reused the term. I've heard that Starfleet transwarp was more about going directly to higher warp factors without having to build up or nest warp fields by passing through each factor. This is actually seen in canon quite often. In TOS you can hear (and sometimes its even spoken) that the ship going to warp 1 then climbs up through the factors. In TNG they can go straight to high warp and only then have to start nesting fields, usually after warp 8 (new scale).
The idea that it was largely a failure always made sense to me. Sure a few advances may have led to the new scale, but ships didn't really get that much faster. From 2285 to 2365, starship speeds only increased by a factor of 2 or 3. There were greater advances than that in the single decade that followed contact with the Borg. The idea that it meant you jump straight to certain warp factors never made much sense either. Sure you don't hear them talking about climbing the factors much in TNG era and on, but the way acceleration works, those call outs never made much sense in early trek. Warp 8 was five hundred times faster than warp 1. If you could reach warp 8 in a couple minutes, warp 1 should have taken a fraction of a second. This is where TNG era call outs have always made more sense, starting at higher warp factors and climbing from there. Reaching warp 8 might only take a minute or less, but doubling up to warp 9.6 could take a lot longer.
I like to imagine when the Excelsior is finally phased out after the better part of a century, the last crew to disembark from the last ship of the line flies home on a B-52.
It's incredible how the Excelsior was barely shown in III and VI and then used as a glorified Admiral shuttle in TNG and as a ship of the line in DS9 while *never* being in the spotlight and yet it's everyone's favourite Starfleet hull. I love Excelsior and it's absolutely my fav Trek ship. I love what the ship represents and the TOS movies timeline is my favourite Trek period. Hats off to the designers who managed to create an icon who managed to beat in popularity even various Enterprise ships.
@@EZ-D-FIANT The noise of the engine sounding like a kaput car when it failed, always made me laugh. 🤣 I wish we got to see that transwarp working, or the reason for the new warp scale, though!
@@Naptosis yea that's a perfect example of something else that always get me gripes and that is sound in space, stations go boom, engines go plurpewdodododoooo even warp makes sound, its a sci fi show ffs, if they made the sounds while being in that bridge only it'd be amazing but they always do an exterior shot with the same sound grrrr,I gotta stop before my brain vein starts throbbing.....🤣
Also one of my top picks. I always appreciated how the Excelsior looked sleek and powerful, but not aggressive. A perfect silhouette for a Federation "Ship of the Line"
The excelsior class is hands down my favorite class of ship from trek. It's bulky, but sleek. It looks fast, packs a massive punch, and keeps on trucking. I got a kit of both the excelsior and enterprise b in my backlog of model kits to build. The lines just attract me, kinda like how I prefer the look of a p51b over a d. Just looks like great ride.
It's got too much cut from the secondary hull. The back section of the secondary hull looks so thin that it would make a very thin supermodel say it needs to eat something. The second hull needs to be shortened by 25% if not more and or filled out a bit. Also don't like how the pylons are places as it looks like some lazy designer stuck them there and went "good enough". And it is by far anything but sleek. There is nothing sleek about it.
@@valor1omega its kinda a 50s car thing, some folks are like "man that's what cars should look like" and others are "its a brick with fins..." It looks thin from the sides, and the pylons could have come off the main hull, but it looks like a leftover from the transwarp project. The whole module pylons and all could be swapped easier if it was add on part (its gonna be easy to point under it on my kit because of this ;3)
Edit: Didn't want to flood your post so I merged the two. Or Star fleet got lazy and seen a below average design and goes "ehhh good enough people, let's mass produced this garbage barge and call it a day." Almost forgot need I remind you that the oberth is older than that ship design and it too is mass produced as well. Just because it's been mass produced for 100+ years makes not a good design.
@@pitiedvod Lol very true, the real reason we saw it over 100+ years in the series was that the model was conveniently laying around. Though I rather like @Valor1 Omega 's rationale that lore reason this ship was around so long could be was it simply easier to produce so it kept getting spit out by the shipyards lol
@@SuperGamefreak18 To be honest I always liked the oberth. There was a reason behind it all and nothing felt out of place or like it was built to look good. The other ship was just bad.
*A retcon;* What if the "Transwarp" improvements were basically the same as Khan made in the *Kelvin timeline* with the Dreadnaught class? The Vengeance was on a completely new level with its warp drive abilities - able to catch up to the Enterprise in warp _and attack it while at warp._ The crew of the Enterprise didn't even consider that a possibility, they thought they were safe once at warp and were shocked at the Vengeance's ability to fire on them in warp. And the timeframe sort of matches up, in the Kelvin timeline Starfleet was more advanced due to contamination from the future and just the impetus of the big shock of the destruction of Vulcan (like how Wolf 359 kicked Starfleet's R&D into high gear). So it makes sense that a technological innovation that took 40 years longer in the Prime timeline was accomplished sooner by a Augment working with Section 31 - and who had access to the future Spock's/Scotty Transwarp beaming calculations. So if Scotty hadn't sabotaged the Excelsior prototype, it would have then caught up to the Enterprise in its warp 'corridor' and been able to take potshots (or use a tractor beam) to knock it out of warp, perhaps with a bit less collateral damage?
I came to the conclusion that the Kelvin timeline Starfleet is using Borg Transwarp that the USS Kelvin scanned from the Narada's engines. Warp drive in the Kelvin timeline is VASTLY faster than the prime timeline. Scotty said the Enterprise could get Spock to Vulcan in a few days in The Motion Picture, in ST09 they made it in a matter of minutes. Part of that is JJ's predilection for completely ignoring travel time, see Hyperspace skipping in Rise of Skywalker, he typically treats FTL like teleporting. But warp drive in the Kelvin Timeline looks and functions like transwarp. In the TNG era through Enterprise if you lost warp drive while at warp speed, you just gently returned to normal speed, or you would just pop back out to sublight. In the Kelvin timeline you're thrown out of a tunnel of FTL. Like a Borg Transwarp Conduit. Starfleet Warp speeds in the prime timeline is accomplished via asymmetrical warp bubbles not corridors, Borg Transwarp and Quantum Slipstream Drives create tunnels.
I really want to see what the rest of Starfleet would do with the technology from the wreck of the USS Vengeance. She was just kinda there in San Francisco, and had to be broken up and hauled off, so while the Enterprise was repaired I can imagine much of the Dreadnought-class was declassified. Seeing the Dreadnought would be interesting too, since there presumably was one.
@@3Rayfire "Part of that is JJ's predilection for completely ignoring travel time" Don't forget also that JJ seems to think that Earth's gravity is so strong that it could pull both ships out of orbit of the moon and send them crashing down to Earth. And that the Enterprise was somehow able to not only survive an uncontrolled reentry into the atmosphere which should have turned both ships into a molten mass, but it was also able to stop its decent with nothing but some aux thrusters, totally negating the speed at which they were falling. But who am I kidding? This was the same director that said a beer brewery would make a perfect engine room (which got retconnned in the second movie, btw).
@@cujoedaman So basically don't take anything from JJ's movies as feats of canon, other Starfleet ships can replicate. I also don't like how new Trek seems to be bringing old ships in just so we can see them get thrashed, or replaced like the _Titan-A_ for the original _Titan_ . I've basically chosen to ignore post- _Enterprise_ Trek outside of _STO_ . I love what Cryptic Studios decided to do with Sela and the Romulan Republic, and the overarching story with the Iconians was pretty good. I just wish they'd rebuild the game with a new engine. Similar to how SEGA did with _PSO2_ . New stories ain't hitting the same anyway.
I kind of like the fan theory Venom Geek Media posited when doing a video on the Tomed Incident which led to the Treaty of Algeron; that is the "Enterprise" variant of the Excelsior class had those bulges to equip Federation Cloaking Devices so they could act like modern Ballistic Nuclear Missile submarines. Hence the small numbers and after the Treaty was signed they were removed and equipped for extra sensors.
I don't think the major Alpha/Beta Quadrant powers have anything that would qualify as a strategic weapon for a space boomer to carry, unless I missed something and Starfleet genuinely intended to weaponize the Genesis Device, or the Romulans were mad enough to weaponize Omega, etc? "Starfleet Intelligence operatives... hijacked the [Romulan starship] Tomed, ramming it into [an abandoned] asteroid base [with the singularity core at warp power, causing a violent spatial distortion that would have killed thousands throughout the sector]" - Memory Beta Oh... Still.
@@fluffly3606 I believe the idea, as posited by VGM was those Enterprise variant Excelsiors equipped with Feddie reverse engineered cloaks while carrying Tri-Cobalt devices, the Big Ones before the creation of Quantum Torpedoes. As for the actual incident, he played it as remnants of the war hawks from "Undiscovered Country" trying to provoke the Romulans so as to keep the Starfleet from going soft by the actions of the Council.
I like that you mentioned connecting the Excelsior transwarp tests to the change in the warp scale. I have always thought that in my head cannon as well. Maybe it failed to really achieve transwarp, but the technology used to attempt it helped propel standard warp faster than starfleet originally thought possible.
Scotty calls it a Transwarp Computer Drive, which to me implies that the computer aboard the Excelsior was capable of doing something while the ship was at warp which allowed the ship to travel faster than previous generations of warp drive. This is hinted at by virtue of the fact that the computer systems on the Excelsior are more advanced and "interactive" than those on the refit Enterprise (Scotty getting annoyed at the talking turbolift for example). My own headcanon is that the computer was able to make fine adjustments to the warp field while the ship was at warp. We see in ENT for example that the field can be adjusted on the fly but it's extremely difficult and required a skilled pilot to do so. Perhaps Starfleet developed a new computer system that could make finer/faster adjustments to the field allowing the ship to reach higher warp velocities or to accelerate to those velocities faster than a helmsman could?
This one always vies with the original Sovereign (which took so many design points from it) for the number 1 spot on my all times favorite starship list.
The Excelsior is my favorite Starfleet design of the TOS era. I just love that art-deco style. It feels sleek yet bulky. I also like the idea that Starfleet would make the investment of a big spaceframe last for decades by continually upgrading the tech. One thing that always looked awkward to me though, is the little pod (shuttlebay?) sitting on its tail.
One of the most venerable and respected of all Starfleet classes. Note worthiness of its reputation as a reliable and well designed vessel comes from the fact that the illustrious line of ships named Enterprise, also was bestowed on an Excelsior-Class ship, the Enterprise-B. In STO, the Excelsior was my ship of choice, for many years, before more advanced ships came around.
Star Trek VI & STO really cemented my love for the ship class. It looked and performed great in both. In STO I especially loved having a cruiser class ship that could use cannons so effectively.
I figure that the reason that the Excelsior got two redesigns was that for most citizens of the Federation, and even other powers, it was the "Face" of the fleet. Sure, the Galaxy and Defiant got the hero treatment, but they were always few in number, and most who where not in the fleet would not see one in person, or more than once. Then there is the Excelsior, a ship that is everywhere, doing just about every type of mission. A ship that the average citizen would be likely to get to see up close, interact with. The ship that, if you asked a random civilian what ship they think of when they hear Starfleet, would be the answer more times than not. So they made the new versions to have the same shape, something that most citizens are already comfortable with.
It also served during the "Monster Maroon" era, which was the uniform most living characters in the galaxy would remember and recognize as *the* Starfleet uniform during the TNG era. The crisp red jackets were Starfleet's uniform of choice from _Wrath of Kahn_ until "Encounter at Farpoint," a span of something like 80 years! So, for most civilian characters, red jackets aboard an Excelsior is the image they would conjure up when they think "Starfleet."
Agreed. I can almost imagine a federation citizen saying "If there is a crisis.....a Starfleet vessel will turn up in less than 24 hours ......and that vessel will be an Excelsior class!"
@@irregularassassin6380 I’m pretty sure the season one flashbacks to the Stargazer indicate they’d switched to the early TNG uniforms for at least 12 years. Since the hologram Jack Crusher records is younger than when he died in the attack, so maybe that’s more or less exactly when they switched. Give or take a couple years.
@@kaitlyn__L Oh, hello again! It's been a little while since I've seen the Stargazer episode with the flashbacks, so I could be wrong. Either way, they lasted for a very long time. How have you been keeping, Kaitlyn?
I rank the Constitution Class as my favorite with the Refit as a close second followed by the Ambassador and then the Intrepid, the Excelsior has never been my favorite, just too far away from the Constitution class since I grew up with Star Trek TOS and loved that ship. A great video, thanks for it and keep them coming.
Several thoughts. I'll just split them into more than one comment. First: I really like the "Lost Era" capital ships (ok, the Excelsior doesn't exactly fit the "lost" criteria because it was in use at the very end of the TOS era and well into the TNG era) like the Excelsior and the Ambassador because they're really doing a good job at bridging the design gap between TOS and TNG. While the Excelsior has the general layout of the Constitution with its circular primary hull, a similar nacelle arrangement with the secondary hull protruding behind the warp pylons and a circular deflector, there are several changes which were pretty common in the TNG era, like the nacelles with a more stadium-like cross section as opposed to the Constitution's circular cross section, the pylons having the L shape of the later Galaxy and Ambassador classes (although it was much more pronounced in the latter two), the secondary hull being more integrated with the neck (similar to the Sovereign or Intrepid classes) rather than just being a stapled-on cylinder like for the Constitution and the deflector always glowing blue and being somewhat recessed into the secondary hull, again similar to the Sovereign. Also, TOS era Excelsiors tended to have impulse engines and warp nacelles which were not glowing, but in the TNG era they were glowing red and blue, respectively, just like the other ships. In comparison, the Ambassador feels very much like a step between the TOS and TNG. The primary hull is still circular like in the Excelsior, but everything else feels more Galaxy-y about it, with the darker TNG-style hull plating in use as opposed to TOS's almost white paint, clearly visible windows and decks and an overall larger size. The secondary hull starts with a circular cross-section like the Constitution and utilizing a Constitution- and Excelsior style circular deflector, it then becomes more flattened, just like the Galaxy's secondary hull. The warp nacelles were glowing in blue and the impulse engines and bussard collectors in red, just like the other ships of the TNG era. the warp nacelles had stadium cross sections, but unlike the Excelsior (and like the Galaxy), they were oriented horizontally rather than vertically. The right angle in the warp pylons became more pronounced and, while for the Excelsior, the secondary hull extended well beyond the pylons, the Ambassador only had a short "tail", whereas the Galaxy class's primary hull ended completely at the warp pylons.
Secondly, as transwarp is considered faster than warp, but warp 10 (not transwarp!) is also defined as infinite velocity in TNG, transwarp speeds (whatever that means) must also be on the TNG warp scale in the high warp 9.x-regime. Therefore, I propose that "transwarp" refers to technologies radically different from, and faster than, standard warp travel - for concrete on-screen examples, see the Quantum Slipstream drive and the Borg's transwarp network. As such, the Federation may just use the term "transwarp" to differentiate more advanced propulsion technologies from the standard technologies in common use throughout the Federation. (Admittedly VOY:Threshold somewhat contradicts this theory by calling warp 10 the transwarp threshold, and als calling it infinite velocity, but if we define warp 10 as transwarp, then the Voth's transwarp drive which was fast but not infinitely fast doesn't make any sense among other things, so let's just chalk this inconsistency up to badly used jargon in that episode and then collectively forget that that episode existed again) If we take this definition (transwarp := advanced propulsion method different from and faster than warp technology currently employed throughout starfleet) and apply it in the 23rd century, I think it makes a lot of sense to call the Excelsior's propulsion system transwarp. It clearly was a hugely innovative system which promised a revolution in faster than light travel (I think something like this was even said on screen) and, at least according to the Excelsior's captain, would have broken the old warp speed records if not for Scotty's sabotage. By my definition, it *was* a transwarp system, but it may have turned out to be so useful and economical that it ended up being adopted throughout the fleet, not only necessitating an overhaul of the warp scale, but also effecting a change in the common use of the term - as the Excelsior's transwarp technology became the norm, people started dropping the "trans" and just called it "warp". Another data point that might point in this direction is that the TOS Enterprise managed to reach warp speeds higher than 10 under exceptional circumstances but, as far as I remember, never under its own power. Maybe, just before the Excelsior's launch, the highest theoretically attainable velocities with standard warp engines were just shy of warp 10, and everything beyond warp 10 was simply called transwarp. This might also explain the use of the term "transwarp threshold" for warp 10 - maybe it was a common term for TOS scale Warp 10 among scientists and engineers in the mid-to-late-23rd century when the Federation was trying to crack that barrier, and Tom Paris picked it up and wrongly used it for TNG scale Warp 10 in the episode I just told you to forget.
The subsequent Obena and Excelsior II Classes are in a way like the F-22 Raptor to the F-15 Eagle. Although if you argued the Obena was more like the F/A-18 Super Hornet to the F-18 Hornet, I can see that. The F-15, in real life, and the Excelsior, in canon, are cases of "they got it right the first time." It is just easier to do what it did right and fix anything that could be done better. In all fairness, we should be seeing succeeding classes of ships, that look distractingly like the Excelsior, for centuries in Star Trek Canon and Lore. The ship just works.
From what I’ve seen from beta canon, the NX-2000 was much larger than the Constitution class because the NX-2000 had to hold a much larger warp core, TWO larger duotronic computer cores, and a transporter array directly tied into both the warp core and computer cores. Personally, I think the ship was over-designed because as soon as the transwarp tech was removed, she immediately set a new bar for federation ships. I also think there is an aspect of nostalgia for Excelsior ships. So many were constructed and served for so long, the crews and citizens of the federation and starfleet grew up with the class. I see it as a vote of confidence for the Excelsior class that admirals, captains, and veteran crews still wanted to serve on Excelsior even as newer ships entered service.
The Excelsior has always been my favorite. You forgot to point out that the NX and NCC versions of the Mark 1 Excelsior have minor exterior differences. They are minor, but cool to know about. Personally I prefer the NX variant myself. Also the concept art for the bridge of the NX variant in Search of Spock was gorgeous looking. It looked like something out of Tron or an anime. I really wish they had gone with that design, but from what I understand they ran out of time or budget :( but had they gone with the concept art it would have completely reinvented Federation bridge design. I would pay to have someone do a proper 3D rendering of that bridge...
I like Venom Geek Media's idea that the Excelsior's enterprise sub-class had reversed engineered Romulan cloaking devices in the add-ons next to the main nav. deflector. It also explains why we don't see that sub-class in TNG, its outlawed by the treaty of Algernon.
Since starship classes like the Excelsior class continued to be constructed for decades, I wondered what the interior of a TNG era Excelsior Class starship may have looked like. I imagine that the ship was constructed with technology at the time... things like an LCARS system as well as isolinear circuitry. I also wondered if the interior would also be laid out similar to the corridors and rooms seen on Galaxy Class starships, but in a smaller size to fit the interior space allotted.
I think a TNG Excelsior would have an interior similar to the Centaur class USS Resolute froms Star Trek Resurgence. Centaurs are Excelsior kitbashes, so would make sense that interiors would be similar. Hallways similar to a Galaxy or Intrepid. LCARS in the blue green color palette of the TMP era. Bridge is a hybrid between the Excelsior and the Galaxy.
Starfleet can thank Scotty for putting trans warp production on hold when he sabotaged the excelsior in ST3. Which prevented star fleet from exploring the gamma quadrant as well as the delta quadrant and meeting up with the dominion and the Borg before they were ready. A real miracle worker 10:45
Great video! Your ship analysis videos are often the perfect length for me to eat lunch while watching lol, thanks for being my lunchtime entertainment lately :-)
In my story ( In the early 25th C ).....the Excelsior class was about to be finally mothballed......and then the Great Shadow War breaks out!!!!!......Starfleet Directive....All Excelsior class ships due for retirement is to be put on hold. ;)
The Enterprise variant was armed with a federation cloaking device, which the federation had reverse engineered from Klingon and Romulan, devices, that were aquired in Kirk's time as a captain. It used the deflector dish to cloak. This is the reason for the larger secondary Hull on this variant. The Kitamer Accord caused the removal of this device. Greatly enjoy your podcast, keep up the great work ‼️
The Excelsior is a beautiful ship. Love how long she lasted. And yes, the Obena is basically an Excelsior III. lol It's design is clearly inspired from it.
I’m still kind of dubious about the Obena’s status as a class unto itself rather than a refit variant. Mostly because of that line, where Captain Freeman doesn’t want her ship “coming back looking all Sovereign-class” like certain people she knows. So I interpreted it as a heavily refit Excelsior (the nacelles were modular from Jeffries’ first sketches after all, and so were the saucers) in the whole episode. But then all of the production material which was released after the fact is like “no no, this is a totally brand new class”, so I dunno.
@@kaitlyn__L From what I could tell the Obena is quite a bit larger than a normal Excelsior or the Excelsior II. Looks like it has to be a new ship class. If it was like the difference between a TOS Connie and the Refit... which is like a measly 16 meters... eh... I'd say refit all the way.
@@terrywest111 which scenes are indicating its scale? I would note also that at the scaling of the Constitution and on the MSD, the Excelsior windows don’t line up with the decks, but if you scale it up it works. Scale has always been screwy in Trek. The Nebula class grew and shrank depending on the scene, as did the Defiant, and even in the first episode of DS9 the station is about twice as big as it “should” be (based on Ops etc) because otherwise the Galaxy class would only barely fit. Like, if there’s just massively more deck windows visible on the Obena I’d pretty much have to accept that. But if it’s based on the ratio of the nacelles to the engineering hull, or shots inside Spacedock, I’d be inclined to take those with a grain of salt if that makes sense.
@@kaitlyn__L It has three rows of decks on the saucer rim, which bumps her up (maybe) to the 600 to 690 metre scale. Mind you, the same could be said of the Excelsior, depending on how you count the window rows! A case has been made on Trekbbs forums for it being intended as 622 metres, initially. Including the smallish bridge dome. But that may also be due to varying deck heights. Anyway, see Ex Astris Scientia site for more on the Obena.
It's not big at all, it's secondary hull is more fiction than fact. Get rid of that long as hell board and move the pylons and warp nacelles up after getting rid of that wasted section and it would be about 25% smaller.
Until I got the Diamond Select model of the Enterprise B I didn’t like it either, but having a physical representation about the house really showed me how great a class she really was. Ambassador Class is still my favorite though
I am a believer in the 700m Excelsior. I know there are lots of arguments over the true size, but making it larger solves almost all of them. Great video.
People enjoy shitting on fords. But the 80-90s F series are the pinnacle of automotive engineering. Cant say much for the rest of the brand, especially nowadays. But for every dodge or chevy trucks with those model years, theres about 8-10 Fords still on the road
You nailed it. The Excelsior was also NOT my favorite design for a long time, gravitating to the Constitution and Miranda classes, but it has grown on me in the same way that it did on you.
I wish we could have seen more of the interior of this ship class. It seemed quite brightly lit and I imagine the captains quarters were fairly luxurious by Starfleet standards, up there with Galaxy-class captain quarters. In my own head-cannon, Excelsior-class vessels also had at least two or more very comfortable guest quarters for diplomacy and for ferrying around admirals, which is why so many admirals used them. I imagine there were major computer stations for admirals to continue their command work while on the move.
I wonder if the Excelsior's chunkiness could have helped, in-universe, with the class's longevity? The Constitution is a lot leaner, some might say more efficient in her use of space, but if new technologies require larger internal spaces, or larger power supplies, or have to be mounted alongside existing machinery, then you have a problem. The Excelsior, on the other hand, has that super thick neck and the rather bulbous secondary hull. There could be a lot of 'empty' space, areas set aside - deliberately or by happy chance - for expansion.
From what I’ve seen from beta canon, the NX-2000 was much larger than the Constitution class because the NX-2000 had to hold a much larger warp core, TWO larger duotronic computer cores, and a transporter array directly tied into both the warp core and computer cores. Personally, I think the ship was over-designed because as soon as the transwarp tech was removed, she immediately set a new bar for federation ships.
This might be controversial, but I prefer the Excelsior Class over the Constitution Class any day. I find it quite amazing that we see the Excelsior class quite a few times during the later DS9 series that focus's on the Dominion War and we rarely, if ever see an Ambassador Class, a class that was intended to supersede the Excelsior. On the point about weapon systems, I believe (maybe incorrectly) that Phaser strips were fitted to later vessels to replace the aging single and dual point emitters.
I built a lot of model kits in my youth- but one of my favorites that I built was an AMC _Star Trek VI_ Excelsior model. It still sits on a shelf in my old bedroom in my parent's house...
I was 6 yo in 1987 when I first saw the Excelsior class in ST:3 on VHS. In the space of a few years I was exposed to TOS, the first 5 Original Crew films and TNG. I've had the experience that all Star Trek ships were cool in their own ways. That was my unique experience such as is.
Okay, so.. Rick. I 100% agree. And what's even more astonishing the thing you only just touched on is that this class survived beyond the ambassador beyond its successor only excelsior and galaxies are serving during the Dominion War there are no ambassador classes anywhere so what the hell happened to those things? In any case more to the point, I 100% agree. The Excelsior class is one hell of a ship. You got your Oberths, you got Steamrunners and Yeagers.. but not much adds up to this classic muscle car from Starfleet.
The Excelsior class were a great workhorse for the federation. Only at the start of the first borg invasion did they show their age. But then had their last hurrah in the Dominion war were they held the line whilst new designs of starships were rushed into service. They have more than proved their worth to the Federation and why were love them.
The Excelsior entered service at the dawn of an era of peace. The Galaxy Class entered service just before that era of peace was shattered into a million pieces. That matters for class longevity.
Rick, I'm like you on my first thoughts regarding the Excelsior-class. When I first saw the Excelsior introduced in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, I was not really keen on the design, as it was so bulky looking, even though I do have to say that her profile has always been impressive. It took many years for me to warm up to the design, to which by then Star Trek: The Next Generation was in full swing, and I was hating on the Galaxy-class by that point. And just as with the Excelsior-class, I eventually warmed up to the Galaxy-class, which I have to say had more to do with how both vessels really were given their chances to shine by the time of the Dominion War.
I think of the Excelsior like the 72 gun 2 decker ship of the line from hundreds of years ago. Many larger and more powerful ships of the line were built later, but the 72 gun 2 decker remained the standard for many European empires for a long time. This was because it turned out the design was the optimal balance between firepower, cost, and crew required to operate. Smaller ships were often too weak to perform well in battle, and larger ships were too much of an investment for anything but a flag ship, and too valuable to risk being sunk or captured to field them in large numbers.
7:31 I could easily imagine Rick playing a role of a young Commodore/Rear Admiral at the time of NX-2000 in the board of Starship Development. Perhaps around age 40 at said time. Then spent the next 50 years, in the same post, rising in rank, eventually to Fleet Admiral and the head of the Starship Design and Development board, holding on to the Excelsior design, for dear life. Whenever Starfleet and UFP said "We need some more efficient to handle these tasks", where Rick would go "Bigger Engine! Make Fast! Go!". Years after retirement, one week before his passing, he saw the unveiling of the Sovereign class starship, it having been named after the king of Starship development, "The Sovereign" head of SDAD, Fleet Admiral Rick.
I call the Excelsior classes that took after the Enterprise B the "Flight 2" variant, as a keeping with Naval traditions. For example, the US Navy created the original Arleigh Burke class destroyers under the "Flight 1" variant, which basically means the original class. When they wanted to replace the aging boats, which were on Flight 2a at the time, with the newer Zumwalt class. These plans fell out when issues with the construction and the overall budget of Project Zumwalt ballooned out of proportion. As such, the Arleigh Burke class received more Flight 2a's and eventually a Flight 3 variant. We still have yet to learn what the new class of destroyer that will replace the Arleigh Burke's will be called or how it will look, but the Navy has confirmed that they will no longer be "trying to reinvent the wheel" as it were. That's the problem with some of these ships in SciFi and irl... the designers and organizations wanted to reinvent the wheel and ended up hitting a roadblock called Hubris.
Star Trek definitely needs an Enterprise B series, even if it's an animated show. It could be about the redemption of Captain Harriman or centered around his successor. There are so many stories that need to be told from that era.
I like to assume Scott took advantage of already existing problems with the NX Excelsior's transwarp drive, and that's what led Starfleet Command to shelve the project. Scotty also provided the fixes, not that it would allow them to achieve transwarp, but led to the rework of the Warp Scale.
So I was studying a behind the scenes photo of the the Ent-B MSD prop used on screen in Generations, and there are apparently Two shuttlebays directly in the undercut of the saucer impulse engines. If you study the model there's blue squares there, but they're missing the typical bay numbers more modern ships have. I couldn't believe it when I found them since I've never heard anyone talk about this. More confusingly, one of the MSD's I see referenced most of the time as recreated in reference books doesn't actually match the MSD they used on screen and is missing the extra shuttelbays. There was another one from another book I found that does match the screen MSD, but they're both so close in detail other then the shuttlebays, it seems they've been used interchangeably in reference books to the point that there's a 50/50 chance which MSD is found and referenced during research on new Trek books and materials. This makes doing any research on the Excelsior class quite a challenge! Because of this confusion I like to assume those bays are just modular and some Excelsior ships have them and some don't. The phantom Excelsior shuttlebays 3 and 4.
I'm glad to see a video on this class finally! love it. The position of the warp core in the diagram seems to put it straight through the navigational deflector?
I didn't like the original excelsior initially but it grew on me over the years. I do like the new excelsior 2 externals. We need to see more internal shots of both designs.
I like the Excelsior, but I still think the Ambassador got short shrift in the Dominion War on DS9. It would make more sense that there's a large fleet of Ambassadors and some Excelsiors available, like a 75/25 mix, rather than just having Excelsiors and Mirandas in mass quantities. I get that it was a matter of not being able to redo the model in CGI or whatever, but it still grinds my gears a bit.
The Ambassador was far better than the excelsior as it showed it lineage from older ships to the newer ones. The Excelsior needed it's secondary hull trimmed by 25% at least the pylons and warp nacelles needed moved up, the spikes on the ends needed shaved off, the secondary hull needed to be rounder, and the ribbings need to go. The saucer section was the only nice looking thing about the ship.
The Excelsior is the essential Star Trek ship to me. The Constitution was great and the original, yes. The Galaxy class was modern, but for me always looked a bit weird. The Excelsior is good looking and has a lot of history. I really like the ship.
Hey man, thanks' for making these videos. I've just got back into Star Trek and am watching every episode of every series. Just started playing the game too :)
I'm personally very much okay with them essentially 'reinventing' a ship class. Starfleet found a winning, versatile design in the Excelsior, so when that class reaches the point where it can't be improved anymore without basically building a whole new ship...why not just build a whole new ship based on the same design, but also taking into account previous limitations and improving upon them too? Minus points for creativity, perhaps, but big points gained on practicality.
Would too see a Star Trek Excelsior motion pic, or t.v series, with Sulu, at the helm, with George Takei & a reboot Sulu meeting each other, sort alike, when Nimoys Spok, meet the Kelvin timeline Spok
In service for the better part of a century Outlasted its proposed successor class Has two sequel classes constructed off the base design. The most surprising thing is it's not somehow still in service in discovery season three.
I love the Excelsior and was sorry to see that despite the number of space worthy space frames that Starfleet elected to retire the class instead of finding ways to continue to "push forward" and innovate even more advanced and more powerful technologies into the class. Sure the space and power required for a type 10 or type 12 array and regenerative shields prevent the class from benefiting from those technologies but who says there isn't another way to accomplish the same thing that wouldn't work with the stately old girls.
I am, to this day, convinced that Scotty may have saved the crew of the Excelsior. I like to think that Scotty's sabotage of the "Transwarp" drive prevented the Excelsior from ripping itself apart trying to catch the Enterprise
![Kodak Black - Versatile 4 [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VcP_1Ua__vY/mqdefault.jpg)
Helmsman: "She'll fly apart"
Sulu: "FLY HER APART THEN !!!"
one of my favorite Star Trek moments
The biggest, baddest ship in the Federation arrives at Khitomer to save the Enterprise and the peace conference
Chang: Sweet, a new punching bag!
@@Sephiroth144
Overrated ship you mean.
The only gain to infamy is the fact the Excelsior class did something not even the Klingons could do.
It killed Kirk.
The class as far as I m concerned is a curse and should have been completely scuttled.
@@valor1omega Except, Kirk didn't die on the Ent-B, he died falling off a bridge. And given that the Duras sisters were helping Soran, hell, the Klingons might get an assist for the kill.
And the Excelsior was the Big Dog of the Alpha Quadrant when it debuted- facts are facts, whether you like them or not.
Agreed. Great line.
@@Sephiroth144
No, the B is the reason Kirk was sent to the nexus and there for it is what got him killed.
So how did you say it?
"Facts are facts no matter how much you dislike it"
The only thing it got going for it is that it bit*h slapped the supposed pimp hand of Sisko and put it in it's place.
That's the only thing it's got going for it.
Outside of that it is well known for killing Kirk.
I always liked how in the TOS movies The Excelsior represents the future to the Enterprise crew, serving as a sign that while they still got it, time wars for no one even them. And I love at the end they came to like the Excelsior and what it represented
Time wars?
I think Scotty might have something to say about that "bucket of bolts" lol, but Enterprise was his baby so I understand! Love the Excelsior and her sibblings!
@@johnkinnicutt4509
Scotty was right though.
"The more advanced the drain the easier to stop it up"
Besides the Ambassador fixed all of it's glaring issues look wise among other things.
@@johnkinnicutt4509 Scotty's first and only love is the Enterprise. That said I suspect the line was said in mild teasing at best. Sulu is one of his friends and it honestly would surprise me if Scotty hadn't personally gone through the manifests and mantinance reports when he heard Sulu got the post along with recommendations forwarded to that ship's engineering staff.
And unlike Scotty in TNG's relics, this is a time and technology he is intimately familiar with and probably literallywrote the book on. So him popping in with recommendations might have been seen as stepping on toes, but his word would carry weight.
@@CursedGuard00 I think they meant to write "time waits for no one".
My take on why Excelsiors were always the ship of choice of Admirals during the TNG era was comparative to modern versus classic cars. It's like Starfleet wanted to give Captains the most modern tech/ships for their missions while in the few times Admirals left starbases they'd do it in style, travelling in a classic car/limo. It's about appearances when you're showing up for ambassadorial hosting duties.
What an interesting take. I hadn't considered that at all, but it's perfectly logical. Thank you for sharing that.
Remember. The USS Blue Ridge which is the flagship of the US Navy 7th Fleet is the _oldest_ commissioned vessel in regular service… and it resembles an old cargo ship.
Either that, or the VFX budget for TNG wasn't big enough to allow for many new ships, so they dug out the Excelsior, Reliant, or Grissom models whenever they needed a generic Starfleet ship of the week. 😀 It's too bad they never dug out the TOS or TMP Enterprise models for 'Cause and Effect' or 'The Battle' , probably because those models were apparently cumbersome to work with.
Or most likely the Admirals wanted to keep the ships that they had captained
By the TNG era the Excelsior was basically the work horse of Starfleet "hauling between starbases". In nautical terms this is the equivalent of a channel groper, an outwardly big powerful ship, but in reality old and slow. From naval experience the choice of Admirals for this type of ship is because they would always need to have a ship where they personally had ultimate authority, where they basically had a captain who is a yes man.
A lovely ship. When it appeared on screen it really looked like a big leap ahead in technology and ability. It looked potent and advanced even next to the connie refit
I like to imagine that the Transwarp project was actually a **success**, and that's why Warp Factors were recalculated between TOS and TNG.
Ooh, that's a good way to look at things
I've always considered it a success that led to two outcomes. First was, as you say, the recalibration of the Warp scale. The other was that starships no longer needed to "climb" through lower warp factors to reach the desired goal, they could instead "jump" there.
I think Starfleet transwarp was different than Borg transwarp. It's unfortunate the writers reused the term. I've heard that Starfleet transwarp was more about going directly to higher warp factors without having to build up or nest warp fields by passing through each factor. This is actually seen in canon quite often. In TOS you can hear (and sometimes its even spoken) that the ship going to warp 1 then climbs up through the factors. In TNG they can go straight to high warp and only then have to start nesting fields, usually after warp 8 (new scale).
The idea that it was largely a failure always made sense to me. Sure a few advances may have led to the new scale, but ships didn't really get that much faster. From 2285 to 2365, starship speeds only increased by a factor of 2 or 3. There were greater advances than that in the single decade that followed contact with the Borg.
The idea that it meant you jump straight to certain warp factors never made much sense either. Sure you don't hear them talking about climbing the factors much in TNG era and on, but the way acceleration works, those call outs never made much sense in early trek. Warp 8 was five hundred times faster than warp 1. If you could reach warp 8 in a couple minutes, warp 1 should have taken a fraction of a second. This is where TNG era call outs have always made more sense, starting at higher warp factors and climbing from there. Reaching warp 8 might only take a minute or less, but doubling up to warp 9.6 could take a lot longer.
That's how I've always seen it. Calling it transwarp was a misnomer for security purposes
I like to imagine when the Excelsior is finally phased out after the better part of a century, the last crew to disembark from the last ship of the line flies home on a B-52.
Or a C-130
It's incredible how the Excelsior was barely shown in III and VI and then used as a glorified Admiral shuttle in TNG and as a ship of the line in DS9 while *never* being in the spotlight and yet it's everyone's favourite Starfleet hull. I love Excelsior and it's absolutely my fav Trek ship. I love what the ship represents and the TOS movies timeline is my favourite Trek period. Hats off to the designers who managed to create an icon who managed to beat in popularity even various Enterprise ships.
Agreed
Also, I like your profile pic
It's one of the ugliest and worse designed ships to be made.
The hull is like the galaxy class's saucer section, way to large.
I've personally always like the Miranda. To me it seems like a more practical and realistic design and looks great from any angle.
The Excelsior always appealed to me. It even looks like it's moving at trans warp speeds while sitting still.
Or was it standing still while moving an T/W 😏
@@EZ-D-FIANT The noise of the engine sounding like a kaput car when it failed, always made me laugh. 🤣
I wish we got to see that transwarp working, or the reason for the new warp scale, though!
@@Naptosis yea that's a perfect example of something else that always get me gripes and that is sound in space, stations go boom, engines go plurpewdodododoooo even warp makes sound, its a sci fi show ffs, if they made the sounds while being in that bridge only it'd be amazing but they always do an exterior shot with the same sound grrrr,I gotta stop before my brain vein starts throbbing.....🤣
@@Naptosis as for seeing transwarp just imagine warp in a badly fitting dress, going prrrrrp 😛 🤣
Also one of my top picks. I always appreciated how the Excelsior looked sleek and powerful, but not aggressive. A perfect silhouette for a Federation "Ship of the Line"
The excelsior class is hands down my favorite class of ship from trek. It's bulky, but sleek. It looks fast, packs a massive punch, and keeps on trucking. I got a kit of both the excelsior and enterprise b in my backlog of model kits to build. The lines just attract me, kinda like how I prefer the look of a p51b over a d. Just looks like great ride.
It's got too much cut from the secondary hull.
The back section of the secondary hull looks so thin that it would make a very thin supermodel say it needs to eat something.
The second hull needs to be shortened by 25% if not more and or filled out a bit.
Also don't like how the pylons are places as it looks like some lazy designer stuck them there and went "good enough".
And it is by far anything but sleek.
There is nothing sleek about it.
@@valor1omega My brother in christ, let this person enjoy their favorite starship
They were saying things they like about it, so no need to be rude
@@Tigershark_3082
Nothing I said was rude.
@@valor1omega its kinda a 50s car thing, some folks are like "man that's what cars should look like" and others are "its a brick with fins..." It looks thin from the sides, and the pylons could have come off the main hull, but it looks like a leftover from the transwarp project. The whole module pylons and all could be swapped easier if it was add on part (its gonna be easy to point under it on my kit because of this ;3)
@@minasegazi4000
Still too long and flimsy.
The ambassador got the secondary hull and pylons right.
When you have a ship design in use for 100yrs+ you know it's a good one
Edit:
Didn't want to flood your post so I merged the two.
Or Star fleet got lazy and seen a below average design and goes "ehhh good enough people, let's mass produced this garbage barge and call it a day."
Almost forgot need I remind you that the oberth is older than that ship design and it too is mass produced as well.
Just because it's been mass produced for 100+ years makes not a good design.
@@valor1omega the oberth was mostly the sign of their hubris since its role was communication and pure science thankfully the nova takes its role now
That and they could use the already creating filming model and not create a new one in TNG.
@@pitiedvod Lol very true, the real reason we saw it over 100+ years in the series was that the model was conveniently laying around. Though I rather like @Valor1 Omega 's rationale that lore reason this ship was around so long could be was it simply easier to produce so it kept getting spit out by the shipyards lol
@@SuperGamefreak18
To be honest I always liked the oberth.
There was a reason behind it all and nothing felt out of place or like it was built to look good.
The other ship was just bad.
The Excelsior will always be my favorite design from original Trek.
Mine is the Miranda class
mine as well
Especially with a Sulu
@@Tigershark_3082
A person with extremely great taste.
@@valor1omega I just like how the Nacelles look underslung
Originally I hated the Excelsior class. But now it has become my favorite Starfleet class, and adore the Excelsior 2 class.
*A retcon;* What if the "Transwarp" improvements were basically the same as Khan made in the *Kelvin timeline* with the Dreadnaught class?
The Vengeance was on a completely new level with its warp drive abilities - able to catch up to the Enterprise in warp _and attack it while at warp._
The crew of the Enterprise didn't even consider that a possibility, they thought they were safe once at warp and were shocked at the Vengeance's ability to fire on them in warp.
And the timeframe sort of matches up, in the Kelvin timeline Starfleet was more advanced due to contamination from the future and just the impetus of the big shock of the destruction of Vulcan (like how Wolf 359 kicked Starfleet's R&D into high gear). So it makes sense that a technological innovation that took 40 years longer in the Prime timeline was accomplished sooner by a Augment working with Section 31 - and who had access to the future Spock's/Scotty Transwarp beaming calculations.
So if Scotty hadn't sabotaged the Excelsior prototype, it would have then caught up to the Enterprise in its warp 'corridor' and been able to take potshots (or use a tractor beam) to knock it out of warp, perhaps with a bit less collateral damage?
I came to the conclusion that the Kelvin timeline Starfleet is using Borg Transwarp that the USS Kelvin scanned from the Narada's engines. Warp drive in the Kelvin timeline is VASTLY faster than the prime timeline. Scotty said the Enterprise could get Spock to Vulcan in a few days in The Motion Picture, in ST09 they made it in a matter of minutes. Part of that is JJ's predilection for completely ignoring travel time, see Hyperspace skipping in Rise of Skywalker, he typically treats FTL like teleporting. But warp drive in the Kelvin Timeline looks and functions like transwarp. In the TNG era through Enterprise if you lost warp drive while at warp speed, you just gently returned to normal speed, or you would just pop back out to sublight. In the Kelvin timeline you're thrown out of a tunnel of FTL. Like a Borg Transwarp Conduit.
Starfleet Warp speeds in the prime timeline is accomplished via asymmetrical warp bubbles not corridors, Borg Transwarp and Quantum Slipstream Drives create tunnels.
I really want to see what the rest of Starfleet would do with the technology from the wreck of the USS Vengeance. She was just kinda there in San Francisco, and had to be broken up and hauled off, so while the Enterprise was repaired I can imagine much of the Dreadnought-class was declassified. Seeing the Dreadnought would be interesting too, since there presumably was one.
@@3Rayfire "Part of that is JJ's predilection for completely ignoring travel time"
Don't forget also that JJ seems to think that Earth's gravity is so strong that it could pull both ships out of orbit of the moon and send them crashing down to Earth. And that the Enterprise was somehow able to not only survive an uncontrolled reentry into the atmosphere which should have turned both ships into a molten mass, but it was also able to stop its decent with nothing but some aux thrusters, totally negating the speed at which they were falling.
But who am I kidding? This was the same director that said a beer brewery would make a perfect engine room (which got retconnned in the second movie, btw).
@@cujoedaman So basically don't take anything from JJ's movies as feats of canon, other Starfleet ships can replicate. I also don't like how new Trek seems to be bringing old ships in just so we can see them get thrashed, or replaced like the _Titan-A_ for the original _Titan_ .
I've basically chosen to ignore post- _Enterprise_ Trek outside of _STO_ . I love what Cryptic Studios decided to do with Sela and the Romulan Republic, and the overarching story with the Iconians was pretty good. I just wish they'd rebuild the game with a new engine. Similar to how SEGA did with _PSO2_ . New stories ain't hitting the same anyway.
@@BNuts Yep. It is nice that that fusion reactor ended up making history.
I kind of like the fan theory Venom Geek Media posited when doing a video on the Tomed Incident which led to the Treaty of Algeron; that is the "Enterprise" variant of the Excelsior class had those bulges to equip Federation Cloaking Devices so they could act like modern Ballistic Nuclear Missile submarines. Hence the small numbers and after the Treaty was signed they were removed and equipped for extra sensors.
I like that theory. It makes a lot of sense
I don't think the major Alpha/Beta Quadrant powers have anything that would qualify as a strategic weapon for a space boomer to carry, unless I missed something and Starfleet genuinely intended to weaponize the Genesis Device, or the Romulans were mad enough to weaponize Omega, etc?
"Starfleet Intelligence operatives... hijacked the [Romulan starship] Tomed, ramming it into [an abandoned] asteroid base [with the singularity core at warp power, causing a violent spatial distortion that would have killed thousands throughout the sector]" - Memory Beta
Oh... Still.
@@fluffly3606 I believe the idea, as posited by VGM was those Enterprise variant Excelsiors equipped with Feddie reverse engineered cloaks while carrying Tri-Cobalt devices, the Big Ones before the creation of Quantum Torpedoes.
As for the actual incident, he played it as remnants of the war hawks from "Undiscovered Country" trying to provoke the Romulans so as to keep the Starfleet from going soft by the actions of the Council.
I like that you mentioned connecting the Excelsior transwarp tests to the change in the warp scale. I have always thought that in my head cannon as well.
Maybe it failed to really achieve transwarp, but the technology used to attempt it helped propel standard warp faster than starfleet originally thought possible.
Scotty calls it a Transwarp Computer Drive, which to me implies that the computer aboard the Excelsior was capable of doing something while the ship was at warp which allowed the ship to travel faster than previous generations of warp drive. This is hinted at by virtue of the fact that the computer systems on the Excelsior are more advanced and "interactive" than those on the refit Enterprise (Scotty getting annoyed at the talking turbolift for example).
My own headcanon is that the computer was able to make fine adjustments to the warp field while the ship was at warp. We see in ENT for example that the field can be adjusted on the fly but it's extremely difficult and required a skilled pilot to do so. Perhaps Starfleet developed a new computer system that could make finer/faster adjustments to the field allowing the ship to reach higher warp velocities or to accelerate to those velocities faster than a helmsman could?
The ship I loved most was Ambassador class. That we never got a series with it always disappointed me! Why not a series for Enterprise B & C?
I never liked the excelsior but it grew on me over time and became one of my favorites
Same here.
Compared to the Enterprise refit she sucks but I like the Enterprise B modifications in the secundary hull.
I never liked the Excelsior either.
This one always vies with the original Sovereign (which took so many design points from it) for the number 1 spot on my all times favorite starship list.
Love the design, but the refit Enterprise is still my fav!
The Excelsior is my favorite Starfleet design of the TOS era. I just love that art-deco style. It feels sleek yet bulky. I also like the idea that Starfleet would make the investment of a big spaceframe last for decades by continually upgrading the tech. One thing that always looked awkward to me though, is the little pod (shuttlebay?) sitting on its tail.
One of the most venerable and respected of all Starfleet classes. Note worthiness of its reputation as a reliable and well designed vessel comes from the fact that the illustrious line of ships named Enterprise, also was bestowed on an Excelsior-Class ship, the Enterprise-B.
In STO, the Excelsior was my ship of choice, for many years, before more advanced ships came around.
Star Trek VI & STO really cemented my love for the ship class. It looked and performed great in both. In STO I especially loved having a cruiser class ship that could use cannons so effectively.
I figure that the reason that the Excelsior got two redesigns was that for most citizens of the Federation, and even other powers, it was the "Face" of the fleet. Sure, the Galaxy and Defiant got the hero treatment, but they were always few in number, and most who where not in the fleet would not see one in person, or more than once. Then there is the Excelsior, a ship that is everywhere, doing just about every type of mission. A ship that the average citizen would be likely to get to see up close, interact with. The ship that, if you asked a random civilian what ship they think of when they hear Starfleet, would be the answer more times than not. So they made the new versions to have the same shape, something that most citizens are already comfortable with.
It also served during the "Monster Maroon" era, which was the uniform most living characters in the galaxy would remember and recognize as *the* Starfleet uniform during the TNG era. The crisp red jackets were Starfleet's uniform of choice from _Wrath of Kahn_ until "Encounter at Farpoint," a span of something like 80 years!
So, for most civilian characters, red jackets aboard an Excelsior is the image they would conjure up when they think "Starfleet."
Agreed. I can almost imagine a federation citizen saying "If there is a crisis.....a Starfleet vessel will turn up in less than 24 hours ......and that vessel will be an Excelsior class!"
@@irregularassassin6380 I’m pretty sure the season one flashbacks to the Stargazer indicate they’d switched to the early TNG uniforms for at least 12 years. Since the hologram Jack Crusher records is younger than when he died in the attack, so maybe that’s more or less exactly when they switched. Give or take a couple years.
@@kaitlyn__L Oh, hello again! It's been a little while since I've seen the Stargazer episode with the flashbacks, so I could be wrong. Either way, they lasted for a very long time.
How have you been keeping, Kaitlyn?
I rank the Constitution Class as my favorite with the Refit as a close second followed by the Ambassador and then the Intrepid, the Excelsior has never been my favorite, just too far away from the Constitution class since I grew up with Star Trek TOS and loved that ship. A great video, thanks for it and keep them coming.
100 % one of my top 3 ship design in all of trek and one of my top 3 ships that had the name enterprise
Several thoughts. I'll just split them into more than one comment.
First: I really like the "Lost Era" capital ships (ok, the Excelsior doesn't exactly fit the "lost" criteria because it was in use at the very end of the TOS era and well into the TNG era) like the Excelsior and the Ambassador because they're really doing a good job at bridging the design gap between TOS and TNG.
While the Excelsior has the general layout of the Constitution with its circular primary hull, a similar nacelle arrangement with the secondary hull protruding behind the warp pylons and a circular deflector, there are several changes which were pretty common in the TNG era, like the nacelles with a more stadium-like cross section as opposed to the Constitution's circular cross section, the pylons having the L shape of the later Galaxy and Ambassador classes (although it was much more pronounced in the latter two), the secondary hull being more integrated with the neck (similar to the Sovereign or Intrepid classes) rather than just being a stapled-on cylinder like for the Constitution and the deflector always glowing blue and being somewhat recessed into the secondary hull, again similar to the Sovereign. Also, TOS era Excelsiors tended to have impulse engines and warp nacelles which were not glowing, but in the TNG era they were glowing red and blue, respectively, just like the other ships.
In comparison, the Ambassador feels very much like a step between the TOS and TNG. The primary hull is still circular like in the Excelsior, but everything else feels more Galaxy-y about it, with the darker TNG-style hull plating in use as opposed to TOS's almost white paint, clearly visible windows and decks and an overall larger size. The secondary hull starts with a circular cross-section like the Constitution and utilizing a Constitution- and Excelsior style circular deflector, it then becomes more flattened, just like the Galaxy's secondary hull. The warp nacelles were glowing in blue and the impulse engines and bussard collectors in red, just like the other ships of the TNG era. the warp nacelles had stadium cross sections, but unlike the Excelsior (and like the Galaxy), they were oriented horizontally rather than vertically. The right angle in the warp pylons became more pronounced and, while for the Excelsior, the secondary hull extended well beyond the pylons, the Ambassador only had a short "tail", whereas the Galaxy class's primary hull ended completely at the warp pylons.
Secondly, as transwarp is considered faster than warp, but warp 10 (not transwarp!) is also defined as infinite velocity in TNG, transwarp speeds (whatever that means) must also be on the TNG warp scale in the high warp 9.x-regime. Therefore, I propose that "transwarp" refers to technologies radically different from, and faster than, standard warp travel - for concrete on-screen examples, see the Quantum Slipstream drive and the Borg's transwarp network. As such, the Federation may just use the term "transwarp" to differentiate more advanced propulsion technologies from the standard technologies in common use throughout the Federation.
(Admittedly VOY:Threshold somewhat contradicts this theory by calling warp 10 the transwarp threshold, and als calling it infinite velocity, but if we define warp 10 as transwarp, then the Voth's transwarp drive which was fast but not infinitely fast doesn't make any sense among other things, so let's just chalk this inconsistency up to badly used jargon in that episode and then collectively forget that that episode existed again)
If we take this definition (transwarp := advanced propulsion method different from and faster than warp technology currently employed throughout starfleet) and apply it in the 23rd century, I think it makes a lot of sense to call the Excelsior's propulsion system transwarp. It clearly was a hugely innovative system which promised a revolution in faster than light travel (I think something like this was even said on screen) and, at least according to the Excelsior's captain, would have broken the old warp speed records if not for Scotty's sabotage. By my definition, it *was* a transwarp system, but it may have turned out to be so useful and economical that it ended up being adopted throughout the fleet, not only necessitating an overhaul of the warp scale, but also effecting a change in the common use of the term - as the Excelsior's transwarp technology became the norm, people started dropping the "trans" and just called it "warp".
Another data point that might point in this direction is that the TOS Enterprise managed to reach warp speeds higher than 10 under exceptional circumstances but, as far as I remember, never under its own power. Maybe, just before the Excelsior's launch, the highest theoretically attainable velocities with standard warp engines were just shy of warp 10, and everything beyond warp 10 was simply called transwarp. This might also explain the use of the term "transwarp threshold" for warp 10 - maybe it was a common term for TOS scale Warp 10 among scientists and engineers in the mid-to-late-23rd century when the Federation was trying to crack that barrier, and Tom Paris picked it up and wrongly used it for TNG scale Warp 10 in the episode I just told you to forget.
The distilled essence of Starfleet ship design ❤️
I love this class. It looks like a big fifties Cadillac but done up in art deco detailing.
I like to think the Transwarp experiment was Starfleet trying to reverse engineer the Kelvan modifications to the Enterprise engine.
The subsequent Obena and Excelsior II Classes are in a way like the F-22 Raptor to the F-15 Eagle. Although if you argued the Obena was more like the F/A-18 Super Hornet to the F-18 Hornet, I can see that. The F-15, in real life, and the Excelsior, in canon, are cases of "they got it right the first time." It is just easier to do what it did right and fix anything that could be done better.
In all fairness, we should be seeing succeeding classes of ships, that look distractingly like the Excelsior, for centuries in Star Trek Canon and Lore. The ship just works.
From what I’ve seen from beta canon, the NX-2000 was much larger than the Constitution class because the NX-2000 had to hold a much larger warp core, TWO larger duotronic computer cores, and a transporter array directly tied into both the warp core and computer cores.
Personally, I think the ship was over-designed because as soon as the transwarp tech was removed, she immediately set a new bar for federation ships.
I also think there is an aspect of nostalgia for Excelsior ships. So many were constructed and served for so long, the crews and citizens of the federation and starfleet grew up with the class.
I see it as a vote of confidence for the Excelsior class that admirals, captains, and veteran crews still wanted to serve on Excelsior even as newer ships entered service.
The Excelsior has always been my favorite. You forgot to point out that the NX and NCC versions of the Mark 1 Excelsior have minor exterior differences. They are minor, but cool to know about. Personally I prefer the NX variant myself. Also the concept art for the bridge of the NX variant in Search of Spock was gorgeous looking. It looked like something out of Tron or an anime. I really wish they had gone with that design, but from what I understand they ran out of time or budget :( but had they gone with the concept art it would have completely reinvented Federation bridge design. I would pay to have someone do a proper 3D rendering of that bridge...
Same here. Didnt like it at first but has grown on me over the years and now is among my top federation ships.
I like Venom Geek Media's idea that the Excelsior's enterprise sub-class had reversed engineered Romulan cloaking devices in the add-ons next to the main nav. deflector. It also explains why we don't see that sub-class in TNG, its outlawed by the treaty of Algernon.
_"The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."_
- Montgomery "Scotty" Scott. (Star Trek III)
That What my Doctor said
I love the Excelsior class! It's my favorite too.
Since starship classes like the Excelsior class continued to be constructed for decades, I wondered what the interior of a TNG era Excelsior Class starship may have looked like. I imagine that the ship was constructed with technology at the time... things like an LCARS system as well as isolinear circuitry. I also wondered if the interior would also be laid out similar to the corridors and rooms seen on Galaxy Class starships, but in a smaller size to fit the interior space allotted.
I think a TNG Excelsior would have an interior similar to the Centaur class USS Resolute froms Star Trek Resurgence. Centaurs are Excelsior kitbashes, so would make sense that interiors would be similar. Hallways similar to a Galaxy or Intrepid. LCARS in the blue green color palette of the TMP era. Bridge is a hybrid between the Excelsior and the Galaxy.
Starfleet can thank Scotty for putting trans warp production on hold when he sabotaged the excelsior in ST3. Which prevented star fleet from exploring the gamma quadrant as well as the delta quadrant and meeting up with the dominion and the Borg before they were ready. A real miracle worker 10:45
Was a short sighted thing to do given what we now know
I gave this a thumbs up before I was 5 seconds in. I love the Excelsior class.
Great video! Your ship analysis videos are often the perfect length for me to eat lunch while watching lol, thanks for being my lunchtime entertainment lately :-)
Honest. The Excelsior is my favorite ship. It’s so sleek, beautiful, and yet massive as well.
The Excelsior is the B-52 of Starfleet ships. It just keeps getting updated for a century.
In my story ( In the early 25th C ).....the Excelsior class was about to be finally mothballed......and then the Great Shadow War breaks out!!!!!......Starfleet Directive....All Excelsior class ships due for retirement is to be put on hold. ;)
The Enterprise variant was armed with a federation cloaking device, which the federation had reverse engineered from Klingon and Romulan, devices, that were aquired in Kirk's time as a captain. It used the deflector dish to cloak. This is the reason for the larger secondary Hull on this variant. The Kitamer Accord caused the removal of this device.
Greatly enjoy your podcast, keep up the great work ‼️
The Excelsior is a beautiful ship. Love how long she lasted. And yes, the Obena is basically an Excelsior III. lol It's design is clearly inspired from it.
I’m still kind of dubious about the Obena’s status as a class unto itself rather than a refit variant. Mostly because of that line, where Captain Freeman doesn’t want her ship “coming back looking all Sovereign-class” like certain people she knows. So I interpreted it as a heavily refit Excelsior (the nacelles were modular from Jeffries’ first sketches after all, and so were the saucers) in the whole episode. But then all of the production material which was released after the fact is like “no no, this is a totally brand new class”, so I dunno.
@@kaitlyn__L From what I could tell the Obena is quite a bit larger than a normal Excelsior or the Excelsior II. Looks like it has to be a new ship class. If it was like the difference between a TOS Connie and the Refit... which is like a measly 16 meters... eh... I'd say refit all the way.
@@terrywest111 which scenes are indicating its scale? I would note also that at the scaling of the Constitution and on the MSD, the Excelsior windows don’t line up with the decks, but if you scale it up it works.
Scale has always been screwy in Trek. The Nebula class grew and shrank depending on the scene, as did the Defiant, and even in the first episode of DS9 the station is about twice as big as it “should” be (based on Ops etc) because otherwise the Galaxy class would only barely fit.
Like, if there’s just massively more deck windows visible on the Obena I’d pretty much have to accept that. But if it’s based on the ratio of the nacelles to the engineering hull, or shots inside Spacedock, I’d be inclined to take those with a grain of salt if that makes sense.
@@kaitlyn__L It has three rows of decks on the saucer rim, which bumps her up (maybe) to the 600 to 690 metre scale.
Mind you, the same could be said of the Excelsior, depending on how you count the window rows! A case has been made on Trekbbs forums for it being intended as 622 metres, initially. Including the smallish bridge dome.
But that may also be due to varying deck heights.
Anyway, see Ex Astris Scientia site for more on the Obena.
Great looking ship. Love how much the styling is inspired by the old flying boats of the 30's and 40's.
My God, that's a big ship!
Loved her from the first moment I laid eyes on her, and still my favorite ship in the entire series.
Not as big as her Captain.
It's not big at all, it's secondary hull is more fiction than fact.
Get rid of that long as hell board and move the pylons and warp nacelles up after getting rid of that wasted section and it would be about 25% smaller.
I love my Eaglemoss Excelsior models. Always a favorite with me. Sovereign class being close behind.
Until I got the Diamond Select model of the Enterprise B I didn’t like it either, but having a physical representation about the house really showed me how great a class she really was. Ambassador Class is still my favorite though
The Excelsior Class is my most lovly ST Ship Ever!
I am a believer in the 700m Excelsior. I know there are lots of arguments over the true size, but making it larger solves almost all of them. Great video.
It would make no sense. The secundary hull "border" should have at least 4 decks. As far as I know, there are only 2, as the Constitution class.
Not even the 'D' or the 'E' was that length.
These ship history videos have been great.
Like a good ol’ F-150, the Excelsior just keeps on truckin’!
It reminds me a bit of the F-16 in a way
People enjoy shitting on fords. But the 80-90s F series are the pinnacle of automotive engineering. Cant say much for the rest of the brand, especially nowadays. But for every dodge or chevy trucks with those model years, theres about 8-10 Fords still on the road
You nailed it. The Excelsior was also NOT my favorite design for a long time, gravitating to the Constitution and Miranda classes, but it has grown on me in the same way that it did on you.
The Excelsior class will always have a special place in my heart
I wish we could have seen more of the interior of this ship class. It seemed quite brightly lit and I imagine the captains quarters were fairly luxurious by Starfleet standards, up there with Galaxy-class captain quarters. In my own head-cannon, Excelsior-class vessels also had at least two or more very comfortable guest quarters for diplomacy and for ferrying around admirals, which is why so many admirals used them. I imagine there were major computer stations for admirals to continue their command work while on the move.
Great treatment video of the class. I'd say my favorite also. Somehow managed to look sleek and grandiose at the same time. Love it
I wonder if the Excelsior's chunkiness could have helped, in-universe, with the class's longevity? The Constitution is a lot leaner, some might say more efficient in her use of space, but if new technologies require larger internal spaces, or larger power supplies, or have to be mounted alongside existing machinery, then you have a problem. The Excelsior, on the other hand, has that super thick neck and the rather bulbous secondary hull. There could be a lot of 'empty' space, areas set aside - deliberately or by happy chance - for expansion.
From what I’ve seen from beta canon, the NX-2000 was much larger than the Constitution class because the NX-2000 had to hold a much larger warp core, TWO larger duotronic computer cores, and a transporter array directly tied into both the warp core and computer cores.
Personally, I think the ship was over-designed because as soon as the transwarp tech was removed, she immediately set a new bar for federation ships.
This might be controversial, but I prefer the Excelsior Class over the Constitution Class any day. I find it quite amazing that we see the Excelsior class quite a few times during the later DS9 series that focus's on the Dominion War and we rarely, if ever see an Ambassador Class, a class that was intended to supersede the Excelsior. On the point about weapon systems, I believe (maybe incorrectly) that Phaser strips were fitted to later vessels to replace the aging single and dual point emitters.
Excelsior class is one of My favorites as well. As well as the Sovereign class. Like the Defiant as well. A tough “little” ship. Thanks for the video.
Great video! I enjoyed hearing such a detailed examination of such a notable ship!
I built a lot of model kits in my youth- but one of my favorites that I built was an AMC _Star Trek VI_ Excelsior model. It still sits on a shelf in my old bedroom in my parent's house...
I was 6 yo in 1987 when I first saw the Excelsior class in ST:3 on VHS. In the space of a few years I was exposed to TOS, the first 5 Original Crew films and TNG. I've had the experience that all Star Trek ships were cool in their own ways. That was my unique experience such as is.
Okay, so..
Rick. I 100% agree. And what's even more astonishing the thing you only just touched on is that this class survived beyond the ambassador beyond its successor only excelsior and galaxies are serving during the Dominion War there are no ambassador classes anywhere so what the hell happened to those things? In any case more to the point, I 100% agree. The Excelsior class is one hell of a ship. You got your Oberths, you got Steamrunners and Yeagers.. but not much adds up to this classic muscle car from Starfleet.
The Excelsior class were a great workhorse for the federation. Only at the start of the first borg invasion did they show their age. But then had their last hurrah in the Dominion war were they held the line whilst new designs of starships were rushed into service. They have more than proved their worth to the Federation and why were love them.
"It's growing on me" sounds like The Excelsior is contagious
The Excelsior entered service at the dawn of an era of peace. The Galaxy Class entered service just before that era of peace was shattered into a million pieces. That matters for class longevity.
Rick, I'm like you on my first thoughts regarding the Excelsior-class. When I first saw the Excelsior introduced in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, I was not really keen on the design, as it was so bulky looking, even though I do have to say that her profile has always been impressive. It took many years for me to warm up to the design, to which by then Star Trek: The Next Generation was in full swing, and I was hating on the Galaxy-class by that point. And just as with the Excelsior-class, I eventually warmed up to the Galaxy-class, which I have to say had more to do with how both vessels really were given their chances to shine by the time of the Dominion War.
Excelsior-class are just beautiful birds. Love watching 'em fly.
Excelsior will always be in my top 5 for Fed ships, such a good design
I think of the Excelsior like the 72 gun 2 decker ship of the line from hundreds of years ago. Many larger and more powerful ships of the line were built later, but the 72 gun 2 decker remained the standard for many European empires for a long time.
This was because it turned out the design was the optimal balance between firepower, cost, and crew required to operate.
Smaller ships were often too weak to perform well in battle, and larger ships were too much of an investment for anything but a flag ship, and too valuable to risk being sunk or captured to field them in large numbers.
7:31
I could easily imagine Rick playing a role of a young Commodore/Rear Admiral at the time of NX-2000 in the board of Starship Development. Perhaps around age 40 at said time.
Then spent the next 50 years, in the same post, rising in rank, eventually to Fleet Admiral and the head of the Starship Design and Development board, holding on to the Excelsior design, for dear life.
Whenever Starfleet and UFP said "We need some more efficient to handle these tasks", where Rick would go "Bigger Engine! Make Fast! Go!".
Years after retirement, one week before his passing, he saw the unveiling of the Sovereign class starship, it having been named after the king of Starship development, "The Sovereign" head of SDAD, Fleet Admiral Rick.
I call the Excelsior classes that took after the Enterprise B the "Flight 2" variant, as a keeping with Naval traditions.
For example, the US Navy created the original Arleigh Burke class destroyers under the "Flight 1" variant, which basically means the original class. When they wanted to replace the aging boats, which were on Flight 2a at the time, with the newer Zumwalt class. These plans fell out when issues with the construction and the overall budget of Project Zumwalt ballooned out of proportion. As such, the Arleigh Burke class received more Flight 2a's and eventually a Flight 3 variant. We still have yet to learn what the new class of destroyer that will replace the Arleigh Burke's will be called or how it will look, but the Navy has confirmed that they will no longer be "trying to reinvent the wheel" as it were.
That's the problem with some of these ships in SciFi and irl... the designers and organizations wanted to reinvent the wheel and ended up hitting a roadblock called Hubris.
Star Trek definitely needs an Enterprise B series, even if it's an animated show. It could be about the redemption of Captain Harriman or centered around his successor. There are so many stories that need to be told from that era.
The "B-52" of Star Fleet.
I've always loved this ship!
"Bigger engine make fast go!" Love it!
I like to assume Scott took advantage of already existing problems with the NX Excelsior's transwarp drive, and that's what led Starfleet Command to shelve the project.
Scotty also provided the fixes, not that it would allow them to achieve transwarp, but led to the rework of the Warp Scale.
🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well informatively executed and explained on the Excelsior class starship's indeed👌...
Surprised that with your love for the Excelsior Class that you haven't put Mark Hale in command of one for the Star Trek Online Series
I've actually been waiting on you do to this to get the full rundown on why you love the ship i loathe the most =)
Yeah, the Excelsior is my favourite ship design in all of Trek, like the idea of a class soldiering on and on which parallels some real life craft.
So I was studying a behind the scenes photo of the the Ent-B MSD prop used on screen in Generations, and there are apparently Two shuttlebays directly in the undercut of the saucer impulse engines. If you study the model there's blue squares there, but they're missing the typical bay numbers more modern ships have. I couldn't believe it when I found them since I've never heard anyone talk about this. More confusingly, one of the MSD's I see referenced most of the time as recreated in reference books doesn't actually match the MSD they used on screen and is missing the extra shuttelbays. There was another one from another book I found that does match the screen MSD, but they're both so close in detail other then the shuttlebays, it seems they've been used interchangeably in reference books to the point that there's a 50/50 chance which MSD is found and referenced during research on new Trek books and materials. This makes doing any research on the Excelsior class quite a challenge! Because of this confusion I like to assume those bays are just modular and some Excelsior ships have them and some don't. The phantom Excelsior shuttlebays 3 and 4.
I'm glad to see a video on this class finally! love it.
The position of the warp core in the diagram seems to put it straight through the navigational deflector?
I didn't like the original excelsior initially but it grew on me over the years. I do like the new excelsior 2 externals. We need to see more internal shots of both designs.
I like the Excelsior, but I still think the Ambassador got short shrift in the Dominion War on DS9. It would make more sense that there's a large fleet of Ambassadors and some Excelsiors available, like a 75/25 mix, rather than just having Excelsiors and Mirandas in mass quantities. I get that it was a matter of not being able to redo the model in CGI or whatever, but it still grinds my gears a bit.
The Ambassador was a nice design, just unbalanced. Had they gave it longer slightly thinner nacelles it would have been absolutely stunning.
The Ambassador was far better than the excelsior as it showed it lineage from older ships to the newer ones.
The Excelsior needed it's secondary hull trimmed by 25% at least the pylons and warp nacelles needed moved up, the spikes on the ends needed shaved off, the secondary hull needed to be rounder, and the ribbings need to go.
The saucer section was the only nice looking thing about the ship.
The Excelsior is the essential Star Trek ship to me. The Constitution was great and the original, yes. The Galaxy class was modern, but for me always looked a bit weird. The Excelsior is good looking and has a lot of history. I really like the ship.
Hey man, thanks' for making these videos. I've just got back into Star Trek and am watching every episode of every series. Just started playing the game too :)
honestly my favorite class
My third favourite Enterprise, after the D (perhaps only my favourite because I grew up with it) and the E.
She is a beaut.
Hardworking and reliable.
And when upgraded like the Lakota could take on a modern defiant class
Last year, I was able to get up close and personal to the Excelsior screen model (from the motion pictures)- and yes, she's still a beaut.
2:39 you say 2280 but the text onscreen reads 2270, which is it, or did I miss a detail?
This was my favourite in the games as it could shoot at a much wider range when turning away from enemies as it had lasers down the hull
I'm personally very much okay with them essentially 'reinventing' a ship class. Starfleet found a winning, versatile design in the Excelsior, so when that class reaches the point where it can't be improved anymore without basically building a whole new ship...why not just build a whole new ship based on the same design, but also taking into account previous limitations and improving upon them too? Minus points for creativity, perhaps, but big points gained on practicality.
Would too see a Star Trek Excelsior motion pic, or t.v series, with Sulu, at the helm, with George Takei & a reboot Sulu meeting each other, sort alike, when Nimoys Spok, meet the Kelvin timeline Spok
Ironically I never liked the excelsior at first, but it really has grown on me to become one of my favorites as well XD
In service for the better part of a century
Outlasted its proposed successor class
Has two sequel classes constructed off the base design.
The most surprising thing is it's not somehow still in service in discovery season three.
I love the Excelsior and was sorry to see that despite the number of space worthy space frames that Starfleet elected to retire the class instead of finding ways to continue to "push forward" and innovate even more advanced and more powerful technologies into the class. Sure the space and power required for a type 10 or type 12 array and regenerative shields prevent the class from benefiting from those technologies but who says there isn't another way to accomplish the same thing that wouldn't work with the stately old girls.
I _hate_ its neck. While I've never been a big Ambassador class fan, it fixed most of my issues with the Excelsior class.
I agree, the Ambassador is by far a better ship.
I am, to this day, convinced that Scotty may have saved the crew of the Excelsior. I like to think that Scotty's sabotage of the "Transwarp" drive prevented the Excelsior from ripping itself apart trying to catch the Enterprise