Saber class

Saber class
Owner:	United Federation of Planets
Operator:	Starfleet

Under construction at Utopia Planitia

The Saber-class of Federation starship was first introduced in the late 24th century, and was in full service by 2373. The ship featured a design more compact than other Starfleet vessels, and was fairly well armed despite its small size; the class has featured prominently in the Battle of Sector 001 against the Borg and in the Dominion War.

Ships commissioned

Named

• USS Yeager (NCC-61947)

Unnamed

• Unnamed Saber-class starships

Appendices

Appearances

• Star Trek films:
  • Star Trek: First Contact
• DS9:
  • "Call to Arms"
  • "Favor the Bold"
  • "Sacrifice of Angels"
  • "Statistical Probabilities"
  • "The Magnificent Ferengi"
  • "Tears of the Prophets"
  • "Afterimage"
  • "Field of Fire"
  • "The Changing Face of Evil"
  • "What You Leave Behind"
• VOY:
  • "Relativity"
  • "Endgame"

Background

The Star Trek Encyclopedia and ILM both used the American spelling, "Saber", and the British spelling, "Sabre", in several places. For consistency, Memory Alpha uses the American spelling.

During the pre-production phase of Star Trek: First Contact, the producers approved alternative backups for ship names and registries. The ship scale sheet showing the back-up names and registries can be found on John Eaves' blog.

Studio model

Design

Jaeger with a commercial Saber-class model

The Saber-class starship was designed by Alex Jaeger at ILM. In 2009, Jaeger made these detailed observations about his design,

"(...)Yes the notch in the front is a forward launch bay. And yes the name Yeager is after Chuck Yeager as is the NCC # 6-1947... the year he broke the sound barrier. Also there was another design that was not used in the film that was given the USS Yeager name, so I wanted to make sure that at least the name made it through. The unused design was posted on John's blog [1] it was the 1st design in that post. The textures are from the Galaxy-class Enterprise, it was a quick way to show that even though it was a 'new' design, it was of the older era ships compared to the then new Enterprise-E. The # of new ship designs in Star Trek: First Contact was actually only 4, the Sabre, Steamrunner, Norway and of course the Akira. The goal with all of those ships was to make them look completely different from the Enterprise as we were introducing the E in that film and they didn't want people going, 'wait, which one's the Enterprise?' Therefore the very radical layouts on those 4 ships, but still keeping true to the basics of starship design, such as the deflector dish and Nacelle Bussard collectors must have a clear view to open space in the front view etc...[2]^(X)

"(...) Actually ILM was using Electric Image for animation and Form-Z for the models of these ships back then. I don't recall the actual size numbers, I just remember saying it was about the size of the Enterprise's Saucer section. Interesting note I just found that there was second version of the Sabre with a 3rd Nacelle on top called the U.S.S. Saratoga, it also has a wider lower hull for a larger deflector dish and the 3rd nacelle was one from the D Enterprise. I had forgotten about that one! Also in the original sketch I did, the escape pods were lined up along the 'secondary hull' on either side of the red stripe, but when I modeled it something changed and I put them back on the 'saucer' section. [3]^(X)

"(...) A couple more notes about this ship, as some of you have mentioned it's very compact. I basically approached it from the stand point of getting rid of all the struts and necks as possible and still maintain the 2 hull look. So there is still the flat horizontal 'saucer' section and the vertical (although more triangular) secondary hull. The only 'struts' are the stubs holding the nacelles off the saucer edges. I figured I could get away with this compactness since the Defiant had been introduced by the time FC came around. The impulse engines should not be glowing all over, you are correct that they only glow at the opening in the back. And as far as the CG model's life, these were VERY low res models, especially the Norway-class, so it's no surprise to me that they've been remodeled several times. Although now that I'm a better 3D modeler I'd like to take a crack at a redesign." [4]^(X)

CGI model

ILM's CGI model of the Saber-class	Muse's revised CGI model of the Saber-class

The model was rendered as a computer-generated visual effect and built by Larry Tan and Paul Theren. A year later ILM was requested by Paramount to hand over their models made for First Contact, amongst them the Yeager, to Digital Muse in preparation for use in the upcoming DS9 episode "Sacrifice of Angels". Due to software differences, the model had to be largely rebuilt in the LightWave 3D software, and was remapped at a higher resolution in the process, but it was completed early enough to be already showcased in "Call to Arms". [5]^(X)

Size

Visual Effects Supervisor David Stipes said that an overall length of 625 feet (190.5 meters) was generally used on-screen. [6]

Technical Manual

The following information of specifications and defenses comes exclusively from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual:

• Production base: ASDB Integration section, Spacedock 1, Earth
• Type: Light cruiser
• Accommodation: Forty officers and crew; two hundred person evacuation limit
• Power plant: One 1,500 plus Cochrane warp core feeding two nacelles, two impulse systems
• Dimensions: Length, 364.77 meters; beam, 225.61 meters; height, 52.48 meters
• Mass: 310,000 metric tonnes
• Performance: Warp 9.7 for twelve hours
• Armament: Four type-10 phaser emitters, two photon torpedo launchers

The dimensions given here are identical to the dimensions given by the Deep Space Nine Technical Manual for the Norway-class, possibly due to an editing error.

Apocrypha

File:SaberBS.jpg

Saber-class from Starfleet Command

File:CBT-010.jpg

Sabre-class as it appears in Starfleet Command III

In the Star Trek: SCE series, the ship USS daVinci is a Saber-class starship assigned to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, under Captain David Gold.

The Saber appeared in both Activision's Star Trek: Armada II and Star Trek: Starfleet Command III. It is the smallest Federation ship available in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Dominion Wars, and one of the smallest in Star Trek Online, where it has variants named the Rapier-class and the Ushaan-class.

• Saber-class ship names in Starfleet Command III:
  • USS Anderson
  • USS Armstrong
  • USS Chaka
  • USS Degrasse
  • USS Doolittle
  • USS Du Bois
  • USS Garvey
  • USS Gleaves
  • USS Halsey
  • USS Hosegawa
  • USS Hughes
  • USS Jones
  • USS McClusky
  • USS Nimitz
  • USS Randolph
  • USS Reynolds
  • USS Richard I. Bong
  • USS Saber
  • USS Senyavin
  • USS Spruance
  • USS Thomas B. McGuire, Jr.
  • USS Tom Wolfe
  • USS Towers
  • USS Villeneuve
  • USS Whitetree
  • USS Yeager

External link

• Saber-class at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works