The USS Excelsior (NX-2000, later NCC-2000) was a Starfleet starship in service in the late 23rd century and 24th century. It was also the prototype for the very successful Template:ShipClass of starship.
Originally, the Excelsior was an experimental starship, nicknamed "The Great Experiment", in the hopes of perfecting a transwarp drive system for Federation use. After the failure of "The Great Experiment", Excelsior was refitted and redesignated as a standard starship.
Transwarp prototype
The Excelsior was originally conceived as a vessel for the transwarp drive project in the early 2280s. Designed under radically new principles of propulsion, the Excelsior had the potential for becoming the fastest starship in the entire Federation. At the time, the Starfleet record for FTL travel was warp factor 14.1, set by the USS Enterprise in 2269. (TOS: "That Which Survives")
Sabotage
The Excelsior in spacedock
The Excelsior in pursuit of the Enterprise
The Excelsior's bridge, manned by the ship's commanding officer, Captain Styles, and other officers
By 2285, the Excelsior (at that point bearing the prototype registry "NX-2000") had finally completed construction and preliminary tests in Earth Spacedock and was days away from its first full field test of the transwarp drive, when it was unexpectedly called for duty. The crew of the USS Enterprise, attempting to rejoin Captain Spock's katra with his regenerated body, had hijacked their former ship. Captain Styles, confident in his new "incredible machine," ordered a pursuit as the Enterprise entered warp, fleeing the system. However, Captain Montgomery Scott, assigned as chief engineer of the Excelsior, had sabotaged the ship's transwarp computer, leaving the Excelsior dead in space – it had to be towed back to spacedock. (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
Following this embarrassing failure, the Excelsior spent the next two years in spacedock as its transwarp drive was refined, but despite the engineers' best efforts, the "Great Experiment" was a failure. Subsequently, the ship was refitted with conventional warp drive technology before being launched into service. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
- The apparent failure of the transwarp drive is debated by some fans, but the Star Trek Encyclopedia mentions that the Excelsior showed different computer display graphics on the bridge in Star Trek VI, indicating that it was no longer equipped with a transwarp drive.
2290s
The refitted version of the USS Excelsior
The main bridge in 2293
The Excelsior inside the shock wave of the Klingon moon Praxis
Despite the failure of the transwarp drive, the Excelsior remained a sturdy spacecraft. It was refitted with a standard warp drive, and the bridge module was also replaced with a newer model. The ship was relaunched in 2290 under the command of Captain Hikaru Sulu. It was then assigned a three-year mission of cataloging gaseous anomalies in planetary atmospheres in the Beta Quadrant. The Excelsior design was so successful that it was put into mass production; by the 24th century, numerous Excelsior-class vessels were in Starfleet service.
In 2293, as the Excelsior was returning to the Federation following the successful conclusion of its mission, it was struck by a powerful subspace shock wave caused by the destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis. Later that year, following the arrest of James T. Kirk and Leonard McCoy on charges of assassinating Klingon chancellor Gorkon, Captain Sulu ordered an aborted raid into Klingon territory in an ill-advised rescue attempt. (VOY: "Flashback") The Excelsior also played a key role in preventing the assassination of the Federation President at the Khitomer Conference, helping the USS Enterprise-A to destroy a rogue Bird-of-Prey in orbiting Khitomer. Senior officers (including Sulu) beamed into the conference and helped the Enterprise staff to apprehend those involved in the attempted assassination. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
24th century
In 2370, starship USS Excelsior was in service along the Federation's border with the Cardassian Union. In that year, it was assigned to help search for the missing USS Hera. (TNG: "Interface")
- While there's no absolute proof that the Excelsior mentioned in "Interface" was the same ship but given the complete absence of any canon indications of the existence of another USS Excelsior or of this ship's retirement or destruction this is most likely a reference to the NCC-2000.
Appendices
Related topics
Appearances
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
- VOY: "Flashback"
Background
The USS Excelsior was first designed for the production of Star Trek III, after the review of several prototype model ideas. Built by ILM, this highly detailed studio model was reused for many guest appearances until 1994 when it was refurbished to become the USS Enterprise-B and later the USS Lakota. After that, a half-scale recreation was built for "Flashback," with minor differences – even though it was supposedly the same ship as seen earlier. For example, "Flashback" features the only appearances of the ship's warp nacelles glowing, although the episode also incorporated footage from Star Trek VI in which the nacelle sides did not glow.
The Excelsior's motto, as seen on the ship's dedication plaque, was "No matter where you go, there you are," a quotation taken from Buckaroo Banzai.
In the German dubbing of Star Trek III Uhura's line "Would you look at that!" was changed to (re-translated) "Look at that: Thorndyke's idea!" This could provide insight into who was material to the creation of the ship. Done for lip-syncing purposes, common practice when dubbing episodes and movies, the name Thorndyke was introduced solely for this purpose and does not refer to any canonical figure in the Star Trek universe.
Apocrypha
According to the non-canonical Star Fleet Technical Manual, there was a Template:ShipClass USS Excelsior in service in the mid-23rd century, with the registry NCC-1718.
In the Pocket TOS novelizations of Star Trek II and Star Trek III by Vonda N. McIntyre, it is stated that Hikaru Sulu helped design the ship and that, by the events of The Wrath of Khan, he had already been named as the vessel's commanding officer. Apparently, his presence aboard the Enterprise at this time was solely as a courtesy to Kirk.
It is further explained that the arrogant Captain Styles was placed in temporary command by Fleet Admiral Morrow as part of an effort to sequester those with direct knowledge of Genesis and Starfleet's unwillingness to delay trial runs until the controversy subsided, due to the considerable investment in the ship's development.
Also, the novel The Sundered was set aboard Excelsior in 2298 with Chekov as first officer, Christine Chapel as CMO, Leonard James Akaar as security chief, Janice Rand as communications officer and Tuvok as science officer.
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