Y class

Y class
Owner:	Private ownership
Operator:	Earth Cargo Service

For additional meanings of "Class Y", please see Class Y.

The Y-class freighter was a type of starship utilized by the Earth Cargo Service during the 22nd century.

Ships of this class were usually armed with a single low-yield plasma cannon; however, most captains had the weapons upgraded to defend against pirates. They were able to haul twenty kilotons at a maximum speed of warp 1.8 with the original warp engine. The ships could be refitted with a warp three engine to make them ten times faster. The crew and family complement of a Y-class cargo ship was approximately two dozen. The Y-class was slightly larger than the the J-class, but overall, the same basic design. (ENT: "Fortunate Son")

Ships of the class

Named

• ECS Fortunate

Unnamed

• Unnamed Y class starships

Appendices

Appearances

• ENT:
  • "Fortunate Son"
  • "Twilight"
  • "Borderland"

Background information

When it came time to design the Y-class freighter, there wasn't many potential influences to dictate how the ship should look. The design began with concept artist John Eaves, who produced three alternative sketches for the craft. All three illustrations shared the same basic architecture, featuring a central framework with a series of cargo pods on either side. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, pp. 10-11)

A lot of the Y-class design was inspired by the script for "Fortunate Son", as it made clear that the Y-class ECS Fortunate was massive and would have one of its cargo pods blown off in the course of the episode. John Eaves consequently focused on producing slightly different versions of the cargo pods and the front part of the vessel. In one of his drawings, the "cab" at the front was similar to a tug boat, with twin warp nacelles on either side. However, the producers refused this approach, preferring the other two configurations. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, p. 11)

The selected pair of illustrations were given to the visual effects team, so the final design could be constructed as a CGI model. While the VFX of "Fortunate Son" were being supervised by Ronald B. Moore, his influence had a considerable effect on how the design turned out. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, p. 11) Once he received the two drawings, he discussed the Y-class with the CGI modeler to decide how they would like the ship to look. Moore's approach to the Y-class was to place importance on how the craft was to be used in the episode, taking note of some extremely specific shots described in the script. Also important to the VFX artists was giving the vessel a sense of scale as well as being capable of docking with other spacecraft. "I wanted to design something that would work for that [procedure] – which meant I had to make sure that I had a proper hatch, and there was room for it," said Moore. Additionally, he needed to have one of the cargo pods separate from the main body of the craft and float away into outer space. "So I varied the model a little bit to make all of that work as well as possible." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, p. 12)

Ultimately, the structure that the Y-class designers arrived at was basically a mix of the two approved concept images, which were on the same sheet as each other. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, pp. 12 & 13) "Either one of the drawings we had would have worked," Ron Moore remarked. The reasons why some sections were preferred to their equivalent components on the other illustration were varied. "Sometimes it was just because I liked one element better," admitted Moore, "but we had reasoning for some of it too." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, p. 12)

Ron Moore specifically took the nose section from the image on the right of the two illustrations. "I thought the nose on the one on the right gave us a little more bulk and we needed that [to show the Y-class docking] [....] I think also subconsciously it reminded me of the Leonov, which was the Russian ship in 2010, which I worked on. The nose section of the one on the left was more aerodynamic and I didn't feel that was all that necessary, especially for a freighter." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, pp. 12-13)

Conversely, Ron Moore incorporated, in the final design, the cargo pods from the sketch on the left. "The cargo modules on the right were probably more functional," he commented, "but I thought the symmetry of the ones on the left worked a little better [....] I remember I wanted to push them a little bit further apart so I could create this valley. That was something that was in the drawing on the left [....] We wanted to build it and get the spaces just right to make that work." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, p. 13)

As an additional step in the design process, Ron Moore and his modeler equipped the Y-class with a pair of warp nacelles. They were tucked into the underside of the ship, though that part of the vessel was never shown in canon. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, p. 13)

In retrospect, Ron Moore could hardly have been more pleased with the results of designing the Y-class freighter. "I liked building this ship," he reminisced, "and I really like the final design." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 49, p. 13)

The Y-class bridge of the Fortunate was a heavily modified reuse of the bridge set for the USS Defiant (NX-74205), from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 9, p. 112)

Apocrypha

Several vessels of this class appear in the game Star Trek: Legacy.

See also

• Y-500 class

External link

• Y class freighter at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works