USS Excelsior (Star Trek)

The USS Excelsior is a starship in the Star Trek fictional universe. The Excelsior was first seen in the 1984 film, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It later appeared in the 1986 film, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It featured more prominently in the 1991 film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, when it was revealed to be under the command of Captain Hikaru Sulu in 2293. It then appeared in "Flashback", a 1996 episode of the TV series Star Trek: Voyager, which revealed that during the events of Star Trek VI, then-Ensign Tuvok was serving on the Excelsior, as one of the junior science officers.

The Excelsior was the pathfinder, or prototype of its class, as all other ships of the same design are called Excelsior-class ships. Many Excelsior-class ships have been featured in various episodes of the Star Trek spinoff series, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The USS Enterprise-B, the third Federation Starfleet vessel to bear the name Enterprise, was an Excelsior-class ship, as established in the 1994 feature film Star Trek Generations.

History

The USS Excelsior (NX-2000) was the first starship of her class and commissioned as a testbed for new technologies by Starfleet Command, hence the name the "Great Experiment". One of these technologies, transwarp drive, was seen as a possible revolution in starship design, with the potential to open up the entire galaxy to exploratory missions due to vastly increased speed. However, the drive failed on Excelsior's first mission (the pursuit of the hijacked USS Enterprise) due to sabotage by Montgomery Scott, who was very briefly appointed chief engineer of the vessel.

By the time she was seen much more extensively in Star Trek VI, the ship had been reclassified as NCC-2000. Several fan-based Star Trek technical guides give details on the reasons for the failure of the transwarp drive. However, there is no canonical reference to the fate of the transwarp program, but given that even 24th century vessels still lacked transwarp, it can be logically assumed that the experiment was a failure. This is mentioned in notes in The Star Trek Encyclopedia, which is written by Star Trek staff.

The Excelsior-class spaceframe proved to be remarkably durable, able to withstand considerable punishment both from the elements and enemy vessels alike (in Star Trek VI, Excelsior sustains a direct photon torpedo strike to the saucer section, only to have it absorbed by the shields). This accounts for the considerable number of vessels remaining in Starfleet, even several decades later into the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Notable appearances of Excelsior class are shown in DS9 episodes "Paradise Lost" and "For the Uniform". Several Excelsior class ships were also used in battles with The Dominion

A USS Excelsior is mentioned in the TNG episode Interface, which searched for the USS Hera, commanded by the mother of Enterprise-D chief engineer Geordi La Forge. It is unknown if it is the same vessel as seen in the TOS-era films, and her class is not mentioned.

Production

Producer Harve Bennett originally intended for the Excelsior to replace the Enterprise after Star Trek III, possibly as a result of complaints by ILM technicians that the Enterprise's model was too unwieldy. The idea did not prove popular however, and the replacement Enterprise was another Constitution-class vessel. In Star Trek Generations, however, a new Enterprise, the NCC-1701-B, was briefly featured, and this was an Excelsior-class refit vessel.

Two different bridge sets were seen for Excelsior. The first set is seen in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock when she departed spacedock in pursuit of the USS Enterprise, which had just been stolen by Captain Kirk. In this film, only the parts of the bridge that would be seen on screen were actually constructed. For Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country a new and complete bridge set was built (actually a re-dress of the Enterprise-A bridge). This bridge had a large status panel directly behind the Captain's chair. It also had helm and navigation consoles similar in appearance to the conn and ops consoles on the bridge of a Galaxy-class starship.

Other appearances

In the 1980s, DC Comics published a series of comic book stories said to take place between the events of Star Trek III and Star Trek IV. In this storyline (which, like all Trek comic book stories, is not canon), Admiral James T. Kirk is given temporary command of the Excelsior following the destruction of the Enterprise. In the comic book continuity, he loses this command just prior to the events of Star Trek IV.

In the video game Star Trek: Shattered Universe, the USS Excelsior travels to the mirror universe and back, under the command of Captain Sulu.

References

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