Summary
Most stories based in a science-fiction universe have a variety of starships the characters use to get around and have epic adventures. There’s nothing like building a massive starship only to blow it up when the story needs somewhere to go.
TheStar Trekfranchise has plenty of starships for both story-building and destruction. It’s not a surprise that not every ship that the Federation sent into the cosmos made it back in one piece, or at all, and plenty of starships were lost in the dark void of space or blown to dramatic smithereens in a historic battle.
7USS Enterprise D
The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D was the version of the ship that carriedthe intrepid crew ofThe Next Generation. It was one of the best-known but least-liked of the many incarnations of Starfleet’s flagship, with many saying the flawed design was top-heavy and unbalanced, so its destruction at the end ofStar Trek: Generationswasn’t a tragedy or a shock.
After the warp core was destroyed, the saucer separated and prepared for a crash landing. The ship went down over Veridian III, but thanks to a dedicated lifetime of work by Geordi LaForge to restore as much as possible, Enterprise D appears again in the final season ofStar Trek: Picard.
6USS Constellation
One of the sister ships of the original USS Enterprise, the USS Constellation was also a Consitution-class ship with a 5-year mission to explore the galaxy. Unfortunately, it encountered a powerful and mysterious entity nicknamed “the planet killer” in the L-374 system.
By the time the Enterprise found the Constellation, Captain Matthew Decker was the last crew member to remain alive after the planet killer had disabled the ship and destroyed the planet where the more than 400 Starfleet personnel had attempted to take refuge.
Originally,Captain James Kirk plannedto tow the Constellation back to federation space. Instead, he determined that the only way to destroy the planet killer was to sacrifice the Constellation and drive it into the bowels of the monster before blowing it up.
5USS Grissom
The USS Grissom was a science vessel with little or no combat capabilities, so all it took was a wayward shot from a Klingon bird of prey to destroy it.Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, opens with some reminders about the Genesis project from the last film and the Federation vessel overseeing the volatile results.
The captain of the Klingon ship, Commander Kruge, was on a mission to gather more information about Genesis and wanted prisoners who could be questioned. The destruction of the Grissom was an accidental setback for him, and the gunner paid for this mistake with his life.
4USS Protostar
According to the lore ofStar Trek: Prodigy, there was a whole line of Protostar ships that were developed in the 24th century, and this refers to the prototype for the design. Captain Chakotay was returningto the Delta Quadrantin the Protostar because it was designed for deep-space travel, exploration, and survival. The ship ran into trouble when it encountered a temporal anomaly that sent it into the future dominated by the Vau N’Akat, a race that was hostile to the Federation.
The Vau N’Akat took Chakotay prisoner and kept the Protostar for several years, either keeping it hidden or using it as a research vessel. The USS Dauntless, with Captain Janeway at the helm, eventually tracked the ship down and it was destroyed by Holo-Janeway following its corruption of other Starfleet ships.
3USS Vengeance
An impressive Dreadnought-class ship that only exists in the Kelvin universe, The USS Vengeance was developed and constructed in secret as part of Section 31’s secretive arsenal, which is why it didn’t have any external markings. It was primarily built for combat and stealth as opposed to exploration or scientific study.
The USS Vengeance makes its only appearance inStar Trek: Into Darkness,where it shows off unique abilities like being able to fire when at warp speed.It was part of the same undercover operation that kept Khan’s crewmates hostage and used his superior intellect to design and make new weapons.
2IKS Koraga
The IRS Koraga is one of the few Klingon ships that the Federation knows enough about to confirm how and when it was destroyed. They have this information becauseLieutenant Commander Worfwas captain at the time, and although he survived the attack his escape pod was not retrieved until much later.
The Jem’Hadar attacked the IKS Koraga, taking it and her crew by surprise near the Badlands. Another Klingon ship, the IKS Rotarran, was also present but managed to escape. The USS Defiant searched the crash zone for several days and managed to retrieve six escape pods before threats from the Dominion forced them to retreat.
1USS Enterprise
The original USS Enterprise was in service for decades and saw a wide variety of legendary adventures and historic battles. It was scheduled to be decommissioned inStar Trek: The Search for Spock,but was instead stolen by its former crew in an attempt to return to the newly formed Genesis planet.
It was probablyone of James Kirk’s longest shots, but he managed to transfer his crew to Commander Kurge’s bird of prey before luring the Klingon crew to the disabled Enterprise and activating the self-destruct mechanism. The charred remains of the USS Enterprise burned a path to reentry as they crashed on the Genesis planet, and Kirk and his crew used the Klingon ship, now renamed the USS Bounty, to return to Earth.
MORE:Star Trek: The Next Generation - Things You Didn’t Know About The Show’s Production
