The Enterprise-B Enigma: questioning the Excelsior refit

[@LordEradicus]

To me, the Enterprise-B and the Lakota were both simply Excelsior-class variants. The original version was a mass-produced workhorse, while the variant was a more limited-produced specialized model, perhaps intended for deep-space exploration or other deep-space missions at the edge of Federation space and beyond...

[@AtlantiansGaming]

Exactly, a subclass with specialized equipment, additional stores, and probably additional sensors and scientific capacities for extended patrols and expeditions.

[@ak47247]

​@@AtlantiansGaming or a cloaking device. The treaty with the romulans hadn't happened yet. Once treaty was ratified they went back to the less specialized excelsior.

[@adamlytle2615]

Could even be as simple as a modification necessary at the time to accommodate some new technology, but then as the technology progressed, it got more streamlined/miniaturized and could be accomodated by the original design, or was just deemed an unnecessary upgrade.

[@rhoarke]

@@ak47247 The treaty of Algeron was in 2311, before the start of TOS

[@gc7820]

I’d buy that

[@Revenant_Knight]

My theory: The Ent-B is a extremely deep space exploration vessel, design to be self-sufficient for years without service. As such, it was built with additional redundant impulse engines, and an expanded hull for extra storage of supplies and equipment.

[@hudsonball4702]

It's also mentioned that they could also be bigger and better sensors. Needed for such explorations.

[@Treveli45]

This has been my head cannon. Created based on the lessons learned from the 1701 and other 5 year mission vessels, with the Excelsior, being the Next Big Thing vessel, as the base design. Meaning the B was meant to carry on the exploration missions that made the original Enterprise famous. The sub-class wasn't built in sufficient numbers to be seen everywhere, and they were usually out doing explorer things instead of hauling admirals around to visit the D or DS9. Also by TNG they were mostly getting replaced by Galaxy and later Intrepid class in the exploratory cruiser role. Lakota's refit could have been to improve her combat capabilities as a testbed vessel, given the increasing threat from the Dominion at the time. Finding ways to incorporate things developed for the Defiant and other warships into the older vessels.

[@Theonixco]

Yeah that makes sense to me, and they'd only build a few of those vs the mainline fleet.

[@nickgiovanniit5809]

It's also possible that the Enterprise B was the first (and possibly only) Excelsior class to be fitted with an experimental saucer separation mode. The centre impulse engines are for the star Drive section and the outboard ones are for the saucer, just like on the Galaxy class. If you look at the design, you can see where the split line would be.

[@hudsonball4702]

@@nickgiovanniit5809 Saucer separation was nothing new by this time. the Constitution class could do it to albeit it needed the aid of a star base to reattach it to a star drive.

[@jonmyers8046]

Could've had a whole series with this ship. I'm surprised they never did. Beautiful ship.

[@colinmontgomery1956]

It completely destroys the elegant and strong long lines of the original Excelsior.

[@TONYGILLEY]

The fate of the Enterprise-B from what I believe has been loosely accepted canon (I think) is that she was lost with all hands due to some mysterious plague. Taking that and some of what is said in this video, I have my own theory that is a bit ghoulish if it's the case. The Enterprise-B was eventually found by Starfleet and for whatever the reason they decided to keep the circumstances of her disappearance and the crew's fate classified. Depending on timeframe of what the current Enterprise is (maybe D or E) they renamed the B into the Lakota after an extensive inspection of the ship. They renamed the Yorktown to the Enterprise-A, it's not out of the question that Starfleet would do this. Also, an In-Universe explanation as to why the Enterprise-B had an upgraded design? Simple: The Enterprise is the Federation Flagship. They wanted her to standout apart from the rest of the Excelsior Class ships. I know it's sounds silly, but remember, this is the same Starfleet that once sent a defective Constitution class starship to Nimbus III to settle a terrorist issue because it was "the only ship in the quadrant." The same organization that launched an incomplete Modified Excelsior Class ship out of space dock with most of its systems incomplete and not fully crewed because it wasn't going to be ready until Tuesday. 🤦‍♂

[@rolandogamez]

Never heard that.

[@MrAranton]

There is no such thing as a flagship for a political organisation. In naval terms the flagship is always the ship carrying the most senior officer of any gathering of ships. In TOS each and every time Enterprise runs into another Constitution class ship, the other captain pulls seniority over Kirk. Which means: Kirk‘s Enterprise was not the flagship of the Federation. Had it been the Federation‘s to make Enterprise their flagship, they would have put someone with seniority over other starship captains in it‘s center chair and not made it some young hotshot‘s first command. The same goes for Enterprise-B. In a joint mission with Excelsior, Sulu (assuming he‘s still Excelsior‘s captain), would be senior officer because he would have been a captain for longer. If an Oberth-class commanded by Spock joined them, Spock would be the senior officer and that Oberth class would be the flagship, because Spock was a captan for longer than Sulu was.

[@atomicninjaduck9200]

You know, everyone keeps claiming that "the Enterprise was always the Federation Flagship", yet I've never seen or heard any evidence that any Enterprise, aside from the -D was ever officially considered such.

[@AzraelThanatos]

@@atomicninjaduck9200 The Enterprise-A was given that, at least temporarily, during the diplomatic meetings with Qo'nos One. ​ @MrAranton That would be for a specific fleet or group flagship, the Enterprise B (At launch) and, potentially, the C...and definitely the D, were a diplomatic flagship where it was crewed and chosen specifically as a more diplomatic representation of the Federation with it's capabilities and everything else. Basically, far finer fittings, more variety of diplomats, and a lot of stupid things that are there entirely to impress and wow people visiting it. It's waving the Federations flag with a look at us, this is what the Federation IS thing. Of course, it probably also got transferred to another ship than the B due to other shinier ships coming off the line to hold that position.

[@Mick_92]

@@MrAranton I guess this makes sense on a real world navy context. However, I'm quite sure the Enterprise is indeed referred to as THE flagship of the Federation on at least a couple occasions. One notable example that sustains this is "Chain Of Command, Part I", where Captain jellico is given comman of the Enterprise D under the pretext of him considering it benefician to arrive to his negotiation mission aboard the Federation's flagship. Why would they bother transferring him if staying on the Cairo would have made that ship the de-facto flagship anyways?

[@WyrmLimion]

I am of the opinion that the Lakota was originally a standard Excelsior, but she was chosen to undergo an experimental refit based on the once off Enterprise-B. This was done as a means of testing a full upgrade to the Excelsior line to explore the possibility of upgrading the entire line, but ultimately was cancelled in favor of the new classes coming off the shipyards. This was one of many experiments to quickly augment the Starfleet in the wake of the borg and ahead of future threats. They were literally trying everything.

[@armyfirefighter]

Just something I thought of. Pure speculation of course. As another poster spoke of VenomGeekMedia spoke of a theory of the modified Excelsior designed being used for a Federarion cloak. I’ve always liked that theory. The Enterprise-B would have been a prototype then, which would explain why the prototype design was abandoned when the Federation gave up openly testing cloaking tech. Then why build the Lakota using this abandoned prototype design years later? Because of what Lakota had - quantum torpedoes. Quantorp technology was unheard of on any other Excelsior design. So why does Lakota have then? would put forward that the Lakota was the testbed for quantum torpedo tech. We know the launch system is different than a standard photon. So the extra space and extra engine capacity in the extra impulse reactors and a modern warp core would be handy to have in a quantum development platform. We also know Starfleet has a habit of developing radical new tech in old starship designs to as not draw attention (Ex. USS Pegasus developing phase cloak technology as a Oberth or even Reliant testing the Genesis technology as a standard Miranda class). So, why not pull an old workhorse design off the shelf that wouldn’t draw much attention but was already made as a prototype space frame had extra space to test Borg fleet technologies like quantum torpedo tech as she was designed to be a prototype for new technology anyway. Sisko didn’t send shocked that Lakota had quantum torpedoes, but he would know that as he helped design and build Defiant using that technology. She was evenly matched with Defiant which was specifically designed to take on Borg ships - again from episode something ships of the class simply were not capable of. That would suggest Lakota was used as a Borg fleet testbed.

[@WilfredIvanhoe]

The Lakota was also specially upgraded by the corrupt admiral. O'Brien noted that the Lakota had considerably more firepower than a typical Excelsior-class ship, and was worried there might be other surprises as well. It was also established that the Lakota was armed with quantum torpedoes. It's possible that the existing variant design was used to conceal some of these upgrades.

[@shanenolan5625]

They were still building excelsior class ships when voyager was under construction. The time travel episode with voyager at utopia fleetyard near completion

[@boombasett6038]

Wrote a fanfic about The B. Basically Captain John Harrison loses his command due to his indecisiveness during the ship's maiden voyage. The ship is repaired and a new captain and crew continue exploration on the B.

[@michaeldemarco9950]

My take; the original Excelsiors were 5 or 6 Mk I ships like the USS Excelsior herself, launched in the late 2280s. The second set of multi-mission Excelsiors were Mk II ships, like the Enterprise-B. These completed the original multi-mission flagships, the replacement for the original Constitution Class multi-mission ships. These served for 4 decades before being replaced by the Ambassador Class. At some point, the original Mk I ships may have been converted to the more advanced Mk II designs. Once the original Excelsiors were replaced by the Ambassadors, a second, much more numerous fleet of decontented Excelsiors were build, as support ships for a vastly expanded Starfleet. Much like the Essex Class aircraft carriers found new life in supporting rolls after the introduction of the super carriers, these new Excelsiors (and a few of the older ships like the USS Repulse, NCC-2544) went on to be the backbone of the mid-24th century Starfleet.

[@calanon534]

This actually makes a lot of sense, when one looks at the _USS Righteous_ from ST:Borg. That thing was very 24th-century internally. It may well be that Starfleet, around the 2320's-2330's, figured out that this 35'ish year old space frame was _incredibly easy_ to mass produce at multiple dockyards across the Federation - and perhaps the largest such vessel some dockyards could produce at all. This means, some of the member races of the Federation could have ships that were entirely crewed by their own race (the Vulcans did this, after all), built at their own facilities, tended-to by their own starbases. While Federation in design, they would be _their_ ships. Introducing modularity into the design would allow them to up-gun the _Excelsior_ Mk I space frame, so it could have "sufficient" firepower. This going also into the concept that Starfleet had at the time, of "peace at any cost" and a move away from Captains like Jim Kirk, in favor of ones more like J.P. Hanson and Jean-Luc Picard - diplomats. They didn't want every single captain out there to have the nigh-ultimate firepower starship at their disposal (the new _Ambassador-class_ would fill that role - and captains carefully selected), like it was in Jim Kirk's days, when they had so many _Constitutions_ running around, and their firepower-equal _Miranda-class_ kissing cousins. So, you have a combination of factors leading Starfleet to crank out _Excelsiors_ as fast as they can pick their nose. It's "enough ship" to handle most situations, the Klingons are quieted and the Romulans have gone dark again, they want less aggressive Captains opting for oral diplomacy over Gunboat diplomacy, and they want the member races to have "their own" ships. Toss in some good modularity to permit internal mid-life upgrades, and having nacelles far larger than required (also permitting their own internal improvements over time), and you have the "perfect balance" starship for the 2295 - 2365 era, capable of fulfilling most any task asked of it, adequately. Supporting these gobs of _Excelsiors,_ would be specialist classes of limited number. The _Ambassador-class_ being the new heavy fleet elements (but, oh no, it got p'wnded by the Romulans - back to the drawing board!), the _New Orleans-class_ an attempt to provide a cost-effective replacement for them (but failing, and merely being a "premium" Heavy Cruiser instead), _Niagra-class_ scout cruisers when extra speed and endurance are needed, _Challenger-class_ Avisos for diplomatic functions, and the _Freedom-class_ Frigates for situations where a cruiser was too much ship. Not to mention the earlier _Centaur-class_ filling much the same role, the _Curry_ and _Constellation_ class Spacecraft Carriers, and the "last gasp of the Connies" - the _Exeter-class_ filling the Light Cruiser role (ALL OF THIS depending on your choice of what's cannon and what ain't). Really, making so many _Excelsiors_ given that criteria.. makes perfect sense.

[@colinmontgomery1956]

@@michaeldemarco9950 great answer, and highly realistic.

[@dustincarlson7010]

The Enterprise-B being renamed Lakota has been my personal theory for years! Thank you for this look into the idea.

[@christopherrobin4619]

I absolutely love your content. Its tight, fresh, interesting and funny. You take these ridiculously niche fan subjects and treat them with the utmost respect and it makes your investigations a joy to watch. Reminds me of being at conventions and arguing about episode chronology vs star dates. More please!

[@MrCornrowz]

Or… The Ent-B configuration was a variant of some undisclosed change that was only used sparingly. There are numerous Miranda variants without explanation as to why they have phaser turrets or are missing their “roll bars”. Perhaps, the B/ Lakota variant is the “we don’t make warships” version?

[@williammagoffin9324]

I think the Enterprise-B type (Enterprise-II Class?) had more than just Enterprise-B and Lakota, we just don't see them often because they are rare. Maybe for every half dozen Excelsiors they built one Enterprise-B type; as the Enterprise-B type had additional equipment they didn't need on every Excelsior but was still useful to have. Maybe they were fitted to be fleet flagships with extra communications gear. As for the Enterprise-B herself there are a lot of reasons she could have been decommissioned early and never renamed. Her spaceframe became wore out due to too many "flight hours" at high warp or flying through an anomaly. Maybe there was an accident in space dock and a plasma fire gutted her but didn't kill anyone like what happened on the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) or USS Miami (SSN-755).

[@OllamhDrab]

I always figured it was simpler to assume there was a limited run of the B variants, maybe for some particular equipment , and there was no need to make or refit most of em that way. :)

[@matts1166]

Starfleet is all about modularity. They make add-on parts and hull sections for many ships. Heck, the Meranda class had 4-5 varients and we only see the Soyuz varient in one episode of TNG, a varient that was discontinued in the 2280's while other Merandas were fighting in the Dominion war 100 years later. Perhaps this varient was just super rare.

[@Kreachie]

0:55 Actually Not Decommissioned, went missing. In Beta-Canon She fell victim to a viral outbreak and she disappeared in 2328, presumed Destroyed. The Enterprise-C entered service 4 years later in 2332. There’s some fan theories that she might’ve been rediscovered and recovered at a later date based on some Picard S3 Promotional Materials where there was an Okudagram that showed an E-B variant in the Fleet Museum’s collection, but I don’t think we’ll ever truly know what happened to her in canon. 5:38 Actually, Although STO didn’t show it, in Beta-Canon, the Al-Batani was also an Enterprise-B variant, as was the Okinawa and Berlin. It’s just never shown. and while Ex Astris’ theory is an interesting one? That’s only assuming the Enterprise-B/Lakota was the only variant of that type, which is stated in beta-canon that she wasn’t. 7:31 While the design is still in use, the Excelsior herself wasn’t, being Decommissioned in 2320, 35 years, and she made her first On-Sceen Debut since Star Trek VI in PIC: “The bounty” as a Museum Piece, but anyway? Assuming that, we could’ve expected the Enterprise-B would’ve been Decommissioned in the early to mid-2330’s, had she not vanished. So the Enterprise-C still could’ve been launched in 2332 regardless of whether or not the B went missing.

[@HeritageRoad99]

I like the idea of the Lakota being the former Enterprises-B. This doesn't have to be mentioned on screen in DS9 to validate it.

[@GarfieldofBorg]

That would certainly make sense as I think that it would be very unlikely that the Enterprise-B would have been decommissioned unless it was lost in deep space and presumed destroyed prior to the launch of the Enterprise-C, then discovered several decades later floating adrift in deep space, but otherwise mostly intact.

[@kadmii]

I do like the idea of the Enterprise-B representing an extremely rare Excelsior Heavy variant. One thought I had is that the USS Excelsior was itself a testbed from the 2280s converted into a regular one-off heavy cruiser. The USS Enterprise-B then mightve been intentionally built as a "Heavy" variant in order to do the necessary field testing for turn-of-the-24th-Century technology destined for Batch I of the production model of the Excelsior Class. This could help explain precisely why the Excelsior goes from a failed experiment to the workhorse -- the relaunch of Excelsior as a heavy cruiser after extensive reworking of the design via the field testbed Enterprise-B led to the production Excelsior's inner workings to have become so modular that it allowed a single design to stay relevant for over a century. The Lakota is stated on-screen as being recently refitted (i believe), maybe it was selected for testing new technology because it had already been built as a second Excelsior Heavy variant to serve a similar purpose in the mid-24th Century (for Batch IV?)? The identical exterior between the Enterprise-B and the Lakota is merely a consequence of needing to expand the Secondary Hull (to provide space for test designs to be swapped in and out), and the additional weight necessitates the additional impulse engines. This could even fit within the theory presented in this video: there is only one Excelsior Heavy, the Enterprise-B/Lakota, whose purpose is to do field testing of new technology for each generation.

[@kadmii]

Im imagining something along the lines of: Admiral 1: "The Transwarp Project was a complete failure... we salvaged what we could with the ship... pulled out what we could from the USS Excelsior to make room for a conventional Warp Drive, recommissioned it, shook it down, and sent it to catalog gaseous anomalies for three years, and by God it's actually a really sturdy design. It exceeded every expectation for speed and durability during the Klingon Crisis. Maybe we should give the Great Experiment another shot." Admiral 2: "To do that, we'd need to completely rebuild the Excelsior from the spaceframe up. At that point, it'd be cheaper to build a completely new ship instead." Admiral 3: "It would need to be an entirely new pilot program. Technology has progressed so far since the Excelsior's lines were drawn up back in the '70s. Besides, whoever heard of a ship design needing two pilots to get off the ground?" Admiral 1: "It's a solid hull, it just needs a second chance to fully demonstrate itself." Admiral 2: "If we go along with this, we could use it as a platform to field test a number of new designs coming down the pipeline. New warp field geometries. New deflector configurations. We can include specialized compartments on the sides of the Secondary Hull to contain the experimental machinery, to allow it to interface with both the Warp Drive and the Main Deflector without interfering with them. Once it goes to full production, we drop them in favor of the standard hull form." Admiral 3: "It seems a big gamble to put so much into a new ship from the ground up. It'd be a real shame to build a Second Great Experiment and have it flop again... but you are right, the USS Excelsior has exceeded all expectations despite its rocky start. This may be an opportunity to build a whole new fleet oriented towards the new era of peace we're looking at. Alright go ahead. Excelsior-II?" Admiral 1: "I was thinking this might be a job for another 'Enterprise'."

[@TheGameGetterKuzuri]

My headcannon is since it was the flagship, they came up with the Enterprise configuration as the top trim of the Excelsior line. (i.e. BMW 3 series with m-sport package vs the actual M3) Faster with higher maneuverability. More room for science equipment. Greater tactical ability. Superior range compared to it's sisters.

[@JamesA1102]

When was it ever said the Enterprise B was the flagship?

[@TurtleTrackin]

How about this- The Enterprise B was decommissioned and sent to a museum. But after Wolf 359, it was recommissioned, along with numerous other mothballed starships, to get Starfleet back on its feet. Of course, the Lakota could also have been a recommissioned version of another modified Excelsior class ship. The Borg conflicts and the Dominion War provide sufficient pretext for re-fitting and recommissioning the older ships.

[@tr4480]

Feasible but it stands to reason that if the B was converted into a museum ship, she likely had all her propulsion and internal equipment removed and replaced with non functioning static models. There didn't seem to be much time or even enough time to pull her out of the museum, reequip her and expect her to go into battle.

[@paulwhite6745]

@@tr4480 Enterprise D was apparently sitting in a museum with all weapons and systems operational and ready to go.

[@tr4480]

@@paulwhite6745 It never set quite right with me that the writers would impose such a circumstance as to have a fully armed and operational starship just floating around in a museum environment. Would it have killed the writers to put in a bit of exposition between characters on the matter, or to have them say something along the lines of "Refitting her was expeditiously successful, considering her main systems had been pulled to make her safe for display in the museum." Of course, looking at my earlier comment, I have to laugh. One moment I am implying it'd take too long to re-commission her, and in the next comment, I am saying it wouldnt take too long do so.

[@TrentonBennett]

A little bit of behind the scenes info for you...originally the impulse engines were supposed to be shuttle bays. Doug Drexler had made a post regarding this matter and posted the ORIGINAL Master Systems Display with it showing them as shuttle bays. However, someone in the ranks decided to change them to impulse engines at the last minute. Doug Drexler had commented how he had to make changes to the MSD on the Enterprise-B bridge right before filming started. I also remember seeing the original MSD layout in one of the art books I think for Generations and First Contact. I can't quite remember which book though. I want to say it was that one... I wish they had kept them as shuttle bays and not made them as impulse engines.

[@knives1705]

Thats an interesting idea. The Excelsior class already has a promient hanger bay on its underside and then a shuttle bay a the end of the star drive section. I don't know whats more ridiclous, giving it 4 impulse engines or 4 shuttle bays!

[@atomicninjaduck9200]

But John Eaves designed the Enterprise-B...

[@tr4480]

@@knives1705 Seems impractical to put shuttle bays in such a position though. That makes for a very restricted line of approach for shuttles; real close to the warp nacelles and the impulse engines. The shuttlebay set up for the Constellation Class is more sensible, as if that of the Miranda class, at least in terms of lines of approach.

[@WeTravelbyNight]

Interesting!

[@GartheKnightReturns]

I used to have a 1/350 Enterprise model and if I recall, it had a brief history of the Enterprises on the box and it stated that the Enterprise-B had gone missing and that the crew had contracted a virus if I recall correctly.

[@Wolfman053a]

The Owners Workshop Manual for the Starships Enterprise uses that very same bit of information.

[@charlestaylor253]

The plague virus that killed the crew came aboard on a Tuesday...😉

[@WeTravelbyNight]

Crikey! Well, there's a story there for future Star Trek - 'The Day Before Yesterday's Enterprise'.

[@giin97]

If the B modification was highly effective, it would make total sense to reuse those plans to retire that Lakota in the same way, no reason to reinvent the wheel.

[@georgesosinsky6536]

In Star Trek lore there were actually quite a few ships that were built like that a few of them were not on the registry Starfleet wouldn't even officially recognized them because they were specifically designed as a first strike against Romulan bases or planets or colonies star Fleet had a few ships that were specifically designed to have cloaking devices installed in them because the romulans were being Brash and they were scanning systems and then posting those systems out for everybody to see and the only way for them to know that would be in the system to scan it it was like the cold war but for Starfleet in the end it led to an incident called the tommed incident

[@BullGator-kd6ge]

If we consider the Enterprise-B into Lakota theory to true, I can totally imagine that with the passage of time, the ship being called “Lakota” for so long rendered the Enterprise name to be old news. Not irrelevant, but something that isn’t necessarily important when addressing the ship. I can imagine ship renames to be common such as the case of two USS Melbourne’s at Wolf 359.

[@mybrainisshortcake]

There is also the U.S.S. Excelsior mentioned in a late season of TNG (I want to say Interface maybe?) - Have wondered since I was a child if that was a reference to the original ship still being in service or an -A.

[@Unknown.NotRegistered]

Its too bad. This unique refit of the Excelsior is by far one of my favorites. Really wish we saw more of them.

[@purplepothos5794]

The biggest standout feature of this refit is the visible bussard collectors. From the Motion Picture's Constitution refit, until the late 23rd century, ie the entire TOS movie era, ships no longer had visible bussard collectors. My headcanon to account for this is that the original Excelsior, while it didn't solve transwarp (though did prove invaluable for forwarding warp tech), apparently proved a decent test-bed for propulsion systems so a new variant was created to act as second mini test bed, but instead of testing warp technology, this one would test the reintroduction of exposed bussard collectors again which bridged the gap from movie era designs to the Ambassador class's, and beyond, return to exposed collectors. And like the original Excelsior design which went on to become the default layout for the mass production fleet, the Excelsior-II likewise went onto become a final design but for a limited number aimed at specialised assignments that needed more impulse grunt than a normal Excelsior but didn't necessarily need the full on horsepower of a heavier class Ambassador or Galaxy.

[@James-rn7dx]

The Enterprise-B disappeared in 2329 according to a few sources after the crew got infected with an unknown virus. It wasn't at the museum in Star Trek Picard so until canon says otherwise, that's what I go with. I hate the theory that the Lakota is in fact the Enterprise-B. In my opinion the Enterprise-B is just a variant of the Excelsior class that's built for a specific purpose, and they just didn't make a lot of them through the years they were making Excelsior class ships, but they did make a few, it's no different than seeing a variant of the Maranda class ship.

[@zomfragger]

Or the nebula class with a radar disc instead of the torpedo tower.

[@EnigmaticPenguin]

Crazy theory: It's actually the Enterprise-B from a parralel universe, just like the USS Defiant that shifted to the mirror universe from the episode "The Tholian Web". This alternate Enterprise-B ended up in the prime timeline and Starfleet re-christined it the Lakota as an experiment in modernizing older ships. The prime timeline Enterprise-B would be presumably have been destoryed prior to the C.

[@wingsabre]

In my head cannon, the variants were intended to be front of the line variants, intended for deep space exploration or be more equipped for combat duties due to greater internal volume. The original hull configuration is likely better equipped for mainly doing things inside federation space as a major work horse. We saw less of the enterprise variant as they were likely in limited production and production stopped once the ambassador class were commissioned for long range exploration.

[@knives1705]

Given we see so many variants of the Miranda class - many which are seen only once - it doesn't seem outlandish thats there's only two Exelsior class refits with this flared design

[@rolandogamez]

5:56 This also happened at least once in the US Navy. The Protected Cruiser USS Texas (1892) was renamed USS San Marcos to make way for the new USS Texas (BB35). I conjecture the 1701-B was retired and mothballed to make way for the 1701-C. She was reactivated for the Dominion War, renamed Lakota since the Enterprise E was already in service.

[@AlfaPro1337]

I read somewhere the OG Excelsior NCC-2000 is still in service in mid-24th century. Starfleet would likely decommissioned the 1st or 2nd batches of Excelsiors (maybe 30 years apart), and they may holds onto their OG Prototype (or the first few Excelsior within that batch) in order to: 1. Test out new equipment compatibility on older Excelsior class 2. Test out if old equipment can be installed as spare parts on newer Excelsior batches Now, why would they decommissioned older batches of Excelsior, building new batches instead of retrofit them? 1. The strenuous relationship between the Federation and Romulan 2. The Federation-Cardassian Border Wars. Time was against Starfleet, and rather than making a say 12-20 months retrofitting, they could simply build a ship less time that retrofit---the ship's frame already exist. Once again using the Excelsior batches, it's likely that the peace treaty allowed Starfleet to focus on advancement of technology. The Enterprise-B extra impulse engines was more liken to adding more horsepower, but costing of fuel efficiency. New Excelsior batches already have more efficient tech under the hood, so, didn't implement the Enterprise-B refit fleetwide. The Lakota was quite special, it may have been a response to the Dominion cold war, it's the only Excelsior ship to equipped with quantum torpedoes and upgraded phasers.

[@okankyoto]

Another real world reason: the CG companies working on DS9 (and Voyager) built their CG version to the original design so it never showed up in CG battles or anywhere on Voyager.

[@stevenewman1393]

🖖😎👍Very cool and very nicely well done and executed and informatively explained in every way shape and form and detail and format provided on this subject matter of the Enterprise-B and that of the Refit designed Excelsior class starship and of it's history and why the Lakota was the only other of this design built and why no others of this design were ever built?, A job very greatly well done by you guys indeed!,👌.

[@livingchutoy5422]

My guess would be that ILM designed the Enterprise B this way to show that it wasn't just another Excelsior Class vessel for the film. I doubt they really anticipated just how much of an impact it would have on the fans. A lot of really great theories have popped up for this ship over the years and the discussion never really gets old. This ship and the C have gotten way more attention than anyone could have expected. About the only thing more entertaining than this is the canon fate of the E and the service life of the F (from Picard S3)

[@atomicninjaduck9200]

John Eaves designed the Enterprise-B.

[@ironsides982]

One thing that irritates me about the refit was how the extra impulse engines (don't know why it needed those) output their exhaust directly onto the front of the warp nacelles. It's just an oversight by the modelers, but there should always be clearance for the impulse.

[@dustincarlson7010]

Partially; seen from the side they’re slightly below the nacelles.

[@ironsides982]

@@dustincarlson7010 Are you nitpicking my nitpick? live long and prosper my friend 🖖

[@dustincarlson7010]

@@ironsides982 imagine a separated saucer with all 4 of those engines. Thing would be a hot rod!!

[@ironsides982]

@@dustincarlson7010Right!? 🤣

[@CrazyChemistPL]

The IRL reason for this debacle is equally simple and kind of embarrassing - when they modified the Excelsior model for use as Enterprise-B in Generations, the additions were meant to be easily removable so that they could return the model to its vanilla Excelsior look.... only they apparently used too strong of a glue so that the temporary additions became permanent. Also, the *Lakota theory*... got me thinking. What if it IS the Enterprise-B? She could've been rechristened the Lakota when the C entered the service indeed and then became the Enterprise-B once again once the C was lost only to become Lakota once again when Enterprise-D launched. This would nicely explain the apparently 19 year old period when there was no Enterprise in service between C and D. It ouf course implies a really long service of the Enterprise-B/Lakota but in universe the Excelsior class seems to be nearly ageless as well.

[@andymac4883]

Yeah, there's a certain irony in the fact that they modified the original Excelsior model to avoid damaging it, and in the process they ended up 'ruining' (for want of a better word, depending on your opinion of the refit) the original look of the model anyway.

[@CrazyChemistPL]

@@andymac4883 Ruin is perhaps too harsh of a word, but I definitely prefer the original Excelsior and it slightly pains me to see the original filming model be stuck in a refit configuration.

[@andiholman2543]

I share this theory. They hadn’t realised the mods couldn’t effectively be removed until it came to either VOY: Flashback or DS9: Paradise Lost so they had to go with the CGI Excelsior for Flashback. Personally I do prefer the ILM mods on it and the flared hull around the dish.

[@FusionArmorX]

A headcanon of mine: The Excelsior refit program had the Enterprise-B as the most prominent ship of the line, and then... The Excelsior refit program was quietly shelved before any other Excelsior-class ships could be touched. The first ship that was to demonstrate the refit in action, the Enterprise-B, saw its grand launch end with the death of James T. Kirk. The death of a such a legendary officer couldn't have been brushed off, and an investigation into the incident likely revealed just how ill-equipped the Enterprise-B actually was. It probably would've been determined that if the Enterprise-B had launched with all of her equipment _and_ crew, then Kirk would not have needed to put his life in danger, much less die. Though he saved lives, all he truly did was sacrifice himself to keep the Enterprise-B from going down in flames. The reason why we never hear of what legacy the Enterprise-B had is because it started off horribly: _This Enterprise was so awful it killed Kirk._ I wouldn't be surprised if there were many other Admirals who had second thoughts about the Excelsior-refit program, though unfounded considering the Enterprise-B's unique attribute of literally being unfinished. I'd say that any fleet-wide refit plans like with the Constitution-class were scrapped, and as a result only a handful of Excelsiors had completed exterior refits. The _Lakota_ would be one of those completed refits, most likely.

[@highcommand4786]

My favourite fan theory is that the flared hull is to incorporate a cloaking device and the extra impulse engines are to help better disguise it when at sublight speeds. Whatever the reason for the modifications, I think it's fair to say they involve more resources going into the construction and result in a somehow more specialised ship than the regular version which are good generalists. The titbit of info we definitely have on the variant is that after a refit it is a pretty close match to the Defiant. No mean feat for such an old design. Maybe the variant is simply a more powerful variant and limited to one ship per production run because of the extra resource requirements?

[@The_McFortner]

Two thoughts: A) The Enterprise B may have taken extensive damage on a mission and while it survived, was deemed too damaged to return to operational status and scrapped just as the Ambassador-class would be entering production, letting the name pass on to the Enterprise C. B) The Enterprise B variant may have been a special subclass, such as a special reconnaissance or anti-cloak ship variant and didn't see enough production so that there were more than just the two we saw on screen. Real world examples are the various special versions of military cargo planes such as the US Air Force EC-135 Looking Glass and the RC-135 aircraft that are greatly outnumbered by the C-135 cargo aircraft and KC-135 tankers that the USAF fly. You are more likely to see one of those rather than the special purpose planes.

[@palerider7171]

An in universe explanation could be the Enterprise B and here sister ship where fitted to be a highly specialized deep space anomaly research vessels that had extra sensors, shields and equipment housed in the hull protrusion, bits and bobs. If that is the case we may see only two or three since the would be high cost ships that were in reserved for specific critical missions. It would also be an further explanation of why the Enterprise B was dispatched to the Ribbon as she was equipped to better survive such anomalies.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

I've always been partial to the Lakota theory. And I'm sure the DS9 mentioned the link in an offscreen scene 😉 Nice to know about the real world precedence too.

[@balrighty3523]

I kind of like the idea (I want to say from VenomGeekMedia, but I might have heard it from someone else) that the variant model of the Excelsior was originally conceived as a war version, meant to incorporate recently acquired technologies such as the cloaking device on board the Bird of Prey from Star Trek IV (the flared hull of the Excelsior variant even resembles the red parabola attachment (i.e., the cloaking device) around the Bird of Prey's bridge). But before too many of them were produced, peace was declared with the Klingons at Khitomer and later with the Romulans with the Treaty of Algeron. Starfleet didn't want to let those existing hulls go to waste, so the extra space originally meant for better shields, more torpedoes, a cloak, and so on were instead allocated for more labs and other scientific equipment on the few Excelsior variants that got produced. But since those were more "might as well" than actually necessary, Starfleet didn't bother with making more Excelsior variants, which is why we only saw two on screen.

[@nekophht]

VenomGeekMedia certainly took that route when talking about the events leading up to the Treaty of Algeron.

[@KerbalSpaceCommand]

Another thing you didn't mention, Starfleet ships seem to keep the same hull livery and pennants from the time the ships are built. In Generations we saw the Enteprise D kept it's tng style pennants on the nacelles and under belly even after starfleet changed to the new badges. In the same movie we saw the Farragut had TMP era pennants painted on it's nacelle pylons, the Farragut must have been an early Nebula class ship. Also in DS9 we saw Nebula class ships with the new yellow arrow head hull pennants like the Enterprise E, Voyager and the Defiant. The Lakota also had the new yellow arrow head pennants, suggesting it was a newer ship.

[@thechroniclegamer4285]

My suspicion is that the Ent B and Lakota were High Impulse Interceptors (hence the different design) hut the Ent B and probably some others were decommissioned when they weren’t needed anymore, while the Lakota and presumably some others remained in service

[@aaronsugar7228]

My head-canon with the Ent-B is that Captain Harriman was only given command of the ship for the media photo op with Kirk. Unbeknownst to him, the real captain of the ship was also scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.

[@MoonjumperReviews]

It makes sense that the Enterprise-B could have had a unique variant design simply because it was the Enterprise. It’s a fascinating thought that the Lakota was actually the Enterprise-B. I’m not bothered that no one mentioned it. They kind of had more important things on their minds like staying alive. And would they even care? That’s a piece of trivia important to us Trekkies in real life. In-universe, it’s just another ship about to shoot at them. Another explanation is that this Enterprise-B sub-variant of the Excelsior class was merely a more limited line of production-and we don’t really know how many were actually produced. There’s a lot that can happen in the galaxy off-screen.

[@shaundis2117]

Key Fact is they glued all that parts bin crap all over that elegant model so it could be removed. Turns out while attempting to remove it , it had become impossible to disassemble without critically damaging the secondary hull. Everything they added to that model looks out of place and without thought towards what the original designer created.

[@StephenRichmond89]

To be fair, in universe if an Excelsior class was being upgraded, and you needed to add bits to it, then it doesn't seem completely implausible that you'd just use the existing plans for a larger internal volume version of the class rather than designing something new.

[@michaeldemarco9950]

Like the short-hull and long-hull Essex Class carriers from WWII.

[@SiXiam]

That's my thinking also. At first the Lakota was a standard Excelsior, but then it got a refit. It needed space for a larger non-standard warp core, enhanced shields and weapons. So they added the fins.

[@PDRich]

I heard while back that the Enterprise-B is still around, but it's a 'quarantined ship' and her last Captain was Thomas Johnson Jr. I also have a feeling that the Excelsior refit's claim to fame is that she's the first ship that can separate and reattach her saucer section without the need of a drydock; Hence the extra impulse engines. Also, some of the TNG Excelsior's are of the 'prototype' configuration from Star Trek: III-V.

[@DrummingWriterTrekfan84]

I've liked these videos since the first one I saw. But I'm liking them more and more! I really enjoy these deep dives into the details in universe and in the real world of these ships!! Looking forward to more!! 🖖

[@Antonio-ui2mh]

Great video. According to memory alpha the Enterprise B was lost (presumed destroyed) in 2329 when the crew reported contracting an unknown illness. She could be still drifting through space like the Stargazer. Perhaps she was found and rechristened Lakota.

[@samuraiartguy]

The fleared "Wings" on the engineering section were added to that they had something on the model that could show damage from their encounter with the Nexus ribbon. So good luck fitting THAT into canon.

[@candicewhitecliff4968]

The NCC-1701 (Original Enterprise), was a Constitution Class Starship, and not a Constellation Class Starship. The Constellation Class Starship was the USS Stargazer (Capt. Picard's 1st Starship).

[@Bob6800a]

I can't remember where I heard it, but I always thought the flairs housed specialized sensor suites to detect cloaked ships at range.

[@kenwynn3871]

I like to think the excelsior class was built to be very modular, look at the hull design elements mentioned, and this actually proved to be even more practical and long lived than originally intended. It ended up being so easy to repair and upgrade that it ended up serving such a long time

[@jakelogan2342]

I like to think the the Excelsior-Class in universe lore were built, much like the Miranda and Nebula-Class ships, with modularity in mind so they could be adapted to whatever various mission profiles Starfleet needed the ship to be assigned to. Given how the skirting around the secondary hull was close to the main deflector dish it could be that the Lakota (and thus Enterprise-B) were equipped with with extra sensor suites and more powerful impulse engines that, in theory, could have been mounted on other ships of the class that we just didn't see on-screen.

[@mawkishdave]

For me, the added section is a nice comfortable place for VIPs to hang out a mingle, something like that would fit the flagship but as time went on a few other ships would have it as that class aged it would get more of a role of bringing VIPs from one place to another.

[@Farlomous]

I like the idea that the Excelsior class was designed like the Nebulas to be modular to go along with different missions. However, they came upon an issue where they needed more impulse engines to over come certain situations so they had a redesign of the primary hull which added those two new engine ports for saucer separation. From there you could suppose maybe when they were coming up with a mission profile to test these ideas out, they decided the Enterprise B would be a great legacy name to do it. Perhaps maybe a new type of 5 year mission that would take it out beyond easy supply lanes, so new nacelles possibly for storage of plasma or some types of gases, and engineering bulges to the secondary hull to provide more area to do their experiments and other tests. The lessons learned would then be used in the design of the Ambassador class and other Excelsior offshoots.

[@PositionLight]

Real navies have all kinds of one off or specially modified ships. The Enterprise-B could have been marked for a specialized role similar to the USS Halibut, USS Parche and USS Jimmy Carter, ie the standing special operations submarines. It could be something mundane like something that lets it fly through certain kinds of anomaly. It gets sent on those kinds of missions.

[@jamesszalla4274]

Back when Generations was filmed, Star Trek was still using models for the ships and not CGI. They had one Excelsior model and didn’t want to damage it. That’s why they put those bump outs by the deflector at the front on the secondary hull. They could have them damaged from the Nexus, then remove the bump out and have the Excelsior model intact.

[@KCKingdomCreateGreatTrekAgain]

History loving crewman when they finish the upgraded Lakota: I can’t put my finger on it but this looks AWFULLY familiar.

[@Darmok_]

In my head canon, the standard Excelsior class hull was always a multi-mission cruiser while the Enterprise-B variant was meant to be the deep space explorer that replaced the Constitution class ships. And most of the explorer type saw service in the early 24th century. But this variant was mostly phased out by the 2060s once the subsequent Ambassador and Galaxy-class explorers came online. Leaving the standard Excelsiors as workhorse cruisers, command ships, logistics, etc. Which themselves would eventually be replaced by the Sovereign class as the multi-mission workhorse cruiser.

[@barryelverson9486]

Fun video. Personally I reject the Lakota theory as it just doesn’t work for me. Enterprise-B had that honorific meaning to me that that was the only ship with the name that held an active commission. Other names such Prometheus could be used by multiple active commission ships at the same time, being different classes as well as types. This would be likely with Starfleet expanding exponentially in active numbers to cover the scale of the growing Federation. As for hull numbers, they literally have a ship for each number in Starfleet or as of the 24th century, they began batching numbers to show a general representation of which decade they were launched. From four digits to five with the picking up after the four with the first two digits loosely representing a decade. Also, a remastered TNG/DS9 could have shown either the E-B being the first of the actual production Excelsiors, in other words flight/block 2 with all Excelsiors looking like it. Why have multiple ships with the same name and hull number with only a letter suffix being the difference other than being very different classes of ship and/or types? IMO.

[@Paul_Maynard]

The additions to the secondary hull are reminensce of torpedo bulges in early 20th century warships. Perhaps in universe they had a similar function, and like in the real world quiclky made obsolete.

[@extreamaussieguy2968]

The theory I liked which was done by venomgeekmedia, the Enterprise variant of the Excelsior was actually done as Starfleet were using that design to test Federation designed cloaking devices. Using the BOP from ST 3/4, Starfleet re-engineered the cloak and improved on the design for their own use. There were around 10 built to this design and while it worked for Starfleet, their use in the conflict that resulted in the treaty of Algeron where the Federation agreed to no longer use cloaking devices and the Romulans disappeared from galactic politics for 60 odd years. As the design was made for the cloak it was decided to discontinued that design until the need to refit the Excelsior's for the Dominion War which required the need for additional space for new technology.

[@kasterborous1701]

The production reason that the _Lakota_ retained the _Enterprise_-B modifications is that the additions to the secondary hull made to prevent damaging the original model when the deflector is destroyed in the Nexus in _Generations_ ... ironically damaged the original model, and couldn't be removed without leaving obvious marking to the hull. Subsequent appearances of original-config _Excelsiors_ are through a combination of stock footage, CGI, and a new, smaller, and inaccurate physical model built to represent Sulu's _Excelsior_ for VOY: "Flashback".

[@steveg5122]

the 1701-B sub-variant with the extra engines could have been configured for more multi-mission roles, rather than just an explorer. Use those engines to help tow a stricken vessel in deep space for example, getting them out of a decaying orbit faster. the flared out sections could be for a stronger deflector dish for use to sweep debris for other ships, as if she's an ice breaker. The Lakota was built to have a later variant of the same idea except refit with newer weapons, acting as a quick and agile battleship compared to the bloated aircraft carrier of the galaxy class and ambassador class. The sovereign class was a return to this style of ship, with the long sleek hull design, with more of a rounded Keel vs the flat bottom of the galaxy class with a wide Plastron at the back for the warp engines. The Obena class would show the usefulness of the basic excelsior design in the 2380s.

[@TheFlyingSailorYT]

It's simple... the batch of Excelsior "Enterprise" Variants was originally small, starting with the B herself. While the B stood at the forefront of exploration many of her sisters were relegated to duties within the federation doing lighter work so didn't become as noteworthy. So when the Lakota was commissioned many thought only the Enterprise B had the variant hull design. Simply put, the Enterprise variant didn't do anything of note and many believe she was a one-shot that carried a legendary legacy.

[@Bolt_theG35]

Excelsior B is just like the USS Eisenhower. Before it’s refit, for years and years it was the only aircraft carrier with only one bridle catcher, making it instantly distinguishable. There was no mistaking the Eisenhower because of that feature.

[@DavidEasthope]

I always figured, given that we see modular hull designs in the Miranda and Nebula classes, that Starfleet has a "catalog" of ship pieces which can be used to expand or shrink a hull as needed. Sort of like how today, modifying a house to add another wing/room is something done to a specific building code, and though the technologies included therein have changed, the process of framing and drywalling is still largely the same as it was 40 years ago. So, the Enterprise-B could've had one of these hull expansion kits applied to it to make it "flagship worthy", and later the Lakota was upgraded in a similar fashion to once again accommodate a more potent mission profile. The technology inside the Lakota would be superior to the "B", but still fitted into the same hull additions. I just always assumed that other Excelsiors with this expansion existed but weren't often seen due to their specialized, rare nature, especially since the Excelsior in general had been somewhat relegated to an administrative role by the time of TNG and wouldn't be used as an expandable platform for such simplistic duties. I'd imagine more with the "hot rod kit" would've been flying around during the "lost years" of 2300-2350.

[@ThubanDraconis]

I can think of several reasons for the bulges... A diplomatic ship with extra luxury quarters for ambassadors. A training ship with extra space for the instructors. Deep space exploration with extra space for supplies. A command variant with extra space for flag officers, more communications gear, etc. Just pick one and go with it.

[@terrywest111]

I always assumed that Starfleet built both versions of the Excelsior for different missions. The regular Excelsiors were the workhorse type ships and more numerous, and the Enterprise-B variants were used as fleet flagships or for heavier or more dangerous missions. Maybe like deep exploration and what not.

[@violabeaumont3758]

I suspect because it carries the famed name Enterprise, which at this point was a name completely revered in the Universe, that rather than just give them another Excelsior class, they decided to modify the design specifically for the Enterprise only in order to make the Flagship 'special'.

[@joshuacamper1831]

Enjoyed your video! Personally, while I understand why the new additions were added to the Enterprise-B for studio purposes, I never liked the blocked off look of the ship. I wish they had kept the original Excelsior design and painted over the Excelsior name and added Enterprise-B instead.

[@nekophht]

My feelings on Ent-B's "refit" is that it was testing some things they were considering for their next major design, but weren't wanting to bother making a whole new ship to do so. The hull sponsons give it a more elliptical shape from the front, and the extra engines could be possible units for the next major class. Also maybe early lateral sensors off the engineering hull. The hull shape didn't work out great, the engines did, which affected the Ambassador class design. Then during the Ambassador class run, they tried again, but more extensive modifications to the engineering hull for better testing. It worked out better, and thus the iconic Nebula/Galaxy style would arrive. I'm also a fan of Ent-B ending up as Lakota, though with the Fleet Museum (now) around you'd think they'd snatch up the -B on decommissioning to put in next to the -A, which would put a crimp in renaming it Lakota. Unless for some reason the Museum didn't feel it was historically significant enough to preserve... Or perhaps they didn't have the "space" to take it into their collection at the time, and by the time they got the old Spacedock to use, Starfleet had already reactivated the -B as the Lakota?

[@Spotcats]

The model crew needed to put damage on the Excelsior model, but they knew it would change that model forever. So they "fixed" the problem by adding several sections to damage. In the film, take note that all the damaged locations on the ship are the new locations only.

[@PenneySounds]

Here's an idea you might be interested in exploring: Since we know when the Enterprise B was commissioned, but not how long it served, but conversely, we know when the Enterprise C was destroyed, but not when it was commissioned, and there is a large gap in between... Is it possible that the Enterprise C as we saw it before its destruction at Narendra was actually a refit? Could the original Andrew Probert concept design have actually been how the ship appeared at launch? Since that is how it appears on the wall of models in the Enterprise D conference room.

[@90lancaster]

I've been watching a lot of the KZbin Channel "Rex's hanger" Lately about Aviation History, and I'm reminded of one of his videos on The Demon Bi Plane of the interwar period in that it was actually one of many very similar designs commissioned for very specific roles some got as few as one and some got one or two hundred some got thousands (so applying that general idea) I would suggest that the Enterprise B type was a limited run for a specific purpose or one could come up with another alternative explanation such as she was made else where by different people who wanted to tinker with the design. After all (now) we know the Excelsior had at least a couple more off shoot classes in the next Century so it makes sense to have a play again going back to Aviation History again the German's world war II heavy bombers had a lot of iterations too until they found one that worked best. The main excelsior might be the original and the B might be an attempt to refit iit that wasn't 100% successful but one they learned from enough to make other things out of afterwards. Like they say in Show Business each movie is a learning experience and at the end you know how to make the movie you just made, well after they made the Enterprise B they knew how to make and deemed it "not worth the additional effort" perhaps ? Anyway her secondary hull 'chins' look very flying boat like or like the SR71 Blackbird to me.

[@avalonuniverse6327]

I always thought the Lakota was the same original build as the other Excelsiors, and was refit to that configuration.

[@christophersnyder1532]

The main reason for the change of the Excelsior class was due to the fact, the script called for it to be damaged, and they decided to add sections over the existing model, and have the added sections damaged, and not the original studio model. However, when it came time for the Voyager episode with the cast of Excelsior from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the studio model was too far gone, and they had to get an off the shelf model to replace the origi nal model. I still love both iterations, and own Eaglemoss' USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B. Take care, and all the best.

[@zalaathrun20]

Well if I'm not mistaken the Excelsior class ship although a bit infamous, USS Lakota from the "Paradise Lost" DS9 episode, that was of the same kind of Excelsior class mk-II or refit as the Enterprise-B

[@frankmorales643]

Another beautiful design.

[@patricktilton5377]

At about 2 minutes in, the Narrator mentions Stardate 9715, which supposedly correlates to the year 2293, when the Enterprise-B was launched. But a careful look at the 'B' scenes in "STAR TREK GENERATIONS" shows that the Communications station on the Bridge has the Stardate 0111.5 displayed on it. The final stardate in "STAR TREK VI: The Undiscovered Country" was Stardate 9529.1. The stardate 'clock' in the Pre-TNG era clicked upwards from '0000.0' to '9999.9' over the course of a decade, then rolled over back to '0000.0' like an odometer to begin a new stardate decade. This happened (as far as I can determine) some 7 times before the TNG-era of stardates began in the year 2323. I figure that the Stardate system began sometime in the year 2253, soon after the events of "The Cage" took place -- there was no mention of 'stardates' in that first pilot -- and that the events of TOS occurred in the 2nd Stardate Decade, from sometime in 2263 through sometime in 2273. One detail that the writers of "STAR TREK CHRONOLOGY" failed to mention was that during the events of the TOS episode "Charlie X" (sometime between Stardate 1533.6 and 1535.8) it was Thanksgiving Day, with Charlie having used his Thasian magical powers to morph the meat loaf in the ship's Galley into live turkeys. Although the book mentioned above dates that episode to the year 2266, I can show that it had to have been during the Thanksgiving Day of 2264, on November 24th to be precise. In "STAR TREK II: The Wrath of Khan" it is established that 1,000 stardate units ['SDU'] equals 1 year, which I presume would be a Gregorian Calendar year averaging 365.2425 days. There are exactly 1,000 SDU between Carol Marcus's PROJECT GENESIS recording (Stardate 7130.4) and Chekov's log entry upon the arrival of the Reliant at Ceti Alpha V (Stardate 8130.4), which Kirk states was year's time. The stardate for "Space Seed" (3141.9) and the stardate for TWOK (8130.4) are separated by a total of 14,988.4 SDU -- assuming the clock clicked up from 3141.9 to 9999.9 ... then from 0000.0 up to 8130.4 -- or 14.9884 Earth years, the 15 years mentioned by both Kirk and Khan. In order for the stardates of "Charlie X" to be on Thanksgiving Day in 2264 CE (November 24), with 1,000 SDU equaling 365.2425 days, the Stardate Clock had to have begun its 1st Decade on May 13, 2253 (and I'm assuming that 'Stardate Time' on the Enterprise would be equivalent to the Time Zone on Earth where Star Fleet Command is located -- though I like to think they have a Subspace Transceiver Array ['STA'] situated due East of San Francisco and due South of Lake Tahoe, on the 120 West longitude meridian, exactly a third of the way around the world from the Greenwich prime meridian. The 1st decade would be 3652.425 days long, from 2253 May 13 (00:00:00 STA time) through 2263 May 13 (10:12:00 STA time). The in-between stardate for "Charlie X" (Stardate 1534.7) would be a total of 11.5347 years = 4212.962665 days after the stardate clock began, equivalent to the Date-&-Time 2264 November 23 (23:06:14 STA time), or less than an hour before Thanksgiving Day would begin at Midnight, 24 November 2264. Using the longer Stardate format seen in "STAR TREK III: The Search for Spock" (when Kirk reviews the security footage from Engineering), then Thanksgiving Day would have begun on Stardate 1534.80.22.20. Using my system for calculating stardates, it can be seen that the final stardate of ST VI (i.e. 9529.1) would be in the 4th Stardate Decade from 2283 to 2293, specifically the Date-&-Time 2292 November 21 (between the times 16:58:32 and 17:51:06, since each stardate has a duration of 3,155.6952 seconds = 52 minutes + 35.6952 seconds, the same way each standard clock has a time -- in "HRS" and "MIN" -- with a duration of 60 seconds). The stardate seen in the beginning of "STAR TREK GENERATIONS" (Stardate 0111.5) would be early in the 5th Stardate Decade, after the passage of 4 decades x 3652.425 days/decade = 14,609.7 days, counting from 2253 May 13, i.e. 40.1115 years later = 14,650.42454 days later, on 2293 June 22 (10:11:20 to 11:03:55). The final stardate of the same film -- the TNG-era stardate -- was 48650.1 (the 5-digit stardate system which began in 2323 CE). There were 25,566.975 days (i.e. 7 x 3652.425 days) in the seven Stardate decades from 2253 to 2323, i.e. from 2253 May 13 (00:00:00 STA time) until 2323 May 13 (23:24:00 STA time). Multiply 48.6501 years by 365.2425 days/year to get 17,752.64824 days since the TNG-era stardate system began, or a total of 43,319.62324 days since the original Stardate system began in 2253, to get Stardate 48605.1 equivalent to the Gregorian Date-&-Time 2371 December 20 (14:57:28 to 15:50:03). From 2293 June 22 until 2371 December 20 there indeed were "78 years" between those eras in that 7th Film. But the Enterprise-B, though launched in 2293 (on June 22, according to my system), was not launched on Stardate 9715, as the video states at ~ 2 minutes in. It was after the stardate clock ticked past the 9999.9-to-0000.0 turnover point, when it was Stardate 0111.5 in the next (the 5th) stardate decade. I have to wonder where you got your Stardate "9715" from: a screenplay, perhaps? I got the Stardate 0111.5 from the Communications station display when Capt. Harriman tells Kirk that the Enterprise-B's tractor beam wasn't going to be installed until next Tuesday, just after 9 minutes into the film. Sorry if I'm nerding out here, but I've been deep-diving on the whole Stardate thing of late, and I'm genuinely interested in where you got your Stardate 9715 number from. LLAP!

[@Vanessinha91Pucca]

I always had a head cannon that the Enterprise B was a brand new ship and as a celebration of the first Enterprise not in command of any of it's original crew, they made a special version of the Excelsior class... As it is the new flagship... But it's a one time thing, so the B is always special on the federation eyes.

[@rafaelsays175]

I couldn't stand the Excelsior in Search for Spock. However, the design has really grown on me over the years.

[@waynemiller1670]

A sub-variant tracks pretty well. There are sub-variants of the Miranda, and the nebula class. Just because we haven't seen them on screen doesn't me they don't exist, and many of the ships that are assumed to be the excelsior variant are not seen, just mentioned.

[@captaintarel]

the Lakota theory seems a little far fetched. If the Enterprise-B had survived it's service, why wasn't it part of the fleet museum alongside the Enterprise-A?

[@atomicninjaduck9200]

In my head canon, the Enterprise-B's different design was seen as a compromise for making it an Excelsior-Class vessel, since doing that was controversial. Think about it, in Star Trek III, there is a very real feeling of competition between the "new" Excelsior and the "old" Enterprise, which is best encapsulated in the exchange between Captain Scott and Captain Styles. In that scene, you can definitely hear, and see, the animosity Scotty has towards the new ship (and Styles doesn't help things out, either). We see another example of his continued animosity when Scotty questions Sulu on his selection of ships at the end of the next movie, referring to is as a "bucket of bolts". Despite this, Starfleet and the Federation were insistent that the next Enterprise be part of the latest and greatest ships they'd recently built. However, the animosity from less than a decade earlier had not cooled down enough. So, Starfleet decided to compromise by giving the Enterprise-B a heavily modified look. Furthermore, the Enterprise-B would be unique in that it would be the only ship allowed this modification throughout its service lifetime. When it came time for the ship to retire, however, there was no great scramble to modify Excelsior-Class ships with the same changes since there was no significant improvement in performance. As such, the "Enterprise-B Subclass" was a rather rare design, and saw very limited use as compared to the stock Excelsior design.

[@captainbanderson2125]

In some ship/tech manuals and model kit instructions Enterprise B was referred to as an Excelsior class 2

[@DannieGemz]

I just read up it was indeed because the original model used for excelsior got damaged when they tried to remove the modifications used in generations, that is why Lakota ended up being the only one here is the quote.. 'As it turned out, the glue used to attach the additional parts did in fact damage the original model, so the modifications were never removed. The physical model was later relabeled to become the USS Lakota in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fourth season episode "Paradise Lost". (Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 452); (AOL chat, 1998))'

[@DannieGemz]

P.s i thought i'd post this other lil bit of info i dug up here in terms of a timeline for those interested.. '2301 - Demora Sulu was promoted to first officer. 2311 - Following the Tomed Incident with the Romulan Star Empire, Captain Harriman steps down, and Demora Sulu was promoted to captain. 2315 - Captain Sulu gives up command - for one year - to care for her terminally-ill paternal grandmother, Shimizu Hana Sulu (β). 2320s - The ship, under Captain Johnson, was assigned to patrol the Cardassian border. 2328 - Offers assistance to many Bajorans fleeing Cardassia's annexation of Bajor. 2329 - Lost (presumed destroyed) after the crew reports contracting an unknown infection. 2332 - The USS Enterprise-C is commissioned. (Well of Souls)'

[@cujoedaman]

Maybe the hull flares were somehow modular, like the Miranda and Nebula class ships have that modular pod at the rear. Maybe it uses some kind of docking system like the Galaxy class saucer separation system so they can quickly change pods to include different stations or sensors. Would seem odd for that style of ship, but hey, it's just a theory. A fan theory!

[@russellwilliams9437]

The excelsior class was probably delivered in tranches like the euro fighter. And as new improvements and features comes on line with each new tranche entering server. Older ones were retrofitted with the new features. in each tranche several mission specific varents were made like 2 seat trainers, that had features not required of every ship

[@Weazel1]

I always felt that the B was rechristened as the Lakota when the C was commissioned. This would be why we see the upgrade on only those two ships and no other.

[@lpkelly]

People tend to overlook that the period between 2293 and 2363 is a bit of a canon desert. Very little is known of the period between a few dates and events. And we certainly don’t know what Starfleet looked like during this time. So it’s quite possible there were loads of Excelsior-refits. And either they all were destroyed or decommissioned (maybe they were just too specialised so lacked the versatility of the baseline Excelsior?) - or *we just never got to see any* (much like the California-class!). The Lakota’s refit might not have been turning it into one of the variants, but just bringing its systems up to date…

[@DarkestVampire92]

Its probably been mentioned before, but- Lower Decks Season 2 also has an Excelsior type ship, the USS Archimedes, in its finale. Its supposed to be a different class altogether but its really just an Excelsior with more modern parts, building off of a joke from Season 1 where the Captain mentioned she didnt want a refit of the Cerritos because she was sick of "Ships coming out of Refit looking all Sovereign-class"- So they literally gave an Excelsior-class ship Sovereign warp nacelles and deflector. Very slick look and one of my favorite Excelsiors, despite only appearing in that one season. Why do i mention it? Even this ship, in the late 24th century post-Dominion-War and shortly before Star Trek's new era, doesnt have the flared bulges that the Enterprise-B has. Which, in a cartoon show with no physical models, really has no excuse!

[@WGL]

I though the well excepted theory was that the B was lost with all hands due to an epidemic that broke out on board the ship was quarantined and eventually contact was lost and the ship was never found and that while regular excelsiors were workhorses and the like the refits were more sentries around the central worlds of the Federation and that's why we didn't see them outside of Lakota in the shows

[@paulspencer2542]

Oh wow I never even noticed before!