See The Enterprise F, Just Unveiled By Star Trek: Picard
The Enterprise F was actually designed by a fan and it is now officially the next version of the iconic starship.
If fans had any hope at all for Star Trek: Picard season 3, it was that we might finally see the return of the much loved Enterprise E. Instead, the new teaser trailer just released at the New York Comic Con has given us a different Enterprise, one we’ve never seen before in canon: USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F.
It appears in the above trailer at 1:51, in a blink and you’ll miss it moment. Here’s a screengrab of the new Enterprise F, so you can get a closer look…
A careful look at the ship’s registry reveals that, indeed, it does read NCC-1701-F…
For comparison purposes, here’s a look at the Enterprise E, last seen in Star Trek: Nemesis…
Call me crazy, but I prefer the E to this new Enterprise F.
So where did this new design for the Enterprise come from? Believe it or not, it’s been around for quite awhile, just never used in canon. It was originally designed and used for the video game Star Trek: Online. There the class of ship it belongs to is called the Odyssey Class.
That’s right, they didn’t even come up with a new design for the show. They borrowed it from an old video game. Better still, the Picard design team had nothing to do with designing the ship. It was actually designed by a fan as part of a contest held for the video game.
The fan’s name is Adam Ilhe and he came up with the design way back in 2011. Star Trek: Online is not considered canon so when he came up with it, he probably never even considered that it might actually end up on a Star Trek television show.
Adam Ilhe is now living the ultimate fan dream as his actual Enterprise F now being used in official Star Trek canon.
A few details about the Odyssey Class Enterprise F:
- Length: 1,061.1 meters
- Width: 371 meters
- Standard Crew: 1600
- Max Crew: 2500
- Max Warp: 9.99
- Transwarp Drive Equipped
- Slipstream Drive Equipped
By comparison, the Sovereign class Enterprise E is only 685 meters long.
The presence of the new Enterprise F doesn’t mean we won’t still see the Enterprise E. It does drastically reduce the chances that the Sovereign class will return, especially in a central role. That’s a shame. It’s hard not to feel like that design, one of the best Trek designs ever, never really got its due.
