Truth OR Myth- Starship Designs- My 10 Worst List

Hello and welcome to Truth OR Myth, in today’s episode I’m listing off my 10 most hated Starfleet Starship Designs from Star Trek and exactly why I dislike them. Hope you enjoy…

It was a lot of fun making and seeing everyone’s top 10 favourite Starfleet Starship Designs from Star Trek. So I thought, “Hey why not do the reverse and see what designs everyone hates,” and thus here we are…

 

(CBS) The Danube Class Runabout – DS9/TNG

10- The Danube Class Runabout (DS9)

Introduced in the premiere episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine I immediately disliked the design. Reading articles and press releases most everyone knew that DS9 would see a NEW Starfleet Shall Ship come into the universe in order for our stationed crew members to get around the universe, unfortunately, the hype didn’t materialize into reality for me.

I’ve never been a fan of MOST shuttle designs, but I get it… They’re meant to be the minivan in space. Slow and unpowerful they shouldn’t be a spectacle… Or should they?

Given that DS( was to take place on a station, with the Runabouts being the only means of travelling around exploring Space I expected to see some fancy new shuttle design, like the Delta Flyer. But no what we got was your grandma’s minivan souped up with under car lights.

It’s bulky and unattractive no wonder they decided they had to add the Defiant to the Series in season 3…

(CBS/The Official Starships Collection) The Hoover Class – DSC

9- The Hoover Class (DSC)

Seen only briefly in the premiere episodes of Star Trek Discovery, this class, named after a blustering airbag in history certainly does him justice but is not even close to striking a chord with me.

To me, this class looks like an afterthought. I can see the VFX teams saying, OK, we need another ship for the Battle of the binary stars. Let us just take a saucer section and slap on some engines, it’ll be fine…

Of course, never realizing their designs would be scrutinized in such detail by those starship fan nuts like me. it’s just a horrible looking design all around…

(CBS) The Olympic Class – TNG

8- The Olympic Class (TNG)

Some of you I’m sure will remember that in my top 10 list one of my favourites was the Daedalus Class, so it might surprise you that this class, based on that design appears on my worst list.

In fact, it appears here for the same reasons the Daedalus Class appeared on the top list. To me, this ball ship was an early Starfleet design like the NX and the Warp Delta to decide what design works best for Starfleet’s Finest and then to go with it in all future designs…

For Starfleet to scrap the orb design ships means it didn’t win the race, so why did Starfleet go back to it? To make matters worse they took out the interesting parts of the ship, like the neck and shortened the pylons making this design simply look flat and unappealing.

It may have been a homage to the original design, but it simply failed in all categories for me.

(CBS) The Curry Class (DS9)

7- The Curry Class (DS9)

Ok, I know some people are gonna be ticked off with me for including this in my list, but ill explain why it is and I hope you’ll understand.

So the Curry Class was an Excelsior Variant designed to be in the background of the DS9 dominion war scenes the audience gets to see, but the ship itself makes no sense. the premise is sound, that Starfleet lacking ships is throwing together bits and pieces they have lying around as quickly as possible to ensure they have a line of defence.

But look at this ship, it’s not bits and pieces thrown together, it’s 90% an Excelsior Class, so WHY have a variant at all? To me, for a variant to be logical it must be a variant for a reason. Not simply the same ship with the saucer section pushed back. Ask yourself, why did they do that?

If they truly had these pieces laying around to meld together, why didn’t they just put together an Excelsior class and then just add the TMP style nacelles into the mix? it just doesn’t really make sense and gets a failing grade from me!

(CBS) The Wells Class – VOY

6- The Wells Class (VOY)

A 26th Century Federation starship, the Wells Class was seen in the Star Trek Voyager Episode Relativity.

Star Trek fans always want a peek into the future of Starship designs in Star Trek. Look at ships like the Universe Class Enterprise J. That is a success for sure, even though the ship itself was never seen in all its glory. But what’s wrong with the Wells Class?

For me, it’s that it has NOTHING in common with any Ships we’ve seen before… Its colouring is off, it’s designed looks like a facehugger, and the aforementioned Universe Class shows us that Starfleet is still; big into saucer sections in the future, and why shouldn’t they be?

You can arrowhead a saucer section and it still feels like it fits into the Trek lineage, but this… No thanks…

(CBS/The Official Starships Collection) The Magee Class – DSC

5- The Magee Class (DSC)

Another winner for worst ship design is the Magee, Ma-gee, Magoo design… this design didn’t even bother to slap on some nacelle, it just incorporated them into the hull. And not on the outside of the hull either, but quite a ways in… Id hates to be the ensign walking through the corridor to the outer saucer section when THIS ship goes to warp…

(CBS/EagleMoss) The Freedom Class – TNG

4- The Freedom Class (TNG)

Ok Ok, so this class was one of those never really meant to be scrutinized designs, but of course, it was…

Designed for the Wolf 359 scene in TNG’s the Best of Both Worlds Part 2, this ship is a Galaxy Class style saucer, with a TOS style neck and an oversized engine slapped on the bottom. It just looks ridiculous.

There have been MANY 1 nacelle style ships imagined during Treks 50-year run. One need only look at designs by Franz Joseph to see true winners in this field. This design failed, however, to knock me out of the park, in fact, I didn’t even make it stand…

(CBS) Sydney Class – TNG

3- The Sydney Class (TNG)

A few TMP Style nacelles slapped on to a box and BAM you have transport vessel ready to introduce a living legend to the Crew of the Enterprise D.

Unfortunately, this ship is just boring, all around boring… Even typing about it I’m bored, let us move on…

(CBS/John Eaves) The Warp Delta – ENT

2- The Warp Delta (ENT)

HA! I guess I fooled you back when I was talking about the Olympic Class and mentioned this beauty. You thought it was safe, but nope, not even close.

The thing is a design like this makes some sense… It’s simple and it’s functional, but let’s face it, it’s not beautiful.

Seen in a various episode of Star Trek Enterprise I remember letting out an audible Pfffft when I first saw this design in action. Nobody would want to see this ship flying through the cosmos let alone command one! At least, I know I wouldn’t!

Now it’s time for some dishonourable mentions, these ships almost made it to the list…

(CBS/EagleMoss) The Yeager Class – DS9

1- The Yeager Class (DS9)

Ok so I hate this one, completely, even though again the theory surrounding it makes sense, and it certainly makes more sense than the Curry Class. But it’s just Ugly.

It’s Ugly Ugly Ugly Ugly…

Again another cobbled together class for Starfleet to fight the dominion in, this time it’s an intrepid class saucer, slapped on to a Maquis type raider. It’s ridiculous… First does Starfleet really have intrepid saucers just lying around? why doesn’t Starfleet than just add the nacelles right on to the saucer? Why did they need this big box monstrosity? This unholy union should never have been allowed.

And to make matters worse no one really knows if it’s canon or not. There is a tale that is told to little trekkers as they are falling asleep eating their marshmallows that if you look in the shadows of certain episodes of DS9 the Yeager Class can be just made… Sppppooooookyyyy

Either way, this is the worst Starfleet Design I’ve EVER seen! YUCK!

 

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode of Truth OR Myth. What are YOUR least favourite Starfleet Starship Designs? Let us know in the comments below! And to that one guy out there that watches this and is offended by my choices, buddy, this is a personal opinion and all in good fun!

Watch Episode 51

 

If you’d like to help out the channel like these Patreons have with a few credits to help a starving starship designer, then the link in description below and of course I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Thanks again, live long and prosper…

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