Star Trek: 10 Secrets About The USS Enterprise-F You Need To Know
A starship with an illustrious heritage that was gone before her time.
We've most recently talked about the jaw-dropping reveal of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-G in Star Trek: Picard's third season finale and of course there's the stellar return of the Enterprise-D to save the day thanks to the exceptional work of one Commodore La Forge.
Alongside those two incarnations of the famous lineage fans were treated to the first and maybe only appearance of the USS Enterprise-F, with less screen time than it took Captain Harriman to damage the Enterprise-B. Featured back in the trailers for the third season it looked as though the Odyssey Class starship would play a pivotal role in the final batch of episodes.
However, it turned out that the largest of the line to that stardate would only be appearing in what can only be described as a guest role, with the two aforementioned suffixes receiving much more prominent screentime and maybe rightly so given the Event Level nature of Picard's last ride.
Yet the Enterprise-F should not be underestimated. With an array of dilithium nuggets and starship trivia to satiate the thirst of even the most hardened Trekkie, her career has been well documented at least in the Online realm. This at least allows fans a more in-depth glimpse into the workings of a fine addition to the name, Enterprise.
10. Verity On High
But wait!
The arrival of the USS Enterprise-F isn't the first inclusion of an Odyssey Class in official Star Trek canon.
IDW's graphic novel prequel series to Picard includes the USS Verity NCC-97007. Assigned to Jean-Luc Picard as his flagship, the Verity provided the command post for the Romulan evacuation programme, which would be the precursor to the infamous supernova jump-off point for both the first season of Picard and Star Trek 2009.
As detailed in an article for IDW itself, Online's Thomas Marrone notes that the first two ships of the class were the Odyssey and the Verity. Their designs were (in STO) a reaction to the behemoth Reman Scimitar and would give Starfleet their own "super cruiser".
If we look into this further, the backstory indicates that the Odyssey was actually put on hold to focus on the Verity so that it could be used immediately as the command ship for the Romulan evacuation. This drew the resources from both construction projects into one however the subsequent failure of the evacuation and destruction of the Utopia Planitia Shipyards saw the Odyssey "forgotten" and the Verity mothballed.
This does provide two slightly divergent backgrounds depending on if you follow Online or Prime canon as to date the Enterprise-F remains the sole member of the class seen in any detail in episodic Star Trek.