Hi, Ric here and this is another video of a Starship Legacy and today, I’m going with
two ship names that sound very strange to me, and before making this, I had no idea
of these names’ history, the USS Crazy Horse and the Thunderchild. So we won’t be looking
at real world ships of the name for reasons that will become apparent, as well as the
canon of Star Trek and its extra content to track down the origin and these legacy of
the names. So the Crazy Horse as a ship appears to be
a first for this series so far, as there does not appear to be any vessel named the “Crazy
Horse” and aside from some privately owned ships I couldn’t find anything. This is
probably due to the date of the name’s origin. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, many of the
names of a lot of these ships come from the royal navy at points long ago with the prefix
HMS before splitting into several other navies because, well… rule Britannia.
In earnest though the origin of the name Crazy Horse seems to be from the Oglala Lakota chieftain
who lived around 1840 to 1877. He was instrumental in the battle of Little Bighorn and seems
to be regarded as a noble warrior by all sides. The name Crazy Horse is a vague translation
of his real name, “Tasunke Witco”, I hope I pronounced that right, although I’m well-known
for my flawless pronunciations. As we can see, as this is the origin of the
name, it dates after 1776 and as an America-focused affair, there was no HMS Crazy Horse, nor
can I find any records since of any other naval ship of the name.
So moving into Star Trek lore now and the first ship of the name we can find is from
around 2250, the USS Crazy Horse. Unfortunately we have little more than the name, not even
a class or registry by apparently the one-time boyfriend of Mia Colt served aboard this vessel.
So let’s move on to the only canon appearances of the ships name.
The USS Crazy Horse was an excelsior class vessel launched sometime prior to 2333 under
the captain of Enzo Rudolfini. This vessel was first seen as part of the 14 ships that
made the anti-Borg taskforce that was assembled to counter the potential of another Borg incursion
as seen in “Descent” in 2369. Likewise in 2370, it was part of another taskforce
that took part in battles with the augmented Heran people then it turned up again in canon
to ferry Admiral Eric Pressman to the USS Enterprise later that year. We know that the
vessel was still in operation by 2379, making it another in the list of long-serving Excelsior-class,
serving for 46 years. Finally, we have a USS Crazy Horse NCC-95789
in 2409 which again, was assigned to battles in the Imaga system against the Klingon Defense
force as part of the war of 2405-10. This ship was a Nomad class, which itself was an
overhauled Emissary class. The Nomad was made to fit the wartime era of Starfleet and featured
extra hull plating housing the characteristically large warp drive of the Emissary on which
it was built. As a result, this ship had a surplus of power
which made it a very reliable vessel with strong survivability. So as we can see from
the other ships of its name, the USS Crazy Horse often served in battle, mostly as part
of a task group and large fleet operations which matches with its name’s warrior origin.
Moving on now to another Starfleet namesake, the “Thunderchild”. This name, does come
from a British royal navy ship, however, it’s a completely fictional one, even in the fictional
history of Star Trek, making for some fiction-ception. The HMS Thunder Child was and ironclad torpedo
ram, based on the real rams conceived in the late 19th century which, funnily enough were
designed to withstand collision and even weaponise that impact. It’s from the novel, “The
War of the Worlds” which sees the vessel take down two Martian tripods allowing evacuees
to escape, it is heroically destroyed in the effort. As a fictional vessel, it was often
depicted in several styles, but always with the key features of being low in profile with
a heavy ram. This noble act from a classical work of science
fiction seems to have sparked some fictional admiral’s sense of honour and in 2370, the
Akira-class USS Thunderchild NCC-63549 was launched under the captaincy of Bem Okala.
It was assigned numerous patrol missions, a task to which the Akira was uniquely suited,
being both fast and a dangerous combatant with its low profile and twin-hunched hulls
adding layers of protection. It changed hands in 2372 to Captain Evelyn Hoffman and took
part in the battle of sector 001 a year later against the Borg incursion. Alongside the
USS Defiant, it held the line until the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E arrived and Captain
Picard used resurfacing knowledge of the Borg cube to destroy it.
It’s implied that the vessel also saw much combat in the Dominion War, at times, docking
at Deep Space Nine. The USS Thunderchild eventually met its end in combat against the Borg in
2380 and a new vessel with the name was in service by 2409.
This new vessel bore the registry NCC-63549-B, implying an interim ship that had a “dash
A” affix, but I could not find such a ship. This new Thunderchild again came into conflict
with the Borg in 2409 under the command of Captain Varney in the Beta Quadrant and was
a variant on the Akira class, being sleeker but with a narrower and more angular saucer
section. Despite this, the vessel remains active and
in both iterations has done the Federation proud. As the Akira-class was designed in
response to the Borg threat, it makes sense that it was repeatedly assigned to fulfil
this purpose and when not actively combating Borg, was often on patrol along dangerous
borders. So there we have it, a double-dose of the
Legacy series as both these vessels have names that I’ve always wondered about. I can honestly
say that I’d never heard of either of these names before but it’s nice to see that diversity
from where Star Trek vessels draw their identifications. In both these instances, one historical and
one fictional, we see that the theme of battle was central to their actions within the expansive
lore of Star Trek and I appreciate when the name has a traceable meaning behind it.
Thank you for watching this namesake look, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you later.
Goodbye!