Of many of the sister ships of the Enterprise, many suffer poor fates but perhaps none so
much as the USS Yamato NCC-71807, Hi Ric again with another video looking into the lineage
of a Starfleet ship’s name and the vessels that bore it.
We’ll start as usual with the name, Yamato. The name means “Great Harmony” and was
an Imperial Japanese Navy vessel in 1941-45. It was one of the most heavily armed warships
of the time carrying Type 94 main guns, the biggest warship cannons of the time and it
had 9 of them. It was named after the ancient province of the same name and the flagship
until 1943. Despite all this, she saw very little action in combat and was sunk by American
planes en route to Okinawa where it had orders to beach itself and fight until unable.
According to the beta history of Star Trek, the USS Yamato NCC-1705, was a constitution
Mark 2 class, but constructed after the original refit of the 2245 launch model of the vessel,
meaning that while constitution ships like the USS Defiant and USS Enterprise had to
undergo refits to adopt the look of the vessel as it was by the time of The Original Series,
the Yamato was built to these specifications meaning it had a construction date of around
2250, possibly later. However we have a discrepancy with its registry, something common when delving
through the myriad of books and non-TV sources, as it shares the 1705 with the USS Excalibur,
but the Excalibur was given the registry NCC-1664 on screen so I’m guessing there’s a resolution
to be had easily enough there. This ship saw combat against the Klingons
during the Cold War era tensions and was pulled in to shipyards and overhauled to the Constitution
Refit to keep it up to spec. It, much like many of the surviving older constitution models
was eventually recommissioned as a training vessel for Starfleet Academy where it presumably
whiled away it years until it was fully decommissioned at an unknown date, likely prior to 2290.
In some games, it is mentioned that a prototype Yamato Class Starship was built around the
late 23rd century with the appearance of the USS Yamato NCX-5626-V. This ship was, true
to its lineage, packing Starfleet’s biggest phaser arrays ever constructed for a ship.
These two emitters were powerful enough to often overload the prototype vessel, leading
to a loss in subsystem power. So it was effectively a sitting duck after firing, although its
defensive shielding was on a separate grid and remained active.
The vessel never saw full production, likely due to the Federation’s policies on warships
and the unnecessarily overpowered main cannons. There is no record of what happened to this
USS Yamato, but it was likely mothballed. After this, we have the only canon vessel,
the Galaxy class USS Yamato NCC-71807. It was once again a mirror of an Enterprise,
this time the NCC-1701-D and considered a sister ship to Picard’s command. Though
it would be more accurate to say that the Enterprise was a mirror of the Yamato, as
the Yamato was the second Galaxy class vessel constructed after the USS Galaxy. From 2363,
the ship was under the captaincy of Captain Donald Varley though there is a reference
to a Richard Mackenzie In command in 2365, but this must have been a temporary assignment
as Varley is back in command by the time we see him on screen.
His command came to a rather tragic end when the USS Yamato was infected with an Iconian
program that caused numerous malfunctions and the eventual destruction of the Yamato
with all hands lost. It was unknown if the Iconian program was hostile, but Picard speculated
that it could simply be the result of two incompatible computer systems trying to communicate.
Whatever the case, the ship was upholding the exploratory nature of Starfleet under
a captain who had a passion for archaeology and understood that Iconian technology must
be kept away from the Romulan Star Empire. According to the Star Trek Encyclopaedia,
the dedication plaque was an affirmation of the Yamato’s past as a warrior vessel, though
from an American President, “ I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny
over the mind of man.” Around this time the Sovereign class was being
thought up by Starfleet technicians and after 2370, the launch date of the USS Sovereign,
one of this illustrious line was commissioned as the USS Yamato.
Also in Star Trek online, there is a new Yamato-Class cruiser that seems to fold back onto the attempt
of creating a warship class, this time based on the alternate future version of the Galaxy
class that never came to be, the dreadnaught. It had three nacelles and perhaps in homage
to the failed 2290s prototype, it can equip dual cannon, has a really big main gun and
comes with the ability to overload its own subsystems creating an EMP style burst.
I like to think that the idea for a galaxy refit was thought up around the end of the
Galaxy Class’ life but then the Sovereign was introduced and the Galaxy refit ended
up evolving into the Yamato class, but that’s just head canon.
The Yamato, at least in history and beta content has had a reputation for being overpowered
and laden to the teeth with as much firepower as it can carry, sometimes more. The Galaxy
Class version is the only onscreen appearance however, and it sat in the role of a Starfleet
explorer, albeit a very powerful one due to it simply being a Galaxy Class. In this case,
I think I prefer the extra content and stories around it, they give a sort of “no-apologies-I’m-a-big-boomstick”
attitude that resulted in some unique warships, continuing the lineage of its name.
Thanks for watching this brief look at another of Starfleet’s vessels, there do seem to
be rather a lot of them based on warships, but then I guess that’s to be expected.
Thanks again for watching, I’ve been Ric, and until next time, goodbye!
Also Yamato is the name of Vergil’s sword from Devil May Cry and he’s also a badass.