Hello, Ric here with another Star Trek vessel lineage thingy. I’ve done a couple of these
now and it seems prudent to touch on a more famous legacy vessel, the Defiant.
The USS Defiant is a legacy name that belonged to ships arguably as important to the galactic
layout of Star Trek as the Enterprise vessels. This ship’s name was named after a fictional
HMS Defiant, which in turn may be inspired by vessels of the name Defiance. The HMS Defiance
has a history dating back hundreds of years, but I couldn’t find any reference to a Defiant,
with a T, so I’m left to assume that the HMS Defiant is also a fictional vessel. Unless
you have a private ship named the Defiant, then go ahead and claim credit.
In the 2250s the new constitution class vessels were the pinnacle of Federation design and
incorporated numerous technologies. The original launch consisted of four vessels in 2245,
and most of these and their subsequent ships inspired their own Starfleet legacies, a testament
to their effectiveness and extensive utilisation. The USS Defiant was such a vessel. As this
ship’s registry is NCC-1764, it suggests a later date of commission than the original
constitution class vessels. This is supported by beta content which says that the Defiant
completed its first five year mission in 2265, where it was overhauled with current technologies
so that it resembled the freshly refit USS Enterprise NCC-1701. This mission began in
2260 under one Captain Sterling. Star Trek Discovery mentions that the ship in 2256,
was patrolling sector 6 during the Federation-Klingon War, which narrows down the vessel’s launch
date more so. Philippa Georgiou was also listed as the first officer of the Defiant from 2246-2249,
so construction of the next batch of constitution ships may have been as early as a year later.
The ship undertook missions of a variety of responsibilities, befitting the Constitution-class’
purpose but was most known for its disappearance in 2268 in Tholian space. The ship was caught
in an interphasic rift while responding to an intercepted distress call. In fact you
can trace the USS Defiant through numerous Trek iterations. Beginning in the Original
Series Episode, “The Tholian Web”, we see the loss of the vessel as it slips out
of our reality and crosses into the Mirror Universe of the Terran Empire. And also back
113 years. Then in the Enterprise two-parter “In a Mirror Darkly” we see a failing
Terran Empire undertake a mission into Tholian space to recover the comparatively advanced
USS Defiant. The ship is ultimately commandeered by Captain Archer, then Empress Sato and brings
with it a leap in design and ability for the Terrans. Then in Discovery’s, “Despite
Yourself”, we learn that the Defiant’s origin was kept as a secret by Terran Rulers,
but they had no hesitation about flaunting their new power.
The subsequent classification of the Mirror Universe means that the USS Defiant NCC-1764
is still listed as missing, presumed destroyed. The next appearance of the USS Defiant was
with the construction of the Defiant Prototype, handled in part by Commander Benjamin Sisko.
This was a combat-orientated vessel, somewhat new territory for Starfleet and it had a lot
of issues centred around its power grind. The project was begun in 2366 and put on hold
for a time until the threat of the Dominion War brought the prototype into service in
2370 and stationed at Deep Space Nine in order to defend the Bajor Sector. This vessel, as
a prototype was given the registry prefix, NX-74205. It was captained by Commander Sisko.
Although a combat escort, the small ship carried out many Starfleet assignments from mapping
the Gamma Quadrant to ferrying personnel. It was also fitted with a cloaking device
that was on loan from the Romulan Star Empire, who were also worried about the Dominion threat.
This vessel played a major part in the Dominion War, being present for many engagements, some
of which were under the command of Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax. Unsurprisingly, the
unique and brazen nature of this vessel led to it becoming a target with several theft
attempts, schematic cloning and a tempting prize in battle.
Eventually the ship was lost in the Second Battle of Chin’Toka when it took a hit from
the Breen’s energy Dampening Weapon which shut down most of the formidable ship’s
defences. Captain Sisko, being a key strategist in the
Dominion War was quickly issued a new vessel, the USS Sao Paulo, NCC-75633 and was allowed
to rename it the USS Defiant, NX-74205. This shows us that Starfleet had begun to produce
the Defiant class in earnest. This ship survived the Dominion War and is still active as of
the end of Deep Space Nine. In Star Trek Online, it is still assigned to the Station under
the Command of James Kurland, after having been Captain Kira Nerys’ for a time also.
This is one of the few occasions where a ship’s registry was copied exactly as well as the
name. With the enterprise, we saw the dash A added and so on, and most vessels don’t
seem to bother with maintaining a constant registry at all, so it’s strange that the
Defiant was allowed to have an identical duplicate. My theory in this is that the Dominion War
was such a dark time for Starfleet that they wished to attempt to raise morale by downplaying
the fact that their most effective combat hero ship had been taken out in two punches
by the Breen, shortly after the attack on Starfleet Command on Earth. Sure, there’d
be people who knew of the event, and Starfleet wasn’t going to classify an event with so
many witnesses, but perhaps in some small way, a soldier on the front could hear of
the loss of the tip of the spear, check Starfleet listings and see that there was still a USS
Defiant with the exact same name flying around out there. So maybe, maybe the Defiant being
destroyed was a lie and there was still hope. That’s just a Theory though. A… not going
to say it. Thanks for watching this nugget of lore on
another one of the Legacy vessels from the Trek Universe. If you’ve got any other vessels
you want me to look into, feel free to suggest them and until then, I’ve been Ric and I’ll
see you around. Goodbye!