Hi all, it’s been a while since we looked into the heritage of one of Star Trek’s
vessels, so today I thought we could look into the namesakes of one of Starfleet’s
most advanced ships of its time, the USS Prometheus. Prometheus as a name comes from the Greek
Myths of the Titans. Prometheus is credited with sculpting humans from clay and aiding
them form a civilization. He was most known for the theft of fire from the heavens and
brings it to early mankind, teaching them its uses. For this, he was chained to a rock
and had his insides devoured every day for eternity. They’d grow back. This myth has
led to him being a symbol for human progress and the spirit to strive for advancement.
Unsurprisingly, such a grandiose name was then used to mark a number of real life ships
and some in the extended lore of Star Trek. The HMS Prometheus was launched in 1807 and
took part in an attack in the Baltic alongside 16 other vessels, including other mythically
Grecian titled ships the Cerberus and Minotaur. It was under the command of Captain Forrest
and fought in the Anglo-Russian War in 1809. In 1819, she was relegated to harbour service
and renamed the HMS Veteran before being scrapped in 1852.
Meanwhile across the pond, there was the USS Prometheus in 1814-1818. She served a lot
it seems as a courier vessel and light survey ship.
In 1839, the Alecto-class HMS Prometheus was a steam powered sloop built at the Sheerness
Shipyards. Seemingly one of the earliest of its class, it entered service under Lieutenant
Commander Thomas Spark. For the most of its life it was deployed across the coast of Africa
until 1863 where it was scrapped as rot had set into the timbers and its salvaged parts
being sold on. In 1898, the next Prometheus was a Pelorus
class cruiser designed to patrol and police. In a strong tradition, many of the other vessels
of this make were alliteratively named. Pelorus, Pactolus, Pandora, Pegasus, Perseus, Pioneer,
Pomone, Proserpine, Psyche and Pyramus. Unfortunately they were rapidly outmatched in terms of technology
and the Prometheus was decommissioned and scrapped in 1914. Being scrapped for becoming
obsolete is rather ironic considering the name.
The USS Ontario AC-2 was a ship commissioned in 1910 with a civilian crew, ferrying coal
for the main fleets. In 1913 she was refit to be a repair vessel and relaunched in 1914with
the new name of the Prometheus AR-3. At the advent of World War 1, she was stationed in
France and continued to support American vessels until 1923. In 1942, she was recommissioned
for the second Great War which she also survived and was eventually decommissioned in 1946.
In Trek with the name being of mythological origin, naturally there are celestial bodies
named Prometheus, but the first ship we see is the USS Prometheus NCC-71201, a Nebula
class vessel built at the 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards. It operated on several
scientific missions as the Nebula class was known to do. In 2370 one such mission was
to the Epsilon 119 system to reignite a star. It must have been decommissioned by 2374 however
as this year saw the shakedown run of the Prometheus NX-74913. As the NX registry indicates,
this was the prototype for its advanced escort class and featured the multi-vector assault
mode. This combat orientated model was designed to take saucer separation to a new extreme
and split into three warp capable segments, each a starship in its own right. It was almost
hijacked by Romulans who discovered one of the most advanced Starfleet vessels to date
and it was only the intervention of the USS Voyager’s EMH and the local EMH mark 2 that
saved the vessel. On top of this, the EMH mark 1 was able to accomplish his original
mission of alerting the Federation to the USS Voyager’s continued existence.
Another strength of this vessel was that it required very minimal crew to operate, when
in multi vector assault mode, each segment could be coordinated from the saucer section’s
bridge. In 2377, the USS Prometheus was assigned to
local Federation patrols and responded to the opening of a Borg Transwarp gate near
Sol only to find the USS Voyager emerge from the aperture. By this time it was under the
command of Captain Richard Adams. In books it was part of the fleet that halted the Borg
incursion if 2381 and was one of only 4 survivors. As time went on, more Prometheus class vessels
were commissioned including the USS Cerberus, Hercules and Icarus. We don’t have and exact
decommission date, but it was still on active patrols by 2385.
By the year 2409, there Star Trek online show us the USS Prometheus NCC-59650-A, a variant
on the original Prometheus design. The Prometheus class also turns up in the
battle of Procyon V however, this was only for a second in background shots and a tenuous
connection, even though it appeared in the show as battle was set in the 26th century
and the image is rather blurry so it could be passed off as a similar design and not
an actual Prometheus class. So it seems that the Prometheus has had a
history as serving as a support vessel and patrol craft in both Star Trek and real world
history. Only once however, has the name stood up to the meaning derived from the Titan of
legend with the prototype Prometheus of 2374 being the most advanced and ambitious vessel
Starfleet had ever produced for the era. It’s systems may have been tailored for war, but
with the Dominion threat encroaching, its seems only natural that the Federation would
innovate in this direction. The vessel is very much part of that sleeker
post-Dominion age where vessel became lower profile and more angular and the cool factor
was cranked up to 11 for its multi-vector assault mode while its predecessors were relatively
unremarkable. Thanks for watching this video on the legacy of the name Prometheus, let
me know if you can think of any other Trek vessels who’s history you want me to delve
into and until the next one, thanks for watching, I’ll see you around.