Hello all! Ric here with a video on the Ross class! I was going to do a video addendum on
the Galaxy class for… Star Trek Picard reasons, but instead I delved into the rabbit hole of the
Ross class and purchased a couple of books featuring it because I was amazed at its
origin. Originally on seeing it, I thought, it’s just a sovereign style Galaxy right?
And it is. But also its so much more… So the real origins of the Ross class are rather
impressive and actually involve a tabel-top-rpg adventure which, as a Game Master and avid
D and D player I’m stoked for. The Ross Class was envisioned as a sort of evolution from the Galaxy
class that folded in the latest developments of Starfleet such as the Sovereign class technology
and finds from the Delta Quadrant. The designer was Thomas Marrone and the concept came to life in
2020 for the Star Trek Adventures liveplay Clear Skies. Because of this, several aspects of its
lore were derived for the players to tell their narrative, but the design was more than simply a
fan-made creation as it was also implemented into Star Trek Online as a skin for the Galaxy class
as its own ship. From here, the Design progressed into full canon as one of the four initial designs
lifted from STO when new ships were needed to populate the 25th century Starfleet armada.
While in spirit a Galaxy class, it does feature several alterations such as nacelle pylon shape,
and a circular saucer section combined with a large amount of Sovereign flair. The colouration,
interior, deflector dish and neck all have the Sovereign elements in their concept.
So when the ship was added to the lore of the games, naturally it incorporated
these elements into its design tale. If I ask you, the tasteful and good-looking
Starship aficionado that you are, what the replacement for the Galaxy class was,
you might say the Sovereign Class. And before the existence of the Ross in Canon, you would have
been mostly right. The Sovereign, like the Galaxy had incorporated the state of the art technology
into one vessel and launched at the pinnacle of that era’s capabilities, at the time, the most
advanced ship in the fleet. The Constitution was this, the Excelsior, Galaxy and Sovereign
too. However the Sovereign was created with a more combative mindset from the Dominion War and Borg
threats. It was still equipped with diplomatic suites and grand scientific departments,
but for the most part, it knew what it was, Starfleet refined. One of the quirks of the
Galaxy Class had been that it was expansive and crammed full of all sorts of labs and technology
to address a myriad of what-if scenarios. It was also designed to take on numerous upgrades and
alterations in its lifetime to adapt to its deep space missions on the go. This was something lost
on the Sovereign class and its into this niche the Ross class enters the picture.
The project began in 2375, which actually places it after the launch of the Sovereign
class which was entering service around 2372 and the following years. This means that despite the
Ross looking like a stepping stone between the Galaxy and the Sovereign, it was not.It
bore many departments focused on science and engineering and would act as a technological
testbed easily. The ship was also large enough to maintain another former duty of the Galaxy too,
and that was to house a civilian presence, or at the very least a passenger or colonist roster.
With these missions in mind, it was defined as a Command Exploration Cruiser.
The Project began with the Galaxy class and practically recreated it as if it
were being designed again two decades after the original project started,
and therefore there were many similarities. This is why the design that emerges is one that
literally looks like a Galaxy-Sovereign hybrid inside and out. Six years later, the prototype
USS Ross NX-76710 was launched from San Francisco Fleetyards under the command of Captain Sull for
a 2 month cruise to the Shackleton Expanse which lay in the Beta Quadrant between the Romulan and
Klingon territories. While you could go around, it was easiest to pass through Klingon space,
and in 2381, the two powers were allied so this was not an issue. Both the Klingon and Romulan
parties had little interest in that area so the Federation was free to explore it.
The ship was named not after Admiral Ross (as I first assumed) but after Mary Golda Ross,
the first native American Female Engineer at Lockheed. This was a good choice for a ship
that was designed to trial new technologies as part of its exploration missions and indeed,
many of these such as second generation bioneural circuitry
would go on to be standard by the 25th century. Among other technologies was its experimentation
in the evolution of artificial intelligence and holography based on the EMH Doctor’s evolution.
The EXEO system was a fully sentient and aware holographic officer that could be projected around
the ship and had a basic mobile emitter that was limited by a connection range to the USS
Ross. This officer bore the rank of Lieutenant Commander and was to explore the utilisation of
holographic officers in various roles. While the USS Ross EXEO acted as the first officer,
it’s unclear if other Ross class vessels had these dedicated holographic officers.
The Ross class is 663.2 metres long, 146.8 metres high and 398.9 wide. This
made it longer than the galaxy class but slightly narrower. I would say that from and above angle,
the nacelles really look kind of out of place, but they do connect in the middle, not by the ends as
the sloped pylons would suggest. It weighed over 4.4million tonnes and spanned across 42 decks. It
carried a crew complement of 600 officers, however it had accommodations for up to 1900 passengers.
It had six DYN58 Multi-Band Lateral Sensor Suites, 4 GBC Directional Sensor arrays and its
main deflector was a NDM-09 Omni Phase Deflector Array. Several of these sensor suites were located
on the underside of the saucer section. In terms of armaments, it had quite a
few with 11 mark 10 (and later mark 12) phaser arrays and 7 torpedo launchers.
Now I left the warp capabilities for last for one reason. It was capable of reaching warp
9.9 as its maximum, which was not quite as fast as the Sovereign, but still a generation ahead
of its predecessors. However, while its main core was a Yoyodyne 33R M/ARC Core,
it had a secondary smaller warp core rated at 1200 Cochranes within its saucer section.
This was because, like the Galaxy class before it, it was capable of reversible saucer separation and
therefore bore two bridges. However, drawing on the Prometheus class, the saucer section
maintained a separate warp assembly complete with the ability to generate a warp field and
travel at warp itself; an evolution of the Galaxy class design. This was accomplished by a ring
of warp coils around the edge of the saucer, opposite the recreation deck and phaser array.
It could sustain warp 6 as a cruise speed on its own and in theory, should the primary core fail,
the entire ship could run from this secondary core by channelling energy to the drive section.
This was not ideal however, as running power down through the sensitive areas of the ship was not
without risk. When not in use for separated warp, it could channel directly into the phaser arrays;
the ship had kick. It also maintained 3 Charon Yards Heavy Impulse Engines for sublight speeds.
In terms of auxiliary craft, it had a comparable shuttle bay to the Galaxy class,
with it being located on the back of the neck between the impulse engines and its complement
was therefore similar. The exact amount was not detailed but it contained runabouts and the Argo
transport craft which are on the larger side of Starfleet shuttles, so I assume
the bay held around 20 shuttles at least. Following the successful 2 month shakedown,
the Ross class entered production with ships like the Archer, Forrest, Vanguard and Yi Sun-Sin and
would continue to create new vessels into the 25th century. As the Sovereign took on the
technological and poster child aspects of the Galaxy, the Ross class took over the civilian,
engineering and scientific spirit of the class leading to the decommissioning of
the Galaxy class in full. Spoilers for Picard season three… but one good thing to come from
the decommissioning of the Galaxy class was the surplus of components and entire hulls,
Some of which, such as the USS Syracuse were adopted by the Starfleet Fleet museum and used to
reconstruct and repair the fallen USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D. So while the Ross class pioneered on,
it’s kind of nice to know that in 2401. The most famous vessel of its inspiring class was on its
way to completion and space-worthy once more. So that is the breakdown of the Ross class. The
level of detail here can be broken into three layers based on its implementation into canon,
with all of these details being true to the tabletop RPG game, some of them being accurate
to Star Trek Online, and with Star Trek Picard pretty much confirming only that.. Yes, it exists.
Still, this is a standout ship that I did not expect to like as much as I did until I began
looking into it, from its origin to full canonical vessel, the lore on the Ross class is well thought
out and it finds itself a nice place in the Star Trek lineage to occupy. Thanks for watching,
I’ve also linked the Clear Skies playlist below as it seems the
subsequent voyages ended up folded into the lore of the RPG game itself based
on the Utopia Planitia sourcebook and you may find some fun within.
Thanks for watching this video, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you later for another lore,
review or other Sci Fi video, until then thanks again and goodbye!