The USS Dauntless, the fake Starfleet Ship from the Federation, has always been an interesting ship, but has Starfleet finally managed to reproduce the ship,
the mid-season final for Star Trek: Prodigy Season One seems to suggest so,
but Janeway’s new command ship might be more mysterious than we first thought!
Let’s jump in and explore more!
Before we start, let’s just say that there will be Spoilers ahead for the first season of Star Trek: Prodigy,
so you have been warned! Good? Let’s jump right into it!
Welcome to Trek Central! I’m your host, Captain Jack and prepare to nerd out on starship information with me and the team!
The first half of Star Trek: Prodigy’s first season has finally finished, and though we got a lot of looks on the hero ship,
the USS Protostar, there wasn't many other Federation ships in the series,
sure we got a holodeck Enterprise D, and a Ferengi Marauder, but with the show being set in Delta Quadrant this made sense.
However the mid-season finale ended with us being introduced to not only a USS Dauntless, NCC-80816,
but with a famous admiral commanding her! So let’s take a look at this ship, how is it different, and what this means for Star Trek Prodigy going forward.
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Okay, engage!
So before we start talking about this new Dauntless class, it seems only apt that we should talk about the former USS Dauntless, whether it was fake or not, just as a warm up.
We recently did a very detailed breakdown of the USS Dauntless by our great Lieutenant Adam, so if you are interested in learning much more about the fake USS Dauntless, go and check out that video.
Good?
Let’s gThe only prior known ship in the Dauntless class was the USS Dauntless, with registry NX-01-A, t started!
noting it as an experimental ship, but by normal registry conventions this would identify the USS Dauntless as a refit of the Enterprise NX-01
which it definitely is not, but perhaps further alludes to the fact this ship was a fake.
It would come to no surprise that the USS Dauntless was not actually a Federation ship, but a ship used by Species 116, according to their borg species designation,
which utilised Particle Synthesis technology, a technology which allowed for the creation of artificial environments in a way more advanced than that of conventional holograms.
It could be said that Particle Synthesis was a precursor to the Programmable matter used by the Federation in the 32nd century, seen in Star Trek: Discovery Season 3.
The USS Dauntless was actually a trap, laid out by a member of Species 116, called Arturis, who blamed the crew of the USS Voyager for the death of his civilization by the hands of the Borg Collective.
Species 116 had managed to resist the Borg for centuries, but were assimilated with only a few survivors after Voyager had assisted the Borg Collective in dealing with the invasion of Species 8472.
Arturis had stalked the USS Voyager for some time after the destruction of his civilisation and had created a fake Starfleet message,
tricking them into believing the Dauntless was an advanced Starfleet ship sent into the Delta Quadrant to bring the USS Voyager’s crew home.
Arturis’ actual plan was to pilot the ship into Borg Territory with the crew of the Voyager onboard,
as revenge for him believing they were partly responsible for the borg assimilation of his people.
Unfortunately for Arturis’ the crew of the Voyager managed to escape, which left him alone into Borg territory where he and his ship were captured and presumably assimilated by the Borg.
However the crew of the USS Voyager were able to make detailed scans of the ship,
and once they had returned to Federation space, it seems that the reconstruction of the ship and its technology had begun.
This would eventually lead to the construction of an actual USS Dauntless, with a registry of NCC-80816 denoting it was no longer a prototype, but a full fledged starfleet ship.
Whether the USS Dauntless official had the exact same capacity as the USS Dauntless fake, is unknown, but we can believe that it has some of its capabilities.
Looking at the exterior, it is not exactly the same design as the fake USS Dauntless, with a very similar saucer section, but a very different aft section.
his aft section is more akin to a former USS Voyager concept by Rick Sternbach, with a long but not very wide aft section, compared to the more smooth, curved and small aft section of the fake USS Dauntless.
The Hull of the ship as well is slightly different, with more of a titanium finish.
This is very cool if the design of this dauntless was combined with a Rick Sternbach concept for the Voyager
as Rick also designed the USS Dauntless, so its just two of his designs merging together!
Kit-bashing at It's finest in the Star Trek Universe!
What should be noted, is that with the saucer design, this might be the same in order to allow for the quantum slipstream drive.
This drive which the fake dauntless had, capable of going at faster than warp speeds, was tested on the USS Voyager,
but wasn’t 100% successful.
This could be down to the shape and design of the saucer, with the idea that an aerodynamic profile is much easier to send into a quantum slipstream than a non-aerodynamic profile.
The aft of the saucer section is very interesting, with the secondary hull extended into the saucer, and the saucer going around this, with a grill like structure.
Whether this serves a purpose on the ship, perhaps with the quantum slipstream, is currently unknown.
The Registry of the new USS Dauntless, NCC-80816 denotes that this ship was created after the end of the Dominion War and after the return of Voyager, obviously the latter as it is based on designs from the USS Voyager.
If the USS Titan was launched in the year 2380, with its registry of NCC-80102, this would suggest that before the USS Dauntless was created, 813 ships were made.
The Dauntless would have been launched sometime after 2380, due to its registry, and before 2383 due to it being in service then.
The only part of the interior we have currently seen of the USS Dauntless is that of the bridge, which looks remarkably similar to the bridge seen aboard the fake USS Dauntless.
The Bridge features a single captains chair, a single front console and multiple consoles at the aft of the bridge and to its side.
The central section of the bridge is very isolated, and only had a single fore console as the ship could be operated by a single crew.
Whether this is still the case for the Federation version of the ship is unknown.
Whether this new Dauntless had Particle synthesis technology is unknown, but I would think unlikely due to the fact this technology was basically invisible to scanners, and just looked like what it made, so would have been more difficult to reverse engineer when Voyager returned to starfleet.
In regards to other capabilities, we do not know much.
We know it does have a standard warp drive system to complement its limited quantum slipstream drive.
We also see impulse engines on the saucer section of the ship.
Whether the vessel has more features is simply unknown at this current moment, but we can probably assume the standard tactical capabilities of Phasers and Photon Torpedos.
If the scale of the new USS Dauntless is similar to the fake one, the ship would be roughly 200 metres in length and would consist of 7 decks.
The fake dauntless did not have a shuttle bay, but it looks like there may be a shuttlebay at the rear of the new Dauntless in its secondary hull.
There were no holodeck or replicators on the fake Dauntless, though I am sure that even if this actual USS Dauntless doesn’t have a holodeck, it must surely have replicators. How would Janeway get her coffee without one!
And talking of Janeway, the first captain we know of this USS Dauntless is Vice Admiral Janeway.
Vice Admiral Janeway was last seen in the year 2379, giving the Enterprise E and the Then Captain Picard the mission to go meet the new praetor on Romulus, which turned out to be a trap by the praetor Shinzon.
In the year 2383, after the disappearance of Captain Chakotay and his ship, the USS Protostar in the Delta Quadrant,
Vice Admiral Janeway, never wanting to leave a crewman behind, even a former one, took command of the USS Dauntless and went in search for her former XO!
Janeway's first officer aboard the USS Dauntless was Commander Tysess, an Andorian, with the Helm being taken by the Trill Ensign, Asencia.
The medical officer aboard the dauntless was a tellarite doctor, who must have a very interesting bedside manner, by the name of Doctor Noum.
Other officers could be seen on the USS Dauntless, though it is currently unknown how many officers are aboard the ship, with the original dauntless allowed to be operated by a crew of one,
Janeway probably took a minimum crew to go into the Delta Quadrant.
And that is currently all we know about the official USS Dauntless of Starfleet and the crew that operate it.
Even though this wasn’t one of our standard ship breakdown videos, if you want us to look at any ship in star trek and break it down, let us know.
And if you want to just let us know what you think about this new starfleet ship, please do! Because as always, if you are talking about star trek, we would love to hear it!
If you want to keep up to date on all the latest Star Trek news, lore and more, then make sure to hit that subscribe button to never miss a video from the team here at Trek Central!
You can also follow us on social media, or join our Community Discord Server!
For now, I’ve been Captain Jack, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!