USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A)

USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A)

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USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A)

The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A (or Enterprise-A) is a fictional starship in the fourth, fifth, and sixth Star Trek films.

Origin and design
Depiction
References
External links

Origin and design

The Enterprise-A uses the same shooting model as the preceding NCC-1701.

The existing Enterprise sets from the first through fourth films were redressed for use on Star Trek: The Next Generation; some of these Next Generation sets were reused for subsequent Enterprise film appearances, while others were built new.

Depiction

The Constitution-class starship Enterprise was commissioned in 2286, at the end of the events depicted in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This ship is the second starship commissioned since the United Federation of Planets's founding to bear the name "Enterprise". The ship is placed under the command of newly demoted Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) as "punishment" for his and his crew's actions in the rescue of Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy) in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It replaces the original USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), destroyed in Star Trek III.

Replica of the Enterprise-A in Vulcan, Alberta

In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, the ship is dispatched to rescue hostages on Nimbus III. The Vulcan renegade Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill) and his followers hijack the ship and take it to a planet at the center of the galaxy, where Kirk and his crew eventually regain control of the ship. Several novels and comics explore the six-year period between the fifth and sixth films. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the Enterprise escorts Klingon chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) to a peace summit on Earth. The renegade Klingon general Chang (Christopher Plummer), assisted by traitors aboard the Enterprise, makes it appear that the Enterprise fires on the chancellor's vessel. The Klingons take Kirk and Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) prisoner; Spock and the Enterprise crew disregard Starfleet orders and instead rescue Kirk and McCoy. The Enterprise encounters and, with aid from the USS Excelsior, destroys Chang's ship, and the crew protects the Federation President from an assassination attempt. The film concludes with Starfleet ordering the ship to return to spacedock to be decommissioned, an order which Kirk and the crew gleefully disregard.

There is no canon information about the ship's fate beyond Star Trek VI. Documentation provided with the Bandai model states that the ship was displayed in the Starfleet Museum at Memory Alpha. According to the novel The Ashes of Eden, written by William Shatner, Starfleet Commander-in-Chief Androvar Drake orders the Enterprise-A decommissioned and destroyed during war games and weapons testing, but the Chal government intervenes. Ultimately, the Enterprise is destroyed to prevent Drake's completion of a disastrous personal agenda.

The events of Star Trek IV occurred soon after the events of Star Trek III, and fans have often speculated how a new ship could be built and commissioned so soon after the original Enterprises destruction. Gene Roddenberry had suggested that the Enterprise-A was a renamed existing Constitution-class ship, the Yorktown, which was one of the ships prominently featured during the fourth movie in which it was disabled. This also may answer the question as to why the new Enterprise was not a later model than the aging Constitution class.