Star Trek’s most tragic ship continues to be the USS Enterprise-C

In terms of the various Starfleet vessels from Star Trek‘s lengthy historical past, you actually can’t discover an instance extra tragic than the USS Enterprise-C. The ship’s one and solely look comes within the Star Trek The Subsequent Era episode Yesterday’s Enterprise, and the Starfleet ship is the precursor the the USS Enterprise we see beneath the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard all through the Star Trek collection.

Yesterday’s Enterprise is broadly regarded by followers and critics as one of many biggest (if not the single biggest) TNG episode of all time. We agree. With its twisty time-travel plot, it takes maintain of the franchise’s sci-fi setting including thrilling motion and waves of emotion right into a razor-sharp story set, largely, in an alternate timeline. It’s episodes like this that make TNG maybe the very best TV collection of all time.

On this alternate timeline, the peace negotiated by Captain Kirk and Spock within the Star Trek film The Undiscovered Nation has unravelled and the Federation is locked in a brutal struggle with the Klingons. Picard paces round his ship gaunt and tense, psychologically wounded by the toll exacted serving as a Star Trek captain in a brutal struggle, and one which the Federation is on the sting of dropping.

The USS Enterprise-C is the ship that’s in charge. Below the command of Captain Rachel Garrett, it causes a rift within the Star Trek timeline when it’s pulled by a temporal anomaly on the Battle of Narendra III. 20 years previous to the beginning of TNG, within the 12 months 2344, the ship was responding to a Klingon misery sign after an outpost was attacked by Romulans. Nonetheless, the extreme phaser hearth triggered a spatial anomaly which pulled the Enterprise-C into the alternate future.

Because the Enterprise-C was dragged by the rift, the Klingons watched the Federation ship abandoning them and fleeing from the Romulan attackers. It could have been a misunderstanding (Garrett didn’t willingly depart the battle) but it surely precipitated irreparable harm to the Federation-Klingon relationship, ultimately resulting in their struggle.

The answer? To ship the Enterprise-C again by the anomaly, into the previous, to return to a battle which it is aware of it’s going to lose. That includes the self-sacrifice of the ship’s total crew (plus an extra alternate model of Tasha Yar), dealing with their sure dying head on as a way to protect a future they by no means get to see.

By itself, that’s tragic sufficient. The tragedy of the USS Enterprise-C isn’t simply in its full destruction and the dying of its noble crew, although. It’s in the truth that this sacrifice is essentially unrecognized.

Sure, as seen in Picard season 3 Rachel Garrett will get a commemorative statue. Nonetheless, nobody within the right timeline ever is aware of precisely what was prevented by the USS Enterprise-C’s sacrifice (40 billion lives, roughly), or that the ship’s crew selected to defend the Klingon outpost at Narendra III regardless of understanding they had been destined to die.

The USS Enterprise is synonymous with the adventures of Captain Kirk, and Picard: boldly going, making first contact with alien species, stepping in to proper ethical wrongs. However beneath the command of Rachel Garrett the Enterprise-C, as Yesterday’s Enterprise reveals, is simply as worthy as taking place within the historical past books. It stays Star Trek’s most tragic ship. Let’s ensure that historical past by no means forgets the title Enterprise… C.

For extra on Starfleet’s most interesting, try our picks for the very best Star Trek starships, and the very best Star Trek characters. Or you’ll be able to see our ideas on why Information isn’t Starfleet’s finest synthetic officer, and the way Unusual New Worlds stole a scene from Star Trek VI.

You can too look to the horizon with all of the information on the Unusual New Worlds season 3 launch date, Decrease Decks season 4 launch date, and the Discovery season 5 launch date. You can too see our information to watching the Star Trek films so as, and take a look at the progress on the Star Trek 4 launch date with Chris Pine and co.