USS Potemkin ( NCC - 1657 ) The USS " Potemkin " ( NCC - 1657 ) was a 23rd century Federation starship operated by Starfleet . In 2268 , the " Potemkin " was part of a small task force that participated in war games to field test the experimental M - 5 multitronic unit , which had been designed by Doctor Richard Daystrom . The M - 5 was installed aboard the " Potemkin " s sister ship , the . When the M - 5 unit suffered a disastrous malfunction during simulated combat , it caused the " Enterprise " to attack the other Starfleet ships with full phaser s rather than minimum - strength beams that were standard for such situations . At least five hundred people aboard the and the were killed in the initial attack . The " Potemkin " and the attempted to retreat , but were nonetheless hit numerous times by full phasers from the " Enterprise " . This resulted in an unspecified number of casualties . Following the crippling of the " Excalibur " , the " Potemkin " and the other two remaining ships were ordered to destroy the " Enterprise " to end the threat . Fortunately , the " Enterprise " was able to deactivate the M - 5 computer before the three - ship battle force attacked . ( ) In 2269 , the " Potemkin " was scheduled to rendezvous with the " Enterprise " in the Beta Aurigae system . The two ships were assigned to conduct gravitational studies of that binary system . The " Enterprise " , however , was diverted by a distress call from Camus II , causing the mission with the " Potemkin " to be delayed . ( ) In 2270 , the " Potemkin " was ordered to transfer a shipment of the life - saving medicine , strobolin , from Beta Canopus to the freighter . The " Huron " was then to transfer the drug to the " Enterprise " so that it would be received within the three - day time frame needed to cure Spock ' s choriocytosis infection . ( ) In the next twenty - three years , like her sister ship the " Enterprise " , the " Potemkin " was refitted . ( ) In 2293 , the " Potemkin " was assigned a scientific survey mission . The ship was named on a Starship Mission Assignments chart on the bridge . Later that year , in the " Operation Retrieve " command briefing , the " Potemkin " was depicted as being in the theater of operations . Furthermore , the starship would have been the command ship for the rescue mission , in which it would make an attempt at rescuing James Kirk and Leonard McCoy from the prison planet Rura Penthe . This starship would have been escorted by both the and the . ( ) Appendices . Background information . The registry number of the " Potemkin " was not mentioned in any of the TOS episodes – it was later revealed on the Operation Retrieve chart in " Star Trek VI " . Michael Okuda , the creator of the charts , usually endowed " Constitution " - class vessels , that had not yet been provided with one canon ically , with numbers either derived from Franz Joseph ' s reference book " Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual " ( NCC - 1711 ) or Greg Jein ' s influential " The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship " article ( NCC - 1702 ) , published in the April 1973 issue 27 of the " T - Negative " fanzine . Oddly though , in this particular case , Okuda deviated from the norm and used a number originating from neither . Okuda has stated years later , " " In still other cases , the ships and / or numbers did not come from either source , but were consistent with some fleet status charts I did elsewhere on the in Star Trek VI . " " Since Okuda has propagated the number throughout his subsequent reference book writings , the " Potemkin " became the only visually established " Original Series " " Constitution " - class vessel , not retcon ned with one of Jein ' s conjectural ship registries , when the 2006 remastered version of the series , over which Okuda presided as producer , started its release . The name of the ship had already been established by the producers at the start of second season of , when they composed a list of fourteen ships belonging to the , still referred to as " " Starship " - class " by them at the time , including the " Potemkin " . Producer Robert Justman annotated on a memo of an earlier draft of the list , " " I think there would be several other candidates , such as " Saratoga " and perhaps another English carrier , a French carrier , a Russian carrier and certainly a Japanese carrier . " " ( " The Making of Star Trek " , pp . 164 - 165 ) However , at the time of his writing the Russian navy had never operated an aircraft carrier before , so the World War I - era battleship , immortalized by ' s 1925 silent movie with the , was chosen instead . Both the historical as well as the fictional " Potemkin " were named after , a famous 18th century Russian army commander under . ( ) According to a ship listing included on page four of the mission plans , but which was not seen in the extended cut of the movie , the ship was commanded by D . M . Flinn , and the ship was located in Sector 21185 . The ship ' s captain was named after the sixth movie ' s screen writer Denny Martin Flinn .