USS Yorktown (23rd century)

The USS Yorktown was a 23rd century Federation starship operated by Starfleet.
In 2268, the Yorktown was scheduled to rendezvous with and transfer vaccines for the Theta VII colony to the . ()
In 2286, the Yorktown was under the command of Captain Joel Randolph. While deployed near the Sol system, the Yorktown was the second starship disabled by the Whale Probe near Earth. 
In Randolph's distress call to Starfleet Command, he noted that the ship had lost all power and that all non-essential crew were given hiber-sedatives to slow down consumption of reserves. Meanwhile, the chief engineer attempted to deploy a makeshift solar sail so as to focus and absorb radiation from a nearby sun they were orbiting, with the hopes of generating power to keep the crew alive. ()
In 2293, Tuvok's father was serving in an unknown capacity aboard the Yorktown. ()
== Yorktown personnel ==
* USS Yorktown personnel
== Appendices ==
=== Background information ===
The "United Space Ship Yorktown" (identified as SS Yorktown) was the name of the central starship in Gene Roddenberry's first Star Trek proposal to NBC in 1964. The ship was named for the (CV-5), a World War II American aircraft carrier, which in turn was named after the last major battle of the American Revolution, won in 1781 by a combined Franco-American army commanded by Gen. George Washington. () Coincidentally, the historical World War II Yorktown was a class sister of the historical , after which Roddenberry ultimately named his starship. (The Making of Star Trek, p. 164)
According to the , "Roddenberry reportedly suggested the second , launched at the end of Star Trek IV, had previously been named USS Yorktown since it seemed unlikely that Starfleet could have built a new Enterprise so quickly. If this was the case, the Yorktown may have made it safely back to Earth and been repaired and renamed, or perhaps there was a newer, replacement Yorktown already under construction at the time of the probe crisis." The latter scenario could be supported by dialogue from Star Trek V where the Enterprise is described as a "new ship" by Scotty, whereas the former scenario serves as a convenient rationale for the difficulties Scotty had of getting the apparently recently refitted ship (therefore also fitting his "new ship" remark, akin to a similar remark Will Decker had already made on the refit-Enterprise in ) back in operational order after the debilitating effects the Whale Probe had inflicted on it. For its appearance in The Voyage Home, the bridge was a redress of the shown around the emergency power console and not a redress of the Enterprise-A's bridge.
The season four internal studio document, Star Trek: The Next Generation Writers' Technical Manual (2nd ed. p. 6), co-written by Star Trek Encyclopedia Co-Author Michael Okuda, emphatically stated the renaming scenario as being the case, reiterated in its one year later released Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual spinoff publication and reaffirmed in the even later officially licensed Star Trek Fact Files and the 2010 reference book USS Enterprise Owners' Workshop Manual. This was further validated when, in later Star Trek Encyclopedias, Okuda described the 2293 Yorktown – the one Tuvok's father served on – as the second ship to bear the name. The Starfleet practice of renaming a vessel for a very deserving other vessel was later canonically established in episodes and , when the was rechristened as the , when the original Defiant was destroyed in the Dominion War. The Star Trek Encyclopedia and all other subsequent official reference works confirm the Yorktown being a heavy cruiser. The producers of had the name included on their final fourteen ship list at the start of its second season, belonging to the Constitution-class, then still referred to as "" by them. (The Making of Star Trek, pp. 164-165)
Incidentally, renaming vessels that were either under construction or recently constructed for by then lost in action counterparts had a real world basis, as it became established practice in the United States Navy to do so for its aircraft carriers in World War II, these having become the most valuable assets in the war against Japan. Aside from honoring these lost ships, it also served to confuse Japanese intelligence at the time. However, it is otherwise very rare to rename a serving ship; it is considered "unlucky."
NCC-1717 was the registry number given to the Yorktown by Gregory Jein in his influential "The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship" article, published in the April 1973 issue 27 of the T-Negative fanzine. Okuda took his cue from Jein's article and further propagated the registry in his reference work writings, most notably the Star Trek Encyclopedias.
Its non-canon status notwithstanding, , the official , and the above mentioned production staffers have all alike firmly embraced the 23rd century ship as being the "[U]SS Yorktown (NCC-1717), Constitution-class", as was amply demonstrated when the British, officially licensed, partwork publication Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection from Eaglemoss Collections, released a convention-exclusive model of the ship as such in 2016. Incidentally, in the wake of the franchise's 2002 re-evalution of the older reference books written from an in-universe perspective, only The Next Generation Technical Manual, and the Encyclopedia were retained as "official" – as in compliance with established (onscreen) canon. () All subsequent licensed in-universe reference works, such as the above-mentioned ones, needed henceforth to be in concordance with the information contained within these three works, which played a major part in the growing acceptance – even by the franchise itself, as stated – that it was indeed the USS Yorktown NCC-1717 that became the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A, even though a formal onscreen canon confirmation has as of 2024 yet to materialize.
=== Apocrypha ===
NCC-1704 was the registry number assigned to the Yorktown by Franz Joseph in the unofficial reference work Star Fleet Technical Manual. Joseph's Manual, once considered "official" in the above mentioned sense, did not make the cut in 2002.
The book series Star Trek: Romulans - Schism featured the Constitution-class Yorktown, endowed with Jein's registry number NCC-1717. The Yorktowns commanding officer is commodore Una Chin-Riley and was tasked with testing the cloaking device stolen from the Romulans during the events of .
The FASA sourcebook Star Trek: The Next Generation Officer's Manual listed a (NCC-2033) of this era which belonged to the . Like Joseph's works, the FASA print materials were once considered "official" and occasionally used as production use sources, which would mean that FASA's Yorktown could have been considered the replacement for the Enterprise rechristened Yorktown – and thus a candidate as the ship Tuvok's father served on. However, and again like Joseph's work, the FASA print materials did not make the cut in 2002 either.
In Star Trek Online, the Yorktown serves as Admiral Isaac Garrett's flagship during the Battle of Caleb IV and is one of the only Starfleet ships to survive the battle after being ambushed by Kor's battle group. The vessel's alternate reality counterpart, also , makes a brief appearance in the mission "Terminal Expanse", attempting to disable a Delphic Expanse sphere in the Beta Quadrant.
=== External links ===
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