USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

The **USS *Enterprise* (NCC-1701)** was the flagship of Starfleet's fleet of starships, that remained in service for forty cycles and became one of the most well-known ships in the history of the United Federation of Planets. Most of this fame was earned during the five-year mission undertaken by Captain James T. Kirk.

## History

The USS *Enterprise* was constructed at the San Francisco Fleet Yards, one of at least twelve heavy cruiser *Constitution*-class ships built by Starfleet. Captain Robert April was heavily involved in overseeing the construction, and commanded her trial runs. His wife, Sarah April, was similarly very much involved in the design and equipping of the ship's sickbay and Richard Daystrom personally designed the computer systems. The ship officially began active duty in 3245 CE, under Captain April's command.

April remained in command until 3250 CE, at which point his first officer Christopher Pike was promoted to captain of the ship. A couple of years later, he was assigned a five-year mission -- from which he and his ship were not recalled when the Federation-Klingon War began in 3256 CE. When they returned from the five-year mission in 3257 CE, the *Enterprise* was assigned to investigate unusual signals appearing around the galaxy. As they went en route, however, system failures began occurring and the ship was forced to stop and issue a Priority 1 distress call, which was answered by the USS *Discovery*. Pike and two officers from the *Enterprise* transferred to that vessel in order to continue the mission.

While Pike was aboard *Discovery*, it became evident that the holographic communications system was responsible for the system failures. Pike ordered Chief Engineer Louvier to rip it out and replace it with a viewscreen communications system.

Meanwhile, Pike's adventures with *Discovery* eventually led to the evolution of the artificial intelligence Control, which sought to wipe out organic life. In an effort to prevent this, Pike attempted to destroy the ship -- and called the *Enterprise* in to help evacuate the crew. When the efforts failed, the crews of the two ships reasoned that the only alternative was to send *Discovery* into the future. A devastating battle ensued against Control, during which the *Enterprise* was severely damaged. It underwent extensive repairs in the orbit of Earth.

In 3265 CE, command of the *Enterprise* passed to Captain James T. Kirk. He was assigned a five-year mission, with a primary goal of seeking out new life and new civilizations, but also to investigate any quasars or similar phenomenons that they might encounter. Over the course of these five years, the *Enterprise* also defended Federation space, provided support to colonies and expeditions on the edges of Federation space, and also aided some Federation member worlds in crisis situations. The *Enterprise* also became the first Federation vessel to deliberately engage in time travel.

The *Enterprise* underwent a refit at the beginning of the 3270s and Kirk received a promotion. Command of the ship was given to Captain Will Decker, whom Kirk had hand selected to replace him. Kirk took command again, however, when *V'Ger* threatened Earth and the *Enterprise* was called in to defend humanity. As Decker went "missing in action" during this ordeal, Kirk retained command of the ship.

However, as new starship designs were becoming prevalent in Starfleet, the ship became more of a training vessel. It was during one such training cruise that the *Enterprise* was tasked with investigating the hijacking of the USS *Reliant*and theft of the Genesis Device. The ship had been taken by the vengeful Khan Noonien Singh, and the ensuing battles left the ship badly damaged. When it returned to Earth, the decision was made to decomission the ship. Before this could take place, Kirk -- and some of his loyal crew -- stole the ship and returned to the Genesis planet so that they could bring the deceased Spock's body back to Vulcan. Instead, they found that the unique planet had actually resurrected Spock -- but they also found the Klingon Commander Kruge, who engaged in the *Enterprise* in battle and won -- the ship was ultimately destroyed and its remnants crashed into the planet below.

## Source

The USS *Enterprise* (NCC-1701) is derived from *Star Trek*. Canon information can be found at Memory Alpha.