The Apollo class

[Dukhat]

The Apollo class was one of the conjectural starship classes from TNG. Unlike most of these conjectural classes Michael Okuda made up for the Star Trek Encyclopedia, this class was actually listed on screen in an Okudagram as the class of the U.S.S. Ajax (initially an Excelsior, but was later changed to an Apollo):

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Starship_mission_status

The Ajax's registry number is NCC-11574, implying it was an older class of ship still in service during the TNG era, like the Constellation and Miranda classes were. The Ajax was also mentioned in "Tapestry" as being in service as early as 2327 (although it isn't 100% canonical that the 2327 Ajax is the same ship as the 2364 Ajax, but the registry number is good enough proof that it most likely was.)

There's also the Memory Alpha page which lists the Vulcan T'pau-type freighters as the Starfleet Apollo class, but I choose to ignore this trend of MA's to try to link things together that weren't meant to be linked. I choose to believe that the Starfleet Apollo class looks nothing like a Vulcan freighter.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Apollo_class

So where am I going with this? Apparently there was a graphic made for Star Trek: Picard showing an MSD of Rios's old ship the U.S.S. ibn Majid, a ship clearly contemporary to the Sovereign class, with a registry of NCC-75710. Initially, the previous showrunner Michael Chabon mentioned that the ibn Majid was a Curiosity class starship. However, in the graphic, it is listed as an Apollo class starship:

https://twitter.com/DaveBlass/status/1654107067425193984

So we have two conflicting canon sources for the same class name, neither of which was even seen clearly on screen (and in the case of the ibn Majid, I don't actually recall seeing it on screen at all, despite what Dave Blass stated.) How do we rectify this? I can only think of three solutions:

1. The TNG Apollo class and the PIC Apollo class are the same class.

2. The TNG Apollo class has been phased out by the time of PIC, and a new class now uses its recycled class name (although the trend seems to be to add a "II" to the class name when recycling names.)

3. The ibn Majid is a Curiosity class starship per Chabon, and the MSD should be ignored.


I'm personally going with #3. The ibn Majid's design was clearly meant to be contemporary to the 2370's Sovereign class, not a ship from the 2320's or earlier. I also don't see Starfleet recycling the class name after only a relatively short period of time between service dates, or at least not without adding a II to the class name.

What do you think?

 

[ProwlAlpha]

I agree that the Apollo Class was not the SS T'Pau and the Ibn Majid's class. There is the nebula-ized Ambassador that has floating around that my head canon more aligns with. There is the USS Apollo NCC-30000, which would imply that the Apollo-class USS Apollo NCC-10xxxx was not in service a few decades later. So by the late 2370s, there could be a whole new USS Apollo NCC-75xxx, a replacement ship built during the Dominion War.

 

[valkyrie013]

why would a Vulcan ship have an Earth class name?? Thats going a bit beyond Human Centric..

Both Michael saying it and the quite illegible graphic ( when seen in the show) are subject to not being "holy cannon" So someone could come in and say something different, but for me I'll take the Showrunner's word for now, and not take a graphic that might have been made before the showrunner said something. And just ignore the Vulcan cruisers designation.

 

[Dukhat]

There is the nebula-ized Ambassador that has floating around that my head canon more aligns with.

I know the design of which you speak. And while I’m all for the Ambassador class having variants, I get the feeling that the Apollo class was probably a TMP-era design based on its registry numbers.

There is the USS Apollo NCC-30000, which would imply that the Apollo-class USS Apollo NCC-10xxxx was not in service a few decades later.

I’m aware of that too. However, it doesn’t really make sense to me to have a newer ship called the USS Apollo (which was not an Apollo class starship) while other Apollo class starships were still in service. On the other hand, it’s problematic that the USS Apollo NCC-30000 was the class ship while all the other Apollos had 1XXXX registries. It’s just one of those things that can’t be easily explained because the info on that Measure of a Man chart was retconned later. (i.e. the Yamato went from 24383 to a Galaxy class starship with a 71807 registry.)

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Given that the early Ambassadors were NCC-10xxx, it would be nice to flesh out that early 2320s Ambassador-style Tech. Other classes with registries in that range were the Hokule'a and Wambundu. Though there are a couple of California ships with that early registries, I wonder if the California's were originally sister designs to the Ambassadors?

 

[Dukhat]

Given that the early Ambassadors were NCC-10xxx, it would be nice to flesh out that early 2320s Ambassador-style Tech. Other classes with registries in that range were the Hokule'a and Wambundu. Though there are a couple of California ships with that early registries, I wonder if the California's were originally sister designs to the Ambassadors?

The Hokule’a class Tripoli and the Wambundu class Drake were described in dialogue as a cruiser and a light cruiser, respectively. Perhaps the Tripoli was the Ambassador version of the Constellation/Cheyenne classes, with four nacelles, and the Drake was the equivalent of the Saladin/Freedom class, with just one nacelle? (The dialogue stated that the Drake’s maximum speed was only warp 3.)

As for the California class, the only two ships with 1XXXX registries were an anomaly. One gets destroyed and its brand-new replacement still has a 1XXXX registry (actually a lower one than the ship it replaced.) So that’s not really proof of anything as far as build dates are concerned.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Registries are a mess. Canonically, we have a Galaxy-class starship with the registry NCC-17744.

The Yamato is another sticky mess. We have four registries for a ship or ships named Yamato:
* NCC-1305-E an illusion by Nagilum
* NCC-24383 the ship from "The Measure of a Man"
* NCC-71806 the studio model was labeled with this registry
* NCC-71807 graphics for this ship are shown with this registry

I never saw the MSD in the episodes set aboard the USS Stargazer. Maybe it was in a cut scene?

 

[Ithekro]

What is USS Centaur was Apollo-class? That would fit an Excelsior era starship.

 

[Dukhat]

Registries are a mess. Canonically, we have a Galaxy-class starship with the registry NCC-17744.

The Yamato is another sticky mess. We have four registries for a ship or ships named Yamato:
* NCC-1305-E an illusion by Nagilum
* NCC-24383 the ship from "The Measure of a Man"
* NCC-71806 the studio model was labeled with this registry
* NCC-71807 graphics for this ship are shown with this registry

I never saw the MSD in the episodes set aboard the USS Stargazer. Maybe it was in a cut scene?

Actually, registries mostly do make sense and are mostly chronological. Yes, there are some discrepancies but for the most part they’ve been pretty consistent throughout Star Trek history.

What is USS Centaur was Apollo-class? That would fit an Excelsior era starship.

The Centaur has never been given a canonical class. But it’s probably not the Apollo class, since their registries are in the 1XXXX range while the Centaur’s registry is 42043.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Actually, registries mostly do make sense and are mostly chronological. Yes, there are some discrepancies but for the most part they’ve been pretty consistent throughout Star Trek history.

The Centaur has never been given a canonical class. But it’s probably not the Apollo class, since their registries are in the 1XXXX range while the Centaur’s registry is 42043.

Especially after TNG season 4, registries were seen as chronological. Even today, US naval hull numbers sometimes jump around due to paper plans that don't go beyond the initial plans, but still retain the hull number. That is what I imagined for some of the registry irregularities and Starfleet Builders are smudging their budget numbers to get a new ship by using the registry of an older design that was already approved.

 

[mithril]

could be there are multiple appollo classes.
we've seen that freighters are described by class, like the Antares class. and sometimes those aren't even cionsistant suggesting the 'class' designation for freighters is less a specific design and more a category with a lot of variability in appearance (the SS Xhosa for example is also an antares class, creating two concurrent antares class designs. and the TOS remaster gave us a third older antares example as well.) possibly in setting the class names refer mainly to the baseline systems design and there are a lot of hull configurations and modifications to that baseline creating an array of sub-classes.
thus the vulcan ship T'pau might have been an Apollo class freighter, perhaps one built in a vulcan yard with a vulcan type warp system (thus probably a vulcan sub-class name that didn't get mentioned).

and this would allow there to be an Apollo class Starship in use by starfleet as well.

 

[USS Artorius]

I'd go with option 3. I would prefer if there was only one Apollo class to avoid confusion, and according to most fans all the BTS stuff on twitter should not be considered canon anyway... Unless it is on-screen and clearly distinguishable. The registry number of 11xxx would be most likely a design similar to the Excelsior or the Ambassador Class ship in overall design language. I quite like Red Admiral's old Hokul'a class design, but as the Trek mania website has been down for quite sometime now I can't find a decent image of it to embed here. As for the Apollo Class, as much as I like having variants of ship classes such as the Galaxy-Nebula and Consitution-Mirandas, I think the Apollo should be a somewhat original design.

 

[Unicron]

I think the Ibn Majid is a Curiosity class myself. In terms of fun head canon, I can see a couple of options for the USS Ajax. The first version of the TNG chart ("Brothers" ) has it as an Excelsior class, with a registry of NCC-13554, and the later version changed that into an Apollo class instead with the registry as 11574. The FASA TNG module has an Excelsior class USS Ajax II NCC-2010, and Jackill's works have a Loki class destroyer that replaced the older Saladin family Ajax from the FJ TM, with the Loki being an Excelsior family variant.

For my own head canon, it's fun to think that the Loki class Ajax was the one referenced in "Tapestry" and it could have been lost in service, leading to the Excelsior class Ajax II being next in line. I'm a bit more mixed about trying to apply it to the T'Pau model, for reasons already mentioned. However, I'm open to the possibility that maybe some older vessels of this type were crewed by mainly humans in Starfleet service and the Apollo name could apply to a specific variant or model. This would fit in with the T'Pau being decommissioned and stored in a depot before it was stolen, and the Odin from "Angel One" also being listed as Apollo class.

The Last Unicorn Games Trek RPG has the Apollo as a heavy cruiser that had Ambassador/early Galaxy family elements (like the New Orleans class) and was produced from 2325 to 2328, which would make it a very new vessel at the time Picard graduated from the academy in 2327. So this design could fit in with "Tapestry" and the TNG era.

 

[Dukhat]

could be there are multiple appollo classes.
we've seen that freighters are described by class, like the Antares class. and sometimes those aren't even cionsistant suggesting the 'class' designation for freighters is less a specific design and more a category with a lot of variability in appearance (the SS Xhosa for example is also an antares class, creating two concurrent antares class designs. and the TOS remaster gave us a third older antares example as well.) possibly in setting the class names refer mainly to the baseline systems design and there are a lot of hull configurations and modifications to that baseline creating an array of sub-classes.
thus the vulcan ship T'pau might have been an Apollo class freighter, perhaps one built in a vulcan yard with a vulcan type warp system (thus probably a vulcan sub-class name that didn't get mentioned).

and this would allow there to be an Apollo class Starship in use by starfleet as well.

I agree with what you posted about multiple non-Starfleet ship classes with the same name, like the Antares. However, in this specific example we are talking about two Starfleet classes with the same name.

I'm a bit more mixed about trying to apply it to the T'Pau model, for reasons already mentioned. However, I'm open to the possibility that maybe some older vessels of this type were crewed by mainly humans in Starfleet service and the Apollo name could apply to a specific variant or model. This would fit in with the T'Pau being decommissioned and stored in a depot before it was stolen, and the Odin from "Angel One" also being listed as Apollo class.

The Odin, with the registry of NGL-12535, could very well be the same type of ship as the T'Pau, especially since they were both freighters. But if we're going under @mithril 's assumption that the Vulcan Apollo class and the Starfleet Apollo class are two different things, then there really isn't a problem. I'm more concerned about the continuity issue with the Ajax and the ibn Majid.

The Last Unicorn Games Trek RPG has the Apollo as a heavy cruiser that had Ambassador/early Galaxy family elements (like the New Orleans class) and was produced from 2325 to 2328, which would make it a very new vessel at the time Picard graduated from the academy in 2327. So this design could fit in with "Tapestry" and the TNG era.

Ugh. I hate those LUG ship designs. The artists clearly had no concept of starship design lineages and made all the conjectural classes contemporary to the 2360's. Plus their designs were butt-ugly, and even the canon ships like the New Orleans class were drawn so inaccurate to the actual studio models that it was almost like they were taking classes in abstract art.

 

[Unicron]

Yeah, I do agree with you about the LUG art. It's pretty wonky, and I say that as someone who enjoys aspects of the FASA art design.

 

[Ithekro]

Several FASA designs looks alright, or at least fit the general aesthetic. Others....are out there. Especially their Next Gen designs. Though to be fair, when they did that book they only had the first season of the show to work with, and the only new design in the show at the time was the Enterprise-D. The Stargazer was also sort of new, but it was an old design in show and fit within Kirk's movie era, not modern 2360s Starfleet. I think this was before the gold models appeared in the show, so the Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C didn't have representation yet.

 

[USS Artorius]

@Dukhat it's possible that one of the Excelsior study models seen in Unification I could in fact be the Apollo Class as they were intended to be shown in BoBW too? They would fit the late 23rd - Early 24th century aesthetic too.

 

[Dukhat]

@Dukhat it's possible that one of the Excelsior study models seen in Unification I could in fact be the Apollo Class as they were intended to be shown in BoBW too? They would fit the late 23rd - Early 24th century aesthetic too.

I doubt it. The only reference to the Apollo class as far as the battle of Wolf 359 was concerned was in a first draft of DS9's 'Emissary' (several years after BoBW) in which there was a ship named the U.S.S. Gage. And it wasn't even given a class designation in the script; Okuda just arbitrarily gave it the Apollo class designation in the Encyclopedia even though the ship was never even mentioned or seen in the episode. There was no model built for it and no model meant to represent it.

 

[Unicron]

Several FASA designs looks alright, or at least fit the general aesthetic. Others....are out there. Especially their Next Gen designs. Though to be fair, when they did that book they only had the first season of the show to work with, and the only new design in the show at the time was the Enterprise-D. The Stargazer was also sort of new, but it was an old design in show and fit within Kirk's movie era, not modern 2360s Starfleet. I think this was before the gold models appeared in the show, so the Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C didn't have representation yet.

The Enterprise-B had the gold observation model as an Excelsior class and was treated in that fashion by FASA, while the Enterprise-C observation model wasn't yet identified as an Ambassador class and was instead written as an Alaska class ship that vanished on its early missions. FASA made up an entirely different Ambassador design based on the name being used in "Conspiracy" and described as a heavy cruiser. There was some controversy over naming the B as an Excelsior, due to it being a battleship in the FASA Trekverse. One group wanted it to be a Constellation instead to keep up the tradition of exploration, while the pro-Excelsior group wanted a battleship to better "bear the flag" in relationships with powers like the Klingons and Romulans.

It's interesting that FASA wasn't able to get some graphics right even with relatively limited material to work with. The Constellation model built for "The Battle" was generally only viewed from the front or side, and some details (like the multiple hangar doors on the saucer) weren't clearly visible until HD technology became available with better resolution. But FASA still got basic details wrong, like the nacelles being sideways and not vertical and having a flatter mount between them.

FASA also left off the tail of the Romulan warbird, with the wings being pushed back so they overhang the rear of the warbird compared to the film model. That being said, however, it's possible this could represent a Type A warbird as later episodes did say the main warbirds we see are Type B variants.

 

[Dukhat]

Yeah, the TNG Officer’s Manual’s depictions of the Constellation and the warbird were wildly inaccurate. It was like they just saw them once and tried to draw them from memory without even utilizing a VCR as a tool to freeze-frame to get the proportions correct.