The Mystery of the Ambassadors: what happened to them?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ม.ค. 2024
- Introduced in the Next Generation episode 'Yesterday's Enterprise', the Ambassador-class starship has never been a common sight in 'Star Trek'. In this video, we speculate over possible in-universe answers to the question, why?
Music: 'Zodiac Structures' by NoMBe (TH-cam Music Library).
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During TNG and the 2360s, I always figured all the Ambassadors were out actually carrying out their primary mission, long range deep space mission outside federation territory, that's why you don't see very many durring the years the shows take place. the 2360s seemed to be a decade of shake down service of the small mk1 galaxy class production run, and after a decade of general service in home territory, a slew of mk2 hulls would be prepared based on all the lessons learned, and by the early 2370 they would begin heading out on long range deep space mission as the ambassadors completed their's and returned home. Of course, all those half built mk2 galaxy hulls were hastily completed into battleships instead when conflict with the dominion became inevitable. I bet in the 2380s you would see a bunch of ambassador class around, now refit and reassigned to more mundane roles but still having a decade or 2 more of useful service left in them.
In the dominion war stories you hear of Ambassador class ships serving as fleet command vessels in battle fleets where Galaxy or sovereign class ships are unavailable. The idea is that Starfleet pulled hundreds of ships out of storage at the outset of the war. Among them were many of the ambassador class which upfitted with newer technologies saw service as flag officer ships or interim command ships when other units were unavailable. During the war ships that weren’t destroyed were upgraded and those ambassadors that were destroyed were replaced by the stripped out MK2 Galaxy class ships
I agree. Their class name says it all. Their primary role in their day would have been ferrying dignitaries around and flag waving. Those not engaged in affairs of state would have been out exploring strange new worlds, being equipped with latest technology and speed to counter any new threats. We see one at Deep Space 9, a space station on the fringe of the Federation, weeks or months out from the core (remember at the start of Deep Space 9 they made a big deal out of being so far from Earth). The Federation is a big place, there are probably quite a few roaming about, we just don't see them on screen.
They would have been around and important during the Cardassian War, as the Galaxy's weren't. By the time of the Dominion war they were outclassed, replaced by Galaxies and Nebulas, and relegated to secondary roles perhaps too difficult to upgrade in a timely fashion, unlike Miranda's and Excelsiors - ships that although the designs are old, the ships themselves may not be, lending themselves to continued improvement (if it's not broken, don't fix it) and efficient construction. Also, older designs are more likely to be used for regular shipping duties within the heart of Federation space, an easy in-universe explanation for seeing so many Miranda's and Excelsiors vs Ambassadors.
Venture refit looked pretty good, and were very effective in the Dominion war. The Galaxy class is by far my favorite. Big, powerful, graceful, and inspiring.
@@twentysevenlitres It only took Quark and family about a week to fly to Earth.
in my head canon the Ambassador class was never a large scale production run. it ether was plagued by design problems or as the technology progressed older smaller ships were equaling or surpassing it in performance while being cheaper to build and maintain. seen only as a stopgap design for the eventual planned Galaxy, it would only be a limited construction time and numbers of a few or several dozen hulls as opposed to hundreds for other ships types. shipyards would shift to the superior Nebula class and then Galaxy straight away once the prototypes finished their shakedowns.
Some audio oddities in this video. A few words seem to get skipped over entirely in the edit.
I assume those words are now resonating throughout the 'Delphic Expanse'.
Watching with CC on.
i rather like the Ambassador Class. It feels like the design logic of the Constitution Class (concentric circles, golden ratios, etc) applied to the Galaxy Class technical style
You can also clearly see the intermediary step between Excelsior and Galaxy class. The circular saucer with outward slanted rim akin to the Excelsior, short, stubby warp nacelles like the Galaxy class.
The Ambassadors did look cool, a nice blend of the old and the new.
I would love to see a Star Trek series featuring an Ambassador class!
I like them, but it almost takes a step backwards aesthetically compared to the Excelsior class. It looks less advanced in some ways and I don't think its photogenic enough to be a hero ship in a TV show. I think they'll always design a new hero ship for any show they do, which is what has been done every single time thus far.
There is a star trek book/novel series called New Frontier featuring the Excalibur which is an Ambassador Class ship. I think it takes place after the first contact TNG movie because the crew is pictured in first contact uniforms and there's at two or three tng characters in the crew(ex. Commander Shelby is first officer, lt. Robin Lefler is the operations officer and Dr. Selar is (maybe chief medical officer). Closest thing to a series with a ambassador class ship which is a great idea!
@@DrummingWriterTrekfan84I think the NF book series starts not long after Best of Both Worlds. I remember really liking those books when they first came out.
I'd especially love that if they used the more visually appealing, at least to my eye, original version of the Ambassador class in the series.
@@briankriens5645 That's the Andrew Probert design. And yes, its more appealing and fits better as an intermediate step between the Excelsior and Galaxy classes.
Good episode but maybe reupload after fixing the narration glitches?
While the Miranda and Excelsior class had been reduced to the role of "workhorses", the Ambassador might still have been considered adequate to be sent off on long missions of exploration. Meanwhile, the Galaxy class was better suited to being repurposed as a flagship than the Ambassador.
This was also basically my theory. Maybe all the Ambassadors were simply too far away to recall for the war. The difference with the Galaxy class being more available might also simply be due to Utopia Planitia having already-in-production hulls ready to refit for combat (though USS Galaxy itself is in some battles I think, and it was hardly the newest off the line). The TNG technical manual does extol the adaptability of the Galaxy design, so you may also be right that they were just easier to repurpose.
While DS9: "Emissary" was mostly set in 2369, the Yamaguchi only appears in flashbacks to the Battle of Wolf 359, which was some time around New Year 2367.
Chronologically we see Ambassador-class ships on screen twice after Wolf 359 - the Zhukov in TNG: "Data's Day" later in 2367 and the Excalibur in TNG: "Redemption II" in early 2368. The Zhukov is later name-checked in TNG: "Aquiel", set in 2369, though it doesn't appear on screen; nevertheless we have direct evidence of an Ambassador-class still being in active service as of 2369.
Although never seen on-screen, the Star Trek Encyclopedia lists the USS Exeter, NCC-26531, as an Ambassador-class ship. She was still active as of 2374 according to DS9: "You Are Cordially Invited", and was listed as suffering extensive casualties including her captain in DS9: "In the Pale Moonlight" later that same year. So we have circumstantial evidence of at least one Ambassador-class ship serving in the Dominion War, even if we never see it.
The real-world reason for the Ambassador-class not appearing in the Dominion War fleets is simply a production limitation. There were two physical Ambassador-class models built for effects work in TNG; the less-detailed and battle-damaged Enterprise-C, and then the variant Ambassador used for the Yamaguchi, Zhukov, and Excalibur. Both models were of a noticeably smaller size and lower quality than the "hero" ship models of the Galaxy-class, Excelsior-class, and Miranda-class as they had been built to "guest ship of the week" specifications. After TNG concluded the Enterprise-C model was sold off to a private collector, and the variant model was damaged in storage and was deemed not cost-effective to repair - it still exists in its damaged state. At no point was a production CGI model built for the Ambassador-class. When DS9 was making Dominion War fleets there was simply no Ambassador-class model available to use.
Beg to differ. There's one on screen plain as day in a5 when they have the big fight to retake the station. On screen lower left corner just as the Klingons decloak to attack the enemy fleet. The nacelle tops can be seen and it's clearly Not a galaxy class
@@markmullins8622 Nope. Check again.
My in-universe explanation is that while the Ambassador class replaced the Excelsior class as the "capital ship" and that's what allowed the Excelsior class to move into the role of workhorse and last for as long as they did, they were never constructed in large numbers like the Excelsior - in favor of a newer approach of tick and tock designs like Intel does with CPUs. The Ambassador was a tock - refining all the tech introduced previously and the Galaxy being the next "tick" of brand new tech.
An Ambassador would be finished, which would then pull a couple Excelsiors out of the ship of the line role, who in turn would then bump off a couple Constellations and Constitutions who were on workhorse duty. By the time of TNG and the Galaxy class, the Ambassadors were being relegated to 2nd-tier flagship status for smaller fleets and backwater task groups. Likewise, for the Dominion war, Ambassadors were probably flagships for fleets that didn't get the Galaxy or Sovereign class (all those battles we hear about on screen but never see).
@@kasterborous1701 yes. You are wrong. A state of affairs that I suspect you are quite used to.
I suspect you are one of the " yes but actually " school.
Regarding the Probert design, I would say that the Star Trek Online 'Narendra' class as modelled by Tobias Richter pretty faithfully adapts that for us to look at.
The best explanation I've heard for the Ambassador classes short shelf-life was that it represents an interim step between the Excelsior and Galaxy development cycles. And like many such intermediate steps, it was extremely complex and tried to adapt many first-gen technologies. As such, while not *bad* ships, they were overcomplicated and maintenance-heavy, leading Starfleet to rush to replace with the next-generation tech, with ships like the Nebula and New Orleans filling the gap until the Galaxy was ready.
Oh, as to the fate of the filming model, we actually know that as it was sold at auction last year (or maybe the year before, recently anyway). Still in good - though not perfect - condition from it's last appearance in DS9
I love the Narendra-class.
I prefer my head canon personally. That the Ambassadors were all on deep space missions, as they returned they were decommed and replaced with the Galaxy class, that's why there's an occasional ambassador or two in the early days of TNG when the D and Yamato were setting off on deep space missions, and fewer as more galaxies started turning up.
The Ambys were out on 5 or 10 year deep space missions, and as they returned they were replaced.
That's my headcanon as well. It was pretty much a "failed" design or, at the minimum, a testbed that never needed many hulls. The Cardassian war may have shown that it's much more expensive than an older Excelsior hull, while being much more expensive to maintain and operate, all the while failing to be that generational gap that was expected to a deep space capital ship. The galaxy class was that generational leap and quickly replaced the "faulty" Ambassador class.
@@lonestarr86 That's not too bad logic. And the 'real' Probert sketch even more represents an interim development as the Starfleet was transitioning to new, more efficient warp drive technologies, allowing for much bigger starships (especially given Andy Probert's own rationale for creating the Galaxy-class with such a proportionally larger saucer main hull).
There're some similar real world analogies, such as the USAF B-1B bomber, an expensive and innovative project that straddled old (variable-geometry wings, low-altitude flight profile) and new (low-observable elements, fighter-like engines and control systems) approaches. It would have been built and continued in service with more emphasis, had not the B-2 already been in the pipeline.
Or even better example, the carrier Enterprise herself (!). That then-revolutionary nuclear power, but not quite to the advantageous degree of efficiency gains as the later Nimitz-class. And perhaps to further the analogy, Enterprise was still a bit better at some things than her successors. She's rumored to be, to this day, perhaps the fastest warship yet built, with all 8 nuclear reactors on shaft (possibly except for the Soviet Alfa-class submarines). Perhaps the Navy will have to name one of the Ford-class carriers 'Excelsior,' to see about breaking her records...I have a feeling that, the Probert design at least, Enterprise-C would give the bulkier -D a run for her money...
@@count23all we did see an Ambassador-class here and there in the Dominion War, so I think rather than _immediate_ decommissioning they just kept them around for duties like patrol, ambassadorial/admiralty transport, and shoring-up fleet engagements.
If there were no Galaxy-class ships available to coordinate command&control, they probably had decent-enough sensors to step-in; but were otherwise expected to join the Excelsiors in swooping-in and torpedoing Jem'hadar fighters.
And then, after the war, any surviving ships may have been sent back out; but all the damaged ones were stripped for parts to repair other, more efficient, ships.
Enterprise C. This was my favorite design. ❤
Ditto.
I'm very thankful you went through the trouble of adding the subtitles this time since you've cut off your own dialogue a bit in this episode.
for now, we will focus- 2:34
Why not a CGI-model? Wha- 3:47
Their life-span was not as lon- 5:44
a plausible in-universe explanatio- 6:13
I hope you're taking care of yourself. I know video production can be challenging at times and a lot of hard work needs to be left on the cutting room floor, but I don't think these were the cuts you intended to make. I can only assume you're being pushed too hard or stressed about something. Whatever it is, I wish you the best.
That's the classic effect from a noise-gate threshold being set a little too high! Small consonants or breathy sounds getting below the threshold, and cutting-off the ends of words or sentences.
I have a few thoughts on this subject. While a canon date for the commissioning of the first Ambassador class ships has never appeared on screen, various sources state it was something like 2333. However, the 2012 "Ships of the Line Calendar" shows a date for the Ambassador-class being launched in 2325. That would mean that by 2369, (the last time we hear of an Ambassador-class starship in any way), the class was 44 years old by that time. The U.S.S. Exeter was mentioned in 2374 as a casualty in the Dominion War. The Star Trek Encyclopedia lists it as an Ambassador class and its registry is in the same 26xxx range as the other Ambassador class starships but this is unverified.
All known Ambassador class ships have registry numbers in a very limited range suggesting they were all built close together or at least had their hull numbers allocated all at once. This suggests that Ambassador class ships were produced in limited numbers and were always intended to be relatively rare. Though admittedly, the Zhukov may have a higher registry number but there is some confusion over that. It's one of the many ships known to have two very different registry numbers like the Prometheus.
The last Ambassador class ship seen on screen chronologically would have been the U.S.S. Excalibur, though the Yamaguchi physically appeared later in DS9 "Emissary". The Zhukov was mentioned as late as 2369, but not actually seen. Again, the Exeter is another possible Ambassador class ship and it was mentioned in 2374. It's likely that Ambassador class ships continued to serve in Starfleet later than that, but were rarely seen due to limited numbers. I'm betting these were built in limited numbers and never attained the ubiquity of the Excelsior class or Miranda classes. It's therefore probable that they were either retired or all destroyed during or even after the Dominion War off screen. (More on that later.)
If you look at the wide range of Excelsior Class and Miranda class registry numbers, its clear that these classes were produced well into the 24th century. We even see at least one new Excelsior being produced at Utopia Planitia in 2371. However, with the possible exception of the Zhukov, we do not see this with the Ambassador class. Registry numbers aren't always a good guide for this necessarily, but we don't see any four digit numbered Excelsiors or Miranda class ships in the 24th century. I think of these like fleet vehicles. After a certain mileage or in cases of extreme damage ships are retired and replaced. Some ships have longer careers due to not being abused. We need to look no further than the Enterprise lineage to know that Enterprises often have short life spans due to how much they get wrecked.
The Excelsior class was once the capital ship of its day, but after being supplanted it appears to have found additional life in other roles just as the Miranda did which led to their extreme longevity. In fact, these seemed to continue to serve as late as 2380 in Lower Decks. This makes the Excelsior-class nearly 100 years old as the prototype was first seen in 2285. I think the real question is "Why didn't the Ambassador class last longer?" It would make sense for Starfleet to go ahead and decommission the Ambassador class given the surplus of Galaxy class starships built for the Dominion War once that war ended. It's likely that there were personnel shortages given the huge loss of life during the war. The Galaxy class was much newer and uses a great deal more automation than the Ambassador does. Or at least, that's what dialog from various TNG episodes leads me to believe. Starfleet will often refit and improve ships over decades, but this wouldn't make sense if you have a surplus of Galaxy class starships or Nebula class ships which are flat out better than the Ambassador.
It's also possible that the Ambassador was a bit of a technological misstep compared to the Excelsior. We have plenty of onscreen evidence to suggest that the Excelsior had a very long development and testing cycle. The ship was "finished" in 2285 and wouldn't be commissioned until 2293. It was probably on the drawing board for years before that and the design was largely unchanged as of 2371 when we see one being built at Utopia Planitia. Sure, there is the Enterprise-B/Lakota variant, but it was never the most common version of the ship. The Ambassador-class on the other hand showed significant changes to its design between 2344 and 2366. The saucer is mounted differently, the impulse engine was changed, an additional shuttle bay was added, the deflector array changed and the nacelles were even mounted lower with the pylons being shortened.
That simply screams "problematic" to me. This may be why the ships never reached higher production numbers and remained relatively rare.
When do we see an Excelsior being produced at Utopia Planitia? Are you referring to the Fredrickson in "Realativity"? Either way its unlikly imo to be being produced as of 2371 when you have such newer tech already underconstruction or being designed. Just because a ship is docked at UP, doesnt necessarily mean its fresh off the production line. I'd imagine a lot of ships get refitted, upgraded and repaired there. There's also the possibility of being resupplied etc whether its crew, shuttles and equipment etc.
@@kage_no_senshi1224 You make a good point. I wouldn't think they'd be producing one that late either. Though Utopia Planetia was always represented as a construction yard and not a repair facility. There is nothing precluding it being both, but we don't really know why its there.
@@kage_no_senshi1224 yeah I always figured that was for repairs too. (Probably fairly major, like an entirely new nacelle or saucer or something.) I have paused and scrutinised that opening shot in Utopia Planitia too many times, haha. It's one of the only times we see an Akira-class in Voyager if I recall.
I like to think they were just deployed somewhere other than the front lines during the Dominion War. There’s a similar question around the Intrepid class - they were virtually brand new at the time and aside from Admiral Ross’ Bellerophon, they were absent from what we saw of the war.
I thought common accepted fan canon was that Voyager's disappearance in the Badlands caused the remaining Intrepid-class vessels to be pulled from service to verify that certain technology like their variable-geomerey warp nacelles or bio-neural gelpacks weren't the cause of Voyager's misfortune?
Wouldn't surprise me if the Bellerophon was actually downgraded compared to Voyager to be Ross' command ship, since Starfleet wouldn't know the tech was safe till Voyager managed to communicate with them.
As the most cutting edge pre-Galaxy exploration cruisers it makes sense the Ambassador class ships would be on the frontiers of the Federation doing their job, instead of fighting to defend the core of the Federation. The vast majority were probably years of travel time out and were needed in place to maintain frontier security as more resources were put towards core defenses.
So, would you say the Ambassadors had been... recalled? (Jokes aside, the Ambassador class is one of my favorite designs. Thanks for the video!")
More please! I absolutely love the TNG and movie era of Star Trek. You hit the sweet spot!
Even in the post-scarcity utopia of The UFP, it matters where you dedicate your resources. The Excelsior and Miranda easily could have lasted so long simply *because* they built so many of them.
Any time there was an issue with one, there’d be a massive amount of infrastructure, parts, and expertise to fix it. And when upgrades needed to be made, the same economy of scale applies.
Just like the B-52 was always going to last longer than the B-2, even if the Air force got as many as they originally wanted. The support system was far more robust because it had to be more robust.
I could see, for example, the Connies in this light. Given the severe attrition they suffered in TOS, they were probably reduced to little more than testbeds of the newer tech. Their relative rarity shortened their lifespan even more than they would have lasted. Similarly, the Ambassadors might simply have not been built in enough numbers to warrant keeping in service for a long time.
Q's premature introduction of the Federation to the Borg threat, followed quickly by the disastrous First Contact with the Dominion, ensured a similar fate for the much-vaunted Galaxy class...
@@charlestaylor253 Agreed. I could easily see the Galaxy class having been intended as the successor to the Excelsior, from a logistical standpoint. Only they never reached that “critical mass” to really streamline production and support.
Some machines just were damn reliable. Others full of glitches and have shorter lifespans. I am a farmer. The 4020 model John Deere tractor still has a reputation today as a quality, reliable, durable machine. It was made in the late 60's, and you can still find them doing a lot of workhorse work on small, to medium size farms. Even if the farmers have bigger newer machines, they have those tractors doing solid work. Same with higher end Oliver tractors from the 60's and early 70's. Oliver was bought by the White Company, and later models of Whites often had a poor reliability rating.
Another such comparison, is my ex-wife was in the Air National Guard. Her unit flew F-16s nearly the entire time she was in. Because her unit got so good at running the mechanics on them, they switched her units newer machines out for an older generation of them, and due to their skill kept that older generation in service an extra 10-20 years, before eventually retiring them.
Easily one of my favorite ship classes. Always wished we'd seen it more. Great video!
I think there were just not that many of them, and their usual mission profiles were not such that they would interact with our TNG, DS9 heroes very often. Similar to how there are no Constitution class seen in Discovery S1 or Sovereign in DS9. Also possible Ambassador class was shown not to be very tactically capable after what happened to the Enterprise C.
The Constitution Class Enterprise herself appeared at the very end of the last episode of Discovery s01
Discovery is cancer, as is the Jar Jar-verse...🤬🤮
My Micro Machine Enterprise C was the flagship of my childhood lost era fleet.
Awwww memories mine had a few scrimmages with the Vorlon.
I think the real reason was the Excelsior class had quite a few very detailed models already made, whereas the model for the Ambassador class was a bit hurried and done on a budget. When they were looking to have non-Galaxy classes onscreen they went for ships they had better models of, which is a real shame as I loved the Ambassador class.
Thats my theory too. The Excelsior, Miranda, and Oberth (along with the Bird of Prey) were all made for the movies so waaay more work went into them. Cant reuse the Constitution because of "hero ship" crossing. The Enterprise C model was such a rush job they forgot to put the impulse engine on. Dont believe me? Check for yourself, you cant unsee it.
@@navyreviewerNo, the neck impulse engine structure is visibly present as it emerges from the temporal rift in "Yesterday's Enterprise." It's just not illuminated, which would make sense as the ship was on emergency power since it just got the crap kicked out of it, except the warp nacelles are still powered... But then when it's going back through the rift, it's still not lit. It's there, but it's probably just an artifact of it being a slap-dash model. Like you said.
100%. Much of what we saw, or didn't see, on the shows was simply budgets, as the models were pricy to make, and so on. In terms of the Trek universe, there would have been a lot of Ambassadors built in that 'Golden Age' (post Tomed, pre-Wolf 359), but over time hey would have been attrition...some lost, some decommissioned, but Starfleet would need more and more ships to keep up with expansion & exploration on an ever-larger frontier. And in the Dominion War, fan-fiction had them seeing hasty upgrades of more powerful warp.cores, Type-X phasers from the Galaxy class (when they got type-12's), and better sheild generators, where they were used as heavy cruisers in the Battleship lines of Galaxy and Nebula classes.
I believe an Ambassador can be seen in a DS9 episode during the Battle of Chin'toka. I forget the name of the episode. You see it near head on. An Excelsior charges forward before the weapons platforms start blasting and the Ambassador is on the right of the screen.
Edit: Tears of the Prophets. You don't get a good look but the deflector seems to big for an Excelsior and the wrong shape for a Galaxy.
I went and looked at a clip from TH-cam (th-cam.com/video/owP8rodvksA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-d-LDSzJPrZh0zVV) and I immediately spotted the ship you're talking about. In that clip it did look like an Ambassador, but the slightly-off aspect ratio kind of widens it. Looking at it on Paramount Plus, I think it is an Excelsior. I think the deflector dish appears bigger because the light from it is really blooming in the shot -- if you compare it to all the other ships' nacelles, you'll see what I mean. I still can't say positively though.
The Paramount+ version also has slightly better contrast and you can make out the silhouette of the ship a bit better -- I'm pretty sure the neck of the ship is too wide to be an Ambassador. I'm 85% that it's an Excelsior. Fun to look and wonder though, thanks for the tip.
You do know that particular starship was a member of the extremely rare, late 2330's-era Excelador class, don'tcha? 😏
The Ambassador Class is my favorite ship and has been since the first time I saw it.
The Ambassador Class is my personal favorite. "Yesterday's Enterprise" being my favorite episode.
I think that it is a reasonable assumption that the Ambassador program was just a bit too ambitious for its time. Given the sheer number of Excelsior class ships we see, it could be that they kept producing new ones into the era of the Ambassador class. And in that context, the increased size and complexity of the Ambassador class may have been seen as too high a cost for not enough of a performance advantage over the Excelsior.
So when all was said and done, they didn't make all that many of them. I think it's reasonable to assume there are still a few kicking around even past the point we saw the Yamaguchi, but perhaps they'd been sent on deep space exploration missions. They would after all, probably be pretty well suited to that given their comparitavely large internal volume. But certainly by the time we get to the era of the new guard of ships like the Sovereign, Akira, etc., Starfleet would be very unlikely to sink any resources into refurbishing any Ambassador class ships and they'd be destined for the scrapyard.
I always heard the Ambassador class was a complete clusterfuck from the beginning: performed poorly during its shakedown, failed to meet all benchmarks, they basically had to take them all out of service for extensive retooling. Even the Chief of Starfleet Operations was forced to resign. This is what I have heard over the years. In the end, it sorta worked out, and some were scrapped, some were repaired, and not many were constructed.
I think that's more a product of internet speculation, and not actual on-screen or official source cannon. Basically it all goes back to the topic of the above video. The class is a blip on the Starfleet radar. Why?
USS Yamagauchi was from 2366...IE the Battle of Wolf 359. The Excalibur was in the Tachyon Net of 2368 making her the last appearance chronologically. My take is that like the Galaxy Class Starfleet didn't build that many of the class due to their Size. They built 6 Galaxy class ships with another 6 Spaceframes stored for future construction (Dominion War was the reason they were built after 2370) USS Horatio under Captain Walker Keel was apparently an Ambassador class - if so there would have been 3 ships of the class lost. The Galaxy Class also would have been their replacement despite the flaws that that class had (Warp Core ejection issues) whilst in Beta Canon the Ambassador was an older but very reliable and tough ship.
I don't think they decommissioned the Class as Bajor was later building them. I suspect they are just very rare in later TNG and DS9. USS Excalibur served throughout the Dominion war
The excelsior is the B-52 or TU-95. Just the right combination of features, capabilities and economy to keep them in service. It would seem in Starfleets' case, to keep them in production too. It would seem that both the Ambassador and the Galaxy had the same problem, limited production numbers. Perhaps too large for the ship yards? Too much material for the available space? Perhaps it would be better to examine why the excelsior was so good at its job, why so many fleet admirals used it as their flagship.
Someone already mentioned why the physical Ambassador models weren't used in DS9 (it was damaged and of lower quality), but when they got to the part of DS9 with the giant CGI fleet battles... the reason why you don't see Ambassadors is simple: they didn't already have a pre-made CGI model, but they had several other *film-quality* Federation ship models available, and they had to spend their limited time & tv show budgets making all of the Dominion, Cardassian, Klingon, & Romulan CGI models; so they couldn't afford to make another Federation ship model (besides the Defiant).
When they first started doing CGI instead of physical models, they basically "rounded up" assets they already had - ILM had done a CGI Enterprise-D for Generations, and a CGI Excelsior from ST VI, along with an Ent-B variant from Generations. The Miranda featured so heavily simply b/c ILM had made a CGI model for First Contact; the Akira was also featured, which was made by ILM for FC. I don't remember seeing any Steamrunners though... probably b/c it looked too weird.
I always did think it was weird that ILM didn't make a Nebula or Ambassador for FC; but I think that was on purpose - there were no Galaxy, Nebula, or Ambassadors in that FC battle; probably because some idiot producer (Berman) didn't want any ship that *looked* like the Galaxy to take away from his new Sovereign. If whoever made that decision wasn't an idiot, ILM would've probably included them, and then you would've had lots of Nebulas & Ambassadors in your DS9 fleets. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In universe, I think they're referenced on screen in fleet lists & casualty reports and what not... you could assume *we* just never saw them in the 10 or so VFX shots we got. Or you could assume it was a small production run of say 20-30 ships & they all mostly got blowed up at Wolf 359. Or they're on deep space assignments and won't be back any time soon. Or the Galaxy class just came along too quickly & they stopped making a lot of them.
There's also a huge disconnect in continuity between TNG and DS9. In TNG, the 39 ships at Wolf 359 is considered huge & a sizeable amount of the entire fleet. We also see the Federation blockage the Klingon & Romulan border with what... like 15-20 ships? And to get that many together, they had to take de-commissioned old Miranda class ships that were partially stripped for parts & just, like, hotwire them. They explicitly *don't* have hundreds/thousands of them lying around. In mid-DS9, due to producers realizing what copypasta & CGI could do, suddenly there were fleets of hundreds and even thousands of ships, and taking hundreds of ships of casualties at a time in the early Dominion War. Also we see stuff like... the Enterprise-D can ravage an entire planet's surface by itself; hell Voyager or the OG Enterprise can. In DS9 it takes a huge Cardassian-Romulan fleet to do the same... might as well consider TNG & DS9 as separate timelines, or when the uniforms changed in DS9 and the CGI battles started, we're now in an alternate timeline created by First Contact. :D
The Jupiter station where Dr.Zimmerman ( the creator of the EMH resides.) Looks as if it were built from Ambassadore class primary hulls.
I see the resemblance, but when I compare them I'm pretty sure the Ambassador saucer is thinner. It also has an angular tapered edge like the Excelsior, which you don't see on Jupiter Station.
On one hand I find it truly sad that the Ambassador was not seen on screen more often. But on the other hand I would not have wanted to see the Sternbach version of the C, but the Probert version. It is aestheticaly much more pleasing!
I came to pretty much the same conclusion on the Ambassadors that you did. I think of the Ambassador and Galaxy as "large cruisers" that are intended to complement the workhorse heavy cruisers (Excelsior, Nebula, etc). It's possible that there was an improved Ambassador that came out post-Khitomer Massacre (insert Probert concept design here) that is still in service, but the original design was phased out by Galaxy-class ships.
Maybe Ambassador’s followed the life cycle of the F-22:
-Super advanced and ahead of its time
-Starfleet didn’t then need a ship that powerful and expensive, so not many were built
-It was too expensive to be a workhorse, and after decades passed, it wasn’t top of the line either
I always like the Ambassador class. It ranks third on my list of favorite Star Trek Starships.
From what I've read from In-Universe sources, The Ambassador computer design was still based on the same Duotronic circuitry that powered the computer core systems of The Excelsior, Miranda and others preceding it. Unfortunately, the computing requirements needed to RUN The Ambassador were far in excess of what this circuitry could handle and there were more problems then anyone expected. On top of this there was apparent a cover-up of these failing by members of the Starfleet Admiralty who were Hellbent on the ship being a kind of 'Great Leap Forward' in starship technology. When all of this was uncovered all Hell broke lose and the class (minus a few) were shitcanned in favor of a new computer technology on the horizon: Isolinear circuitry. Said circuitry worked out, SOME Ambassadors were upgraded with it, but Starfleet & The Federation decided to move on and star fresh.
Sounds like a fair explanation to me.
I read the dominion war books and I got the impression that many decommissioned ambassador class ships were upfitted with isoliner circuitry snd recommissioned cause Star fleet was hard up for ships at the outset of the war and they determined it was faster to upfit a perfectly capable hull with newer tech and have a capable ship “ right now”. It would allow them to quickly fill or build battlefleets around them, and buy the construction yards time to get better ships built and into service. While not as capable as a Galaxy class the Ambassador had the advantage of being quickly upgraded and deployed rapidly
my own canon explanation is down to two things.
1 - the continued dominance of the federation meant that they didn't need to replace the excelsior and could just go on refitting them (star trek V shows what happens when you try to refit an old spaceframe with new internals) forever. 2 - the loss of the Ent C at Narendra 3 shook up the admiralty who pushed the buttons for the Galaxy class to be developed - so they just kept on refitting old excelsiors and waited the 20 years it took for the galaxy to come into shape
I think that perhaps the Ambassador was a design that came out JUST IN TIME to be almost immediately rendered obsolete by some big breakthrough or series of breakthrough and thus only a limited number got produced. The OG Probert version was literally an in between design and that makes me believe it served more as a technological test bed that rapidly led to the Galaxy and thus the brand new Ambassador was already OBSOLETE and there was basically no point making more.
Yes show us the Probert Class Ambassador. Also, show us the Jefferies Constitution II
There is a cartoon version of the Ambassador-class seen in the episode of "The Busy World of Richard Scarry" and the Futurama direct-to-DVD movie, "Bender's Game".
I would like to think that it was so ugly that Starfleet stopped before too many were made and began researching the Galaxy class.
Going back to in-universe, I'd arrange it that Starfleet wanted the Probert designed Ambassador, but because of resource allocation due to so many years of peace they ended up with the Sternbach design. After the Enterprise-C was horribly outmatched and destroyed by the Romulans, they cancelled any Ambassadors not under construction.
As for why Excelsiors and Mirandas were more common in practical terms, both of those models were built by ILM to be used in movies with movie level detail while the Enterprise-C was built in hurry on a TV budget with not a lot of detail. I also think the Miranda and Excelsior shooting models (or the Voyager Excelsior model) might have been laser scanned to help speed up building the CG models or DS9 Season 6 when they moved completely to CGI after the 4th or 5th episode.
The Ambassador model being a lower-end TV model is definitely true - it's only 2ft or so long, with escape pod hatches that are literally paper stickers and significant amounts of hand detailing.
Some interesting theories in there.
I tend to fall on the idea that they were actually out doing their job as deep space explorers while we're watching TNG and DS9. Being relatively large ships, but also not the newest it is possible they were used to anchor Starfleet defensive lines during the war, Freeing up newer more capable Galaxy and Nebula class ships for the offensive actions we more often see on screen.
Replacing them 1-1 with Galaxy (and perhaps Nebula as well) might make some sense, as might the idea of them hitting a technical dead end. Another purely fan theory had it that Ambassador was the last of the Duotronic ships, with the next generation of vessels using Isolinear based computers and that Duotronic systems couldn't keep up with the demands.
leading to a shorter production run than expected.
1st time the Amabassador was mentioned was the TNG , the U.S.S. Horatio.
I made a video suggesting that the Enterprise C started as the Probert design but at some point was upgraded to what we saw in Yesterday's Enterprise. Kind of like the OG Enterprise in The Motion Picture.
The Excelsior class was a very good design - too good in fact, and while not as technically superior as the Ambassador and later Galaxy class ships, they were of a robust design, and could be upgraded to continue service in the 24th Century. While being a smaller ship, various ships were built between the late 23rd and mid 24th centuries, being that they were quicker to build, and needed much fewer resources. The Ambassador and later Galaxy class were much larger, taking more time to build, and the Ambassador class did have it's design limits, which were largely addressed in the Galaxy class range, resulting in the Ambassador class being dropped early. Each class of ship, from the Excelsior to the Galaxy class had a designed 100 year life, but sadly the Ambassador class had the much shorter life of 30 - 40 years. Actual service life of each ship was more likely to be 40 years tops, taking into account warp stresses on the space frame, and combat damage. It wasn't until the Dominion War that Galaxy Class ships started rolling off the production line like sausages, and even then they, like the Excelsior class proved how poorly they performed in war.
I'd hazard a guess to it being largely down to their utilization in the fleet, the Nova was coming as a replacement for Oberth class vessels, the Reliant class was coming as the replacement for the Miranda, with the introduction of the Galaxy many of the things the Ambassador would have filled the role of was now taken by a larger more capable design that was able to hold out longer on its own in both long range assignments and combat engagements.
This could leave the Ambassador with few useful abilities left such as long range scientific missions, diplomacy missions, long range exploration and rapid response - be that tactical or humanitarian aid - of these, the Nebula fitted with the sensor pod could carry out the work of long range science missions much more effectively, the Galaxy (at least in Beta Canon) had two of its roles being Mobile Embassy & Diplomatic Envoy so they could carry out diplomacy missions to a greater degree, and finally the new Defiant Class could carry out rapid combat response with the Intrepid being able to carry out both rapid combat and rapid humanitarian aid responses (remember the Intrepid was unofficially classed as a Light Cruiser, was the fastest class in the fleet at the time and had comparable tactical capabilities to Galaxy class ships - same number of phaser banks as a Venture variant Galaxy - 14, but also on top of that had at least 4 emitters - or ball mounts - and 5 torpedo launchers to the Galaxy's 2, of course the Galaxy would have stronger shielding given it has a larger power plant), but lets also remember the Intrepid was also at times referred to (in Beta Canon) as a Long Range Tactical Platform and a Multi-Role Starship, in effect with the tactical abilities and scientific equipment of the Intrepid all on the fastest class of the time allowed them to fill the role of long range and complex scientific missions, long range exploration, force projection when needed, defence, combat engagements with hostile forces, rapid combat response actions, in times of extreme conflict the speed would also possibly allow the ships to carry out fast combat strikes or guerrilla strikes dropping out of warp to the opponents surprise dealing damage to unshielded targets and jumping back to warp before being engaged in return, the only parts where the Intrepid may struggle on is the optimal level of humanitarian aid they can give with such a small sick bay, however the repurposing of the ships mess halls and holodecks should aid that situation, and that of a diplomatic envoy lacking the space and amenities of ships like the Galaxy that were built with diplomatic missions in mind, the Intrepid design and abilities as well as capability to survive on their own without assistance for long periods were well proven by Voyager, with Intrepid class ships still being in service in 2401 (PIC titles show an Intrepid around Sol Station however its identity is not known)
At the end of it with all these there seems very little left for the Ambassador and the ships they could replace ie the Miranda already had replacements on the way so they slowly were phased out due to lack of utility which is a shame as it's a beauty of a design so is the original design (that many refer to now as the Probert Class/or STO with the Nerendra Class), although it is also possible they remained in service but in a less prominent role and not on the front lines, being refit for planetary defence or completely refit for a sole scientific mission to complement the existing science fleet or as hybrid defence science, maybe the Nova coming as a Short Range Planetary Research Vessel, the Reliant as a replacement to the Miranda filling the role of a generic Short Range Science Vessel and the Intrepid taking the role of Long Range Science Vessel and Multi-Role Starship, perhaps the Ambassador was reutilised as a ship to fill the role between the Reliant and Intrepid, who knows.
It should be noted the Galaxy also appears to have lasted only a short time arriving in the 2360s by 2401 the only 2 that are confirmed to still be around are no longer even whole ships these being the saucer of the Enterprise-D and stardrive of the Syracuse being combined to reconstruct the Enterprise-D, where are the other Galaxy class ships? were they really only in service for around 40 years? Are they no longer front line ship as those that are still around off somewhere else and unable to participated in Frontier Day? or have they all been replaced by the Ross Class? a ship that seems to combine the Galaxy and Sovereign Class into a hybrid.
I love these in-depth considerations. Though as Star Trek fan, I don't need an official explanation for every open question, as that leaves room to imagination. In my head canon, the Ambassador class was for some reason a design failure, and only few were built.
Real-world explanation seems to be that we know the 1701 and A, and Excelsior as well as the D from the existing media, getting much more coverage. I would be fine if the Yesterday's Enterprise would be about a different ship (of course the name of the episode then had to be changed), leaving the C a complete mystery. Now we see that ship at least once. Otherwise, we still would imagine the countless adventures of the C even without knowing any details.
My headcannon is that the Ambassador bridges simply couldn't create the same hotel lobby aesthetic that the Galaxy class bridges had, so as soon as the Galaxy Spa and Hotel class was commissioned, the Ambassadors were quietly scrapped.
love this ship design
The sad part is the addition of parts to the Excelsior to make it into the Enterprise B. They tried to make it resemble the Enterprise D engineering hull from the front by stretching out the sides. Thereby forgetting the Enterprise C/Ambassador’s round engineering hull. It is claimed that these were added to the Excelsior model for filming and for structural reinforcement, but strangely once added, they could not be removed like initially planned
Those canoe's where very much added to allow Kirk to be killed in Generations, without resorting to do extensive damage to the original Excelsior model. I never heard before that it was intended to look more Galaxy than the original model, only the practical filming reasons.
It was indeed intended that the hull expansion could be easily removed, but that was proven not to be. That is why the USS Lakota was a Enterprise B variant. This problem was resolved when DS9 went over to CGI ships models, where a standard Excelsior variant could be modeled.
We also know that we had a Cardassian War, A Tzenkethi War, the Tomed incident, and whatever was lost at Wolf 359 take its toll on the fleet. The Ambassadors may have not been as durable in those situations, thus the Galaxy being commissioned. While Excelsior Class ships may have held up better, so continued to be produced. Its also possible the Ambassadors were tasked to different missions and simply weren't seen around the front lines. They may literally been serving long range exploration/ First Contact Missions , aka (Ambassador?) We know there were other specialized mission ships like the Equinox.
No disrespect intended, however it seems like there are an unusual amount of audio cut-outs and/or noticeable edits? Was that intended? I’ve seen many other videos from you where this is not the case. I really enjoyed this and I love exploring these possible explanations on this channel.
My headcanon: There was some sort of design issue, which turned out to be a necessary developmental step towards the Galaxy class. The Excelsior class transitioned like the Miranda class did, into a workhorse, but for use cases where even more extra space was needed. (Who was it, Resurrected Starships, who demonstrated that the Miranda class actually has far more internal volume than the Constitution class?)
Regarding your final question, I think the Excelsior-class had proven by then that it was such a good workhorse and an all-purpose ship that Starfleet decided not to dispose of them.
I lean towards this theory more. The Excelsior, excelled at everything it had to do and the Federation was entering it's golden age of peace. No real pressure to inovate and remain on the bleeding edge of state of the art. The Ambassador may have only had a handful of shipyard runs between 24-48 completed hulls, and most of them went out into to deepspace and were rarely seen in the core. Afterall, the Galaxy-class initial run was 6 ships, of which we really only ever saw maybe 3 (Yamato, Enterprise and Odyssey) of them with an additional 6 emergency spaceframes completed.
But then the Golden Age blew up in Starfleet's face and there was suddenly that 'Bleeding Edge' loaded for bare requirement and we got dozens of follow-on War Galaxy-classes. So Starfleet mainly leap-frogged over the Ambassador.
I prefer the Probert designed Ambassador class as it fit far better as a design evolution from Excelsior class to Galaxy Class. Also the design seems to flow better and aesthetically pleasing. The Sternbach design seems more of an offshoot of another lineage and has good design points as well, but not as a “fleet leader”. More utilitarian in nature and better design for diplomatic missions.
Quite possible that whatever remaining Ambassadors were around during the Dominion war were assigned to different task forces that we dont see in DS9 and gaurding senstive/other areas of the Federation whilst the more powerful Galaxy Class were being sent to the front line. Good chance though that a lot of them were certainly withdrawn from service once the war was concluded. I do wish we saw much more of this class, it has a lot of potential. For me, it was a shame they did not set Lower Decks on one.
There were a series of novels titled, Star Trek: New Frontiers. There was an Ambassador Class featured in those novels, The U.S.S. Excalibur commanded by Captain Mackenzie Calhoun.
I think I remember reading a DS9 book and a Bajoran shipyard built an Ambassador class ship.
I'm a little late, because I forgot to make this comment when the video was new. And now a bunch of other people have said very similar things, so this is kind of redundant. Oh well. Engagement!
I always figured most of the Ambassadors were just out doing their original missions, and slowly coming back home, in the 2360s and 2370s. Especially because in "The Sound of Her Voice" Sisko and crew are not at all surprised to hear of an Ambassador-class ship coming back home from an extended mission.
As the episode reveals at the end, it turns out they were coming back in the 2360s, in reality. But there's got to be a steady drip of Ambassadors coming back in the 2370s, otherwise everyone would've thought something sounded wrong with that. They thought it was natural that she hadn't heard about the war, rather than grilling her over why she hadn't come back earlier.
So, at least out of the ships that were sent on extended missions much as the Galaxy-class was also originally designed for, I'm thinking they left most of them out there because it would just take too long to bring them back. The ones that had already come back were not sent out on new exploratory missions, due to the build-up of tensions before the war properly kicked-off, so they were around to be called-upon for larger fleet action.
In a DS9 book, an Ambassador class ship gets built on Bajor, sometime between 2370 and 2374
This class is one of my favorites personally. My guess is that they spent most of their time on the edges of Federation space, patrolling the border and making peaceful first contact missions
Perhaps after the film series concluded and wars had been averted, the Ambassadors were built with fewer weapons as a sign of "good faith", so when a war does start, they're better suited to behind-the-lines roles than going into battles. Older Mirandas and Excelsiors, on the other hand, were built during a time of hostility with the Klingons, and are better armed, even if older.
The reason why there were no Ambassadors in Deep Space Nine was because no CG model had been created for it. This info came from Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz of Foundation Imaging, who worked on a lot of the big space battles of DS9.
I would speculate that the Excelsior class was made in multiple facilities & in higher numbers and the Ambassador was not, so the facilities just swapped over to newer classes over time and they didn't make any more.
The ones they have were either on border patrol inner system logistics (like dignitary transport), deep space exploration or decommissioned or destroyed in conflicts. There was so few of them you just don't see them very often, much as with the Battle of Wolf 359 vessels in some instances. it may also be their Home base just isn't a place we see on the show.
There might be a tone of them and Freedom Class and all sort in places we just don't happen to see on the show.
It's not like there is a lot of Galaxy Class either... they made a heck of a lot of Nebula Class instead it seems.
Yeah the real life explanation was that during Generations they unboxed the models from the series and the Ambassador's struts were somewhat damaged, even until this day the surviving model has one nacelle strut higher than the other and some minor damage it was on the cusp of being used sadly wasn't. But fundamentally DS9 used cgi models by the time of the dominion war and it took them a fair bit of money to cobble together a Cgi Nebula class using rearranged pieces of the Galaxy CgI. Even in sacrifice of angels there are no Nebulas, they came in only during the battle of Chintoka once they were able to fund it, the shift to CGI was only made possible really because of First Contact where the show got a real movie budget to create all these CGI models courtesy of ILM and in DS9 and Voyager they simply polished them up a bit for the TV show. So ultimately the production team decided adding the Nebula was more of a needed and current design to the Dominion war and its ship roster then the aging Ambassador. There are several Ambassadors mentioned during DS9, the Exeter and the Valdemar were around during the war. It's simply unfortunate that because of the real life circumstances the ship became a limited run rather than something more mass produced. Also In the beginning of TNG the Fearless was supposed to be a Probert Ambassador class as well however due to lack of money again they used the Excelsior and this began the trend of so many Excelsiors rather than Ambassadors being the backbone of Starfleets older fleet. I will say that if the Probert Ambassador model would have probably lasted longer if it had ever been built but models are expensive and it's amazing that so many were built at all, a credit to Greg Jein, and the design team. So I would say the in universe explanation was that the Ambassadors werent pulled from service since they served up until the end simply that there werent many of them and due to their being big and experimental only a few were built vs the Excelsior which was ideal for many years.
I feel like TNG era producers were not really concerned about cannon the way we are now. They didn’t think of the ST Universe on a whole. For example once decided on D for the hero ship I doubt they thought at all about what came before it and how to explain that until the idea for Yesterday’s Enterprise.
One theory is that they were sent on second line duties during the Dominion war. You could do with one Ambassador or Galaxy what would take a specialized Miranda or Excelsior, so they tasked the Ambassador to thos roles, specialized the older ships to act as escorts, and had the older ships act as meat shilds for the newer Galaxy ships on the front line.
One of the novels has Bajor building state of art Ambassador class starships post Dominion War. The Ambassador has the internal volume to spec out quite powerful starship with modern tech.
Indeed it did, unforunately that's Beta cannon...
@@ealan3694 So...and warp ten salamanders are alpha canon
@@ErokCherokee Don't have to like it or think it was good story telling concept, but yeah.... It's cannon.... Personnally, I try not to think on that episode of Voyager and pretend it never existed to the point I skip past it if I'm watching that season.
@@ealan3694 My point is so what. It's all fiction irregardless.
@@ErokCherokee Difference is, the actual franchise holders produce Alpha cannon. It's what appears on the small and big screen. The book "Antimatter" by John Vornholt though was produced under license to Paramount for a Star Trek book run to sell $8 novels at gas stations or Barnes & Noble, but the main show creators had little or no oversite of it. There's something like over 850 Star Trek novels. The legacy creators did not read all of them, guaranteed. I guarantee the current "creatives" haven't read a single one!
Hence why it's considered Beta Cannon. Alpha Cannon has regularly contradicted Beta Cannon in the past and overriden it, because it comes from the actual creators.
I think the line ambassadora were fraught with problems, getting them out to deal with the conflicts with romulans despite their problems. Once that conflict turned to cold war, Starfleet was able to return to the original concept, the Narendra (or Probert Ambassador).
My speculation for behind the scenes reasons for not including them more in the DS9 era is that visually they didn't read as visually distinctive enough to throw into big fleet scenes. Just a guess.
Pretty much every time they’re seen or mentioned on screen, they’re destroyed (conspiracy, yesterdays enterprise, emissary). So I always assumed by the Dominion War, there were only a handful left. Maybe because they were designed during one of the most peaceful eras of the Federation, they just weren’t built with high intensity combat in mind. And the loss of the Enterprise C made starfleet cut the Ambassador class program short in favor of fast tracking the development of the next generation of explorers in the Galaxy class. Which otherwise wouldn’t have been expected to enter service until to 2380s or later.
I wouldn't be surprised if, along with the lack of available real or computer models, the producers chose to exclude the Ambassador class as the Dominion battles were already very hectic and a 4th, not well recognized, not heavily used class, might just confuse people and add too much "noise" to the screen. All of the fans could easily recognize the Mirandas, Excelsiors, and Galaxies thanks to their movie and TV show fame, but the Ambassadors were very rarely shown and therefore probably easy to forget about.
I personally like to think that the technology for building the Ambassador (as well as it's size) wasn't quite mature at the time of its launch, causing them to be more costly in terms of resources and maintenance than expected, leading to fewer of them being constructed compared to the Excelsior class. By the time technology caught up and Starfleet was building the Galaxy class, it was already too late for Ambassador.
There was a single ambassador appearance in one of the later dominion war battles in DS9 (it was after the Romulans joined the war), I can’t recall which episode though.
One note about the Constitution Class, at least one was still in service during the first Borg incursion and was destroyed at Wolf 359. The primary and secondary hull remnants can be seen in the debris field. Connies were technological contemporaries of the Miranda, so keeping them serviceable wouldn't be that hard. The limiting factor would be warp hours on the space frame. My guess as to why Miranda and Excelsior class ships not only remained in service, but continued to be built on large numbers while the Connies were mostly withdrawn and decommissioned. The Miranda was extremely versatile. It actually had more internal volume than the Connie did, and could be reconfigured for a variety of roles easily, far more easily than it's technological stable mate, the Constitution. Connies were faster and generally tougher, but they were being replaced by the Excelsior class and Constellation classes as front line ships and explorers. The Excelsior class was a technological leap forward. So much so that it could serve as an explorer, capital ship, or anything else it needed to be. It's notable that by the Next Gen era, the Excelsior Class was considered and Explorer, like the Galaxy Class, while the Ambassador was classified as a Heavy Cruiser. One can speculate that the Excelsior was such an adaptable design that as technology advanced, the basic Excelsior continued to be upgraded to the point that attempts to replace it usually fell flat. A lot of Excelsiors would have been built during the Federation expansion after the Kitomer accords. So many that by the time new designs came along an huge portion of Starfleets support network would be dedicated to servicing and upgrading Excelsiors in the fleet. It would be somewhat chaotic as relatively low hull numbers that had been recently upgraded served alongside newer high hull number ships that didn't have the latest upgrades. The poor Ambassador class probably never really stood a chance. Lessons learned from the Ambassador development would be applied to the huge Excelsior fleet. A relatively small number of Ambassadors would be built and put into service, and Starfleet would continue to upgrade older Excelsior hulls and build new Hulls. It would take multiple events to finally cause the century long dominance of the Excelsior class to come to a close. First, the Galaxy Class woukd represent a technological leap forward that was to far to be applied to the existing Excelsior fleet. Some lessons could be applied, of course, but the Galaxy program spawned a whole new generation of ships that would slowly begin replacing the Excelsiors as hulls began aging out. Then the Borg incursion showed Starfleet that century old designs were no longer adequate to face the new threats the Federation faced. And then the Dominion War chewed through both the Miranda and Excelsior fleet as Starfleet threw everything they could at Dominion forces. Mirandas usually served as little more than cannon fodder, and even the most advanced Excelsiors found themselves seriously overmatched by Gem Hadar ships. While there were still significant numbers of Excelsiors and Mirandas at the end of the Dominin War, they no longer made up the bulk of Starfleet's warp capable hulls. The logistical supply train for both classes that had dominated Starfleet was suddenly curtailed, and the usual economic reasoning for continuing to build century old designs was suddenly gone. Mirandas and Excelsiors would slowly be phased out as newer hulls were brought on line and a decade after the Dominion War both would be all but gone from Starfleet with just a few stragglers hanging on.
My theory on the the Ambassador is fairly simple. They were built in limited numbers. Starfleet mass produced the Excelsior class, with several 100s commissioned over the 80-100 years of service. Plus I think as a general policy, Starfleet would rather build 2-4 smaller starships over 1 large starship.
No sir, the Yamaguchi was seen in 2367, not 2369, the battle of wolf 359 took place early in that year!
It's plausible that the Ambassadors were first launched during the "Lost Era" in the early 2300's, 2303/04, and so had been in service for 60 years or so by DS9.
I think there's merit to the capital ship comparison in that the larger and more complex the "hull" the shorter the shelf live they seem to have. The Mirandas of the 2360's likely bear nothing but appearance in common with the ones of the 2280's but like the Excelsiors it's a simple hull design and so easily produced and modified as time goes by unlike larger Ambassador and Galaxies.
Someone with more knowledge than I will have to answer this. Isn't there an Ambassador class which appears in TNG which then later has a Galaxy class of the same name appears in DS9? It does make sense that the Ambassadors were phased out for the Galaxy during the timeframe of TNG, as they are absent from the big battles, but suddenly there are multiple Galaxies flying around.
A possible explanation for the Ambassadors disappearing is that they represented an entirely new design paradigm. The Excelsior and Constellation are effectively the ultimate, from the ground up, expression of the TOS Movie era tech. The Ambassador outwardly represents a break from that, while internally the class looks very TOS Movie era. The Ambassadors were developing a new standard that hadn't fully been worked out yet, and would not be worked out until the Galaxy and Nebula. This probably meant they weren't as adaptable. Considering they were a new standard, they weren't quite compatible with the eventual Galaxy/Nebula standard, and they were too divergent from the old Miranda/Excelsior/Constellation standard.
In short, even though they were built new from the keel up, they were a hack or development in progress, much like the Refit Constitutions were. They tested the new design paradigms but did not fully represent them. It also explains why there were several but not tons of them.
Maybe in addition the class was a disappointment akin to the Independence class Littoral Combat Ships of the US Navy. Perhaps that could also explain why there seems to be such a long gap between the destruction of the C and the new D? Perhaps the class had cast a dark cloud over the name Enterprise? There's not much evidence of this, but in retrospect it does seem odd that Starfleet went so long without an Enterprise after the C's destruction. It took nearly two decades, and all the other times between the letters of the alphabet have been very short. Starfleet has seemingly been ready to grab another starship and quickly rename it Enterprise, as happened with the A, and G, and perhaps even the E. But this didn't happen for the C to D for some reason.
Enterpise c alwo went out in a battle at nerenda 3 with being out gunned 4 to 1 by romulans
My guess is that when the Excelsior-class was commissioned there was more demand for a new fleet of ships. The Federation was expanding rapidly, the Klingon peace was shaky, and the Romulans hadn't yet gone into isolation. The result was a need for a vastly expanded fleet. Decades later, there wasn't much need for numerous Ambassador-class ships. The UFP had an extant fleet of reliable ships, an alliance with their greatest adversary, and no Romulan activity. No reason to assume the Ambassadors went anywhere or had any flaws. They weren't very numerous, so we saw them less often.
Perhaps they followed the name and assigned each Ambassador to permanently protect vulnerable new member planets of Starfleet? After first contact was successful, they would assign one Ambassador to protect the planet from outside forces.
Admirals typically got Excelsior class ships. I imagine either they just made a lot of Excelsior class ships, or their time in service was fairly quiet before a more advanced class of ship was developed. They may have had few Ambassador class ships, and they were either destroyed or badly damaged during the war. Star Fleet likely wanted more powerful ships that could take on the Romulans in the future. It would explain why Galaxy class ships are so big. Even Nebula class ships were a force to be reckoned with. After the Borg encounter, Star Fleet knew they needed even more powerful ships, but the Galaxy class was the state-of-the-art at that time. It took 7 years to develop the advanced technology to build the ships that could take on the Borg.
According to Memory Alpha, there were two Ambassador class models. The Enterprise-C, which was never used again and wound up in the hands of a collector. A second model was made with modifications that appeared afterwards but was fragile and damaged and deemed not worth the bother to continue using. No CGI model was created for the Dominion war scenes as the class was considered too old to bother with.
I think it could be that either Starfleet didn't built very many of them due to political reasons, there was a problem that developed with them that couldn't be rectified so they were retired shortly after DS9 started, most were destroyed during the Cardassian Wars, or lastly they were sent out on really long missions in to deep space lasting decades so were in places we wouldn't see (in the Voyager episode "Lifeline" Starfleet mentions deep space vessels that were five-six years away from a rendezvous with Voyager, these ships might have been Ambassadors sent out on decades long missions in to the Beta Quadrant).
One hypothesis is they had all that new tech, possibly chasing to many bleeding edges at once. Isolinear chips, strip lasers, etc. and just couldn't make that many and it was mostly a testbed for several of the technologies that would wind up in the galaxy class and it's many derivatives. Being a testbed they likely had many 'quirks' and some issues that required some extra effort from engineering.
Also it's possible the disappearance of the Ent-c spooked them on the class. Not cool your flagship vanishes and you don't know why.
I believe while Some starship classes are incredibly successful and serve for many years ,like the Excelsior ,D-7 and Saratoga class ships do ,there are some some designs that just are not as successful and don't last as long . Prehaps Ambassador class ships were found to be defective for any number of reasons or they simply weren't very popular ships to serve on. Many navies have had ships that weren't really successful and consequently, had short service lives.
Maybe the Ambassador class was used up as remote control drones to test the latest weapons systems being installed on the Galaxy class? Just like most of the F-4 phantoms have been done in.
It’s possible that when the Enterprise C was lost to the romulans that it was feared that they would have reverse engineered the design making it highly vulnerable in future conflicts. Perhaps Starfleet would have stopped producing them after its capture.
I like the Probert version the best but both are pretty cool (:
I love the on screen Ambassador. It was almost as perportionally perfect as the Connie Refit. Galaxy class ships were never sent out on deep space missions, too costly. They were used to carry the flag in territory or as command ships. It was hinted that in the episode conspiracy, the Horatio, was an Ambassador but not seen on screen.
I wouldn't say the Excelsior only reached a century of service, the Archimedes in Lower Decks may officially be a new class but its an Excelsior variant, one that seems to be intended to serve onwards into the 25th century.
The Ambassador class model is alive and well. Adam Savage did a video about it.
Edit: Just quickly skimmed Adam Savage's video. There were two filming models and a third ship called the Excalibur. I assume pre Captain Calhoun.
I like the idea of it being terribly inefficient and power hungry like a Chrysler New Yorker and never made sense when there was such an incredible design such as Excelsior and Excelsior 2 to fall back on. Both being more balanced and economical ships.
I always liked the Ambassador Class. To me, it looks genuinely like a 'next generation' version of Kirk's Enterprises. I actually wish this had been the Enterprise-D in TNG rather than the Galaxy Class, whose design I really never much liked.
Its a shame the Sternbach version was so limited by time and budget.
Good speculation on its fate.
Maybe the Ambassador class ships mostly disappeared because Starfleet took advantage of their capabilities and assigned them out to protect several key member worlds as the local flagship. So one each to the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellerites etc... 🤔
In the Novels and Comics the class was still service in the 2370s
I feel like a realistic approach to this is just advances in design. While Ambassadors started production a new break through in technology occurred/a newer and bigger designed approved by a new political administration within Starfleet and so while SOME Ambassadors were produced the design was shelved for the Galaxy Class. So what happened to the old ones? A return to deep space exploration. Where 5, or even 10, year missions were conducted. The Ambassador classes went out and maybe still are out. They’re the true explorer class and so few were made that the reason we don’t see them is that at best possible warp speed they’re 5yrs away from Federation space.
I think the writers forgot about it or just didn't care expanding the lore about it. Lore wise Ambassadors were probably specialized vessels and the Galaxy was more versatile and could fulfill the same role, leading to the no-brainer decision of just ditching the Ambassador
with the onset of the dominion war and the huge losses the federation suffered, you would think they would pull them out of mothballs to replace ships lost or damaged.
Constitution was in service for a lot longer than 40 years...
I like the Ambassadors Class.
Possibly a design problem. I’ve seen certain military aircraft in service become obsolete and removed from service very quickly.