USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E)


 * For the mirror universe counterpart, please see Enterprise (free starship)



USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E), sometimes referred to as the Enterprise-E or NCC-1701-Epsilon, was a Federation Sovereign-class heavy explorer starship. She was commissioned in 2372 under the command of Captain Morgan Bateson, who supervised the vessel's construction. The vessel was originally designated as the USS Honorius, but was redesignated as Enterprise following the destruction of the USS Enterprise-D at Veridian III in 2371. The sixth Federation starship, and seventh Starfleet vessel, to bear the prestigious name, from 2373 to 2385, Captain Jean-Luc Picard was assigned as the Enterprise's commanding officer. Under his command, the Enterprise was a participant in defeating the Borg in 2373 and disrupting the plans of the Son'a in 2375. Enterprise-E had an illustrious service career. The bridge science station and forward support struts have minor damage because they are from the wreckage of the Enterprise-D; the officer’s lounge table was also reclaimed from the Enterprise-D. Morgan Bateson had them installed, he said, because of these artifacts, the crew of the Enterprise-E would always know of the legacy of her predecessor.

Construction and launch
The Enterprise-E was launched in 2372, on stardate 49827.5 and was, at the time, the most advanced starship in the fleet. She was constructed at the San Francisco Fleet Yards orbiting Earth. Captain Jean-Luc Picard assumed command shortly after the vessel's christening, just over a year following the destruction of her predecessor. Most of Picard's crew from the USS Enterprise-D were reassigned to the Enterprise-E.

In service
After a year-long shakedown, the Enterprise-E was ordered to the Romulan Neutral Zone during the second Borg incursion. Starfleet was officially concerned about possible Romulan military action since many of the available ships had been diverted to fight the Borg, but in reality, Starfleet was worried about Picard's presence at the battle. Disobeying orders, Captain Picard returned to Earth, his decision proving instrumental in the Battle of Sector 001. The Borg cube was destroyed, but not before it launched a second vessel towards Earth. This ship created a temporal vortex and traveled back to the year 2063 in order to stop Zefram Cochrane from launching his historic Phoenix warpship and prevent the formation of the Federation by assimilating Earth itself.

The Enterprise, protected by the vortex, chased the Borg into the past and destroyed their ship, then sent an away team to help Cochrane repair the Phoenix.

However, the ship's sensors were damaged during the trip to the past, and unbeknownst to the crew, several Borg drones transported aboard the Enterprise before their ship exploded. They began to assimilate the ship's engineering section below Deck 11, including many crewmembers. They also attempted to build an interplexing beacon on the Enterprise deflector dish to contact the Borg Collective of that time period.

A three man team led by Captain Picard stopped the beacon from being completed by separating the deflector from the ship by disengaging the magnetic locks and then destroying it. Picard eventually realized that the fight was a lost cause, and ordered the evacuation of the ship and an auto-destruct to prevent the Borg from interfering with the Phoenix flight. He eventually confronted the Borg Queen in main engineering, only to find, to his horror, that the Borg had "assimilated" Commander Data, who aborted the auto-destruct and used three quantum torpedoes to destroy the Phoenix - as Picard begged him not to, the android walked right past his captain as if he wasn't there. However, he had in fact deceived, not joined, the Borg; the torpedoes missed their "target", and Data, mockingly repeating the Borg mantra, used the contents of a ruptured plasma coolant tank (the Queen had been too busy taunting Picard to see him approach it) to liquefy the organic components of the Borg, destroying their temporary collective.

The Enterprise crew was successful in helping Cochrane make his flight and instigate First Contact with Vulcans. The ship then returned to 2373 where she was repaired and returned to service.

With the Federation Diplomatic Corps negotiating an end to the Dominion War, the Enterprise was relegated to a diplomatic role, much to the dissatisfaction of Captain Picard. In 2375, the Enterprise was conducting a diplomatic mission with the Evora, a new Federation protectorate species, and was scheduled to resolve a dispute in the Goren system when her crew became embroiled in a plot by the Son'a, assisted by Starfleet Admiral Matthew Dougherty, to forcibly remove the Ba'ku from their isolated homeworld in the Briar Patch.

The Son'a (actually vengeful former Ba'ku, exiled from the planet after a failed coup a century prior) planned to harvest metaphasic radiation from the planet's ring system, and needed Starfleet cooperation to carry out the plan. Captain Picard felt the relocation of the Ba'ku was a severe violation of the Prime Directive and resigned his commission, leading a team of Enterprise crewmembers to the Ba'ku planet to prevent their capture and removal. Commander William T. Riker was instructed to take the Enterprise and contact the Federation Council to alert them to the realities of the situation. It was a treacherous journey, since the Briar Patch interfered with external communications as well as the ship's impulse drive.

Two Son'a battle cruisers were sent by Ahdar Ru'afo to intercept the Enterprise before she left the Briar Patch, and severely damaged the ship in the process. The warp core was ejected in order to seal a dangerous tear in subspace created by the isolytic weaponry of the Son'a.

Riker was able to outsmart the Son'a by collecting metreon gas native to the Briar Patch then venting it behind the ship. When the Son'a used their weapons, the gas exploded, destroying one ship and severely damaging the other. This became known as the Riker Maneuver.

Riker convinced the Federation Council to reconsider the plan for the Ba'ku and Captain Picard was reinstated as the ship's commander.

The Enterprise visited Earth for several days in 2376, around the time the Pathfinder Project made contact with the USS Voyager, and conducted a mission about seven light years from Earth the following year. According to Deanna Troi, it was an important mission.

Sometime between 2375 and 2378 the Enterprise underwent a major refit. Four additional aft-facing photon torpedo tubes were added, along with one more forward-facing tube: a twin launcher aft of the bridge, a single launcher above the aft hangar deck, and a single launcher at the forward base of the bridge terracing. The bridge was refitted with handrails and the consoles were improved across the port and starboard walls with more detailed displays. Additionally, new nacelle pylons were fitted at that time, slightly longer, broader and more sharply swept than the originals, and fitted with four additional phaser arrays. In 2378, the Enterprise returned to Earth for the wedding of William T. Riker and Deanna Troi. She departed for Betazed, where another ceremony, a traditional Betazoid wedding, was scheduled.

While en route, the ship detected unusual positronic signals from the Kolarin system, discovering another Soong-type android, the prototype B-4. Shortly following, the Enterprise was ordered to Romulus for a meeting with the new Praetor, Shinzon, who wanted to initiate peace talks. Both the discovery of B-4 and the peace overtures turned out to be a ruse to capture Captain Picard and discover tactical positions of Starfleet vessels. Once it became clear Shinzon was going to use his starship, the Scimitar, to destroy all life on Earth and wage war on the Federation, the Enterprise was to join Star Fleet Battle Group Omega and make a stand against Shinzon. Shinzon caught up to the Enterprise in the Bassen Rift, and in the ensuing confrontation, the vessel was severely damaged, including a major hull breach on the bridge, destroying the viewscreen and controls and disabling the warp core. As a last resort, Picard ordered the Enterprise to ram the Scimitar, causing the destruction of much of the saucer section's forward area. The collision disabled the Scimitar, but Shinzon, driven by vengeance, activated his deadly thalaron weapon and trained it on the Enterprise. The weapon was overloaded and the Scimitar was destroyed due to interference from Commander Data, who sacrificed himself to save the Enterprise, Picard, and, indirectly, Earth. Following the Scimitar incident, the Enterprise returned to Earth where it underwent an extensive refit in one of the orbiting spacedocks for several weeks.

In 2379 the Xindi and the Suliban attacked the Federation, forming the Xindi-Suliban Alliance. The Xindi later betrayed their peace treaty with the Federation with an attack on the Federation and their allies at Deep Space Nine. 50 starships, led by the USS Enterprise-E, made the Suliban fleet retreat from Deep Space Nine.

The Enterprise assisted in the defeat of the crazed Vulcan T'Uerell's attempted takeover of the Alpha Quadrant with the Borg. The Enterprise became home to the Hazard Team, an elite force of tactical officers formerly assigned in the Delta Quadrant aboard the USS Voyager.

Following the Enterprise's return to service, Captain Picard detected the presence of Borg in the Alpha Quadrant, building a new cube and creating a new Borg Queen. In defiance of orders from Admiral Kathryn Janeway, Picard diverted the Enterprise to investigate, and he and his crew were able to deactivate the cube and prevent the creation of the Queen.

Shortly afterward, the Enterprise was assigned to survey Gorsach IX, a class M planet which, Picard later learned from Q, was in fact an artificial construct holding back the end of the universe. Also in the Gorsach system, the Enterprise encountered a quantum fissure and several dozen alternate Enterprises from alternate quantum realities.

Later that year, Seven of Nine met the Enterprise at Vulcan, informing Picard that the Borg Cube he'd previously deactivated had revived, and Admiral Janeway taken as their new queen. Picard again disobeyed orders, from Admiral Edward Jellico, and traveled to "Trophy World" to retrieve the Doomsday Machine, an ancient Borg-fighting weapon. Enterprise then proceeded to Earth, where it joined the armada assembled to fight the invading Borg Cube.

In late 2380 the Enterprise was ordered to investigate the plight of the USS Rhea and the fate of the assimilated USS Einstein. To assist in its assignment the Enterprise was outfitted with prototype transphasic torpedoes in an effort to destroy the Borg vessel before it could acquire quantum slipstream drive technology; this technology was later discovered to belong to alien lifeforms nick-named Noh Angels, who manifested as the mythological creature Qing Long during a mind meld between Picard and T'Ryssa Chen. The Enterprise was aided by The Liberated and they successfully ended the threat posed by the Einstein.