USS Lexington (NCC-1709)

USS Lexington (NCC-1709)
Owner:	United Federation of Planets
Operator:	Starfleet

The USS Lexington (NCC-1709) was a 23rd century Federation Constitution-class starship operated by Starfleet.

History

In 2267, the Lexington underwent a layover at Starbase 11. The ship's registry was on a chart indicating the repair status of several vessels. (TOS: "Court Martial")

In 2268, the Lexington, under the command of Commodore Robert Wesley, rendezvoused with the USS Enterprise at Starbase 6 to inform Captain James T. Kirk that the Enterprise was to participate in the M-5 computer war games. It was in these war games that the Lexington served as the flagship of the four-ship task force (USS Lexington, USS Excalibur, USS Hood, USS Potemkin) that was opposing the Enterprise.

The USS Lexington in battle formation

The simulation began with the Lexington and the Excalibur engaging the Enterprise near the Alpha Carinae system in an unscheduled battle to test the M-5's reaction to a surprise attack. After-action analysis, based on the quantity and quality of hits on the Lexington, indicated that the Enterprise, directed by the M-5, had been victorious.

Later, when the M-5 became unstable, the Lexington was hit multiple times by full-powered phasers from the Enterprise in the engineering section, damaging impulse engines and leaving her maneuverable only on warp drive. Fifty-three of her crew were killed.

When the Excalibur's entire crew was killed and she was left adrift by the M-5, Wesley requested and received permission to destroy the Enterprise with the remainder of his damaged ships. However, the M-5 was deactivated before this could be carried out. (TOS: "The Ultimate Computer")

Lieutenant Watley was assigned to the Lexington prior to her transfer to the Enterprise in 2268. (DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations")

Appendices

Background information

File:Starbase11 chart.jpg

The registry NCC-1709, displayed on Commodore Stone's chart

Greg Jein's influential "The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship" article, published in the April 1973 issue 27 of the T-Negative fanzine, was the first work to assign the NCC-1709 registry number to this ship. In the article, Jein had made an attempt to "logically" couple the registry numbers as seen in "Court Martial" with the names listed in the reference book The Making of Star Trek. Michael Okuda took his cue from the article, and propagated the number throughout his subsequent reference work writings, most notably the Star Trek Encyclopedia. When the remastered version of the series began its release, Okuda, then visual effects producer for the project, made use of the opportunity to elevate Jein's until then conjectural ship's registry to canon.

In the remastered version of "The Ultimate Computer", the Lexington's bridge viewscreen was larger and had rounded edges compared to that of the USS Enterprise.

The name of the ship had already been established by the producers at the start of second season of Star Trek: The Original Series, when they composed a definitive fourteen ship list belonging to the Constitution-class, then still referred to as "Starship-class" by them, including the Lexington. The Lexington was named for the first battle of the American Revolution, and the series of United States Naval vessels named "Lexington". (Star Trek Encyclopedia 2nd ed., p. 264) However, the annotations of D.C. Fontana and Producer Robert Justman on their first two memo proposals, made it clear that they had one of the two historical US World War II aircraft carriers in mind, either the USS Lexington (CV-2) or the USS Lexington (CV-16), when naming the ship. (The Making of Star Trek, pp. 164-165)

According to Star Fleet Technical Manual the registry of the Lexington was NCC-1703, with NCC-1709 given to the USS Valiant.

According to the reference work Ships of the Line (page 86), the Lexington went through the same refitting process as her sister ship, the Enterprise. And became "U.S.S. Lexington II".

External link

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