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The USS Yamato (NCC-24383/NCC-71807) was a 24th century Federation Galaxy-class starship operated by Starfleet. She was a sister ship of the USS Enterprise-D.

History[]

Donald Varley

Captain Varley on the Yamato bridge

In the early 2360s, the USS Yamato, along with her sister ship USS Enterprise, were being constructed at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. During the construction phase, Design Engineer Leah Brahms supervised the implementation of improved subspace field generators onto both starships. (TNG: "Booby Trap", okudagram)

In early 2365, an unmanned reproduction of the USS Yamato was created by the entity known as Nagilum inside a "hole in space". (TNG: "Where Silence Has Lease")

Later that year, Captain Richard McKenzie was the commanding officer of the Yamato. The real USS Yamato was assigned to patrol the Neutral Zone in Sector 234. The Yamato was listed on a Starship Deploy Status chart in the courtroom of Starbase 173. (TNG: "The Measure Of A Man", okudagram)

USS Yamato warp core breach

The Yamato suffers a warp core breach

In a very short time, the command of the Yamato was transferred to Captain Donald Varley. The starship visited the planet Denius III, where an archaeological dig was underway under the supervision of Doctor Ramsey. The doctor allowed a device of Iconian origin to be carried back to the Yamato, where an analysis of the device revealed a historical star chart with the location of Iconia. Captain Varley decided to take immediate preemptive action and took the Yamato into the Romulan Neutral Zone to locate Iconia, before it was discovered by the Romulans. In the Neutral Zone, the Yamato played hide and seek through several star systems and successfully eluded a Romulan cruiser tracking them.

USS Yamato explodes

The Yamato's stardrive section explodes as its saucer section's hull dissolves

After arriving at Iconia, the Yamato received an Iconian software transmission and was unable to continue the investigation due to random system failures, later on discovered to have been caused by the software. An engineering team of 18 personnel were killed when the force field in a shuttlebay was shut down. The Yamato left Iconia to rendezvous with the Enterprise-D to solve the malfunctions and convince Captain Jean-Luc Picard to continue with the exploration of Iconia. The warbird Haakona, under cloak, detected the Yamato and copied its log transmissions to the Enterprise-D, while it was traveling to the rendezvous.

After the Yamato had arrived closer to the Federation side of the Neutral Zone, a position twelve hours and sixteen minutes away from Iconia at warp 8, the Iconian software caused an antimatter containment failure. The magnetic seals around the antimatter chamber collapsed, and the computer initiated the emergency release system to dump the Yamato's supply of antimatter. However, the program caused the release to halt prematurely, with antimatter remaining within the ship reacting in an uncontrolled matter/antimatter mix, resulting in a warp core breach. While the saucer section was thrown free of the breach, the hull disintegrated shortly after, exposing all its decks to space. The Yamato was lost with all hands. (TNG: "Contagion")

Personnel[]

Appendices[]

Background information[]

The name Yamato was pronounced "Ya-ma-toe". According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 2, p. 505), the Yamato was named for the battleship Yamato, which served as flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. According to technical illustrator and modeler Rick Sternbach, the name was not a reference to the Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamato (or Star Blazers in North America), even though he and several other members of the production staff are fans of Japanese animation. Sternbach stated at AnimeCon 1991 that the TNG writers had independently coined the ship's name without his input and he doubts that the writers were aware of the anime connection. It should also be noted that in the English language version of Star Blazers, although the starship was mentioned as having been constructed inside the wreck of the sunken battleship Yamato, the space ship was called Argo (presumably in homage to the mythological Jason and the Argonauts) for the entire series after the first episode.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual states that during the ship's construction, the starboard pylon phaser array was exchanged for one from the Yamato's sister ship USS Enterprise-D in 2355 for better operational fit. It was also stated that the next ship in the production line after the USS Galaxy was the USS Yamato (though this was before the episode "Timeless" introduced the USS Challenger, with a lower registry number of NCC-71099).

Yamato plaque

Mock Yamato plaque

According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 2, p. 505), a dedication plaque was made for the USS Yamato. Presumably the plaque was made for "Contagion"; however, it was not seen on screen in the episode. In "Where Silence Has Lease", the dedication plaque of Nagilum's recreation of the Yamato was seen, but it was only a reuse of the Enterprise-D plaque. In the remastered version of the episode, the plaque was blurred in post production to hide the fact.

Ship Class Motto
USS Yamato Galaxy "I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"
- Thomas Jefferson

Registry[]

Starship deploy status 1

The Yamato listed on a chart with the registry NCC-24383

The Yamato's registry was identified by dialogue in "Where Silence Has Lease" by Riker who visually identified it from the hull of Nagilum's reproduction and stated it to be "NCC-1305-E". When the Yamato was listed on a Starship Deploy Status in "The Measure Of A Man", the starship had the registry "NCC-24383". However, with its later appearance in "Contagion", several computer screens, schematics and captain's logs identified the registry as "NCC-71807". In the exploding saucer section model from "Contagion" the registry was "NCC-71806" instead of "NCC-71807". While "NCC-71806" and "NCC-24383" can be clearly seen in the remastered high-definition versions of the episodes, they are not as prominent as the registries mentioned in dialogue and the computer screen graphics from "Contagion".

According to Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 2, p.505), the initial NCC-1305-E registry number was a production mistake. It was given to the Yamato by the episode writer Jack B. Sowards, who was unaware of the registry numbering scheme developed for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Michael Okuda had intended to correct the number, as he had already finished the decals for the saucer section of the model for "Contagion", but as the scene was removed from an intermediate draft, he dropped the issue, only to find out the scene had been re-added later on to the final draft, which Okuda realized after the episode had aired.

External link[]

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