BRAD'S COMMENTS:  As much as the Galaxy class was a departure from the linear, industrial shaped Constitution Refit that dominated the Star Trek films from 1979 until 1987, the Intrepid Class was an even more radical departure.  Debuting with the fourth Star Trek television series (the often-maligned Star Trek: Voyager) the Intrepid shares little in common with its progenitor the Constitution.  The "saucer" has ceased to be a saucer altogether and the engineering hull has been greatly merged with the elliptical primary hull.  The warp engines are stubby and diminutive compared to those of the Constitution, especially when one considers the fact that the Constitution and the Intrepid are of similar size.  And the Intrepid is also the first featured ship in a Star Trek TV series that has not been larger than the ship featured in the series before it: the Intrepid is about half the length of the Galaxy and possesses about a quarter of the apparent mass of the Galaxy.
        Even though the Intrepid does pack some state-of-the-art TNG-era weaponry, such as the rarely-mentioned Tricobalt Devices, the ship is essentially a science vessel designed for long-range missions beyond the safety of the Federation frontier.  I like to think of it as the 24th century answer to the Anton class, which was also primarily a science vessel.  For this reason I have limited the offensive stats of the Intrepid (relative, of course, to other TNG-era ships--which are already massively powerful in comparison to TMP-era vessels!) and focused more on defensive capabilities.  Superior speed, in the form of a generous movement point ratio, and superior shielding are the primary traits of this class.  I seem to recall not just a few episodes where it was the USS Voyager's ability to depart the scene quickly which saved the day, so I have tweaked the stats to reflect this.  I know some fans may disagree, but I do not believe this ship's primary goal is combat.  If you want a gunboat, take a look at the Akira class, which seems specifically design to slug it out with either Borg or Dominion.  The Intrepid on the other hand seems more like the Galaxy class in that it is primarily a ship of exploration equipped secondarily for defense.

26OCT02 - ADDITIONAL COMMENT:  Thanks for reading my email. Can I also throw in a few points about Intrepid-class/Voyager:  The ship masses thing is probably something you wouldn't budge on, but I'll bother to point out since you now have the Intrepid-class on the site that Voyager's mass was actually stated on screen once as being 700,000 metric tons.  Also, tricobalt devices are hardly more advanced than photon or quantum torpedoes; they were only mentioned in Caretaker as an homage to  TOS "A Taste of Armageddon," where they were known to much less advanced peoples. A recent [ST:ENT] episode also had the Romulans using the technology as mine payloads in 2152. (The concept that they might be some sort of subspace super-weapon comes from people who never understood that Seven's statements in "The Voyager Conspiracy" were supposed to indicate her growing madness, and not technical fact. They are kind of like construction explosives or something.)   Respectfully, JNG.

* Denotes completely hypothetical model number and stats, devised by Brad R. Torgersen.
** D and WDF numbers provided by Bryan Jecko.  Thanks Bryan!

<<<< GO BACK