Constructed and designed at the tail end of the 24th century alongside a near complete refresh of Starfleet’s forces, the Sagan Class was the first in a n0ew initiative to incorporate technology both inspired and reverse engineered from Borg Technology.
The first Sagan Class placed into service was the USS Stargazer, named in honour of Admiral Jean Luc Picard’s first command. Much like the original Stargazer, the Sagan Class mirrored the old constitution class in being a quad-nacelles ship with similar design layout.
Thanks to joint research with the Romulans on ‘The Artifact – a captured inactive Borg Qube – new technological advancements allowed for a whole new type of Starship. Aside from the new developments from the Borg technology, the Sagan Class was also built for the “Fleet Formation” protocol; an emergency program that would take control of an entire fleet in order to create a coordinated attack autonomously.
Both experiments came with various problems. Mostly almost destroying the Federation. Twice. Which was a bit of a whoopsie. In 2401 the first of the Sagan Class ships put into service, the USS S the USS Stargazer found it’s Borg-derived base technologies made it vulnerable to Borg assimilation. Whilst investigating a strange anomaly, the ship was completely taken over by Borg attack and only had a lucky escape due to the attacking Queen being Agnes Jurati leading a peaceful Borg faction of her own thanks to some time travelling shenanigans.
Later in the year, during the 250th Frontier Day celebrations, the actual Borg Queen was able to adapt organic assimilation to infiltrate Starfleet and control Fleet Formation in a near devastating attack on Earth involving a handful of Sagan Class ships including the USS Explorer.
Both upgrades were objected to by Commodore Geordie La Forge at the time, and following the Frontier Day attacks significant changes were made. An easy task with previous generations of engineers being able to work together with The Jurati to build a stronger, classical inspired line of starships such as the Constituion-III class USS Enterprise.
As one of the more unique designs in Starfleet, The Sagan class mirrors the old style Constellation in style but with modernised design and expanded layout. Combioning the primary and engineering hulls into one physical space, the condensed design makes for a more efficient build internally.
The slightly elongated saucer has a small, thin deflector dish built in on the lower side while the bridge sits atop like most Starfleet ships on deck one. The rear of the ship hosts two large shuttle and cargo holds leading to a main exit on deck seven. Unlike the constellation class which had two larger hangers either side of an impulse drive, the Sagan has three stacked hangers on it’s aft with bulky Impulse emitters either end. The rear of the saucer is far bulkier as well, bulging out from the rear of the saucer to low more storage, shuttle and engineering space.
From the bulky rear, a small section hosting the ends of the warp core extend from the top and bottom of the rear drive section towards a set of pylons on either side to host the quad nacelles. While it may seem like a simple design choice, this allows for each set of nacelles to be running half powered on a full capacity warp core which allows the Sagan to run at cruise speed for twice the amount of time than a standard dual-nacelled starship. The Sagan Class was also equip with a dual-warp core facility for a well balanced yet powerful performance.
While uncommon, a handful of other designs – including the mid 23rd century Cardenas Class and mid-24th century Cheyenne Class shared similar qualities.
The top central pylon leading to the nacelles had easy access to the internal components through large secured doors leading to the matter/anti-matter tanks and war core for ease of accessibility during any refit or repair. To add a bit of flair, the compartment was partially transparent using shielded transparent alloys that left the bright lights of the warp cores energy to shine through. The lower pylon was slip with the central space cut out to allow ease of access to engineering and cargo facilities.
Central to the ships operations was a large and streamlined multi-level bridge. With two sprawling consoles on each side of the bridge to operate science, engineering and tactical stations, the operations and flight control were stand alone as standard ahead of the command centre.
Looming above those forward stations, the Captains Chair sits central flanked by first and second officer positions. At the rear of the bridge weas a large, often open, door leading to the briefing room. At either side of the briefing room entrance were exits to the turbolift and captains ready room.
Aside from all the usual amenities provided in a ship of it’s calibre, the Sagan was equip with mission adaptable science facilities that wallowed the design to host multiple uses from long range exploration to tactical arrangements or evacuations. Switching the ships function was fairly straight forward, particularly with it’s defensive systems allowing a complete 360 degree firing range from any angle
At only sixteen decks tall, the flattened layout of the Sagan – which measures around 540 meters in length – may not seem like a powerhouse but between it’s dual core engines, top of the line computer systems and strategic frame, the Sagan is one of the more impressive classes to emerge following Starfleets rebuild towards the turn of the century.
In the production world the Stargazer was designed to be the successor to Captain Picard’s original command and s nice link between the worlds of The Next Generation and Picard’s Second Season with the Admiral back in uniform for the season opener. In terms of design, the ship really was a team effort with Picard production designer Dave Blass leading a team including legendary Trek artists Doug Drexler and John Eaves and Star Trek Online artist Thomas Marrone.
Blass also led the design team for the internals of the Stargazer including the bridge and wider corridors which would go on to be redressed and re-used for the USS Titan in the third and final season.
In the SFC world, the Sagan Class has been adopted into our repository of available ships for both new and existing units offering an impressive new and modern starship into the ranks of the home fleet!
You can see more of the Sagan Class through Doug Drexler’s official Facebook page as well as on Dave Blass’ own website which includes concept art from all seasons of Picard.
About the author
[Treknology] Beam Me Up!
Step into the transporter and with the touch of a few buttons and sliders you're whisked away to an alien landscape ready to explore. As synonymous to the Star Trek lore as phasers and tricorders, the transporter is one of the most vital tools within Starfleet, letting officers and crew travel instantaneously between environments without the need for time consuming shuttle trips or finding a starship-sized parking space to land in. Developed as a narrative tool, the transporter lets the story move along swiftly without breaks in the action and in a budget friendly manner. All you need to film is someone stepping into the large chamber, paste over some special effects, then pick up in another filming location. Aside from the creative benefits, it also showed the enhanced technological nature of the 23rd century. How it works is fairly […]
That Guy From That Thing: Harris Yulin
Among the many acclaimed guest appearances from all corners of the Star Trek Universe, there are only a small few who gave as deep a performance as Harris Yulin in his sole appearance in the franchise. Taking the spotlight as Aamin Marritza in Deep Space Nine's first season episode Duet, a Cardassian civilian who arrives at Deep Space Nine and raises a massive red flag for Kira when she learns he has a condition that links him to a brutal mining camp that many Bajorans suffered through during the occupation. Yulin is an actor who you may not recognise by name, but you always recognise. Having made his name in the New York theatre scene in the 60's, he quickly established himself as a serious dramatic talent with an incredible command of language, subtly and presence before he'd ever step […]
A Fistful of Justice
Although it's one of the worlds most legendary science fiction shows, Star Trek has always dabbled with format and genre's, all dressed up behind deep space adventures. Whether using the holodeck for a touch of fantasy, or diving into the horrors of war through Deep Space Nine's run, the variety of story telling never seems to fit one mould. But out of all the different tales told in the wonderful world of Starfleet, one that always promises to deliver is the court room drama. This month we're diving into the most captivating of Star Trek's courtroom drama's with a Fistful of Justice! AD ASTRA PER ASPERA Strange New Worlds, Season 2 One of the most modern examples of Strar Trek's court room drama saw Pike's own Number One, Una-Chin Reilly, under court martial for a serious breach of Starfleet regulation […]
Who is The Borg Queen?
Since their first appearance in 1989, the Borg had been an oddly mysterious and chilling antagonist for the Federation. Following their first encounter with the Enterprise-D, an inevitable event accelerated by Q meddling to challenge Picard, the Borg would swiftly make their mark with the first of many attacks on Earth, forcing Starfleet to adapt and change to the new and unexpected threat. A cold, faceless enemy, the Borg are cybernetic beings acting as one collective mind. Spreading through the galaxy trying to find perfection, they absorb anything of value they see into their collective, spreading like a virus and wiping out individuality to become a drone serving their eternal mission. In trying to assimilate the Federation into their collective, the hive created a new leader in Locutus, a human given a unique voice to speak for the Borg and […]
[Q2&A] Fleet Recognition
While SFC's rank system is one of the most obvious form of rewards within Quadrant 2, with members informally given the rank and title for each grade, rank is just one level of recognition within the fleet for out Captains and Fleet Support to highlight a members contributions. While SFC's rank system is one of the most obvious form of rewards within Quadrant 2, with members informally given the rank and title for each grade, rank is just one level of recognition within the fleet for out Captains and Fleet Support to highlight a members contributions. A more common form of recognition are our Commendations and Citations. Having taken various forms over the years, our commendations are the more open of all with four categories – Service, Departmental, Leadership or Special Commendations. Commendations and Special Commendations are the most common […]
[Inside Trek] Behind the Viewscreen: Robert H Justman
It takes an army to bring a TV show to life, especially one creating it's own world to explore in and more often than not the people behind the scenes are often unsung heroes despite being key to the creation of an iconic a legacy as Star Trek. Robert Justman was one of the many responsible to shaping the Star Trek Universe, particularly in it's early days, and was one of the most influential producers in helping form the original series. Staring his career in technical and production roles, Justman learned the ropes in the 1950's as television in the US would go from a rare luxury to a household staple throughout the decade. Building his skills and reputation as assistant director and production manager on a variety of styles, Justman gained a reputation for being highly unorganised and keeping […]
Related
[Ships of the Line] The Galaxy Class
The peak of mid-24th century design, the Galaxy Class was one of the fleet's most iconic capitol ships that inspired a whole new generation of Starfleet. Built for longevity, the Galaxy was conceived as a deep space exploration cruiser that was not only an adaptable megastructure of science and research, but one that was entirely self sustainable whilst giving it's crew all the creature comforts they need for years, or even decades, without having to turn back home. The key to the Galaxy Class' success was in large part down to it's modular design. It's vast internal space, mainly within the ships primary hull, was designed with extreme flexibility in mind to the point that some ships, including the flagship Enterprise, were launched with around a third of it's internal volume vacant for later improvements or mission specific adaption. Deck […]
[Ships of the Line] Send ‘nubes! The Danube Class Runabout
The world of Star Trek is filled with graceful and elegant ships, huge forces of nature packed to the rafters with a bustling crew with every skill imaginable under one roof for any situation. But not all of the fleet's numbers are massive hulks ready for adventure. Sometimes you just need a little runner to get you from one place to another for missions that might last a few weeks more than a few years. Put into action in the late 2360's, the Danube Class Runabout was ideal for short term missions or teams that needed more than a cramped and empty transport shuttle to get the job done. At at least four or five times the size of a standard shuttlecraft, the Danube class was a step up from the range of short-range craft. Designed as a tightly condensed […]
[Ships of the Line] The Pathfinder
Building upon the discoveries and experiences of Voyager's unplanned trip through the Delta Quadrant, the Pathfinder class is the first line of starships designed specifically for the Delta Quadrant. Less a replacement for the Intrepid and more of a specialised offshoot, the Pathfinder was conceived for a return to the Delta Quadrant with a ship and crew prepared for what to expect. [Image Note: Pathfinder Class model by Thomas Marrone. Screencap taken in Star Trek Online with Sovereign Refit Livery.] After being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, the USS Voyager returned to Earth in 2378 with a little intervention from their future selves, Borg transwarp conduits and enough technology from the future that would drive Temporal Investigations to insanity. Between the new technologies brought in by Admiral Janeway to the discoveries and modifications applied to the ship throughout it's isolated […]
[Ships of the Line] The Ambassador Class
A stepping stone between two pivotal design era's, the Ambassador Class was introduced by the 2320's as a replacement for the Excelsior and Constellation lines before being itself replaced with the larger and more adaptable Galaxy Class. Constructed during a time of cautious optimism in the decades following the original Khitomer conference and relative silence from the Romulan Empire. Strong and sturdy in it's nature, the Ambassador line were installed as a key front line heavy cruiser as a deterrent against enemies of the Federation to take advantage of the relative peace of the early 24th century. Traditional in it's layout, the design process was more drawn out than most and included several variations in style and layout before a more solid and simple base was produced for the final model which included a traditional secondary hull linking back to […]
[Ships of the Line] Dauntless Class (2380’s)
In 2374 the crew of Voyager, stranded in the Delta Quadrant were given a life line; an advanced Starship complete with slipstream drive that would reduce the time of their journey back to Earth form decades to months. Appearing alongside an introduction form Starfleet, the Dauntless appeared to be the next step of Starship evolution. Until they realised it was all a lie – an alien ship dressed up as a Federation ship in a revenge plot that would have led the all to their deaths. Despite the truth being revealed, Voyager's crew had extensively studied the Dauntless and would later try and apply some of the research in an abandoned mission. Once they did return home, thanks to the Borg transwarp network, the Dauntless research was handed over to Starfleets R&D division to reverse engineer their findings and create […]
Relay Recap: July 2024
All Features Universe Categories Fleet Alert Comms GORN GIRL recap; july 2025 Picking up on the Season 2 cliff-hanger, Strange New Worlds returned to our screens this month to find Captain Pike and his crew on the edge of war with the Gorn as Season 3 was finally released!Exploring new worlds and new problems, the Enterprise crew are back in action on Paramount Plus and we're keeping ourselves up to date with weekly episode discussion threads on our FB Continuing Mission Group & Weekly episode reviews from Admin ! Explore... Episode Reviews Spoilers Group ACROSS THE UNIVERSE As we look back on Pike's adventures on the Enterprise in the prequel series, Paramount also gave us a look at whats to come next as Entertainment Weekly and SDCC's Star Trek Universe panel gave us a sneak peek at the reopening of […]
