Star Trek’s New Enterprise-F Is Already Being Retired
According to a Star Trek Logs post, the Enterprise-F will be decommissioned after a flight on Frontier Day in 2401.
The latest iteration of Star Trek’s iconic Enterprise NCC-1701 will soon be decommissioned, which is odd considering that it has not yet actually officially appeared. According to a post on the Star Trek Logs Instagram account, the Enterprise-F is set to be retired by Starfleet, after having (canonically) been launched in 2386. The ship is set to appear for the first time in Star Trek: Picard’s upcoming third season and, while there is concrete information in the post as to why it is being scuttled, we suspect this might be a bit of a red herring.
According to the post on Star Trek Logs, the Enterprise-F has been active for fifteen years (setting the year of the information at approximately 2401, which is also when Picard season 2 is set) and has been commanded by “several Captains,” which is both vague and intriguing. It specifically says that the Enterprise-F is being decommissioned due to critical system damage inflicted in the course of an unknown event dubbed the “the Monfette Gambit,” which apparently involved rescue efforts for refugees on a planet named Fenton IV.
The post also indicates that its last flight will be during some celebration known as “Frontier Day,” which does not appear to have been referenced in Star Trek previously. It can be assumed that in-universe, this is some kind of commemorative event (much like First Contact Day, celebrating the day Earth was first approached by a Vulcan ship).
If we had to make a guess as to what is going to happen here, we would say that it is likely that season 3 of Picard will involve Patrick Stewart’s titular character and the reunited cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation hijacking the Enterprise-F during Frontier day and prior to its decommission. This would echo Kirk and company hijacking the first Enterprise in Star Trek: The Search for Spock, which was also to be decommissioned at the time, and presumably make it not quite as criminal for the TNG to steal a ship.
The Enterprise-F has already appeared in the Star Trek Online MMORPG quite a bit, commanded by Starfleet Captain Va’Kel Shon (after Data previously declined the position). However, the canonicity of the online game has always been a bit iffy and it is fair to describe the upcoming appearance of the Enterprise-F in the third season of Picard as its actual debut in the universe of Star Trek proper. While the Instagram post makes it seem like the starship is about to be retired permanently, we strongly think this might just be a bait-and-switch for dramatic purposes.
The third season of Picard is scheduled to premiere on February 16 on Paramount+ and has already been announced to be the final arc of the show (and Patrick Stewart has other things going on, anyway). Bringing in the Enterprise-F for this TNG swan song has a certain poetry to it, with veterans of Starfleet both returning to a version of their old home and to a brand new ship at the same time. We’ll just have to see how they wind up destroying it this time.
