What Is The Daedalus Class?

Today we delve back into the world of the 22nd century to look at a ship which while constantly in the background, was never given any time in the limelight and was notably absent from Star Trek Enterprise despite being set at a time where this ship, The Iconic Daedalus Class would be active.
Today i take a real in depth look at this ship, its various fan-interpretations and my own head canon to work out exactly what this ship is...

Music: Kevin Macleod
Scott Buckley
Sources:

[apotheases]

I'd like to imagine if Enterprise had gone on for its full 7 seasons, we would've seen the Daedalus in action.

[marktaylor]

One major detail that you seem to have missed - the NX-class (saucer-based) ships were designed to operate in atmosphere, albeit poorly in many cases, whereas the Daedelus class - and its precursors and any forbears - are designed specifically to be space-only. They are meant to be the 'workhorses' of the fleet, carrying out whatever jobs the big fancy ships were too busy for. Nice job on the Fusion-based history; Zephram Cochrane didn't have access to Dilithium so this makes a lot of sense.

[pyronuke]

There's another star trek Youtuber named TriAngulum Audio Studios who did a video on what he thinks happened, and I like his interpretation.
Basically the Daedalus were early 22nd century starships (before the NX-class) for the new slowly blooming spacefaring human civilization, at a time before it was known that the saucer was the most efficient warp shape. They could barely do warp 3 and mostly served as cargo haulers and colonizer ships.
Then the Earth-Romulan war happened and, needing hulls, Starfleet pulled these ships out of mothballs and/or rear sevice echelons and refitted them up to the new standard. After the war they played a crucial role in setting up infrastructure throughout the new Federation, and are thus looked upon fondly as pioneers in those early days.

[hughtonne]

An untapped mine of Potential I say. I love this thing. Daedalus class is my jam. Glad it's finally being covered here. It deserves better than it got honestly

[Relav]

I love the idea of Daedalus being the beginning of the shipbuilding philosophy that was demonstrated with Constitution: The go anywhere, do anything type of ship. She can handle herself in a fight, but still do other jobs at the drop of a hat.

Lovely Video about a ship that was always kinda a mystery to me. Good job.

[tancar]

The Daedalus in the post Romulan war era sounds a lot like what the Excelsior was in the TNG era. A past it's prime workhorse that supported the fleet.

[TheSuperhomosapien]

My headcannon is that the Dadelous was a pre-federation class of ships originally intended for establishing human colonies and providing support to those fledgling colonies. The Daedalus would bring colonists and supplies to a new world and hang out in orbit for a year or so until the colony was up and running. These were protocols put in place after the loss of contact with Tera Nova. It was a rugged design for the time, and during the Romulan War, it was found that they could be easily retrofitted with the newer technology, going from an original maximum warp of 3.5 when first launched to 4.75 after refit. Unlike the NX class, with everything custom build and hardwired into the ship, the Daedalus was easily modifiable and upgradable. By the end of the war, it would have far exceeded the capabilities of the original NX-01 (by the end of the war the NX-01 would also have advanced as well, having been retrofitted with a full engineering section). The design was much like the Excelsior, in that it ended up staying in service for a very long time. There were a lot of Daedalus class ships still in service for the birth of the federation and the Daedalus probably played a role much like the Excelsior in the TNG era. There were newer and more capable ships in the fleet at that time, but it was an old and proven design. It would have been kind of a generation 0.5 with the ships being built at that time being generation 1. In regards to timeline, I would put the original Connie Enterprise as one of the first of the Generation 3 ships of the Federation, which would have also included the Miranda and Constellation classes. The actual Excelsior would have heralded in the Generation 4 ships which would have ended with the Ambassador Class, and the Galaxy Class heralded in the Federation's Generation 5 ships.

[jameslewis]

The best theory I can come up with for the Deadalus design is that the ball section was a hang-over from earlier starships. The ball was found to not work as efficiently with warp field geometry as a ship with a saucer section so by the time of Star Trek: Enterprise had largely been decomissioned. These ships were essentially laid up in reserve and/or waiting to be scrapped. By the time of the Earth - Romulan war most of these ships would be in various states of disrepair but since it makes sense for scrapping teams to get through the more danger prone sections like propulsion and engineering before tackling the rest of the ships, the ball sections would largely still be intact. As such they would be prime candidates for a quick and dirty rush job of a modernisation program that then results in the Deadalus class as a class of ships thrown together, largely from older parts to make up the numbers in this war.

The Deadalus class design looks like the result of a high speed colision between TOS Enterprise and the Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I can't help but think of that movie when I see a ship design featuring a front 'ball' section. That and 'Blue Danube'.

[kamenriderblade]

I concur, the Daedalus Class was a multi-role modular platform ship.

That's why it lasts as long as it does.

Similar to how after WW2, many planes got handed to civilians to start airlines.

The Daedalus Class was handed over to civilian organizations to run private businesses and help get the frontier re-settled.



A similar fate to what I can see to the Oberth Class

Its modular unit underneath the main pylon can replace the pontoon with any number of things.

It can become a cargo ship, Tractor Beam Tow ship, patrol vessel, survey ship, etc.

I think the Oberth Class will live on as a support logistics vessel

[mleadenham]

The Beta-canon Romulan War novels say something very similar. In these books it’s stated plainly that Daedalus-class ships were older, but could be constructed faster and in greater quantities than NX/Columbia class starships, which were more advanced, but more logistically difficult and slower to produce. I think that has to be the most viable explanation.

[umad]

The Daedalus class is what I imagine a love child between the Event Horizon and the Enterprise would look like (minus the ship actively trying to kill it's crew like the Event Horizon)

[SuperFriendBFG]

I imagine the Daedalus Class also likely saw extensive use in Civilian hands in the latter years of its life span.

[Kirk]

I never thought I’d be imagining the Daedalus class as having Polaris missiles and laser-CIWS

[danielseelye]

Thank you for showing the Daedalus class some love. I really like how you try to fill in the blanks and make it fit with what we do know in the franchise.

Makes me think on EC Henry and his design for USS Pacific in "Pacific 201" short, keeping the VLS tubes and the massive subspace transceiver among other things. It fills in the gaps and makes it feel more _real_ than just made up for "Rule of Cool" or to give the writers an out.

[richardched]

I love the Daedalus class. It's a fanon GOLDMINE. It's got so few canonical details and has such ambiguity that pretty much anything can be made from it.

[PaiSAMSEN]

Glad to see another fan whose head-canon incorporate elements from Starfleet Museum.

[JaredLS]

The lack of point defense weapons in Star Trek has always bugged me. Think of how many times a ship was hit with a torpedo because shields went down, a PDS or CIWS type system would have saved that ship a lot of damage. I know the JJ movies catch a lot of flack from fans but the Kelvin using phaser turrets to shoot down the Narada's torpedo's was awesome.

[jawsomepossum]

I've been watching your backlog, love a new perspective on old classics I've heard 1000s times.

[Allegheny]

If you follow the "Enterprise series" The Daedalus Class was one of the first UFP starships following the Romulan war. A sphere contains the most internal volume to surface area making it a cheap hull for the volume. It was probably upgraded numerous times, some were still in service at the time of TOS as referenced in "Bread and Circus's".

[michaelsasylum]

Early earth and Starfleet design lineages and tech deserves a ton more attention.