What Happens To Old Starships?

Eventually every Federation Starfleet Starship reaches the end of its service. Sometimes that's due to destruction but other times its because of decommissioning.
But what goes into a Starship's final days? How can it serve the fleet beyond its time on the line?

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This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.

[niallwatson]

My commanding officer told me that when a starship gets really old and has a hard time performing its duties it'll get sent to a nice reserve fleet up-quadrant where it can fly around, and scan things, and there are lots of other starships out there for it to play with so it'll never get lonely...

[deanspanos]

“So admiral we have a few older ships, upgraded of course, for your—“
“B-52”
“Yes sir, those are still in use....amazingly.”
“Thank you.”

[aecides]

I feel like "The Dominion War" is the answer to what happened to 90% of old Starships - if that fleet had been much more cobbled together the NX-01 would have been heading it.

[NeoGee]

I just thought "decommissioning" equaled renaming it Enterprise, giving it to Kirk, and watching the destructive wackiness that ensued.

[acarrot]

Meanwhile in Stellaris I had 2 corvettes -survive- serve honourably for 600 years after being refit for the 70th time

[uss_]

What happens to old starships?
They go into a destruction derby and the remaining parts are kitbashed into background ships.

[scottmcintosh]

Everybody knows a Starship starts to depreciate the moment you drive it off the lot 🚀💸

[mattw]

"Old Starships never die, they just...warp away..."

[markvaughan]

There is also the Starfleet museum where some decommissioned Starfleet ships are sent.

[spacesergeant]

Hmm. Take an old Excelsior class, strip out the warp core and many of the systems, take off the nacelles and replace them with docking arrays, tow it to a fledgling colony and bam. Instant Starbase.

[DoctorRobertNeville]

Just like my Fathers ship he served on the USS Hornet. She was planned to be sold as scrap, but a group stopped that from happening. She is now a museum ship berthed permanently in Alameda Naval Air Station. If you want a tour you need to call ahead to be placed on the schedule.

[cdbutler]

I always liked to believe the Enterprise-A ended up in the Fleet Museum. The only surviving ship Kirk commanded would have been a huge draw.

[revrndskip]

In the William Shatner Novel "Ashes of Eden", The Enterprise is sold to a small space faring race to use as a system patrol vessel. The Enterprise has been stripped of weapons and other system before being sold. Still having her shields, she is outfitted with Klingon Disruptors. It is a really good book and should be checked out

[KingOfMadCows]

The modularity of Starfleet ships gives them a pretty big advantage. It's relatively easy to upgrade them to keep up with modern ships. And when they truly become obsolete, it's easy to take out all the modular parts for other uses.
Also, Starfleet ships seem relatively easy to break down for colonization. Remember how in "Children of Time, " the Defiant's crew were able to break down the ship to build their settlement. Starships have a lot of components that can be used to build planetary infrastructure, fusion generators, replicators, computer cores, etc. I'd imagine Stafleet sends a lot of old ships on one way trips to colonize new planets.

[brendamayfuller]

Well, first when they decommission a ship, they remove the unused explodium for reuse in the newer ships, even though that seems oversupplied on just about every Federation ship.
After that they remove the rocks and refit them for the exploding bridge panels, since all bridges needs exploding rocks.
After that the warp core breach sensors and generators are striped and added to any new ship that exhibits a tendency to not breach its warp core containment field any time the ship is under stress. Stress being anything more strenuous than sitting in orbit while two crew people talk too loudly.

[alastairbrand]

"Stolen by some farmboy, " LOL.

[LickMyRainbow]

I like to think there's the occasional ship that gets the honour of becoming an artificial reef of sorts for cosmozoans, giving a home to new life (and maybe even new civiliazations later down the line)

[Eyetrauma]

Always thought it was funny that upon its return the Delta Flyer was apparently mothballed. You can just imagine the guy that’s in charge of accounting for all the ships in his care struggling to fit it in starfleet’s catalog.

[hughsmith]

There was also that one TNG episode were a mothballed Constellation class was used to help in war games.

[EdricLysharae]

Even in the 2270's, I would gladly serve on an Excelsior class starship. There is a reason this design was the backbone of Starfleet for close to a century...