The USS Farragut (NCC-1647) was a Bellerophon-class Federation starship operated by Starfleet in the 23rd century.

Service history

Early Service

The Farragut was constructed at the ground-based facility of the San Francisco Fleet Yards in California, Earth. The ship was launched on October 2, 2243, and was named for the first admiral of the United States Navy. (USS Farragut dedication plaque, SNW: "A Quality of Mercy")

In the 2250s, the Farragut was commanded by Captain Garrovick. (TOS: "Obsession")

Nurse Christine Chapel had served aboard the Farragut prior to her assignment to the USS Enterprise in 2259. For Starfleet Remembrance Day that year, she wore a Farragut pin to memorialize the crewmates she had lost from this ship. (SNW: "Memento Mori")

In 2255, Lieutenant James T. Kirk's was assigned to the Farragut as his first deep space assignment after his graduation from Starfleet Academy, where he was assigned to a phaser station. (TOS: "Obsession")

While exploring Tycho IV in 2257, the Farragut encountered a dikironium cloud creature that proceeded to kill nearly half the crew, some two hundred personnel including Captain Garrovick. Nearly ten hours of record tapes chronicled the encounter. According to the tapes, Kirk insisted upon blaming himself for the incident because of his delay in firing phasers at the creature. The executive officer disagreed, stating for the record: "Lieutenant Kirk is a fine young officer who performed with uncommon bravery."

Eleven years later, it was determined that Kirk could not have prevented the death of his captain and crewmates, when the USS Enterprise encountered the same creature and discovered that phasers were ineffective against it. (TOS: "Obsession")

In 2259, the Farragut was docked at Starbase 1 alongside the Enterprise. (SNW: "The Broken Circle") James Kirk was still serving aboard the Farragut at this time. (SNW: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow")

2260

In 2260, Kirk was promoted to first officer of the Farragut, breaking his father's record as the youngest first officer in Starfleet, although Kirk wouldn't actually assume the position for a few more months as Kirk needed to train his replacement for his previous position first. The Farragut joined the Enterprise, under the joint command of newly promoted fleet captain Christopher Pike, to bring a deuterium refinery online. After the decision was made to destroy the refinery instead, the Farragut collected all of station's shuttles and escape pods. (SNW: "Lost in Translation")

Some time after, the Farragut temporarily transferred Kirk to the Enterprise, to allow him to shadow Lieutenant Commander Una Chin-Riley in preparation for assuming the duties of first officer. (SNW: "Subspace Rhapsody")

The Farragut was near the USS Republic and the USS Enterprise when the Enterprise discovered a subspace fissure. (SNW: "Subspace Rhapsody" display graphic)

2261

In 2261, the Farragut was under the command of Captain V'Rel and conducting a planetary survey of Helicon Gamma. Kirk found V'Rel to be too cautious in her approach to commanding the ship. The planet suddenly exploded, heavily damaging the Farragut and incapacitating most of the bridge crew, including V'Rel. Most of the crew abandoned ship while a skeleton crew stayed aboard to try to keep the ship from needing to be salvaged. the Enterprise responded to the Farragut's distress call, but was captured by the Scavenger ship. With V'Rel having been beamed to the Enterprise for further treatment, Kirk was left as acting captain with Spock and Nyota Uhura, having boarded the Farragut to help acting as two of his bridge officers, Montgomery Scott to help in Engineering and Christine Chapel to act as a replacement for the deceased chief medical officer. Scott theorized that the scavengers had left the Farragut alone because it was so badly damaged in the planetary destruction. Setting a trap, the Farragut was able to use its ejected warp nacelles to disable the ship long enough for the Enterprise to escape and then destroy it.

Subsequently, it was discovered that the mysterious scavengers were actually Humans on a mid-21st century pre-warp ship launched from Earth in the aftermath of World War III. After the battle, the Enterprise towed the Farragut back to spacedock for repairs with V'Rel expected to make a full recovery. (SNW: "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail")

Kirk later visited the Enterprise to see his brother while the Enterprise was on shore leave at Purmantee III, explaining that the Farragut was nearby and still undergoing repairs from the battle with the scavenger ship. While repairs were going well, the Farragut was still missing a nacelle. (SNW: "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans")

After being fully repaired, the Farragut worked with the Enterprise to stop the threat of the Vezda from escaping. Using a Vulcan mind meld to combine their minds, Spock and Kirk piloted the two ships in perfect synchronicity and used the Enterprise and Farragut's phasers to open a portal for Pike and Marie Batel. While Starfleet's orders were to observe and not interfere, Kirk explained that V'Rel's position was that the Enterprise had saved her life and V'Rel knew that she owed them one for that. (SNW: "New Life and New Civilizations")

Alternate timeline

In an alternate timeline where Captain Christopher Pike remained in command of the Enterprise and avoided the accident that exposed him to delta radiation, Kirk became the captain of the Farragut and Commander La'An Noonien-Singh served under him. In 2266, he responded to the distress call sent by Outpost 4 as it came under Romulan attack. At Kirk's suggestion, the Farragut and the Enterprise shadowed the Romulan Bird-of-Prey responsible, preparing to engage it in a pincer move once it entered the tail of the comet Icarus IV and became temporarily visible through its cloaking device.

However, the Romulan Commander had anticipated their plan and positioned his vessel behind the Farragut. Kirk ordered his ship to turn and engage the Bird-of-Prey, but the Farragut was hit by a plasma torpedo at close range and sustained catastrophic damage to its saucer section. With life support failing, the surviving crew were evacuated to the Enterprise. (SNW: "A Quality of Mercy")

Command crew

• Commanding officer
  • Garrovick (2257)
  • Christopher Pike (2259) (acting)
  • V'Rel (2261)
  • James T. Kirk (2261) (acting)
  • James T. Kirk (2266, alternate timeline)
• First officer
  • James T. Kirk (2259-)
• See: USS Farragut personnel

Appendices

Related Topics

• USS Farragut dedication plaques

Appearances

Background information

The Farragut was "named for American naval officer David Farragut, who commanded Union ships during the American Civil War, famous for his rallying cry, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"" (Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 1, p. 262)

Although no registry or class was established during the TOS-era when this ship was mentioned, both the Star Trek Concordance and the Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 1, p. 262, using the information created by Greg Jein in his The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship article, identified this ship as a Constitution-class heavy cruiser with the registry number NCC-1647. Doug Drexler reiterated this on his Drexfiles blog. ^{(citation needed • edit)} In the Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 262), there was a starboard profile pictured of the Farragut as a Constitution-class vessel.

Many other publications, beginning with The Making of Star Trek, p. 165, and Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual, listed the Farragut as a Constitution-class heavy cruiser. The Technical Manual. giving the ship a registry of NCC-1702, also listed the vessel as being destroyed, as does The Making of Star Trek, although there was no canon evidence supporting that assertion.

The Farragut had two dedication plaques, legible in Fanhome's third issue of Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection. In the accompanying magazine of the partwork (p. 14), one of the plaques displayed the Farragut quote: "DAMN THE TORPEDOS, FULL SPEED AHEAD." Star Trek: Strange New Worlds art director Tim Peel wrote that he believed the ship class to be Bellerophon, based on production information. [1] This was confirmed by the dedication plaque, legible in the Fanhome magazine.

For the ship's appearance in "The Broken Circle", black stripes and white text were added to the ship's nacelles. This matches how the ship appears in Star Trek Online.

Apocrypha

Two DC comic books in the second volume provided non-canon appearances of the Farragut in "Behind Enemy Lines!" and "All Those Years Ago...". The ship appeared in the Gold Key TOS issue "Murder Boards the Enterprise". Further appearances in DC issues included "The Ashes of Eden" showing a model of the Constitution-class Farragut with the NCC-1647 registry, while the comic "Debt of Honor" showed the ship with the registry NCC-1702 (matching the Star Fleet Technical Manual).

In the novel The Ashes of Eden by William Shatner, Kirk participated in an early holodeck recreation of his first encounter with the creature that confirms that he could have done nothing; if the Farragut had fired on the creature, the entire ship would have been destroyed. The ship also made appearances in a number of other novels including Web of the Romulans, The Rings of Tautee, Crisis on Centaurus, The Covenant of the Crown, and Treaty's Law.

In the novel The Captains' Honor, the Farragut had been decommissioned from Starfleet and was operated by the Romans of the planet Magna Roma as the USS Centurion. However, "Debt of Honor" shows the Farragut separating her saucer section and the engineering hull being destroyed by self-destruct after it was overrun by the inter-dimensional creatures in the aftermath of the encounter with the Cloud Creature.

In the computer games Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgment Rites, Kirk mentions that his first dealings with the Vardaine (β) were as a lieutenant on the Farragut.

In The Autobiography of James T. Kirk, the Farragut was a Constitution-class starship.

External links

• USS Farragut (NCC-1647) at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works