Star Trek’s Odyssey-Class Enterprise-F Starship Explained

Back in 2011, Cryptic Design held a “Design the Next Enterprise” contest that was open to fans. Adam Ihle, a Florida-based sculptor and artist, won the competition with a double-necked Enterprise design that is larger and sleeker than previous iterations of the Enterprise starship, with bows at the neck and nacelles. It’s designed to work well in the MMORPG’s timeline, which takes place in 2409 during an era in which the Federation is at war with the Klingons, with the Romulans, the Dominion, and the Borg Collective as major players and other empires joining in additional expansions.

StarTrek.com’s announcement of the win said, “Adam’s sketch inspired us. It created internal discussions about the evolution of the Starfleet Cruiser and how this ship represented a new approach to design that would lead us into the future. The silhouette remains familiar and recognizable, yet the ship offers an evolution in design that adds both beauty and function worthy of the name Enterprise … We’re thrilled to have brought this design to life and feel that the final render elegantly captures in high detail the spirit and flow of Adam’s original.”

The ship was then revealed in a “Star Trek Online” feature episode from 2012 (via TrekNews.com). Given that the ship’s design is more than a decade old, it might have been a surprise to Ihle that it has appeared in canon, but he is clearly reveling in the attention the “Picard” announcement has provided. “Don’t like the Enterprise F? Well, you can hate it all you want and I’ll be over here enjoying being a part of canon Star Trek history,” he tweeted yesterday.

The ship’s graphics were also rebuilt in 2021 by Thomas Marrone, a Cryptic Studios artist.