Come on—every Starfleet ship can’t be the Enterprise. Some ships carry cargo, babysit stable planets, or arrive just in time to get blown to hell so the big guns can swoop in and save the day. But these fringe ships? These are what make the Star Trek universe gritty. Rough-around-the-edges, underappreciated, and frequently barely keeping their heads above water, these ships are the backbone of the fleet. So, in celebration of the USS Cerritos of Star Trek: Lower Decks, here are the 13 most rustbucket ships ever to stagger or warp across our televisions.
13. SS Emmette
Blink and you’ll miss it, but the Emmette appears briefly in the opening credits of Enterprise, just before the NX-01. It barely exists in canon, yet it’s an important bridge in Starfleet’s evolution. Forever living in the shadow of the NX-01, the Emmette is the scrappiest of footnotes—but every journey has to start somewhere.
12. USS Essex
In the Next Generation episode “Power Play,” alien beings impersonate the Enterprise’s crew, but we never get to see the ship. A 22nd-century Daedalus-class ghost, the Essex lives more in models and memory than in missions. Yet its presence lingers, demonstrating even off-screen ships can leave a mark.
11. USS Equinox
Imagine the Equinox as Voyager’s cynical cousin—stranded in the Delta Quadrant with a lot fewer ideals and a lot more moral compromises. Abandoned and desperate, its crew takes shortcuts in gruesome ways. The Equinox is the cautionary tale that poses the question: What happens when hope runs out in Starfleet?
10. USS Thunderchild
You may not catch it in First Contact, but the Thunderchild is there, launching torpedoes at the Borg Cube along with the rest of them. A pretty Akira-class, it’s named for a ship in The War of the Worlds, which explains its plucky underdog attitude. It doesn’t have a lot of screen time, but it appears battle-ready.
9. USS Grissom
In The Search for Spock, the Grissom really exists to check the Enterprise’s work. Even with its fine crew—Kirk’s son and Spock’s protégé—it accomplishes little before being destroyed. Nevertheless, it lives on spiritually as an ancestor of the Cerritos and all the other drab workhorses that keep the galaxy running.
8. USS Franklin
When the glitzy new Enterprise is destroyed in Star Trek Beyond, the crew must make do, and they discover the Franklin. A grubby Warp 4 hulk from the pre-NX-01 era, the vessel is a disaster, but thanks to Scotty and Jaylah’s intervention, it takes to the skies once more. It’s rough around the edges to its core, and named after director Justin Lin’s dad, it has a little more heart.
7. USS Saratoga
Both the Voyage Home and Deep Space Nine Saratogas are there to get whupped around. Whether it is the Whale Probe or the Borg, where there’s a Saratoga, there goes something down the tubes quickly. Nevertheless, the name endures, and now and then that’s all a plucky ship requires.
6. USS Reliant
Taken over by Khan in The Wrath of Khan, the Reliant was a Miranda-class vessel that seemed capable in itself—until it crossed paths with someone who carried a significant grudge. With a complement of ex-Enterprise crew members, the Reliant influenced the Cerritos’ design and demonstrated that even second-rate ships can rise to movie stardom.
5. USS Stargazer
Before commanding the Enterprise, Jean-Luc Picard captained the Stargazer through some of the Federation’s most perilous years. It weathered Cardassian conflicts and provided us with the infamous “Picard Maneuver.” This was not some glitzy flagship—it was a tough, four-nacelle brute that got the job done and stayed aloft.
4. USS Shenzhou
First seen in the early episodes of Discovery, the Shenzhou is a veteran, battle-hardened older ship pre-dating the Constitution-class era. It’s been around the block a few times and is still standing—until another heart-stopping final mission, at least. Bonus: its Mirror Universe variant is still in existence, so it’s one of the few ships to have been in two universes.
3. USS Kelvin
Starting off the 2009 Star Trek reboot, the Kelvin is destroyed in the opening ten minutes—but not before rewriting the franchise and introducing us to George Kirk, played by Chris Hemsworth. In-universe, it’s probably named after the hero of Solaris, but for fans, it’s the ship that kicked off the Kelvin Timeline and reminded us heroism isn’t about surviving.
2. USS Bozeman
Struck in a time loop for 90 years and repeatedly crashing into the Enterprise-D, the Bozeman is a Soyuz-class antique that lives up to the phrase “stuck in the past.” The first First Contact with Vulcans occurred in Bozeman, Montana, so the title is full of history. It’s the ultimate “wrong place, wrong time” vessel—and we adore it for that.
1. USS Defiant (TOS)
Before Deep Space Nine’s grizzled little warship, there was the original Defiant, a Constitution-class sister ship to the Enterprise. In “The Tholian Web,” it disappears into another dimension and reappears decades later in the Mirror Universe’s history, kick-starting their empire of technology. It’s the ultimate scrappy legend: a ship that disappeared, traveled across realities, and altered the timeline in several series. Not bad for a ship that didn’t make it out of its first episode.
So here’s to the unheralded ships—the workhorses, the forgotten, the broken-but-not-beaten. They won’t be flagships, but they’re the life and soul of Starfleet, keeping the galaxy turning while the Enterprises steal the headlines.