Summary
The belovedStar Trekfranchise is full of iconic characters and imagery. In many ways, the ships and locations themselves are characters within the shows, which is one reason why so many of the shows are named for their lead ships (or space stations, in the case ofDeep Space Nine).
Generations ofStar Trekfans have been familiar with the legendary voyages of the starship Enterprise ever since they were first introduced to the NCC-1701 back in 1966. But woven into the tapestry ofStar Trekfrom the very beginning is a ship many fans may have never even heard of — the U.S.S. Yorktown.
These Are the Voyages of… Wait, WhoseTrekis This?
Given its prevalence in pop culture and incredible staying power, it’s sometimes easy to forget thatStar Trekhas had its fair share of behind-the-scenes challenges. It took a while for the show to even get off the ground in the first place. As many fans know, thanks in part to the character’s return inDiscoveryand thenStrange New Worlds, before there was Kirk, there was Captain Christopher Pike.
Jeffrey Hunter portrayed Pike in “The Cage,” the first pilot for Gene Roddenberry’s seminal sci-fi show. Studio executives weren’t quite convinced, and declined to pick up the show. They saw potential inStar Trek, though, and requested a second pilot. There was some regrouping that took place first. Hunter was replaced with a young actor named William Shatner, and the captain’s chair of the Enterprise passed from Captain Pike to Captain Kirk. The rest, as they say, is history.
Another big change had already been made before the first pilot was even filmed. When developing the show, Roddenberry pictured a series that followed the adventures of the pioneering crew of the starship Yorktown. This was locked in for a while before the minds behind the show decided to change the ship’s name to Enterprise. Given how iconic the name Enterprise has become, this is a fairly monumental change in hindsight. The Yorktown wasn’t completely forgotten, however.
Flirting With OfficialStar TrekCanon
The U.S.S. Yorktown would eventually appear in officialStar Trekcanon. It was first mentioned the episode “Obsession” of the original series, where it was due to rendezvous with the Enterprise to transfer medical supplies bound for the planet Theta VII. The name Yorktown reappears inStar Trek IV: The Voyage Home, this time as the second starship to encounter and be disabled by a mysterious alien probe heading for Earth.
But the behind-the-scenes legacy of the ship continued to grow in more interesting ways than its on-screen appearances. The Yorktown retained a pseudo-canonical association with the Enterprise that paralleled the early production and development of the show.
Star TrekIV: The Unofficial Yorktown
Before continuing, a moment’s warning that there are spoilers ahead for a few 40-year-old movies. InStar Trek III: The Search For Spock, Kirk is forced to initiate the self-destruct of his beloved Enterprise (after stealing it from Starfleet) in a last-ditch attempt to survive a desperate battle with the Klingons. It’s aheartbreakingTrekmomentas fans bid farewell to a ship that had been a science fiction mainstay and an iconic piece of pop culture for decades.
Fast-forward toStar Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and the crew find themselves facing a court-martial for their actions in the previous film. Fortunately, on their way to the court-martial, they save all of humanity after a brief bit of time-traveling whale watching. In recognition of their heroics, all charges are dropped, and the crew is rewarded with a brand-new Enterprise, the NCC-1701-A. It’s a satisfying ending, but one open to nitpicking — why would there be a new Enterprise ready and waiting for a crew that was supposed to be standing trial for crimes against Starfleet?
Roddenberry predicted such gripes and suggested an in-universe explanation in production notes for the film. The Enterprise-A, he suggested, was in fact an existing ship already in Spacedock that Starfleet hastily re-christened Enterprise after everything that happened with Kirk and company. The ship that was renamed? Why, that would be the U.S.S. Yorktown, of course. Once again, the Yorktown semi-officially makes itself a part of the lore of the Enterprise.
The Yorktown Returns in Kelvin-TimelineStar Trek
This tradition is revisited in 2016’sStar Trek Beyond. Here, the Enterprise visits a technologically sophisticated space station called Yorktown. An admiral stationed there mentions that an advanced ship is under construction at Yorktown (foreshadowing), but as it is incomplete, it’s down to the Enterprise to investigate a mysterious distress call the station has picked up. It soon turns out that there’s a nefarious plot behind the call, and Kirk can only watch on as his ship is quite literally torn to pieces. Apparently, thirdStar Trekfilmsare not kind to ships named Enterprise or captains named Kirk.
All is well by the end of the movie, though. The mysterious new ship at Yorktown is completed after Kirk and the crew save the base from certain destruction, and the vessel is triumphantly christened the Enterprise-A. As it was being built at Yorktown base, viewers might infer that the original plan may have been to name it the U.S.S. Yorktown. Simon Pegg took on writing duties for this movie, so this is definitely no coincidence — it’s his fandom showing through in a piece of fan service with a level of nuance and subtlety that was all too often missing from theseKelvin-universeStar Trekmovies.
Star Trekhas an incredibly rich in-universe lore and canon, but the behind-the-scenes world is equally complex and compelling. Every now and then, some of the real-world stuff bleeds over into the universe of the franchise. The fascinating but hidden history of the U.S.S. Yorktown is just one an example of this.
