USS Defiant (NCC-1764)

ISS Defiant (23rd century).

The USS Defiant (NCC-1764) was a Federation (Bonhomme Richard sub-type) heavy cruiser in service to Starfleet in the 23rd century. She was the last of the original 13 starships to be commissioned. 
 * Some sources list the Defiant's registration as NCC-1717.

Construction and Service History
Construction began on the Defiant at Tranquility Base, Luna, in the 2250s. During the early years of her service, the Defiant conducted many missions of importance for Starfleet, and constantly patrolled the Klingon Neutral Zone as tensions between the two powers continued to rise. During that time, the Defiant became the sixth Federation starship to encounter the N'shaii, and was easily able to dispatch them. 

During the Four Years War, the Defiant and a squadron of cruisers, under the command of Commodore Jarv Maxwill, were escorting convoy Y-16Z to Deuteronomy 3 and passed by the Rebonet system. They were ambushed by a small task force of Klingon cruisers and gunboats in what became known as the Attack of Convoy Y-16Z. All eight Klingons ships were either destroyed or captured during the battle. 

At sometime prior to 2265, the Defiant was refitted with new technologies, as well as receiving some cosmetic changes to the look of the ship. The USS Constellation (NCC-1017) and the famous USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) were two other vessels that received the same treatment. 

In late 2265, the Defiant returned from her first five-year mission, and Captain Serling stepped down as commanding officer. He was replaced by Captain Thomas Blair who took the Defiant out on her second five-year mission in early 2266. With increasing tensions with the Klingons, the Defiant was once again posted along the Neutral Zone.

By 2267, the Defiant had been assigned to operations in the Taurus Reach. That year, it accompanied the USS Endeavour (NCC-1895) and the USS Akhiel on a mission to drive Klingon forces off of Golmira, a low-tech planet where a Shedai conduit had been discovered. 

In 2268, the Defiant was called to the Klingon colony on Traelus II after receiving a distress call. A landing party discovered no Klingon survivors left on the colony, but they recover a land-based web generator of Tholian origin. The Defiant set a course back for Federation space, but soon found themselves being pursued by three Tholian vessels. Trying to escape the Tholians, the Defiant entered a spatial interphase and became trapped. Captain Blair managed to get a distress call out to the USS Enterprise before the crew succumbed to madness and started to kill each other. 

By the time the Enterprise arrived at the Defiant's location, three weeks later, the crew of the Defiant were dead, and the ship had been drawn deeper into the interphase. Interference from the Tholians stopped the Enterprise from trying to retrieve the Defiant and she was left behind. 

The Three USS Defiants
There are three distinct accounts of the recovery of the Defiant, the first version saw the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) returning in the late 2280s and retrieving the vessel, while another saw the Defiant remaining in the interphase until 2376.
 * The canon version shown in Star Trek: Enterprise suggests that the Defiant was transported to the Mirror Universe in 2155. Its appearance set a trend in this universe for the staple of ships named . As the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' episode and novel arcs have shown, throughout the 2370s.

In a Mirror, Darkly
The Defiant emerged in the mirror universe in the year 2155, where it was captured by the Tholians and taken to a drydock in the Vintaak system. Commander Jonathan Archer of the Terran Empire ship Enterprise learned of the ship and lead a mission to capture it from the Tholians.

With the Defiant, Archer planned to use it to crush an alien rebellion plaguing the Empire. The Defiant rendezvoused the assault fleet, but found only the ISS Avenger remaining. Destroying the rebels, Archer proceeded to assassinate Admiral Black and decided he was going to use the ship from the future to overthrow the Emperor. The aliens on Avenger however lead by T'Pol and Soval, inspired by the database onboard the Defiant (describing a United Federation of Planets in the other universe), convinced Phlox-the only remaining non-Terran aboard Defiant-to disable the ship, allowing Avenger to attack. However, the crew was able to restore systems and destroy the rogue ship, killing Soval.

Upon the arrival of Defiant at Earth, Hoshi Sato poisoned Archer and intended to use the futuristic ship to install herself as Empress. 

When Starfleet refused to surrender, the Defiant was forced to engage a fleet of seven Terran vessels; including the dreadnought ISS Imperator, four battlecruisers, including the ISS Broadsword and ISS Khan's Wrath as well as a pair of destroyers. Despite this, the Defiant was able to disable Imperator and destroy three of the NX class ships before bombarding Starfleet Headquarters from orbit, eliminating Fleet Admiral Gardner, and declaring herself Empress.

Sergeant Travis Mayweather was appointed the ship's Captain, and over the next few months the interior and exterior appearance of the Defiant was modified to reflect the propaganda of the now-Empress Sato that the ship was a vessel from the future of the mirror universe where the Terran Empire flourished into the 23rd century. The Defiant was also the subject of a massive attempt to reverse engineer its weapon systems for installation on other Terran vessels. The Defiant was sent to the Devolin system to search for a potential rebel base. This was revealed later to be a ploy by General Shran to get the powerful ship away from Earth, leaving it vulnerable to a rebel attack. The ship later participated in the battle over Aldus Prime against rebel ships in an attempt to rescue Empress Sato.

After her successful rescue, Empress Sato discussed with now-Regent of Vulcan T'Pol about sending the Defiant (as the head of a fleet) into an unexplored region of space to make first contact with a race believed to inhabit the area known as, "Romulans." 

Raise the Defiant
Raise the Defiant was a special issue of DC Comics' Star Trek line, written by Kevin Ryan and published in Winter 1994, set in 2287.

Interphase
In 2298, the Defiant was seen drifting near the rift by the Excelsior. 

In 2376, a passing Tholian vessel rediscovered the Defiant. The USS da Vinci was sent to salvage the vessel until the Tholian vessel opened fire. The Defiant was trapped in the rift with the SCE crew. 

The Defiant was able to escape the rift to help battle against the Tholians. The Defiant later went into Spacedock on its own power. 

Starfleet

 * Commanding Officer
 * Captain Serling (2260-2265)
 * Captain Thomas Blair (2265-2268)
 * Executive Officer
 * Commander Kamau Mbugua
 * Chief Science Officer
 * Lieutenant Commander Erin Sutherland (2266-68?)
 * Lieutenant Commander Clarissa Nyn (2268)
 * Chief Engineer
 * Lieutenant Commander Stevok
 * Chief Communications Officer
 * Ensign Ravishankar Sabapathy
 * Chief of Security
 * Lieutenant Commander Trethishavu th'Vlene
 * Chief Medical Officer
 * Jane Hamilton (2267-2268)
 * Chief Helm officer
 * Lieutenant T'Lehr
 * Gamma Shift Duty Officer
 * Lieutenant Commander Terry Shull
 * Other Crew Members
 * Ensign Garrovick (2266-2267)

Terran Empire

 * Commanding Officer
 * Jonathan Archer (2155)
 * Travis Mayweather (2155-2157)
 * A.G. Robinson (2157)
 * Executive Officer/Science Officer
 * T'Pol (2155)
 * Chief Engineer
 * Charles Tucker (2155)
 * Chief of Security
 * Malcolm Reed (2155)
 * Chief Communications Officer
 * Hoshi Sato, (2155)
 * Chief Helm officer
 * Travis Mayweather (2155)

Appearances and References

 * The Captain's Table Omnibus
 * SS TOS (The First Peer)
 * The Captain's Table Omnibus
 * SS TOS (The First Peer)
 * The Captain's Table Omnibus
 * SS TOS (The First Peer)
 * The Captain's Table Omnibus
 * SS TOS (The First Peer)
 * The Captain's Table Omnibus
 * SS TOS (The First Peer)
 * The Captain's Table Omnibus
 * SS TOS (The First Peer)
 * SS TOS (The First Peer)