"I find it wise to never underestimate the Federations technical skill. Nor Captain Sisko's resourcefulness" --Gul Dukat

The Defiant-class is what happens when Starfleet stops fucking around. It produces a tiny warship capable of wrecking much larger vessels. For basically the same crew allotment as a single Galaxy-class you could have twenty Defiants... and there's not much that could handle that. I personally loved what the ship represented as much as its cool design... the idea that the Federation _could_ be pushed too far, and when it was it could produce ships like the Defiant, and the Sovereign, and the Akira. The only reason why the Federation hasn't simply ended most of its enemies like the Romulans and Cardassians is because _it didn't want to._

I love how Ira Steven Behr said that the Defiant was "on a five-year mission to kick ass."

The Defiant alone should be a big message to the rest of the Alpha and Beta Quadrant Powers. "This is our first attempt at a dedicated military ship. Go ahead, force us to design BIGGER ones."

Defiant: _brrrrrrrrtt_ A-10 Thunderbolt: "I'm proud of you, my grandchild."

I like the Lore that lead to the development of the defiant. Benjamin Sisko lost his wife to the borg. Instead of doing something Picard would do, he turned his anger against the borg by building a ship to beat the borg. In turn the ship was to powerful for its own good and wanted to tear itself apart. What I find even more interesting is that the Defiant was rarely used in combat the way it was intended. I describe it as, "The Defiant is a wolf and wolves hunt in packs." The Defiant was designed to close the distance and brawl with the enemy (this was shown in that one episode of Voyager). More often than not, the Defiant was fighting in duels or out numbered, when she was used they way she was intended, she fought beautifully. I consider the Defiant the best example of Starfleet's "Fuck around and find out," mentality. It is small, unassuming, but packs the punch of a ship many times her size. The crew compliment was minuscule (a very great asset in combat if all hands are lost). The Defiant was "Benjamin Sisko's mother fucking pimp hand," and it showed.

One of the story Ideas for the war was to have a "Wolf pack" of Defiant class ships (4 in each pack) running around behind enemy lines. One would appear damaged or lost and when the Dominion attacked, the other 3 would decloak and attack. Because of budget restraints this idea was later reworked into the episode "Favor the Bold" and was just he Defiant and Klingon ship doing it.

No wonder she was named the Defiant. As Ric pointed out several times, she _defied_ the Federation's emphasis on peaceful exploration and negotiation. About the only other thing they could have named her was "And The Horse You Rode In On."

The Defiant's registry number was in honor of Gene Roddenberry's son Rod Roddenberry whose birthday is February 5th, 1974 (02/05/74) as he worked with the DS9 production crew in the art department.

The outbreak of the Dominion war and the Borg basically reminded Starfleet to follow Theodore Roosevelt's adage when it comes to dealing with conflicts: "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." The Defiant class is proof of the Federation showing how BIG they can make that stick.

There may be bigger, faster, even crazier or more technically accurate spacecraft but The Defiant is my all time favorite starship. That cloaking device they lifted just puts it over the top.

The Defiant is basically the Federations Bird of Prey.

The shields were also incredible powerful. Although they are a standard shield found on much larger ships, the small and compact size allowed the shield bubble to take a far greater amount of hits that a larger ship could take, this supposedly includes a warp-core detonation of nearby ships.

Still my favorite ship in STO. My Starfleet Klingon character ran one of these (the advanced version) with enough cannons to reduce most enemies to flaming wreckage... the USS Mor'Dakka.

The Defiant reminds me of a scene from Stargate GS1, where the team is training some rebels from the Goa'uld. Basically they hold up a Zak'natul staff weapon and say, "this is a weapon of terror" and promptly toss it aside. They hold up a FN P90 and say, "this is a weapon of war." The Defiant is the P90. Borg Tactical Cubes are the staff weapon in this metaphor.

I understand Star Fleets reluctantness when thinking of the Defiant simply because, "If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail". 🤔

The Pimp hand Of Commander Sisko is by far my favorite STNG ship, with the cloak as intended.

In the Episode "The Search" Sisko says on screen that the defiant was a design meant to be operated in fleets to overwhelm the Borg. O'Brian asked why it wasn't finished, to which Sisko replied, "The Borg threat became less Urgent." and proceeded to add it had development problems. By Sisko's account it wasn't other projects doing better, it was simply politics. Starfleet was *terribly* and unforgivably complacent by TNG. A war with the Cardassians took over a decade. A polity that was a tiny fraction the size of the Federation and militarily a joke not even by comparison. The only way that happens is the Federation, and by extension, Starfleet didn't push it. The result is it dragged on and on, and ended in a treaty that caused so many problems for many peoples. Sisko said it himself, nobody gets the frontier, Earth is paradise. What he meant is nobody thinks anything bad will happen because it's *over there* and so not a problem *for the people in paradise* , it's someone else's problem. The Federation's problem at the start of TNG and going into DS9 is indolence, and supreme arrogance. When they sent the Odyssey into the gamma quadrant, her Captain spoke so proudly and arrogantly like they'd already won. He died along with everyone on his ship and the dominion war began. The Dominion took it as an act of aggression, which it was, carried out poorly and incompetently. The defiant is something Starfleet needed before DS9. If the politics of paradise hadn't gotten in the way, there'd likely be defiant's buzzing around watching star systems by the time DS9 started. Perhaps not a ton, stationed at border sectors, systems of import, etc, alongside and with other ships of the new generation of combat designs. The defiant is a prime example of politics, and public perception, ruining a good thing. tl;dr Earth has no idea how close it got to going full cyberpunk horror and gave up on a good decision because it got complacent again because it decided the horror wouldn't ever happen again.

The Defiant does have two aft torpedo launchers. We see her fire them in several episodes and in "The Way of the Warrior" part 2, while rescuing Dukat and the Detapa Council, Dax tells Sisko that they've lost their aft torpedo launchers.

U.S.S. Sisko's pimphand!

For all its logistical flaws, I absolutely LOVE the Defiant.

It also served as Worf's home. He permanently moved his quarters aboard.

The UFP is the perfect example of why you should never mess with a "good man". They will smile and talk and negotiate their way out of every crisis they can, but the moment you put them in a corner, the Defiant comes out to put you back in place... and then you will be talking, negotiating and be smiled at on board of a Sovereign where before it would've been a Galaxy class.

The Defiant is my favorite in Star Trek. One of my favorites in all of Sci-Fi.

The Defiant was a game changer as ships built after it followed the same trend of minimal streamlined functionality. With more emphasis on compactness .

This has always been my favorite since DS9, even now many years later when I was on STO, once I got a Defiant Class, I stopped upgrading at least for a while. I'm not playing anymore and will one day go back and get a new ship, but this was my dream to captain a Defiant.

10:09 the “Assimilate THIS!…” thing is pretty badass

The Defiant Class has 4 forward torpedo launchers. Two dorsal and two ventral. You can see two ventral launchers in use in the Episode "For The Uniform".

I love this ship in any Star Trek show. My favorite Defiant moment is in the Mirror Universe during DS9 where Sisko takes the helm to beat up the big Klingon Vessel Worf was commanding. The second, that blew my mind, was two Defiant Class ships plus an Akira (I think) taking on the Prometheus and some Romulans during the Voyager episode where the Doctor get transferred to the Alpha Quadrant. Does anyone else have a favorite Defiant ship moment?

Awesome video! Defiant and Sovereign class are my all-time favorites.

Pair a few Defiants with a few Sabres with a Sovereign or Galaxy in the lead and you have a mighty task force.

The detachable nose super torpedo makes a lot of sense if you're fighting a super gigantic borg cube that just wont go down. Poke a hole in the cube and then fill it with the biggest anti matter weapon you can manage

Ah yes "Escort" For when you want to Escort your enemies to hell

Awesome ship!!! Great back story too! Great video!

Honestly I could see a cut down version of this ship being great for system defense, maybe reduce the reactor slightly to make it cheaper and remove the shuttle pods as it would spend its time stationed on a surface base or in orbital stations. Any attacker will have to recon with these fast and deadily little ships allowing more resources to be freed up for other mission sets. If you loose one on the defense its only 50 people and has probably damaged or crippled a much bigger and more expensive ship which is key in deterring aggression or making it so they need to spend more to do be able to take your worlds.

The Klingons would love the Defiant, it’s right up their street, so to speak.

Gotta say, love the original design, but some of the Star Trek Online designs are awesome. Especially the Valiant Class, the Sau Paulo is nice too, the adamant is cool as well, the others not so much. I pretty much always run a mix of the Valiant with the Sau Paulo nose, or the legendary defiant nose with the decal. Sometimes I'll use a terrain adamant main hull but the rest is the same as the other.

This coincides with the release of the USS Defiant in Star Trek Fleet Command as well. Great video as always!

I love the Defiant so much. It just screams out the mental trauma that humanity had gone through because of the Borg. I mean a part of the ship literally detaches not so that it can deliver crew to safety but as a final ditch attempt to *blow up another ship*. Even Klingons would think that was too hard core. The fact that Sisko designed it confirms that the Defiant is just humanity saying "DON'T MAKE US ANGRY YOU WOULDN'T LIKE US WHEN WE'RE ANGRY!" in the angriest way possible. I love it but I can see how it couldn't possibly belong in an enlightened human spacefaring fleet. Another commenter here said it well: the Defiant represents that all these aggressive races like the Klingons and the Romulans and the Cardassians are kind of allowed to exist because humans decided that they didn't want to be genocidal maniacs, *because they could do it and few other races could stop them.*

Im currently in the middle of the episode of ds9 “defiant” (first time watching the series i was three months old when this episode aired) i paused to find out more about the ship. Your video is perfect for what i wanted to know without ruining the show

Very nice job, Mister CI. This ship was like one of my favourites, and cozier 🖖 It's like not going to be lots of these designs, practical and not that "beautiful"

The USS Defiant and the Defiant class is one of my fav Ships in Sci-Fi

To this day, the Defiant is still my favorite Star Fleet ship. I love the fact that it's small but powerful as it allows for more acrobatic flight patterns paired with it's impressive weaponry which is just more entertaining to watch than a huge mostly non-moving ship firing a laser beam at another huge and also mostly non-moving ship. I guess you can say that it feels more like an airplane than an ocean ship in that regard. Also, my favorite showcase of what the Defiant was capable of wasn't even technically done by "The Defiant" but by it's mirror universe counterpart when it totally messed up that huge battle cruiser whilst weaving deftly in between it's weapons fire.

The Defiant is basically _a Starfleet version of the Kligon Bird of Prey,_ occupying the same niche and concept of a pure attack ship … and it eats BOP's for breakfast. Imagine if the Federation utilised it the same way the Kligon Empire deploys BOP's? Having a few for each system and as a short range patrol ship would make the Federation a very tough nut to crack, and make life very hard for Raiders and Pirates - no more colonies and outpost being attacked by "rogue ships" of other powers. And what if Starfleet upscaled the concept to make frigate and battlecruiser versions of the Defiant concept? But just a large number of Defiants could be useful for the large multirole ships, as they could actually live up to their _classification_ and be assigned as escorts. The Kligons and the Dominion utilised this with their larger ships generally having attack ships escorting them. Just a Nebula class with a Sensor pod (or a Intrepid class), accompanied by a few Defiants, suddenly becomes a order of magnitude more powerful. The multirole ship can provide the logistical support the Defiants lack for long range missions. The Enterprise - E with a flotilla of _just four_ Defiants would have taken out the Scimitar without much effort.

Thanks Rick. Great work as usual.

spectacular cheers from venezuela amaizing video

If you haven't already, a breakdown of the Yorktown class (ENT Era) would be interesting

Great as always ... In my head you are a young officers on the swing shift reading Starfleet briefs on the delta Vega to Orion run ( you know the Starfleet equivalent of flying rubber dog poop out of hong Kong for the us army) you could do a whole episode on how Sisko and O'Brien basically perfected the pocket battle or super frigate for Starfleet. O'Brien was a true Master from Cardasian monstrosities to romulan cloaks.

Riker: tough little ship Worf: little (scowl look) 😁

One of my favourite ship. A no nonsense ship that was needed after the opulence of the Galaxy Class.

This 'ingame' channel is more lore-friendly than supposed lore-friendly channels, I love it.

A small gripe about the Defiant class, though I do love it: Making it possible to build a ship with the power of the Defiant class at its size and crew was an error by the production team-at least in so far as there were more than one of them. As it was only about one tenth the size of the sovereign class (by mass) and with about one twentieth the crew, if the Defiant was stable enough to serve at Deep Space Nine, there’s no reason Starfleet would have ever paused the program unless there were significant reasons why such tiny ships weren’t good allocations of their resources. One of the more plausible in-universe reasons Starfleet wouldn’t build a fleet of them is the supposition that a Defiant class ship costs (in terms of resource allocation) significantly more to produce and maintain than Galaxy and Sovereign class ships, like for one Defiant class they could have five Sovereign class ships due to how difficult it is to manufacture a ship with the hull density of the Defiant class and/or other such factors. Maybe even throw in that they are finicky and need frequent maintenance that can only be done while docked at a starbase or space station with its resources-make them out to be ships that cannot serve on prolonged detachments or campaigns. Perhaps that was the original intent, but it seems that too many Defiant class ships have been seen on screen for that. And the prolonged “campaign” of the Valiant behind Dominion derails the maintenance idea. A further problem is that if the Federation can pull off something like the Defiant class, the Klingons and the Romulans, who care a lot less about exploration and more military efficiency, should at least approximate it. Certainly Martok, as commander of Klingon forces for much of the war, would have requisitioned such an enhanced Bird of Prey for himself, at least for its offensive capabilities.

You always have the best schematics of the ships. Where do you find such high quality versions of them?

Great video please can you make a video about the history of the TARDIS von Dr who it's law who designed and everything you could find thank you keep up your great work and love and prosper

It's like a L.A.V. 3 for infantry, just an all around purposeful war machine.

Favorite ship of all the series . 5hx for the video

Not only is she a tough little ship, she's the sexiest design in Starfleet.

The giant "nose torpedo" just screams of a couple engineers just looking at each other when designing it and going "I mean...we could...but should we?" and the head engineer slamming their romulan ale on the table and going "YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT WE SHOULD" then collapsing unconscious. Edit: Oh if Sisko was involved in the design, then this was him.

While the Sovereign, Aikira, and Luna Captains have other tools, the Defiant is just a hammer. As a former mechanic this made me chuckle. Most jobs require skill, patience, and a certain amount of delicately applied force using leverage, every once in a while you end up with a job where you have to reach for the 5lb sledge to give it nice hard smack in the face to properly motivate things. They are rare, but every once in a while, when you need it most, nothing else is going to be able to get the job done. :)

There is a letter missing in the title (s) it should read (Class) not (clas) .

I've always loved the Defiant. It would have been interesting to see what new ship we would have gotten in replacement of the Defiant after she was destroyed. I mean if there wasn't any time or budget constraints. I just wish they could have made the second Defiant with the São Paulo's registry instead of reusing the original NX registry.

One additional thing, not quite Canon, but fan canon, is that this defiant class was actually a prototype that in an emergency was put into mass production decades later in the fan series, Star Trek hidden frontier, and others connected to it. There was a more finished,,smooth design that was the official battle ship of of that era.

The reason the ship was so powerful is that it was built with a power plant similar to that of the Galaxy class which is why it 'Nearly shook itself apart when the engines were tested at full capacity' by it's designer Commander Benjamin Sisko in the season 3 2 part episode 'The Search' though it was mentioned later on that they fixed those design flaws.

I was thinking. I heard at some point Worf is meant to become captain of the Enterprise-E. If that is so and if the Enterprise-F is in service at the time, would Worf do everything he can to make his Sovereign class starship even more combat capable. It does seem like something Worf would do as captain of such a ship, especially with more advanced ships coming into to play. The question is what could Worf do to make it more like a battlecruiser. All I can think of are things along the lines of what Captain Jellico had done on the Enterprise-D in the Chain of Command episodes. However you'd think there could be some kinds of modifications he could have engineering do over time that would make the ship more specialized and efficient in its tactical systems.

I like the defiant class but I will always love the akira class.

"It's on a five year mission to kick ass" - Ira Steven Behr

My only gripe about the defiant is that it seems to vary in size depending on the episode it is in. Sometimes it is apparently 90 meters long, another it is 120, another it is 240m. Same goes to the station DS9, if i remember correctly the official size which is mentioned in the show is 1,300 diameters across which barely makes it bigger than a Romulan D'Deridex warbird

Now all they needed was a compliment of Federation Marines trained in ship boarding, CQC and and ground tactics. You don’t send explorers into a war, you send the marines.

1:00 USS Lionheart is such a good name for a defiant ❤

The Defiant class is only "too aggressive" because of Star Fleet's insistence on designing exploration and diplomatic starships that have enough armaments to protect themselves. If Starfleet instead had lightly armed diplomatic, scientific, and exploration ships (all designed to be fast enough to escape engagements) and then also had a line of proper escort ships to protect those less armed ships then the statement of, "we don't build warships" would have more weight to it. Not to mention that you'd prevent the built in gunboat diplomacy when you roll up to a planet with a Galaxy class.

two Nerdy Thoughts on the Ship: 1. while the Idea of the "nose" beeing a Last Ditch Option is cool and also somewhat in the vein of the Saucer separation of the Constitution Class, it would have the ship beeing more or less a sitting Duck in a Battlefield without a Deflector. I wonder if they would have an small back-up deflectordish, like the ships in Star Wars always (in theory at least) have a Back-Up Hyperdrive so they could at least somewhat savely archive high impulse or Warp 1-2 2. we know that a cloak draws a low of power from a ship, so they don't can't also have shields and weapons ready and also do not archive high warp speeds like a Galaxie Class, but since the Defiant is quite a beefy Ship i wonder how much Energy it would in reserve and if they could, on a lower Powersetting, fire under cloak. of Course we never would seen it since well, it would not only go even more so against Federation principles but also would not do much of a great Storytelling having a cloaked ship that sneaks around and "stabbing the enemy in the back". I mean things happen in Story not do clever planning or a Power Tier List, but because they writer tells a Story.

Having seen this and voyager, I always thought "What'd happen if you took the tech Voyager brung back with the armor and torpedos and integrated them into the Defiant class?" The result would be a ship that would be not just tough but a incredibly dangerous target.

I do wonder if you will talk about the “Cerberus” class from STO. As I recall it was supposed to be a spin-off from the Prometheus class without the MVA capability. For security focused captains, of which I was one of naturally.

At least one dude who worked on the DS9 Tech Manual got weirdly offended and vaguely condescending about Star Trek Online and fans deciding the Defiant's impulse engine outlets were those red circular vents beside the warp engines - because his book placed the impulse engines in the rear, with the not-visible exhausts handwaved away as being stealth technology.

In my preferred mod of Star Trek Armada, the Defiant class is the battleship class I use. To make it distinct from the gigantic D'deridex and Negh'Var

i also liked the original concept that the defiant was supposed to fight in groups of 5 or more amall fleets like wolves which would have been great to see. I imagine 20 defiant ship turning up to fight a BORG cube would have been impressive.

I still want to know how they managed to fit a Runabout into the Defiant as when Odo abandons ship and takes Kira to the founders planet he does so in a Runabout

I remember all those preproduction sketches in star trek magazine in the 90s

I remember being so excited to get a Defiant ship only to be told at great length how much it sucks in STO.

Another big advantage of the class, due to its very small size, is that it's less resource intensive to manufacture. And it requires less personnel to crew it. Both are quite important factors during war time.

The ship broke the rules of no broken line of sight between the nacelles and nacelles are to be parallel. It certainly was "Defiant" by design.

My favourite Star Trek ship of all time. When the only tool you need is a hammer you use the best hammer you have.

9:26 To bad that wasn't seen in First Contact...you know instead Worf ordering ramming speed...have the Defiant use the last of its power to fire its nose cone filled with armed torps at the cube

So you are telling me it's the military rv from that one old Bill Murray movie , but in space? Awesome

The Defiant has always been my favorite. A narrow use case, but damn near perfect at what it has to do. Able to rival Klingon designs for raw might, all while that extra "shake the ship apart" power harkins back to the old "Emergency War Power" aircraft used to have. Who needs to worry about extra repairs in an hour when you need the target dead NOW?

Hey where can i get the art for the patch you showed at 3:48

Is this a re upload? Amazed it’s lasted this long if not! What’s caused this to go up now has it reappeared somewhere?

Design of the Defiant is Benjamin Sisko's "Cowabunga it is." moment.

While it is hinted in the show that the Defiant more then just an escort ship, with so few crew accommodations it seems that really is just what it is. It wouldn't seem to make sense for Starfleet to want a ship that can't operate well on it's own, even in wartime. So an escort seems exactly the best way to use it, even if it might hit harder then the ship it's escorting. Assigning it to DS9 unique because of the political situation. They wanted to keep the Star Fleet presence in the Bajoran sector focused on the Bejoran co-run station, and not a fully crewed full-time star ship. So a ship the defiant size can give some strong protection, but still give a little more range and flexibility then just a wing of fighters, particularly when needing to take the occasional run through the wormhole.

Hello again Rick, Rick here as well...

Every member home world of the Federation should have had 1-10 of these guarding it depending on size of its empire. Since its only a small ship each member could have supplied its own materials and manpower. i think that would give a total of around 180-1800 ships. imagine the dominion exiting the wormhole and finding 180-1800 defiant class ships waiting for them.😵

I personally have always found the Defiant and it’s various types to be the Federations version of a Klingon Bird of Prey and I’m certainly not complaining about that

I feel like the defiant class would have worked well in its stated escort roll, I could see a battlegroup with 3-5 of these and a galaxy/sovereign. While the defiants would be pretty bare on amenities, they could rely on the flag vessel for that.

It's literally a submarine in space. Tight working quarters, special drive system, powerful offensive weapons, able to slip away undetected. I read somewhere that if a ship were to be made today for travel in space, a submarine would be a very viable solution.

It is kind of obscure lore, as a ship with no such name is featured in any Star Trek episode, only in games and in the encyclopedia...but love how there is a 'USS de Ruyter' a defiant class vessel named after the 17th century Dutch admiral 'Michiel de Ruyter'. de Ruyter was made famous for succesfully defeating the English, French and Spanish several times. A brilliant sailor first, and tactician second - who often won leading smaller fleets with comparatively smaller vessels compared to the English 'floating castles' and still win. Couldn't think of a more fitting ship in the Star Trek universe to carry his name.

I originally thought of the Defiant simply as a testbed for new technologies, rather than an actual ship class. This would keep the ethos and aesthetics of Starfleet ship design inteact, whilst giving sisko his pimp-hand. Unfortunately, the producers and script writers had other ideas.

At 30m tall that's actually a pretty sizable ship when you think about it. 30 meters is about 9 storys tall. Even if you take away a story or two for the amount the nacelles hang under the habitable part that's still 7 stories in 5 decks. The habitable space makes up about 3/4 of it's over all length and about half of it's width. That's the habitable space of nearly a football field and a half in length and width. That makes it roughly the size of three modern destroyers side by side of just habitable space. Granted there are larger ships in the fleet for sure but this isn't as small as most of us probably imagine it.

It’s quite simple. The Borg were coming, and all bets were off. I would have commissioned the most robust design possible to counter that threat, also with an eye toward the Dominion as well. Therefore, philosophical compromises had to be made.

Remember in one episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine it was revealed that the Terran rebels of the mirror universe built their version of the Defiant to fight the Klngon/Cardassian/Bajoran alliance and with help.of Quark and his brother whole stole a Klingon cloaking device to save the Negus who went to the mIrror universe the Mirror Universe Defiant probably has that cloaking device now.

I wonder if one of the reasons for the size of the Defiant, was ease of manufacturing? I would think it would be faster and easier to make 10 Defiant class ships, as opposed to one Sovereign class ship. On a personal note, the Defiant is my favorite starfleet vessel. ❤️