I too am a fan of the D’deridex. They are elegant, blood green, behemoths. They can appear out the black to make any beings plans seem like a big mistake. Also I’d give give a spot on my list to the Klingon Vor’cha over the rest of their fleet on looks alone.

I love the Ferengi D'Kora class. It looks like an aggressive beetle from the front and back. Like a scarab or a giant tick.

I can't argue with your #1 choice. The D'Deridex is the ultimate statement of will and power, right down to the Robocop-looking bow. You can almost hear the ship saying, "Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

I am surprised the Jem Hadar ship didn’t even make an honorable mention. The defining enemy ship of DS9

I would add Vor'Cha to this list. It's my favorite Klingon ship, maintaining the grace of a D7 without the delicate spindlyness which I never liked in a ship design.

I’ve always felt the Cardassians had one of the strongest design aesthetics, with the curves, points, circles and lack of squares. It really gives everything from their ships to their architecture this really alien look that just screams none human.

Your #1 pick is my #1 pick. Every time I saw this on screen I cheered! It felt genuinely alien, imposing, and awesome.

My dad and me always nerded out over the D7's scene in TMP. It encompassed that Klingon militaristic feeling so well. Whenever I think of the D7 the first thing that comes to mind is the torpedo launcher turning red to fire at Vger. The second is those rotary phaser and torpedo launchers on DS9 shredding them endlessly. Definitely my favorite non-UFP ship. However I agree with your positioning of the Klingon Bird of Prey because I am a neverending ST4 fanboy.

For me, its the D7 because you can see it as the base design in a long line of future Klingon cruisers. Even though the B'rel is more omnipresent. Also agree with the Mogi/Valdor. I love that sleek low profile ship that still retains that Romulan raptor silhouette. Am I the only one that likes that arrowhead design of Tholian ships?

The Romulan Bird of Prey has always been my favorite non-UFP ship. So simple, sleek, and a little menacing.

Me: Please pick the warbird for number one... please pick the warbird for number one... Rick: And for number one, it's the D'Deridex. Me: Woohoo!!! Before I'd ever seen Star Trek, my dad had a model of one and I've loved the ship ever since. Jolan Tru!

Needed the Xindi Aquatic ship in there. So few aquatic races in sci fi and they did a good job on that. Plus Devore Warships. Like snake heads and dark with a Warbird like curve. Awesome ships.

"It's just a few geometric shapes, but they work." -- The defining characteristic of all the best ships in the franchise.

I totally knew what would be take the first spot and do approve it completely. Also gotta add that my surprise favorite non Starfleet or even major faction vessel is the Kobali Samsar Cruiser, just because of the looks of it. Don't like the Kobali at all.

I'm surprised you didn't include the Borg Cube. It was a modern art grenade tossed into what had been a pretty classically-inspired show. It truly took the spaciness of space into account. I'd even say, if not for the particular, frontless design, Wolf 359 would've been a VERY different story. I'm actually kinda surprised the Federation didn't abandon aerodynamic designs in light of the Borg's superiority.

I had a Micromachine tm D'deridex class warbird as a kid, I loved the look of that ship. I held on to that for years damn house fires.

I have to admit, I kind of like the Mogai-class. It's got that overall Klingon Bird of Prey shape, with a touch of the D'deridex-class streamlining. 🙂

Love the Klingon bird of prey. One took down the Enterprise-D. Sure, they cheated by having the Enterprise's shield frequencies, but you've got to expect some asymmetric warfare tactics when taking on a galaxy class starship with your tiny bird of prey.

I flew the Vulcan ships in STO. They were unique and I loved the detachable shuttle. Nice to see it had another fan!

My favorite has always been the D7/K'Tinga class Klingon battle cruisers. There is just something about that design that just looks menacing to me and it is iconic. The Cardassians have the most unique looking ship design of the major powers in DS9 and was glad to see a ship that didn't have the same double nacelle design that every other power had.

About the D'deridex, you forgot to mention how the nacelles can be scaled down to the size of a handheld tool that Dr. Bashir can use to adjust medical equipment with. Specifically the episode of DS9 where O'Brian is moving around in time. He used a vastly downscaled D'Deridex engine to make adjustments to the device on O'Brian's arm.

Great choice for Number One!!! I would have added the Jem'hedar Battleship/Battlecruiser to the list. I only wish we got to see more Breen ships in the show since the Breen are the coolest aliens in all of Star Trek!

Good list... I do love me a Ferengi D'Kora class, I might've added that to honorable mention. Hmm possibly constellation class as well, always loved the 4 nacelle look mixed with TOS styling.

The K'Tinga/D7 is my #1. First time I saw that design in the opening scene for TMP I just... it left an impression on child-me and I still cry with how many times I've seen them getting wrecked in DS9.

I have to say, the Negh'var has been my favourite ship, visually at least, since I first saw it. If we're looking specifically at STO ships, I'd have to say either the Vo'Quv Science Carrier of the KDF, or the Jhu'ael flight deck Escort of the Romulan Republic. And no, it's not _just_ because they can launch fighters. I think they look really good, and different as they are, I like how they handle. The Vo'Quv is a massive ship, larger than any cruiser in the KDF fleet and capable of supporting a whole battle group if necessary. Sure, it has the speed and manoeuverability of a small city, but it's not the sort of ship that needs to be nimble. The Jhu'ael on the other hand is a fighting Bird of War on par with the Mogai, albeit slightly larger. Unlike a full carrier, it doesn't rely on its fighters, but rather leads them into battle. Of course, both of those ships look really cool as well.

love the tholian ship designs. though slightly undeveloped they truly show some unique tech and design for an exciting race.

I'd have certainly chosen the same top two! But I think I'd have thrown in Ferengi D'Kora as I think there's something kinda 'rolls royce' about those rich guys rides! 👍

The First Federation ship always reminded me of a highly mobile Death Star... but I'd say it's more like the Death Star aped the First Federation design.

It occurs to me that with Klingon naming conventions, the B’rel class is most likely named after a woman. Which is pretty cool.

Everytime I see the D'deridex's open mid-section, I keep thinking that it'd be great if it was actually a launching platform for their smaller and more agile ships, much like what aircraft carriers do but for space.

Not my personal favorite but one of the ship designs I think deserves more love is the Xindi Aquatic cruiser, just the sheer scale and power of it for a 22nd century ship makes so formidable. The thing could literally house a smaller starship inside itself and was probably the most powerful starship class in known space at the time.

Ric with the fire yet again. Man I appreciate these.

The hull section of T'liss/V8 Romulan Bird of Prey always reminded me of a float we used whilst learning to swim at my primary school. 1# D7/K't'inga 2# D'deridex 3# Dominion attack ship 4# B'rell Bird of Prey 5# Vorcha 6# D'kora 7# Mogai 8# Neg'var 9# Tzenkethti Shuk'din 10# Bortis'qu

I’d love to see you break down the X-303, BC-303, X-304, & BC-304 (and yes, they’re all different). They are probably my favorite ships in all of fiction because we just get so much character and backstory on them as we see each step of the Tau’ri getting to the point they can finally build the things.

Excellent video! Thanks for the Christmas cheer!

Merry Christmas….Admiral and to give you a long overdue applause and praise for the time and effort you put into your videos and in turn providing us trekkers with insightful, enjoyable entertainment. Keep on the same heading …warp 9.9 !

11:45 - Yes! Mine too!

I guessed your number 1 even before you began the list. The excitement you get when you have spoken of them in other videos… 🤣😂🤣. It’s awesome to hear.

The Scimitar! I’m really surprised, looking through the comments, to not even see one person mention it! That beast of a ship was absolutely stunning in my opinion.

Great video, love your work!

How on earth i didnt know about this channel before its beyond me its everything i needed to satisfy my star trek hunger

Great picks, Ric. Personally, I really like the chunkier, industrial-looking ships, like the Xhosa and Malon freighter.

Merry Christmas Ric, thanks for your videos.

No surprise at number one, great ship design What I like about it, is it balances looking and feeling alien but also looks and feels pragmatic. I always dug the Breen ships, it also had no-nonsense pragmatic look to them, the Tholian ships are also cool also La Sirena from Picard

I absolutely adore the Ar'Kiff class Warbird. Even more than the Mogai. The Dhelan is also a solid design . . . really, just Romulan Republic ships in general are great

Excellent choice but damn, that Kumari...Woof! Stunning.

I love your list. I'm impressed you resisted putting more romulan ships on there. I would have cheated and made it a top 15 with the deihu, vastam, d7 dyson romulan science ship and the reskava. I know I lean alot into sto but through their piles of dog do do there are some real gems in there. But I am a fan of all things romulan. I remember being so excited about nemesis and picard. Oh well 🤣

Yes, I absolutely agree, the D'deridex is a thing of beauty.

That’s a good list! Thanks!

Good list! My absolute favorite is the dominion Battle cruiser (not the battleship) I find it so graceful in its proportions and also pretty menacing

This is a very agreeable list. And you can never have too many Romulan ships.

Enjoyed your list!! 🖖

Love your top choice

This was bloody brilliant great job. p. s I'm not a fan of the first classic Romulan ship but I absolutely love their modern subsequent ship designs that look like actual birds of the raptor family. 👏👏👏👏👏👍👍

The D'duradex will always be my favorite. I always loved the design and color. From first sight, I had one design misconception. I'm initial impression was, "That is awesome, they swoop in, decloak, disable a smaller ship, tractor it into the empty space, recloak, and warp away." Imagine your on the battle field, and your pawns just start disappearing.

An absolutely delightful video and I too think the top pick is the best ship amongst the non-UFP offerings in Star Trek.

The d'deridex is my favorite also. Many fond childhood memories of playing with the ship toy back in the 90's. It had paser and torpedo sound buttons!

I always loved the Vulcan Warp Ring. It just looks cool as hell.

On the Tzenkethi battleship, he calls the weapon loadout "dozens of cannons and torpedo launchers". Officially the most weapons any NPC in STO can mount forwards is 4, but I admire the roleplay stats here! It really helps bring an online game scale to life. 👏👏👏

Good list!

These are great picks. Especially the damar class

I agree with your top 2 full heartedly!

Thank you for all the videos 📹 you make, i at least appreciate your hard work. Keep it up sir.

The D’deridex is also my favorite non-federation ship. Such a majestic and iconic look. Second place for me is the Galor. XD

I complete agree with your number one.

Excellent 👍

The time ship in voyager is a very intresting ship to look at and the story behind that is very good and would have made a wonderful series instead of a 2 part episode

Loved seeing the romulans or borg show up when I watched TNG with my dad. He got me the dderidex playmate toy and that ship has been my favorite since.

The 1936 Ford pickup truck predates the Federation and is found in space. I throw it in here because I can now quote one of my favorite songs: Come on! Come on! Come on! Let's go Space Trucking! - Deep Purple, "Space Truckin'", 1971.

In Bridge Commander, D'eridexes were absolute monsters capable of taking on even ships that were supposed to outclass them such as Sovereign class, or hybrid ships. They merely required a commander, who was not a complete doofus and knew when to decloak and what subsystem to attack first. Just as Romulan war doctrine dictated

The galor class was Iconic (I'd definitely pick that over the STO ship oyu chose). The Negh'var in the DS9 battle is also a ship that can't be left out.

Merry Christmas, Rick!

The singularity powered warp core is not just the Romulans being contrarian. Dilithium is a vital compost in antimatter fueled warp cores and is a limited resource which cannot truly be synthesized. This mean dilithium represents a bottle neck for starship construction and operation in societies which are otherwise considered “post-scarcity”. The singularity core frees the Romulans from the dilithium bottle neck, giving them a means to build and operate starships at numbers greater than the empire’s dilithium supply would allow. It’s a logistical game changer.

The D'deridex is my all time favorite Trek ship.

It'll always be the valdore-class to me, which would likely be near the top of my list. Merry Christmas and 🖖

100% agree on the D'Deridex... it's there on my top 10 sci-fi ships list.

Among the ones that stick out in my mind are the Bajoran lightships and Bajoran raiders. The raiders may not be much to look at, but the Bajoran Resistance really used them well in fighting the Cardassians. The lightships are just beautiful to look at. They sail through space the way sailing ships sailed the ocean waves. And the Bajorans definitely deserve a spot on a list of non-UFP ships, simply from how much time we spent with the Bajorans on DS9.

I would have added the Breen cruisers from DS9. They were menacing...and came with an energy dampening weapon. Plus the angular shapes and sharp edges made the ships look dangerous.

Your list is pretty good and I do agree that the D'Deridex Class is probably the best on this list. It's definitely the most recognisable and I have fond memories of it when TNG first aired and I was collecting the Star Trek Fact Files.

That Excelsior joke got me.

Please rank your favorite shapes as personified by Borg vessels. Happy holidays. I love your channel.

Merry Christmas Ric _and_ everybody else reading this!

Great list! The only thing I would change is drop the Voth ship and add the Klingon D7 and switch the Klingon bird of prey with the Romulan bop for number 1 spot. Great job on the video!

I agree with a lot of your choices. I'M not into STO, so I can only rank TV and movie vessels. My personal choices are: 1. Romulan Warbird TNG (same as yours) 2. Klingon Bird of Prey (same as yours) 3. Vulcan Ringship ENT (your 6th spot) 4. Species 8472 (your honorable mention) 5. Romulan Bird of Prey TOS / PIC (your 7th spot) 6. Ferengi Marauder TNG 7. Borg Cube 8. Cardassian Galor Class (I like it a lot) 9. Jem Hadar Fighter 10. Klingon Ship of the Dead DSC Honorable Mentions: Klingon D7, Narada, Scimitar, Borg Diamond, Fesarius (!), Doomsday Machine, Son'a Ship, V'Ger, Krenim Time Ship (which resembles B5 a lot 🙂), Whale Probe The Andorian Ship reminds me of Serenity from Firefly...

Quite nice list and u agree on most of it. I too felt for the Dauntless at her first introduction. I still love the iconic look of the Klingon BoP, it's like Star Treks X-Wing and it's moving wings still feel menacing to me.

Always had a fondness for the Son'a Battle Cruiser with it's Bow/Boomerang design.

Talking purely visually there are two ships in STO that I love: The Valkis Temporal Dreadnaught Warbird and the Obelisk Carrier. The Valkis has the ultimate look of a giant bird of prey, it's a refinement of the older ships of the romulans. The Obelisk is the most alien yet straightforward ship of that nature, it's a set of blocks that flies.

*Hirogen* ships… They have a 1970's airbrushed style that was popularized by Criss Foss's many works. And airbrushing survived into the future - how do you think the Romulans decorated their bird of prey?

_"they were also the ones sent out by High Command when they needed stuff sorted"_ God Bless the Brits, such an understated way of saying "when a problem needed to be shot at".

Good evening Ric, I wish you a wonderful Christmas Weekend, THANK YOU for sharing your list. I like many of them because I have them myself as models. Your NUMBER ONE is in my top three 3- Klingon Vor'cha class 2- Romulan D'deridex Warbird 1- Klingon Bird of Prey B'rel class This ship has so much style BUT it is a so close I also LOVE THE TOS D-7 Klingon Battle Cruiser Because I loved to see it in the episodes

Agree with number 1 spot. I also love the Borg interceptor and the Romulan Vidar

The D'Deridex is an awesome ship design, especially with the forward section literally shaped like a raptor's head and sharp beak.

I love the Kumari class because it took one of the tenets of trek design and turned it on it's head. Vertical stacked warp nacelles! Not only that, it made them look amazing

I did always like the D'Derydex and the Valdore, but my favourite personally was always the Winged Defender from the FASA game. Helped I kept brutally savaging my UFP opponent every time we played, but I also really like the bird thing... Swoopy lines FTW!

I would have loved to have seen your number 1 choice in its original configuration from The Art of Star Trek book as well. Good list!

Cheers rick merry Christmas

Kirk stole the bird of prey piloted by Christopher Lloyd and went back in time.. he took Doc Brown's time machine!

Blummin love the D'Deridex! I have got a soft spot for the Kazon raider. Pretty little ships!

Thanks Rick

Big fan of most of the ships mentioned in this list. A personal favorite of mine is the Fesarius, flagship of the First Federation from the original series episode the Corbomite Maneuver. While it only made one appearance in any Star Trek series it really leaves an impact on me as I think it's the first alien ship in Sci-Fi that truly looks alien. Rocket ship designs have pretty much been around since the late 19th century and flying saucer designs have been around in Sci-Fi for a long time too. With the exception of the Tripods in War of the Worlds, most all science fiction films prior to Star Trek followed either the rocketship or flying saucer design. Two things which despite being depicted as alien vessels in other films or television are still easily recognizable to us being human designed. The Fesarius, to me, looks completely different then anything that came before it.