The vessel was overpowered and over-gunned for a ship of its size — so much so that the Defiant nearly shook itself apart when the engines were tested at full power. Ultimately, these design flaws, combined with the Borg threat becoming less urgent, led Starfleet to the decision to abandon the project and place the prototype in storage. After the USS Odyssey was destroyed in late , Commander Benjamin Sisko , who served on the team that designed the Defiant , requested that the vessel be pulled out of storage and assigned to Deep Space 9 to counter a new threat of the Dominion.
The vessel was officially launched in , on stardate Arriving in early , the Defiant 's first assignment was to attempt to convince the Founders of the Dominion that the Federation posed no threat to them. After a special amendment was made to the Treaty of Algeron , the Romulan Star Empire provided Sub-commander T'Rul and one of their cloaking devices to aid in its mission — in exchange for any intelligence gained on the Dominion.
The mission did not go well for the DS9 crew. During a resulting battle, the vessel was boarded, and the senior officers were captured and placed into a simulation to test how Starfleet might react to the Dominion attempting to gain a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant. DS9's chief of operations , Miles O'Brien , spent two weeks overhauling the Defiant 's structural integrity field to overcome the ship's design flaws. DS9 : " Shattered Mirror ".
Several weeks later, the Defiant transported Lieutenant Jadzia Dax to the Trill homeworld to receive medical treatment. DS9 : " Equilibrium ". To ensure the Cardassians did not identify the ship, the vessel's shield harmonics were reconfigured to make the Defiant appear to be a Kobheerian freighter. DS9 : " Second Skin ". The Defiant made contact with the planet Meridian during an exploration mission in the Gamma Quadrant.
Despite its reportedly limited facilities for scientific analysis, the ship was able to work with the inhabitants of Meridian to analyze the nature of the unusual effect that caused the planet to shift between dimensions and devise a means of stabilizing the effect, with the result that Meridian's next manifestation on the corporeal plane would last for thirty years where it had currently only manifested for twelve days.
DS9 : " Meridian ". Later in , Maquis operative Thomas Riker hijacked the Defiant and used it to attack several Cardassian targets. Commander Sisko was forced to travel to Cardassia Prime with Gul Dukat to help track down the vessel. Although Dukat initially wanted to destroy the Defiant , he agreed to release the vessel and the Maquis crew to Starfleet custody in exchange for the Defiant 's scans of the Orias system and Riker himself.
After facing overwhelming opposition from Obsidian Order forces deployed from the Orias system, Riker ultimately surrendered and the Defiant was returned to DS9. DS9 : " Defiant ". Later the same year, the Defiant visited Earth , where the vessel's senior staff was to attend the Annual Starfleet Symposium on the current situation in the Gamma Quadrant. The ship was briefly caught in a temporal anomaly when chroniton particles trapped in the cloak caused some of the crew to travel back in time, unwittingly changing key events in history that erased the existence of the Federation, but the same particles kept the Defiant in existence long enough for the missing crew to be recovered and history restored.
Several weeks later, the Defiant was used to carry out a joint project between the governments of the Federation, Cardassia, and Bajor , to establish communications between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants. DS9 : " Destiny ". Despite these orders, Commander Sisko took the vessel into the Gamma Quadrant in order to rescue Odo and Elim Garak , who were being held on one of the Romulan vessels in the fleet. Even with sabotage of the cloaking device by security chief Lieutenant Commander Michael Eddington , the Defiant ultimately succeeded in its mission and returned to DS9.
Admiral Toddman decided not to file charges against Sisko or any of the other officers who had joined him. In late , a Changeling posing as Federation ambassador Krajensky sent the Defiant on a patrol mission of the Federation-Tzenkethi border. During the mission, the Changeling sabotaged the Defiant , causing it to fly out of control towards a Tzenkethi colony that was intended to be attacked; the Dominion hoped it would provoke a second war between the two powers.
The crew was eventually able to regain control of the vessel and kill the Changeling. DS9 : " The Adversary ". The Defiant using its tractor beam. In early , the Defiant fought its way through Cardassian space against Klingon forces — as the Klingon Empire had withdrawn from the Khitomer Accords due to the Federation's failure to support their invasion of Cardassia — to bring the Detapa Council to Deep Space 9.
During this mission, the ship once briefly used its tractor beam to reduce the accuracy of a Vor'cha -class attack cruiser's disruptor banks, when it was forced to drop its usual deflector shields to beam the Council to safety. DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ". The Defiant was used by Doctor Lenara Kahn and her research team in an attempt to create an artificial wormhole. DS9 : " Rejoined ". Several weeks later, the Defiant traveled to the Gamma Quadrant to meet with a Karemma ship. During the meeting, the two vessels were attacked by Jem'Hadar forces.
The Defiant engaged the Jem'Hadar in the atmosphere of a gas giant and took severe damage; several of the senior officers were incapacitated. DS9 : " Starship Down ". In mid, Lt. Commander Worf took the Defiant to Earth to assist Captain Sisko in foiling a plot by Admiral Leyton which would have overthrown the Federation government and established martial law. While en route, the Defiant was forced to engage the USS Lakota under the command of Captain Benteen , who was operating under the assumption that the Defiant was manned by Changelings.
After a prolonged battle in which both ships took significant damage it was strongly suggested by Major Kira that the Lakota was "in even worse shape" than the Defiant , the Lakota eventually stood down when Benteen conferred with Worf and Kira about her orders to stop the Defiant. Thus, the Defiant was allowed to continue to Earth with the evidence Sisko needed to stop the coup. DS9 : " Homefront ", " Paradise Lost ".
Major Kira used the Defiant to stop the Klingon Empire from mining the Bajoran sector, later that year. DS9 : " Sons of Mogh ". The Defiant later became home to Worf, who found adapting to life on Deep Space 9 difficult. Captain Sisko gave him approval to live on the vessel, so long as it did not interfere with his duties. DS9 : " Bar Association ". During an escort mission where the Defiant was protecting several Cardassian freighters against Klingon raids, Commander Worf accidentally destroyed a Klingon civilian transport ship.
The Klingon Empire requested that Worf be extradited to face justice for the ship's destruction, but was refused when it was determined that the transport ship had been unmanned and the situation set up to force the Federation to give concessions to the Empire. DS9 : " Rules of Engagement ". The crews of the Defiant and the fighter then worked together to destroy an Iconian gateway that was under the control of the rebels.
DS9 : " To the Death ". In late , the Defiant took Odo to the Founders' new homeworld, where he was to be judged for killing the Krajensky changeling the previous year. The Female Changeling allowed the vessel to personally transport him to the Founder's homeworld, so long as one of her pilots entered the coordinates for the planet and wiped them from the ship's memory afterwards.
While the vessel was in orbit, Garak unsuccessfully attempted to use the Defiant 's weapons to attack the Great Link , but he was caught and prevented from doing so by Worf. DS9 : " Broken Link ". DS9 : " The Ship ". A few weeks later, Captain Sisko took the Defiant to Ajilon Prime to get his son, Jake , off the front lines of the Federation's war with the Klingons.
DS9 : " Nor the Battle to the Strong ". Kirk with a bomb implanted in a dead tribble. DS9 : " Trials and Tribble-ations ". There is, however, an in-universe explanation for why the Defiant was defeated by the Borg: the Defiant -class starships were designed to engage Borg vessels as an attack wing. Therefore, the Defiant alone couldn't destroy a Borg Cube, even supported by other Starfleet ships until Picard showed them the Cube's weak point.
In truth, Star Trek failed the Defiant and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's "tough little ship" was denied the chance to redeem itself and show it could do the main thing it was built for. John Orquiola is a Features staff writer who has been with Screen Rant for four years.
As a lover of film and film theory, John wrote humorous movie reviews on his blog, Back of the Head, which got him noticed by Screen Rant. John can be found on Twitter BackoftheHead if you want to see photos of the food he eats. Nick Ottens is the man behind the Forgotten Trek website. The site bills itself as "the largest resource about the production and behind the scenes of Star Trek. Be sure to visit the site at Forgotten Trek and keep an eye on StarTrek.
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Search Submit. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It would also serve as the prototype for many other Constitution -class vessels, as well as newer, more advanced designs. In the DC Comics Special 2 published late , the story "Raise the Defiant" tells of the USS Enterprise -A working to recover the Defiant from the Tholian rift during the s to recover a classified phase-inverter capable of detecting cloaked vessels.
On the Star Trek DVD, the special features reveal that the USS Defiant of the alternate reality caused by Nero 's arrival in the 23rd century, while maintaining the same registry, is a Mayflower -type starship. When the Tholian Queen, mad with grief and rage, opts to ram her ship into the Na'kuhl dreadnought, the Defiant is caught up in the two ships' destruction, trapping them in the spatial interphase. Memory Alpha Explore. Christopher Pike Number One.
James T. USS Protostar. Generations First Contact Insurrection Nemesis. Memory Alpha. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? View source. History Talk Do you like this video? Play Sound. Multiple realities covers information from several alternate timelines. For the 24th century starship, please see USS Defiant With the Defiant on our side, there will be nothing to stop us!
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