The Inquiry class was a type of starship operated by Starfleet during the late 24th and early 25th centuries. (PIC: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", "The Star Gazer")
History[]
In 2399, multiple ships of this class were in a fleet led by the USS Zheng He under the command of Acting Captain William T. Riker to the planet Coppelius, where they acted as protectors of the synthetic lifeforms living there. (PIC: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2")
Between 2399 and 2401, several ships of this class - including the Zheng He - would undergo a substantive retrofit, including a replacement of the main deflector, structural alterations to the secondary hull, design alterations to the nacelles, and a full replacement of the outer hull. (PIC: "The Star Gazer")
In 2401, five ships of this class were sent by Starfleet to join an armada opposing a unknown Borg vessel. The Borg liaison sent to the USS Stargazer briefly commandeered this vessel and others, before the crew managed to engage their auto-destruct system. (PIC: "The Star Gazer")
Later that same year, twenty-two ships of this class were involved in fleet maneuvers to celebrate 250 years since Enterprise NX-01 took her first voyage. They were commandeered after officers under the age of 25 were placed under the influence of the Borg with the help of Jack Crusher. (PIC: "Võx", "The Last Generation")
Technical data[]
Inquiry-class ships featured the saucer section / engineering section / warp nacelle layout common to most Starfleet vessels. The class contained two variations of warp nacelles. (PIC: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2")
As of 2399, Inquiry-class ships were the fastest and most tactically capable ships in the Federation fleet. They were equipped with phasers and deflector shields. (PIC: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2")
Interior design[]
Main bridge[]
The main bridge was located on deck one, with a central command chair for the commanding officer, and a computerized transparent window-viewscreen. (PIC: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2")
Command and control systems[]
By 2401, the computer systems on board the class had been built to include the Fleet formation mode, also known as Starfleet emergency protocol NX12.11, designed to place all Federation starships within a fleet under the automated control of the Starfleet mainframe. (PIC: "Võx")
Ships commissioned[]
- Named
- USS Janaran (NCC-86518)
- USS Kumari (NCC-86610)
- USS Magellan (NCC-86509)
- USS Nathan Hale (NCC-86501)
- USS Rustazh (NCC-86503)
- USS Shackleton (NCC-86517)
- USS Varian Fry (NCC-87883)
- USS Zheng He (NCC-86505)
- Unnamed
- Uncertain
- USS Cabot (NCC-86539)
- USS Cochrane (NCC-86516)
- USS Norgay (NCC-86538)
Appendices[]
Appearances[]
Background information[]
The Inquiry class was identified by name by Michael Chabon. He identified the class as "a heavy cruiser: the Inquiry-class. That's the Zheng He." Originally, when asked by fans on his Instagram account, he identified the USS Zheng He as a Curiosity-class ship, but he later amended the classification of the ship. [1]
The total number of Inquiry-class vessels present at Frontier Day was established by former Picard Research Assistant Jörg Hillebrand. [2]
CGI model[]
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The class was designed by John Eaves, who in turn based it off one of the three starship designs he had originally submitted for Perpetual Entertainment's ultimately abandoned 2007 version of the Star Trek Online computer game. (Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection, issue 2, p. 9) Eaves' designs were not labeled with names or registries, but he was asked at the eleventh hour to submit one endowed with the name Zheng He and a corresponding registry, which Eaves decided upon as "NCC-86505", even though they remained indiscernible on the production-used CGI model(s) as seen onscreen in the Star Trek: Picard first season finale "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", because they were ultimately not applied onto the model at all – nor had they been on any of the others in Riker's fleet for that matter. (Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection, issue 2, p. 14)
The production CGI model was built at visual effects (VFX) company Double Negative (DNeg) by VFX artist Brian Tatosky, who had confirmed Eaves' indication of the model being a last minute addition by stating, "I worked for DNEG a VFX company during season one who built the Inquiry class and unfortunately during the time it was a late request that we didn't have time to properly finish out. [note: also explaining why there were no names and registries on any of the vessels in Riker's fleet] I would have made a lot more changes then, and now if I had the time and cash." Moving from DNeg to CBS Studios proper as VFX Supervisor following the first season of the show, he also added that a "(…)side goal of coming aboard Trek proper as a Supervisor from a vendor was to never "Zheng He" it ever again," concurrently explaining why he considered his build "(…)not my favorite ship by any means." [3] With his "Zheng He" remark Tatosky was apparently also siding with those fans who had frowned upon – to put it mildly – the use of only a single CGI model in the season one finale into one massive, what Ex Astris Scientia has dubbed the "copy & paste", fleet of Starfleet vessels, merely featuring the minutest of (warp nacelle only) detail changes. While considered by Ex Astris Scientia as "laziness in the one field of CGI where it is least acceptable!", [4] Tatosky had actually very little say in the matter given the scant time-span he was allotted by the franchise at the latest possible moment. Tatosky himself incidentally, would shortly thereafter move over to the Star Trek franchise proper as Associate VFX Supervisor.
A publication version of the model became prominently featured in several issues of the Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection, the first of which released in the Spring of 2021 and each accompanied by a physical display model based off the production CGI model. The model had to be re-rendered in LightWave 3D, as that was the software package of choice for the publisher of the publication, Eaglemoss Collections, whereas the DNeg production-used model of the class was constructed in the Autodesk Maya software. The re-rendering was done by publisher mainstay Fabio Passaro, who also created the corresponding CAD files needed for the construction of the master from which the display models were produced. After its debut in the Universe publication, the publication version became also prominently featured in the August 2021 second edition of the Star Trek: Shipyards - Starfleet Ships 2294 to the Future reference book.
The class reappeared in Picard's second season in the episodes PIC: "The Star Gazer", "Farewell" where four additional class sisters of the Zheng He were featured complete with names and registries this time as confirmed and identified by production sources, unlike those of the class' first appearance in Riker's fleet in the season one finale where none were applied. On the modified CGI model Tatosky specified that his own first season version was completely discarded, and that the Star Trek Online version as created by Tobias Richter, was used as a base instead, since it "already had more texture details". Tatosky's team at CBS then made further modifications to it, "[w]e lightened the hull to match the regular fleet color, contoured the secondary hull so it didn't have a flat bottom, adjusted the shape of the nacelles, and put a proper main deflector on it rather than that air conditioning grate it had before. It fits in better now."[5] All appearances of the Inquiry-class in Picard since the start of season 2 are of this new modified model, reappearing in larger numbers in the third season episodes PIC: "The Next Generation", "Võx", "The Last Generation".
Apocrypha[]
The (current) Star Trek Online game features the USS Inquiry (NCC-86500) (β) as the class-vessel. The notion was also adopted in the Shipyards - Starfleet Ships 2294 to the Future second edition book.
According to the Star Trek Universe collection gift issue 6 magazine (pp. 6-7), three additional starships were named and may have been among those that appeared in the class' first appearance: USS Maui (NCC-96761) (β), USS Toussaint (NCC-87111) (β), USS Varian Fry (NCC-87883) (β). The Zheng He, Toussaint, Varian Fry and Maui incidentally, each received its own individual model/magazine outing in the collection, as a regular, gift, and two bonus issues respectively. The latter three vessels may well have been part of Riker's fleet in the season one finale "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", as class designer John Eaves is known to habitually provide his producers with additional back-up names/registries when requested to come up with one. [6] No mention was made however, of the USS Inquiry in either the Universe publications or by Eaves himself. Even though all Universe production POV content is compiled from valid background information provided by production staffers themselves, none of it has been confirmed onscreen and/or officially validated by the franchise (as had been the case with the Picard second season class vessels), and these three Inquiry-class vessels have therefore remained apocryphal – until February 2023 that is, when the USS Varian Fry at least became featured in the third season opening episode of Picard, with the other two purportedly following suit in the final two episodes according to Picard Production Designer Dave Blass, [7] [8] even though they were not confirmed on the onscreen Frontier Day computer monitor graphics seen in these episodes.
Further reading[]
- Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection
- Issue 2, March 2021
- Gift issue 6, September 2021
- Bonus issue 1, November 2021
- Bonus issue 2, November 2021
- Star Trek: Shipyards - Starfleet Ships 2294 to the Future, 2nd ed, pp. 222-227, August 2021
External link[]
- Inquiry-class at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works