Star Trek Deckplan Federation

One of the most radical experiments in early starship design was the Enterprise XCV (eXperimental Coleopteric Vehicle). Unlike the more familiar nacelle-and-saucer configuration, the XCV used an annular propulsion system based on the Vulcan vehicle designs. This ship however employed cyclotron accelerators to create a high-energy proton flux. The protons circled through the massive outer rings of verterium gallenide segments, generating a symmetrical subspace field. Each of the two coleopteric ring structures contained two couter-rotating cyclotrons. The cyclotrons in each ring operated slightly out of phase with each other, generating the propulsive field imbalance that carried the ship through subspace at warp speeds.

Although the Enterprise's annular drive proved nearly 17% more efficient than its Vulcan predecessors, it proved resistant to flight directional changes at high warp speeds. As flight director Ford Prefect noted, "It looks like a fish, moves like a fish but steers like a cow." This was later found to be a characteristic of coleopteric drive systems. Probably owing to the methodical nature of Vulcan spaceflight operations, the Vulcans did not see this as a drawback, since they preferred to have their entire mission plotted out in great detail in advance. Humans, by contrast, demanded flexibility in their planning, including the ability to change their flight plan while a mission was in progress. As a result, even though the XCV was a technical success, it is now regarded as an evolutionary dead end for earth Starship design.

The designers behind the Declaration class, however, were not interested in what had been the mind-set of UESPA's engineers and were more amenable to the Vulcans' way of thinking. They were interested in building a passenger liner, not a warship, and the methodical pre-planning of the Vulcans was more amenable to the pre-packaged nature of cruise ship operations.

The Enterprise XCV-330 was depicted in an old-style flatscreen image on the Rec Deck of the newly refit USS Enterprise NCC-1701 in 1979's Star Trek the Motion Picture. Commander Decker is showing the Ilia probe around the ship in hopes of causing her memory engrams to surface and shows her a series of paintings in an alcove on the Recreation Deck. These depict the 19th century USN sloop-of-war USS Enterprise, the WWII aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CV-6, the Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise OV-101, the ringship Enterprise XCV-330 and the pre-refit starship Enterprise.

The ringship was based on a set of 1970's preproduction sketches by Walter "Matt" Jefferies for a proposed series by Gene Roddenberry (probably Starship, later resurrected as Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda and currently being used as inspiration for Star Trek Discovery's third season). An illustrator on the Star Trek the Motion Picture did this painting based loosely on Jefferies' sketches at Gene Roddenberrys' suggestion. More information can be had at Trek Place's article "Spaceship of the Rings". There has been much confusion about these sketches, causing many commentators to suggest that this was an early sketch series for the USS Enterprise from TOS, including the writers of the Star Trek Sketchbook, although they mistakenly include sketches for the Star Trek Phase 2 refit as early sketches for TOS even though they're clearly dated '77, so this book must be taken with a small Siberian salt mine.

Rick Sternbach illustrated Stan and Fred Goldstein's Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (Pocket Books, 1980, ISBN 0-671-79089-7), in which he did a new painting of the ringship, dubbing it the Declaration class Starliner, a 300m long passenger ship with a crew of 200 and a passenger manifest of 900. Many fans, probable because of the confusion about the Matt Jefferies design, reject this concept. The Jefferies sketches show a ship some 417 feet (a mere 127 metres) in length with a radically different forward module (a tubular forward module with a large hump at the aft end, a large sphere at the forward end, a tubular structures on each side, and four smaller spheres clustered about the central hull). Based on this evidence, we must conclude that the Jefferies Starship design and the Declaration class Enterprise are completely different ships. It is possible to fit the Jefferies ship into Trek chronology, but as a prototype ship testing Alcubierre warp drive designs. These designs are reminiscent of Vulcan warp drive designs. Although ther Declaration writeup established that there was an Enterprise in this class, it is not the Enterprise in the Rec Room painting, as that was a smaller ship with a different bow structure. Rather, the Declaration class was based on the basic shape and using the warp dynamic test results but is otherwise an unrelated vessel.