The Edison-class was a type of Federation starship operated by Starfleet during the early 25th century. It bore a strong resemblance to the 23rd century Hoover-class but featured components and technology from more recent designs.
Twenty-two ships of this class participated in Frontier Day celebrations near Sol Station. Along with the rest of the fleet, these ships were seized by the Borg Collective after their younger crews were assimilated by a Borg signal transmitted via Jack Crusher. (PIC: "Vox", "The Last Generation")
Ships commissioned[]
- Uncertain
- USS Harlan (NCC-52277)
Appendices[]
Background information[]
The name of the class was confirmed by Star Trek: Picard Production Designer Dave Blass. [1] The total number of Edison-class vessels present at Frontier Day was established by Picard Research Assistant Jörg Hillebrand. [2]
Studio model[]
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Before its onscreen appearance, the Edison-class (β) had already debuted in 2019 in the 25th century-set game Star Trek Online, constructed by the game's starship designer Hector Ortiz as a cosmetic "skin" of the 23rd century Hoover-class starship, which had been designed by John Eaves, and named for the Hoover-class USS Edison which appeared in DIS: "Battle at the Binary Stars". It was Online mainstay Tobias Richter who constructed the CGI model for in-game use – as he had previously done with the Hoover-class as well, incidentally. (Star Trek Online Starships Collection, issue 17, p. 13) As such the hitherto apocryphal class had received its own outing in Eaglemoss' non-canon Star Trek Online Starships Collection partwork publication in August 2021. Eaves' originating design had already received its outing in Eaglemoss' Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection sister publication in July 2019.
In both instances it was Fabio Passaro's Meshweaver Productions that provided the CGI model conversions from the original production software packages (Autodesk Maya in Discovery's case), into LightWave 3D, Eaglemoss' software package of choice, to make the models suitable for both print publications, as well as for turning them into the CAD files needed as templates for the display model manufacturing. [3] [4] [5]
It was not Passaro's model however, that was selected for the transition into onscreen canon, but rather Richter's game version. His version was most likely chosen over that of Passaro as a courtesy to game developer Cryptic Studios, which had contributed their digital files for the bulk of the Starfleet models seen in the Picard season two and three episodes. The model was subsequently turned over to the franchise's own visual effects (VFX) department of Picard, where the additional necessary changes were made under the auspices of VFX Supervisor Jason Zimmerman and VFX Production Manager Shawn Ewashko to make the model ready for its onscreen use while keeping the in-game livery the model came with.
Apocrypha[]
Star Trek Online has given an in-universe explanation why the 23rd century Hoover-class and 25th century Edison-classes resembled each other so much. See: here
Further reading[]
- Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection, issue 15, May 2019
- Star Trek Online Starships Collection, issue 17, August 2021
External link[]
- Edison-class at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works