The TRUE Ambassador class: Narendra/Probert Class 

As a woman of culture, I too enjoy the Narendra. Very pretty ship. And very nice fanon to go with it!

love the huge "SHE MADE THE CORE NOT THE ENGINES!!!" note. 😂

I have always considered the Narendra to be the "what if the Ambassador class got a refit line instead of the shaft?"

By far the most beautiful non-canon ship in all of Star Trek.

I didn’t appreciate the Probert design until I picked up the Eaglemoss model. As soon as I got my hands on it I realized that it’s probably my favorite Enterprise design.

Basically the ungraded ambassador, why replace with the old design when we can use upgraded models that fill the same role to replace losses.

I'm very fond of the Narendra class now, very much so since JTVFX used it in his Wolf 359 battle video. As to BSG reimagined, my last check of the show led to some fun. Dialogue indicated the fleet had around 60 odd ships in it, at minimum 63 post Olympic Carrier's destruction, but counting EVERY ship in every shot from Season 1 until Season 4 as well as The Plan, I got at least 101 ships (possibly more). It's frazzled my brain for nearly twenty years and I'm 34 now.

Probert refers to his original design as the Ambassador Class to this day, not Narendra (which is what it is in STO) . But my head canon on this says that both versions were built in tandem, though the screen seen Ambassadors were simplified and easy to produce by comparison. The Now narendra class was built using the bleeding tech of the early 23rd century and used mostly for trials and testing and never went into full production beyond 2 or 3 at the time. They were used for essentially tech proving, such as replicators for the crew, new wrap core and warp field/hull geometry, etc, working out the kinks. Later on when we get to STO, they took the original bulk spaceframes and with newer, post galaxy technology, moved them into the realm of reasonable to build. IE it was an artisan starship a century ahead of its time. Also, it has a bridge module that drills 4 decks into the top of the saucer, that has its own miniaturized warp core and folding nacelles (which you can see aft of the bridge module). Therefore the ship does not require a captain's yacht. In an emergency, the lifeboat module simply lifts entirely out and operate separated and can be replaced wholesale for quicker upgrade turn around of command and control. The Probert/Narendra is a mid point between Excelsior and Galaxy. That was the brief that Andy designed around.

A good video - as usual! And yes - the Ambassador has two sizes published - 1726 feet, and 1570. I tend to usually trust the larger one, given deck heights, etc. Mind you, I feel like scaling the Excelsior up to about 1730-50 feet, for similar reasons. Also - those who have visited the Ex Astris Scientia site will find a link in the Fleetyards page to a site called Treknology, listing various fan designs: one of those is the 'Rigel-class' which I think is another very good 'intermediate' cruiser design between the Ambassador and Galaxy-classes... this one slightly smaller than the Narendra or Ambassador, at 498 m.

I always liked the ambassador class look, made a good bridge of design eras

My go to ship in STO; the Legendary Ambassador, aka the Narendra. Though I dress it up as a slightly modified Ambassador.

Imagine if they had 3D printers back in the late 80's, we could have had new ships every other week.

I love this version! I first saw it on Retro Badger Gaming's channel, someone did a model for Bridge Commander(I think that's what it's called). If you ever get the chance, check out the Kyoto-class, it's a Federation-Klingon hybrid ship. Looks like the next step up from a Defiant.

I believe it is far more like that the “Narendra” Class is merely a large scale refit of the Ambassador Class herself. After Starfleet got their asses handed to them at Narendra III, Starfleet decided to test out some of the newest cutting edge technologies developed for the Galaxy Class. There probably wasn’t anymore than a couple of them. She is definitely a battle cruiser and were likely used to scare the Romulxans.

Fun explanation, and would make sense. I get the Probert design looks newer, but I'm surprised less people go with the angle that the Enterprise C was originally a Probert look then received a major refit that looks like what we see in yesterday's Enterprise. Then that would mean there wasn't a mistake in the meeting room and they just went with the original design just like they did with the Enterprise. Since the Probert is smaller and seemingly less well armed maybe the C was uprated due to the increasing conflict before she was destroyed. Maybe the attempt of using one big array didn't work as well as they thought and swapped to more strips. Which was resolved by the time the D was made. Which would explain Tasha emphasis on the heat sinks in yesterday's enterprise.

My head canon: this is the prototype. USS Ambassador. It had better handling dynamics and other minor perks, but took too long to build, so not suitable for full scale production at the time. The production model was the simplified version we saw on screen, with the major systems practically identical and the kinks worked out.

A gorgeous design.

Been waiting for this to drop my good man! This ship class is a classic result of artistic collaboration, Tobias and Probert are legends.

ya know the Probert took time to grow on me and well as usual Venom I love your lore

The Narendra is Star Treks equivalent of the Flight 3 Arleigh Burk destroyer. Flight 3s are new and completely updated, larger, tougher, faster and more deadly while technically still being an Arleigh Burk.

Love the background music , good choices .

The narendra is my second favorite 24th century starlet design narendra class only second to the sovereign or maybe the odyssey class

One, if not THE most beautiful Starfleet ships imo. Its general profile looks almost even more advanced than the Galaxy imo.

I've long felt the Ambassador Class Enterprise-C seen in Yesterday's Enterprise should actually have been Kirk's Enterprise-A. It's a perfect step up from the Constitution Class refit. Probert's Enterprise-C, meanwhile, is a perfect 'previous step' in the evolution towards the Galaxy Class Enterprise-D. There simply needed to be a new class Enterprise-B in between the TNG Ambassador Class and Probert's Ambassador Class. I never cared for the Excelsior Class: all the other Enterprises have a nimble quality about them, while the Excelsior Class replacing the Constitution Class is a bit like replacing a Porsche with a lorry! I remember how disappointed I was at the ending of STIV with Kirk simply getting another Constitution Class refit. After seeing STIII in the mid-1980s, I was really psyched to see a new class Enterprise. I love the Yesterday's Enterprise-C and Probert's version.

Quite the interesting overview of the Narendra class. It definitely shows the lineage between the Ambassador class and the Galaxy class.

Here is my head canon explanation for Ambasador class origin: In late 23'th century, due to lost of Praxis, Klingon Empire was going through massive energy crisis. They weren't really ready for the invasion, but risk of war in desperation was huge. So Federation constructed some number of really massive Battleships intended to deter anyone who would try anything funny. Ulysses and Arc Royal (yes, the carrier) class were heavily utilized even during Lost Era. And as such most were lost or break beyond repair. But Yamato class Dreadnought was so massive and costly, it was basically never moved from dock. When during Lost Era Klingon threat basically disappear. Federation start decommissioning pure not-Warships. As such with old Starfleet traditions they reused massive saucers of those ships for brand new class. That is true (in my opinion) reason why Ambasador was even constructed. And by extend why it was so flawed design. Anyway, because they were so rare and unreliable. Most were relatively fast transferred to Sole fleet, what at the time was parade force composed from many rare and unique old designs. As most of this fleet, most were destroyed during Wolf 359. Probert seams to be Decutor of Conie. Perfected design, what was in the end made in marginal numbers, due to new tech.

In my head canon, which also in my fan fic, NX-Ambassador is basically trying to prototype an 'early' Galaxy spaceframe, weapons, computer controls and warp geometry with late-23rd century/early-24th century, and it was original began in 2310. However, it's too early and it's infancy, and the Ambassador was a 'feature cut' NX Ambassador, and thus began the Galaxy project, which develop several 'Brahms' classes of starships.

I realy like those 2 classes and think that the Naremdra is a logical upgrade to the Ambassador, as well as a perfect predesessor to the Galaxy. Sadly we never got to see many of the awsome designes of the TNG era in the TNG era shows.

The idea of saucer separation was never really developed as a means of effective combat but more of a means to protect the crew in the event of a catastrophic warp core failure/containment breach. Every instance of it being used effectively shows it being used as a "lifeboat" of sorts. Roddenberry also viewed it this way as well. The Enterprise-D's use in Best of Both Worlds was the first instance of using it for combat and was largely only a distraction at best. The development of separation with the Prometheus was the first instance of it being incorporated as a combat strategy through the multi-vector assault mode.

Imagine if the borg had invaded the ufp 10 years earlier.....

I've always thought of deflector shields as of a very necessary thing on any starship - front thruster, because without that they just won't be able to stop.

Love your lore. It makes sense. The other version of events I've read, the Narendra version came first, the Enterprise-C was built like that (which is why it's the Probert class on the Briefing Room wall), then all the Ambassadors were refitted to the more familiar round styling.

The Ambassador model really glows up with the short Pylons, it's far better proportioned.

I love the Nerendra more than the C we got in yesterday's enterprise. But they both fit as their own ships too, because it kinda fits with the Starfleet mentality. When things are peaceful they design Galaxys or Connies. When it's time to get serious and belt someone across the face, out comes an Excelsior or excelsior inspired ship. Excelsior, Nerendra, Sovereign, Odyssey (Enterprise F) I don't think it's intentional on the writer's part but it's a head canon I've adopted ever since the Oddy was revealed in STO. I like to think that the excelsior and her children, are more compact and easier to armor up and reinforce, with a lot of the luxuries ripped out that you get in peace time designs. They're narrower targets and harder to hit, coupled with whatever em warfare that surely goes on in star trek, and will fit in tighter spaces during really dangerous maneuvers. But they make terrible ships for long term exploration for all the above reasons.

If the Narendra is Chad does that make the Sovereign Tyrone?

@VenomGeekMedia98 do you think the narendra class could have won at narendra 3 or do you think she’d have been destroyed aswell?

I have been waiting for this. I've seen nothing of the vid and I know I'll already love it.

When I think about Narendra vs Ambassador, I think of the the great Jeremy Clarkson: This is brilliant, but I like this.

Personally, I always preferred the regular Ambassador class design. Something about the connie-esque geometric simplicity.

Interesting point about the Narendra on the ship display. Along with the (unmodified) Excelsior class, I'm beginning to think that the display was more about "famous firsts" rather than ships called "Enterprise"

The Probert Ambassador Concept/Narendra has two forward torpedo launchers and three rear torpedo launchers (one on the neck and two underneath on the secondary hull).

The Narendra certainly does look like a prototype that helped lead to the Galaxy class. I do wonder how many actually were built, possibly only a few. It does make sense that they might have been used to make up for attrition as you say. While it doesn't totally supersede the Ambassador, it does make sense as a more modern and efficient multirole cruiser of a similar tonnage. On that note, thanks for the volumes given. The Ambassador looks like a VERY chunky ship, I'm surprised that it outsizes the Narendra by so small a percentage even if the Narendra is considerably longer. The Ambassador is such a step up from the Excelsior that it would seem to me that its scale must have seemed mind-blowing at the time the prototype was cranked out. I suspect that Ambassadors themselves were released rather slowly, or at least were after the first production block given the hypothesized problems with the class. There might not have been all that many built either? In any case, a reason why so many Excelsior ships remained in service as the default Starfleet heavy cruiser? I would say that a Narendra could very well have served as the Federation flagship! It's the Ambassador replacement that 'works out the gate' as one might say, and is more efficient in the offering, without being greatly superior. It wouldn't surprise me if a Narendra was honored as the flagship sometime between the loss of the Enterprise C and completion of the D. I would think that you are right about the Enterprise C originally intending to be a Narendra hull. One of the reasons that I doubt that there are very many Narendra hulls is that there was no Enterprise D for so long. My explanation is that it took a long stretch of research to get the Narendra designed right before it got built during the 'highlight nacelle' days. I suspect that a Narendra hull WAS indeed designated as the Enterprise D, possibly even to commissioning, only for the ship to be renamed in favor of saving the name for the upcoming Galaxy class? A wait period that might have been, again, longer than expected?

Narendra is a multiple trick work horse as not only does it serve as a beefed more numerous replacement and upgrade on the existing ambassador model, but also served well as technological test bed for technologies that would serve the Galaxy class well in its turn.

Watch out for those copyright claims Johann Strauss is a mean S.O.B...

Another issue they had with the Probert Ambassador class is that it would look too much like the Galaxy class and the audience could mistake the two. My head canon for the Probert Ambassador is that it was an iterative step in technology completely adopting isolinear technology and as testbed for technologies that would be going into the upcoming galaxy class even sporting an early version of Brahm's warp core.

11:09 They don't seem any bigger than the nacelles on the Excelsior-class. 20:16 I find it funny that Andrew Probert intended the nacelles on the Galaxy-class to be the same length as those found on the Constitution-class to show off how technology had progressed to the point where the transwarp nacelles on the Excelsior-class had shrunk. That was the only thing that had to be changed because Roddenberry apparently thought that it looked underpowered.

I like this design alot, it reminds me of a 24th century excelsior-esque revisit. (The Excelsior class being my favorite design of all time)

The Cardies knew better than to tangle with either the Narendras or Ambassadors.

Something tells me that Retro Badger Gaming is going to put these two ships against each other in Bridge Commander.

When Probert was tasked with designing the 1701-C profile for the wall of Enterprises, he pinned the Excelsior above his drawing board and the Galaxy below so that he could take aspects of both and blend them til he had a vessel that was a believable legacy that bridged the eras instead of the throwback that was the jarring ship that came throw that time tunnel.

I LOVE the Ambassador class ship we got. I really hope we get a show in which the hero ship is an Ambassador class ship.

its looks better then the galaxy class by far

I love this ship i flew it a lot in Star Trek Online

The Narendra seems like it was an Ambassador designed by a hawk or pragmatist. I like it.😊

This is why I love STO so many new, old, and modern designs of starships all usable. If you know how to build it, I enjoy the sheer variety of ships in STO because of that! But, again, Venom, another wonderful ship discussion!

Good information

I love these videos. As much as I make counter arguememts it is still extremely nice to see these ships get love

Great video Ed great findings

I love the Probert concept design

On the point about Excelsior's not being able to take on War birds, I agree if its the pre domions war ones, but seems they were upgraded a bit during the war. I mean an Excelsior went toe to toe with the Defiant, it lost that fight but man it held up pretty well for being such an older design.

Love the soundtrack you have for this era. Now if you'll excuse, it is time to listen to the Waltz of the Flowers for the 47 millionth time.

The Narendra looks so much better than the fat little ambassador class. It looks more modern than the ambassador too

🤟🤟🤟🤟

There is clearly a secondary aft launcher located between the two impulse drives. You do not want to piss this ship off, unless you have maybe a Jem'Hadar Battlecruiser. As far as can be determined, the Narendra would definitely have been considered a sub class. It likely even used much of the same internal frame, much like the Constitution to the Enterprise and Tikopai (or any other Connie variants for that matter). Well, okay, maybe not so much the engineering hull, unless it was HIGHLY modified. But definitely the primary hull. The highest rates of attrition would have likely occurred during the Dominion War. Up to this point, losses would have likely been pretty rare. Most of the Narendra class probably would have consisted of replacing/supplementing the last of the Constitutions (Tikopai) and Block I Excelsiors.

Very good video!

I like the TA Studios Beta Canon excuse for few Ambassadors: Starfleet admiralty covered up massive computer/hardware failures which plagued the whole class for years, leading to mass-retirement/reassignment of the entire admiralty. Adm. Harriman (Ent B) championed the Narendra varient after the screwups had been exposed & solved. But the Fed Council wanted nothing to do with anything Ambassador-related.

The Narenda and the ambadassor are like the galaxy and the ross class, one is superior in alot of ways while the other is the legendary enterprise

Probert my glorious king fr fr

Great stuff

I love the narendra Klaaas yes man , thanks fur doing this one on this klaaas man I love your accent in these vids keeps me interested fully

Just like the TOS-Connie and the TMP-Connie are both from the Constitution-class, those two designs can both be from the Ambassador-class.

Not taking anything away from Probert, he is an amazing artist whose contributions to Trek are immeasurable, but as Scotty said, "the more you overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." Probert was too clever by half, created something too complex to replicate on time or budget (which is half the job requirement) and his insistence that _his_ version is the "true" one smells of scorched artistic ego. I ask one question: WHY? Why does there HAVE to be a "smooth evolution" from ENT-A to ENT-B to ENT-C to ENT-D? Why can't the Galaxy class, the most ambitious ship Starfleet has ever built, BE the innovation? Why couldn't "D" have been the FIRST vessel to have the "squashed & stretched cylinder" aesthetic? WHY did that "squash & stretch" HAVE to be retconned and backported all the way to the effing ENT-B?! IMO ENT-B is bogus because plain Xcelsiors are ubiquitous in the TNG era, but ENT-B variants (the ostensible carrier of the design legacy!) are non-existent! Both Ambassador classes were supposed to represent the "midpoint" design-wise between the classic Connie/Xcelsior and Galaxy, but Probert's version, to MY mind at least, skews too far towards the TNG side. It's more like Sternbach was 1/3 of the way to Galaxy and Probert was 2/3rds. Sorry Andrew, but even with Narendra's design being inadvertently enshrined on the ready room wall, Sternbach's is the true Ambassador class for me.

I tend to like the really pushing-the-design-aesthetic weird designs when it comes to Federation vessels, but as conventional in aesthetic as it is, the Narendra class may be one of the peak Federation designs. They got everything right

If I had control of Star Trek I'd de-cannonize the Ambassador in favour of the Nerendra. There are some things about the Ambassador I like except for the struts and nacelles. The Nerendra is just the better version for me. It's sleek. alittle compact, and a definite linage from the Excelsior to the Galaxy. Probert's ship should definitely have a series of it's own.

To me the Narendra/Probert class looks like a combat focussed contemporary of the Galaxy class where as the Ambassador class we saw in Yesterday's Enterprise looks far more like a design from an earlier age. Indeed, the Narendra class seems like it would have been a much better 'flagship' design for TNG than the 'City in space with warp drive' that was the Galaxy class.

Ambassador: Daniel Narendra: The Cooler Daniel

If only we got the probert design instead of the poor and quick design of the ambassador class ship, I would loved to have seen this probert design in multiple episodes of TNG, and perhaps even make an appearance in one or more of the movies, it could have appeared right at the end of Generations where the ships come to help the stranded crew of the Enterprise-D after it crash landed onto the planet.

HAPPY days...just you....like it...

Thank you for watching BSG !

Some Star Trek lore paired with classical music? Count me in!

Excellent video as also. Very glad to hear you've invested in BSG (2004). Would absolutely love for you to cover your thoughts on the ships, in the series on this channel. Even if it's a short one off. However I'd argue that the difference between Galactica and Pegasus, is more akin to an Ambassador and a Galaxy class. Especially given we're told Pegasus is twice the size of Galactica. Also the fairly substantial increase firepower Pegasus is able to lay down, in my mind, makes Ambassador vs Galaxy a better fit. Fingers crossed we get a BSG video 😁🤞

As I said in your Ambassador video, these are not, never was and well never be classified as battle ships. They are and always were and always shall be explorer ships, with impressive defensive capabilities. All the ship classes that came before and including the Galaxy class are not nor never have been classified as battle ships. They are explorer ships.

I wonder if it would be possible to refit nirenda class to support soveegine class warp naclles and warp core and warp system during the dommion war. I do see one distint test feature that went into the later it ia the more angled warp pilon struts comparied to ambassador amd galaxy class ships

For anyone who wants a different real world comparisson just think the F/A18-A Hornet and the F/A18-E Super Hornet, superficially they look the same and perform similar roles however one is far more advancd, is larger and could in theory be called a completely new type.

I've ALWAYS preferred Andrew Proberts Narendra class compared to what we officially got in "Yesterday's Enterprise". I know there's 3D printed ones you can get but I wish that Round 2 made an official kit of it. The demand for it is there. They could make a 1/1400th version to be in scale with the 1/1400th Enterprise-C (official) Enterprise-D and Enterprise-E kits. I wish we could have gotten the Narendra class as the Enterprise-C. I mean the class is cannon as it's part of the Enterprise linage that we saw in the Enterprise-D observation lounge.

The Starfleet multi-mission flagship classes remain in production for forty years, each ship serves on average for forty years, and the entire class remains in service for eighty years: Constitution: 2245-85 Excelsior: 2285-2325 Ambassador: 2325-60 Galaxy: 2360-2400 Odyssey: 2400*-2440 (* Odyssey & Verity:2385) But I do like the idea that the Nerendra Class was an upgrade of the Ambassadors (circa 2345), just like the Enterprise-B is an update of the Excelsior.

Should Calhoun had gotten an updated Ambassador class Excalibur? It would had been after Picard got the Enterprise-D.

A stunningly beautiful ship. I wonder how it would look like with a more elongated saucer, more like the Sovereign.

The true Ambassador Class is what we got on screen. Not that I don't like the Probert design. I just love the one we saw on screen better.

Ambassador class ships were identified as "heavy battlecruiser" by data in the tng episode conspiracy.

One potential flaw in your timeline (which I do _mostly_ like the idea of) is that you're only considering the Ambassador sort of in its own vacuum. You postulate a slow, peacetime development path during the 2320-40's. Whence then, the contemporary Constellation class? That class smacks of "we need ships that can match Ambassador new warp formula speed performance (if nothing else) quickly, cheaply, in large quantities, using this outdated nacelle that we have huge stockpiles of!" Four nacelles (which had fallen out of favor since the 2250's, ST:D retcons from Constellation/Stargazer!) to achieve the desired performance levels AND use up the stockpile. Early Cardassian (or other) conflicts.

Say 50 Ambassador-class ships were built total, then 12-20 of these to supplement them. Then, the first 6 Galaxy-class came along and obsoletes both. And then three Galaxies get destroyed and highlight the big flaws of the Galaxy-class.

😊😊

Given that we do see Ambassador-Class ships, I always figured it basically was the Galaxy of its time, designed for Deep Space capabilities, but mostly toured the Federation to "show the flag". Thus, the "Nerendra-Class" being designed between the two as the actual deep-space explorer as an excuse as to why we never see it on screen.

Separate thing, but what do you think is the general construction time for a full Galaxy class starship? The TNG Technical manual (I think) gives the time period for the prototype (USS Galaxy) but I'm not sure what the turnaround time on building one once the class was ready for mass production either. Not the Dominion War combat versions, but just a mainstream one.

Hey Venom Geek, would you say it the ambassador and the Narendra classes are similar to the D4 and D5 just a little?

Phooey on Narendra, huzzah for Ambassador.

I like the Ambassador design alot more tbh.

This class didn't have a very long lifespan. IRL I compare it to the Convair B-58 Hustler, which lasted from 1965-1970. The B-52 was larger, more suited to multitask roles, and cheaper to operate. The Narendra, like its RL counterpart, was a test bed for improving LCAR systems leading up to the Galaxy, with less than a dozen commissioned before being mothballed.

The Narendra is the Sovereign to the Ambassadors Galaxy (if that makes sense)