Nimitz class

The USS Europa served as Admiral Anderson's flagship during the opening conflict of the Federation-Klingon War at the Battle of the Binary Stars with the Klingons in 2256. (DIS: "Battle at the Binary Stars")

Later in 2256, an unnamed Nimitz-class starship was docked at an orbital facility hosting a high level flag officer meeting. (DIS: "Choose Your Pain")

Nimitz-class starships were equipped with tractor beams. Like the contemporaneous Cardenas-class and the later 23rd century Constellation-class, as well as the 24th century Cheyenne- and Prometheus-classes, this class was noted for being one of the small number of Federation classes that had more than two nacelles. (TNG: "The Battle", "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II"; VOY: "Message in a Bottle"; et al.)

Ships of the class[]

Named

• USS Europa (NCC-1648)

Unnamed

• Unnamed Nimitz class starships

Appendices[]

Appearances[]

• DIS:
  • "Battle at the Binary Stars"
  • "Context Is for Kings" (display)
  • "Choose Your Pain"

Background information[]

Eaves' concept art
Passaro's CGI models of the design on the cover of their own dedicated magazine covers in their canon (r) and apocryphal (l) livery appearances

The Nimitz-class was identified via the Europa by designer John Eaves. [1] Eaves also named the class, which was later confirmed [2] after being revealed on StarTrek.com. [3]^(X)

Preliminary concept designs for the "Starfleet admiral ship" was depicted as the USS Nimitz (NCC-5572). The ship, or in this case the class, was "named after World War II fleet admiral Chester Nimitz." (Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves, p. 193)

The successor ships to the United States Navy's USS Enterprise (CVN-65) aircraft carrier were also Nimitz-class ships and were named after the same man.

Eaglemoss Collections released the USS Europa display model as part of their Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection model/magazine combo partwork publication on 21 August 2018, featuring input from designer John Eaves, and listing the ship as 383.3 meters in length. The article was republished as part of Star Trek: Discovery Designing Starships in September 2019.

The Nimitz-class appears in the 25th century-set game Star Trek Online, as a cosmetic "skin" for the playable Europa-class (β) starship, and has as such likewise been released by Eaglemoss in their non-canon Star Trek Online Starships Collection sister partwork publication in December 2020.

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. [4] [5] [6]

Apocrypha[]

Star Trek Online has given an in-universe explanation why the 23rd century Nimitz-class and 25th century Europa-classes resembled each other so much. See: here

Further Reading[]

• Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection, issue 5, August 2018
• Star Trek Online Starships Collection, issue 9, December 2020

External link[]

• Nimitz class at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works