7. USS Defiant (NX-74205/NCC-75633), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is famously the Star Trek series that isn’t set on a ship. For the first two seasons, the series stuck to runabouts before introducing the USS Defiant in its third season. In-universe, DS9’s commander, Benjamin Sisko, had been one of the designers of the Defiant, and it was a “tough little ship” (to quote Commander Riker), intended as Starfleet’s first dedicated warship.
As a ship meant to take on opponents like the Borg or the Dominion, the Defiant is compact and heavily armored. It only has a saucer section, and its nacelles are far closer to the ship’s body than is typical for Starfleet vessels, but all of that makes sense as a defensive measure.
While the Defiant is certainly a departure from the more elegant design language of most Federation starships, its differences serve a practical function in-universe while also helping to visually set the ship apart, much as Deep Space Nine is set apart from other Star Trek series.
6. HMS Bounty (commandeered Klingon vessel), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
This may sound like a weird ship to include, but hey, if it’s in the Starfleet Ship Museum from Star Trek: Picard, I think that’s good enough for my list! Of course, as a Klingon Bird of Prey, the HMS Bounty isn’t exactly a Starfleet vessel, so its design language is necessarily different. In some ways, though, that actually makes it even cooler looking!
While I personally prefer the design of the D7 and K’t’inga classes when it comes to Klingon battle cruisers, the Bird of Prey is iconic, and its use by Admiral Kirk and crew on their return home from rescuing Spock is fitting. It captures how truly out of their element they are without the Enterprise and in 1980s San Francisco, but it also shows their resilience in coping with such situations.
On top of all of this, the HMS Bounty, as it appears in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, really establishes the look of Klingon ships and architecture. While previous iterations gave us bits and pieces, the exterior and interior of this ship was clearly the template for almost everything that has come after, from The Next Generation all the way through to Lower Decks.