Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’s USS Athena, which was named after the Goddess of Wisdom, represents the first Academy-class starship. That alone gives it a visual identity that doesn’t quite look or behave like any of the franchise’s classic hero ships it’s now joining. But how does it stack up aesthetically against the likes of the Enterprise, Voyager, and some of the franchise's other beloved vessels?
Enterprise refit / Enterprise-A
The USS Enterprise refit and Enterprise-A are all about pure, elegant starship lines: a saucer, a neck, and pylons sweeping into nacelles, all balanced around that long TOS movie-era refit aesthetic. The Athena, by contrast, wraps those Starfleet cues in a bold circular “crown” ring and flattened wing-like nacelles, so it reads more like a flying campus complex than a traditional cruiser.
Where the movie-era Enterprise sells high-tech naval minimalism, smooth hull, glowing deflector, clean pylons, the Athena deliberately breaks up its silhouette with transways, a layered atrium volume, and negative space between core and ring that makes it look almost architectural.
Visually, the refit Enterprise asks you to imagine life inside; the Athena shows you that life on its surface, from the Sato Atrium’s cherry trees and ponds to the way its sections literally unfold into a San Francisco campus beside the Golden Gate Bridge.