It’s quite possible the ship was up on proverbial blocks for years while it was re-engineered.

In fact, while Excelsior was briefly seen in both The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier, it was parked in Earth Spacedock.

Sure, Scotty sabotaged her to keep her from pursuing Kirk and company, um, borrowing the Enterprise, but we never hear about the fleet adopting her signature propulsion technology. She was supposed to be the first of the next generation (har har) of starships, equipped with super-fast transwarp drive, but Excelsior barely made it out of the garage in The Search for Spock. How can you not love a ship good enough to become an Enterprise? They really should encrypt the controls on those things. He continued using it for about a year, until Cardassia joined the Dominion. Also in DS9’s fourth season, Cardassians led by Gul Dukat captured one to use in an insurgent campaign against the Klingons. Humans and Ferengi weren’t the only ones to steal Birds-of-Prey. Not the view you want out the window of your dilapidated Cardassian station. In both cases, Birds-of-Prey were joined in fleet scenes by Klingon Vor’cha cruisers, Negh’Var capital ships, and even older D7 vessels. The fourth season featured a brief Klingon-Federation war, but the two powers were soon joining forces against the Dominion. To be fair, the reused footage was tinted a bit less orange.ĭeep Space Nine saw even greater use of the Bird-of-Prey. It was a D12 that was taken out with a single torpedo in Generations, exploding somehow identically to Chang’s vessel.

Sometimes, it was a small scout ship, while sometimes it was a formidable battle cruiser. The ship’s apparent size fluctuated between episodes, with references to different classes such as K’Vort, B’Rel, and D12. Two others, acquired by Ferengi pirates, attacked the Enterprise-D in “Rascals.” Most other appearances occurred during stories involving political upheaval in the Klingon empire. The model was shown about a dozen times in The Next Generation, first as the IKS Pagh in the second season’s “A Matter of Honor.” Two backed up the Enterprise-D in “The Defector,” decloaking to stare down two Romulan warbirds. It could also blow up without decloaking.

Klingon bird of prey bridge