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Established:
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) was a 23rd century Federation Excelsior-class starship operated by Starfleet. This was the third Federation ship to bear the name Enterprise.

On stardate 9715.5, in the year 2293, the Enterprise-B was commissioned. Soon thereafter, the starship was launched under the command of Captain John Harriman from a drydock orbiting Earth. The ship was christened with a bottle of Dom Pérignon, vintage 2265. Honored guests aboard for the ship's maiden voyage included Captains James T. Kirk, Montgomery Scott, and Commander Pavel Chekov of the decommissioned Enterprise-A, along with many journalists. The vessel was still incomplete at the time of launch and did not have a medical staff, photon torpedoes, or a tractor beam, all of which were scheduled for delivery the following Tuesday. The dignitaries were given a tour of the ship, which impressed even Scotty (himself, a noted critic of the Excelsior-class). Harriman requested that Captain Kirk give the order to get underway, and he accepted. Demora Sulu – a recent Academy graduate – served as helmsman, prompting Kirk to comment "It wouldn't be the Enterprise without a Sulu at the helm."
Her first journey was mostly for publicity purposes, and the ship was not scheduled to venture much past Pluto. However, the Enterprise-B was the only ship in range capable of responding to a distress call from two Federation transport ships, the SS Lakul and the SS Robert Fox. The ships, which were carrying El-Aurian refugees, had become trapped in an energy distortion called the Nexus. Because the Enterprise-B lacked equipment necessary to rescue the ships, the Robert Fox was destroyed before the Enterprise could transport its passengers. Only 47 were brought aboard from the Lakul before it, too, was destroyed. Chekov served as a makeshift medical officer, enlisting several journalists to help treat survivors including Guinan, future bartender on the USS Enterprise-D, and Tolian Soran.

The Enterprise itself became ensnared within the Nexus when she maneuvered within transporter range of the Lakul. Scotty devised a plan to use a resonance burst from the deflector dish in order to simulate an antimatter explosion and free the Enterprise. Kirk went to deflector control to make necessary modifications as the Enterprise's engineering hull was struck by an energy tendril; Harriman was going to do it himself, but Kirk took the role instead, deciding that Harriman, as the ship's captain, was needed on the bridge, and in the captain's chair. The Enterprise escaped with minor casualties and a hull breach along sections 20 through 28 on decks 13 through 15. Kirk was believed killed in the breach, and the mission became notorious because of his loss. (Star Trek Generations)

According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, the Enterprise-B was involved in exploration beyond the Gourami sector, charting 142 star systems and making first contact with seventeen new civilizations prior to her decommissioning.

Source: en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_E…

Speculation:
The first major subgroup of the Excelsior class, the Enterprise-B subtype was designed for greater burst speed and manoeuvrability than the standard Excelsior and carried a much more elaborate electronics fit. The intention was to counter the new generation of cloak capable vessels being deployed by the Klingon empire; Starfleet was especially worried about developments which might permit Klingon vessels to fire whilst still cloaked, and it was these in particular that the new type was designed to counter. Wake homing torpedoes were fitted as standard, while plasma detector systems allowed the new ship to locate almost any existing vessel through its cloak. The advanced sensors of the Enterprise-B were also able to engage vessels firing from cloak by automatically locking phasers onto the origin of the weapons fire and almost instantly laying down a pattern of fire on the immediate area before the enemy vessel could change its position. Although the plasma emission weakness was rapidly eliminated from Klingon cloaking devices, the automatic lock and fire system of the Enterprise-B subclass proved so successful in service that by 2310 the Klingons had been forced to abandon the whole idea of firing from behind the cloak and reverted back to using this device purely during approach and evasion operations.

Sorce: www.ditl.org/ship-page.php?Cla…

Critique:
First seen in "Star Trek III : The Search For Spock", the Excelsior was claimed by Sulu to have the new 'transwarp' drive. The lack of such a technology within the federation has led to the obvious conclusion that transwarp was a failure, and I devoted much of the text to this. I like the idea that Scotty's sabotage actually saved the Excelsior from destruction - even when our heroes are doing wrong they're doing right! 

The rest of the entry for the basic Excelsior is pretty much what we know, or can directly infer. For the modifications seen on the Enterprise-B in "Generations", I suggested that she was a response to the 'cloak-fire' Bird of Prey because it seemed reasonable that the Klingons would have persued this technology after Star Trek VI. Having the E-B subtype as a more specialist ship than the normal Excelsior is a reasonable way to explain why we have seen relatively fewer of these ships during TNG.

Sorce: www.ditl.org/ship-page.php?Cla…

Peronal Observation:
Truthfully, I'm not a fan of the Excelsior.  Then again scientifically speaking, aesthetics in spacecraft construction is a total misnomer so with that said here are my personal views.  

1). I believe after Star Trek IV the Voyage Home it was already a known fact that the Enterprise-B would be an Excelsior class.  In this time period we seen the Enterprise D which influences are more Excelsior than anything.  The models on the wall also precluded this belief so how judgmental can we truly be.  After all, I kind of like the Centaur class so I have no real problem with the saucer section.  
2). Obviously the Excelsior class is all that and a Bag of chips.  Figuring over a 50 year period (and possibly more) they continued building them seeing they have numbered from NCC-2000 to NCC-62043 (The USS Melbourne on the premise I preclude that a Starships Registry number is it's Contract number.  For instance the USS Constellation was not contracted as a Constitution Class vessel.  The Contract was either cancelled or held over for the next upgrade, hence the registry in 2245 NCC-1017).  Under such circumstance that would make the USS Melbourne one of the last Excelsior Class ships built.

3). Compared to the Constitution class it has a much larger range, as well it's systems were designed integrated to the starship, as oppose to a smaller number on Constitution Classes were new builds that would share this ability.

As for the Enterprise-B's unique appearance?  I'll buy the critiques authors idea of some new tactical sensors to detect cloak ships.  Extra impulse engines for manueverability issues and so on.  Over time the Klingons would give up on their new cloak firing technology, and the need to build a large fleet of them was negated.  The real reason seems to be so the powers that be can make sure poeople don't get confused and think it's the Excelsior.  None the less we only see her in action the one time, and it was before Tuesday so it wasn't it's greatest moment.  I am sure she served Starfleet with an astonishing record, as all ships named Enterprise seem to do.


Enterprise B mesh by J. Cassio "Starship" and Laércio "Medjai"
DAZ/Poser conversion by

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