Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The USS Defiant You Need To Know

10. A Giant Runabout

In the run up to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's third season premiere, the design process of the show's new warship began under the guidance of production designer Herman Zimmerman by exploring ways to use the existing runabout set.

Described by concept artist Jim Martin as a "beefed-up runabout", early sketches for the warship (before it had a name) were heavily inspired by DS9's usual compliment of support craft. Martin produced several concepts for the ship, all retaining the basic configuration of the standard Danube-class runabout, but with equipment and technology added to the superstructure, "making it look like they were adding systems and weapons to an existing ship."

Ultimately this direction was abandoned and the runabout on steroids idea was rejected, leading the writers and producers to opt for a "full fledged" starship: The USS... Valiant.