Star Trek: Every Starfleet Starship Class Ranked Worst To Best

The Magee class ship was a very different design to much of what would follow in Starfleet. The two warp nacelles, rather than being separate from the main body of the ship, ran directly through the saucer section, giving the ship an almost circular appearance in total. One such vessel, the USS Shran (named for the famed Andorian encountered by Captain Archer) fought at the Battle of the Binary Stars.

Another such ship, though equally doomed, was the USS Cabot. This was a science vessel and it had the misfortune of being the origin spot of the Tribbles - an ecological menace that was created as an attempt to solve hunger, though resulted in the complete overrun of the ship along with the destruction of many crops and food stocks.

While the Klingons that destroyed so much of Starfleet would end up inadvertantly saving the galaxy from this menace, it was too late for the Magee type vessels - although at least one was kept as a museum ship, orbiting Utopia Planitia for First Contact Day in the late 24th century.