The Paramount+ era of roster of Star Trek TV shows just how important new starship designs can be. Classic series like Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise take their names from the ships belonging to their core crew. In the streaming era, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Prodigy do the same.

Even when new Star Trek shows don't share a name with their central starship, the ships in question are still hugely important. Star Trek's ships are characters' homes-away-from-home as they explore the galaxy, and they are obviously deeply beloved by their crews. Since 2017, Star Trek has given 12 new starships screen time, showing both the exteriors and interiors of the ships in question. And a lot of these new Star Trek vessels are instantly iconic.

12 San’s Ship

Star Trek: Section 31

San (James Hiroyuki Liao) is one of the most interesting characters Star Trek: Section 31 introduced. His long personal history with Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) reveals more about the culture and politics of the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe. But San's ship, on the other hand, is a lot less interesting. For the most part, it is impossible to evaluate this as a ship, because we only ever really see the bridge, and that bridge seems to be mostly made up of empty space

There are a few scenes when the exterior of the vessel is visible, so it’s impossible to get a sense of the size or capabilities of San's ship. It’s also more than a little disconcerting that the ship is destroyed without having any indication of its crew. It seemed like a vessel too large to be piloted by one Terran, but we never saw anyone else. If San's ship has a crew, they certainly died when Emperor Georgiou destroyed the vessel, so the true capabilities and crew complement of San's ship will never really be known.

11 USS Stargazer

Star Trek: Picard Seasons 2 and 3

Star Trek: Picard has done a lot to show how Starfleet and the Federation have progressed in the years since Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Part of that progression, of course, is the technological progression of Starfleet vessels, and the USS Stargazer is the pinnacle of that progress, combining Borg and Starfleet technology. But on a purely aesthetic level, the four nacelles just look a little clunky. There is a classic Star Trek silhouette, and, while the Stargazer does look menacing, it doesn't look quite as elegant as other ships.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) was the captain of an older USS Stargazer for 22 years, until it was lost in the Battle of Maxia.

Furthermore, Star Trek: Picard's USS Stargazer being the first ship to incorporate Borg technology was both an incredible accomplishment and an incredible liability. The technology Starfleet recovered from the Artifact made the vessel uniquely vulnerable to the Borg, such that Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) was able to take over the ship in minutes as the Borg Queen. Luckily, that Borg takeover actually saved Federation lives, but that is still a serious liability issue in a new Starfleet vessel.

10 Garbage Scow

Star Trek: Section 31

There is not very much to say about the garbage scow in Star Trek: Section 31. It makes for an interesting setting for Emperor Georgiou and the rest of the team from Section 31 - since it's so broken down that doing anything on the ship requires ingenuity. But, as a Star Trek ship, the garbage scow feels generic. It mostly looks like a bunch of boxes from the outside, and a tangle of dirty hallways inside, so there is very little to distinguish the garbage scow from any other science fiction vessel.

Section 31's garbage scow does have at least one major redeeming quality: it gives the characters from Star Trek: Section 31 their best opportunity to act like a Starfleet crew. They have to make emergency repairs and do creative feats of engineering that feel right at home with Lt. Montgomery "Scotty" Scott's (James Doohan) repairs in Star Trek: The Original Series. So, even if the garbage scow itself isn't that interesting, it facilitates some of the best moments in Section 31.

9 USS Protostar

Star Trek: Prodigy Seasons 1 And 2

Technologically, the USS Protostar is one of the most innovative starship designs in Star Trek. The idea of a protostar drive that would allow Starfleet to cross light years in mere moments seems like it should revolutionize space travel in Star Trek. For most of Star Trek: Prodigy, the USS Protostar is the primary ship that Dal R'El (Brett Gray) and the rest of the characters from Star Trek: Prodigy treat as their home in space.

Captain Chakotay (Robert Beltran) was the original captain of the USS Protostar before a temporal anomaly crashed the ship and stranded him in the future.

There is a lot of good stuff to say about the USS Protostar, but the vessel does have one unfortunate and serious drawback: the Living Construct. The Vau N'Akat's Living Construct was essentially the ultimate computer virus that could turn any Starfleet computer system against itself, leading to the destruction of many starships. Since the Living Construct was ultimately inseparable from the USS Protostar - the device could only be defeated by destroying the Protostar - it ultimately proved a pretty severe drawback to an otherwise very cool vessel.

8 USS Prodigy

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2

The USS Prodigy and the USS Protostar are the same class of ship, but the Prodigy has the serious advantage of not housing the Living Construct. Although the USS Prodigy does not have very much screentime, it’s nevertheless an upgrade: the best of what Starfleet's Protostar Class of starships has to offer. The design of the whole Protostar Class is an homage to iral Kathryn Janeway's (Kate Mulgrew) original vessel, the USS Voyager. Protostar Class vessels also manage to add an additional nacelle to the ships' silhouettes without making the design seem overwrought or clunky.

The only drawback for the USS Prodigy is that it is the last known starship of its kind. No other Protostar Class starships have been seen in Star Trek: Picard's 3 seasons, which take place about 15 years after Star Trek: Prodigy. If Star Trek: Prodigy gets a season 3, both the USS Prodigy and the entire Protostar Class would have had more of a chance to shine.

7 La Sirena

Star Trek: Picard

At the start of Star Trek: Picard, iral Picard has distanced himself from Starfleet, so it makes sense that one of the most important starships in Picard is a non-Starfleet vessel. It is both deeply interesting and incredibly fun to spend a lot of time in a non-Starfleet starship. In most Star Trek shows, the only ships that get a lot of screen time are incredibly ordered and put-together Starfleet vessels, but the La Sirena is none of those things.

The rough-around-the-edges qualities of La Sirena make it feel more like a home and less like a science lab. Indeed, Captain Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) was completely correct about the La Sirena when she said "A few dents look good on her.” But the fact that La Sirena is not a Starfleet vessel is also the ship's greatest downside. Because it is not a Starfleet ship, La Sirena feels less uniquely like a Star Trek ship, and from its aesthetics, it seems like it could just as easily fit in with Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.

6 USS Dauntless

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1

Whenever the USS Dauntless appears in Star Trek: Prodigy, iral Janeway gets the opportunity to show off just how incredibly competent and badass decades of Starfleet service have made her, and that is always fun to see. The USS Dauntless is a force of nature, and that is exactly what iral Janeway is at her best. What is especially cool about the USS Dauntless is that the entire ship is a reference to an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

"Hope and Fear" is an episode in Star Trek: Voyager season 4 where an alien called Arturis (Ray Wise) attempts to trick the then-Captain Janeway with a fake Federation ship he calls the USS Dauntless. That Dauntless runs on a slipstream drive, allowing it to go faster than warp, and the Dauntless in Star Trek: Prodigy runs on that same technology. Prodigy's Dauntless even looks like the Dauntless Arturis designed. Since Star Trek: Prodigy is a sequel to Star Trek: Voyager, seeing subtle references to the original show always seems like a love letter to Star Trek from decades past.

5 USS Voyager-A

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2

More than any other ship in Star Trek, the original USS Voyager had to be a home for its crew after they got stranded more than 70 years from home, deep in the Delta Quadrant. So, when Star Trek: Prodigy reintroduced a starship called "Voyager," it felt like the ultimate triumph for iral Janeway and the legacy of her iconic crew. The Lamarr Class USS Voyager-A was designed to have the best technology that Starfleet has to offer, and iral Janeway herself commanded the ship on its maiden voyage.

And, after iral Janeway stepped down as the commanding officer of the USS Voyager-A, Captain Chakotay was given the command in a true Star Trek full-circle moment. And the Voyager legacy goes even further. In Star Trek: Picard, Commander Raffaela Musiker (Michelle Hurd) runs a search on La Sirena that reveals that the USS Voyager-B was an active Starfleet vessel in 2401. Through the USS Voyager-A, Star Trek: Prodigy gives a final salute to Star Trek: Voyager.

4 USS Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery

The USS Discovery was the ideal starship to bring Star Trek to streaming when Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017. The Discovery has the iconic saucer silhouette that every version of the USS Enterprise has had, from Star Trek: The Next Generation, to Star Trek: The Original Series, to Star Trek: Enterprise. Even after the Discovery made the jump into the 32nd century and was retrofitted with futuristic Starfleet technology, it still maintained that iconic Star Trek look.

The USS Discovery is just an iconic Starfleet vessel in any time period.

With every iteration of Star Trek, ship designs have gotten more detailed as special effects technology has improved, and the USS Discovery is the perfect aesthetic continuation of that trend. The only potential complicating factor of the Discovery is its signature spore drive. Depending on personal taste, the Discovery's spore drive can either feel like awesome futuristic technology or a little too much like magic. But ultimately, the USS Discovery is just an iconic Starfleet vessel in any time period.

3 USS Cerritos

Star Trek: Lower Decks

One of the most radical things that Star Trek: Lower Decks did was show what day-to-day life looks like in Starfleet, and the USS Cerritos is the epitome of that. It is just great to see what the workhorse California Class ships of the Federation look like, and because Lower Decks focuses on the "lower decks" of the Cerritos, a lot more of the ship is on display than in other shows. The USS Cerritos is clearly capable of doing whatever missions Starfleet needs done, and it proves its worth time and time again across Lower Decks' five seasons.

The only potential drawback to the USS Cerritos is that its design seems like it would be a little impractical. The only way to get to the warp core of the Cerritos is through the nacelles, and given how prone those are to overloading, it really seems like there should be a central pillar connecting the saucer to the core. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) and the ship's Engineering team are more than capable of keeping the Cerritos running, so the design is working well enough.