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USS Defiant
the USS Defiant NX-74205
First appearance	Original: "The Search" New: "What You Leave Behind"
Last appearance	Original: "The Changing Face of Evil" New: "What You Leave Behind"
Fate	Original: Destroyed (2375) New: Operational
Affiliation	Starfleet
Launched	Original: 2370 New: 2375
General Characteristics
Class	Defiant
Registry	NX-74205
Armaments	Pulsed and beam phasers Photon torpedoes Quantum torpedoes
Defences	Deflector shields Cloaking device Ablative Armor
Propulsion	Impulse drive Warp drive

The USS Defiant is a fictional starship in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the feature film Star Trek: First Contact. The ship first appears in the DS9 episode "The Search, Part I", after which it continues to play a significant role throughout the series. When the Defiant is destroyed during a battle with the Dominion, Captain Benjamin Sisko receives special dispensation from Starfleet Operations to rename the replacement ship Defiant.

The ship was named after "HMS Defiant" and had a painting of it in its briefing room. However, there was never an actual ship of that name. The writers came across a website on the Alec Guinness movie H.M.S. Defiant and mistook the fictional sailing ship for a real one.^{[citation needed]}

This ship carries the same name as the Constitution-class USS Defiant (NCC-1764) from the original Star Trek series.

The ship's backstory is outlined in its first appearance, the third-season episode "The Search". Officially designated as an escort vessel, the Defiant is a prototype vessel for the Defiant class warship, originally developed to counter the Borg threat. Following the Borg invasion, the United Federation of Planets approved a project committed to enhancing Starfleet's offensive and defensive military capabilities; the Defiant was the end result of that project. According to his statement in the episode "Defiant", Benjamin Sisko was in charge of the shipyard where the Defiant was built and helped design her during his assignment to the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards.

Although it was designed to be fast and highly maneuverable with powerful weaponry, the Defiant was overgunned and overpowered for a vessel of its size. The ship's structural integrity field needed extensive modifications to keep the Defiant from tearing itself apart. The ship was designed specifically for battle, featuring innovative pulse phaser and quantum torpedo armaments, in addition to photon torpedoes, standard phasers and a high-capacity deflector shield system. Another asset is its ablative armor, enabling the ship to stay in a fight even with the shields inoperable. Inside, the Defiant is relatively spartan by Starfleet standards of the time: the ship is not designed to carry family members, has no science labs, and has a limited infirmary. Crew quarters consist of two bunk beds and a general computer interface. Few, if any, individual quarters have food replicators, so the mess hall is the main means for the crew to eat on missions.

The subsiding Borg threat and failed systems tests (particularly in regard to the ship's overpowered engines) led the development project to be stalled and the prototype to be mothballed.

First contact with the Jem'Hadar in 2370 convinced Sisko to ask Starfleet for the Defiant so he would be better prepared for contact with the leaders of the Dominion. Starfleet agreed and the Defiant was posted at Deep Space Nine under Sisko's command. The Defiant allows the station's crew to travel faster and further with far more firepower than the station's Danube class runabouts can provide.

The Defiant is the first Starfleet ship to legally carry a cloaking device. Supplied by the Romulan Empire, the cloak is initially operated by a Romulan officer serving aboard the Defiant. An agreement between Starfleet and the Romulans limits the use of the cloak to intelligence-gathering missions in the Gamma Quadrant in exchange for all of Starfleet's intelligence on the Dominion. On several occasions, such as the rescue of the Detapa Council (DS9: "The Way of the Warrior"), the cloaking device is used illegally in the Alpha Quadrant.

The Defiant fights the Borg in the movie Star Trek: First Contact, set in 2373. It is on the verge of destruction by the Borg before the USS Enterprise-E arrives and leads the remaining Starfleet vessels in destroying the invading Borg cube. During the battle, the Defiant is under the command of Commander Worf and suffers severe, but repairable, damage.

The destruction of the Defiant at the Second Battle of Chin'toka.

In 2375, the Breen destroy the USS Defiant during the invasion of the Chin'toka system. The battle marks the first time the Breen use their energy-depleting weapon. During the planning of the invasion of Cardassia Prime some months later, a new Defiant class starship, the USS São Paulo (NCC-75633), is assigned to Deep Space Nine. The Starfleet Chief of Operations grants special dispensation to rename the ship Defiant.

Although the USS São Paulo commissioning plaque gives a registry of "NCC-75633", in subsequent exterior battle shots the renamed ship has the "NX-74205" registry. This is because special effects shots of the old vessel had to be reused to show the new one, along with new CG shots that were created featuring the same registry number.

Ron Moore said in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion that the new ship was intended to be designated "Defiant-A", but it was prohibitive to redo the CG model for one episode because stock shots from earlier episodes had to be used as well for budgetary reasons. Nevertheless Moore stated that as far as he was concerned, the change did happen. However, since only the actual show is canonical and not statements by the production people, who could easily have several different opinions, the observation remains that the new Defiant had the same name and registry number, both in stock footage as well as new shots. Theories as to why this is acceptable to Starfleet are outside the scope of this article.

The Defiant was initially designed by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine art illustrator Jim Martin with contributions from visual effects supervisor Gary Hutzel and modelmaker Tony Meininger. The Defiant's addition to DS9 was intended to solve the problem of cramped runabout sets according to statements by Robert-Hewitt Wolfe. Original designs called for a "beefed-up" runabout-type ship, but this gave way to a full-fledged starship design, initially called Valiant. This name was dropped out of fear that it would conflict with Star Trek: Voyager and its titular starship, also beginning with a "V". For a brief time it was considered to retain Valiant as the name of the class: but dialog in "The Search" and the ship's dedication plaque firmly establish the Defiant as the pathfinder.

The name Valiant would later be given to another Defiant class ship in the DS9 episode "Valiant". Although not an actual initial design in the real-world, one of the in-universe designs for the Defiant appears, somewhat modified, in as the Nova class USS Equinox in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Equinox".

There is controversy on the internet regarding the size of the Defiant, since Star Trek canon, semi-canon (e.g. reference manuals), and fanon speculation sometimes provide conflicting specifications.

• USS Defiant (NX-74205) article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• USS Defiant (NCC-75633) article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• HMS Defiant article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki