The USS Yamato holds monthly meetings each month, see events for times and places. All crew members as well as anyone interested in joining or even with just an interest in Star Trek are encouraged to attend.

History

The Yamato was named after the World War II era Japanese battleship Yamato. She was one of the first three Galaxy class ships built, and was built alongside the class leader USS Galaxy (NCC-70637) and the Enterprise-D. In fact some parts from the Enterprise-D and Yamato were swapped between the two ships, which resulted in the parts fitting better on both ships. The Yamato entered service shortly before the Enterprise-D.

Where Silence Has Lease

The Yamato was first shown as an illusion in "Where Silence Has Lease" inside the region of "empty" space, generated by Nagilum. In this episode, her registry number was quoted as NCC-1305-E.(*) This was later acknowledged as a continuity error, yet remained in the script for shooting, even when detected (one might wonder). When the illusion of the Yamato appeared, Commander Riker and Lt. Worf boarded the vessel. Riker and Worf found themselves on board a darkened vessel with no crew in sight, and the ship in standby mode. Riker soon determines that the ship was not the Yamato, the vessel was made of some other material. They step through a doorway, and find themselves on a bridge. When they try to leave the bridge, they find themselves on another bridge. After some observation, Nagilum allows Riker and Worf to leave, and discontinues his illusion of the Yamato.

Contagion

The episode "Contagion" is the next, and final appearance of the USS Yamato.

Soon after the Enterprise-D encountered Nagilum, Captain Varley came across an ancient Iconian artifact. He discovered that it is a map, and after accounting for many thousands of years of stellar drift, finds the planet Iconia. The planet is deep within the Romulan Neutral Zone, but Varley violated the Zone because of the threat that Iconian technology represents. Varley knew that if the Romulans got their hands on working Iconian technology that the Federation would be at a serious disadvantage. The Romulans initially pursued the Yamato, but the Yamato managed to lose them.

Once the Yamato arrived at Iconia, an automated probe was launched from the planet surface. The probe scanned the vessel, which transmitted an alien computer program. Soon afterwards, the Iconian program began causing severe difficulty for the Yamato crew as the computers began malfunctioning. The malfunctions became so severe that Varley was forced to leave Iconia, and went to meet with the Enterprise-D crew. Shortly before the arrival of the Enterprise-D, 18 people died when a shuttle bay force field collapsed and they were blown out into space.

The Enterprise-D arrived. Yamato transmitted some reports to the Enterprise-D. They unknowingly transmitted the Iconian program to the Enterprise-D in the process. Captain Varley thought that some design flaw was causing the Yamato to experience all these problems. A few minutes after the arrival of the Enterprise, the Yamato lost antimatter containment as a result of system-wide malfunctions caused by the probe. In a blinding explosion, the stardrive section was vaporized. All those on the saucer section were killed in the explosion, and the Enterprise crew watched in horror as the Yamato's burning saucer section drifted past them. All who were on the Yamato died in this accident.

In the days following the destruction of the Yamato, Captain Picard of the Enterprise-D assumed the Yamato's final mission. Lt. Geordi LaForge discovered that the Yamato did not have a design flaw. Arriving at Iconia, a probe was launched, but the crew of the Enterprise-D destroyed it before it could scan their vessel. LaForge eventually figured out that a complete erasure and restoration of the Enterprise computers would stop the computer from further damaging their ship. Picard destroyed the surviving Iconian technology to keep it out of the hands of not only the Romulans, but any other races that would use the technology for violent ends.

Trivia

It was originally believed by fans that the U.S.S Yamato was named as homage to the Space Battleship Yamato of Star Blazers, given designer Rick Sternbach's liberal anime references in many early TNG episodes. However, Sternbach has reported that the episode writers, who had never heard of the anime, came up with the name of the starship, independently. It should be noted that the Yamato of Star Blazers is the actual WWII Yamato.