The USS Essex (NCC-173) was a Template:ShipClass Federation starship in service in the 22nd century. The vessel was commanded by Captain Bryce Shumar, the first officer was Commander Steven Mullen, and the security officer was Lieutenant Morgan Kelly. The Essex operated out of Starbase 12, under the sector command of Admiral Uttan Narsu. It carried a crew of 229.
In 2167, the Essex was destroyed with all hands aboard by an electromagnetic storm in the atmosphere of an M-class moon of Mab-Bu VI. The ship became trapped in the storm when non-corporeal criminals from Ux-Mal, who had been imprisoned on the moon centuries before, attempted to escape by possessing the Essex crew.
In 2368, the USS Enterprise-D detected the distress signal of the Essex, over 200 years old, and investigated the moon. The criminals impersonated the crew of the Essex and attempted to take over the Enterprise, but were unsuccessful. (TNG: "Power Play")
Appendices
Background
The Star Trek Encyclopedia makes reference to a USS Essex, registry NCC-1697, as listed among the Template:ShipClass starships commissioned by Starfleet. That ship was originally mentioned in the shooting script for TOS: "Amok Time", and later included in an internal memo from D.C. Fontana, which suggested a list of possible starship names to consider for use in The Original Series. This list, published in The Making of Star Trek, was used to match the Essex with the registry NCC-1697 that appeared on the wall chart seen in TOS: "Court Martial" by Greg Jein in a 1975 fanzine article The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship. This information was later adapted for use in the Star Trek Encyclopedia by Mike Okuda, without ever explicitly stating his source.
The name Essex may be derived from any one of several sources. For more information, see this page, for a list of possible origins.
The Daedalus-class model built by Greg Jein for the Star Trek Chronology originally bore the name USS Essex with registry number NCC-176 as recently shown on Doug Drexler's blog drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/st-chronology-models/. Interestingly at the time the nacelles were equiped with the spikes akin to the spines of the original USS Enterprise as seen in "The Cage". The model was later on refurbished as The USS Horizon minus the spikes and with an unchanged registry to appear as a desktop model in several DS-9 episodes.
Apocrypha
According to the Star Fleet Technical Manual, the USS Essex was a Constitution-class starship, Bonhomme Richard sub-class, that was assigned the registry NCC-1727.
USS Essex was also the name of the first ship for the Federation Campaign in the game Star Trek: Tactical Assault.
The Essex is mentioned in the Star Trek Enterprise 2008 Novel "Kobayashi Maru" as being 1 of the 2 starships sent to help repair the NX-Columbia after their battle with 3 Klingon warships over the planet Draylax