The USS Tolstoy was a 24th century Federation starship operated by Starfleet.
The Tolstoy fought the Borg at the Battle of Wolf 359 in 2367. It was destroyed, along with 38 other starships. When the USS Enterprise-D arrived to the site of the battle, the wreckage of the Tolstoy was seen by Commander Shelby and the bridge crew on the viewscreen. (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II")
Appendices
Background information
According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 513), the USS Tolstoy was a Rigel-class starship, with the registry NCC-62095. The Encyclopedia notes that the ship was named after famed Earth author, Leo Tolstoy. Startrek.com identifies the model that was labeled as USS Princeton as the Tolstoy, [1] and identifies the reused Constitution-class saucer model wreck as the USS Princeton. [2]
The USS Chekov wreckage
Originally however the ship that would become the Tolstoy was scripted as the "USS Chekhov". [3] A Springfield-class filming model with the name USS Chekov was in fact seen on screen. A last minute post-production change resulted in Chekov being replaced with Tolstoy in the dialog, as to avoid a reference to the original series character Pavel Chekov, deemed too "cute" for the moment in TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II". The Tolstoy's designation as "Rigel-class" was a later invention by Michael Okuda for the Encyclopedia. At the time of filming of the episode the class designation was not in use as he remembered,"Rigel: I don't think we ever came up with a ship design specifically tied to that name."[4]
The depiction of the battle in "Emissary" was originally filmed as a much more elaborate scene than it became. DS9's visual effects supervisor Robert Legato assigned the Tolstoy name to a starship wreck, that was removed from the aired version of the scene. He recalled in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion: "I made sure that all of the debris had the correct names on it, the names of the ships that were mentioned in 'The Best of Both Worlds', the starships Tolstoy, Kyushu, Melbourne, and Saratoga were among those described as lost in the battle, so the episodes would tie together."
Apocrypha
According to the Star Trek: New Frontier short story, "Performance Appraisal" in No Limits, Captain Christine Parsons (β) took command of the Tolstoy in 2366.
The Price of Freedom sourcebook, describes the Tolstoy as a heavy scout with a crew of 65. It had 6 decks and was 215 meters in length. The ship had a maximum speed of warp factor 9.2. The ship was armed with type VII phaser emitters, and two torpedo launchers with a normal loadout of 75 photon torpedoes.
External links
- USS Tolstoy (NCC-62095) at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- USS Tolstoy at Wikipedia