Can we please talk about what the fuck the designers at Starfleet are doing in the late 2300s?

• Sometime in the 2360s, we get the early tng look

• 2366, they have a slight redesign to get rid of the stupid little lapels

• I cannot find a specific date on Memory Alpha, but sometime before or during 2369, we get the early ds9/voy look

• 2373, we get the classic ds9/late tng movie look, though the tng films do show some people with the voy style as well

• 2380, (to be fair, this date is only according to Wikipeda, since Memory Alpha has very little info on Lower Decks) we get a clearly tng inspired look

• 2382, they go back to a voy inspired look

• 2399, we've essentially just gone back to voy just without the lavender undershirt

And this isn't even acknowledging alternate timelines, dress uniforms, or Troi and Wesley! It's ridiculous!

Time for some Star Trek Deep Lore for the superfan!

Remember in Star Trek: the Motion Picture, how in the rec room, there was a wall of ships previously named Enterprise? All were accounted for, except one, the “ring ship” that is second from right. What was it?

Originally, this ring-ship design was one of the ideas Matt Jeffries pitched as a design for the Enterprise itself when Star Trek was in pre-production. However, the design ended up not being used out of fear the thin, spiny model would not be rugged enough to withstand the rough treatment of filming and photography.

In the 1970s, when Gene Roddenberry was trying and failing to recapture the Star Trek magic with numerous pilots that failed, he came up with a treatment for a scifi series called Starship, where he used the original Probert design. The series ended up never getting made, but Roddenberry sold the ring-ship model design as a model through his mail order business with the following description, which is all we know about this show that was never made:

“Gene Roddenberry’s imagination brings you "Starship”. The vessel of the future as only he could picture it. This could be the forerunner of a new TV series, a Starship operated by an enormous computer which is a lifeform itself. Each human on board is a genius, a highly trained science specialist, part of a team of Galactic trouble shooters. A brand-new concept in future space travel. We also have three different views of the Metatransit system, side elevations of the systems analysis unit, and the Metaflier section of the Starship. Imagine yourself on a mission in space aboard this luxury cruiser. You’ll be spellbound!“

The ring-ship was used in the rec room in Star Trek: the Motion Picture. It was also seen later on in both Enterprise and in Star Trek: Into Darkness. 

Very little about this ship is definitely known. The Spaceflight Chronology mentioned it was not an exploration vessel, but a passenger carrier - though at present the Spaceflight Chronology is of dubious canonicity. Other novels describe it as more of a “manned probe.” One thing is for sure: it would not have been a Starfleet ship, as it predated Starfleet. Michael Okuda, Trek concept artist, created a patch for the mission for Enterprise, and speculated that it used a kind of ring-based warp drive system known as annular warp drive, as opposed to the engine and pylon based warp system, very similar to the Vulcan designs seen in Enterprise. Okuda believed the ship’s top speed was Warp 2. In fact, a few novels say this ship was merely a prototype or proof-of-concept based on Vulcan designs and technology, and one that did not actually fly.