The USS Defiant (NX-74205) is a fictional starship in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) and the feature film Star Trek: First Contact. The ship first appears in the DS9 episode "The Search, Part I", after which it plays a significant role throughout the series. The original Defiant is destroyed in the show's seventh season.

Starfleet sends a replacement ship, the USS São Paulo. Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) then receives special dispensation from the Chief of Starfleet Operations to rename the ship Defiant. In the episode "The Defiant", the character Gul Dukat describes the ship as "one of the most heavily armed warships in the Quadrant." 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".

Similar to 0 things you like: