A Starfleet frigate commanded by the Bolian Captain Rixx, present at the secret meeting on Dytallix B in 2364 where Picard first heard of a conspiracy within Starfleet.
The USS Thomas Paine is a Starfleet frigate in service in the 2360s under Captain Rixx, a Bolian officer and the first of his species seen in Star Trek.
The ship appears in the episode Conspiracy. With the USS Renegade and the USS Horatio it travels covertly to Dytallix B, a disused mining planet, so that its captain can meet Jean-Luc Picard face to face. Rixx, Tryla Scott and Walker Keel tell Picard that something is badly wrong at Starfleet Command.
The Thomas Paine is seen in orbit as the Enterprise arrives. Unlike the Horatio, which is destroyed soon afterwards, its fate after the meeting is not shown.