2367: The Day After Tomorrow
You spend the day after coming to terms with the fact you almost died. Or worse than died. On Earth. Heart of the Federation, home to Starbase One, Utopia Planitia, San Francisco, and enough starships to swat anything hostile out of space. Except it wasn't. How the hell did this happen? You use your credentials to get access to the Starfleet Tactical reports and pour over them in an increasingly furious mix of anger and horror. Subspace-enhanced lasers, anti-graviton missiles that disassemble both shields and warp fields in just a few hits, plasma charges in a self-contained field bottle with energy densities three times higher than the cutting-edge. No wonder the damn thing could outright disintegrate half the saucer section of an Excelsior in a single hit. Ninety million tons of moving death, and it just ran over anything that got in its way.
You order an immediate status report on the current projects at the bureau. After 2345 the main team had been split up into three subsidiary groups focused on designing starships that reused components and production systems. Over time these teams had blossomed into working groups that each rivalled the size of the bureau as a whole just a couple of decades earlier as ships became on average larger and more complicated. There had been a temporary consolidation for a few years for Project Galaxy, but afterwards there had been a split again to work on the Nebula, Cheyenne, and New Orleans. You don't have any marching orders from command to consolidate the teams again, but there is nothing to say you can't shuffle personnel around.
Team one is working on a retrofit for the Galaxy-class and are currently in the final stages of overhauling the EPS and tactical systems, which you order finished as soon as possible, cancelling the later internal changes planned for the project. Team two is working on a new short range science ship, designated Project Nova. You promptly have them archive their current work and make ready for a new assignment. Team three is finalising specifications for a refit of the Ambassador-class, codenamed Project Narendra. With reluctance you have the project archived, thus freeing up your final team.
With essentially the entire bureau available in the near future, you outline the elements of a new fleet composition that will be needed for a new generation of starships with an active focus on tactical abilities. The Galaxy-class is a triumph of engineering, but there's a reason there are so few of them. Nearly five million tons is a lot of material. The same applies to most other starships designed over the last fifty years, all of which were made with the focus of being able to defend themselves rather than making their armament a core focus of the design, and often capable of multiple mission profiles with a great deal of competence. Which has been wonderful, but clearly that era of largess is at an end.
Effectively designing a new fleet from scratch with more focused roles is intimidating at best. That said, the bureau will be working from smaller designs upwards, using the opportunity to integrate lessons learned from lighter ships into their larger counterparts. Each team will take one project, then after a period of consultation and exchange of experience a second, larger project. Finally the whole bureau will get together to put out a capital ship capable of posing a real obstacle to a Borg incursion. Sure enough a few weeks after Wolf 359 the order comes down to pivot the bureau to designing ships explicitly capable of combating the Borg, and you are well on the way to starting early. You will be heading team one, which has agreed to take on designing…
[ ] An Escort - Project Defiant
[ ] A Heavy Frigate - Project Steamrunner
[ ] A Light Cruiser - Project Saber
Two Hour Moratorium on Voting, Please.
You order an immediate status report on the current projects at the bureau. After 2345 the main team had been split up into three subsidiary groups focused on designing starships that reused components and production systems. Over time these teams had blossomed into working groups that each rivalled the size of the bureau as a whole just a couple of decades earlier as ships became on average larger and more complicated. There had been a temporary consolidation for a few years for Project Galaxy, but afterwards there had been a split again to work on the Nebula, Cheyenne, and New Orleans. You don't have any marching orders from command to consolidate the teams again, but there is nothing to say you can't shuffle personnel around.
Team one is working on a retrofit for the Galaxy-class and are currently in the final stages of overhauling the EPS and tactical systems, which you order finished as soon as possible, cancelling the later internal changes planned for the project. Team two is working on a new short range science ship, designated Project Nova. You promptly have them archive their current work and make ready for a new assignment. Team three is finalising specifications for a refit of the Ambassador-class, codenamed Project Narendra. With reluctance you have the project archived, thus freeing up your final team.
With essentially the entire bureau available in the near future, you outline the elements of a new fleet composition that will be needed for a new generation of starships with an active focus on tactical abilities. The Galaxy-class is a triumph of engineering, but there's a reason there are so few of them. Nearly five million tons is a lot of material. The same applies to most other starships designed over the last fifty years, all of which were made with the focus of being able to defend themselves rather than making their armament a core focus of the design, and often capable of multiple mission profiles with a great deal of competence. Which has been wonderful, but clearly that era of largess is at an end.
Effectively designing a new fleet from scratch with more focused roles is intimidating at best. That said, the bureau will be working from smaller designs upwards, using the opportunity to integrate lessons learned from lighter ships into their larger counterparts. Each team will take one project, then after a period of consultation and exchange of experience a second, larger project. Finally the whole bureau will get together to put out a capital ship capable of posing a real obstacle to a Borg incursion. Sure enough a few weeks after Wolf 359 the order comes down to pivot the bureau to designing ships explicitly capable of combating the Borg, and you are well on the way to starting early. You will be heading team one, which has agreed to take on designing…
[ ] An Escort - Project Defiant
[ ] A Heavy Frigate - Project Steamrunner
[ ] A Light Cruiser - Project Saber
Two Hour Moratorium on Voting, Please.
