The Young Star Fleet was struggling…

The young Star Fleet was struggling.

Outwardly, it was a rapidly growing, enthusiastic, and successful merging of the founding states’ space-going assets, visibly developing and shaping the academic, martial, and economic avenues for the United Federation of Planets’ interests in exploration, defense, trade, and technology. However, a critical decision made fifty years previously was impacting the ability of Star Fleet to defend the Federation as it added new members and settled virgin worlds with enthusiastic colonists.

This challenge, an existential concern, was kept tightly internal (with the exception of the President and the Security Council), because it was a problem of Star Fleet’s own making. In 2169, the United Earth’s reluctance to continue with dilithium-regulated reactors heavily influenced the design of the UFP Star Fleet’s second-generation starships. Dilithium had proven critical to the achievement of warp 5 for the pre-Federation Earth, but at great cost: the reactors were fragile and often resulted in the loss of the entire vessel when stresses—combat or natural—resulted in the focus of the dilithium being disrupted. Additionally, the dilithium crystals were beyond rare, with no natural depository known to exist; they tended to work their way into the trading sectors of larger states haphazardly and in a nearly perfectly refined state, as if removed from previous vessels from outside the geopolitical knowledge of the Federation. For the newly-completed starships entrusted with such reactors, the workup cycles were extremely prolonged, as focusing the crystals was so very critical to achieving the high warp speeds capable by the expensive reactors. This was a considerable setback for getting combat-capable ships out into the warzones being contested with the Romulan Empire and that learning experience influenced the defensive doctrines of the nascent UFP Star Fleet.

Instead, the reduction of nearly a full warp factor was the sacrifice for safe and dependable starship development for over a generation. But, in the 2220s, the costs of that decision were becoming apparent. The adoption of the more complex and larger peristaltic forcefield antimatter feed constrictors—in lieu of dilithium regulation—also meant that more space was needed to carry fuel, since antimatter (antideuterium) was now required at a 1:1 ratio with matter (deuterium). This larger space, along with the reduced warp capability, meant that Star Fleet was simply unable to project its defensive might as far as the Federation required it. Strategists recognized that warp 4 was far too incapable of defending the further afield member worlds and colonies. Quietly, defense doctrines built to respond to a potential massive invasion were predicated upon the abandonment of those distant territories and the encircled—albeit last-ditch—defense of the core planets.

However, within a few years of the adoption of this fatalistic strategy, hope emerged. While new technologies were always being hyped and promised as leaps forward, three such promises seemed to stand out from all the others: continuing development of phased particle beams and the merging with coherent electromagnetic technology promised a weapon system flexible enough to challenge Klingon superiority in this field; a published mathematical study on the relationship between subatomic structure and data processing—by a ten-year old human boy, oddly enough—indicated fantastic advances in computing technology, with the ability to quickly and consistently maintain dilithium focusing, was on the horizon; and a source of unrefined dilithium was discovered, proving the crystal did occur naturally and only needed refineries to be established. The overlapping of these three scientific developments shone like a beacon on those same Star Fleet strategists, who collectively corralled the leadership into the immediate development of a starship—preferably of the cruiser type—that would incorporate all three of these potential discoveries into a platform of speed, strength, flexibility, and independence.

From this, Project Starship was given new and promising life.

Author: RevancheRM
Original Source: DeviantArt - "Bonaventure dilithium testship (Config #1) (2230)"

Last Updated on 2403.16 by admin