Guide:Victory: Difference between revisions

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{{Sidebar Guide ship
{{Sidebar Guide ship
|image=[[Image:Christopher.jpg|250px|Christopher class light cruiser]]
|image=[[Image:Christopher.jpg|250px|Victory class battle cruiser]]
|classname= Christopher
|classname= Victory
|category= Light Cruiser
|category= Battle Cruiser
|years= [[2158]]-[[2182]]  
|years= [[2162]]  
|constructed= 18<br>
|constructed= none
|length= 182.2 m
|length= 312.0 m
|beam= 102.0 m
|beam= 189.0 m
|height= 33.0 m  
|height= 63.0 m  
|mass= 215,200 tons
|mass= 445,000 tons
|cruisespeed= w 3
|cruisespeed= w 3
|maxspeed= w 5.9  
|maxspeed= w 3.9  
|endurance= <br>
|endurance= 4 years  
* 2 years (standard)
|officers= 85
* 4 years (reduced-crew operations)
|enlisted= 290
|officers= 16
|enlisted= 145
|troops=
|troops=
|passengers=
|passengers=
Line 29: Line 27:
|otherweapons=
|otherweapons=
|shields=<br>
|shields=<br>
* Polarizable armor on most of primary hull
* Polarizable armor on hull and nacelles
* 1-layer subspace/graviton globular forcefield
* 8-layer graviton/subspace globular forcefield
|labs=
|labs=
|transporters=<br>
|transporters=<br>
* 1 3-pad, Mk-I
* 2 3-pad, Mk-I
|auxcraft=<br>
|auxcraft=<br>
* 2 atmospheric shuttlepods
* 6 atmospheric shuttlepods
* 2 assault shuttles
* 6 assault shuttles
* 20 defensive fightercraft
|historicalships=
|historicalships=
* ''USS Warren E. Christopher'' (NCL-2000/NCC-18)  
* ''USS Warren E. Christopher'' (NCL-2000/NCC-18)  
|design= Guide
|design= SFC
|name= ''Starfleet: Year One'' (Friedman, MJ)
|name= Guide
|history= Guide, ''Starfleet: Year One'' (Friedman, MJ)
|history= SFC,Guide
}}
}}
Apart from the ''[[Armstrong/Helena (Guide)|Armstrong]]'' class, the only new cruiser-sized design to emerge during the Romulan War was the '''Christopher''' class light cruiser, a totally new class featuring no ''[[Triton (Guide)|Triton]]'' or ''[[Enterprise (Guide)|Enterprise]]'' components. Built for speed and endurance, the ship was optimized from the beginning for extremely mobile warfare, and would act as the spearhead of a new tactical approach. The cruisers would no longer prey on the frustratingly elusive Romulan carrier groups, but would perform deep strikes against fixed installations, moving the war to the Romulan turf for the first time. A key requirement to this approach was the increase in scoutship quality and quantity, which had already given UESF its first major victory in [[2159]]. But only with the new long range cruisers could such strikes be mounted with any certainty of success.
For the purpose of boring through Romulan defenses, Earthfleet began in 2159 to build three large battlecruisers, with six more in planning. Based on existing Earth and Andorian technology taken to extreme proportions, the quarter-million-ton hull mass ships would carry hundreds of photonic-warhead missiles and torpedoes, be protected by dozens of self-defense fightercraft and layers of laser, plasma and forcefield defenses, and fly at nearly warp 4 to the Romulan homeworlds, untouched by the perimeter defenses of the still expanding Romulan empire.


Every lesson learned from ''[[Marshall (Guide)|Marshall]]'' and ''[[Cavalry (Guide)|Cavalry]]'' destroyers was applied here, from the omission of particle beam weaponry to the use of heavy frontal armor and provision of room for up-to-date subspace/graviton shield generators. In fact, ''USS Warren E. Christopher'' (NCL-2000) should basically be considered a heavy destroyer instead of a true cruiser. Quickly joined by no less than 17 sisters, the ship nevertheless soon proved her worth as an independent, high endurance fighting platform worthy of the cruiser designation.  
[[Image:.jpg|left|300px|thumb|The would-be USS Victory taking shape at Martian orbit. Yet to be installed here are the fightercraft launch sponsons on the sides of the forward hull, as well as most of the sensing and scanning systems. The Victory did get cleared for warp testing before termination of the project, and performed a series of flights in 2166-67, yet yielded no major technological dividends for future ship generations. The KBB-11 heavy nacelles never found other applications.]]


The primary hull of the ''Christopher'' was a two-part structure reminiscent of an alligator head: a rounded upper section housed three decks of command, control and communications functions and habitat space, while the smaller lower ‘jaw’ housed twin missile tubes with magazines for at most fourteen heavy 900 mm fusion or photonic missiles each. A pair of 95,000 ton PA-4 warp engines on sturdy pylons sprouting from a boxy secondary hull represented traditional thinking and gave the ship a rather conventional cruiser silhouette. Tried and proven construction techniques could be used, for it was not the hull that was significant in the new cruiser. Nor was the integrated weapons system unconventional: in addition to a single warp torpedo tube and two tubes for sublight missiles, there were two gigawatt-class, warp-accelerated main lasers to provide primary firepower, with four smaller lasers for close-in protection.  
The building plans underwent continual changes, as new weapons and materials were suggested and discarded, dwindling resources re-estimated, the desperate cries from the battlefronts for speeding up construction evaluated, classified and filed away. One of the original three hulls was almost complete when the word came through that the Romulans had sent an offer for truce through subspace radio.


What made a difference was the combination of a high endurance powerplant, a superb inertial navigation system and a separate major computer dedicated completely to the task of long-duration warp navigation. While two ''Cavalries'' or one ''Marshall'' might pump out equal missile, torpedo or laser firepower, the destroyers could not compete in the range of combat operations. At a cruise speed of full warp three, some ten lightyears could be spanned in a single combat sortie – twenty, if the ships were stripped of some weaponry, crew and equipment, and given extra fuel.
The battle of Cheron, fought two weeks earlier and at first ranked by UESF analysts among the dozens of other costly but indecisive Earthfleet deep strikes, had apparently managed to end the Romulan offensive effort once and for all. Romulan ships everywhere disengaged, withdrew several parsecs and waited for news of peace negotiations. These soon began under the leadership of Council Member Abraham Dannon, and work on the battleships was discontinued.


Due to their superior speed and range, the ''Christophers'' seldom operated in concert with other ship types, although complex ambushes were at times performed jointly with modern destroyers.  
The cost of stopping these enigmatic people had been high. In face of possible further casualties in a war that neither side could win, the members of the wartime alliance, now officially called the United Federation of Planets, decided to accept the Romulan demands of a neutral zone and of complete non-aggression from the part of Earth or UFP members. In the views of many, a victory in space had been nullified by a defeat at negotiation tables. What angered people more was the complete self-isolation of the Romulans; no information was given on the fates of the missing ships and crews, not even on the identity of the Romulans themselves. The treaty of Algeron (the recently devastated Earth settlement near   B, now a temporary center of UESF operations) was negotiated completely by subspace transmissions without visual feed, up to and including the final ratification by Praetor Karzan and the newly elected human Governor of the Federation Council – and, not so incidentally, wartime President of Earth – Cristofur P. Thrope.


***
[[Image:.jpg|left|300px|thumb|The Neutral Zone as defined by the original Treaty of Algeron. Several amendments to the treaty have later been made, and the Romulan Star Empire has since expanded into uncharted space to attain the dimensions of a true interstellar empire.]]


''USS Chester W. Nimitz'' and ''USS Raymond Spruance'' took the place of their fallen namesakes of ''[[Messier (Guide)|Messier]]'' class, while others received names honoring various lost destroyers. The names proved good omens, for not a single ''Christopher'' was lost while idle on Earthbase orbit or flying into a Romulan ambush. Eight cruisers nevertheless perished in attack sorties, in battles that may have been uneven but in which the initiative at last was on the Earth side.
The treaty of nonaggression was never broken by the UFP; even in face of further Romulan aggression in the coming years, the Council decided not to retaliate. Initially, however, Romulans remained completely docile, seriously undermining the wartime government’s position on a compromise peace. This weighed heavily on the postwar Federal government as well. The rift between the federalist President Vanderbilt and conservative Council Governor Thorpe on the issue soon threatened the integrity of the government, and a scapegoat from outside the high chambers of the interstellar alliance had to be found. Earth Councillor Dannon was publicly disgraced and blamed for the humiliating treaty, to the point that he was assassinated while making a pacifist speech on Federation grounds in San Francisco in 2162.


[[Image:Christopher schematic.jpg|left|300px|thumb|As two ''[[Cavalry (Guide)|Cavalry]]'' destroyers launch their missiles at more distant targets, light cruiser ''Anaconda'' (NCL-2008) plunges directly into a swarm of enemy missile boats at Nimbus in [[2160]]. While the ''Christophers'' were never designed to fight against small craft the way the older cruisers were forced to do, the ''Anaconda'' more than held her own in the engagement; superior UESF fire control was beginning to turn the tables against the Romulans and making their small craft less of a threat to Earth fighting vessels.]]
[[Image:.jpg|left|300px|thumb|President, Governor Thrope on the balcony of the presidential palace in Paris after the signing of the treaty. Abraham Dannon on the lower left, with Ambassador Sarahd; Admirals Larson and Mann to the right of the President. Solkar of Vulcan and his aide visible behind the admirals.]]


The greatest hour of the ''Christopher'' class came in [[2160]], when a flotilla of seven specially configured light cruisers, stripped of the torpedo launcher, some consumables and most crew and carrying a mixture of heavy anti-ship and anti-surface missiles and a maximal fuel load, penetrated Romulan defenses with a daring uninterrupted warp run of 52 days. Despite the immense problems of coordination due to complete sensor and communications silence while in warp drive, the cruisers arrived at the [[Cheron]] system in perfect formation with only minor systems damage to one vessel. Local defenses responded with deadly force, and the UESF flotilla lost two cruisers in quick succession. Still, the surviving cruisers fired their missiles with precision at the frontline command center spotted four months earlier by a [[Doppler (Guide)|Doppler]] scout.
The name of another man also pops out from contemporary records of the negotiations, although his role in them has not been publicized. Exactly twenty minutes before the subspace message calling for truce came through, and again exactly twenty minutes before the transmission of the terms of peace, Ambassador Solkar of Vulcan was seen leaving the Communications room of the presidential palace in Paris, to visit the office of the President of Earth and his Joint Chiefs of Staff. The swift recalling of Solkar and his replacing with Ambassador T’Jan in 2161 end the official record on the career of this mysterious figure, and mark a transition to an era of openness in Earth-Vulcan relations – openness that still does not extend to matters preceding this transition point.
 
Near-simultaneously, six other strikes of this type were carried out against other Romulan installations located in the recent months, featuring mixed fleets of ''Christophers'' and ''[[Enterprise (Guide)|Enterprises]]''. Two were never heard of again, but the remaining four all scored devastating hits on their targets. Yet none was more important than the battle at Cheron: unbeknownst to the crews, the ships had managed to destroy the hub of the entire Romulan subspace communications network in sectors 23 through 28. The utter confusion into which the Romulan command structure had been thrown would have meant easy victory for Earth. The only way for the Romulans to protect their frontline bases would have been to permanently deploy their fleets inside the respective systems. Instead of risking total loss of both bases and ships, the Romulans decided to throw the game. A request for truce was sent out in October 12, 2160.
 
***
 
Surviving ''Christopher'' units continued operations beyond the onset of peace. Since local space was quite saturated with war surplus vessels, and since the victorious Federation had few challengers, there was little interest in developing an antimatter-powered successor design. Yet the deep space capabilities of the ''Christophers'' were not as useful in peacetime duty as one might assume, as there was no room or power to be spared for research gear. No permanent laboratory spaces were ever installed aboard the vessels, nor did the sensor suites receive the advanced short range planetary survey instruments of the ''Enterprises''. The light cruisers mainly attained fame in early pirate hunts, and served admirably in enforcing Federation law and order across the former dominions of the UFP signature members.
 
When the time for retirement came in [[2182]], four ''Christopher'' vessels including the original class ship were still active. All were sold forward to existing and hoped-for allies in the coreward direction.  


==Notes==
==Notes==
*Some commissioned ship names attributed to the ''Christopher'' classes are:
*
** [http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Christopher_class Beta]-canon:
: ''USS Maverick ''
: ''USS Yellowjacket''
 
** Guide:
: ''USS Anaconda'' (NCL-2008)
: ''USS Chester W. Nimitz''
: ''USS Raymond Spruance''
: ''USS Warren E. Christopher'' (NCL-2000/NCC-18)
 
** Recommended RPG Ships:
: named after various lost destroyers (as well as the above two ''Messier'' cruisers)
: '' ''
<br>
<br>



Revision as of 15:51, 12 January 2014

Victory class battle cruiser
Victory
Class Overview
Category Battle Cruiser
Operational 2162
Constructed none
Dimensions
Length 312.0 m
Beam 189.0 m
Height 63.0 m
Mass 445,000 tons
Performance
Cruise Speed w 3
Max Speed w 3.9
Endurance 4 years
Complement
Officers 85
Enlisted 290



Tactical Systems
Beam Weapons
  • 2xMagnusson 0.96 Plus Class lasers
  • 4xSchawlow 1.07 Plus Class lasers
Missile Weapons
  • 2x nuclear missile launchers (50 torpedoes)
  • 1x spatial torpedo launcher (30 torpedoes)
Shields
  • Polarizable armor on hull and nacelles
  • 8-layer graviton/subspace globular forcefield
Transporters
  • 2 3-pad, Mk-I
Auxiliary Craft
  • 6 atmospheric shuttlepods
  • 6 assault shuttles
  • 20 defensive fightercraft
Historical
Ships of Note * USS Warren E. Christopher (NCL-2000/NCC-18)
Canonicity
Design SFC
Name Guide
History SFC,Guide



For the purpose of boring through Romulan defenses, Earthfleet began in 2159 to build three large battlecruisers, with six more in planning. Based on existing Earth and Andorian technology taken to extreme proportions, the quarter-million-ton hull mass ships would carry hundreds of photonic-warhead missiles and torpedoes, be protected by dozens of self-defense fightercraft and layers of laser, plasma and forcefield defenses, and fly at nearly warp 4 to the Romulan homeworlds, untouched by the perimeter defenses of the still expanding Romulan empire.

File:.jpg
The would-be USS Victory taking shape at Martian orbit. Yet to be installed here are the fightercraft launch sponsons on the sides of the forward hull, as well as most of the sensing and scanning systems. The Victory did get cleared for warp testing before termination of the project, and performed a series of flights in 2166-67, yet yielded no major technological dividends for future ship generations. The KBB-11 heavy nacelles never found other applications.

The building plans underwent continual changes, as new weapons and materials were suggested and discarded, dwindling resources re-estimated, the desperate cries from the battlefronts for speeding up construction evaluated, classified and filed away. One of the original three hulls was almost complete when the word came through that the Romulans had sent an offer for truce through subspace radio.

The battle of Cheron, fought two weeks earlier and at first ranked by UESF analysts among the dozens of other costly but indecisive Earthfleet deep strikes, had apparently managed to end the Romulan offensive effort once and for all. Romulan ships everywhere disengaged, withdrew several parsecs and waited for news of peace negotiations. These soon began under the leadership of Council Member Abraham Dannon, and work on the battleships was discontinued.

The cost of stopping these enigmatic people had been high. In face of possible further casualties in a war that neither side could win, the members of the wartime alliance, now officially called the United Federation of Planets, decided to accept the Romulan demands of a neutral zone and of complete non-aggression from the part of Earth or UFP members. In the views of many, a victory in space had been nullified by a defeat at negotiation tables. What angered people more was the complete self-isolation of the Romulans; no information was given on the fates of the missing ships and crews, not even on the identity of the Romulans themselves. The treaty of Algeron (the recently devastated Earth settlement near   B, now a temporary center of UESF operations) was negotiated completely by subspace transmissions without visual feed, up to and including the final ratification by Praetor Karzan and the newly elected human Governor of the Federation Council – and, not so incidentally, wartime President of Earth – Cristofur P. Thrope.

File:.jpg
The Neutral Zone as defined by the original Treaty of Algeron. Several amendments to the treaty have later been made, and the Romulan Star Empire has since expanded into uncharted space to attain the dimensions of a true interstellar empire.

The treaty of nonaggression was never broken by the UFP; even in face of further Romulan aggression in the coming years, the Council decided not to retaliate. Initially, however, Romulans remained completely docile, seriously undermining the wartime government’s position on a compromise peace. This weighed heavily on the postwar Federal government as well. The rift between the federalist President Vanderbilt and conservative Council Governor Thorpe on the issue soon threatened the integrity of the government, and a scapegoat from outside the high chambers of the interstellar alliance had to be found. Earth Councillor Dannon was publicly disgraced and blamed for the humiliating treaty, to the point that he was assassinated while making a pacifist speech on Federation grounds in San Francisco in 2162.

File:.jpg
President, Governor Thrope on the balcony of the presidential palace in Paris after the signing of the treaty. Abraham Dannon on the lower left, with Ambassador Sarahd; Admirals Larson and Mann to the right of the President. Solkar of Vulcan and his aide visible behind the admirals.

The name of another man also pops out from contemporary records of the negotiations, although his role in them has not been publicized. Exactly twenty minutes before the subspace message calling for truce came through, and again exactly twenty minutes before the transmission of the terms of peace, Ambassador Solkar of Vulcan was seen leaving the Communications room of the presidential palace in Paris, to visit the office of the President of Earth and his Joint Chiefs of Staff. The swift recalling of Solkar and his replacing with Ambassador T’Jan in 2161 end the official record on the career of this mysterious figure, and mark a transition to an era of openness in Earth-Vulcan relations – openness that still does not extend to matters preceding this transition point.


Notes