Guide:Hercules

Y class transport (Hercules for Starfleet) schematic
Hercules
Class Overview
Category	Transport
Operational	2091 - 2177
Constructed	29 total: 4 Hercules (FY-100) 22 Ottawa (FY-200) 3 Karakorum (FY-500)
Dimensions
Length	240.3 m (FY-100, 200) 322.1 m (FY-500)
Beam	43.5 m
Height	36.2 m
Mass	21,300 tons (FY-100) 22,100 tons (FY-200) 25,700 tons (FY-500)
Performance
Cruise Speed	w 1.1
Max Speed	w 1.8 (FY-100, 200) w 3.0 (FY-200 refit 2162-63) w 1.6 (FY-500)
Endurance	6 years
Complement
Officers	2
Enlisted	17 (FY-100, 200) 21 (FY-500)
Cargo	40,000 tons (FY-100) 43,000 tons (FY-200) 64,000 tons (FY-500)
Tactical Systems
Beam Weapons	1x plasma cannon (varying types), ventral hull 4x plasma cannons (varying types), container mounts (select ships)
Shields	Navigational deflector on bow Electromagnetic shields (max. 8 T)
Auxiliary Craft	2-10 Work pods
Canonicity
Design	ENT
Name	own
History	ENT

Outwardly, it appears a huge step that the defense and exploration assets of Earth’s various spaceflight organizations were in 2089 solidified into an international Starfleet. However, those assets themselves remained largely unaffected by the transformation. The crew of a survey cruiser orbiting a distant star for the fifth successive year would pay little heed to such bureaucracy. Defensive fleets in the Sol system would already be under international control due to the Sparon- DeSoto clauses. UESPA would still retain control of the waves of probes launched into deep space, and would coordinate the data flows and survey budgets from within Starfleet. The existing hardware largely met the needs of UESF during its formative years – it just happened to be temporarily unavailable, separated from the homeworld by dozens of lightyears and by several years of travel time.

Partial recalling and redeployment of the Messier fleet was expected to cater for Starfleet’s modest exploration and even humbler power projection programs. Increased trust and understanding between humans and Vulcans allowed Sol defenses to be rearranged so that the antiquated sublight combatants could be retired and replaced by cheaper transatmospheric low-warp interceptors and fixed installations. However, there was one field of operations where Starfleet neither controlled the resources it needed, nor could hope to downscale its operations to fit what resources it did possess. Logistics for an interstellar research, defense and training organization could not be handled by the motley fleet of STL and FTL colonizers or short range tugs and transports loitering in the vicinity of Sol. And the high capacity warp transports that Earth already possessed were only nominally under ECS authority. In practice, no power on Earth could recall them from their profit-hunting cruises in deep space.

It was thus in the interests of UESF to sponsor the development and construction of new warp freighters, suited for its needs as well as for commercial use. Two primary designs emerged within a year. Rather than add warp engines to an originally STL cargo hull, both introduced a warpoptimized spaceframe onto which cargo modules were bolted. The G and Y series vessels were virtual scale models of each other. Both had a central spine element for general goods and lateral grapples for containers. Both featured an amidship section for the main fusion reactor, and a bow section that held impulse engines in low-mounted cowlings and housed a crew of some 20-30 people in tolerable conditions in a four-deck habitat suspended above the centerline; an antenna farm for sensors and deflectors occupied the centerline bow. The G series had a single centerline bay for shuttlecraft, typically with one permanently embarked alongside work pods; the Y series had two bays, at the forward ends of the impulse pods, and carried up to ten cargo handling craft.

The Class G vessels with four 5,000 ton Type II containers were rather modest in performance, though, and UESF concentrated on the acquisition of Y series transports. In military service, these ships were dubbed the Hercules class.

File:Y-class.jpg

A Hercules at speed. From this angle, the GSC-800 engines are just barely visible at ventral stern, with the impulse coils flanking the bow. Standard Starfleet paint scheme from the 2120s leaves most of the hull titanium-brown but adds blue cheat lines to the containers and forward hull and large black pennants on the sides of the command tower. The classic UESPA arrowhead is not yet part of military livery.

The grandiose name was fitting enough. At nearly 250 meters, the ships were half again as long as competing DY series heavy variants. Compared with the lumbering Messiers, the transports had far superior impulse acceleration. Warp speed using the lightweight GSC-800 coils (sitting below the central spine, with plasma conduits running on the underside of the center hull) was naturally lower than that of the massive cruisers, with theoretical optimum cruise speed at warp 1.1 and maximum speed at warp 1.8. In practice, the transports always cruised at maximum speed, as this fuelinefficient mode still was the most economic one overall. Both ECS and UESF benefited more from the timely delivery of goods than from conserving of slush hydrogen. In any case, the vast deuterium tanks lined up beneath the midsection provided a safe reserve for a 20-ly cruise to nowhere and back, making the vessel especially attractive as a tramp for adventurous Boomers.

For both Boomer and explorer crews, the Y series meant significantly improved accommodation standards. The spine of the ship was quite available for habitation, and direct underway access to the eight Type II containers was also possible. For Starfleet, this meant suitability to troop transport duties. Actual planetary assault was not in the plans yet, nor would it be for half a century, but personnel transfer to off-Earth garrisons was of interest, either with cryosleep or without. Other duties going beyond pure cargo hauling were also intended. UESPA survey packages provided Earth with scientific data and some sigint victories, and the installation of plasma cannon modules was hoped to give space pirates a nasty surprise or two. The ‘Q-ships’ carrying four container-mounted 2 GW cannon in addition to one permanent hull-mounted unit did score a few early kills, but only on already relatively secure short haul routes.

Once the initial Y-100 model had been fielded in 2091, UESF decided it actually needed an even more capable design. The improved commercial model Y-200 was bought in some quantity, with up to 22 FY-200 (or Ottawa subclass) vessels joining the fleet between 2096 and 2099. The enlarged FY-500 (Karakorum subclass) ultimately proved a disappointment, though, and only three were purchased. Commercial use of the clumsy twelve-container behemoth was discontinued in 2125, by which time all three UESF ships had been sold to civilian operators.

Boosted by the warp breakthroughs of the 2150s, Earth continued to operate Y-200 vessels well past the Romulan War. The last military examples, now in UFP Starfleet registry, were retired in 2177. Civilian users persisted into the 23rd century, as the uprated engines were capable of practical deep space speeds, yet the ships still sported the internal volume of ‘community vessels’. Postwar designs were optimized for high speeds and subsequently short trips, and were ill suited for the tramp/salesman mode of operations outside normal spacelanes. Even prewar development had steered towards lower habitability standards, driven by the needs of near-Earth mining operations and Starfleet’s increasing military commitments. The Boomer subculture and lifestyle was on its way to obscurity at the advent of class J and W transports already, and largely vanished from nearspace by the time of the Romulan War. Its last vestiges could be found in long-ranging class Y vessels, the final few of which disappeared from Federation records in the early 2220s.

References

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• Back to the Table of Contents
• Back to "The Incredible Expansion"
• Appendix A: Of Ship Statistics
• Appendix B: Glossary
• Appendix C: Starfleet Organization - General Outline
• Appendix D: Abbreviations From Outside