Guide:Victory
| 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 |
|
| Missile Weapons |
|
| Shields |
|
| Transporters |
|
| Auxiliary Craft |
|
| 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.
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.
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.
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