Guide:Verne
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| Verne | |
|---|---|
| Class Overview | |
| Category | survey cruiser/system defense destroyer |
| Operational | 2064 - 2095 |
| Constructed | 18 |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 235.9 m |
| Beam | 80.4 m |
| Height | 50.0 m |
| Mass | 25,000 t |
| Performance | |
| Cruise Speed | w 2.5 |
| Max Speed | w 2.7 |
| Endurance | 2.5 years |
| Complement | |
| Officers | 9 |
| Enlisted | 103
|
| Tactical Systems | |
| Beam Weapons |
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| Missile Weapons |
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| Shields |
|
| Laboratories | 1 GP, 1 planetary sciences |
| Auxiliary Craft |
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| Historical | |
| Ships of Note |
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| Canonicity | |
| Design | FSFC |
| Name | FSFC |
| History | FSFC
|
The late 2060s saw a swift rebirth of industrial networks across and above the surface of the Earth.
In consequence, the proliferation of warp technology and its adaptiveness to existing ship
configurations enabled almost any organization with access to space to equip a warp-powered
explorer. Literally hundreds of different ships exploded out of the solar system in search of new life,
civilizations, raw materials, explanations and answers of all kinds – or just for the fun of it. The
surviving governments of the time were determined to get their piece of the action as well, and in
2073, the first series-produced interstellar spaceship class, the Verne survey cruiser, was fielded to serve under the United Earth flag. The story of the ship class had begun much earlier, however, in the form of the final major nationalistic spacecraft program under NUN colors.
The original Verne ships were built jointly by the countries that had survived the devastation of WW III with the least damage – mainly the larger North American nations that were protected well enough, and South American and African nations not worthy of having been nuclear targets. They featured a hull taken from the promising Guardian series of USAF prewar near-Earth warships, a huge cone similar to the postwar Liberty hulls yet technologically less ambitious and consequently more robust. Modifications to this design had been on the drawing boards for some time, and had held back prewar series production. Now these plans helped speed up the conversion of the Guardians into warp explorers that would give the West an edge over Terran competition.
In 2064, three Guardian hulls were available in orbit, but none were originally deemed salvageable. Instead, a completed yet so far unlaunched hull now blasted off the reinstated Edwards SFB, with the name Jules Verne painted next to the NUN livery. Launches of three flat, monoelement Korngold-McHale warp nacelles soon followed. These were mated to the aft hull at 120 degree intervals, not in the style of the Cochrane experiment but in the configuration of the USAF plans from the early 2050s. A warp power source of three Singh-derived fusion reactors replaced half the fuel tankage as well as all the particle cannon from the original blueprints. As long planned, the fission NTR reaction engines from the late 2040s were replaced by fusion NTR propulsion that utilized a single gigantic nozzle. Alterations to hull form were minimal, and did not attempt the kind of endurance increases the truly international Defiant/Valiant and Bonaventure programs had aimed for. Instead, much of the original martial nature of the design survived. For example, the bow cone retained the original two missile tubes while gaining some protrusions necessitated by extended life support systems.
A successful sublight test flight in October 2064 paved way for the first warp run, initiated safely outside the orbit of Uranus in December 14th, 2065. The Jules Verne reached warp 1.02 under the close supervision of a Vulcan chase ship. Never mind that the test run proved incorrect most of the USAF calculations, resulted in terminal damage to the nacelles, and was greeted by the Vulcans as ‘a most irresponsible and ill-advised act of experimentation’, an apparent cussword in Vulcan science circles. Nor did the Sparon-DeSoto clamp-on that squashed the original political goals of the program deter the participating nations. They still granted funding for the re-engining of the Verne, completion of three more vessels out of unlaunched components, and conversion of the orbital derelicts to operational warp explorers.
By 2075, eighteen Vernes had been constructed, seventeen of them had attained warp capability, and sixteen had been launched on missions of exploration, to Epsilon Eridani, Altair, Arcturus and Sirius. In 2073, the nations operating the Verne ships promised to make all their findings public through the UE Space Probe Agency (a promise only partially kept), and in 2089 relinquished control of their ships to the UE Stellar Navy (a more honest show of idealism). Little of this mattered to the ships and crews themselves, typically underway on decades-long journeys. Unlike the long-shot Defiant and Valiant missions, the Verne ships systematically surveyed the homeworlds of the newly encountered races and estimated their resources and military strength, charting nearby space for possible expansion. A top speed of warp 2.7 allowed the ships to outrun many private warp vessels and thus to attain certain leverage over such entrepreneurs. The limited range of the Vernes often forced them to seek replenishment from the worlds they explored, leading to rudimentary trade agreements and improvised diplomatic overtures.
Back on Earth, the Verne project initially faced stiff criticism from many nations struggling with the post-war horrors. Terrorist attacks frequently threatened the launches of components, and funding was hard to come by. But the rapid recovery of infrastructures in the 2060s and 70s made it possible to start fighting the rampant poverty and hunger and the environmental devastation. The recovery owed as much to the continuing space program as it owed to the Vulcan beneficiaries. Asteroid mining and weather and communications satellite networks were widely advertised as essential to Earth’s recuperation, and in the late 70s the public opinion had turned in favor of space exploration and exploitation. In the 80s, less than 20% of Earth’s population suffered from hunger and poverty – a feat never before attained. The remaining distress would disappear thanks to space resources and interstellar trade, promised the new world government.
The Verne ships frequently made the news with intriguing scientific discoveries and daring recovery operations of old sublight colonization ships. Dozens of colonies sprung up around distant stars, and Earth’s solar system bustled with activity once again. But there were many setbacks in the space program as well. Most notably, it was found out that contacts with hostile alien cultures were quite possible, and that Earth would have to be ready for violent encounters. USS Mercury and USS Banshee were the first vessels of the class to be lost in deep space in 2077. No official explanation was ever found for the losses, and the Vulcan High Command strongly discouraged such solo missions, at least until better communications networks would be in place. Existing Vulcan military networks were strictly off limits, however, presenting Earthfleet with a chicken-and-egg problem: contact with deep space explorers could only be maintained after extensive exploration of deep space.
On the other hand, nobody was left in the dark when USS Fletcher exploded and scattered debris to the upper atmosphere after a warp drive failure in Earth’s gravity well in 2086. The early warp drives were notoriously unreliable anywhere near gravity gradients, and the three-lobed fields of the Vernes far more so than the Cochrane-style ones. Indeed, the Fletcher explosion factually spelled the end of the Korngold-McHale style of warp propulsion, leaving the Cochrane and Tellarite multicoil drives and the Vulcan ring-engine drive as the only serious competitors on the field. Verne vessels back in the Sol system at the time of the accident were assigned sublight duty and a destroyer designation, assisting the Liberty class in guarding Earth’s front yard against the next alien intrusion.
In 2089, USS Scythe briefly brought back to public view the Verne class for the last time as she accidentally fired her lasers at sister destroyer USS Hammer and the more modern USS Emnity in training maneuvers, resulting in significant casualties. The class was withdrawn from both combat and training use soon thereafter. No vessels of this type survive today, as the decommissioned destroyers were efficiently used for target practice.
