Guide:Mercury
| |
| Mercury | |
|---|---|
| Class Overview | |
| Category | scout |
| Operational | 2154 - 2181 |
| Constructed | 72 |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 162.2 m |
| Beam | 39.7 m |
| Height | 34.2 m |
| Mass | 96,800 tons |
| Performance | |
| Cruise Speed | w 2 |
| Max Speed | w 3.2 |
| Endurance | 6 months |
| Complement | |
| Officers | 14 |
| Enlisted | 48
|
| Tactical Systems | |
| Beam Weapons |
|
| Shields | |
| Historical | |
| Ships of Note | USS Candace (NS-5665) |
| Canonicity | |
| Design | own, using SFC ship as forward pod |
| Name | SFC |
| History | SFC
|
Despite repeated attempts at establishing diplomatic communications with the reclusive Romulans, military build-up in preparation for the upcoming open war was continued. Development of new long range scoutships was initiated just prior to the first explicit overtures to the Romulan war. The aim of the Mercury project was to create lower-cost alternatives to the cruiser forces in the mission of scouting enemy positions or performing minimal-resolution evaluations of potential colony or mining worlds. The Mercury scoutships were not intended to carry the sophisticated gear of slow short range research vessels like the Edison class, nor were they equipped with any kind of heavy armament. Instead of being miniature cruisers, they essentially consisted of an outsized power and propulsion system and a minimal crew and sensor compartment.
The Mercuries were based on a slightly downscaled, lightweight version of the power and drive chain of the Cavalry class – a relatively advanced yet already proven warp propulsion system now referred to as a second-generation drive, to tell it apart from both the clumsy contraptions of the preceding century and the high-strung superengines of the modern cruisers. A compression fusion reactor sat between two large reaction engines, housed in separate pods to the sides. A pressure hull some eight decks high was of typical Earth commercial shipbuilding lineage. It featured a bridge dome atop, accompanied by a defensive TDM-36.2 4.5 GW plasma cannon; then three decks of sensors and their monitoring facilities, as well as officers’ accommodation and a cluster of four lifeboats; then four decks of crew accommodation and utility and storage spaces, as well as a deflector system and twin forward-facing medium-power plasma guns. The ventral stern of the pressure hull cradled the forward end of the slim trailing 90,000 ton S70 warp nacelle. The mono-cylindrar warp field was a tricky beast to manage, and the crews generally compared the handling qualities of their ships to quicksilver, although apparently the origins of the class name were more pompously rooted in Roman mythology and the 20th century US space program.
Some 72 ships of the class were completed for reconnaissance duty either near Earth or at forward staging area dockyards that were being built to support the deployed fleets. All were deployed in deep space on missions of as long as six months, despite the cramped conditions of the compact hulls. Starfleet soon began to enjoy the profits of their investment as the new vessels brought in data on Romulan fleet movements. It was not as widely announced that six vessels were lost between June 2156 and June 2157 alone, with more casualties to follow. The locations of major Romulan planetary bases were not established, either, despite many risky deployments of single or three-ship Mercury scout units behind enemy ‘lines’.
About 50 scouts did survive the war, and 20 of them were recommissioned as UFP Starfleet vessels, enjoying twenty years of service in the patrol forces in the Romulan Neutral Zone. The ships were unsuited to the science scout role, however, suffering from poor endurance and the inability to carry new instrumentation for survey missions. None were upgraded during their UFP Starfleet service, save for the installation of modern subspace radios and navigation beacons.
Currently, two Mercuries survive in the Fleet Museum, albeit deprived of their warp nacelles. A dozen were converted into civilian couriers after their final decommissioning, featuring more modern commercially available navigational deflectors and omitting the weaponry and most of the sensors. Automation further reduced the crew numbers, but the challenges of the single trailing nacelle required expert spacemanship from the remaining crew. This only served to attract and encourage starship enthusiasts, some of whom still keep Mercuries in sailing condition for annual regattas in the Bolian system.