[CODA] Galaxy Class Refit Program

[Cut]

Galaxy Class Refit Program
Utopia Planitia Ship Yards, Mars

With hold of production of the class due to the Dominion War and an unsure future for the design the „Frontier-class Research Team“ around Engineer Dr. Leah Brahms became available for other tasks.

For quite a time Dr. Brahms had wittnessed the decay of reputation of one of her first design approaches - the Galaxy-class Explorer.

During the War, the remaining prefabricated hulls of the class had been pressed into service, filled with only the barest accomodations and maximum filled with shield emmiters and weapons payloads.

Although these „Galaxy-behemoths“ fared quite well in the course of the war and even wings of remaining ships took part in the most important battles of the war, the class seemed to be near the end of it’s production life.

An uncertain faith awaited the five still operational vessels of the Galaxy-class.

Dr. Brahm, very much troubled by the thougt, that some of the specifications developed by her and the other junior teammates during the design process back in the 2350‘s, seemed to be that flawed, hoped for a chance to once again lay hands on the class and do something that would give the Galaxy class a new push in the right direction.

Still positivley convinced of the merits of the class she and a hand-picked team, quietly begann setting up simulations, refit schedules and modifications of all the major systems in order of effectivly battling all the glitches that had surfaced so far.

Bringing to use her good relationship with LtCmdr LaForge of the Starship Enterprise she had first hand information regarding the performance of the class in a variaty of different mission profiles and tight situations.

With the DW won but the fleet being in shackles, Starfleet had to rebuild in the fastest possible way.

A lot of new classes were hurried through development but older classes were revisited and upgraded and pressed into service again. Sometimes with only some basic technological upgrading sometime all new approaches were taken, like with the newest Excelsior Design (see full documentation in Excelsior III class thread).

Now Starfleet had to decide wheater to discontinue the production of the class or give it one more chance.

This was the moment Dr. Brahms and her team decided to speak up:

Offering their pre-arranged work to the right admirals at Starfleet Command, the team got approval to the experiment.

Having been patched together during the course of the war more often than deemed secure, U.S.S. Venture should be the test vessel for all new system implementations.

If successful all other remaining hulls should be refitted and/or brought up to specs (in case of the Galaxy-class behemoths) and limited production of the line should continue according to original planing.

Dr. Brahms invited Venture’s centauran Chief Engineer Tessa Jeniston to join her team to get more hands-on information on performance of the Galaxy-class refits in troublesome situations encountered before and during the DW.

The refit took the better part of a year and the U.S.S. Venture was finally launched at christmas eve of the year 2376, with Tessa Jeniston once again on boeard as Chief Engineer to see the implemented changes working.

Due to the problems encountered during the history of the class, a lot of space and effort has been placed into the Operations and Sensor systems to ensure best possible performance and reliability as well as easy and fast handling.

The warp nacelle configuration was kept but the warp core was replaced with a newer, more efficient model, resulting in a higher sustainable speed.

Considerations to upgrade the phaser arrays or torpedo systems were dropped. All of the weapon systems had been very reliable in the past and the team focused more on troubleshooting than on giving the ship a more powerful punch.

The last major modification was the installation of yet another shield system. Not happy with the performance of the installed system, it was decided - after long hours of projections and simulations - to install the more effective FSS Regenerative Shield generator. To be able to do so the ships cargo capacity was stripped down.

To the great satisfaction of the team the FSS worked extraordinary well on the hull configuration giving the refit a very powerful shielding.

The ship’s registry was changed to NX-71854 in order to reflect the experimental status, but it is expected, that Starfleet will recommision the ship after a shakedown cruise and some minor last-minute modifications.


Starfleet Galaxy-Class Explorer Upgrade II
Launched (U.S.S. Venture) 2376

Reduce Cargo Capacity to 80 units.

Replace/with:

Operations & LifeSupport: Class 4R - 10 sp - EE

Sensors: Class 5 - 5 sp - F

Warp Drive: LF-45 - 6 sp - E - (6/9,6/9,9)

Shields: FSS* - 16 sp - E - (17/5) *regenerative

[BouncyCaitian]

hmm...cool. I was thinking something along these lines...buta bit more evil...or at least amusing.

[Cut]

Originally posted by BouncyCaitian
hmm...cool. I was thinking something along these lines...buta bit more evil...or at least amusing.

Wanted to avoid anything evil, you see
But I'm interested in the amusing part...any suggestions?

[BouncyCaitian]

This program was initiated by sections of Starfleet Command's RD&E and Procurement after the first ten disastrous years of the Galaxy Program in over which half of the initial production run of the Galaxy Class had been lost to various circumstances.

Many of the best and the brightest who had worked on the project had been smarting over the rate of ships being destroyed, but most were horrified at the high loss of life and were taken aback by the venom directed at them from certain sections of Fleet Command and the general public, who began to assign a 'curse' to the class.

It certainly didn't help morale when cadets were noted cringing when they heard they were being assigned to one of the seven remaining Galaxy's. Other R&D Sections began forwarding plans for newer vessels, such as the Ronin and Anemone classes, citing (correctly & not-so-correctly) the Galaxy's many (perceived) flaws, and the Galaxy class languished as Star Fleet Procurement began looking at other designs to replace the decidedly unpopular vessel.

By 2372, Star Fleet Command, realizing that they would not have another flagship class vessel design for at least several years, shook its collective head and dusted off the Galaxy and called back the original design team for an evaluation and potential refit project. Dr Leah Brahms, Head of the original Galaxy Project, had been itching for several years to try to salvage a rapidly disappearing reputation since the first Galaxy disaster with the U.S.S. Yamoto.

It also called in the cutting-edge computer contractors from Farranti Mnemonics, Erisaffe-Zynn Space Systems, and RCA for a blunt, ruthless evaluation of the Galaxy's computer and automation flaws, which made up the bulk of the problems when the ships met with disaster. The deliberate snub to Dr. Brahms did not go unnoticed by the Utopia Planitia RD&E section, and they redoubled their efforts to correct the massive list of flaws that had been cited in the reports.

After Action Reports on the loss of the two most recent Galaxy-class ships determined that a primary computer failure rendered the U.S.S. Ticonderoga's (lost at 2nd Battle of Earth Vs. Borg) primary weapons, defensive systems and navigation's suites useless as the backup systems could not be brought online fast enough to compensate before the Ticonderoga was obliterated by the Borg.

The U.S.S. Oddessy (lost after a Jem'Hadar attack craft made a suicide run into her), on the other hand, was proven to be lost due to combination of the computer systems displaying software errors when attempting to track Jem'Hadar vessels and arguable incompetence on the part of the crew.

The Enterprise was the most painful of the losses to UP RD&E, as it had been the fleet flagship, but the fact it had been destroyed by a B'rel class Bird of Prey, a definitive scow of an attack vessel by any stretch of the imagination. Most of the venom for the loss had been directed at the Enterprise Command crew for acts of arguable incompetence in dealing with the situation, but a healthy portion was reserved for Brahms as to why a century-old attack craft, even with it's tactical advantages, was able to cripple, much less destroy the fleet's flagship.

After running simulations from the Oddessy's logs, it was found that the systems being used on the Galaxy class, while very useful in normal running operations, proved to be too complex for even highly trained officers to correct and bypass during critical failure situations. In short, the ship was too advanced for it's own good.

Critics of the AAR's cited that the Enterprise-D had met such situations previous and managed to survive, but it was noted that Mr. Data had proven critical in helping correct the cascade failures that the Enterprise had had to deal with. Following this revelation, Starfleet made a demand to use a less-complex computer system and multiple redundant independent systems to compensate in case of computer core failure.

Dr Brahms protested that a less advanced system would not be able to handle the multiple tasks usually performed by the Galaxy's many sensors and science labs. Dr. Brahms was coldly rebuffed by the Oversite committee and told she would make it work, or she would be removed from the project. Given that the Federation was on a war footing and losses were high, and Procurement appeared to have nothing even remotely resembling a sense of humor, she decided not to press the point and work with what she had.

After a little digging, she found that the U.S.S. Bright Star (CKE-15290), a new Galaxy Class vessel was being constructed at the Yonaga-class space station ‘Mir’ (See attached security file) in the Pleiades cluster. Deciding it would take less time to work on a new space frame than refit an older one, she requested that she and her design team be transferred to Mir Station for oversight on the Bright Star.

Admiral T’Savvik, a long time proponent of the Galaxy design, but a healthy skeptic in light of the many problems the class had experienced, assigned a Starfleet Procurement RD&E Field Refit section to the project as well. Leading the team was Lt. Cmdr. ‘Dusty’ Malone, a hard-bitten and occasionally abrasive, but exceptionally competent Combat Engineer that had served aboard the U.S.S. Karl Von Clauswitz (NCC-10191) a predecessor to the Excalibur-class warship. Having been through enough critical situations and having engineered several improvements to the standard Federation warp core, T’Savvik felt Cmdr. Malone was more than sufficient to spot any potential problems.

To say that Dr. Brahms and Cmdr. Malone did not get along would have been an understatement. Dr. Brahms wasn’t used to her ideas being dismissed so readily. Malone’s Team had sent back Brahms suggested upgrades (and original templates) severely reworked. Or in Brahm’s opinion, ‘mutilated’.

The sense of frustration increased over several weeks for the UP design team as a majority of their work was thrown back at them with little fanfare. Of particular insult was a reworking of the ship’s interior to something that would have been more recognizable in the last century. Gone was the interior carpeting, smooth lines, and graceful curves that were designed to put people at rest and make the ship more comfortable to it’s crew.

When protesting vigorously to Malone, Malone’s blunt response chilled Brahms, “In case you hadn’t noticed, Doctor, we are in a war. Starfleet needs this ship to be survivable enough to act as a weapons and command platform for our fleets. After the war is over, assuming we survive, and those odd’s aren’t so good at the moment, you can fart up the interior as much as you like. But right here, right now, we need something that can give as well as it can take. I want to be able to explore the stars as much as anyone, but the Dominion is going to make that real difficult for us right now. This is a warship we’re building for the moment, and it needs to reliable. Come back when you haven’t put so much unstable crap in it and then we’ll talk. Or have you forgotten your baby’s lovely track record. Right? I thought so.”

Chastened and demoralized, Brahms nearly gave up in despair. But reports of the Fall of Betazed drove home Malone’s comments and she and her team resigned themselves to reconstructing the Galaxy frame to something considerably more robust…..


[Ed note: more to come....after I sleep on it a bit]

[Cut]

Okay...I can see where this is going *g* And as you might well have anticipated, I like my story about the turn of events a little bit more

Yours may be a little bit more realistic but minee fits better into the TNG kind of feel where your story goes more or less the DS9 approach...

I am ready to see more...after you`ve had time to rest!

[BouncyCaitian]

This program was initiated by sections of Starfleet Command's RD&E and Procurement after the first ten disastrous years of the Galaxy Program in over which half of the initial production run of the Galaxy Class had been lost to various circumstances.

Many of the best and the brightest who had worked on the project had been smarting over the rate of ships being destroyed, but most were horrified at the high loss of life and were taken aback by the venom directed at them from certain sections of Fleet Command and the general public, who began to assign a 'curse' to the class.

It certainly didn't help morale when cadets were noted cringing when they heard they were being assigned to one of the seven remaining Galaxy's. Other R&D Sections began forwarding plans for newer vessels, such as the Ronin and Anemone classes, citing (correctly & not-so-correctly) the Galaxy's many (perceived) flaws, and the Galaxy class languished as Star Fleet Procurement began looking at other designs to replace the decidedly unpopular vessel.

By 2372, Star Fleet Command, realizing that they would not have another flagship class vessel design for at least several years, shook its collective head and dusted off the Galaxy and called back the original design team for an evaluation and potential refit project. Dr Leah Brahms, Head of the original Galaxy Project, had been itching for several years to try to salvage a rapidly disappearing reputation since the first Galaxy disaster with the U.S.S. Yamoto.

It also called in the cutting-edge computer contractors from Farranti Mnemonics, Erisaffe-Zynn Space Systems, and RCA for a blunt, ruthless evaluation of the Galaxy's computer and automation flaws, which made up the bulk of the problems when the ships met with disaster. The deliberate snub to Dr. Brahms did not go unnoticed by the Utopia Planitia RD&E section, and they redoubled their efforts to correct the massive list of flaws that had been cited in the reports.

After Action Reports on the loss of the two most recent Galaxy-class ships determined that a primary computer failure rendered the U.S.S. Ticonderoga's (lost at 2nd Battle of Earth Vs. Borg) primary weapons, defensive systems and navigation's suites useless as the backup systems could not be brought online fast enough to compensate before the Ticonderoga was obliterated by the Borg.

The U.S.S. Oddessy (lost after a Jem'Hadar attack craft made a suicide run into her), on the other hand, was proven to be lost due to combination of the computer systems displaying software errors when attempting to track Jem'Hadar vessels and arguable incompetence on the part of the crew.

The Enterprise was the most painful of the losses to UP RD&E, as it had been the fleet flagship, but the fact it had been destroyed by a B'rel class Bird of Prey, a definitive scow of an attack vessel by any stretch of the imagination. Most of the venom for the loss had been directed at the Enterprise Command crew for acts of arguable incompetence in dealing with the situation, but a healthy portion was reserved for Brahms as to why a century-old attack craft, even with it's tactical advantages, was able to cripple, much less destroy the fleet's flagship.

After running simulations from the Oddessy's logs, it was found that the systems being used on the Galaxy class, while very useful in normal running operations, proved to be too complex for even highly trained officers to correct and bypass during critical failure situations. In short, the ship was too advanced for it's own good.

Critics of the AAR's cited that the Enterprise-D had met such situations previous and managed to survive, but it was noted that Mr. Data had proven critical in helping correct the cascade failures that the Enterprise had had to deal with. Following this revelation, Starfleet made a demand to use a less-complex computer system and multiple redundant independent systems to compensate in case of computer core failure.

Dr Brahms protested that a less advanced system would not be able to handle the multiple tasks usually performed by the Galaxy's many sensors and science labs. Dr. Brahms was coldly rebuffed by the Oversite committee and told she would make it work, or she would be removed from the project. Given that the Federation was on a war footing and losses were high, and Procurement appeared to have nothing even remotely resembling a sense of humor, she decided not to press the point and work with what she had.

After a little digging, she found that the U.S.S. Bright Star (CKE-15290), a new Galaxy Class vessel was being constructed at the Yonaga-class space station ‘Mir’ (See attached security file) in the Pleiades cluster. Deciding it would take less time to work on a new space frame than refit an older one, she requested that she and her design team be transferred to Mir Station for oversight on the Bright Star.

Admiral T’Savvik, a long time proponent of the Galaxy design, but a healthy skeptic in light of the many problems the class had experienced, assigned a Starfleet Procurement RD&E Field Refit section to the project as well. Leading the team was Lt. Cmdr. ‘Dusty’ Malone, a hard-bitten and occasionally abrasive, but exceptionally competent Combat Engineer that had served aboard the U.S.S. Karl Von Clauswitz (NCC-10191) a predecessor to the Excalibur-class warship. Having been through enough critical situations and having engineered several improvements to the standard Federation warp core, T’Savvik felt Cmdr. Malone was more than sufficient to spot any potential problems.

To say that Dr. Brahms and Cmdr. Malone did not get along would have been an understatement. Dr. Brahms wasn’t used to her ideas being dismissed so readily. Malone’s Team had sent back Brahms suggested upgrades (and original templates) severely reworked. Or in Brahm’s opinion, ‘mutilated’.

The sense of frustration increased over several weeks for the UP design team as a majority of their work was thrown back at them with little fanfare. Of particular insult was a reworking of the ship’s interior to something that would have been more recognizable in the last century. Gone was the interior carpeting, smooth lines, and graceful curves that were designed to put people at rest and make the ship more comfortable to it’s crew.

When protesting vigorously to Malone, Malone’s blunt response chilled Brahms, “In case you hadn’t noticed, Doctor, we are in a war. Starfleet needs this ship to be survivable enough to act as a weapons and command platform for our fleets. After the war is over, assuming we survive, and those odd’s aren’t so good at the moment, you can fart up the interior as much as you like. But right here, right now, we need something that can give as well as it can take. I want to be able to explore the stars as much as anyone, but the Dominion is going to make that real difficult for us right now. This is a warship we’re building for the moment, and it needs to reliable. Come back when you haven’t put so much unstable crap in it and then we’ll talk. Or have you forgotten your baby’s lovely track record. Right? I thought so.”

Chastened and demoralized, Brahms nearly gave up in despair. But reports of the Fall of Betazed drove home Malone’s comments and she and her team resigned themselves to reconstructing the Galaxy frame to something considerably more robust.

The first and most obvious problem to be dealt with was the primary and secondary war driven computer core which had proven to be the largest and most fatal problem in most of the disasters. Commander Malone suggested examination of the Anemone Project’s Distributed Data Network set up of bio-jell pack computer nodes laced throughout the ship and the wasted space in the interior refitted for dedicated scientific instrumentation processing power or expanded medical facilities, hydroponics, and general structural reinforcement.

Dr. Brahms was more than skeptical at the idea of the DDN, as it still was an unproven technology at the time, and RCA was less than forthcoming on releasing it’s network architecture information to potential competitors, and so dismissed the idea, saying the set up of the network would require more time as they would have to rearrange the ships interior to compensate for the nodes. Given the previous computer core problems, Star Fleet found this explanation less than satisfactory and ordered the refit to be expedited immediately, with RCA turning over the DDN templates to Brahms.

Dr. Brahms examined the network and realized that the technology was a stroke of genius with each node containing a small warp field booster that fed off of the ship’s own field, making up for the loss in efficiency with the lack of a centralized computer core. The system had also been designed along the lines of a massive parallel neural net processor, giving it unprecedented flexibility and ability to compensate for system damage. The resemblance to the Borg’s own network architecture was not lost on her, but after examining the Anemone’s trial records, she conceded on the DDN setup.

Installation of the DDN went faster than expected as the 130 nodes placed through out the primary hull, and 170 in the secondary hull were designed for quick installation and only minor structural changes were needed to complete the set up. Considering that the hull was still mostly open for component installation, the refit only took two weeks for installation and OS calibration. A minor peculiarity during installation was that system synchronization occurred at some 75% faster than anticipated for the component installation, as well as the occasional ‘phantom’ systems check seemingly initiated by no one aboard station or the ship’s bridge. The problem was later attributed to several maintenance files found stored on one of the tertiary computer cores that instructed the system to run diagnostics when system resources reached a certain low threshold.

Hammering out that little quirk, Malone’s team begin installing the major software and hardware upgrade packages received from Valdermar NCS Inc to the navigational suite. Some initial bugs in the software were corrected by the DDN’s self-correcting subsystems and the navigational array was rated as some 23.72% higher in efficiency and clarity. Various other systems, such as the Cloaking Generation, Penetration, and Counter-Measures Systems Array from Hycor, the new FCS and Shielding systems from Raakuv and A'Alakon Landiss of Andor, and several other systems settled in with only minor incident.

Of some curiosity was the cycling of the various frequencies of the new regenerative shields by the ship’s computer when the system was initially turned on. RCA techs, along with Dr. Brahms eventually discovered that the self-correcting smart-frame algorythm in the ship’s Operating System had set up a testing protocol for the sheilds. Without any sentient input that could be detected.

More than a bit nervous at this revelation, Dr. Brahms asked the design team if they had designed an A.I., in direct violation of Starfleet protocols. Dr. Ali Al-Hamoud, indignant and annoyed at the insinuation, responded tartly that if she bothered to read the specifications for the DDN, she would have found that all of the nodes came preloaded with a rigorously tested smart-frame application approved by Starfleet, designed to self-correct errors and set up applications to diagnose potential problems and inform the person associated with that particular component. Considering that she wasn’t in charge of the shield array, the information had gone to the chief engineer (who had been too preoccupied with the warp matrix to answer her enquiry’s).

The Bright Star’s construction proceeded apace with little fanfare, with only the occasional question mark coming up on Dr. Brahm’s radar (such as three levels in where the primary data core had been completely sealed off to her and her team, and Malone’s team staying completely tight lipped on the subject), and the oddities of the DDN becoming normal fare. Mir Station’s construction crews were fast and efficient, working around the clock to get the Bright Star online as fast as possible.

When her refit was completed and the last touches added, the crew of the Bright Star filtered in slowly as well as a subdued Admiral’s staff, headed by T’Savvik. The captain, one John T. Sherman, was an affiable sort, but looked far too young in Leah’s eyes for the position. T’Savvik dismissed her concerns and had the Bright Star launch with minimal ceremony. T’Savvik explained that drawing too much attention to the ship would draw the Dominion’s notice to the design changes, thus spoiling some of the surprises they had in store for them. Leah resented that he creation had been turned into a weapon of war. T’Savvik, her eyes cool, nodded and said that she would have preferred the Constutition class not have been armed for combat, but the world often didn’t work out the way she wanted, so she didn’t complain much.

Leah at this point has resigned herself to taking in the field reports from the front as the Bright Star continues her trials. Performance reports have been better than expected as well as crew feedback, so Leah takes solace in that her creation appears to be been redeemed.

[Cut]

You've given the matter some thought, haven't you?!

Still I'm more into my own version of events but I think that somehow this ship has now two different kind of backgrounds to chose from... Something special for a special ship

[Jesse Heinig]

Those of you who enjoy hypothetical Galaxy-class refits and designs will be happy to know that Doug Sun recently wrote the Galaxy-X-class (the "future Enterprise" from All Good Things) for an upcoming book.

J.H.

[BouncyCaitian]

ooooh....Thank's for the Tidbit Jesse

[Cut]

Looking forward to seeing it.

[Antonsb214]

Ok, seems that ya'll have been keeping score, which Galaxy class ships died on screen and what were the circumstances....
I remember the Odyssey was rammed by Jem'Hadar, that would have taken out most ships.
Enterprise is taken out by a BOP, they should have made that at least a Vor'Cha, wouldn't feel so bad about it.
The Yamato had a computer virus which caused a catastrophic warp core breach.
Of course we see plenty of other classes take a bashing, especially the poor Miranda-class.

[Snake_Plissken]

Enterprise is taken out by a BOP, they should have made that at least a Vor'Cha, wouldn't feel so bad about it.

You have to remember that the Duras sisters held a huge advantage over the Enterprise in that they were able to turn the engineering chief into a spy without him knowing. They were thus able to figure out the Enterprise's shield modulation frequency, thus renderind the ship's shields absolutely useless. In a straight stand-up fight the BOP wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes.

[BouncyCaitian]

The Miranda has the ecuse of being older than dirt by the time of TNG.

The Galaxy at the time of deployment of the original six had an absurdly high loss rate. Navies tend to be conservative when implimenting new ships and even if the loss is explainable, reputations tend to get attached to vessel classes, even if undeserved. The refit was an attempt by Starfleet to correct real and imagined errors in the Galaxy system. Whether or not it works....is up to the GM in question