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Doing my own sort of Jayne's entry for the new miracle worker ships
antonine3258
Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
in Ten Forward
They're weird big, and can do crazy things - thinking about these in universe was an exercise to get some creative juices flowing, hope people enjoy the read!
*
Excerpt from "The Post-War 'Miracles'" part of the Oxford Press 'Ships after the Sphere' series - 2417 initial publication date.
The end of the Iconian War was met with celebration at peace, but it was a peace that nearly killed the Alliance members.
The strategic difficulties encountered by the Alliance are well-understood to even a casual scholar of the conflict. The Iconian gateway technology had given no front lines or borders to concentrate force on during the war. Given their possession of the resources of a fully active Dyson sphere, the Heralds had not needed to seize resource sites, personnel, or production facilities to continue their rampage. While the Alliance was able to concentrate force on strong points to continue their campaign, smaller colonies worlds were burned, Herald ships dancing away from retaliation.
At the end of the world, the major worlds were damaged, while the infrastructure of worlds still being tamed had been shattered. The economy of many worlds collapsed, and many colonies suffered the threats of starvation. The connections between many worlds had been cut, with Federation civilian freight at its lowest hull/population ratio since the Tomed Incident. The Alliance fleet yards were also in shambles, with many of the smaller slips and dockyards destroyed.
The resentment and anger of the failed promises of Alliance defense forces to guard its citizens was enflamed by the effects of Na'kuhl and pirate raids on both supply and evacuation convoys, while the Alliance seemingly was involved in a dreadnought race instead of constructing the light escorts needed to rebulid the trade lanes and bring back prosperity.
Alliance Command was caught on the horns of dilemma. Most of the remaining slips had capital ships which had been been ordered and started before or during the recent wars, or were repairs and upgrades of crippled ships using lessons learned from those conflicts. Much of the materiel had also been ordered and was in the pipeline for delivery. While small ships of 'replicator grade' (the so called Mark 0 escort) could be produced quickly, their usefulness had rapidly diminished after the threats revealed after the return of the Borg. Technology matching the Borg or Iconian-provided schematics required specialized training, resources, and servicing.
There were also concerns about manpower with recent conflicts - the officer corps was depleted to where recent Academy graduates were in command of fleets. Larger ships, per displacement ton, required less crew, and were able to carry workshops and fabricators to handle their own maintenance better, providing more time on station, and less skill on the part of each individual crewmember.
The Alliance felt the threats of the immediate post-Iconian era justified their strategy. Na'kuhl ships were crude things by their era, but centuries in the past the terrorists were a threat to all but ships carrying the most advanced technology. While the fortunate discovery of K-13 provided a critically located base along the axis of advance during the Protomatter Conflict, the Tzenkethi were noticeably quiet along the Bajoran sectors. In retrospect, it became obvious they were hesitant to even deploy ships within range of the Alliance's newly built heavy ships - the Second Battle of the Briar Patch was a disaster for the Tzenkethi, against the forces of a single Great House.
However, Alliance civilian and military leadership were not ignorant of the complaints of their citizens. While the Alliance was meeting its defensive obligations in this time of great strain, it was clear something had to be done to improve public perception.
The first of these projects was a rapid expansion of technology distribution. Many small yards were capable of producing line-capable ships that had previously done system-defense or even civilian work. While there was a noticeable improvement in the quality of pirates, this 'ease of access' focused civilian activism against their own member worlds to buy better defense ships, reducing the pressure on Alliance leadership, while also helping make up for the loss of smaller Fleet-owned shipyards until they could be rebuilt.
The second was a new series of ships of a type that had been previously proposed by Starfleet Corps of Engineers before the Klingon war. Dedicated disaster relief ships had previously been small designs, or explicitly hospital ships. SCE were looking for ships to handle large-scale infrastructure failures or exotic disasters like corona ejections, with large teams of cross-trained engineers and extensive fabrication capacity. While standard designs could provide assistance, SCE was famous for its level of innovation to be able to rapidly counter a wide-range of threats on the frontier, but often their designs outstripped their capcity.
Alliance Command was looking for a PR victory, and also ways to speed up the pace of rebuilding - both for the sake of the citizens and the overall economy, which was still in danger of a cascading collapse. The lack of sensor outposts and starbases was also a major concern for internal security.
Designers were told to utilize preordered materiel diverted from the capital ship pipelines, to help answer budget complaints on the dreadnought race and speed design by using established systems. SCE (and similar 'special mission groups' in the Klingon Empire and nascnet Republic) had been anticipating a ship the size of a large science ship, such as the multi-mission explorers. What emerged was a new breed of cruiser, of the largest size yet for ships that could be designated of the type.
The emergency relief ships (dubbed the 'miracle workers' early on by a press wag, a name that stuck) were constructed of similar scale to the latest capital ships such as the Yamato, Ty'Gokor, or Flambard designs. These massive ships required four of the latest nacelle designs to propel them, but the similarities to dreadnought design stopped there. In the eyes of most armchair tactical observers, these blunt-prowed ships seemed like a flying boondoggle.
While the ships massive secondary hulls gave them the bulk for excellent hull integrity, the space devoted to enhanced targeting sensors and pre-fire boosters were given over to engineering workshops and design spaces. Despite their power generation capacity, they were lacking in heavy assault lance weaponry. To provide easier access for shuttles carrying supplies, they lacked the fighter-shuttle fabricators common to most heavy ships designed in this period. And even without these high-mass systems, their thruster and maneuvering capacity in real space were barely considered acceptable by most captains. As was common for many of the high-end ships of this period, each ship was to some degree unique, with each individual yard taking the design to some emphasis on tactical, deflector, or operational capacity. While the distributed computer cores gave extra flexibility, bridge control of science and tactical systems was often worse compared to cruisers of a generation before.
To the Alliance, however, these were never considered as fleet flagships, and their tactical capacities were considered acceptable in light of their strategic strengths. While many in all the superpowers would like each new ship to be the best, the realities of interstellar governments over hundreds of light years have other requirements. The concentrated ingenuity of their specialist crews, the massive supplies that could be carried, and the labs to combine the two were the point of the ship, not its phaser banks.
Despite these intents, the unsettled period provided several early battle reports that surprised many observers. While the dedication of crew, the psychology of the captain, and skill of officers often exceed what raw capacity provided by technology, even most professional observers had discounted the mad results of that many engineers in close proximity left to their own supervision.
A good example is the Klingon cruiser IKS Tavana, deployed on a three month mission to rebuild topaline mines and remote sensor posts along the Romulan frontier. True Way raiders attacked the ship with a squadron of late-model Galors and a Keldon command vessel in the T'vok asteroid belt, intent on securing the valuable heavy construction equipment to buy more support on the Cardassian colonies.
Caught at low speed and unable to find a clear warp vector, the captain was forced to engage, deploying the engineering teams to reinforce his own crew. They were irritably told to help out how they could.
Shortly thereafter, the captain was shocked to suddenly see another Tavana appear and ram the lead Galor, the extra ship winking out in a blink of photonic energy before the Galor lost antimatter containment in a fiery explosion. Though the exact sequence of procedures has never been reconstructed, somehow, the engineering team had taken advantage of local mineral content in the asteroids and excess energy in the weapon capacitors to create a stable holographic copy of the ship.
Still possessing an upper hand, but keeping a larger distance, the Cardassians continued their attack, but their next round of fire was ineffective - somehow the engineering team had guessed the correct frequnecies to effectively create a shield layer to counteract their phasers. Their own shields were being drained under the Tavana's conventional disruptors.
The Galors rapidly cycled their weaapon frequnecies, and in desperation, the Keldon activated its own photonic capacity - creating a fleet of powerful but fragile vessels. Shortly thereafter, they winked out - the Tavana's disruptors temporoarily creating a cascading corrosive effect.
At this, the True Way's nerve broke. The Klingons' blood up, they pursued and were able to capture the Keldon in a boarding action, helping break the True Way cell that had been operating in the area for eighteen months. Interrogation of the Tavana's crew was less helpful - the enhancements were temporary, adapting equipment to strain under very specific conditions, and even then, several engineers had perished as their innovations fell apart under the strain.
Regardless, other ships reported similar amazing results in high-stress situations, though somewhat to the frustration of captains, they showed little consistency or resilience in these wonder-adaptations, they ensured the 'miracle worker' designation even started to appear on official reports.
These early results led to increased orders, with the 'miracle worker' ships becoming more common in the main fleets of the Alliance, serving to help build up the advancing fleet's infrastructure as well as a fleet of frieghters while still serving as a quirky equal to other ships in the line of battle.
*
*
Excerpt from "The Post-War 'Miracles'" part of the Oxford Press 'Ships after the Sphere' series - 2417 initial publication date.
The end of the Iconian War was met with celebration at peace, but it was a peace that nearly killed the Alliance members.
The strategic difficulties encountered by the Alliance are well-understood to even a casual scholar of the conflict. The Iconian gateway technology had given no front lines or borders to concentrate force on during the war. Given their possession of the resources of a fully active Dyson sphere, the Heralds had not needed to seize resource sites, personnel, or production facilities to continue their rampage. While the Alliance was able to concentrate force on strong points to continue their campaign, smaller colonies worlds were burned, Herald ships dancing away from retaliation.
At the end of the world, the major worlds were damaged, while the infrastructure of worlds still being tamed had been shattered. The economy of many worlds collapsed, and many colonies suffered the threats of starvation. The connections between many worlds had been cut, with Federation civilian freight at its lowest hull/population ratio since the Tomed Incident. The Alliance fleet yards were also in shambles, with many of the smaller slips and dockyards destroyed.
The resentment and anger of the failed promises of Alliance defense forces to guard its citizens was enflamed by the effects of Na'kuhl and pirate raids on both supply and evacuation convoys, while the Alliance seemingly was involved in a dreadnought race instead of constructing the light escorts needed to rebulid the trade lanes and bring back prosperity.
Alliance Command was caught on the horns of dilemma. Most of the remaining slips had capital ships which had been been ordered and started before or during the recent wars, or were repairs and upgrades of crippled ships using lessons learned from those conflicts. Much of the materiel had also been ordered and was in the pipeline for delivery. While small ships of 'replicator grade' (the so called Mark 0 escort) could be produced quickly, their usefulness had rapidly diminished after the threats revealed after the return of the Borg. Technology matching the Borg or Iconian-provided schematics required specialized training, resources, and servicing.
There were also concerns about manpower with recent conflicts - the officer corps was depleted to where recent Academy graduates were in command of fleets. Larger ships, per displacement ton, required less crew, and were able to carry workshops and fabricators to handle their own maintenance better, providing more time on station, and less skill on the part of each individual crewmember.
The Alliance felt the threats of the immediate post-Iconian era justified their strategy. Na'kuhl ships were crude things by their era, but centuries in the past the terrorists were a threat to all but ships carrying the most advanced technology. While the fortunate discovery of K-13 provided a critically located base along the axis of advance during the Protomatter Conflict, the Tzenkethi were noticeably quiet along the Bajoran sectors. In retrospect, it became obvious they were hesitant to even deploy ships within range of the Alliance's newly built heavy ships - the Second Battle of the Briar Patch was a disaster for the Tzenkethi, against the forces of a single Great House.
However, Alliance civilian and military leadership were not ignorant of the complaints of their citizens. While the Alliance was meeting its defensive obligations in this time of great strain, it was clear something had to be done to improve public perception.
The first of these projects was a rapid expansion of technology distribution. Many small yards were capable of producing line-capable ships that had previously done system-defense or even civilian work. While there was a noticeable improvement in the quality of pirates, this 'ease of access' focused civilian activism against their own member worlds to buy better defense ships, reducing the pressure on Alliance leadership, while also helping make up for the loss of smaller Fleet-owned shipyards until they could be rebuilt.
The second was a new series of ships of a type that had been previously proposed by Starfleet Corps of Engineers before the Klingon war. Dedicated disaster relief ships had previously been small designs, or explicitly hospital ships. SCE were looking for ships to handle large-scale infrastructure failures or exotic disasters like corona ejections, with large teams of cross-trained engineers and extensive fabrication capacity. While standard designs could provide assistance, SCE was famous for its level of innovation to be able to rapidly counter a wide-range of threats on the frontier, but often their designs outstripped their capcity.
Alliance Command was looking for a PR victory, and also ways to speed up the pace of rebuilding - both for the sake of the citizens and the overall economy, which was still in danger of a cascading collapse. The lack of sensor outposts and starbases was also a major concern for internal security.
Designers were told to utilize preordered materiel diverted from the capital ship pipelines, to help answer budget complaints on the dreadnought race and speed design by using established systems. SCE (and similar 'special mission groups' in the Klingon Empire and nascnet Republic) had been anticipating a ship the size of a large science ship, such as the multi-mission explorers. What emerged was a new breed of cruiser, of the largest size yet for ships that could be designated of the type.
The emergency relief ships (dubbed the 'miracle workers' early on by a press wag, a name that stuck) were constructed of similar scale to the latest capital ships such as the Yamato, Ty'Gokor, or Flambard designs. These massive ships required four of the latest nacelle designs to propel them, but the similarities to dreadnought design stopped there. In the eyes of most armchair tactical observers, these blunt-prowed ships seemed like a flying boondoggle.
While the ships massive secondary hulls gave them the bulk for excellent hull integrity, the space devoted to enhanced targeting sensors and pre-fire boosters were given over to engineering workshops and design spaces. Despite their power generation capacity, they were lacking in heavy assault lance weaponry. To provide easier access for shuttles carrying supplies, they lacked the fighter-shuttle fabricators common to most heavy ships designed in this period. And even without these high-mass systems, their thruster and maneuvering capacity in real space were barely considered acceptable by most captains. As was common for many of the high-end ships of this period, each ship was to some degree unique, with each individual yard taking the design to some emphasis on tactical, deflector, or operational capacity. While the distributed computer cores gave extra flexibility, bridge control of science and tactical systems was often worse compared to cruisers of a generation before.
To the Alliance, however, these were never considered as fleet flagships, and their tactical capacities were considered acceptable in light of their strategic strengths. While many in all the superpowers would like each new ship to be the best, the realities of interstellar governments over hundreds of light years have other requirements. The concentrated ingenuity of their specialist crews, the massive supplies that could be carried, and the labs to combine the two were the point of the ship, not its phaser banks.
Despite these intents, the unsettled period provided several early battle reports that surprised many observers. While the dedication of crew, the psychology of the captain, and skill of officers often exceed what raw capacity provided by technology, even most professional observers had discounted the mad results of that many engineers in close proximity left to their own supervision.
A good example is the Klingon cruiser IKS Tavana, deployed on a three month mission to rebuild topaline mines and remote sensor posts along the Romulan frontier. True Way raiders attacked the ship with a squadron of late-model Galors and a Keldon command vessel in the T'vok asteroid belt, intent on securing the valuable heavy construction equipment to buy more support on the Cardassian colonies.
Caught at low speed and unable to find a clear warp vector, the captain was forced to engage, deploying the engineering teams to reinforce his own crew. They were irritably told to help out how they could.
Shortly thereafter, the captain was shocked to suddenly see another Tavana appear and ram the lead Galor, the extra ship winking out in a blink of photonic energy before the Galor lost antimatter containment in a fiery explosion. Though the exact sequence of procedures has never been reconstructed, somehow, the engineering team had taken advantage of local mineral content in the asteroids and excess energy in the weapon capacitors to create a stable holographic copy of the ship.
Still possessing an upper hand, but keeping a larger distance, the Cardassians continued their attack, but their next round of fire was ineffective - somehow the engineering team had guessed the correct frequnecies to effectively create a shield layer to counteract their phasers. Their own shields were being drained under the Tavana's conventional disruptors.
The Galors rapidly cycled their weaapon frequnecies, and in desperation, the Keldon activated its own photonic capacity - creating a fleet of powerful but fragile vessels. Shortly thereafter, they winked out - the Tavana's disruptors temporoarily creating a cascading corrosive effect.
At this, the True Way's nerve broke. The Klingons' blood up, they pursued and were able to capture the Keldon in a boarding action, helping break the True Way cell that had been operating in the area for eighteen months. Interrogation of the Tavana's crew was less helpful - the enhancements were temporary, adapting equipment to strain under very specific conditions, and even then, several engineers had perished as their innovations fell apart under the strain.
Regardless, other ships reported similar amazing results in high-stress situations, though somewhat to the frustration of captains, they showed little consistency or resilience in these wonder-adaptations, they ensured the 'miracle worker' designation even started to appear on official reports.
These early results led to increased orders, with the 'miracle worker' ships becoming more common in the main fleets of the Alliance, serving to help build up the advancing fleet's infrastructure as well as a fleet of frieghters while still serving as a quirky equal to other ships in the line of battle.
*
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
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