Overview[]
Following the destruction of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D in the 'Battle of Veridian III' in 2371, it was decided to commission one of the newly built Sovereign-Class Starships as the sixth Starship Enterprise. As part of Starfleet tradition dating back nearly 100 years, as a tribute to the original Constitution-Class Enterprise, the Admiralty of Starfleet made a special dispensation that all future starships named the "Enterprise" would always bear the original ship's registry NCC-1701 with the last letter would designate the model; in this case the letter E at the end of the construction code.
As a Sovereign-Class Starship, the Enterprise-E is the most powerful vessel yet constructed by Starfleet for the United Federation of Planets in the 24th Century. It's immediate predecessor, the Galaxy-Class Starships were excellent ships for their era of relatively peaceful exploration; but were less suitable as warships. Facing an ever increasing array of hostile threats, the Enterprise-E exemplified Starfleet's new design philosophy which emphasized improved survivability with stronger offensive and defensive capabilities. Harkening back to the old style Explorers Starships, the Enterprise-E does not feature any family passengers or civilians onboard. It's primary purpose is tactical and combat missions in addition to being a long range explorer and can function up to 7 years with minimal support.
Technical Specifications[]
- CLASS: Sovereign-Class Starship
- TYPE: Deep Space Explorer
- OVERALL LENGTH: 685.3 meters (2,248 feet)
- OVERALL BEAM: 250.6 meters (822 feet)
- OVERALL DRAFT: 88.2 meters (289 feet)
- MASS: 3,500,000 metric tons
- DISPLACEMENT: 3,205,000 metric tons
- DECKS: 29
- CREW COMPLEMENT: 855 persons
- CRUISING SPEED: Warp 6
- MAXIMUM SPEED: Warp 9.7
Design Features[]
Like most Starfleet designs of the 23rd and 24th Century, the Enterprise-E is no different in that it consists of two separate hulls connected by a "neck"; a saucer section (also known as the primary hull) and an engineering section (also known as the secondary hull) that has the two warp nacelles mounted to it via pylons. Unlike it's predecessor, the Enterprise-E has a much more rakish and streamlined appearance as it was discovered that the extended "neck" of earlier designs was a very vulnerable spot to kamikaze hostile forces such as the Dominion.
As with traditional Starfleet designs, the saucer section of the Enterprise-E contains the bridge module as well as the main living quarters for the officers and crew. Various other facilities including gymnasiums, recreation areas, observation lounges, mess halls were included in the saucer section. The Enterprise-E also contained state-of-the-art replicators. Thanks to advances in transporter technology in the 24th Century; replicators utilized the ability to quantum scan matter and hold this scan in memory. Upon command, the replicator would download the quantum scan and then covert the energy into matter, literally materializing it out of "thin air". Through this process, the crew was able to create whatever kind of food or drink on demand (as long as it was in the computer memory); machine parts; uniforms; and various other objects as well. The replicators could also reverse the process and break down discarded trash and waste which it could "recycle" to reuse. The only real cost for replicators were energy.
Special Features[]
Like its' predecessor, the Enterprise-E has the ability to detach the saucer and the engineering hulls into two separate autonomous space-going vehicles and later reattach themselves without external or outside assistance. This feature was designed for more tactical purposes than the Galaxy-Class Enterprise as the Enterprise-E had no civilians to evacuate and would dramatically increase the maneuverability of the engineering hull for combat operations. The engineering section possessed the full range of warp drive capability, impulse drive, and the majority of the tactical weapons including the phaser arrays and the torpedo launchers.
The saucer section was armed with its own set of phasers and torpedo launchers but was restricted to impulse drive only. The saucer section was capable of making a survivable crashlanding on a planet in the event of an emergency as well.
Although this capability was described in certain notes involving the Enterprise-E, it was never shown in canon.
History[]
Enterprise-D vs. Borg Cube
Originally conceived in 2365, the Sovereign-Class was intended to serve as a heavy cruiser explorer vessel for Starfleet. Smaller in scale than the premiere Galaxy-Class Starships, the Sovereigns were intended to have a strong balance between both exploration and defense; similar to the Constitution-Class Starships a century ago. However that all changed when the Enterprise-D encountered the alien civilization known as the Borg.
After the horrifying report from Captain Picard, Starfleet immediately decided that Sovereign design would have to be overhauled with a major strengthening of its defensive and offensive capabilities.
The early redesigns which were intended to miniaturize the raw firepower of a Galaxy-Class Starship into a smaller spaceframe came to a crashing halt in 2367. The 'Battle of Wolf 359' saw the massacre of 40 starships to a single Borg Cube with the Enterprise-D proved to be of minimal effectiveness. Shaken by the assault, Starfleet ordered a design freeze on the Sovereigns and sought a massive quantum leap in weapon and defensive technologies. This resulted in the Defiant and Prometheus Programs which provided several breakthroughs in technology that the Sovereign-Class quickly incorporated as well as the new bio-neural computer packs developed for the Intrepid-Class Starships.
The prototype testbed and lead vessel, the USS Sovereign was launched in 2370 but its early shakedown trials proved a disappointing failure in the new regenerative shielding. It wasn't until almost a year later when Captain Montgomery Scott joined the engineering teams and was able to successfully resolve the issue that Starfleet pushed forward the construction contract for a series of Sovereign-Class Starships.
Captain Morgan Bateson
The first starship of the production run Sovereign-Class was assembled under the direction of Captain Morgan Bateson with Montgomery Scott serving as the Project Engineer. This ship was originally planned to be christened the USS Honorious upon completion. Several months later when the Enterprise-D was destroyed, this prompted Starfleet to alter their plans and re-dedicated the new vessel as the next Enterprise. Bateson and Scott arranged for several parts from the salvaged debris of the Enterprise-D to be incorporated into the Enterprise-E as a way of honoring the previous Enterprise.
The Enterprise-E was completed and subsequently launched in 2372 under the temporary command of Bateson with numerous crew members from the Enterprise-D having transferred to serve aboard the new ship. Many of the crew members including Commander Riker, Deanna Troi, Data, and Geordi LaForge were anticipating that Captain Picard would be the new commander and were dismayed that Bateson had been given the captaincy for the shakedown cruise of the Enterprise-E instead and apparently, would also continue to serve as her captain following the successful completion of the shakedown cruise.
The newly commissioned starship was originally intended to participate in a series of shakedown trials and wargames. Bateson decided however to deliberately set these wargames near the Klingon borders as a way of "showing of the flag" due to the Klingon Empire's deteriorating diplomatic relations with the Federation. A renegade Klingon Commander Kozara, an old enemy of Bateson learns of this and cunningly arranges for the ship to be sabotaged beforehand. Kozara is then able to take the Enterprise-E by surprise and captures the ship and its crew. Kozara intends to spark another war by using the Enterprise-E to attack the Cardassians who have been threatening the Klingon Empire and thus killing two birds with one stone. The Cardassians will blame the Federation and a war between these two star nations will weaken them, leaving the Klingon Empire all the stronger.
Fortunately Kozara did not take into account Montgomery Scott whose technical knowledge of the starship enabled him to escape and free several of the crew as well as sabotage the engines and alert Starfleet to the situation. Learning of the emergency, Captain Jean-Luc Picard is able to put together a scratch force to retake the Enterprise-E and subsequently is given command of the new ship by Starfleet.
The Enterprise-E quickly distinguished itself in the second Borg incursion of 2373 and time traveled to the 21st Century to protect Zefram Cochrane's historic test flight of the warp drive which directly led to First Contact with the Vulcans. The Enterprise-E would subsequently undergo a major refit afterwards to repair the massive damage and infestation from the Borg and a major augmentation to its tactical systems with several more phaser banks, five more torpedo launchers which would necessitated an enlargement of the engineering section and increased its deck layout from 24 to a total of 29.
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E)
During the Dominion War, the Enterprise-E was assigned to Federation Diplomatic Corps as a powerful diplomatic symbol and emissary to various cultures and races, helping to convince them to ally or join on the behalf of the Federation's war efforts. Captain Picard temporarily diverted the Enterprise-E to intervene in a hostage situation involving the Ba'ku, a peaceful and seemingly primitive race in the Briar Patch involving Starfleet and the Son'a research team who had been studying the race.
Picard and the crew would discover that Starfleet had been purposefully misled and that the Son'a were in fact, exiled members of the Ba'ku.
See Also[]
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