UNSC Essen

Category:Gamestrider1
Category:Individual Ships
Category:Individual UNSC Ships
Category:Frigates
The UNSC Essen (FF-01) was the lead ship of the Essen-class frigate line produced from 2342 to 2396 as the primary vessel for the United Nations Space Command and Colonial Military Authority's navies. The Essen was famous for being one of the first three ships to travel to the Epsilon Eridani system as part of the Epsilon Eridani Expeditionary Group in 2349. Though the vessel was designed for combat, it would see little action in its career, eventually being retired in 2396 along with the rest of her sisters, being succeeded by more advanced warships.
==History==
=== Construction and commissioning ===
In 2291, A group of researchers headed by Tobias Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa secretly developed the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, a practical means of propelling spacecraft across vast interstellar distances. By 2310, the drive had begun mass-production, being fitted onto a new line of colony ships bound for other star systems. Though colonists are typically scientists and military personnel that have been proven to be loyal to the UNSC through rigorous physical and mental tests, concerns arose about the possibility of rebellion and pirate activity in the future colonies, as well as the idea of a threat of any possible extrasolar civilization.
Later that year, the Committee of Minds for Security, a collection of human artificial intelligences, held a discreet session, discussing the likelihood of these events and the modeling of numerous scenarios to deal with such threats. During the meeting, the idea of a mass-produced ship for the Colonial Military Authority Navy as well as the UNSC Navy to counter such threats was proposed and the committee collectively agreed on the construction of said vessel. A meeting later in 2341 saw a design created and agreed upon for this, and the Essen-class frigate was born.
Contracting SinoViet Heavy Machinery to construct the vessels, several issues were faced in the ship's production, having to increase the standard UNSC ship size greatly to accommodate the installation of a slipspace drive, and thus the design was modified by various human engineering groups, including some who directly worked on the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine.
=== Colonial Era ===
Fifty Essen-class frigates were planned to be constructed, and by fall of 2344, the lead ship of the class, the UNSC Essen, had been completed and launched. Two others would join her by early winter. The three vessels would make up the Epsilon Eridani Expeditionary Group, which made a slipspace jump in 2349 to the Epsilon Eridani system and tasked to confirm its habitability. The vessels returned seventeen days later, having gathered immense amounts of data on the system, particularly the habitability of the planet Epsilon Eridani II, which would later be known as Reach. The planet was deemed habitable, and a goal was set to make it the first planet outside the Sol system to be colonized by humanity as part of Domus Diaspora, a mass-exodus of colony ships from the system bound to settle on a new frontier.
By 2369, the final ships of the line entered service. The Essen-class would begin arriving in colonized systems on 2371, becoming part of system defense fleets, including the Epsilon Eridani Fleet, and policing the Inner and Outer Colonies for some time. However, their notable arsenal would see little use except in training exercises, having no enemies to be used against. By 2390, blueprints for more advanced UNSC ship designs planned to succeed the Essen-class were produced.
In 2396, the class was retired, with the UNSC Essen returning to Earth for her decommissioning ceremony.