USS Sutherland (NCC-72015)

The USS Sutherland (NCC-72015) was a 24th century Federation starship operated by Starfleet. It was built at the San Francisco Fleet Yards orbiting Earth and completed in 2367, on stardate 44820.5. Her propulsion systems were constructed by the Yoyodyne Division.
== History ==
In early 2368, the Sutherland was docked at Starbase 234's spacedock for repairs. The ship joined Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fleet that blockaded the Klingon-Romulan border during the Klingon Civil War. It was prematurely deployed, despite the yard superintendent's belief the ship was not ready for launch. Experienced officers from the augmented the crew of this ship. For the duration of the blockade, the Sutherland was temporarily commanded by Lieutenant Commander Data from the Enterprise, with Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hobson as his first officer. The ship was one of twenty-three assembled for the fleet and was one of the seventeen chosen for the tachyon detection grid. Identified by its name and registry number, the ship's position in the network was monitored from the Enterprise. 
During the blockade, the Sutherland was hit by a massive tachyon pulse by the Romulans, which disabled the tachyon detection grid in a radius of ten million kilometers around the ship. Data disobeyed Picard's orders to regroup at Gamma Eridon and modified the Sutherlands sensors to detect a residual tachyon signature around the cloaked Romulan ships. He then exposed the ships using modified low-yield photon torpedoes. ()
During the mid-2370s, the Sutherland was assigned to the Ninth Fleet near Bajor, during the Dominion War, under the command of Captain Shelby. In mid-2374, it docked at Deep Space 9 to be resupplied along with the , the , and the . () The Sutherland was due to revisit Deep Space 9 a few months later, an occasion which Dax originally wanted to use as a justification to host a party in her and Worf's joint quarters. ()
By 2401, it had been superseded by a new of eponymous class. ()
== Command crew ==
* Commanding officer
** Data (2368) 
** Shelby (2370s)
* First officer
** Christopher Hobson (2368)
* Flight control officer
** Keith Craig (2368)
== Appendices ==
=== Background information ===
According to the , "the Sutherland was named for 's flagship in the classic novels that served as one of Gene Roddenberry's original inspirations for Star Trek."
The dedication plaque of the Sutherland reads "There will be an answer, let it be…" which was quoted from , written by Paul McCartney in and performed by The Beatles.
The scenes aboard the Sutherland in "Redemption II" were filmed on Friday on Paramount Stage 9.
In a scene cut from , when the Cardassians threatened to invade Minos Korva, the Sutherland, , and were dispatched to Sector 21527 to assist the Enterprise. However, because the ships were three days away, the Enterprise was forced to find an alternative means of preventing the invasion.
According to writer Ronald D. Moore in an extra feature on the DS9 Season 6 DVD, the Sutherland crew was to have been a more regular element on . The concept, according to Moore, was that the Sutherland maintained a number of Hawaiian and Polynesian traditions, and would have appeared when a script called for "wacky party guys".
This is the only time the filming model displayed some type of damage on the ships primary hull and nacelle.
=== External link ===
* 
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Sutherland