Excelsior Class

Originally intended to be the first class equipped with the revolutionary Transwarp drive, the Excelsior Class survived the scandal the resulted from the failure of this system, and became a powerful Battlecruiser, the first such design employed by Starfleet since the Siegfried Class was refit and employed as one in the early 2240s.

## Development

With the Constitution Class Heavy Cruiser maturing into a reliable vessel in the 2250s, it seemed to many that Starfleet had finally found a vessel able to respond to any crisis in short order, whilst still being strong enough and well-equipped enough to deal with whatever threat she encountered when she arrived.

Some Starfleet Admirals felt that a more powerful vessel was required, in light of increasing tensions with the Klingon Empire. The problem with designing such a vessel at the time was that she would invariably be a compromise between speed, firepower and defence. Most designers and tacticians agreed you could have two of these criteria, at the cost of a third. One way to build a balanced ship, and reach the levels of performance required in these three fields was to simply build bigger. More weaponry, stronger shields, thicker hull plating, bigger warp reactors, more power reserves. This however led to another problem. With additional warp nacelles, a ship could be fast at warp as well as carry heavy armament, strong shields and thick hull plating, but at sublight speed she would be sluggish to manoeuvre. This was acceptable in a Capital Ship such as a Battleship, but such ships were only effective in set-piece engagements. For rapid response, as well as peacetime scientific, exploratory and diplomatic missions, they were too lumbering, too few in number and too expensive to operate.

Some attempts were made at a Capital Ship design for Starfleet in the 2260s the two most "successful" being the Federation Class and her equally ill-fated successor, the Langley Class. Neither of these ships faced combat until after their retirement from the Federation Prime Fleet, and the Constitution Class remained the stalwart of Starfleet operations throughout the period.

However, separate to these efforts was a group of scientists and engineers working at Utopia Planitia on Mars, ostensibly on theoretical improvements to warp propulsion systems. Speed at warp was affected primarily by available power and warp field dynamics, whilst speed and manoeuvrability at impulse speeds were affected by the physical mass of the ship. Warp nacelles and their associated systems were bulky, and additional nacelles to provide additional warp field power would adversely affect impulse performance. Conventional design concepts required more and more nacelles to provide sufficient speed at warp, leaving such vessels as lumbering Capital Ships. The team at Utopia Planitia had a new concept; design the ship for sublight performance, and improve the performance of the warp drive to give sufficient speed at warp.

In 2277, the Langley Project was concluded, and the ideas of this team began to find fertile ground. The Langley Class ships had been launched with no less than 4 nacelles each, and performance at impulse was miserable at best. A new project was initiated, the Excelsior Project, intended to produce the fastest warp drive possible.

Initial work was slow going, with conventional technology limiting what was possible. By 2280, a practical system with performance in excess of wf 8.2 (cruising) and wf 9.7 (maximum) had been developed, although this was expensive, difficult to produce and very sensitive to imperfections in various components, including the dilithium crystals used in the M/AM reaction. Gradually the sensitivities were ironed out, although the size of the system crept up also. The E-I warp nacelles being prototyped were larger than the smaller vessels employed by Starfleet at the time.

In 2282, a remarkable discovery was made, quite by accident. If the warp field was tuned to be slightly out of phase with our dimension, the resulting warp bubble could pass far easier through space than one generated by an unphased drive. The practical upshot of this was that a field could be generated either with far less power for an equal speed, or the same power requirements for a field of far greater force and speed. The requirements of the 'Trans-dimensional warp drive' were still quite steep; the required vessel would be larger than the slow, lumbering Federation Class, but such a vessel would now be theoretically capable of warp factor cruising speeds in excess of wf 10.5. More importantly perhaps, it could do so with only 2 warp nacelles, keeping the overall bulk low and impulse performance at acceptable levels for a Cruiser class vessel. To test the theory, a Shuttlecraft was fitted with a miniaturised version of the transwarp drive and initial tests went well. At maximum performance however, the power relays on the shuttle overloaded and exploded, killing the test pilot Torias Dax.

A single ship was constructed, the USS Excelsior (NX-2000), and launched in 2283. Fitted with this prototype transwarp drive, she was only ever intended as a prototype, and had performed a number of conventional warp tests (i.e without using the transwarp system) shortly before the Regula Incident.

## Operational History

In late 2283, Admiral James T. Kirk, along with several associates, commandeered the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) from Earth Spacedock. The USS Excelsior (NX-2000) was on station under the command of Captain Lawrence Styles, preparing to undergo her first transwarp tests. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, formerly of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), had been overseeing the preparations for these tests, and had secretly sabotaged the USS Excelsior (NX-2000) , rendering her transwarp drive inoperable, much to the embarrassment of Captain Lawrence Styles when he gave the order to pursue the fleeing Constitution Class Refit.

After this red-faced start, and the fervour over the resulting Genesis Incident, further tests of the transwarp drive commenced. Unfortunately, the drive never functioned as intended. The warp coils would constantly need to be tuned, the warp bubble phasing proved problematic as the phase required for a moving vessel varied depending on local stellar phenomena. In 2284, the project was quietly shelved, leaving the sole Excelsior Class ship in drydock, awaiting scrapping.

Reprieve came from an unexpected benefactor. Admiral Lance Cartwright of Starfleet Strategic Planning requested that the Excelsior be refit with conventional warp drive, using some advances taken from the Type II programme, and commissioned for testing as a light Capital Ship. She was also fitted with additional Mark VI Photon Torpedo Tubes, bringing her total up to 4 forward tubes, and a number of other additional systems to bring her in line with current fleet standards. She was recommissioned as the USS Excelsior (NCC-2000) and placed under the command of recently promoted Captain Hikaru Sulu, exonerated for his involvement in the Genesis Incident for his performance in the Whale Probe Crisis. She was launched in 2285, completing her shakedown cruise mere days before the outbreak of the Organian Conflict.

During this war, the Excelsior proved to be superior to the Klingon D7C qItI'tinga' (Great Powerful Conqueror) Class Heavy Cruiser, although not capable of going up against Klingon or Romulan Capital Ships without support. She was, even with conventional warp drive, considerably faster and more manoeuvrable than these vessels however, and within a few months, three Excelsior Class hulls had been laid down, later commissioned as the USS Berlin (NCC-2001), USS Cairo (NCC-2002) and USS Al-Batani (NCC-2003). Together, these four ships were organised into a Battlecruiser Squadron, designed to exploit the high speed and manoeuvrability of the Excelsior Class. They overpowered targets that they outgunned, and outran and out-manoeuvred targets that outgunned them. They provided a fast and powerful punch to Starfleet operations during the war.

By the beginning of the War of Pacification, further Excelsiors had been commissioned, and another Battlecruiser Squadron had been deployed. These Squadrons proved to be one of Starfleet's best assets against the ISC. The Type CA-VIII Heavy Cruisers employed by the Interstellar Pacification Force were superior to the Constitution Class Refits employed by Starfleet, but their lack of light and medium Capital Ships gave the Excelsiors the edge; capable of going toe-to-toe with the Cruisers and able to outflank the Dreadnoughts.

Production of new Excelsior Class hulls continued, along with the development of the Unity Class and Washington Class support ships using Excelsior Type E components. By 2288, all Excelsiors in service were upgraded to carry Mark VII Photon Torpedo Tubes. Their excellent performance continued during the General War, with the impressive scientific equipment onboard also helping to map the strange anomalies of the Galactic Fringe.

## Apocrypha

With the ending of hostilities in August 2292, the Federation Prime Fleet returned to the Alpha Quadrant. Upon standard post-combat inspections, many structural fatigue faults were discovered. The design of the Lexington Class had proven quick to construct and inexpensive, but was unsuitable for the long distances they had covered in the General War. The Richmond Class was similarly affected and this left Starfleet with a problem, one that was handily solved in the following year. The signing of the Khitomer Accords in 2293 brought about a vast reduction in the size and diversity of Starfleet. More Excelsior Class Battlecruisers were being commissioned, and along with several other classes, offset these losses.

The Excelsior Class proved to be an ideal planform for refits and upgrades, and in replacing the Constitution Class Refit as the new standard Cruiser design, became the backbone of Starfleet in the 24th Century.

## Specifications

* **Class:** Battlecruiser
* **Hull Type Designation:** FBC
* **Length:** 433m
* **Crew:** 795
* **Warp Nacelles:** 2

* **Maximum Sublight Speed:** 3300 k/s (33 Mk/s)
* **Cruise** **Warp Factor Speed:** wf 8.5
* **Safe** **Maximum Warp Factor Speed:** wf 9.8
* **Hull Rating:** 420 HSF
* **Shield Rating:** 725 FSP

* **Sensor Rating:** 800 SRU

* **Armament and Equipment:**
	+ Primary
		- 4 × Type B Phaser Emitter
	+ Secondary
		- 4 × Mark VII Photon Torpedo Tube
	+ Heavy
		- None
	+ Advanced
		- None
	+ Equipment
		- Tractor Beam Emitter
		- Mark VI Probes
		- 1 × Wasp Attack Shuttle

## Ships in Service (2292)

USS Excelsior (NCC-2000)

USS Berlin (NCC-2001)

USS Cairo (NCC-2002)

USS Al-Batani (NCC-2003)

USS Charleston (NCC-2004)

USS Fearless (NCC-2005)

USS Lakota (NCC-2006)

USS Repulse (NCC-2007)

USS Wasp (NCC-2008)

USS Kongo (NCC-2009)

USS Ajax (NCC-2010)

USS Achilles (NCC-2011)

USS Arizona (NCC-2012)

USS Royal Oak (NCC-2013)

USS Hornet (NCC-1843)

USS Hood (NCC-2296)

USS Patrick Henry (NCC-1599)

USS Babel (NCC-3842)

USS Sentinel (NCC-2884)

USS Baton Rouge (NCC-1689)

USS Galveston (NCC-1393)