First of all, I don't know how much we're trying for a single unified fandom universe (I know we're a long way from there, but every effort we make now is less cleanup for the future), but there's already a fandom Aegis class. I'll try to find the URL...

It isn't a penetrator, but it is fast and maneuverable of necessity due to the prediliction of Romulans and Cardassians to shoot at ships lurking on their borders.

The pod is a contemporary/post-contemporary update of the movie-era Phantom class' OPERA sensor pod (*waves at Treknophyle*).

As for schematics... I haven't decided if I want to go all out and do full deckplans, but I've got the five-views almost done, and the beginnings of an MSD in the works.

Anything else you wanted me to address, Chris?

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

And, hell, if you want to do deck plans, Dave, go ahead!

When does fandom ever get around for unifying? Why should it in the first place---they don't even agree on the speculative non canonical specs of canonical ships.

By the way, the "famous" fandom Aegis class happens to be a Miranda variant used in Starfleet Battles and Starfleet Command 2. Basically it's a Miranda loaded with AMD and point defense phasers. Another fandom Aegis is a Prometheus sister ship.

As for eavesdropping on Romulans, are you familiar of the Neutral Zone? If the Romulans or Klingons would catch you in the Neutral Zone, the normal procedure is that they won't try to engage and shoot you down, they will first hail you and formally protest that you are in violation of the Neutral Zone treaties. Already just the plain discovery would result in a major embarrassing scandal for the Federation. Whether they can take you down or you can escape is a point that is already moot.

If the Romulans want to take you down, they would phase cloak first, then strike on your ship unsuspectingly. There is no point in being faster or being more agile if the Romulans have first strike basis. Furthermore, because of some silly treaty, the Romulans have true cloak and phasing cloak (they can literally phase through solid matter, and hide within asteroids). That is far superior over any quasi stealth ship.

Thus, the Federation has a greater vested interest to spot Romulan eavesdroppers. If the Fed decides to eavesdrop themselves, they would need to detect phased cloak ships that will try to sneak up at them from behind. This isn't going to be done with advanced sensors. To be consistent with Star Trek canon treknology, what your ship needs is a Tachyon Grid.

Small shape for stealth isn't important either. They don't use radio waves for detection. Sensors often use disturbances in subspace as a means of detection and that has nothing to do with being small or big, or whatever is the shape of the craft. If you want stealth, you need a considerably powerful and bigger deflector that can reduce its subspace signature by generating and manipulating various fields around the craft.

As for the Sensor ghosting suite, there is simply a better word for it. It's generally called ECM.

Another technology you can try is Holoemitters. By creating a holographic image around the ship, you can disguise the ship as an asteroid, allowing the ship virtual undetection as it eavesdrop at will. Mimicry is not part of any arms treaty, so the Federation can use that in lieu of cloaking.

These are just points for you to consider.

Project "Peekaboo"

During the peak of the Dominion War, Starfleet needed a vessel that could skirt close to enemy borders relatively undetected and monitor enemy communications. A design proposal was drafted, requiring the vessel to have high warp capability, extremely powerful sensors, and enough armament to be able to return to the closest starbase should it fall under attack. Many engineering firms attempted to design a prototype to fit these requirements, but all the proposals were lacking in one department or another.

Just as Starfleet was about to lose interest in a new ship, leaning instead towards modyfiying the Nova class for this purpose, a design was submitted by Colbert-Martin-Rapp Aerospace Corporation. The design was small, moderately armed, very fast, and had the latest sensors. CMRAC was contracted and construction began immediately.

CMRAC's prototype was a testbed of several new advances in intuitive computer processing, weapons, and propulsion. The prototype consisted of an arrowhead shaped saucer and two nacelles slung under the saucer via curved pylons. This compact shape allowed for a smaller sensor target. There were certain limitations immediatly apparent in the design, mainly that the required sensors would not fit in to the compact spaceframe. CMRAC was approached by Koensayr to test their newest sensor suite, the OPERA Generation 4. Koensayr was well known for their OPERA suites of the late 23rd century, and had remained at the edge of sensor technology since. The OPERA G4 was mounted in a pod that sat on the pylons aft of the saucer. Due to the nature of the vessel's mission, the pod and it's support strut were reinforced to prevent heavy damage.

The latest stealth technology was installed on the Peekaboo, including an exclusive sensor-ghosting suite, which created several ghost images on enemy sensors. The Peekaboo was extremely quick and agile, at super- and sub-luminary speed. A technology was resurrected from the Wambundu class, the slidejet impulse system. This allowed the Peekaboo to effectively slide in space, giving it extraordinary maneuvarbility in close-quarters dogfights. A small shuttlebay was placed on the underside of the Peekaboo, allowing for 3 shuttlepods and a compliement of stealth sensor drones.

The Peekaboo was completed just months before the signing of the Treaty of Bajor. It didn't get to see much use, however production was continued with the Peekaboo, now christened the Argus class.

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"No, 3 & 6 are mandatory, so you only have to do them if you want"

Alex, fellow classmate, trying to explain an assignment (2/2/01)

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

As much as we'd LOVE to know what's going on inside those guys' respective borders, that's Starfleet Intelligence's purview. This ship is meant to run along a chunk of OUR side of the border and keep an eye out for any interlopers. Granted, it won't pick up a cloaked Romulan fleet easily, but it just might (there seem to have been advances in sensor tech since "Redemption" -- cf. DS9's "Visionary" and "The Die is Cast"). And if you're not expecting a Romulan invasion anyway, you probably won't have a whole fleet marking time along the Neutral Zone with a tachyon grid set up. One small ship with big juju sensors is better than the nothing that would normally be there...

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH

>And who said anything about ENTERING the Neutral Zones? How wide are the RNZ and DMZ? And what's the range of active sensors? Several parsecs?

I think the NZ is fairly wide. Maybe a hundred parsecs or lightyears. I don't know how you can eavesdrop without going into the Neutral Zone. If you want to do super long range eavesdropping, a *station* would have been better.

>As much as we'd LOVE to know what's going on inside those guys' respective borders, that's Starfleet Intelligence's purview. This ship is meant to run along a chunk of OUR side of the border and keep an eye out for any interlopers.

Then to assume that the Romulans would actively and deliberately engage your border patrol ships *within* your borders would be ludicrious. For them to attack ships within your border is outrageous and tantamount to open war. Romulan ships, on spotting a Fed ship, would rather cloak and run away.

In this kind of tactical scenario, you don't need ships that are fast, agile and to run away. You need ships that can fight and hold their ground, until reinforcements come. You are on the defending side. You are protecting your borders. The current supply of Defiants and Steamrunners can do that.

>Granted, it won't pick up a cloaked Romulan fleet easily, but it just might (there seem to have been advances in sensor tech since "Redemption" -- cf. DS9's "Visionary" and "The Die is Cast").

Only if its conventional cloaking technology. But then again, it's also very possible that cloaking technology has also *improved*, and you're taking a very big chance to assume conventional sensor systems could catch phased cloaking considering the latter was made to defeat conventional sensors.

>And if you're not expecting a Romulan invasion anyway, you probably won't have a whole fleet marking time along the Neutral Zone with a tachyon grid set up. One small ship with big juju sensors is better than the nothing that would normally be there...

No, the Tachyon Grid could be installed on a scout in addition to its existing sensor suite. Or you can install a net of unmanned drones or stations---a system that is more economical and effective than a single patrol ship, with a much greater prolonged presence. A single Defiant ship could unload an entire grid of widely interspaced probes. Putting grids like these are no problem in a peacetime situation. If it detects an intruder and the intruder wishes to engage, the Defiant ship stands a much better chance of winning and holding its ground better than a lightly armed scout.

I am not trying to goad you or put down your ideas. I want to make you think by considering the tactical problem through many angles so you can refine your ideas.

[This message has been edited by crobato (edited May 11, 2001).]

>I thought the holo-asteroid thing was my idea... *pouts*
--Jonah

Actually the holo-asteroid thing was something I picked up from the PC game Homeworld Cataclysm.

Using holographic emitters, there is a whole class of ships there that can not only pretend to be asteroids, but they can pretend to be big friendly ships, to give the impression you got a lot of reinforcements, or even mimic various enemy ships, enabling them to intrude enemy space.

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

Thanks, Dave. I'll update the writeup accordingly...

Project "Peekaboo"

During the peak of the Dominion War, Starfleet needed a vessel that could skirt close to enemy borders relatively undetected and monitor enemy communications. A design proposal was drafted, requiring the vessel to have high warp capability, extremely powerful sensors, and enough armament to be able to return to the closest starbase should it fall under attack. Many engineering firms attempted to design a prototype to fit these requirements, but all the proposals were lacking in one department or another.

Just as Starfleet was about to lose interest in a new ship, leaning instead towards modyfiying the Nova class for this purpose, a design was submitted by Colbert-Martin-Rapp Aerospace Corporation. The design was small, moderately armed, very fast, and had the latest sensors. CMRAC was contracted and construction began immediately.

CMRAC's prototype was a testbed of several new advances in intuitive computer processing, weapons, and propulsion. The prototype consisted of an arrowhead shaped saucer and two nacelles slung under the saucer via curved pylons. This compact shape allowed for a smaller sensor target. There were certain limitations immediatly apparent in the design, mainly that the required sensors would not fit in to the compact spaceframe. CMRAC was approached by Koensayr to test their newest sensor suite, the Symphony Sensor Suite. Koensayr was well known for their OPERA suites of the late 23rd century, and had remained at the edge of sensor technology since. The Symphony was mounted in a pod that sat on the pylons aft of the saucer. Due to the nature of the vessel's mission, the pod and it's support strut were reinforced to prevent heavy damage.

The latest stealth technology was installed on the Peekaboo, including an exclusive sensor-ghosting suite, which created several ghost images on enemy sensors. The Peekaboo was extremely quick and agile, at super- and sub-luminary speed. A technology was resurrected from the Wambundu class, the slidejet impulse system. This allowed the Peekaboo to effectively slide in space, giving it extraordinary maneuvarbility in close-quarters dogfights. A small shuttlebay was placed on the underside of the Peekaboo, allowing for 3 shuttlepods and a compliement of stealth sensor drones.

The Peekaboo was completed just months before the signing of the Treaty of Bajor. It didn't get to see much use, however production was continued with the Peekaboo, now christened the Argus class.