Chapter 3
Journey Entry 4596, 1st day of the 4th lunar cycle in the 34th year after the Cylon War
Three and a half years has passed since I last created a journal entry. During that time, we have been very busy. The day after we found the "U.S.S. Stargazer," three raptors full of personnel including myself left the Dominion to investigate. Dressed in environmental suits, we departed and arrived in the launch bay of the vessel in 10 minutes. Once there, we did a systematic search of the vessel.
We checked each room and categorized what we found in them. In one large room, a couple of doors down from the launch bay, we found a storage room full of liquids, different supplies, and something with metal casings. In another, we found a food storage bay. Over all, we found many small crew quarters, a large mess hall along with a decent size kitchen, and several cargo bays.. The funny thing was that we didn't know how to go to another level. That was until we found some vertical access tubes behind one of the smaller doors that we thought were extra barrier panels.
We found that these vertical access tubes were located strategically around the vessel along with different access tunnels that created some type of grid. Accessing the tubes, we check each level where we found more quarters, different types of work rooms, an armory, engineering, as well as the bridge. Once we got to the bridge we hit a button that was flashing on a console near the central chair.
"This is my last message as captain of this ship. I have sounded the evacuation of the ship. We have taken massive damage at the hands of the cardasian ship, mmmm, and we have lost most of our vital systems. Most of my personnel have already left in the escape pods. I will be joining them as soon as we can put enough distance between our ships. I hope that we may be able to find the stargazer later in the future where I may set foot once again. Picard, out."
"End of message."
Whoever this Picard was, he made sure that his crew was taken care of. His dream of setting foot on this ship, however, may never come to pass. After listening to this message, I realized that this ship may have some advancements that we may be able to take advantage of. I looked around for anything we could use. Looking back at one of the consoles in the back of the bridge, I realized that they were all computers.
I went to one of them that still had power and pressed a button. The screen turned on and we finally found what we were looking for. There was a detailed list of different labels. One stated departments while another one stated crew roster. The list continued to a tab called ship status. We found that the ship needed some more power and that it was currently running out the last of the fuel source in about two weeks. All non-essential systems were shut down as well as many others like propulsion, life-support, etc… The only thing still running was the central computer.
Immediately, we knew that the computer was the most important thing of the ship and that we needed to preserve it as much as possible. Therefore I made my decision to learn as much about this ship as soon as possible regarding trying to regain power. The first thing I did was get several more teams to be transported to the ship that included engineers. Their first task was to fix the hull breeches as soon as possible. Any hole that exposed a section to space needed to be patched and sealed tightly before we could bring in any life support systems up.
The second thing we did was research what type of energy source was needed to power the ship. It took our team of 50 12 days to discover that the Tylium we currently produced could be further refined to tentatively power the ship but not much else. Their ship used a fuel supply called Deuterium which is a form of Hydrogen. They used it to power their "matter/antimatter" warp engines. We marked it for further research later.
Once the fuel was injected into a connected generator, we discovered that we had a lot to learn about the ship. For the next 4 weeks, we learned how to restore life support systems and other essential functions. Once life support was online, we decided to continue studying them. We spent 46 weeks after that studying their history, the way these people lived, how these people supported themselves, what drove them to their path, etc… We also studied their language, literature, entertainment, etc… Next we studied their progression of technology. Starting out with Mathematics and the sciences, we went on to learn their technologies inside and out. Teams of personnel investigated the basics of their propulsion, their power consumption, power flow, etc… Other teams researched stellar cartography and took on their star charts. Another team research little things like their matter replicator. Over 400 fleet personnel and civilians were actually living on the ship in the crew quarters in rotating shifts.
The next 46 weeks were spent comparing our technologies. We began to translate what we understood of their advanced technologies and see how we could improve our own. We found that we could improve our sub-light engines, our weapons, our ship to ship transport, our power distribution, our defensive capabilities, etc… We could also improve how we lived on our ships. Food replicators could be installed removing large inefficiencies of food preparation and the need for large kitchens. Crew members would not have to bunk so close to each other due to the fact that less people could be put on each ship. Ships could also be built faster and cheaper due to less need for heavily armored ships. Instead of 10 feet thick bulkheads, we could settle for 3.
The next 46 weeks, myself and a team of 25 decided that we wanted to design a new ship. This ship would combine the best of both worlds. Using the studies taken on ships like the U.S.S. Endeavour and the U.S.S. Rigel from the Stargazers library, we decided to take a similar shape for our own. Due to our inefficiencies of anti-matter, we reformulated a way to use a Combination of Tylium and Deuterium in a form of injector system, similar to older heavy metal combustible vehicles of the past. Dual-action propulsion would increase our sub-light capabilities by 250% but still be slightly slower than full impulse of the Stargazer. The lack of the anti-matter also negated the need for a warp drive but our technological advances allowed for quick and accurate jumps with very little need to recharge. This became possible because of the computer technology. The studies of the computer show that a very fast processor could in actuality help increase ship systems by a factor of 5,000%. With computer safety learned from the Stargazer, it was safe to use an integrated system like the government wanted us to do. Massive firewalls and heavily encrypted databases would make in near impossible for any Cylon to hack and install a virus.
With the basics of engines and the computer in place, the ship was designed for both exploration and warfare. History of the explorations of the Federation saw the massive need for defensive capabilities or risk destruction. We began designing a dual launch bay system by using the designed nacelles and enlarged them to 200 meters in length, 30 meters across, and 15 meters high. Each nacelle held 2 decks with 1 being a landing and launching pad. The other deck was designed to hold two squadrons in sideways formation with the option of a straight drop launch. A third nacelle would hold engineering and the computer core. Using the similar EPS conduits, the ship's distribution of generated power from the engines allowed for secondary and tertiary backups.
The ship was designed with 15 decks with the bridge on deck 5, auxiliary bridge toward the aft on deck 8, Engineering on deck 13 with decks 14 and 15 being the nacelles. Crew quarters are located on decks 3-5 and 9-12. Guest quarters are on Decks 6-7 along with the Main Mess hall. Cargo Bay 1-4 are accessible from deck 2 and Launch Bay 3 is accessible from deck 9. The armory is located on Deck 10 and the medical ward is on deck 9 near the launch bay along with the ship to ship transporter.
For defenses, the ship was designed with 3 layers of shielding along with 3 layers of pressurized hull plating. For offensive capabilities, we added 8 plasma torpedo tubes which used super-heated Tylium and deuterium mixture to explode on contact. These torpedoes have a max velocity of 50% of the speed of light. Along with the torpedoes, there are 6 large rail gun laser banks along with 12 smaller anti-fighter laser banks. Due to the quickness of the ship with a maximum speed of 85% of the speed of light, many of the necessary KEW cannons on a Battlestar like the Dominion are not necessary.
We also spent 20 weeks redesigning the raptors and vipers with better propulsion, better weapons, added shields, and added inertial dampeners. The vipers are 25% larger with a bigger engine and computer core, used anti-fighter lasers, held shields, and viper pilots will feel a 75% reduction in the g-forces compared to a normal viper. The max speed is 45% of the speed of light. The raptors are redesigned to be similar to the shuttle schematics on board the Stargazer. With better propulsion and shields, the shuttles are able to hold 12 passengers comfortably as well as a 3 person cockpit crew. They contain one torpedo tube and 3 anti-fighter laser. Max speed is 40% of the speed of light.
After all of these designs were completed, I used our signal relays to successfully contact the Admirals Corman and Nagala. I told them of what I had found and that we had just spent a little over three years study the ship inside and out. I told them about what we had done to use the technology and that we had designed a new ship along with new vipers and raptors. I asked them if we could build a prototype and if they would want to see it. They stated that they wanted to and I gave them the coordinates of a nebula we are currently in. I asked them to bring two mobile repair ships capable of building at least a Valkyrie class Battlestar. They estimated it would arrive in ten days and that they would bring another batch of 1,000 ensigns. Most of the ensigns that were on my original crew would be promoted to 1st and 2nd lieutenants. We were also tasked with building a bigger carrier class ship as well as a smaller escort class. The Admirals would be taking a trip here in about a year while we were busy building a prototype of each class.
In the last 18weeks, we named the original ship the Dominion class and determined it to have a max crew of 335. Engineering will have 4 shifts of 10 personnel with a chief engineer. The bridge will also have 4 shifts of 9 personnel excluding the commander and the colonel. There are 100 pilots onboard including the CAG along with 4 shifts of 10 flight deck crewman in each bay commanded by a crew chief. The medical bay has a doctor and 4 assistants. There are also 4 shifts of 10 damage control teams standing by that double as other supporting staff. Finally, there are 60 marines.
We also designed the smaller escort class named Hera class. It would be 10 decks with a single launch bay down a central corridor on deck 9 with a storage bay of 1 squadron of raptors and vipers with a straight drop option on deck 10. Engineering would be above the launch bay on deck Bridge is place on deck 3 with auxiliary bridge on Deck 6. Deck 6 also contains the Medical bay, science department, the transporter room, and the armory. Deck 7 would contain cargo bays 1 and 2 as well as stellar cartography. Decks 1-4 are crew quarters except for the bridge with guest quarters on deck 5 along with the mess hall.
The Hera will have the same shielding configuration as the Dominion but will have 24 anti-fighter ship lasers, 4 plasma torpedo tubes, and 4 rail gun laser banks. Its crew configuration will have 4 shifts of 9 bridge crew, the commander and the colonel, 4 shifts of 10 crewmen in engineering along with a chief engineer, 5 medical personnel in the med bay, 4 shifts of 11 damage control teams, 80 pilots including the CAG, 4 shifts of 10 deck crewman with 1 deck chief, and 21 marines for a total of 250.
The day after the designs were completed, the two mobile repair ships arrived with two Jupiter class Battlestars. Included with the ships were the ensigns, some more engineers, and some miners. With the amount of miners we had, we decided to take some of the techniques the people on the Stargazer did by building ships on a habitable planet. One was within the nebula which had an abundant supply of metals and minerals waiting to be mined. Many of them were put to work immediately by stock piling metals by mining them with new techniques. The transporter and the scanning technology allowed for quick recovery of precious metals bypassing a lot of the hard labor. The replicator technology allow us to reform the metals into matter before being reconfigured into the necessary parts.
It was decided by the engineers that they wanted to use a blend of 60% titanium, 36% carbon steel, 3% duranium due to the fact that there is little duranium on the planet, and 1% diamond. The ship would be lightweight by very hard to damage. Beams of the alloy would be materialized fairly quickly but still took about a week to gather enough for the frame. Hull plating would be next. EPS conduits were also manufactured as well as many other items for the ship. Day by day, our personnel learn something new and apply it to our project.
Currently, about 90% of the frame is built and about 10% of the interior parts have been completed and we still haven't designed the next ship. Hopefully, we should have more progress tomorrow.
A/N: Hope you enjoy, please review