Initially planned as a replacement for the Miranda and Centaur classes, the Akira may be the single most successful starship of the 2360's. Turned from a survey and transport ship to an anti-Romulan Vessel and then to an Anti-Borg ship after the excellent performance of the class at Wolf 359, the ships are renowned for their combat effectiveness and utility in battle. There's many crews who consider the ships the very best in Starfleet.
The Akira class initially started as, of all things, a rival design to the ShiKahr class as a tentative replacement to the Miranda class. Whilst the Miranda's were excellent ships they were starting to show their age, with some reaching an impressive 100 years of service by 2360. Starfleet needed a new ship and they needed an effective ship.
That new ship would be the Akira class. Sitting at 440m in length the ship bore a visual resemblance to the NX Class, with a torpedo pod and its twin nacelles hung behind the saucer on a twin-tail arrangement. The impulse engines, mirroring the NX, were snuck on the aft end of the saucer and a large primary shuttlebay could be found between the tails. In terms of armament the ships were incredibly potent, condensing the armament of a Nebula class onto a ship half its size. It was becoming a truly remarkable ship when the worst possible thing happened, a politician saw the designs.
The politics of the early 2360's, and the 3 decades prior to it, dictated that the Federation was an entirely peaceful entity, that it only existed to further the living standards of its members and that, above all else, Starfleet was not a military organisation, it's purpose was exploration. Under this stipulation a ship as aggressive as the Akira Class could never be realistically expected to enter regular service. Despite this the pilot batch of the Akira class, consisting of the USS Akira and USS Discovery, was constructed regardless for the sake of evaluation, even if the ShiKahr had been chosen as the Miranda's successor before it was even finished. The Akira class program was officially shuttered in 2362 and the Akira and Discovery were dumped on Starfleet academy as training ships, as more welcoming vessels took up their planned place.
It was then that the illusion of peace was shattered. In 2364, 20 years after the last contact with the Romulan Star Empire at Narendra III, the Romulans openly and brazenly reentered beta quadrant politics, surrounding the Enterprise D with a pair of their latest starships. It was this sudden shock to Starfleet that would force them to at least consider that maybe better armed ships were necessary, resulting in them outfitting all active New Orleans class ships with Torpedo Pods and recommissioning the Akira and Cavalier into active duty, with Akira sent out to patrol the Neutral Zone and Discovery held back in the core to act as a defensive asset. More ships of the class would be laid down and the Akira class would be reclassified as a tactical vessel, the first ship since the Georgiou class to hold the title. It almost seemed Starfleet had finally got something going but unfortunately it wouldn't be enough.
On December 29th, 2366, contact with the New Providence Colony would be lost. An investigation by the USS Zelenskyy and USS Enterprise would find an entity known as the Borg Collective, written off as a potential adversary long prior, to be to blame. This would be proven further when a huge black Cube intercepted the Enterprise before kidnapping her captain, Jean Luc Picard, before speeding off in the direction of Earth. This caused an immediate panic among the admiralty, as Admiral Hansen scrambled to get ships ready for a potential Borg attack on Earth, ranging from the newest and best ships he could find to ancient training ships, such as the Constitution Class USS Republic and Crossfield class USS Crossfield. Planting his flag on the USS Victorious Hansen planned to intercept the Cube at Wolf 359. Discovery was one of the 39 ships to respond to his call.
There is no better way to describe the next 20 minutes than the word Slaughter. The first two ships to enter the battle, the USS Melbourne and USS Saratoga would be systematically immobilised and destroyed. 35 other ships would fall the same way, either succumbing to antimatter containment failures or being taken by the Borg and disappearing, believed to be in the direction of the Delta Quadrant. One ship, the USS Righteous, would disappear, reappearing in 2379 to return alongside USS Voyager. At one point a civilian cargo ship, the FS Iron King, appeared and moved to ram the Cube to cover for the USS Princeton. And in the face of all that the USS Discovery was possibly the most effective vessel at the battle, by a thin margin. Darting between wreckage the ship remained ungrasped by the Cube until the last moment, hammering it with everything the ship had to offer. It was ultimately a fruitless endeavour, but it allowed the crews of several other ships to escape unharmed. There were no survivors found from the Discovery after the battle, though a few would be found partially assimilated in the wreckage of the Cube a few days later. The ship may not have survived Wolf 359, but it can hardly be argued that it didn't prove itself.
And so, in the face of needing newer ships by the hundreds, Starfleet would take a second look at the Akira class and immediately set to upgrading the class as much as possible. The Akira herself would return to San Francisco to serve as a test mule, with the first new ship of the class, the USS Thunderchild, would pioneer numerous new technologies now standard on Federation vessels. The new ships would be built in the dozens, ultimately replacing the Constellation class, and go on to serve with distinction. The class as a whole would get its true baptism-by-fire when the Borg re-emerged in 2372 at the Battle of Sector 001, with the USS Thunderchild landing the final blow on the Cube.
This success would follow them into the Dominion War, with the ships serving with success at every major engagement of the war. Serving with distinction either leading small task forces or as escorts to the larger ships the Akira's would prove incredibly popular with crews, being considered the best ships in their weight class by many of them, which was admittedly not a difficult choice as the closest new ships were the Yeagers. Their combat record is marked with more success than any other ship of the war except possibly the Galaxy Class, and they're widely considered to be the greatest ship not only of their era, but potentially in Starfleet history.
Even today the Akira class remains in active service with no plans to retire them. Even Akira herself, with her many strange modifications, is an unofficial mascot of San Francisco fleet yards. Overall you'd find it hard to find a more beloved ship. In fact the most common criticism of the class is that they're Overrated, but it's hard to be "so excellent that it's getting obnoxious" without first being excellent.