USS Independence (NX-90201)

The Federation starship  USS Independence was launched on stardate 58759.5 (4 October 2381) and was commissioned into service at the Kyoto Naval Yards on stardate 59000.1 (1 January 2382), with RAdm (ret) Demora Sulu as her sponsor.

The Independence has also been designated as one of the Advanced Starship Design Bureau's testbed platforms for new technologies. To reflect its status, the ship's registry has been designated NX-90201.

The ship's motto comes from a quotation by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1776), the third president of the former United States of America.



Weaponry
The Independence retains its fourteen Class-XII phaser tracks similar to those found aboard other Sovereigns, albeit with increased flank and aft coverage. New firing patterns have been installed, allowing for "ripple-fire" broadsides delivering maximum enfilade to bear on target vessels, while "scatter-fire" patterns allow the starship to individually track and engage multiple targets (such as a swarm of incoming photon torpedoes) simultaneously.

At the ends of each phaser track, heavy phaser concentrators - an orb-like superemitter in a concave box - have been installed. Designed as an anti-ship barrage weapon based on Defiant-class pulse-phaser technology, each concentrator uses amplification elements to fire phaser blasts capable of penetrating conventional shielding and inflict extreme disruption upon the impact area.

The torpedo launchers on Independence have been upgraded to a "chain-link" ordnance feeding system that allows each launcher to operate at an extremely high sustained rate of fire, capable of launching standard and quantum ordnance. Enhanced warheads on these torpedoes allow for a shaped-explosion ability, directing the brunt of a more efficiently into the target's "detonation spot" instead of the usual undirected spherical blast.

Command Information Center (CIC)
The Command Information Centre (CIC) is located in an armoured "shell" in the primary hull directly under the Main Bridge on Deck 2, which serves as a strategic planning and mission operations area, built around a centrally dished floor and a ceiling with holographic projectors. This facility is used to track the actions of any spacecraft or obstacles up to 12 light years away, and during non-military missions, can be also used for telemetry analysis as well as stellar cartography by the ship's Science Department.

In enhanced combat mode, the Commanding Officer and/or Chief Security Officer is located on this deck, while the First and Second Officers conn and maneuver the starship from the Main Bridge. The CIC can also be used in fleet maneuvers to command a fleet of starships.


 * The CIC came about when we wanted to address several long-standing design flaws with the standard "forward-facing" main bridge configuration: (i) it seemed unnecessarily exposed at the top of the saucer section and (ii) having (almost) everyone seated and facing in the same direction was not necessarily the most conducive or ergonomic environment to run starship operations. For a while, it became a running gag in our game that Captain Breawyn Lem was never "seen" on the bridge. She has since been spotted there on occasion, but still runs most of the starship from the CIC.

Control Systems
One of the biggest changes aboard Independence was the introduction of highly automated control systems, which reduced the number of operational crew required aboard by a factor of three. Whereas the original Sovereigns had a full crew complement of almost 900, the Independence can operate with as few as 400 crew (133 per watch in a three-shift rotation), allowing for a full starfighter wing and a Marine company to be embarked simultaneously without causing additional strain on ship's systems and logistics.

Hangar Bays


The Independence has two hangar bays, one on the primary hull containing a starfighter wing and a complement of shuttles, as well as a docking bay in the engineering hull which has been modified as a docking platform for an auxiliary S'harien-class Escort starship, USS Invictus. The Captain's Yacht is located on the ventral side of the primary hull.

Superstructure
The design of Independence follows the standard Starfleet configuration of two hull sections, a elliptical saucer-shaped primary hull and a secondary enginerring hull with two mounted warp nacelles. The primary hull is capable of separation and rejoining with the secondary hull.

The Sovereign-class starship is 685 metres in length, although the newly modified Independence is slightly shorter at 660 metres due to its warp nacelle reconfiguration (the angled curvilinear cant having been increased by 1.6%). There are a total of 24 decks on the starship, using the tradition numbering descending from Deck 1 on the Main Bridge to Deck 24 where the lateral array sensors are located.

Decks 2 through 9 include the "upper half" of the saucer section, including most standard staff quarters and mess halls, as well as research labs and the primary computer cores, supporting a distributed processor system with bioneural technology. An observation deck incorporating the ship's café, Miss Ceci's, with special grade reinforced transparent-aluminum panoramic windows is located on decks 3-4, which can be protected by a moveable ablative "hood" that telescopes into place. In yellow and red alert modes, the standard procedure is to evacuate and seal these multideck observation decks.

A single Sickbay facility, located on Deck 7, serves as the primary care facility on Sovereign-class starships. Sickbay also contains the Chief Medical Officer's office, an isolation ward and forensic laboratory facilities. An auxiliary Sickbay facility also exists on Deck 15 in the engineering section. Decks 7 through 10 do not contain any viewports because of the additional armour built onto the ship.

Decks 10 through 14 complete "lower half" of the saucer section, including forward and aft cargo bays on Decks 10 and 11 and phaser systems on Deck 11. Sensors and the secondary navigational deflector is on Deck 12. Decks 15 through 18 on the secondary hull comprise the main navigational deflector array and auxiliary bridge, which is also known as the battle bridge.

Deck 13 is taken up almost entirely by deuterium tanks, and also demarcates between the standard living areas and the ship's engineering and cargo sections. Main engineering, the secondary hangar deck for the embarked Escort-class vessel and the auxiliary computer core, are located on Decks 14 through 18. Main Engineering itself is split across three decks, and contains controls for both impulse and warp power generation.

At the lowest levels of the ship, Decks 19 through 21 contain additional storage areas as well as auxiliary systems and the fore and aft tractor beam emitters. The antimatter reactant generator and storage pods are housed on Decks 23 and 24, along with the lateral ventral phaser arrays.

Ship's motto
"I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"

- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1776)

Key Crewmembers

 * Captain Breawyn Lem - Commanding Officer
 * Lt Commander Aly Mathias - Chief Operations Officer
 * Lt Commander Jack Long - Chief Flight Control Officer
 * Lt Commander Keung Lee - Chief Security Officer
 * Lt Commander Chloe Tang - Chief Engineer
 * Major Melora "Hat Trick" Lexis - Wing Commander
 * Lieutenant Moasi al Mari - Ship's Counselor
 * Lieutenant (Doctor) Orlando Sturges - Chief Medical Officer
 * Lieutenant JG Bayushi Chisato - Ship's Quartermaster
 * Lieutenant JG Ghome chai Tsaal - Flight Control Officer
 * Cadet First Class Sharvetra Pooth'kiph - Science Midshipman