Star Trek Expanded Universe
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"Starfleet standardization" was a model attempting to unify Starfleet ship technologies and design-goals in the Federation's early days. When the UFP was created, the fleet was composed of a mixture of ships of the founding races, that already shared at least certain technologies due to alliances during the Romulan Wars. Hard maintenance, differences in design components, and personnel transfer between ships of different classes proved chaotic and unsustainable, since various ships had totally different designs, with different controls. At a certain point before 2200, Starfleet unified design criteria and standards used in the manufacture of ships to avoid such problems. (Star Trek: Origins)

Star Trek: Origins[]

Around 2185, Starfleet already noticed the pressing problems of maintenance and personnel transfer when dealing with a fleet of ships of different designs that in some cases, were not similar to anything. The need to unify ship design and technology became evident. They founded the Starfleet Design Bureau and standardized the design and manufacture of ships and technologies, adopting the best available in the UFP.

Standardization premises required:

  • Hulls divided into two parts:
  1. A main section of spherical, oval, arrow- or disc-shaped form, which featured a bridge, the ship's food reserves, and at least one impulse engine.
  2. A secondary or engineering section housing the warp reactor, containing warp nacelles, flight hangar, and most of the cargo bays.

In big ships, both parts had to be separable by some means, like explosive bolts. This design-thought came from the success of designs such as CVM and CX (aka Daedalus) classes, aboard which, before an imminent warp core breach, they could separate the main section from the engineering section, and use it like a lifeboat.

  • Bussard collectors.
  • Paired numbers of warp nacelles, separated from the hull by pylons.
  • Phased cannons and photonic torpedoes as main weapons, plus in some cases, high-density particle beams.
  • Deflector shields.
  • Navigational deflectors of visible parabolic design.
  • Modular bridges.
  • Sensor cupules or nodes.
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