STARSHIP | |
Name: | USS Prospect |
Registry: | NCC-60056 |
Class: | Sauganash |
Type: | explorer |
Affiliation: | Federation Starfleet |
Status: | destroyed |
The USS Prospect (NCC-60056) was an Sauganash-class starship fulfilling missions for Starfleet Special Operations. From 2365 until its destruction in 2370, her commanding officer was Captain John Greene.
History[]
2366/2367[]
In late 2366 and early 2367, the Prospect was en route to Earth when the call came from Admiral J.P. Hanson to proceed to Wolf 359 to help with the battle against a Borg cube. The Prospect arrived too late, finding a starship graveyard; however, a mysterious alien ship was there, appearing to communicate with the Borg cube. After a battle with the alien ship, both the Prospect and the alien ship suffered damage to their warp nacelles.
After an away team was returned to the Prospect, the damage was repaired by unknown means, and a temporary sensor upgrade occurred to assist in finding survivors of the Battle of Wolf 359.
Upon returning to Wolf 359 and using the sensor upgrades, the Prospect coordinated the rescue effort (as other ships could not seem to detect life signs). Their sensors discovered escape pods from the USS Saratoga, USS Buran and USS Kyushu amongst others. In response, Greene ordered the Prospect into full rescue mode, involving transporter control, shuttlebay operations, Sickbay and various other divisions.
The USS Worsaae, USS Arlington and USS Barrington were three Starfleet ships initially assisting in the rescue effort, with others arriving later. The Prospect also discovered the USS Endeavour had barely survived the attack. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "The Burnt Child")
First officer Vanessa Biondo and second officer Evonne Wilson left the Prospect due to promotions as first officers aboard the Arlington and Barrington respectively. Former first officer Anne Lansing and USS Hope operations manager Kari Eriksson took their places, and Counselor Daniel Radke rejoined the team mid-2367 at Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "The Burnt Child")
After the Wolf 359 rescue mission, the Prospect underwent repairs and an upgrade at Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. This took a few months to complete. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "The Burnt Child")
One of their first missions after the refit was a top-secret infiltration mission to Enip. The Enipians caught Arlington first officer Biondo and Prospect second officer Eriksson, killed several other Prospect and Arlington away team members, and lost Lansing and Radke. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Lady Lazarus") We assume the Arlington was involved as Biondo was involved. We don't know the particulars of this mission, although it must have happened after "The Burnt Child" and before "Lady Lazarus".
In late 2367, en route to another destination, the Prospect received a distress call from the USS Artemis, thought destroyed 3 years earlier in 2364.
There, they discovered the hulk of the Artemis. A Prospect away team discovered the M'Tar were behind the Artemis's demise. Prospect crew member Hahn Jun-Seok, an undercover Na'arbi agent, saved the Prospect by sacrificing himself and the Artemis to defeat the M'Tar and close the gateway to the M'Tar Domain. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Lady Lazarus")
Against the Jem'Hadar[]
After the USS Odyssey's destruction in late 2370, Starfleet Command quickly upgraded the Prospect, assembled the Prospect team and send them to the Gamma Quadrant to make first contact with the Founders in 2371. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful, and the Prospect was severely damaged. In an effort to stop the Jem'Hadar ships pursuing them, Captain John Greene ordered the ship to emergency separate, detonating the secondary hull, wiping out the Jem'Hadar ships and preventing a Dominion incursion through the Bajoran wormhole. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Pure Massacre")
In recognition of the sacrifice and the strong history of the ship, Starfleet launched the USS Prospect (NCC-60056-A) later in the same year, keeping the same registry number and adding an "A" to it.
- The ship was named after Mount Prospect, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago.
Command crew (2365-2371)[]
Notes[]
The Prospect was originally an Excelsior-class starship, but held an extremely high registry number for that type of ship, as did her sister ships, the USS Arlington, USS Barrington, USS Des Plaines, USS Palatine and USS Park Ridge. The original explanation for this (which did not make its way into the series) was Starfleet assembled spare Excelsior-class pieces into ships and rushed them into service during a war, most likely the Federation-Tzenkethi War in the 2350s or 2360s, allowing for the higher (and extremely similar) registry numbers. After the war, they didn't retire the ships, opting instead to leave them in active service.
The author decided to change the Prospect and her sister ships to a newer, fanon class of ship, the Sauginash-class, after a neighborhood in Chicago, fitting into the naming convention of the other ships, which are names of suburbs (or derivatives of names of suburbs). This also is more conducive to the higher registry numbers.