USS Defiance

By Jay Randle

Premise: In 2268, the position of commandant of the Starfleet Marine Corps fell to one General Phillip Joubert - a lifelong advocate of combined arms forces, and a passionate defender of the Corps' right to field its own purpose-built spacecraft/organic support forces instead of rickety old converted freighters that required constant shepherding. What was ideal was a ship that could keep up with main fleet units, hold its own in a firefight, and deliver/defend, and control its embarked forces onto a target planet safely. In late 2268, he got what he’d wanted - The tale of NCC-1707 Defiance begins with the construction of the first of the Constitution class starships. Starfleet policy had just been introduced that required the shipyards building the vessels to also construct a number of spaceframes - the bare skeleton of a starship, that could be stored in secret locations as attrition replacements, or a source of spare hull sections for ships that had become seperated, or badly damaged, in much the same way as bridge modules could be swapped out. When Joubert became head of the Starfleet Marine Corps, part of his briefing included the locations, and inventory of these depots. Once he found out that there was essentially a spare Constitution lying around, he knew that his dream was several steps closer to fruition than he had thought. A large amount of string-pulling, cajoling, and downright force of will quickly secured the as yet unamed spaceframe NX-1707, which was towed to San Francisco Fleet Yards No.14 Dock, and promptly disappeared for the next two years. When she reappeared, the differences between her and her sister ships were startling. As per new advances in shield technology, the new ship did not need a coating of thermoglaze to protect her hull from shield feedback, but instead her bare hull plates were coated with a special low reflective clear coating.

The phaser banks were of the new BP30/2C dual turret style, spread liberally around the hull so as to cover all firing arcs. The torpedo launchers remained in the same place, but were modified to fire the new Mark VI Photon Torpedoes. And the warp nacelles had been changed to the latest version of the stalwart old Yoyodyne FR8G’s, fed by one of the new high powered vertical M/ARA reactors, which also fed the new phaser banks. Other internal changes gave the ship barracks and training facilities for the embarked Marine battalion, and a considerably larger than normal medical bay, as well as larger cargo storage and transporter facilities - at the cost of removing most of the science labs. The final major change to the ship was the fitment of a large command and control centre in place of the Briefing Room on E deck, which would allow the control of the embarked units, their aerospace support craft, and supporting vessels. By the time all the work was finished, Joubert could legitimately claim to having the ultimate variant of the Constitution class under his command. Now all that was needed was a suitable name. Some, more jealous officers among the higher echelons of Starfleet Command bandied about names like USS Overpriced, or USS Budget-Buster, but Joubert was defiant in his support of the concept....’Hold on’, he thought, ‘there’s an idea...’ And when the ship was powered up in No.14 Dock, the spotlights showed the proud name emblazoned across her primary hull - USS Defiance. The model: This starship began life as a very generous donation from my friend Tim - at the time, I was building a Polar Lights refit Enterprise for a customer. He supplied an Acreation Models decal set for the ship, and kindly allowed me to keep the Round 2 set that came with the kit! So, with a great deal of cutting about of decals, and a handful of LEDs, we have a very different Constitution... Image: Top

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