| U.S.S. Aspasia |
U.S.S. Aspasia in the orbit of Vulcan,
after her second refit in 2422. |
| Class | Vesta |
| Registry | NCC-82638 |
| Owner | UFP Starfleet |
| Operator | 38th Fleet Argo |
| Launched | 2398 |
| Status | Operational |
|
|
Ship Name
The vessel was named after Aspasia, woman from the Ancient Greece on Earth, who was partner to Pericles, the famous law maker in the city-state of Athens. U.S.S. Aspasia is considered a sister ship to U.S.S. Hypatia, also a Vesta-class vessel.
History
In 2395, Vesta-class had been in service for 15 years. After serving as a test bed for many technologies, among which the quantum slipstream FTL propulsion was most notable one, Starfleet decided to commission a second generation of Vesta and her, more specialized, sister classes, Aventine and Rademaker. Two vessels of Vesta-class were commissioned for construction at San Francisco Fleet Yards, with Naval Construction Contracts 82638 and 82653, in the drydocks which neighboured each other. As their construction progressed, several members of Starfleet Corps of Engineers working their quantum slipstream systems nicknamed them “Vesta-class Twins”. The latter vessel was finished and launched in 2397, after being christened as U.S.S. Hypatia [1].
The former was named Aspasia, after a Greek woman who had been a life partner to Pericles, famous law maker in the Ancient Greece. The ship’s construction had been completed in the early 2397, but her launch was postponed after a convoy, carrying a shipment of benamite crystals intended for her quantum slipstream drive (QSD), had been raided by the Orion Syndicate. Upon Starfleet’s successful retrieval of the benamite shipment, U.S.S. Aspasia was launched in the early 2398, under Captain Toras Badrin, Son of the 11th House of Betazed.
From her launch up to the fall of Gornar in 2403, Aspasia was deployed along the patrol routes near the Romulan Neutral Zone, occasionally defusing border skirmishes between various Romulan factions. With the fall of Gornar, Starfleet redeployed Aspasia along the Federation-Klingon border in Hromi Cluster, assigning her as the lead ship of Hromi Task Force. When Klingons initially pushed into Hromi Cluster, thus marking the beginning of the Federation-Klingon War, the Task Force was among the first combatants.
While the initial push back of Klingon invasion force was successful, Starfleet was forced to withdraw and redeploy. Aspasia and her crew, under Captain Badrin, witnessed the end of war and ceasefire, shortly after the Undine invasion of Earth and Qo’nos. With the discovery of the first Dyson Sphere, both Aspasia and Hypatia were sent on the exploration patrols of the vast space structure. But the founding of Dyson Joint Command increased the presence of Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers, allowing Starfleet to focus some of its resources on back into exploration. With Badrin’s promotion to Rear Admiral and transfer to Odyssey-class flagship, U.S.S. Altair, the central chair was passed to a new commanding officer, Captain Joseph Hendricks from Alpha Centauri in 2414.
Aspasia returned to Earth for her first refit which lasted nearly four standard months. Many of technologies designed for younger ship classes, like Odyssey, Regent and Pathfinder were adapted to Aspasia, namely the newest generation of BNG packs, sensor systems and phaser arrays. With refit complete, Aspasia was sent to her new frontier - Beta Quadrant space far beyond Cardassian Union and Zenas Expanse. While many political commentators applauded this as a sign of hope, truth was much more desperate - Aspasia's primary mission was to assess potential threats of the remaining, renegade Dominion influences, following the New Link and The 2800 crises.
When the Iconian War broke out in 2415, Captain Hendricks was tempted to have his ship turned around back towards Earth and punch her QSD to its maximum. But Starfleet Command orders were grim. Given the developments, neither Starfleet nor Federation had any contigency plan - should Earth fall, Aspasia's chances of survival were better in the unknown depths of space. During her absence from the Federation, between 2414 and 2418, Aspasia had covered the distance of almost 200 parsecs or a little over 650 light years from the nearest Federation outpost. Captain Hendricks nicknamed the crossed region “The Dead Zone”, as majority of star systems they catalogued, charted or surveyed had no planets or other habitats which could sustain any known form of life - from protoanthropos sapiens universalis (i.e. Preserver-alike) to the likes of Tholian, Horta, Kessok, Hurq or even cosmozoans. The region was devoid of life-friendly conditions way below the Milky Way average. The only sign of known lifeforms was an aged Cardassian sleeper ship, one of the few that Cardassian Union sent, in the first year of their journey, some 100 light years away from Cardassia. The occupants’ remains were returned to Cardassia in 2418. Deep space probes sent by the 47the Fleet stationed at Starbase 432 in the Wayfearer Expanse almost a decade later confirmed Aspasia’s findings and expanded the estimated space devoid of life to almost 1500 light years. Apart from a few pilgrim ships passing through the Dead Zone, the crew had on other encounters or First Contacts to speak of.
Aspasia was passing through the Cardassian Union on her return voyage when the Khitomer Alliance launched its counter-assault against the Tzenkethi Coalition in 2418. The ship assisted Cardassian Defense Force in subverting Coalition’s attempts at purging several worlds within the Cardassion Union. It was the first time since the Federation-Klingon War that Aspasia was engaged in a prolonged military conflict. The final clash with Tzenkethi occurred in Lahra system, where Aspasia participated in the joint fleet of Cardassian, Ferengi and Bajoran vessels in protecting Lahra Prime, home to a several hundred thousand Cardassian residents. Just before its destruction, a Rhas’bej battleship launched the three final protomatter torpedoes at the planet. Captain Hendricks ordered a Picard maneuver ahead of the torpedoes, placing Aspasia between the planet and the incoming projectiles. One was taken down, the second hit Aspasia and third, by luck, was deflected away from the planet by the detonation of the second one. The ship’s shields collapsed and the resulting explosions damaged the starboard side of the saucer across five decks, including the bridge which decompressed. Captain Hendricks and the senior staff, with the exception of Chief Engineer and Chief Medical Officer, were killed along with 184 crew members. As the most senior officer aboard, Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander Sovan, had the ship towed back to Starbase Archer at the edge of Zenas Expanse, as it was the closest facility capable of such repairs.
As the Hurq resurgence began, Starfleet Corps of Engineers arrived with a small task group, under the command of Rear Admiral Harold Jakobsson, to repair the vessel and make it battle ready once more. Jakobsson transferred his flag from Prometheus-class USS White Fang to Aspasia, pulling along most of the former’s crew, including his Saurian XO, now Captain Teezir Rolak of Sauria. Jakobsson founded Task Group Aspasia, comprised of nine vessels from across the Khitomer Alliance members, including Cardassia, Ferenginar, Lukari, Federation and Romulan Republic to patrol the sectors between Tzenketh Prime and Bajor, and respond to any emergencies arising from the Hurq threat while the rest of the Alliance pressed forward into Gamma Quadrant to resolve the crisis. The task group would later transfer to Beta Quadrant on similar patrol duty to counter the spilling of Klingon Civil War into the rest of Khitomer Alliance territory.
At the end of Klingon Civil War in late 2421, Admiral Jakobsson disbanded the task group and sent Aspasia to undergo refit at Eta Eridani/Vulcan shipyard facilities. His decision displeased the senior admirality staff at Starfleet Command as they believed that a vessel of “such a prime class belonged to its place of origin”, but Jakobsson countered them with a simple fact - in the past two decades, Earth had been directly assaulted too many times and presented a risk of losing such a valuable ship. Jakobsson’s words turned out to be somewhat prophetic as the C’Qer crisis occurred a little over a year later.
During her second refit, Aspasia’s internal systems were greatly overhauled and adapted to match the developments in the “third generation of Vesta-class family” - Brigid, Palatine and Esquiline. Upgrades were also made in deflector shielding and sensor systems, though phaser systems remained a hurdle as the geometry of primary weapon batteries did not allow upgrades greater than Type 12 Mark XIII. Upon the completion of her second refit, Aspasia was sent to patrol along the Dominion-Hurq zone of demarcation in the Gamma Quadrant, along with the renewed mandate of exploration, between 2422 and 2424.
When both Admiral Jakobsson and Captain Rolak retired, the central chair was passed on to Wanya Lesyak, who previously served with the two on White Fang and then as XO on Aspasia.
Technical Data
| Specifications |
|---|
Length
Beam
Draft
Mass
|
672 meters
192 meters
88 meters
3 321 630 mt
|
| Decks | 23 |
| Standard Crew | 750 |
| Emergency Capacity | 5000 |
|
Armaments
|
12× Type 12 Mk XIII Phaser Arrays
1× Type 12 Mk XII Auxiliary Phaser Cannon
4× Variable Geometry Torpedo Launchers (2F/2A)
|
|
Defenses
|
Primary Covariant Shielding
Metaphasic Shielding
Duranium/Tritanium Hull Armor
Ablative Armor in critical areas
(e.g., bridge, nacelle pylons)
|
|
Auxiliary Craft
|
6× Workbees
4× Type 8 Shuttlecraft
2× Type 9 Shuttlecraft
2× Yellowstone-class Runabouts
|
Technical Specifications
It could be said that Quantum Slipstream Drive is to Vesta-class what original Transwarp Drive was to Excelsior-class. With a notable exception that “The Second Grand Experiment” - the deployment of a useful QSD across Starfleet - was successful. The first generation of Vesta-class vessels, seven of them, each named after the hills of Rome on planet Earth, proved their worth in different situations and went beyond performance expectations that Starfleet Command had even considered Vesta-class as the hull for Enterprise-F.
The second generation (Mk II) vessels of Vesta-class, to which U.S.S. Aspasia belongs, were built with general purpose in mind, rather than the testbed for QSD. Much of the technologies in Aspasia were transferred off from her contemporaries, most notably the Sovereign-class, and adapted to the Vesta-class frame. Among these were Type 12 phasers, variable geometry torpedo launchers (photon/quantum), contour-conforming multiphasic shielding, bioneural gel pack circuitry and modified warp drive that did not damage subspace.
After her first refit in 2414, Aspasia’s systems were upgraded to catch up with Sovereign and Intrepid successor classes (especially Regent and Pathfinder, respectively). The ship also received one of the earliest covariant shield systems in Starfleet. The combined covariant/multiphasic upgrade was received after the second refit, in 2422, in addition to the separate mode - the metaphasic shielding developed by Ferengi scientist, Doctor Reyga. The second refit, or rather a retrofit, was conducted in 2422, when Mk I and Mk II Vesta-classes received upgrades “backported” from the three successor classes - Brigid, Palatine and Esquiline. However, due to limited interior space of the original Vesta, weapon system upgrades were difficult - there was simply no room for enlarged primary weapon batteries for phaser arrays without impacting other systems, most notably the EPS distribution. As such, weapons-wise, U.S.S. Aspasia and her sister vessels remained on the level of “enhanced Sovereign”.
The backward compatibility between Mk I/II Vesta and the most recent Caelian-class was even lower, except in the area of crew amenities. In spite of that, Mk II Vesta-class vessels like Aspasia have remained modular enough systems-wise to allow interoperability with contemporary classes which are also still in service like Luna, Intrepid/Bellerophon/Pathfinder and Sovereign, but also a more “gunboat” classes like Defiant/Sao Paulo and Akira/Thunderchild, thus ensuring the originally predicted lifetime of the hull to be around 80-100 years.
References
[1] Vesta class - Ktarn Fleet Wiki
