Topic: Ideas For Very Early Lyran Starships.

[Panzergranate]

By very early I mean centuries before TOS and when Lyran Warp technology allowed the earliest of warships to reach out. Probally right at the first hostile encounters with the Kzinti. SFB history states that the Kzinti and Lyrans have been at war repeatedly for more than 500 years.

I've been considering what very early Lyran starships would look like and why whatever design was decided upon.

The catamaran concept must have originally started out as a practical solution to a problem and just remained the standard practice here after.

It does seem to have its merits.

Consider that a fuel tank, Fusion powerplant and Warp engine could be constructed in one standardised propulsion, fuel and powerplant hull and attached either side of the main crew hull.

For servicing and repairs these propulsion hulls could be easily removed and replaced. As improvements in Warp Drive and powerplants appeared then upgrading a ship would mean simply replacing the propulsion hulls with newer technology ones.

I picture the earliest of Lyran warships having a central hull with propulsion hulls either side. These propulsion hulls would have a Deutronium or Helium 3 fuel tank(s), a Fusion powerplant, Warp engine and exhaust tube for the sublight drive.

For the Kzinti Fusion warp starships I gave the Warp engine only 2 boxes, so I figure that the Lyran Fusion Warp propulsion hulls would be 2 boxes also.

Later designs would retain the same main hull but the propulsion hulls would be different. The early MAM propulsion hulls would most likely have a glowing heat radiator arrangement similar to the type I came up with for the Kzinti early MAM starships.

I've no idea when the ESG weapon came into being but it would not have been around 500 years before TOS.

So what weapons would the Lyrans have that far back??

Phaser 3 ??

Disrupter 1 ??

Missiles??

Were tractor beams available to them that far back??

[FPF-Wanderer]

I certainly do not mean to take away from the discussion at hand...however;

SFB history is quite specific in the published timeline of 2007 (downloadable in PDF at StarFleetGames);

Tractor beams developed around Y5

First Lyran-Klingon encounter Y38

First Lyran-Hydran encounter Y40

First Lyran-Kzinti encounter Y48

Beginning of the General War Y168

Personally, I've always dug the Lyrans.  In fact, Desty Nova did an NCF for me back in the day.

[Panzergranate]

Does that mean all races simultaneously developed the tractor beam in Y-5??

I've always taken Y-1 to mark the first year of the Federation being founded, though Earth had Warp Drive before this date though not in such an advanced state. Earth had already fought the Romulan War before Y-1.

In TOS the Federation is more advanced that the Klingons, however in ENT the Klingons are more advanced than Humans (Photons, Transporters, etc.) Other races encountered in ENT have tractor beam technology, especially the Tholians. There was one battle scene in ENT that almost paid homage to SFB / SFC when an alien starship tractors one of the Enterprise's missiles then zaps it.

I'm kind of interested in what would be around around a century or two before SFB Y-1.

Pre-Y-1 ideas for Lyran starship design.

[FPF-Wanderer]

You have to remember that SFB and "canon" Star Trek are quite different in their histories.   ENT, TNG, mean nothing.  Even TOS, to an extent, despite the SFB universe being based off it (it has to do with licensing, more than anything else).

Y1 was the meeting of Humans and Vulcans.

Y4 the Federation was formed.

The Federation developed tractor beams in Y5, the other races around the same time.

The first Federation-Romulan War did not occur until Y40.

AFAIK, none of the Alpha Octant races became true star-faring cultures until around Y1.

[Magnum357]

Yes, this is correct.  SFB early era and Star Trek early era are vastly different to one another.  Keep that in mind with anyones anaylisis.  To make it even more complicated, the Starfleet Museum has its own skew for the early era. 

In SFB, the Federation was formed in Y4, in Star Trek this would be somewhere around Y100.  Take your pic, I know makes no sense to me either.  Starfleet Museum, i have no idea....

[Panzergranate]

In Rick Sternbech's 1979 book "The Space Flight Chronology", which elaborated on TOS plus some of the gaps in the TOS history, Earth's first interstellar flight and first contact was with an anti-matter spiked fusion starship called the Icarus when it travelled to Alpha Centurai. The Icarus had a maximum speed of 0.85c.

Transporters capable and safe enough to transmit lifeforms appear pretty much exactly the year specified in SFB and by Geordi LaForge TNG. Before then only inanimate objects could be transported. Cargo transporters had existed at least 20 to 30 years before the date given in in "The Space Flight Chronolgy".

Other key TSFC events are:

United Nations establishes The Solar Fleet to operate space craft for search and rescue, exploration and protection of the Sol solar system.

The UN launches Fusion Torch sublight starship missions to Tau Ceti and Alpha Centurai.

Practical Warp Drive technology invented by Zeffram Cochrane. The original theories of Warp Drive date back to 1956.

UNSS Bon Adventure launched as Earth's first Warp Drive starship.

UNSS Bon Adventure lost on third deep space mission to Barnard's Star.

Vulcans are first contacted after the Earth Fusion Warp starship UNSS Amity rescues a stricken Vulcan starship.

The Federation is loosely founded a year before the start of the Romulan War. It is more of an association similar to Earth's European Union and for mutual protection. Members retain their own navies for a while whilst resources and technology are pooled to design newer starships for a common Federation navy.

Earth develops rudimentary deflector shield technology but only has one class of destroyers equiped with it when the Romulan War starts. Ironically the first starship lost is one of these Marshall Class destroyers.

Romulan War breaks out after a Romulan successful "Pearl Harbour" style attack on Earth's original Starbase / Deep Space One by 14 Romulan warships.

The attack is launched from covert bases established over many years throughout Earth, Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite space.

The Romulans subsequently declare war on Vulcan, Andor and Tellar.

Most of Earth's poorly armed Fusion Warp Drive starships have armour, hull cooling and simple electromagnetic forcefields to deflect cosmic radiation and particle beams only. The Romulans slaughter them in many of the early space battles.

The first Federation built starship is a cruiser USS Horizon NCC-01. Six are built. It is the first starship in the Federation equiped with MAM Warp Drive and Impulse Power for sublight maneuvering. The increased power levels allow it to host a formidable arsenal of Laser and Particle Beam Cannons plus protection from attack by improved Deflector Shields and hull energy dispersion panels. It totally outclasses all previous Earth and Romulan warships. It proves decisive in forcing the conclusion of the Romulan War.

A prototype state of the art battlecruiser is constructed, tested and then mothballed never to enter service. Its improvements become the main features of a subsquent later cruiser design. The prototype battlecruiser closely resembles the Daedalus class exploration cruiser in layout, so presumably the mentioned cruiser was the Daedalus class.

The Klingon Empire is first contacted around the same time as in SFB when a Federation exploration starship is attacked by a Klingon battlecruiser in what was later realised to be Klingon space. This is the root of all Klingon claims of Federation expansionism and future hostilies.

The USS Moscow, a Baton Rouge class heavy cruiser, become the first Federation starship to be equiped with transporters capable of beaming lifeforms safely.

The books history ends with the launch of the Constitution Class heavy cruisers.

TSFC weapons technology for Earth / Federation:

Lasers -> Laser Cannons -> Laser Bank -> Phaser Bank.

Particle Beam -> Particle Beam Cannon (Disrupters were never developed by the Federation).

Attomic Missile -> Fusion Torpedo -> Photon Torpedo.

Sublight propulsion systems technology for Earth / Federation:

Chemical -> Fission -> Fusion Torch -> Anti-Matter Spiked Fusion Torch -> Ion -> Impulse Power.

Warp Drive technology:

Fusion Warp drive -> MAM warp Drive -> Dilithium Focus MAM Warp Drive.

As Rick Sternbech was involved with both TOS and TNG I've always tended to regard his work nearer to canon than the usual fanon. Much of the ADB timeline parallels his version of Star Trek history.

The Michael Okuda book, though based on more on episode canon and the author also having equal involvement in TNG, does have a few mistakes when compared to actual episodes.
 
ENT does contradict quite a few things in TOS and TNG especially regarding transporters and Klingon first contact.

ENT is good entertainment with all the politically correct namby pambism that pollutes Voyager removed. However, there are moments and technology that drift totally off course regarding Star Trek canon timeline.