USS Arcturus

USS Arcturus is an Odyssey-class heavy explorer assigned to the Fourth Fleet under the command of Fleet Captain Michael Lancaster, serving as the flagship for Arcturus Squadron. Designed with higher density fuel storage tanks and hardened systems compared to her sister ships, Arcturus was intended to lead an extended mission in the Delta Quadrant for the Delta Exploration Initiative. Thanks to extenuating galactic events, however, she has spent most of her service life in the Alpha Quadrant, most recently leading exploratory efforts in the remote Olympia Sector out of Olympia Station.

Background

Following the destruction of Utopia Planitia in 2385, Starfleet's shipbuilding priorities were thrown into disarray, as a substantial number of the Federation's large shipyards had been temporarily diverted to producing evacuation transports for the Romulan relocation effort, at the expense of larger explorers and dedicated science vessels. In the chaos that resulted from the destabilization and reorganization of the Romulan Star Empire just a few years later, Starfleet began prioritizing vessels that could be assigned to defensive duties and which would be used to maintain the integrity of the Federation's borders. In the mid-2390s, though, certain factions within Starfleet's higher echelons were successful in securing resources to plan a return to long-range exploratory missions, especially in the form the compact, and long-range Luna-class light explorers, which represented new standards in automation, efficiency, and independence. While these vessels were especially well-suited for solo missions in the Alpha and Beta quadrants that would eventually be followed up on by science vessels, the Delta Exploration Initiative pushed for expeditions that would be able to support multiple starships for an extended period in an environment without bases or supply depots.

As such, the Arcturus was ordered in 2394 as an experimental variant of the Odyssey-class explorer which would include greater system redundancy and industrial fabrication capabilities to allow it to serve as a long-range base of operations for an expedition to the Delta Quadrant. As a proof of concept, she would embark on a three-month trial mission through the Barzan Wormhole into the Delta Quadrant starting in early 2399 and accompanied by a task group from the Fourth Fleet's Task Force 38. Even before construction had started, Commodore Elizabeth Hayden was selected as her commanding officer and of the task group. While many construction sites were considered, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers settled on Epsilon Indi Station, to test the feasibility of building large explorers at Starfleet's smaller construction facilities, using modular assembly protocols with individual sections of the ship brought in from other small bases and then integrated at Epsilon Indi, with the eventual goal of reducing the reliance on large fleet yards such as Utopia Planitia.

Construction at Epsilon Indi Station

Captain Akintoye Okusanya was selected to oversee the design and construction phases for the Arcturus, with the first hull sections beginning construction in early 2395. Construction proceeded without significant issues, and in 2397 Captain Michael Lancaster, the Chief of Staff of the Delta Exploration Initiative, began to develop a crew roster and equipment manifest suitable for the Arcturus's stated three-month trial mission as well as the very real possibility that the ship and those accompanying her would find themselves stranded 70,000 light-years from home and need to make their way back via conventional means, should the wormhole's stability fail.

Lancaster was eventually assigned as Hayden's first officer, alongside Okusanya as Captain of Engineering, and a fourth captain to lead the ship's medical department: Captain Alenis Anjar, M.D., both because of the sheer size of the ship's crew and to ensure that there would be a deep bench of command talent to pull from, should one or more of the ship's senior officers be killed during the course of the mission. Commodore Hayden assumed command of the Arcturus in November 2398, two months prior to her launch, with the rest of the senior staff joining the ship right up until her departure from the yard.

Design and Layout

Though several other ships of the class had already been built, the construction process for Arcturus was lengthened to allow for most critical systems to be hardened to increase her survivability on long-distance missions.

Deck 12, the widest deck of the primary hull, is home to a broad gallery that runs the perimeter of the exterior, from one impulse engine all the way around to the other. On the interior side are art installations, planters, and quiet spaces for nutrition and relaxation. On the exterior side are lounges that have many windows looking out into space, which are connected directly to the gallery itself. Based on deck ten of the Galaxy-class, this space is designed to give the ship's crew open spaces that would help fight against the natural isolation and claustrophobia that comes from long-duration exploratory missions. On the bow, there are several small lounges that provide quiet views of space beyond the ship, which is located in front of the ship's main promenade, a three-deck open area that includes further biological installations, restaurants staffed by holographic beings, and more open space to help the crew cope with long missions away from starbases by providing a large, open space that mimics a city center.

The Plowman's Tap

Located on Deck 5 with large windows looking out over the primary hull, the Plowman's Tap is the largest lounge on the Arcturus and the favored recreational spot for many of the ship's senior officers as well as the ship's queer community, between which there is a substantial overlap. The name refers to the constellation containing the star Arcturus: Boötes, which means 'plowman' or 'ox-driver' in Greek. It was selected by the lounge manager assigned to the Arcturus during the final stages of her construction in 2398, Miss Nomer, who enjoyed the innuendo one can find in the name if one looks hard enough. She also liked the irony that stems from the Plowman's Tap having no actual beer taps.

This lounge is twice as large as the forward lounge found on a Galaxy-class ship, with seating for approximately sixty people at maximum capacity. The entry doors to the Plowman's Tap are larger than other doors on the ship and have circular windows, painted blue with gold details. These entrances are to the sides of the bar, which has twenty stools and a commanding view of the rest of the room. Drinks are provided from two replicators behind the bar, flanking a large painting of a bucolic farming scene that prominently features an ox pulling a plow being led by a shirtless man in half-fastened overalls, created by Miss Nomer herself. She's keen to remind patrons that if they don't like it, they know where the nearest airlock is.

Lights are kept lower in the Plowman's Tap than on the rest of the ship, which contributes to a relaxed atmosphere. It's common for crewmembers to gather here for a drink, either by themselves at the bar or in small groups at tables spread throughout the room on three tiers. The furniture other than the bar stools and the bar itself is, in fact, holographic, which allows it to be configured at will to a number of different configurations. On Friday nights, the room is re-arranged to include a stage flanked by cocktail tables for a cabaret-style show put on by Miss Nomer and other drag performers from the crew.

The wait staff is a mix of organic crewmembers (generally operations division yeomen in all-black uniforms which helps distinguish them from other personnel) and holographic waiters, depending on the time of day and the particular event. Miss Nomer is known to have the computer match the waitstaff's outfits to her own, whether she's performing or not.

Integrated Auxiliary Vessels

Aquarius-class Escort: USS Hokule'a

The Hokule'a in flight.

Like all Odyssey-class starships, the Arcturus is equipped with a stern cradle to store and transport an Aquarius-class light escort. The Arcturus's support vessel is the USS Hokule'a (NCC-84000/1), which is the Hawai'ian name for the star Arcturus. This vessel is used for multiple mission profiles including defense of the mothership, scouting and survey missions, transport missions, and other tasks that are too complex for a simple runabout or shuttle to perform. The Hokule'a does not have its own crew and is manned by mothership personnel depending on the particular mission, but a skeleton crew is kept aboard at all times to keep it ready for launch at a moment's notice. When the Arcturus goes to yellow or red alert, a full standby crew is brought aboard to prepare for possible combat operations, under the command of one of the ship's officers of the watch. The Arcturus's Senior Officer of the Watch is the designated captain of the Hokule'a for these sorts of deployments.

Diplomatic Launch: Da Jiao

Similar in function to the captain's yachts found aboard other large starships, the Da Jiao (NCC-84000/15) is a large warp-capable craft intended for diplomatic transport duties and for hosting small conferences. This two-deck craft can maintain modest warp speeds and is suitable for system-to-system courier runs, though she is rarely used for this purpose in the Delta Quadrant. Its large size and significant unused internal volume make it ideal for hosting scientific equipment, even if this was not its intended purpose.

Service History

Since her launch in early 2399, the Arcturus has served as a front-line exploratory starship, though she has also engaged in significant tactical operations in both the Alpha and Delta quadrants as a result of circumstances rather than intentions.

2399

January 2399: Arcturus is commissioned at Epsilon Indi Station under the command of Commodore Elizabeth Hayden and ordered to proceed to the Barzan System for war games with the Andorian Imperial Guard.
- On the eve of the ship's departure to the Barzan system, the Waverider shuttle carrying the ship's first officer and a handful of other officers on their way to join the crew is hijacked. Captain Lancaster and his associates are able to defeat his plot to destroy Epsilon Indi station, and the Arcturus continued on schedule to its mission.^[1]
- Thanks to the actions of the crew of the Apollo, the Arcturus's task group wins the war games with the Andorians, leaving the ship ready to depart with a crew in good spirits from a recent win.^[2]
February 2399: For most of the month, Arcturus journeys from the Barzan Wormhole to Ocampa to undertake second contact. Along the way, cursory surveys are made of the region to plot future exploratory routes. After a successful second contact, Arcturus returns to the Barzan wormhole to report on the success of the proof-of-concept mission.
March 2399: Immediately upon returning to the Alpha Quadrant through the wormhole, Arcturus participates in the defense of Starbase 38 against a Breen dreadnought. During this battle, Vice Admiral Knox is killed aboard the Hephaestion and subsequently Commodore Hayden is promoted to Rear Admiral and ordered to reform Task Force 9 with her flag aboard Arcturus. Captain Lancaster assumes command of Arcturus.
- Arcturus has limited contributions to the Archanis Campaign through a Hazard team of prospective officers, and participates in the rescue of several hundred Orion refugees.^[3]
April to May 2399: Arcturus serves along the Breen border to put out tactical and diplomatic brushfires in the region, while Starfleet evaluates the potential for future Delta Quadrant missions.
June 2399: Arcturus is authorized for a full five-year mission in the Delta Quadrant and returns to that area of space.
August 2399: After a successful first contact with the Thalruatanians^[4], a species of four-legged humanoids inhabiting a vast ecumenopolis world, Arcturus successfully implements the Omega Directive^[5] and in the process defends Thalruatania from a concerted Kazon attack. The Hokule'a is severely damaged on this mission.^[6]
September to November 2399: Arcturus continues exploratory missions in the Delta Quadrant.
December 2399: Operating on a tip from a Vulcan survey vessel, Arcturus diverts to the Omicron Torrensis system, where they find an M-class world that has been teraformed into a perfect geological match for Ocampa IV, the homeworld of the Ocampa. This planet is revealed to be a Nacene installation, which forces Arcturus to return to Federation space via a similar means to that of the Caretaker's Array. The ship is damaged during this process and is repaired at Epsilon Indi Station.^[7]

2400

January 2400: Arcturus, under the temporary command of Captain Akintoye Okusanya, succesfully stabilizes the aerostat colony at Sentinel Minor and reconfigures the subspace telescope there for deep space weather prediction during the Century Storm.^[8]
February to April 2400: Arcturus conducts general exploratory and diplomatic missions in the Alpha Quadrant.
May 2400: Arcturus assists a refugee convoy resettle on Gamma Sagittarii III as part of the Sundered Wings Campaign.^[9] A refugee demands asylum in return for intelligence on the imperial forces stalking the convoy, but before a resolution can be achieved, an Arcturus officer retrieves this information by force and is later court-martialed and demoted.^[10]
Late 2400: Arcturus is dispatched to Omicron Uhurae III during the Blood Dilithium Campaign. There, they discover that the planet's natural superconscious interacted with the Blood Dilithium to magnify its effects—something that the Devore had anticipated and engineered. The crew are able to mitigate the effects of this phenomenon and neutralize the situation.^[11]

2401

Early 2401: Arcturus is ordered to the far edge of Federation territory in the Beta Quadrant as part of Commodore Brett Logan's squadron to study the Talvath Cluster.^[12]
- After surveying the brown dwarf HD 92018, Arcturus receives a distress call from the long-thought-destroyed USS Icarus, a Daedalus-class transport from the Earth-Romulan War in the Aldari system. A colony with descendants of both Human and Romulan ancestry is discovered, as is a plot by the Romulan Free State to cause the colonists to attack the Federation. During this mission Commodore Logan becomes increasingly less rational, culminating in a stand-off on the bridge of Arcturus when Captain Lancaster overrides the commodore to provide the locals with the revelation of Romulan interference. Logan attempts to have Lancaster relieved, but he was relieved himself under Starfleet Order 104, Section C.^[13] He is found to be the victim of Romulan brainwashing.
- Diverted to the Deneb Sector, Admiral Liam Dahlgren issues Arcturus with new orders: to track down a missing Federation science vessel, the Banting, which had been tracking astrozoan life forms, Farpoint Cnidarians. Foiling a Ferengi plot to gain control of these creatures on behalf of the Breen-Dominion offensive, Arcturus destroys several Breen ships, but the Dominion abduct the Ferengi and escaped. After this battle, Dahlgren promoted Captain Lancaster to fleet captain and gave him command of Arcturus Squadron.^[14]
- Arcturus intercepts the Dominion vessel with the remaining thought-makers and successfully liberates a Farpoint Cnidarian from nearly becoming assimilated during the events of Frontier Day 2401, thanks to the efforts of an away team of middle-deck officers.^[15]
Mid 2401: Arcturus is assigned to the Olympia Sector out of Olympia Station as part of a massive expansion of Arcturus Squadron. During the Underspace Crisis, Olympia Station is accidentally moved halfway across the quadrant through an emerging subspace corridor. Using the warp coils and deflectors of all of the ships in the squadron, Arcturus is able to pull the station back to its normal position.

Namesake & Lineage

The ship's seal, with the Starfleet delta over Arcturus (also known as α Boo), the brightest star in the constellation Boötes, meaning 'plowman.'

Arcturus is the brightest star in the constellation Boötes, and the third brightest star in the night sky of Earth. The name Arcturus derives from the Latinization of the Greek word for bear ("ἄρκτος") compounded with the Greek word for guard (" οὖρος"), meaning Bear Guardian.^[16] In Greek mythology, Hyginus describes the tale of a young hunter Arcas, who is about to kill his mother, Callisto, with an arrow, not knowing that she has been transfigured into a bear, but Zeus transforms them both into constellations, him Arctophylax (the proper Greek formulation of bear guardian, and the Greek name for the constellation Boötes) and her Ursa Major (the greater bear).^[17] The constellation Boötes forms the crest of the starship's seal.

The three Federation starships to bear the name Arcturus.

On Earth, Arcturus was the name of five auxiliary vessels of the United States Navy in the 20th century, and the Arcturus-class attack cargo ship during the Second World War.^[18] The Royal Swedish Navy had three ships of this name in the 20th and 21st centuries, and the United Kingdom's Royal Navy had one in the Second World War. This name was also the designation for a United States Coast Guard flying patrol boat, a variant type of the Lockheed CP-140 Aurora, and an uncrewed aerial vehicle.^[19]

There have been two previous Federation starships to bear the name Arcturus:

USS Arcturus - NCC-1807 - Constitution II-class heavy cruiser
- 2275-2325 (Decommissioned)
USS Arcturus - NCC-49801 - Ambassador-class heavy cruiser
- 2341-2397 (Decommissioned)

Crew Structure

A standard Odyssey-class heavy explorer had a crew of 1,500 and can regularly embark anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand mission specialists and visiting personnel engaged in research completely separate from the ship's primary mission, with a total life support capability of 20,000 when packed to the bulkheads with refugees or passengers. Arcturus has a larger operational crew of 2,500, with the bulk of the additional personnel assigned to the engineering and science departments. Her larger crew allows her to operate on a four-shift rotation and reduces crew fatigue on long missions. To make up for this, the number of visiting crew members rarely exceeds 750. At any given moment, Arcturus carries about 3,000 souls, including visiting research teams and a small number of civilians.

Because of her larger crew, Arcturus's organizational chart differs from most Starfleet vessels. The first officer holds the rank of captain and is known as the Staff Captain to quickly distinguish them verbally from the ship's actual commanding officer, a term borrowed from civilian cruise liners. The senior engineer also holds the rank of captain and uses the title Captain of Engineering to distinguish them from the ship's three "Chief Engineering Officers" who oversee the three sub-divisions within engineering. The Chief Medical Officer also bears the rank of captain, as the ship has two hospital-grade medical facilities aboard. While on other ships bridge department heads like the Chief Flight Control Officer, Chief Security Officer, and Chief Tactical Officer would be amongst the ship's most senior officers, on Arcturus they report to the Senior Officer of the Watch who serves as the command division head. Similarly, the Chief Communications Officer reports to the Chief Operations Officer, and the Chief Counselor reports to the Chief Medical Officer. The division heads, namely the Senior Officer of the Watch, Captain of Engineering, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Science Officer, and Strategic Operations Officer are the six officers between the department and section heads and the Staff Captain.

Commanding Officers

Stardate 2395—Stardate 2398: Captain Akintoye Okusanya (Construction Supervisor, Pre-commissioning)
Stardate 2398.12—Stardate 2399.3: Commodore Elizabeth Hayden
Stardate 2399.3—Present: Captain/Fleet Captain Michael Lancaster

Executive Officers

January 2399—March 2399: Captain Michael Lancaster
March 2399—December 2399: Captain Iro Rakan
January 2400—Present: Captain Larus Alesser

Other Information

Arcturus Knowledgebase

References

[1] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/34960

[2] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/34982

[3] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/35005

[4] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/36186

[5] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/38403

[6] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/40062

[7] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/43656

[8] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/47494

[9] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/54445

[10] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/57366

[11] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/67320

[12] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/69591

[13] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/75260

[14] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/76905

[15] ttps://bravofleet.com/mission/76920

[16] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcturus#Nomenclature

[17] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcturus#Mythology

[18] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Arcturus

[19] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcturus_(disambiguation)

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