USS Scylla

USS Scylla
General Information
Registry	NCC-87505
Class & Type	Manticore-class heavy escort
Affiliation	Starfleet
Status	Active
Commissioned	2391
Assignment
Squadron	Sirius Squadron
Role	Interdiction Tactical Support
Key Personnel
Commanding Officer	Captain Teodor Borodin
Template:Starship

"Scylla is a rock, Charybdis the sea. Both are deadly to those who are driven onto them."

    —Pomponius Mela - Ship's Dedication Quote

USS Scylla NCC-87505 is a Manticore-class Federation starship currently assigned to Fourth Fleet under the command of Captain Teodor Borodin. Operating as part of Sirius Squadron, the Scylla provides the unit with tactical support. Smaller and faster than the formation's primary tactical vessel, the USS Redemption, the Scylla acts as a rapid response ship for emerging combat situations and flies escort when the other major ships of the squadron may be entering dangerous areas. Her routine operations include recon and patrol duties, particularly along more contested regions of the former Romulan Neutral Zone.

History

The Scylla was commissioned in late 2391 as part of the first construction order for the Manticore-class, and was built at and launched from Beta Antares Shipyards. Two five-year missions followed her three-month shakedown, with complete crew overhauls each time. The first dispatched the Scylla to the border with the Gorn Hegemony on patrol duties. While the frontier rarely faced significant dangers from the Gorn, this was at the height of Starfleet's post-Mars downturn, with the Scylla as one of the most powerful ships in the region, and thus the first to respond to any incursion. The second five-year mission brought the Scylla to the border with the Breen Confederacy and Tzenkethi Coalition. Near this mission's conclusion, the events of Frontier Day wracked the Federation. The Scylla was not spared, many of her crew killed by their assimilated shipmates. Heavily damaged, the Scylla spent the ensuing months undergoing repairs and refits at Avalon Fleet Yards, before being relaunched under the command of Captain Borodin.

Namesake

The 'Scylla' is a legendary, man-eating monster of Greek mythology, a six-headed creature said to lair at a rocky crag beside a narrow strait of water and set upon unwary sailors below. Her most famous mention is in Homer's Odyssey, where she is encountered as a threat to Odysseus's ship and crew. Virgil's Aeneid tells the origins of Scylla as a beautiful naiad transformed into a monster by Amphirite, goddess of the sea, who was jealous for the attention Scylla had drawn from her consort, Poseidon the sea-god. An alternate but similar story in Ovid's Metamorphoses depicts her as the object of the affections of the sea-god Glaucus, and jealously transformed by the sorceress Circe. Ovid's version has been retold in various forms, including the opera Scylla et Glaucus by Jean-Marie Leclair, and loosely by John Keats in his epic poem Endymion.

As a monster, Scylla is often depicted as one of two threats for sailors seeking to traverse the narrow strait. The other is Charybdis, a monster dwelling within the sea and sometimes depicted as a whirlpool. The two monsters were said to be separated by no greater distance than an arrow's flight. Sailors attempting to avoid one danger would come within reach of the other. The tales of these two monsters led to the birth of the idiom 'between Scylla and Charybdis,' associated with situations such as needing to choose 'the lesser of two evils' or simply being in an unwinnable position, 'between a rock and a hard place.' In Homer's account, Odysseus was advised to pass by Scylla, where he would certainly lose only a few sailors, while to sail close to Charybdis risked losing the entire ship.

Despite its monstrous connotations, several Starfleet ships have borne the name Scylla. They draw from the heritage of the British Royal Navy ships HMS Scylla, including the 18-gun brig-sloop that fought in the Napoleonic Wars and the World War II Dido-class cruiser that served as the Royal Navy flagship for the Normandy landings of 1944. The Manticore-class USS Scylla follows in the footsteps of a Nimitz-class Heavy Cruiser that flew in the mid-23rd century, and a Constellation-class Heavy Cruiser that was decommissioned in the 2360s.

Configuration

For much of her service, the Scylla was installed with the scientific mission pod to increase her laboratory space, which Starfleet deemed necessary for a ship often deployed alone on frontiers. While this limited her tactical capabilities, it left the Scylla capable of scientific inquiry and survey duties that arose, in a transparent effort by Starfleet to avoid deploying additional ships to the borders where she patrolled. After Frontier Day and her repairs at Avalon Fleet Yards, the laboratory space was replaced with a tactical mission pod, enhancing her torpedo capacity. This change was made at the request of Captain Borodin upon his assignment to the Scylla.

Notable Crew

Commanding Officers

• 2401 - Present: Captain Teodor Borodin