K't'inga class
The K't'inga-class battlecruiser was historically and prominently the frontline battlecruiser of the Klingon Empire for the second half of the 23rd century and well into the 24th century. Through various refits and modernizations, the K't'inga continued service well past her intended design life and into the Dominion War. Although a much rarer sight in the 25th century with the wide deployment of the Vor'cha-class battlecruiser, the K't'inga can still be found throughout Klingon space and the frontier as a multi-purposed ship of war.
Exploration and Science
Although a ship bred for war and used as a battlecuiser, the K't'inga is a deceptively adept exploration platform. The original design expectation that the K't'inga would be forced onto the fringe frontier of Klingon space for months or maybe even years at a time required that the ship be equipped with a suite of sensors to handle the unknown. This served multiple purposes in being able to relay mapping data, both passive and active, back to Klingon command to be analyzed as well as using the K't'inga's advanced sensor suite in combat situations against perspective targets. Historically, because of the advanced K't'inga sensors, the ubiquitous nature of the vessel throughout its lifetime, and the data collected over the years, the Klingon Defense Force was able to passively map out large swaths of the Klingon frontier.
The K't'inga, being the workhorse battlecruiser of the Klingon Empire for almost 100 years, also served as its premier ship of exploration in any sense that the Klingon Empire was interested in such endeavors. Compared to other Klingon vessels of her era, the K't'inga is the most well-equipped for scientific duties. Although, for a Klingon warship design, that leaves much to be desired. If ever a matter of science or exploration was required, the K't'inga was the ship that was deployed for such matters during much of its lifetime. In the modern era, ships with more advanced sensor suites such as the Vor'cha-class or Negh'Var-class would primarily be deployed to any exploration assignments of importance.
Diplomacy
Much like exploration, the K't'inga-class was not designed with diplomacy in mind other than through superior firepower against enemy forces. However, the K't'inga has historically been used by the Klingon Empire as a ship of diplomatic gesture throughout the mid to late 23rd century. To that end, the K't'inga has been equipped with a limited amount of conference rooms and stately guest quarters for visiting dignitaries.
Engineering
A ship born out of and bred for war, the K't'inga-class was an amalgamation of the best parts of the separate Great House's designs rolled into one vaguely familiar frame. The K't'inga-class battlecruiser incorporated aspects of the M'Chla-class, Chargh-class, and Qugh-class, but especially from the Sech-class and BortaS bir-class. Overall, the design appeared as a predator stalking the depths of space. The primary hull was almost wing-like, with two nacelles on each side, connecting a long "neck" with a "head" command section.
Tactical
At the time of its deployment, the K't'inga-class battlecruiser was easily the most formidable ship in the Alpha or Beta Quadrants. The K't'inga excels in combat, boasting an impressive weapons array, a cloaking device, incredibly resilient shields, and a new generation warp drive capable of propelling the ship to sustained speeds of Warp 9. The new warp drive also efficiently routed power through the vessel to its weapons systems, allowing for a more powerful disruptor blast than anything that had been fielded by the Klingons previously. Due to its main weapons array pointing forward from the ship, the thruster design throughout also makes it one of the most maneuverable vessels of its era for its size, able to bring its main weapons to bear against an enemy with ease.
The K't'inga-class is also an efficient combat vessel in several other areas including ship-to-ship combat, troop transport and deployment, and orbital or siege bombardment of stationary targets. In fact, compared to its contemporaries at the time, the only real threat to a K't'inga-class battlecruiser in one-on-one combat was the Starfleet Constitution-class starship.
Shipboard Life
The K't'inga was never built with comfort in mind. With that being said, the vessel was far more comfortable than its previous counterparts or contemporaries. The ship boasted actual leisure facilities; this was specifically unlike the Klingon designs that came before it. Leisure facilities vary between the Klingon and Romulan configurations of the design but largely include a massive mess hall, training facilities including a gym and bat’leth hall, and even limited holo facilities. However, when fully manned with troops for transport, quarters on the K't'inga are cramped and even the ship's captain would be forced to share accommodations.
Class History
The K't'inga-class battlecruiser first came to life as a design brought forth to the Klingon High Council by Chancellor L'Rell in 2257. The original design within the K't'inga-class, the D7 spaceframe, was an amalgamation of the greatest successes of the different designs that the Great Houses employed through their individual fleets. These designs were disparate from one another, indicative of the fracturing of the Klingon people during this time period in Klingon history, but all derived from much older designs such as the Vo'n'talk-class, Devastator-class, and Raptor-class of centuries past. Chancellor L'Rell saw the new K't'inga-class as a unifier of the Klingon people and ordered its mass production throughout the Great Houses as a symbol of that Klingon unity. The first K't'inga's were deployed only a few months later in order to assist the USS Enterprise against a rogue Federation armada. After this battle, the K't'inga did finally enter mass production as the Chancellor had asked for and quickly became the flagship and backbone of many of the Great Houses, and therefore, the Klingon Defense Force as a whole.
The first major change to the K't'inga came in the mid-2260s. By that point, the K't'inga had been in service for over 5 years and the engineers of the Klingon Defense Force had several suggested refits and remodels for the ship to increase its performance. This lined up with a budding alliance with the Romulan Star Empire, in which the Romulans were incredibly interested in the K't'inga design. The Klingons, knowing that the original K't'inga design was about to undergo a significant upgrade, traded the original design to the Romulans in exchange for the Romulans relinquishing all claims to the contested planet of Khitomer, a Klingon stronghold and one of the most strategically important planets in the Empire. Shortly after, the Klingon K't'inga's were upgraded from the D7 spaceframe to the D7A spaceframe, leaving the Romulans with the older design while the Klingons moved forward.
In subsequent decades, the Klingons continued to upgrade the K't'inga spaceframe. One of the most infamous iterations of a spaceframe appeared in the 2290s when the flagship of the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon, Kronos One, was deployed under the D7E spaceframe. Kronos One was vitally important to the signing of the Khitomer Accords, the Federation-Klingon Alliance that blossomed from those accords, and the future of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants as a whole. Many years later, as a symbol of peace and friendship, the Klingon Empire gifted Kronos One to the Federation to be displayed in the Starfleet Fleet Museum over Athan Prime.
The D7E spaceframe continued as the primary deployment of the K't'inga-class until the 2340s, when the D7F spaceframe was deployed as a significant upgrade to the internal systems of the K't'inga-class. The K't'inga-class continued for another 20 years undisturbed until the development and deployment of the Vor'cha-class battlecruiser. Seen as the first significant class in the Empire in over a generation, the Vor'cha was slated to replace the K't'inga within a decade as a massive improvement in every aspect. However, as the next decade rolled around and a new enemy came into sight, the lifespan of the K't'inga was artificially inflated.
Hundreds of K't'inga's in service at the start of the Cold War with the Dominion were slated for decommissioning and scrapping to use their raw materials to build a new fleet of Vor'cha's. However, when the severity of the Changeling infiltration issue was realized by then-Chancellor Gowron, the K't'inga's were instead repurposed back to war as the Klingon Empire invaded the Cardassian Union in 2372. When full-scale war broke out between the Dominion, now fully allied with the Cardassian Union, and the Federation-Klingon-Romulan Alliance, the K't'inga's made up a huge backbone of the Klingon fleet. The designs, while older, were still a fearsome ship of war. The K't'inga took heavy losses during the war which was on par with the overall heavy losses of the Klingon Empire. However, by wars end, the K't'inga still numbered in the hundreds. With the decimation that the Klingon fleet took overall, the K't'inga again had its lifespan artificially increased to allow the Klingon Defense Force to build its own forces.
As the Klingon forces recovered, the K't'inga began to be slowly phased out by the Great Houses. By the early 25th century, the K't'inga-class continues to serve many of the Houses but is no longer the backbone of most forces and becomes an increasingly dwindling sight in Klingon space.
Romulan D7
By the 2270s, active development and construction of the D7 spaceframe had been discontinued by the Romulans in favor of their own, unique refit design on the platform. Eventually, the Romulans deployed their own improvement in the Stormbird-class.
The only substantial tactical difference between the Romulan and Klingon versions of the K't'inga over its production run was the inclusion of plasma torpedoes on the Romulan version.
In Play
- The original D7 spaceframe has long since been retired by the Romulans and isn't a common sight for the Klingons anymore. However, over the years some have been lost, sold, or otherwise unaccounted for. This has led to these ships falling into the hands of civilians and outside of the government’s hands.
- Although these ships are antiquated by 2401, they are still a formidable opponent that should not be underestimated.
- The Romulan configuration is most likely to be found in the hands of petty warlords or regional overlords that have popped up within Romulan space since the fall of Romulus.
Additional Information
- Due to the mention of the K't'inga by Captain Pike by name in SNW: Supspace Rhapsody which is set in 2259, Bravo Fleet has taken the stance that all of the ships were of the K't'inga-class and that the "D7" is the specific variant of the class that changes over time. A real world example of such a thing would be the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer variants in the real world US Navy. The ships are outwardly identical or similar overall but have significant upgrades to technology over the years.