Osler Class
The Osler-class scout is a small starship designed primarily for reconnaissance, observation, and courier duties. Originally envisioned as a scaled-up version of the Aerie and Raven family of starships, the Osler incorporates Andorian technology and design principles in a fast and stealthy design quite unlike most other Starfleet vessels. Passive stealth features incorporated into the hull and engine designs allow it to safely observe worlds that have not yet been contacted by the Federation and to perform reconnaissance missions into hostile territory. A set of modular bays can quickly be configured for cargo or passenger transport duties, and several of these vessels are used as ambulance ships to transport critical care patients quickly and safely from outlying areas to receive advanced medical treatment from hospitals across the Federation. They are also used by Starfleet Intelligence to monitor strategically important areas.
Science and Exploration
As scouts, Osler-class vessels are frequently sent into unknown areas. They have extremely sensitive passive sensor equipment that allows them to take in massive amounts of data without revealing their location, as seen in antennae that line a spire emerging from the vessel's center. There are also large active sensor suites that can be used to quickly gather information when stealth is either not necessary or the ship has already been detected. While not science vessels per se they are more than capable of handling small investigations independently. Their ability to land on planetary bodies is also useful for exploring worlds with difficult environmental conditions. The multi-function bays used for passenger or cargo transport can be fitted with science labs, though this procedure is more involved than swapping other module types, given the need to route extra power and data lines as well. Each Osler-class vessel has a small, well-equipped lab that can operate in many different modes to handle occasional scientific assignments, but these ships are mainly intended to collect sensor data and return it to Starfleet for analysis.
Diplomacy
Accommodations aboard Osler-class vessels are generally spartan, but they can be fitted with passenger quarters to serve as couriers. Typically, this would not be a first-choice vessel for an important ambassador or flag officer assigned to general diplomatic duties, but the stealth capabilities of this ship make it ideal for taking a dignitary into or out of a combat zone for critical negotiations.
Engineering
Barely recognizable as a Starfleet vessel because of its dark, angular hull, the Osler is a design that is unique in Starfleet shipbuilding practices, but it shares much in common with vessels built by the Andorian Imperial Guard. Engine systems aboard the Osler are adapted from those in the Nova and Rhode Island family and are tuned for high speed and low visibility. The sensor tower in the ship's center also serves as a warp field governor that narrows the ship's warp field to make it difficult to detect even at its top speed of Warp 9.99. These ships are temperamental and require constant attention from their engineers. Impulse engines are located on the ship's stern close to the centerline. The hull panels on the sides of the ship's main hull can flip up in a gullwing style to allow access to a series of four modules on either side of the ship's structural spine. These modules can be fitted for cargo or passengers. Powered equipment may also be mounted here, but it requires significantly more time in spacedock. Docking ports are concealed between sliding panels just forward of these equipment bays, and there is an additional docking port and debarkation ramp on the stern of the ship to handle planetary landings. The ship's flat underbelly and nacelles obviate the need for landing struts.
Modular Compartments
Connecting the prow of the ship to the rear superstructure, the "neck" section of the Oslser contains a central structural spine containing the ship's primary fore-aft corridor and various structural integrity equipment, but the space between this corridor and the outer hull is reserved for mission-configurable compartments. This space is accessed by swing-up panels, allowing for two-deck-high modules to be swapped out at a spacedock. Four modules can be mounted at any one time, among the following options:
- Cargo Transport Module - A single open cargo bay equipped with a cargo transporter.
- Passenger Transport Module - Ten dual bunk staterooms with two communal heads on the upper deck, with a small lounge and two ten-person escape pods on the lower level.
- VIP Transport Module - A VIP stateroom and four standard single-occupancy en suite staterooms on the upper level, with a conference lounge and two ten-person escape pods on the lower level.
- Laboratory Module - Two mission-configurable labs, on on each level, along with supplementary computer systems.
- Ambulance Module - Wards for ten passengers and a ten-person escape pod on both levels, for a total patient capacity of twenty. They are equipped with an EMH program and four independent nursing holograms that keep patients stable in transit back to a starbase.
In their standard scout configuration, Osler-class vessels are equipped with two cargo modules, a passenger module, and a laboratory module, allowing them to handle nearly every mission profile typically assigned to the class. Swapping modules takes about 24 hours at a starbase if the module has already been fabricated.
Tactical
Intended in tactical settings to provide reconnaissance support, Osler-class vessels are only lightly armed. The key defensive system for the Osler is its energy-dampening hull, which makes it nearly invisible to most sensors, especially at a distance. The angular hull panels also deflect active sensors to scatter their readings. The ship's armaments are limited, with a single forward torpedo launcher in the ship's prow and two sets of dual phaser cannons concealed behind sliding hull panels on the port and starboard corners of the bow. Opening these hull panels reduces the ship's stealth abilities significantly. In addition to the need for stealth, the ship's concealed weapons systems help it appear innocuous to other vessels that it encounters, which can reduce the potential for the ship to get into combat at all. When combat is unavoidable, Osler-class ships will favor head-on attacks and strafing runs, as their firepower is entirely forward-focused. The stealth hull material is overlayed over ablative armor plating, allowing these ships to shrug off light energy weapons fire even when their shields are down, but weapons fire quickly degrades the stealth coatings, meaning that a wounded Osler-class vessel should always return to port or risk being tracked. The ship's active sensor arrays can also be used not only to pierce through sensor interference but to create interference fields of their own, which can be useful in supporting more combat-ready vessels in fleet engagements.
Shipboard Life
Cramped and spartan, Osler-class vessels are not luxurious postings, but their small crew are each afforded small single staterooms with a bunk, desk, and replicator. Only the captain and first officer have private heads, however. The ship does have a single holosuite, alongside a combination mess hall and crew lounge, but recreation facilities are otherwise quite limited. When passenger modules are installed, they are generally little more than bunk rooms with hygiene facilities, but they can also be fitted with full staterooms for VIPs. Medical support is provided by a small sickbay, which is often staffed with just a single nurse and an Emergency or Long-Term Medical Hologram. Given the close quarters, crews tend to get to know each other quite well. While not always so, these ships tend to be assigned to short-range duties near starbases to reduce the potential for the ship's poor recreation facilities to create too much crew fatigue. Given how small the crews are, captains of these vessels are often lieutenants or lieutenant commanders.
Osler-class History
Developed during the Dominion War by the Andorian Imperial Guard to make up for Starfleet's treaty-imposed lack of stealth capabilities, the Osler-class design benefited from the development of the Defiant-class escort and the Nova-class surveyor, so many systems from these classes were incorporated in an off-the-shelf format when the Osler was designed. Integrating these systems with Andorian shipbuilding practices and a newly-designed passive stealth hull system proved to be more difficult to accomplish than was initially thought, so the prototype was not launched until after the Treaty of Bajor ended the war in 2375. Now a vessel without a mission, the unnamed vessel was nearly scrapped, but it was assigned to Starfleet Medical's Division 14 as a high-speed medical courier. The prototype, named Osler after Sir William Osler, a 19th-century Canadian physician, served in this capacity into the 2380s, but the class was not put into widespread production due to other shipbuilding priorities.
It wasn't until the 2390s that the Osler-class was given a class order. Given Starfleet's shift in priorities towards guarding its own borders, the abandoned Osler project provided a compact platform for discrete surveillance and general scouting duties that could be produced at smaller yards without disrupting the ongoing mass production of the new Inquiry-class exploratory cruisers. Based on the prototype's service history, refinements were made to the initial design that would ensure that it could keep up with newer designs while also providing comfort improvements that would make service onboard a little more tolerable for non-Andorians, compared to the prototype's dark, spartan interior.
Production on the Osler class began in 2393 and has been in service ever since then, with units being split across exploratory, medical, and transport duties.
The Osler Class In-Play
- The Osler is like a 24th-century SR-71 Blackbird: a swift, low-visibility vessel intended for observation missions. While it looks relatively menacing, it's lightly armed and not intended for direct engagements. It's intended to gather data and transport people or goods quickly.
- The stealth systems on the Osler are passive. If something manages to paint it or otherwise tag it, it loses that ability. If it opens its hull panels for docking or to fire weapons, it also becomes much more visible.
- This ship is a good choice if you want a small crew, and the module options allow for several different mission types. While we don't endorse black ops roles for Starfleet in Bravo Fleet canon, there are plenty of non-nefarious reasons where a small team might need discrete transport into a contested area, so an Osler could be a good choice for a hazard team. Just remember: an Osler can't really fight its way out most situations.
- Given how often the Federation spies on pre-warp species, the Osler is an excellent choice for observing less-developed cultures which may still have some degree of space sensing capabilities. Invisible to radar and painted pitch black, the Osler would be difficult to spot with even the equivalent of 21st-century Earth technology.