User:CrimsonTacit/Sandbox/ShiKahr Class
The ShiKahr-class light utility cruiser is a capable general-purpose utility vessel designed in the mid-24th century to provide a modern alternative to the Miranda, optimized for engineering and logistics support roles. While these vessels are considered to be gems by their crews, Starfleet had generally favored producing the much larger California-class and Parliament-class utility cruisers.
Science and Exploration
Most of the scientific equipment aboard the ShiKahr is automated, designed to passively collect information as the ship fulfills its engineering and logistics duties and send that data back to nearby starbases for follow-up by explorers and science vessels. Rather than having many specialist labs and their associated external sensor pallets, the ShiKahr has a handful of very well-equipped generalist labs, allowing it to handle some smaller-scale scientific inquiries when necessary. This class of ship is also frequently used on behalf of planet-bound scientific institutions to carry experiments and sensor pallets that do not need active monitoring, swapping them out for fresh projects during starbase layovers. Compared to the Miranda, their sensor capabilities are much higher, and they could easily be configured with mission-specific equipment thanks to their large bands of sensor arrays running along several sections of the hull. This equipment is also useful in their engineering role.
While ships of this class are almost universally employed for engineering and logistics tasks, they occasionally take on short-duration scientific or exploratory missions when between other assignments. One task that they excel at is prospecting: their strong engines make them well-suited to asteroid and comet dissection requiring fine maneuverability and powerful tractor beams. This ship class is also very useful for constructing scientific installations, such as deep space telescopes or listening posts, which allows her to participate in Starfleet’s exploratory mission by providing vital support.
Diplomacy
ShiKahr-class vessels are not intended for diplomatic functions beyond the necessary negotiations that sometimes form a part of large-scale engineering projects. For instance, their captains must often mediate between the needs of more than one world when setting up mining or energy production equipment. They might also be involved in trade negotiations between minor Federation outposts and foreign powers. Such negotiations must use one of the ship’s staff briefing rooms, and any visiting diplomats may use a handful of modest guest suites.
Engineering
Externally, the ShiKahr is clearly a member of the Miranda-class lineage, but her hull is studded with the hallmarks of the mid-24th century design program that led to the Galaxy-class explorer. Returning to a design feature of the original 2260s-era Miranda, the ShiKahr has a large deflector dish in a pod mounted amidships behind the bridge that also contains forward and aft torpedo tubes. The aft superstructure has been extended significantly, a feature borrowed from the Soyuz-class frigate, and this area contains two large shuttle bays and cargo bays with external doors. The lower area of the rounded primary hull also has more cargo bays, and there are two additional shuttle bays on the rim of the saucer section. This leaves an enormous amount of the ship’s internal volume dedicated to cargo and small craft facilities, which allows her to carry a swarm of workbees or shuttles for engineering tasks.
The warp engines aboard the ShiKahr are similar to those used aboard the Cheyenne and Springfield, and provide reliable but modest speeds. Impulse power is significant for her size, which is meant to enhance her towing abilities. This is further facilitated by a large docking port on the stern which can connect to a towing harness for standard cargo pods or to an industrial tractor beam module. These ships are fitted with industrial replicators to allow them to build many small facilities in situ from scratch. While not as capable as larger utility cruisers, they handle a wide variety of bread-and-butter support missions within Federation space. The savings in crew size that would be afforded by modernization have instead gone to embarking a large contingent of engineering support personnel, such as field engineers and fabrication specialists.
Tactical
ShiKahr-class cruisers are modestly armed, with two large phaser arrays on the saucer section, providing 180 degrees of coverage above and below the midline. Two more arrays on the nacelle pylons and two above the aft shuttle bays provide wide firing arcs, though these arrays are of much lower power than those found on tactically oriented ships. Originally, they were designed with Type-IX arrays, but these were upgraded to Type-X arrays when the design reached production. Torpedo launchers are located in the superstructure, with single-fire forward and aft launchers considered sufficient for this ship’s primary mission parameters.
Generally, ships of this class are not intended to engage in combat missions unless they are presented with no other options. The valuable engineering equipment they often carry makes them targets for raiders, but their weapons generally prove to be a deterrent for most. For those bold enough to try, the ship’s impulse engines are more than capable of getting them out of danger, and so it’s only when they are truly cornered do they stand and fight. In large fleet engagements, such as during the Dominion War, they were most often used for search and recovery operations or field engineering support, rather than as screening vessels like their older Miranda-class cousins. They have also been used as emergency landing stations for fighters. In a few situations, they have also been used as tenders for runabouts assigned to patrol duties, but this is a role better handled by ships such as the Gagarin or Akira.
Shipboard Life
Though amongst the smallest cruisers in current service, the ShiKahr is equipped with all of the crew support facilities one would expect of a late-24th century design, including holodecks and a multitude of lounges. Accommodations are comfortable but not luxurious. While originally fitted with bunk rooms for some junior personnel, newer units of this class feature the same residential hallways found aboard larger utility cruisers such as the California, allowing for better communal recreation spaces at the expense of individual privacy.
Like other utility cruisers, crews aboard these ships consider themselves to be scrappy underdogs, taking on the support missions that keep Starfleet functioning even as larger ships get more glamorous assignments. It is taken almost as a point of pride that the class is hard to distinguish from a Reliant or Miranda-class ship at a distance, as it means that these capable little ships ask for no thanks or glory for completing their assignments. ShiKahr-class crews and captains both skew towards engineering backgrounds, and so they tend to develop a culture of experimentation and innovation, fine-tuning their systems when not on more important missions. This has developed a hidden but vibrant community between ships of this class seeking to outdo one another in terms of performance increases that are generally not sanctioned by Starfleet Command—not until they prove to be wildly successful, that is.
ShiKhar-class History
The ShiKhar Class originated in 2360 when four incomplete or damaged Miranda spaceframes were transferred to 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards in the Vulcan system for evaluation and prototyping purposes to test the feasibility of a new version of Miranda-class starship for the 24th century. While the Fleet Modernization Program was proceeding apace, several elements of Starfleet Command were nonplussed at the idea of fully retiring the Miranda, when some of these ships were less than ten years old, still. The Vulcans were selected by the Advanced Starship Design Bureau for this task, hoping that their logic would lead them to the conclusion that this elderly design should be discarded.
After five years of careful study, design, and experimentation, the USS ShiKhar was launched in 2365, bearing an overall resemblance to the original Miranda but with modern, reliable components derived from the Fleet Modernization Program. While newer style nacelles were available, the Vulcans opted for the design found aboard the Springfield and Cheyenne classes, as they had a longer service history to judge them from. In the end, the ShiKhar was designed to fill the gap left by these other small classes: engineering and technical support. Its multiple shuttlebays and external cargo holds were borrowed from the Constellation and it had mounts for powerful tractor beams and other engineering equipment while retaining the long bands of sensors found on newer ships.
Through the design process, the Vulcans found that refitting existing Miranda-class ships to this new specification would be illogically cost-prohibitive, as it would be simpler to just build them from the ground up. Starfleet placed an initial order of just a dozen of these ships before the Battle of Wolf 359 two years later shifted priorities towards tactically-oriented ships. In service, it was also found that the ShiKhar was too small to handle most humanitarian missions on its own or to carry the largest and bulkiest pieces of equipment for starbase construction, which just spurred on the development of the California class. These ships were, however, found to be quite good at small-scale tasks and they have continued in production.
As of 2400, the ShiKhar is a second-string ship even among the utility cruiser fleet, but regular computer upgrades and fine-tuning of its engine design leave it as a small, capable engineering and logistics vessel, unlikely to disappear from Federation space anytime soon.
The ShiKahr Class In-Play
- It's easy to see from the images here that this ship has a lot of space given over to shuttle and cargo bays. This makes it an excellent choice for engineering or logistics support missions. They are almost never assigned to do anything else, which generally means they are exciting for engineers but less so for anyone else.
- The California-class is portrayed as a small, scrappy ship at least by the ensigns on Lower Decks, but it's actually quite large—at least two-thirds the size of a Nebula-class ship. The ShiKahr on the other hand is small, and so it provides some interesting storytelling experiences for real salt-of-the-Earth support duties.
- Compared to other ships available for Lieutenant Commanders, the ShiKahr is quite specialized in its Engineering and Logistics role, like the Springfield, Nova, and Grissom are for science, and like the Reliant and Saber are for tactical missions.