Deep Space 2
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Deep Space 2 is a Unity-class Federation starbase currently assigned to Fourth Fleet. Starfleet uses the base primarily to maintain the Federation's borders with the Gorn Hegemony, deploying a small, outdated fleet of vessels that constantly patrol between Deep Space 2 and the Cestus system.
Design & Layout
Operations
Promenade
History
Deep Space 2 is one of the oldest stations in the Federation's history in terms of location and longevity. The moniker has been passed on several times. However, the station itself has been replaced several times over the years through modernization programs.
The Original Station
The first Deep Space 2 was built shortly after the founding of the Federation in 2172 in orbit of the uninhabited, M-class fourth planet of the Tormerac system. It was notable at the time for being only the second starbase, only after Deep Space 1 itself, built outside of the core Federation territories of the four founding members. It indeed encapsulated the moniker of a 'Deep Space' station at the time by being a far-flung frontier station. The original design mirrored that of many of the early starbases and was part of the Tucker-class starbase line.
After its commissioning, the station went on to be heavily involved in exploration along the much more expansive Klingon border. Deep Space 2 was the primary resupply station and the last safe haven for many Starfleet vessels departing for the great unknown beyond the safety of Federation space. Additionally, the station also found itself under siege numerous times over the years by various enemies of the Federation and continued to repel those aggressors.
However, as the Federation continued its expansion, by 2204 Deep Space 2 was no longer a frontier starbase resupplying deep space vessels but was rather a bastion of Federation strength in the area of dozens of blossoming colonies.
The Replacement
By the time the Fleet Standardization Program of the 2260s began, Deep Space 2 was already nearly 100 years old and in a tactically unsound position due to its age. The decision was made to sunset the station and use it for raw materials to build a new Deep Space 2 directly next to it as a Watchtower-class station, one of the latest designs of Starfleet at the time.
Construction on the new Deep Space 2 finished in 2267, just in time for the official first contact between the Federation and Gorn Hegemony at Cestus III. Following first contact, retaliatory raids for the Federation settlement of Cestus III took place all across the Federation-Gorn border. Deep Space 2 was in a prime tactical position to deploy and supply several task groups of starships along the Federation side of the border and drive back Gorn incursions. Expecting the potential for a large scale assault of the Gorn into Federation territory, Starfleet also reassigned the USS New Jersey and USS Yorktown to assist in patrolling the border. Starfleet believed that two Constitution-class starships within the task groups at the border would show the Gorn that Starfleet was serious about any threat that the Gorn may pose.
After a few years of stalemate, it became clear that the Gorn threat was exaggerated within the halls of Starfleet, likely due to the heightened tensions across all Starfleet borders. The allotment of starships dwindled to a more peacetime-appropriate deployment patrolling along the border. As the years became decades, and direct conflict with the Gorn seemed more and more unlikely, Starfleet continued to redivert assets assigned to operate out of Deep Space 2. The station remained important to Starfleet's humanitarian, economic, and political interests in the entire area, but its importance as a bastion of Starfleet's tactical prowess and strength continued to diminish.
Nearly a century later, the ever-aging Watchtower-class Deep Space 2 continued to be present as Starfleet turned its attention to the conflicts with the Dominion and Borg Collective, far from the reach of Deep Space 2.
The Current Station
As Federation diplomacy cooled overall in the wake of the war with the Dominion, Borg conflicts, and the Shinzon Incident, Starfleet was able to shift priorities to a seemingly new golden age of exploration. One of these priorities included upgrading infrastructure along the Gorn border and resuming exploration missions in that section of the galaxy.
The Watchtower-class Deep Space 2 was abandoned in orbit of Tormerac IV and cannibalized for its useful raw materials, leaving primarily a shell behind. Stabilizing thrusters were installed on the shell and it was left in orbit of the planet for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, a brand new Unity-class Deep Space 2 was built in the outer edges of the Tormerac system. The station was finally completed in 2384 and its crew was recalled to the station to resume operations. As part of the plans, by 2385, an entirely new task group of state-of-the-art starships was to be assigned to the area to begin exploration as part of the plan to retire the rapidly aging starships that operated between Deep Space 2 and Starbase 611, along the Gorn border.
However, as the history of the station would foreshadow, a much more important priority dropped with the discovery of the Romulan sun's impending supernova. While the new station was complete, Starfleet couldn't afford to assign an entire task group of new starships to the area and rediverted the assets to the Romulan evacuation. This left a task group of decades old starships in the area. In the aftermath of the Attack on Mars, Starfleet began a period of consolidation and isolation, retreating within its own borders.
This isolation left Deep Space 2 in a predicament of maintaining the status quo on a border that had not seen much change in the previous century. The station continued to be a center of commerce and diplomacy over the next 15 years but lacked any real substance behind her original rebuild goals as long as exploration was largely on hold. When Starfleet reversed this policy in the wake of stunning revelations, Deep Space 2 once again picked up her mandate where it left off. In 2401, she was assigned a new station commander in Rear Admiral Viran, who cemented his flag on the station as the new Task Force Commanding Officer of the newly recommissioned Task Force 21 within the Fourth Fleet.