Galor Class
The Galor-class destroyer is the most common design of Cardassian warship. It is imminently versatile and an omnipresent feature of life in Cardassian space, serving as a patrol vessel, military transport, and even as a flagship. The Galor has been in service since the 2340s, and though it is no longer the largest vessel in Cardassian service, it remains in production and is an integral component of the Cardassian military.
Science and Exploration
Galor-class vessels are not designed primarily for scientific or exploratory missions, but they do carry scientific personnel and have ten small science labs geared towards resource prospecting and stellar cartography, which help them in their patrol duties and in identifying possible sites for new outposts or colonies. Unlike Starfleet, the research labs on Cardassian ships are generally tasked only with mission-critical scientific projects, and scientific personnel are reassigned to medical or engineering duties when the ship isn't engaged in a survey. More general research is carried out back on Cardassian stations and planets.
It is standard protocol for Galor-class ships to be equipped with a complement of observation probes, which can linger in systems after the ship has passed through to keep an eye on things there, notifying the mothership when intruders are detected. These probes have advanced sensors and navigational equipment, which makes them also well-suited to exploring nebulae and other navigational anomalies. Cardassian doctrine favors having extremely detailed navigational data of their own space and enemy space to optimize starship deployments.
Diplomacy
A Galor-class starship is likely to be the first vessel you encounter upon entering Cardassian space, as they are used extensively for customs and border enforcement duties. As such, they are the defacto first point of diplomatic contact for many races with the Cardassian Union. In addition, they often conduct negotiations with neutral parties for commercial deals, and so they do have visitor's quarters and a conference facility which is designed to project the strength and power of the Cardassian Union. The presence of a Galor-class vessel indicates that the Union has mild to moderate interest in the discussion or question at hand—but it also signifies that they're not yet bothered enough by a possible threat to send in a larger starship.
Engineering
These ubiquitous destroyers are built to common standards across the Cardassian Union, which means that any soldier trained on the Galor-class can serve on any other vessel of the class with no time lost for acclimating to slight differences. There have now been seven distinct types of Galor-class vessel, each with gradually increased power and more advanced systems, and it is Cardassian practice to maintain a stable fleet size by recycling older vessels for the construction of newer ones and to upgrade more recent vessels to the latest standard. The Galor-class Type-7 is the pinnacle of Galor-class design, with an exterior identical to the original Type-1, but with internal systems that are significantly more advanced.
Galor-class ships follow the ankh-shaped design of the Cardassian Union's emblem, with a wider primary hull tapering down to a narrow tail. The bridge is mounted in a raised module above the bow, and the spine of the ship has a raised superstructure which contains crew quarters and other systems. The vertical profile of the Galor-class is roughly cylindrical, and unlike starships of most Alpha and Beta quadrant powers, the warp coils are built into wings extending from the primary hull rather than in separate nacelles. Impulse power is provided by a primary drive unit aft of the bridge and two secondary impulse assemblies in the wings. Beneath the wings the majority of the remaining space is devoted to cargo holds and hanger bays, which are used for both military purposes and construction projects.
This class of destroyer is equipped with a warp drive system that favors reliability and survivability over high sprint speeds, which keeps with the Cardassian design ethos of ease of maintenance and standardization. The absolute maximum speed of a Galor-class starship is Warp 9.6, which can be maintained for twelve hours, but they generally cruise at Warp 6, which gives them performance roughly equal to that of the light and heavy cruisers of their neighbors.
Tactical
Despite their versatility for other purposes, the Galor-class is still a front-line warship and is well-armed, presenting a threat to other ships of the same size one-on-one and against larger ships in groups. It is designed with heavy forward firepower, in addition to lighter weapons covering all other arcs. This class's most distinctive feature is its triple-mounted forward heavy phaser array, which is bordered by the forward deflector array. This weapon is capable of delivering blasts approximately equivalent to the heaviest standard weapons in use by Starfleet, but has a much more limited firing arc. Torpedo coverage is provided by four forward-firing torpedo tubes, each of which can launch both photon and quantum torpedoes. Standard Cardassian doctrine has these vessels operating in groups of three, and so they work to corner enemy vessels between their forward arcs to deliver devastating strikes.
There are fourteen pyramid-shaped phaser emitters spread out along the hull of the ship which provide comprehensive energy weapon coverage at a much lower power, which allows the Galor to defend itself while it maneuvers its forward weapons into firing position. These weapons are very useful in large fleet engagements, to help prevent the destroyer from being swarmed.
Shipboard Life
Depending on your rank, the Galor-class can either be a very spartan or a very comfortable assignment. Crew facilities are segregated based on rank, with junior enlisted personnel sharing large bunk rooms of up to forty along with communal hygiene facilities and bare mess halls with limited replicator options. More senior enlisted personnel have smaller bunk rooms, as well as a lounge. Junior officers share with just two other people, better food, and also have a lounge. Senior officers have private quarters, access to the officers' mess, and a small number of holosuites. Each class also has physical fitness facilities and they are expected to stay in shape. The commanding officer of a Galor-class ship has a large set of private quarters with their own dining room, holosuite, office, armory, and strong room. There is also a smaller set of VIP quarters aboard for visiting legates and civilian officials.
Galor-class crews do not see the segeration of their facilities as anything other than an incentive to advance. Service aboard these bread-and-butter vessels is common for officers in their first several years of service, so the majority of the Cardassian military has cut their teeth here; advancing to better facilities is seen as a rite of passage, which also helps to reinforce a strict adherence to protocol and following orders.
Medical facilities on a Galor-class ship are far superior to the equivalent Klingon vessel, but they are much more basic than those used by the Federation and the Romulans on vessels of similar size. There are normally three doctors, nine nurses, and eighteen medical technicians, with ward facilities that can accomodate up to six bedridden patients. When necessary, the cargo holds and hanger are used for additional medical treatment space.
Class History
The Galor-class was first developed in the 2330s as an answer to the then-massive Ambassador-class ship being built by the Federation. Rather than match that class pound-for-pound, the Caradassian Union settled on a design that could be built quickly and easily at many different kinds of production facilities. As such, rigorous standardization was employed in the design process: each of these vessels would be identical to her sister ships. When they entered service, they were classified as "cruisers" by both the Cardassian Union and the United Federation of Planets, with tactical characteristics that were largely a compromise between other Alpha and Beta quadrant design philosophies: heavy forward firepower combined with all-around light weapons coverage, along with mission versatility for resource prospecting and stellar mapping.
The Galor immediately proved to be extremely effective in service. Once the Cardassian-Federation war broke out, they were used to great effect in trios of three cruisers which could easily overwhelm any single Starfleet vessel, but many more of them were needed for large fleet engagements than the equivalent Starfleet ships. Through the course of their service, design improvements were made that became the Galor-class Type-2 and Type-3, with newer units being built to the next standard and damaged vessels recycled in their construction. By 2368, the Type-3 was considered "top-of-the-line" by the crew of the Enterprise.
The Cardassian fleet consisted of hundreds of Galor-class warships in the early 2370s, with the Type-4 being the standard design at the start of the Dominion War. However, the Galor had been displaced by the Keldon (which consisted largely of the same basic hull as the Galor, but with an added superstructure module containing more weapons, more troops, and better shields) as a "cruiser" and so, the smaller Galor was now regarded as a "destroyer." Even with the construction of the larger (and nearly-identical) Keldon, Galor production continued at a high rate, to replace the units lost during the war and to protect the Cardassians' expanding territory.
Many, many Galor-class ships were lost during the Dominion War, but their rapid production left the fleet at the end of the war even larger than before the war. However, post-war, the Cardassian Union simply could not afford to keep these vessels crewed and supplied while it also tried to rebuild the shattered remains of its homeworld and colonies, and as such many of them were scrapped for resources for these other projects. As the Union has moved towards full recover into the 2390s, production on this design as resumed with the new Type-7 representing the current standard.
Galor-class In-Play
- Cardassians like order, standardization, and the number 3. These standardized destroyers operate in wings of three throughout Cardassian space, so you're likely to encounter them both as a visitor to Klingon territory and as a member of the Cardassian military. They're ubiquitous and versatile.
- Galor-class ships aren't particularly comfortable if you're a junior officer or enlisted person, but they're much less spartan than a Klingon ship would be.
- While they don't have the prestige they once did, they are still in use by sector commanders in outlying areas, and their command would still rate a full gul. A Galor-class captain is master of their domain, and would enjoy substantially more luxurious facilities than a Starfleet captain would, as a reward for their service to the Union.
