USS Culver City
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USS Culver City (NCC-75573) is a California-class Federation starship assigned to the Fourth Fleet Task Force. Her senior officer is currently Lieutenant Commander Varyn K’lev. USS Culver City is an engineering-support variant of the California class.
History
USS Culver City was built at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards on Mars, first commissioning in 2370. As an engineering-support variant of the California class, Culver City focused, as with her sisters, on “second contact” missions, as well as on providing technical support for colony worlds and ships in distress. During her career, she has engaged in a number of second-contact missions, in addition to offering engineering support services for several colonies.
In 2381, Culver City joined her California-class sisters in support of USS Cerritos when she came under attack by the rogue Texas-class starship USS Aledo. Damaged during the battle, Culver City returned to Utopia Planitia for repairs, which took several weeks.
On Frontier Day 2401, Culver City was in transit to Starbase Bravo for reassignment when the Borg-Changeling Conspiracy was revealed. Her younger crew were assimilated, taking over the ship and proceeding for Starbase Bravo; however, the destruction of the Borg ship inside Jupiter freed the crew, who brought Culver City into Starbase Bravo.
The Blackout phenomenon of 2402 trapped Culver City in orbit of the colony world Palix Bravo, where she had been assisting in upgrades to the colony’s power generators and orbital defenses. The Vaadwaur invasion of the following month - the Nightfall crisis - reached Palix Bravo shortly before the end of hostilities. Culver City, unable to leave the system due to subspace instability, was nonetheless pressed into service as a “lifeboat” for the colony; her crew jettisoned their remaining cargo to make room for evacuation efforts. Forced to sit stationary with her shields down for the evacuation, Culver City was severely damaged and her command crew killed, forcing a young ensign in engineering on his first posting, Varyn K’lev, to take command of the ship from main engineering.
Culver City‘s escape was made possible by the sacrifice of the USS Helena, which charged the Vaadwaur ships in orbit to buy time for Culver City to limp away on impulse power. The end of the Blackout phenomenon allowed Culver City to go to warp, though with her battle damage she could only sustain warp 2.7; after her warp drive gave out as she approached Starbase 86, Culver City had to be towed to the base. In light of the damage she had taken, she was placed out-of-service pending repairs, which have since been completed.
Service with Bravo Fleet, Task Force 86
After the completion of her repairs, Culver City departed Starbase 86 for Starbase Bravo for final fitting-out and shakedown. During the journey, she stumbled across a dispute between a struggling colony world and a shipping company, which her young crew was able to mediate. Upon the completion of her shakedown, Culver City began working through her busy docket of missions, though was quickly detoured by an evolving situation along the Tholian/Sheliac border.
Culver City was ordered to reroute to Starbase 420, and there join USS Farragut, USS Blythe, USS Salvation, USS Sacramento, and USS Solvang; the sextet formed what was informally known as "Provisional Border Flotilla 33". Over a period of some weeks, Culver City, often in consort with her sister Blythe, patrolled the region, taking part in what became known as the "Rhontaka Incident" after the star system in which the skirmishing took place. After the conclusion of the patrol, with the situation now resolved and returned to the status quo, Culver City picked back up where she had left off in her docket, though a few weeks later she again found herself rerouted to another region.
In a remote region of space, known as the Shackleton Expanse, the end of the Blackout phenomenon also ended a phenomenon known simply as "The Shroud", which had limited faster-than-light travel through the region to no faster than warp 2. The end of the Shroud, and subsequent interest in the Expanse by the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Republic, and the Romulan Free State, Bravo Fleet command authorized a number of missions into the region. Culver City was sent to support Blythe once more, joined first by the IKS Slivin and later by USS Santa Monica and USS April, in the Duwalla system and surrounding star systems.
Configuration
Main Article: California class
Culver City is largely a standard-configuration member of the California-class. Being intended for engineering support, she carries an industrial replicator to enable rapid fabrication of various hardware. Her cargo transporters have also been upgraded to enable them to cycle transports more quickly, based on the experience of the Palix Bravo evacuation. Her bridge has also been redesigned, reducing the number of officers needed to staff it: a combined helm and navigation console replaced the separate consoles; her ops console moved to sit level with the helm against the port wall, opposite her engineering console to starboard; the three-chair command well replaced with a single center seat; and a sciences station was installed behind the command chair to starboard, mirrored by the tactical station to port, as well as minor adjustments to the bridge’s shape and dimensions.