Akira class heavy cruiser

The ship's creator Alex Jaeger described the ship in an interview in Star Trek The Magazine:

"This was my gunship/battlecruiser/aircraft carrier. It has 15 torpedo launchers and two shuttlebays - one in front, with three doors, and one in the back. I really got into it with this one, with the whole idea that the front bay would be th launching bay, and then to return they'd come into the back, because they'd be protected by the rest of the ship."

The fifteen torpedo tubes are clearly visible. Seven fire forwards from the upper pod (four in a row above of three in a row). Four fire forwards from the ventral saucer surface (three above the deflector and one below.) Two fire port and two fire starboard from the dorsal saucer surface. However, there appear to be two or four tubes which fire aft from the upper pod, bringing the total to seventeen or nineteen.

There are three visible phaser strips (almost certainly Type X). One on the dorsal saucer surface and two on the ventral saucer surface. These give good fore and lateral coverage but poor aft coverage. The DS9 Tech Manual lists six phaser strips.

The armament is very odd. Only planetary (and Borg cube) bombardment would need that many torps firing at once. Port and Starboard tubes don't make much sense: they would rarely be in a position to fire and when they were they would be probably at shorter ranges, but photon torpedos are dangerous to the firing ship at short ranges (there are numerous references to such in TNG).

There are five shuttle bay doors. Two aft and three foward, all at the same level, thus allowing through deck operations. What sort of ship requires massive bombardment capabilities and superior shuttle operations? A marine assault ship. But does the Akira have the room (once all those shuttle bays and torpedo magazines are accounted for) for a large marine contingent?

Where's the warp core? In the saucer with very long conduits taking plasma to the nacelles? That would scupper any ideas of saucer separation. In the weapons pod? There hardly seems to be room. Maybe there are two warp cores, one in each engineering boom. Or maybe the Akira uses 23rd century technology and houses the matter/anti-matter reactions within the nacelles themselves.

The LUG RPG supplement Ship Recognition Manual, Volume 1: The Ships of Starfleet places one aft torpedo tube and one aft phaser strip in the weapons pod, and one aft torpedo tube and one aft phaser strip on either side of the saucer's rear edge. It omits the lower group of three forward torpedo tubes in the weapons pod. This is a slightly more balanced weapons arrangement.

Judging by the registries the Akira entered service about the same time as the Nebula class. There seem to be definite mid-24th century design features (nacelle and saucer shape). The Fact Files confirm this when they state "the prototype Akira vessel, and its first sister ships, debut long before Starfleet's first encounters with either the Borg or the Dominion."

The LUG RPG supplements The Price of Freedom and Ship Recognition Manual, Volume 1: The Ships of Starfleet also list U.S.S. Black Elk NCC-62505, U.S.S. Nez Perce, U.S.S. Susquehanna NCC-62797, U.S.S. Geronimo and U.S.S. Mateo in addition to those above. (I think that the large number of native american names suggests that someone at LUG doesn't know the origin of Akira (common japanese personal name, and a very famous manga) and/or Thunderchild (HG Wells's War of the Worlds) - though I have been told that Akira is also an amerind word and, of course, Thunderchild is an translation of a term from somewhere in the British Empire, possibly North America.)

The LUG RPG supplement The Dominion War Sourcebook: The Fires of Armageddon mentions the U.S.S. Avenger NCC-69925 and the U.S.S. Martel NCC-73196.

The Decipher RPG supplement Starships lists U.S.S. Black Elk NCC-62878 (note different to LUG registry), U.S.S. Geronimo NCC-62501, U.S.S. Mateo NCC-63002, U.S.S. Nez Perce NCC-62891, U.S.S. Osceola NCC-62743, U.S.S. Red Cloud NCC-63306, U.S.S. Susquehanna NCC-63419 (note different to LUG registry).

Last updated July 6^th 2004. © Stephen Pugh <steve@pugh.net>
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