Scouts and Surveyors

Here's my pet theory of how the conflicting Hermes and Oberth class registries can be smoothly merged.

The Hermes class was built during the "Great Awakening" in the 2220s/30s/40s (choose whichever you like more). Registries/Names as listed in the Star Fleet Technical Manual, NCC-585 to NCC-600.

The Monoceros sub-class was scheduled to be built in the 2250s. Then the Four Years War broke out (or the Axanar Rebellion if you prefer LUG speculation to FASA speculation) and the need for scouts was reduced. Hence the Monoceros was shelved and the Cygnus variant (a command/courier variant according to the Star Fleet Technical Manual) was built instead. Construction of this variant was cut short by three or four vessels (to make NCC-623 an Oberth as per ST VI and NCC-621 a Cygnus as per TMP). Hence we have NCC-617 to NCC-621 or -622. After the war these were converted to scouts and the Monoceros sub-class was put on indefinite hold.

In the late 2260s the U.S.S. Monoceros, NX-601 was used to test a single nacelled linear warp drive. This accounts for the Federation Starship Recognition Chart design with a single LN-52 mounted above the saucer. This was unsuccessful and no further ships were built.

During the 2270s some of the surviving Hermes/Cygnus vessels would be upgraded to the new technology. This would probably look like the Monoceros as depicted in Starfleet Prototype (the Starfleet Dynamics version is the same but erroneously includes a torpedo launcher). Pick any existing ship to be upgraded first and name the sub-class after that, please don't pick the Anubis as I'm really tired of the habit (typified by Jackill's Guides) of it always being the second ship in the class to be upgraded first.

Then the Oberth class comes along (maybe with the 2275 commissioning date from the LUG RPG), using NCC-602 upwards, skipping those already assigned to the Cygnus class.

The U.S.S. Lake and U.S.S. Lagrange from the Starfleet Academy computer game get 10 subtracted from their registries to move them from the Cygnus range into the Oberth range: NCC-617 and -618 to NCC-607 and -608.

The Oberth group starting from NCC-630 might be a minor variant, hence the common Gagarin name applied to it as a sub-class.

Last updated March 29^th 2000. © Stephen Pugh <steve@pugh.net>
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