Sovereign Class History and Production

The Sovereign class is one of Starfleet's most advanced designs in the 24th century. It was designed as a response to the reemergence of the Romulans in interstellar affairs, contact with the Borg, and contact with the Dominion. Its development was basically one big reworking of the original concept of the ship.

History

The Sovereign Project was started in late 2364 in response to the Romulans ending their isolationism. Early work was done initially as warship subtype of the Galaxy class. In 2365, the Enterprise-D encountered a Borg Cube and its weapons were ineffective against the cube. As a result, Starfleet decided on a redesign of the ship since the Galaxy-class proved almost useless against the cube. The spaceframe was the first thing completed and agreed on. In 2367, the Sovereign's spaceframe was completed an work was begun on the materials for the hull were being argued about, the Borg attacked the Federation in the Battle of Wolf 359. In late 2369, the Sovereign was finally completed an testing began. Several advancements were built during testing to update the Sovereign to meet new issues like the damage to subspace caused by warp drive. In 2370, the USS Sovereign completed testing and was deemed a failure. It was put in the mothballs and several more ships were built with more conventional shield and deflector systems so that the warp drive and other systems could function within normal parameters. On October 30, 2372, the U.S.S. Enterprise-E was completed a year, 2 months after the U.S.S. Enterprise-D was destroyed over Veridian III.

By the end of 2373, there were 10 active Sovereign-class ships in the fleet. In the Battle of Tyra, the USS Legacy was one of the ships to escape. In Operation Return the Sentinel, Ticonderoga, and Musashi were part of the fleet that went to retake Deep Space Nine. The Enterprise-E was patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone when it was attacked by several Dominion Battlecruisers only to get help from several Romulan D'deridex class ships. Sovereign-class also participated in the battle of Chin'toka. 3 weeks after Starfleet received word about the new Dominion Battleship, the Sovereign-class was ordered back to the Sol system to be refitted with a greater armament, regenerative shields (which were the primary reason for the refit and redesign), enhanced deflector system, a newer warp core, EPS system, and a redesign of the ship to accommodate the newer technologies. Most Sovereign-class ships weren't able to participate in the Battle of Cardassia because of the refit.

After the Dominion War, Sovereign production was restarted and several new ships were built including the USS Hemingway. In 2379, the Enterprise-E fought the Scimitar and confirmed that the Sovereign was a comfortably ahead of equivalent Romulan designs. Sovereign production is expected to continue for several more years.

Refit

In early 2375, the Sovereign-class began undergoing a refit to make it a match for the ships like the Dominion Battleship that existed in the Dominion fleet. Extra torpedo tubes were added to the Sovereign class so to give more torpedo coverage as well as unload more torpedoes faster to destroy enemies. Phaser arrays were also added on the nacelles to eliminate blind spots identified in the design. The nacelles and pylons were also moved forward twelve meters and upward 8 meters to increase warp drive efficiency. The Sovereign-class was also equipped with a modified version of the regenerative shields used on the Prometheus class and given a more powerful warp core so that the shields and phasers could have more power. These upgrades were very helpful during the Battle of Cardassia and the Battle of the Bassen Rift.

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