USS Challenger Ship History and After-Action Reports

[Dylan Torngate]

Ship History

The hull that one day would become the USS Challenger had its keel first laid in 2310, as the USS Hadfield, NCC-9037. The ship served for four years in the third and sixth fleets of Starfleet as the flagship of Admiral Yavana, an Andorian admiral in command of the stations along the Federation-Klingon border. In 2314, a Klingon expeditionary force under General Kaldun crossed the border and engaged the Hadfield in a Breil Bird of Prey. The Hadfield fought valiantly, but was forced to retreat under combined power of three Klingon warships, while the Hadfield only disabled one Klingon vessel. With the vessel in need of serious repairs, the ship was transferred to the secure Beta Antares fleet shipyards, where the Admiral transferred her flag to the USS Armstrong and departed back to the border, with a cadre of three more ships.

The ship underwent a major refit, with the battle damage repaired and the ship rechristened, the USS Avalon, and given a new registry- NX-10101. From here, the ship received a new mission. The ship became the test for a new type of computer technology, isolinear chip circuits. The ship served as a classified testbed for several years, and the exact history is still largely unknown. In 2317, the computer systems were determined to perform well enough for the needs of the newly announced Ambassador-Class of starships, as well as the new standard computer systems for the entirety of Starfleet and the Federation. The computer systems were quickly fit into the hull of NX-10521, USS Ambassador. Unfortunately for the Avalon, the complexity of several years of testing and scatteredness of the test left the Avalon a unique mix and match of computer systems. The decision was made to not refit the ship to isolinear circuitry or return it to active duty due to the complexity of the undertaking, and the ship was mothballed in favor of a newer Ambassador-class that took the Avalon's former place on the border. The ship sat in the Qualor II surplus depot for several years, and eventually found itself lost from fleet and scrapyard records for a period of 20 years.

In the 2340s, the ship was relocated, having drifted into a different section of the scrapyard, and reactivated. The ship received a major refit, updating many components and systems, but leaving the mixed duotronic and isolinear network systems in place. The ship served for 30 years during the Federation-Cardassian war as part of the Sol defense fleet and Vulcan defense fleet, and serving as a support and second-line cruiser against the odd Cardassian raiding party. It is here that the ship received commendations for conspicuous valor, when the crew rammed a Cardassian Galor-class warship, diverting the enemy ship from a cluster of escape pods fleeing the attacking warship and disabling the enemy until reinforcements could arrive. The Avalon was highly damaged, and was forced into decommissioning protocols again at the end of the war in 2367. The signing of the Federation-Cardassian Armistice of 2367 took place on the damaged Avalon, as a symbol of the lives lost and pain to both sides with no real benefit for either side. Unfortunately, the armistice did not last. The Avalon was decommissioned again, and stowed in mothballs, the spaceframe of the ship now over 50 years old. The ship was expected to be scrapped for parts after a time in 2377, if the treaty held, and converted into a museum ship about the war. This was not to be.

In 2373 the Dominion poured like a plague through the Federation lines, destroying ship after ship. The venerable spaceframe once again was recalled to life, hastily repaired and refitted, and rechristened to the USS Challenger, NCC-40117. The ship was part of a rush to get any ship that could still fight on the front lines, the most dangerous threat to the Federation in recent memory requiring every phaser on point. The ship's refit repaired the last of the damage from the previous war, and updated the computer systems as best as possible in the time allotted. This was the last major refit of the Challenger, and the ship departed after one month of constant, around-the-clock work with a squadron of ten other ships, ranging from the aging hull of the Excelsior classes and Oberth class vessels to even newer designs, such as the Nebula class, Ambassador class, Steamrunner class, and Curry classes. The Challenger was assigned to the Seventh fleet, and took part in the disastrous Tyra offensive operation, one of only 14 surviving ships of the battle. The fleet destroyed, the Challenger was consolidated into the Fifth Fleet. The Challenger took part in Operation Return, part of the final attack group that broke through Dominion/Cardassian lines to the occupied station, Deep Space Nine. The ship then was retired to the Sol Defense Fleet, where she would serve out the rest of her projected lifespan, being retired back to mothballs one final time in 2380 and stricken from the fleet's rolls. The hull was at this point over 70 years old, 20 years older than the expected design lifespan. She had received a formal, public decommissioning, which praised the ship's long lifespan, and now-declassified roles in the computer projects and combat records. In attendance was the last living designer of the Excelsior Class, a joined trill named Toman Keor, who at the time had been known as Elane Keor, who had designed the first Excelsior class, starting in 2258 to the laying of the first keel almost a decade later.

The ship was meant to lie out in space for the rest of her days until she was stripped for all her parts. Fate, however, kept that from happening. Fifteen years after her public decommissioning, the hull was found drifting in junkyards by assets from Task Force 10. The ship was towed by tractor beam to Starbase 225, where it received it's final minor refit and upgrades, leaving the ship in her current state. This refit included the addition of several extra sensor pods, beefier hull, and a more resilient configuration, designed after the Enterprise-B's design. Readded and recalled back into fleet service, the ship retained the name and registry of her last form, swapping out an NX designation for the more common NCC designation. Still with a hybrid computer system of isolinear and duotronic after so many refits and years, this now 85-year-old veteran of the years was part of a major push to fill fleet numbers quickly after the loss of ships and the Klingon and Iconian wars. The ship sat in orbit of Starbase 225, a ship with no crew, receiving standard maintenance and repairs, and occasionally being taken on short excursions by training crews, active enough to keep the veteran hull in active duty but not being truly used, mostly to keep the ship safe from SRAC assessments, or Starfleet Reallocation And Closure assessments. The ship serves as both a monument of the ages, a veteran of wars, and a reminder of a time long-since passed by. The ship now serves as a more active part of Task Force 10, as part of Task Group Bravo, under the command of William Waring, as of 2395.

(see here for https://www.shadowfleet.org/forum/database-274/uss-challenger-ship-history-and-after-action-reports/msg178422/#msg178422 for updated Ship History)

[Dylan Torngate]

SEASON 1: EPISODE 1

THE SHAKEDOWN

SYNOPSIS:New things come in old packages. These are the Voyages of the Starship Challenger, freshly reactivated as she soars the skies. She ecounters a planet with a beam that seems to immobilize all modern hardware, and must rely on what makes her unique to escape, before she's pulled to a firey end...

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: William Waring

First Officer: Dylan Torngate

Jettis Jyur, Zex, Sevoc, LK Reede, Safefta Pardek, Lena Atwood, Alexander Wu, Lizzie Vaughan, Caelene Tam,

SEASON 1: EPISODE 2

UNKNOWN

SYNOPSIS: Warning! This Log Entry is Not Found, or is Encrypted above your current clearance level.

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: UNKNOWN

First Officer: UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN

SEASON 1: EPISODE 3

UNITED WE STAND

SYNOPSIS:The USS Challenger, on patrol in the Dosi system, discover a Cardassian ship in distress, at the same time that they come under attack from the Jem'Haddar. The crew splits up to solve the problems, but they quickly discover that not everything is as it seems...

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: Dylan Torngate

First Officer: Jettis Jyur

Sevoc, Lizzie Vaughan, Leela Kaz, Lek, LK Reede, Zex, Alexander Wu, Martin Jackson, Safefta Pardek, Rhymus Cleroux, Tracha Arjay

SEASON 1: EPISODE 4

DIPLOMATIC CHANNELS

SYNOPSIS: After opening their doors to the Cardassians, and sending over team to assist in ship repairs for the Karnat, the ship's unstable starts breaking apart. A rescue plan is launched to save the remaining Cardassians, however the ones unaware of their current predicament don't take kindly to being unexpectedly beamed off the ship...

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: Dylan Torngate

First Officer: Jettis Jyur

Tracha Arjay, Lizzie Vaughan, Martin Jackson, Lek, Alexander Wu, Rhymous Cleroux, LK Reede, Sevoc

SEASON 1: EPISODE 5

BRAIN GAMES

SYNOPSIS:The Crew of the Challenger is on a routine patrol, when a mysterious bioweapon strikes at the crew's adult members. It's up to the medical team to solve the case, as the rest of the crew scrambles to get free of a holding field, before the virus takes them all down...

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: Dylan Torngate

First Officer: Jettis Jyur

Lizzie Vaughan, Lek, Rhymus Cleroux, Martin Jackson, Lawrence Klaustrin, Kali Saunders,

SEASON 1: EPISODE 6

GHOST TOWN

SYNOPSIS:The Crew of the Challenger, fresh back from Spacedock and freshly repaired, responds to an urgent distress call from the Federation Starship Dawn Treader, but when they get there, the crew is taken to an alien station of the "Gravemasters". The crew must keep their wits about them, and make some unlikely alliances, to escape.

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: Dylan Torngate

First Officer: Jettis Jyur

Lizzie Vaughan, Lena Atwood, Lek, Bonnie Moors, Rhymus Cleroux, Martin Jackson, Ser Conley, Lawrence Klaustrin, Rayek tr'Lhoell, Robert Garlande

[Dylan Torngate]

SEASON 1: EPISODE 7

UNDER THE SEA

SYNOPSIS: The Challenger is summoned to the planet PT1-9537 to rescue a group of scientists trapped underwater during the planet's hurricane season. The caveat? The ship can't land! The crew must take the shuttlecraft through the eyes of the storms, and discover an ancient secret slumbering far below.

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: Dylan Torngate

First Officer: Kyle Briggs

Rhymus Cleroux, Lizzie Vaughan, Rayek Tr'Loell, Olivia Briggs, Lek, Bonnie Moors, Catrin Maddux, Elijah Aldin

SEASON 1: EPISODE 8

TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS

SYNOPSIS: Having recovered the USS Excalibur from the bottom of the ocean planet, the Challenger must tow her saucer section back to Federation space, but something's not right with the timestream when the Federation loses contact entierly...

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: Dylan Torngate

First Officer: Kyle Briggs

Rhymus Cleroux, Lizzie Vaughan, Rayek Tr'Loell, Olivia Briggs, Lek, Bonnie Moors, Catrin Maddux, Elijah Aldin, Silas McCreary

SEASON 1: EPISODE 9

THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE

SYNOPSIS: The USS Challenger is religated to border the Tholian/Federation border, when an urgent call for assistance comes in from the reclusive aracnid race. It's a race against time to evacuate the colony and find out why their sun is mysteriously failing.

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: Dylan Torngate

First Officer: Kyle Briggs

Olivia Briggs, Lizzie Vaughan, Lek, Bonnie Moors, Rhymus Cleroux, Rayek Tr'Loell, Elijah Aldin, Lyric McDaniels

[Dylan Torngate]

SEASON 1: EPISODE 10

LISTENING IN

SYNOPSIS: Starfleet orders the USS CHALLENGER to Betazed for a high level security meeting.  Such meetings never go according to plan, but what happens during it all surprises the crew and forces actions to be taken as hostilities ignite.

PARTICIPANTS:

CAPTAIN: Dylan Torngate

First Officer: Kyle Briggs

Olivia Briggs, Lizzie Vaughan, Lek, Bonnie Moors, Rayek Tr'Loell, Elijah Aldin, Lyric McDaniels, Ashley Weir,

[Dylan Torngate]

The Trailblazer Class

The Trailblazer class is an oddity among the Federation. Derived and built in relative secrecy, she is a departure from standard Federation trends. Instead of a bigger, newer ship the designers at the Advanced Starship Design Bureau looked to the past to learn for the future. The result was the Trailblazer class.

Headed by chief scientist Vanessa Jones, and assisted by the latest incarnation of the Keor symbiont, ASDB assembled a research team of five members, and looked through records. From combat logs to amount of materials required per class, to amount of personnel and most renowned ships in the fleet. Considerations were taken in for under what circumstances the project was developed, as the design team compiled a report of the best of the best ship classes. Not surprisingly, the records of each of the respective Starship Enterprise's always scored their class highly on the list. Quickly niche designs were ruled out, such as the Oberth class, but over time one class always stayed at the top of the list. The Excelsior class. This was quickly determined to be the best design ever brought forth by the ASDB.

Designed in 2252, the Excelsior was created with a projected fifty-year lifespan. However, she quickly transcended these expectations. Ships of the class were known to last for over a century, still performing the Starfleet mission of exploration. Age had been hard on the class, but still the ASDB was convinced they'd found their best work. No other ship, said team member Lelom Grignel, could take the punishment the class had endured against century-newer vessels and come out alive. The report they drafted was merely intended to showcase the ageing design, and suggest a possible project to look back to the past and explore why the older design was so sturdy. Their mission completed, the team disbanded in 2383, after releasing their report on the 100th anniversary of the keel being laid of the first Excelsior hull. A holographic model of the Excelsior class was placed in the main lobby of the ASDB's headquarters, but no proposal was submitted to Starfleet or the United Federation of Planets.

Half a decade later, in 2388, a group of Starfleet Admirals found the report. Intrigued, they came unofficially to the ASDB with a proposal: To design a new Excelsior, from the ground up. The motivations of the idea are unknown, possibly due to nostalgia of an era gone by or respect for the class. The five-member team met once more, and agreed to the proposal. There was no profit in the idea, and no official backing. The project was entirely on volunteer hours, after regular work was done. However, the team all agreed and began recruiting for the idea. Luckily for the team, the idea was popular. Over the next three years, the "After-school project" of the ASDB grew from the five member team to fifty engineers and designers from both the ASDB and Starfleet Corps of Engineers, sometimes working all night to rebuild the class.

The designers took a logical approach to the redesign. They started with an empty shell, determining that they would stick with the refitted design. They slightly increased the hull, knowing modern weaponry and systems might take up a little more space than the original design would allow. Following that, the team stripped all of the computer systems and engine systems from the design, allowing for new networking to be developed. The deck team spent two weeks trying to find a way to improve the original deck design, but was ultimately unsuccessful and continued to use a very lightly modified version of the classic deck layout, again keeping with the Excelsior's legacy. The only major modifications to the deck was allowance for the inclusion of a saucer separation mechanism that would allow reintegration on the fly, pulling from the Galaxy design project's files to increase the versatility of the already multi-purpose ship. New EPS and drive systems were devised, in keeping with modern drive techniques. Eventually, new computer and warp systems were created, and tested in holographic simulations to see how they stacked up with modern and classic designs. The team knew they were all working at a pipe dream, but wanted to make the project as good as they could, in case their break ever came.

In 2393, the ship design was completed. Five years of late nights, borrowed time and after-hours volunteering paid off. The design team, now at 76 members across every division of the ASDB teams, Starfleet Corps of Engineers, two representatives of Ceasar Networks on Bynar, and Joycoms Chief Executive Officer met with the Starfleet personnel who had proposed the project. While she looked like an Excelsior class, she was a whole new beast. The only issue left, for the design team, was the name.

A poll was taken, and it was decided to name the new class after one of the Excelsior-class ships that had been retired but not scrapped. The team scoured that night fleet rolls, ideas getting worse and worse as the night went on and the party got roudier. Finally, however, the name was suggested: Trailblazer. The first in what the design team hoped would be lessons learned from the past on ship designs. Two papers had already been drafted by team members on specific systems and improvements that could be suggested for current ships-of-the-line to improve efficiency and design going forward. The name passed with a mob rule roar of approval.

With the backing of Joycoms, Ceasar, and the ASDB unofficial team, the so-called "New Great Experiment", called so after the Transwarp Project that had birthed the Excelsior class, was presented to the Federation and Starfleet for consideration in August of 2394. The Vulcans lead the opposition to the class, which was not surprising according to Starfleet Admiral Alvin Davis (ret.). The Vulcans pointed out that this flew in the face of usual behavior, that the ship was still rather small compared to recent Starfleet main cruisers, and that there was no current need for a new class of ship to be created. The Humans, again unsurprisingly, lead the party in favor, due in no small part for nostalgia and curiosity toward what this new ship could do. Eventually, the design was green-lit, and a limited run of five ships was authorized. The ships would be built at Utopia Planitia shipyards above Mars, and gamma-welding of the hull commenced two months later.

Construction was sped up by a variety of factors. This was by no means a foreign design for the team at Utopia Planitia. Models, parts, and some details could be reclaimed from existing Excelsior hulls, allowing the team to work faster and farther with less. From all across the Federation's surplus yards, parts and hulls were towed to Mars. It was estimated that around thirty-five percent of structural elements could be recovered from existing hulls per ship, with seventy percent of cosmetics, details, and circuitry such as lights, carpeting, doors, and consoles could be recovered and reused, provided the donor ships before decommissioning had received their regular refits. This discovery was the brainchild of one Lt. T'mer, a Vulcan scientist who was stationed at Utopia Planitia. This did nothing but endear the Starfleet resource watchdogs to the project, as it allowed construction to go quicker and help empty some spaces at surplus yards. As construction continued, every member of the design team, from custodians to computer scientists, anyone who had worked to make this class come to fruition signed their name on each of the space frames. The first ship of the class left Spacedock in mid 2395 for space trials. The trials were proven to be a success, with all major design criteria met and the fuel usage twelve percent below the median curve while matching the performance of the Nebula class. In combat simulations, the ship originally performed below the average, however this problem was remeded when another Excelsior-class ship, USS Challenger, independently proved the concept of so-called "Point of Impact shielding", which was incorporated into the designs late in the development of the ship. After this new development, the Trailblazer-class matched the Sovereign-class in amount of damage that the system could take, a surprise for any unexpecting foe who's sensors mistook the ship for an ageing Excelsior. The result was a successful ship design, and the first two ships of the class, the USS Trailblazer and the USS Avalon, were launched in April of 2396.

While the Trailblazer was sent to a long-term science project in deep space, her sister ship Avalon had a markedly different future in store. The Avalon was held back in Mars orbit, standing by to replace an existing Excelsior class ship, to see what difference the ship would make. The first chance came when the same ship as had donated the shield grid designs, USS Challenger was forced into final retirement. The Avalon, renamed Challenger, was sent off to fill her new station, jumping into the deep end, to the frontier of Federation space. Once she arrived at the drop off, many of the elements of the original Challenger were put in to finish the cosmetic design of the ship, maintaining the retro look while still having the spit-shine of a brand new ship.