One of the more popular starship designs to come out of the mid-late 24th century, the Nova and it’s sub class the Rhode Island, had an unusual history. Initially drafted as one of many designs conceptualised following early encounters with the Borg, it’s origins lay in defensive planning before it was finalised for a more scientific role in favour of other defensive options for the fleet.
Designed for combat initially, the Nova Class was one of many styles designed to be small, compact and manoeuvrable that could be built up in large numbers to bolster the fleeds defence in times of crisis. Like many starship designs proposed at the time, the ship’s concept would be abandoned in favour of the Defiant Class project until a new idea was needed elsewhere.
Revived by Starfleet for short term planetary research, the Nova Class was in a sense the 24th century version of the Oberth: A small and nimble starship with compact and focused systems to match it’s mission profile. With a relatively traditional layout, the Nova consisted of the usual two-hull system for Starfleet with the primary hull being shorter and stockier than most designs due to it’s more trimmed down and condensed internal design.
Following the triangular arrowhead design, the primary hull was centred around a simple and effective bridge design offering ease of access to the command centre from the science and medical areas. Engineering is buried within the secondary hull on deck seven with a similar central focus allowing the same ease of access to deflector control and cargo areas. The smaller scale allowed for two regular shuttle craft stationed aft of the secondary hull with a third auxiliary craft embedded in the lower primary hull.
Designed as part of the development plan that would lead to the Defiant, the Nova differed from other short range ships of it’s size by having stronger armaments including two forward facing torpedo launchers and overall eleven phaser points. It’s warp core was also far more powerful than most smaller scale starships, leading to the eventual overcharged propulsion system used on the Defiant. Between it’s power and defence systems, Nova’s could hold out for extended periods of time if need be wit hone ship, the USS Equinox, pushing it’s systems to the limit after being stranded for several years.
While small, the ship could operate with a maximum of eighty officers and crew with small crew quarters located between decks two and six on the primary hull. Later models would offer more space thanks to a slightly larger primary hull that ‘filled in’ the forward section which could allow for slightly larger crew facilities or specialised labs depending on mission profile. The latter version, the Rhode Island sub class, was not a mandatory refit allowing both models to be in service simultaneously.
The Nova Class and it’s Rhode Island Sub Class stood as an example of Starfleet’s scientific focus and exploration. While small and their missions typically short term exploration or scouting assignments, the focus on science and learning for a ship that was initially conceived for combat made for an example of Starfleet’s core mission of turning conflict into peace and hope through collective exploration of the universe.
The Nova’s history as a precursor to the Defiant is a fun element to it’s story that does have some merit. Originally seen as a half sketch in Deep Space Nine’s Techincal Manual, Rick Sternbach offered the idea as part of the Defiant development. Using tracing paper over the Defiant’s top view, Sternbach used the rough shapes and lines to draw a more conventional shape from Defiant’s elements.
Further refined by Doug Drexler, Sternbach’s sketch would come to life in a chapter about the Defiant and become listed as the Pathfinder in the publication. During Voyager’s pre production for it’s Equinox two part story, Sternbach submitted the design – which only existed as a two-dimensional top view – for the new ship to be featured. With a full layout drafted, Digital Muse provided the first full render of the model to be used. Later on in Voyagers production a second version with a smoothed out primary hull would be introduced as a refit sub-class, the Rhode Island.
The Nova class would make few other appearances up to the final season of Star Trek Picard where the class was shown to still be in service as it took part in Frontier Day celebrations.
Both the Nova and it’s variant Rhode Island Class is a popular favourite for new captains in Quadrant 2 with the USS Kaga recently commissioned to represent our fleet in Japan and our fleet flagship, the USS Tesla, represented by the Rhode Island Class.
Fleet Resources
- USS Kaga: Q2's Japan-based collective
- USS Tesla: SFCQ2 flagship based in Scotland
- Take Command! New Unit Application
About the author
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