DSC Starsailer (DRG-01)

Starsailer

Image for illustration purposes only. Does not reflect the actual design of the ship

DSC Starsailer (DRG-01)

Information Class: Dragon Solar Starship Type-1 Affiliation: Solas Tempus (Present) The Ancient Dragons (Formerly) Commanding Officer: Lt. Commander Sarah M. Aruana Executive Officer: VIC MSAI: VIC Quote: "The Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays." - C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Status: On probation

A direct translation of the name in dragon language, the Starsailer is a solar-powered of about the same capacity as the NX-Class but with a different configuration. Created to be the middle ground between a scout ship and a fully fledged starship, it is fairly small but not as small as the Archer, Nova and Defiant starship classes, having a total of twelve decks and solar sails coming from the bow section of the ship, responsible to gather energy from the solar radiation and store it on the batteries inside the ship. The full crew compliment would be of a hundred and could be pushed to an absolute max of 150 with hot bunking, with anything higher being beyond what is recommended for this ship before the crew start feeling claustrophobic.

The ship’s propulsion systems are composed of a standard warp system with two nacelles that pop out from the port and starboard of the hull horizontally before going to warp. Those nacelles are more similar to the ones from the terran battlecruisers in the StarCraft universe than the ones of federation design. Another propulsion method is the Inter Mundos drive. It uses a temporal displacement field or equivalent to unbind the ship from space while still keeping a self contained pocket of time inside the ship. This allows the ship to fly at relativistic speeds disregarding time or even give the illusion that time stopped, being invaluable for escape routes, considering how it does not have enough firepower for intense combat. With enough planning and complex calculations, it is possible to use this unbound state to cross universes, being what gave this propulsion method the name Inter Mundos, although this would require a lot of energy, more than what the batteries can provide for a long jump, for example.

Being solar powered is also what makes this ship almost entirely environmental friendly, with the warp system only necessary to form the warp shell for travel, not having a warp core inside to generate energy. All energy comes from the batteries, which already have a very large capacity, being one of the very few examples of ancient dragon technology being still employed on this ship, hinting that this ship predates the accord that was phasing out ancient technology in favor of contemporary technology.

The tactical systems embarked on the ship are not enough for enduring a battle in the late 24th century, requiring a refit with better capable tactical systems. Before putting Starsailer back to service, a team of engineers started working on replacing the non essential pieces of ancient technology with contemporary equivalents, making the ship more reliable and less unpredictable. Some of the new additions were six new shield generators, one for each cardinal direction in 3D space, along with four phaser strips, four phase cannons, two torpedo launchers and more efficient solar sails, as the previous ones had efficiency issues. It was also discovered that Starsailer had two phase emitters, one on each side of the ship, port and starboard, capable of firing what the computer described as solar lances, beams that would go through a short distance before having to cool down and reload, good for long distance slicing, hinting that it could slice asteroids, pierce through plating and even cause severe damage on a planet’s surface. It was categorized in the computer as one of the contemporary pieces of technology, so it was fire tested and studied before primed for use in service.

The refit and improvements made the Starsailer a fully capable starship for its size, comparable to the USS Defiant, although not being as small. The controls are not Solas Tempus standard, requiring a learning curve to operate the ship efficiently, although VIC is always willing to help in that regard.