USS Equinox NCC-72381

The USS Equinox

The vessel was constructed at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, and was commissioned in 2370. It carried an initial crew compliment of seventy-eight and had a Mark I EMH.

Under the command of Captain Rudolph Ransom, with first officer Max Burke, the Equinox was on a short-range exploratory mission in an unknown system's asteroid belt when it mysteriously disappeared shortly after the vessel's commissioning. It was later discovered that the Equinox was pulled into the Delta Quadrant by the being known as the Caretaker, and its crew experimented on.

After leaving the Caretaker's array, Ransom ordered a course set for the Alpha Quadrant. However, because of the low maximum warp capability of the Equinox, the voyage was estimated to take several hundred years. Shortly after getting underway, the Equinox strayed across the borders of the Krowtonan Guard. In the week that followed, half of the Equinox crew were killed, and severe damage was inflicted on the vessel. Ransom decided to continue on through Krowtonan space, instead of adding a further six years to the ship's journey.

By 2372, the Equinox was in a state of complete disarray. The vessel's warp engines were almost burned out, and essential supplies were at a minimum. It was at this point that the ship made contact with the Ankari, and received their 'blessing', which turned out to be the appearance of a nucleogenic creature. These creatures had a large antimatter content, and, when the Equinox crew attempted to recall another, it was unable to survive in our dimension, and died. After several unsuccessful attempts to keep the creatures alive, Ransom ordered the use of the dead creatures for fuel, and the Equinox was able to increase her warp capability significantly.

Eventually the use of the creatures became more and more commonplace, and the Equinox overtook the USS Voyager - also trapped in the Delta Quadrant, but with a significantly faster warp capability - and was within sight of reaching home.

However, the creatures responded to the Equinox crew's experiments by launching an intensive attack on the vessel, damaging it almost beyond repair. With each attack, Captain Ransom would send out a distress call on a Federation frequency - solely as a comfort to his crew, and not expecting a response. In late 2375, Ransom's distress call was picked up by Voyager, who drove away the alien attack, and recovered the surviving Equinox crew, now numbering no more than a dozen. In order to conceal their unethical work from discovery, Ransom ordered the vessel's research lab flooded with thermionic radiation, by the redirection of three EPS conduits into the area.

When the alien attacks began to overwhelm Voyager's defences as well, Captain Janeway, under Starfleet regulation 191 (Article 14), made the decision to abandon the Equinox. However, Ransom chose to ignore the request, and made preparations to leave Voyager behind. In the meantime, The Doctor had discovered the true nature of Equinox's modifications, and Janeway ordered the arrest of Ransom and his crew, pending a full investigation. The Doctor returned to the Equinox, along with Seven of Nine, to shut down the warp core modifications and retrieve the remaining experimental data.

Ransom escaped and The Equinox then fled from Voyager, stealing a field generator that would disable the aliens in the process, and escaping at maximum warp, leaving the Intrepid-class vessel at the mercy of the nucleogenic assault.

Voyager eventually caught up with the Equinox, and in the ensuing confrontation, Burke seized command of the vessel from Ransom, as Ransom attempted to surrender to Janeway. Ransom was successful in transporting a few of the surviving crew to Voyager as well as Seven of Nine and Voyager's Doctor - but was unable to save Burke or several other crewmembers on the bridge, who were killed when he dropped shields to force Burke and the others to beam to Voyager. The Equinox succumbed to a warp core breach moments later, as a result of heavy damage inflicted by Voyager and the aliens - Ransom remaining on board to steer the vessel away from Voyager and protect that ship from the explosion.

The five surviving Equinox crew were stripped of rank by Captain Janeway, and restricted to minimal privileges aboard Voyager.


United Federation of Planets
Operator:
Starfleet
Type:
Science vessel
Active:
24th century - 26th century (alternate timeline)
Decks:
8
Crew complement:
78
Speed:
Warp 8 (maximum)
Armament:
11 phaser arrays
3 photon torpedo launchers (minimal)
Defenses:
Deflector shields

Notes : The Nova class was designed as a modern replacement for the long serving Oberth class science vessel. The requirement called for a ship capable of making relatively short duration missions; Starfleet intended to use these ships in the large unexplored areas between Federation controlled space, missions which would typically be staged out of Starbases and last for a few months up to a year at most.

The design of the Nova class vessel was based on the Defiant pathfinder ship.5 This ship was of the right size and employed the latest warp field/hull geometry and propulsion technology. Starfleet replaced the warp core with a far less powerful version, reducing the top speed to Warp 8.1 Running the same nacelle design at much lower power greatly extended the operating life of the warp coils, reducing the ships refit schedule and making it easier to operate. The heavy weaponry was also removed, creating extra space for sensor arrays and scientific labs.

Originally, the Nova designation was intended to be assigned to the replacement for the Galaxy class Explorers.5 However, the Galaxy class went into high level production as a battleship in the run up to the Dominion war.6 After the war, many of these ships continued in service as fully fleshed out Explorers, while others were retired. It quickly became clear that Starfleet would have a ready supply of large space frames on hand for far longer than originally envisaged. Additionally, the entry into service of the Sovereign class introduced a new level of high technology to the fleet. Both factors reduced the need for a galaxy replacement significantly, and so the Nova development project was quietly dropped. With the name now available again, Starfleet chose to assign it to the new science ship.

One of the first group of Nova class vessels - the USS Equinox - vanished shortly after launching. It was thought to have been lost, but was later discovered by Voyager to have been dragged to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. The Equinox fared rather worse than Voyager in its attempts to get home; with its lower speed the Equinox faced a journey of over a hundred and eighty years in a vessel designed to operate for no more than twelve months between refits. Unfortunately, the crew discovered that the bodies of a trans-dimensional alien species could be processed to produce a powerful form of fuel, greatly increasing the ships top speed. Captain Ransom began capturing and murdering the aliens, in direct violation of both the Prime Directive and Starfleet ethics. The aliens fought back, killing many of the Equinox crew.


When Voyager encountered the Equinox they quickly realised what Ransom had done. Captain Janeway attempted to imprison the crew but they escaped, leaving Voyager under attack by the aliens. The ship survived the attack, and was able to pursue and capture most of the remaining Equinox crew. The aliens attacked the ship again, killing the remaining crew and destroying the ship.1

Construction of the Nova class was suspended shortly before the Dominion war in favour of more combat capable vessels. Now that the war is over, construction is likely to be resumed within the next year or so.
Yellow text = Canon source     Green text = Backstage source     Cyan text = Novel     White text = DITL speculation

References
#     Series     Season     Source     Comment
1     VOY     5     Equinox, Part 1    
2     VOY     6     Equinox, Part 2    
3             Star Trek : Nemesis    
4     VOY     5     Equinox, Part 1     Taken from a size comparios diagram projected in astrometrics during the episode.
5             Star Trek Deep Space Nine Technical Manual     Page 122
6             Generic official information    
   
   
   
 
Comments
The Nova class appeared in the Voyager episode "Equinox"; up to this episode I had thought of the Intrepid class as being one of the smaller Starships in service with the Federation at about half the length of a Galaxy class, but the Nova is less than half as small again!

The ship is described in the episode as being a fairly slow low capability vessel, so I've designed the specs accordingly. That warp eight is the top speed is stated directly, as is the fact that the ship has shields and torpedo tubes. Phaser arrays are also visible on the hull. The figure of 78 for the crew comes from Captain Ransom; he tells Janeway that he lost thirty nine people in battles with a powerful enemy, which he describes as "half my crew". The rest of the specs I've pitched at a level roughly in scale with the Intrepid class.

The Nova class seem to be ideal candidates to replace the ageing Oberth class first seen in "Star Trek III : The Search for Spock", since they are about the same size, seem to fulfil an identical role, but are much more modern.