Star Trek ship USS Legacy Rear Quarter view

NAME: U.S.S. Legacy
REGISTRY: NX-74001
CLASS: Legacy

LENGTH: 735.34m
WIDTH: 589.90m
HEIGHT: 141.72m

BACKGROUND INFO:

The Legacy project, which began in the early 2370's,  arose from Starfleet's need to expand on the capabilities of the Galaxy class explorer. Whilst the project was put on hold in favour of warship production during the Dominion War, it was reinstated upon the war's end in 2375.  Whilst the Galaxy class was at the height of it's production run, many considered the design to have several inherent weaknesses that could only be fully addressed with a new class of ship. The Legacy would aim to improve upon the apparently high attrition rate of the Galaxy class and other vessels on deep space missions.  
 
It had been noticed that the Galaxy class had a comparatively fragile space frame for a vessel of it's size. In fact, once it's shields were negated, vessels of this class would often have a matter of minutes before their warp cores went critical. Two famous examples of such calamities were the fates of the USS Odyssey and the Enterprise-D.  As such, the Legacy class focused on durability above all else. As the ship was primarily an explorer and not a warship (like the Sovereign class) it's weapons would be limited to type XI phasers and photon torpedoes. As ablative armour was too costly and complicated  to cover the entire vessel with, a new technique in manufacturing hull plating was employed that incorporated standard Duranium alloy, reinforced with Neutronium plating in key areas. These were intended to increase the ship's survivability rate even in the event of total shield failure.
 
Durability was also a key element in the ships overall design geometry. The main components of saucer and secondary hull were brought closer together and the pylons connecting the warp nacelles were made thicker and actually intersected the nacelles themselves, providing the ship with it's unique 'winged' profile and a useful platform for extra phaser emplacements.
Initially, this feature slightly decreased the overall efficiency of the warp field by partially covering the nacelle field grilles. During later trials, the nacelles were modified to their current  'MK:II' versions, which increased the warp field efficiency to more acceptable levels. The arrangement also offered an increased degree of protection from enemy fire.

Another notable design feature was the removal of the ship's ability to separate it's saucer from its engineering section. For the Galaxy class, this was envisaged as a means of maintaining the majority of non-combatants safe in the saucer section, while using the stardrive section to enter hostile situations. However, its utility was vastly outweighed by keeping the ship ‘whole,’ as demonstrated by the lack of separation in the majority of risky or dangerous situations encounted by the Galaxy classes. Essentially, instead of having two ships that could operate independently, the ship actually created a capable, but weakened stardrive section (that lacked redundancy, such as impulse drive or additional transporter rooms) while simultaneously providing a huge liability in the need to defend the saucer. Overall, the removal of this feature gave the Legacy a much sturdier design which meant that it's structural integrity field required half as much energy as its Galaxy class counterpart.

The USS Legacy would be the first Starfleet vessel to utilise field tests of the 'Exocomp' robotic repair units since 2369, when it was proposed that they were in fact, life forms, of a sort. After extensive deliberations, the decision was made that they would be suitable for standard maintenance and emergency repair duties on board the Legacy, with specific protocols put in place to prevent their 'mistreatment'.

With these modifications, Starfleeet hoped to create a starship that would be able to endure long range missions without the need of regular maintainence from a starbase. In fact, one of the primary missions of the Legacy would be to reinstate exploration of the furthest reaches of the Gamma quadrant, beyond the borders of the Dominion.

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