Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

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Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

November 27, 2018, 02:52:04 AM

Attn: @Brutus, @The Ostrich, @Top Hat & @Absinthe

Hey there, folks. Just adding the specific attention to those who've already expressed an interest in joining a AU set in the Enterprise era.

Would be a good place to lay down some solid ideas and plans on where we'd like to see this story going.

Right now, my idea is to set the story in the era of the Birth of the Federation and towards the end of the Romulan War. It would be one of the more brutal battles fought by the early Federation before a cease-fire and treaty is established. If memory serves me right, by this time the Klingons would have closed off their borders and go into seclusion whilst they rebuilt their numbers and strength, for the renewal of their wars by the TOS era (i'm not glossing over or ignoring the DSC era, but I figure the closeness of the timeline between the two is pretty negligible)

I'm not particularly aiming for overly dark or grim concepts here, but your input is welcome, of course.

For the moment, I've made one character, who will be commanding the ship, tentatively named the U.S.S. Courageous (NCC-XXXX), a Columbia-class starship. Current plan is they'd be in pursuit of a Romulan warbird, hoping to capture the ship and crew to collect valuable intel on the elusive adversary, but the tables are turned on the ship and crew and they must conduct repairs, evade capture themselves, and then re-engage or retreat. Since this is the early years of the Federation, much of the known territories remain largely unexplored, and I'm thinking of using the Delta Triangle as the location for this tale.

There's an alternate concept of us helping to set up a Starbase far from Earth, and we can conduct exploration, have adventures and meet various challenges in space.

For the most part, I'm thinking we should fill up the Bridge crew first, based on the concept of the Enterprise series. Also, since this is a war time, M.A.C.O.s are still in use, and since this is an AU, we may have space superiority fighters, so here's the roles (due to be adjusted based on your input):

Captain: Cmdr. Sophia Rodriguez (Triage)
Helmsman: (Brutus)
Navigator:
Chief Science Officer: (Summerdawn)
Chief Engineer:
Chief Medical Officer: (Brutus)
Communications Officer: (The Ostrich)
M.A.C.O. Units: 1 (Top Hat)
Tac Conn pilots:

Here's a detailed deck plan provided by some amazing people:

http://www.waxingmoondesign.com/

That's it for now. Hope to hear back from you all soon.

Re: Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

Reply #1 – November 27, 2018, 12:11:23 PM

Isn't the Columbia-class just the NX-Refit design (or rather what was to be the season 5 refit of the NX-01)? Why the new class name? Also what year are you thinking of this taking place? The NCC designation was not introduced until post-Romulan War in some sources and in some sources, it was introduced at the Start of the Federation.

Sorry to be needlessly pedantic, but i am a canon junkie and I'm curious.

Re: Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

Reply #2 – November 27, 2018, 01:34:08 PM

It's fine, Abs, I appreciate the inquiry. From what I've read, and I'm only drawing from Memory Beta here, the Columbia-class is what they renamed the NX-refits later on. And as I've said above, I'm thinking of setting the timeline to be during and after the Birth of the Federation, which would make it 2161 onwards, so since the Romulan war was concluded by 2060, I guess that idea's out the door. And the Columbia-class became the name after 2162, so that would be the best time to start.

Hope that answers everything.

Re: Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

Reply #3 – November 27, 2018, 02:29:17 PM

Yeah, in beta canon, the refit gained its own class name, Columbia- class, in honor of the NX-02 SS Columbia lost with all hands during the Romulan war (later discovered in the 24th century, crashed on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant, but thats neither here nor there).

We can still have the opening salvos of the story be the ship in pursuit of something, and having the captain die, in 2162, instead of 2160 - it just wouldn't be a Romulan bird-of-prey.

All surviving NX ships were refitted after the war (at least in beta-canon, based on the Rise of the Federation book series). All surviving Earth Fleet ships were converted to NCC Designations upon the foundation of the United Federation of Planets in the wake of the war. USS Endeavour (no longer SS) was designated NCC-06. (or 006 in some books). Apollo was -07, Shenlong -08, Soyuz -09 and I think Phoenix was -10, with Valiant rounding it out at -11. But don't hold me to that. None of the Columbia-class vessels mentioned in the books after Endeavour had numbers that I could find.

Re: Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

Reply #4 – November 28, 2018, 10:45:39 AM

Ah, memory beta, the bain of my experience in the world of Trek lore, where information is often contradictory or just weird. There have been so many Trek books that trying to work it out can be a real headache, like trying to figure out how canon Shatner's books should be (their practically fanfic).

The thing is at a certain point I consider the books one stage above fanfiction and of questionable canon, especially in terms of dates and ship specifications.

So really I'd say drop the Columbia-class moniker, in main line fandom it's called the NX-refit and even Drexler calls it that.

As for the Romulan War that's a tough one. But we still have the Earth/Kzin war too. It would be in the mid 2160s (if we consider TAS canon). And the Kzin are a known part of Theurgy-verse lore, so using them would not be a stretch.

Re: Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

Reply #5 – November 28, 2018, 11:07:11 AM

I mean it's all fanfic. We're fanfic. The books are just fanfic you pay for. The only thing we have to do here is use the same names in this particular Alternate Universe. So NX-refit/Columbia is window dressing as long as we're all on the same page about the thing those terms refer to.

Triage, I'll post my bio tomorrow likely, I think.

Re: Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

Reply #6 – November 28, 2018, 07:54:08 PM

Sure thing, Top Hat.

While I'm not going to go so far as to bring Minbari, the Serenity, or Mon Calamari into this, I really don't want us to get hung up on the mere classification name of the ship. Plus, I don't see us too often referring to the ship by its classification as much as its name. Just like we hardly see Kirk or others referring to the ship as "That Constitution-class starship over there" as much as they'd say "Enterprise".

So if you feel so strongly about it, I say feel free to call it the NX-refit in your narratives if you must. Me personally? I prefer identifying it as the Columbia-class, feels more fitting to me. This is an AU, so there's going to be some liberties taken by most of us at one point or another, and I'm not going to make a hard-and-fast rule about adhering to canon to the point of stifling creative opportunities. By that, I don't mean drawing stuff from other franchises, as I have already stated above. I just hope this is an acceptable compromise on that matter.

Like Top Hat said, we're a fanfiction, in all honesty. In Theurgy, we have a completely non-canon starship, along with a space-superiority starfighter that does not exist in Trek canon. I'm also of a mind to include a form of fightercraft in this AU story, and keeping the M.A.C.O.s, even though according to history, by 2162, after the formation of the United Federation of Planets, they were dissolved and given Starfleet standard uniforms and ranks. So I'm already breaking from base canon, but I'm not going to make anything too crazy, and this is of course, open to discussion/debate, if you wish.

The Earth/Kzinti war could be interesting to explore. I'll have to read up on that.

I didn't realize the Federation's been at war so often, and this early too in their formation.

Thanks for the info, Brutus. That's really helpful

Are we all okay with the Courageous as a name? I'm thinking the NCC classification would be NCC-13, based on what Brutus told us, and it'd be a number, hopefully, that isn't taken, but as I stated above, no hard-and-fast rules, and I'm frankly still learning my way on this. I enjoy the idea of being a real explorer of the unknown, and things that might be known to us or TOS/TNG era folk would be uncovered first by the people of the ENT era.

I've got the idea on how a Commander winds up in command, mainly with the death of the ship's captain, Edward Milton. The newly promoted Sophia Rodriguez finds herself having to take command in the midst of a high-stress situation/battle, and we take the story from there. Another idea or perhaps in another episode, we can do non-violent, but equally interesting things, like building a starbase, and just for fun, we could do things that might connect to events in Theurgy canon, like spotting a Radiant on Earth, or meeting a long-lived character, like Zyrao (I'm just giving an example), or some such, but this isn't necessary of course. Would just be a fun way to tie in with our own canon.

Re: Birth Pains - A Star Trek: Enterprise AU (OOC)

Reply #7 – December 13, 2018, 07:25:06 AM

Im really looking forward to seeing what kind of stories we can all tell here

I had joined an Enterprise era Star Trek Adventures game, but it fell flat before our first mission. Hoping to scratch that Ent-Era specific itch here :0