OK, I have finished the overhaul of my Akira MSD to bring it up to date with my current abilities.
The eagle eyed among you will notice the lack of a through deck hanger. There is good reason for this. Frankly, I found the idea of using fighters in Star Trek ridiculous. In an age where starship weapons can target anything up to 250 thousand KM away, what use is a fighter? In the scenes we saw them used, they got popped with a single hit from Cardassian ship. Sending people to certain death for no real gain just doesn’t sound like Starfleet to me.
So, let’s imagine that during the Dominion war, Starfleet realised this futility and decided not to employ fighters, or to at least limit them to planet side combat. There is no need for dedicated carrier ships then. Not when you have a dozen or more Galaxy class ships with their cavernous main shuttle bay.
With all this in mind, I present to you the USS Warspite. A refitted Akira that has had her through deck hanger removed and replaced with crew, guest and mission facilities so she can take on missions that the venerable Excelsior class would have done. With the losses during the war, Excelsior class ships would undoubtedly start to be retired as new ships came on line and the newer classes that survived the war were refitted for peace time duties. Being of similar size, I’d imagine the Akira, at least in part, replacing the Excelsior class in many missions.
This particular refit sees the torpedo launchers reduced to 3 forward facing and two rear facing. Type IX phaser replaced with Type XI. A new warp core, enlarged rear shuttle bay and a small EVA hanger up front with workbees and sphinx-bees for repairs to space borne ships and facilities and on itself if need be.
The increased internal mass for facilities would probably make this a little more comfortable to live and work on.
Enjoy.
As I can’t get WordPress to show the full size of this image, you can find a copy here: CLICKY
