USS Dauntless (NCC-75310)



The USS Dauntless was a sovereign class starship, serving as the flagship of the Fifth Fleet and operating in the Typhon Sector.

History
The USS Dauntless was built at Starfleet Yards in orbit of Vulcan and launched at the height of the Dominion War in early 2375 under the command of then-Commodore Peter J. Koester.

Originally designated the Illustrious, the starship’s name was changed to Dauntless when her Intrepid-class predecessor, registry number NCC-74658, was destroyed in 2374 and the majority of the surviving crew were assigned to the new vessel while it was still in its final stages of construction.

Some of the highlights of the Dauntless’ early missions include the first encounter with the mysterious alien species dubbed the Hunters and participating in the first battle of Chin’toka and the invasion of Cardassia Prime, the battle that ended the Dominion War.

The Dauntless was turned over to the command of Captain Virgil D. Kane in early 2377, after which the starship resumed its mission of exploration, until a collision with a neutronic fuel tanker in orbit of the New Gibraltar colony in 2379 resulted in the relief of Captain Kane and the entry of the Dauntless into drydock at Utopia Planitia Fleetyard orbiting Mars. While undergoing collision repairs, an evaluation determined there was an exceptional amount of structural damage sustained during the Dominion War. What was planned as a six week repair turned into a year-long overhaul and upgrade. Dauntlessfinally left drydock in mid-2380, once again under the command of now-Captain Peter J. Koester, who had briefly retired from Starfleet in 2378 and returned on the condition that he could resume the duties of a starship commander at the rank of captain.

Highlights of the starship’s more recent missions include first contact with the Kairn, an aggressive alien species that invaded and occupied several sectors of Federation space, first contact with the Morain, centuries-long adversaries of the Kairn with whose help Starfleet managed to push the Kairn back beyond the original border, and the Zaqri terrorist attack that almost destroyed the starship in late 2382, resulting in the Dauntless spending another six months in drydock at the Antares Shipyard in orbit of Antares III.

General Overview
Nearly seven hundred meters in length, the design of the Sovereign-class consisted of two hull sections: a saucer-shaped primary hull and a secondary hull which mounted two warp nacelles.

The Sovereign-class starship had several weaponry enhancements over previous starship classes, including quantum torpedoes as well as photon torpedoes, and numerous phaser banks and arrays.

The Dauntless originally employed twelve phaser arrays at key locations throughout the ship's hull. Seven dorsal phaser arrays were located on the primary hull, one extending around the saucer section, giving it an oval appearance. Six smaller arrays covered the aft dorsal firing arcs and were located along the aft portion of the saucer section, above the main shuttlebay.

Four ventral phaser arrays were located on the primary hull, extending around in nearly a half circle on both the starboard and port ventral sides of the saucer section. A single phaser array was located along the ventral section of the engineering hull, running perpendicular to the hull. During the refit, four were added to the trailing edges of the warp nacelle pylons (one dorsal and one ventral for each pylon) bringing the phaser array count to sixteen.

The computer system on board the Sovereign-class were bio-neural gel pack based. Computer systems were concentrated in two computer cores. The primary core was located directly below the main bridge on Decks 6 through 8. The secondary core was located in the engineering section, adjacent to environmental control, on Decks 15 through 17.

Sovereign-class starships achieved warp flight through two warp nacelles, which housed multiple pairs of warp coils. They could achieve warp factor 9.7.