| U.S.S. Galahad NCC-97862 | |
|---|---|
 U.S.S. Galahad just outside Drozana Station | |
|
Ship Name |
U.S.S. Galahad |
|
Registry |
NCC-97862 |
|
Class |
Sovereign class Assault Cruiser |
|
Commanding Officer |
Captain John McHale |
|
Senior Staff |
Cmdr. Prohm (First Officer/Chief Tactical officer), |
The U.S.S. Galahad is the brainchild of Captain John McHale. He designed the ship himself when he was only a Lietenant serving on the U.S.S. Monte Carlo under than Captain James Logan. Logan kept the designs John made and after learning John was still alive when he reappeared in 2408 he used his Admiral status to begin the construction of the ship he felt John was always meant to command.
From a recorded message from Admiral James Logan to Captain John McHale, found in the Admiral's terminal after he was listed MIA during the Clarke incident:
"Hey John, if you've opened this file I'm probably dead, or something else has happened that means you are going through my stuff. I wanted to give you this presentation in person, but I guess I missed out. By now you probably have been given command of my ship, The Clarke. She is a great ship, and it honors me to have you running her. However, she isn't your ship. When you served under me on the Monte Carlo you sparked my imagination with the things we talked about. You weren't just an engineer, you were a dreamer. Believe it or not I kept your old designs of the Sovereign class type refit and upgrade you showed me all those years ago. You were always crazy about that ship type. Probably blew your mind after that time jump when you found there are more classes that continue that design lineage now.
You see John, one of the things you taught me, was that a ship is a lot more than just a bunch of metal placed in the right way, or just something to get from A to B. A ship is a home, even when Starfleet changes you around, you have to make that ship a home to you, you have to give it love. Love keeps a ship going when it should fail and die in the black of space as you always said. I know you will make the Arthur C. Clarke the best ship it can be, not just for me, but for her. At the end of the day though, it isn't the ship you are meant to have. I gave it to you for when I am gone, but as a temporary measure. I want your ship to be the one you truly deserve.
To that end, thanks to newer technologies and more freedom of design in ships thanks to modular constructions, I had it done that the ship you dreamed about all those years ago would get its wings in reality. She will fly with the best of them. I commissioned a Sovereign type ship to be built, but not just any other. There are hundreds of those ships out now. I wanted this one to be specific, so I had the construction teams use your original designs for a Sovereign upgrade, and incorporate the existing technologies you didn't know about back then. The result was a design that rises above your original expectations but contains more than any standard ship of its type. While the true differences are on the inside, the outside benefits from the best of modern engineering. John, meet your dream, Galahad."
Unique Construction[]
The Galahad on outer appearance looks like any Sovereign type vessel, but what is inside makes the
Pre-refit Galahad outside of Starbase 39-Sierra
difference. When it first finished construction it actually utilized Noble class hull aesthetics on the stardrive and nacelles. The stardrive was set for a refit eventually and would need more to fit in with John's future plans for the ship, but it was set with the Noble type to get it running. The Nacelles were so the larger size of the Noble engines could utilize the redesigned warp coils John made that increased electroplasma to warp field conversion efficiency by almost 7.5%. EPS power transfer rates were up 20% above norm for vessels of this type as well. The warp core also was redesigned with a unique dilithium crystal layout that more effectively collected and parsed the energy from the matter antimatter reactions. After a few updates to the plasma injectors the entire warp system saw that the ship could attain a cruising speed of warp 9, whereas standard cruise for a Sovereign was warp 8.
Galahad post stardrive refit at an Earth orbiting drydock
Eventually Galahad went under the refit of the stardrive section and the aesthetic changed to a more traditional Sovereign type because the extra size gave enough deck space for an ambitious design idea John had. The entire bottom two decks of the ship were cleared out and replaced with a massive industrial replicator system and automated fabrication system. This system allowed John to quickly produce parts and systems for engineering designs right on ship without having to visit stationary fabrication depots for large objects like Memory Alpha. Thus Galahad has become a fully autonomous Engineering and Systems Fabrication unit while still managing to be an effective combat and science cruiser when needing to be.
Galahad later experienced a problem with a spy hired by a Romulan spy on his ship which had
Top view of Galahad after nacelle replacement
placed explosives in several areas. Though they were defused and the spy apprehended by Lt. Scott Culver, a final tampering in the nacelles sent them into an overload while John was away. First officer Christine April had the ship piloted to a safe distance from its dock at Starbase 39-Sierra and ejected the nacelles which later exploded. She even took the liberty to get the nacelle replacements done. Using new working data of the unique warp coils Galahad used she was able to use the replication facility in the ship to manufacture newer ones that fit the size of a standard Sovereign class nacelle. As such Galahad is now 100% classical Sovereign on the outside but still just a new and unique on the inside.