Star Trek Shipyards: Alpha Quadrant and Major Species Volume 1

FOREWORD

The ships in our latest volume of Shipyards belong to the major species not covered in previous books – namely, the Cardassians and the Jem’Hadar – as well as the less prominently featured, though no less impressive, ships commanded by other alien species encountered in the Alpha Quadrant. We found that, even now, there were still so many ships left to cover that we needed to split them into two. This book covers A-K, while the next volume takes us up to Z.

The book covers canon ships from STAR TREK: The Original Series, THE NEXT GENERATION, DEEP SPACE NINE, and ENTERPRISE, with renders taken from the original CG assets or, in the case of the earlier ships, based on direct reference from the original models. This means that these are the most detailed and accurate models of these ships ever seen.

Due to the prohibitive cost of creating new ships for weekly episodes, both physical models and CG models were frequently reused as different alien ships on the shows. Often – though not always – these reuses had different color schemes or subtle changes. This explains why some of the ships in this book look similar to others, even though they belong to distinct species, some of whom could never have exchanged technology. Regardless of whether they were one-off designs or designs that were extensively reused, the amount of concrete facts about the ships in this volume varies wildly. For some, particularly those ships belonging to the main alien species, the show has provided us with plentiful material. With others – not least those which appeared for a matter of seconds – information is limited. Either way, we have stuck just to the facts as they are known.

This book should be seen very much as part of a series, and ideally should be consulted alongside the other volumes, which cover Starfleet, the Klingons, and the other alien species that fill the STAR TREK universe. Together the goal is to create a comprehensive reference to all the ships that have appeared in STAR TREK and pay tribute to the extraordinarily talented artists who have designed and built these beautiful yet entirely believable starships.

ACAMARIAN STARSHIP

This outdated ship was commanded by Chorgan – leader of a band of pirates known as the Gatherers.

Based on a gloomy, outmoded Acamarian starship, Chorgan was the leader of the Gatherers, a band of raiders who plundered outposts throughout the Acamar system and beyond. When Captain Picard pulled off the difficult task of bringing together the Acamarian Sovereign Marouk and Brull, the leader of a Gatherer faction on the outpost of Gamma Hromi II, they all headed out to Chorgan’s ship on board the U.S.S. Enterprise-D to present him with a peace proposal.

Chorgan was not pleased to see them. Ignoring the Enterprise’s hails, he ordered his crew to fire upon Picard’s ship, though his vessel’s phasers were not powerful enough to penetrate its shields. Needing to get the Gatherer leader’s attention, Picard ordered Lieutenant Worf to return fire, taking out Chorgan’s forward shields. When Chorgan subsequently appeared on viewscreen, he expressed his unhappiness with Brull leading the Enterprise to him and was dismissive of the idea of meeting Sovereign Marouk. Undeterred, Picard proceeded to beam himself, Brull, Marouk, and Marouk’s servant Yuta aboard Chorgan’s dimly lit ship, forcing peace talks upon him.

Picard mediated the subsequent peace talks between Chorgan and Marouk. Discussions were heated, with Chorgan’s insistence on having three seats on the ruling council proving to be one sticking point. Nevertheless, Marouk’s proposal of an amnesty and a plot of land for the Gatherers in exchange for an end to their raids was not rejected outright, and the leaders gradually appeared to be making progress. However, at that very moment, Yuta was preparing to kill Chorgan, part of a long blood feud between their clans. When Commander Riker beamed aboard, he attempted to force Yuta to abandon her assassination attempt. When Yuta moved in for the kill, Riker was left with little choice but to vaporize her.