Hello and welcome to another episode of Truth OR Myth Beta Canon, a Star Trek web series that dives into the history of any given topic using Beta Canon sources and my imagination to fill in the gaps. In today’s episode, we’re looking at Project Galaxy, to better understand its place in Star Trek History.
This video is a bit different. As it’s merely a historical overview of what led to the TNG Era Classes of Starfleet Starships. I’m doing this to set the stage for various upcoming videos on all those separate classes, so view this episode of Truth OR Myth Beta Canon as the foundation for those.
But because this IS a Beta Canon video, all information re-laid should pretty much be taken with a grain of stardust, and only considered a little bit of Star Trek Fun! And so, with all that out of the way, let’s begin.
A grand project to bring exploration back to the forefront of Starfleet’s Mandate, Project Galaxy would create several starship Classes that though elegant, would eventually be seen as a grand experiment in Hubris, eventually leading to all existing starships of the project to receive complete overhauls and refits.
But what was the history of Project Galaxy, why did it even exist in the first place? The breakthrough in Isolinear Technology would once again trigger a redesign of the fleet for the Federation.
The Ambassador Class, though an elegant and solid design, had been less than stellar in its performance. Starfleet had had a lot riding on the Ambassador Class, pushing Duotronic Technology well beyond its limit and crossing their fingers that it would all work out in the end, but it didn’t.
Thankfully, shortly after the classes launch, the Isolinear breakthrough would occur, and subsequently, Starfleet’s Design Engineers would take advantage of this new technology, incorporating it into the Ambassador Class just to make the class work.
Although it had solved the Ambassador Classes issues, the truth was Starfleet was no longer interested in the class, seeing it as more of an embarrassment than anything else. After all, had the breakthrough in Isolinear Tech not occurred when it did, by coincidence, then the Ambassador Class would have simply been a huge failure.
So, Starfleet had decided to turn its head towards the future, commissioning a special project, known as project Galaxy, to lead the organization going forward.
The early to mid-24th Century had been a calm time for the Federation.
After the Destruction of Enterprise C, peace with the Klingon Empire had been swiftly cemented. The Klingon Empire seeing the Sacrifice of Captain Rachelle Garrett and her crew attempting to defend the Klingon Outpost at Narendra 3, as one of the most honourable actions ever taken by a Starfleet Officer.
The Romulan Star Empire for its part had withdrawn from Federation Politics and closed its borders shortly after the Khitomer Peace Conference before the turn of the Century.
Being outed as a willing participant in an attempt by Starfleet and Klingon Officers to prevent peace between the Federation and Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire had been embarrassed back into their space, with a Klingon/ Romulan Cold War keeping their Empire occupied for decades.
The Cardassian Union, though at war with the Federation, was little more than an annoyance. Their inferior starship classes, and often chest-thumping, with no backing, had made Starfleet see the Union War as simply a series of Skirmishes.
The Gorn and the Tholians had both opened diplomatic relations with the Federation, even having embassies on various Federation member Worlds and exchanging ambassadors.
Even though various wars had been fought with the Tzenkethi, a treaty had been hammered out and both sides were giving each other a wide berth to keep the peace. Everything was looking up for the United Federation Of Planets, and Starfleet’s Command council tended to agree, wanting their organization to head back to its roots of exploration of the unknown cosmos.
There were 2 problems with this idea though…
The first was that The Federation was continually expanding, and as a result, exploring the unknown would take a starship far from home for years at a time. Consequently, what Starfleet needed was faster and larger, truly self-sustaining starships to make their plan work.
The second was directly related to the time away from home a starship like this would be required to spend. Starfleet was having personnel issues as it was.
Because Starfleet’s exploration missions seemed to be on the back burner for decades, many Federation Civilians weren’t interested in signing up for service. Also again, given the distances involved in any true exploratory mission, many civilians did not apply to Starfleet simply due to their family obligations.
To solve this problem, Starfleet wanted to create vessels classes, designed to accommodate the families of any officer serving onboard a starship. Basically, they wanted starship classes that would be mini-cities in space.
The Federation Council was overjoyed with this new approach to Starship Engineering and immediately approved Project Galaxy.
The jewel of this project would be a new Class named after the Project, The Galaxy Class, an immense starship capable of holding up to 10000 Officers, Crew Members and Civilians.
It would have everything a person could want for amenities. Schools, Workshops, Stores even a barbershop would be included in that design, making this starship class truly a self-sufficient starship.
Other Classes such as the New Orleans, Springfield, and Freedom Classes, though much smaller than the Galaxy Class, would be designed along similar lines. With spacious comfort being the primary concern of the Starships Designers.
What is more, had Starfleet and Federation continued in this era of relative peace, Project Galaxy may have been one of the most impressive and well-received projects in Starfleet History. Unfortunately, the peace enjoyed by the Federation was merely a temporary state.
By the year 2365 Project Galaxy would experience the start of its downfall…
The USS Enterprise NCC-1701 – D, the flagship of the Federation, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, was flung 7000 Light Years Away, to system J-25, by the omnipotent entity known as Q.
Once there, the Enterprise D would encounter the Borg Collective and one of their Cube-Shaped Vessels.
Discovering their inadequacies against this seemingly unstoppable foe, Captain Picard would be forced to appeal to Q for help, and Q would graciously return the Enterprise to Federation Space.
Starfleet and the Federation then began several projects to prepare for an inevitable Borg Encounter. But the true seriousness of this new adversary was still not being felt or accepted by these two organizations.
Various debates, arguments and general in-house fighting would delay many projects from even beginning.
By late 2366, the true depth of Federation and Starfleet arrogance and naivety would be felt by the entire Alpha and Beta Quadrants, when 1 Borg Cube was able to destroy 39 Federation Starships killing 11000 Starfleet Officers and federation Citizens.
So unprepared were they for this battle, that many of the Starships participating in the fight didn’t even have a chance or bother unloading their civilian populations.
This tragedy would forever be known as the Battle of Wolf 359 and would spell the end of Starfleet’s lackadaisical attitude towards defensive and offensive systems.
After the battle, both Starfleet Command and the Federation Council would initiate several inquiries into the matter. And both would find all current starship classes to be woefully underpowered and underdefended.
As a result, Starfleet’s Admiralty would undergo a complete overhaul. Having many of the older Admirals were forced to retire or posted to obscure outer Federation Sector Commands, while younger officers, with fresh ideas and approaches, would be promoted and placed in the Command Council with orders to fix the fleet.
Starfleet’s Starship designers would then work furiously to refit and update the existing Starfleet Vessels of all the Project Galaxy Classes, while construction on more vessels of all those classes was suspended.
But the new Command Council at Starfleet didn’t stop there… Pouring all federation resources and hiring all the best Scientists and Engineers throughout the Federation, Starfleet’s new Admiralty would push hard for technological developments to assist with any future Borg Encounters.
In addition, as a direct result of this push, Starships like the Sovereign, Intrepid, Defiant and Nova Classes would be born and begin to supplant most of the ships of the line from Project Galaxy. And once these breakthrough classes began to prove their worth, Starfleet would completely end Project Galaxy, not constructing any more vessels of most of the classes, aside from 2 of them.
The Galaxy and nebula Classes would continue to be constructed. This was because both these classes could be easily converted to hold the new technologies Starfleet had developed, and once these new technologies had been installed, both the Classes performed as well or above the Breakthrough Classes specs.
The Galaxy Class itself would prove to be one of the most valuable classes created, during the Dominion War.
Project Galaxy would go down in history as one of the worst mistakes of the 24th Century. Though the idea was sound, its execution by an organization, not planning, almost lead to the downfall of the Federation, a mistake that Starfleet would never allow to happen again…
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Thank you for watching today’s episode of Truth or Myth Beta Canon, what do you think of Project Galaxy and the historical narrative that I’ve created here. What’s your favourite Class of this Era of Starfleet’s Aesthetic? Well leave your comments in the section below and don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel.
Thanks again for watching, Live long and prosper…
