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 own imagination to fill in the gaps. In today’s episode we’re looking at the Baud Class, a fan design, to better understand its place in Star Trek History.
As always, because this IS just a bit of fan fiction, 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.
Built out of necessity, the Baud Class would go on to become one of the most useful, yet bizarre classes ever created by Starfleet. But what do we know about this unusual class?
By the early 2260s, the United Federation of Planets was growing at an ever-increasing rate, and due to this unexpected expansion, Starfleet Command began to experience its effects first-hand.
After the First Federation/ Klingon War of 2256, resources within the Federation were tight. Colonies, Starbases and Starships had to be repaired or simply rebuilt from scratch, and the Federation was still experiencing these difficulties when the unexpected increase in Federation membership and territory began to increase.
In addition, because Starfleet Command had a long list of priorities, certain other facilities’ construction was put on hold until the federation and its defences were back up to full strength.
One large problem being experienced throughout the federation was a lag in communications.
Normally as the Exploration and Science vessels travelled deep space, they would drop what was known as Subspace Booster Relays, which would pick up a signal from a starship, facility or colony and do exactly what its name suggested, boosting the signal and allowing for much faster communication.
Then construction ships would eventually come in and replace said relays with more permanent structures, solidifying control over that area of Space for the organization.
But, with resources at a premium, and the Klingon Empire had destroyed most outer comm relays, suddenly Starfleet had a big communication problem.
Approaching the Federation Council to ask for permission to divert essential resources to tackling this issue, Starfleet Command was shocked when the council denied this request, feeling that rebuilding member world defences and outposts along the Klingon Border was the actual top priority in case the Klingon Empire changed its mind and decided to go for round 2 in a large-scale conflict.
And Starfleet Command was not impressed by this decision at all, but what could be done about it?
After hearing about the comm issue, and since a lot of resources had been diverted to rebuilding its fleet of Starships, Dr Richard Daystrom of the Daystrom Institute approached Starfleet’s Admiralty with an elegant solution, a Starship Design that could act as a large, mobile, communications array.
And after reviewing the initial idea for the starship design, Starfleet Command would agree with Daystrom’s Plan, passing the designs off to their own Starship Design Team for immediate implementation and the Baud Class would be born…
Sitting at a length of approximately 326.2 meters and 21 Decks tall, the Baud class was designed to be operated by 510 Officers and Crew Members.
The Baud Class would take on the basic appearance of the highly successful Constitution Class, with one major difference, a large subspace array would be added into the middle section of the starship Secondary Hull. As a result, the internal layout for this class would be quite different from that of the Constitution Class.
In the Baud Class, Main and Impulse Engineering would be combined into one area located in the saucer section, while an additional Computer Core, specially designed by the Daystrom Institute, would be included in the secondary hull to handle all incoming and outgoing communications.
The Baud Class would have a standard safe cruising speed of warp factor 4 and an emergency maximum speed of warp factor 6. Of course, this maximum speed would be rarely used as even the slightest inertial stress on the Large Comm Array panels could mean weeks of extensive repair.
The Baud Classes Nacelle position would also be lowered as compared to the Constitution Class to accommodate its subspace panels within its warp field.
Though not intended for combat, the designers of the Baud Class were all too aware of the dangers of Deep Space travel and thus this vessel class would be armed with 7 standard dual Phaser Emitter Banks, 2 Photon Torpedo Launchers, 1 forward and 1 aft.
Though shielding for this class was standard for the time, the truth was the Baud class shields were far weaker than most starship classes in the fleet.
Again, this was due to the comm array included in the design, meaning a much larger shield bubble needed to be created to protect the starship, expending more power at a far greater rate.
Planning, for a time when resource allocation was back to normal for the Federation, the baud Class would also contain several construction bays so that the class itself would act as a construction facility for permanent communication relay construction.
In this event, a Baud Class starship would fabricate the habitat and control systems and structure for the new base. And once brought online, the Baud Classes’ own subspace panels would then be detached and reattached to the new facility, cutting down construction time immensely.
Then the Baud Class vessel would return to the nearest Starbase where a new set of Subspace Panels would be waiting for it and could easily be re-installed into the starship.
To aid with Relay construction, the baud class would contain several specially designed Shuttle Craft and Construction drones.
Though excellent in its own mission profile, there were several drawbacks to this design, one being a lack of internal living space.
Due to the necessity of larger cargo holds to carry the construction equipment and parts required to build permanent arrays, let alone the basics required to keep a starship operational, many facilities normally aboard a starship were cut from this design or decreased in size.
There were very few Scientific laboratories aboard the ship, and junior crew members were required to live in barrack-style facilities.
Even the recreational area was cut back, with the removal of both the bowling alley and pool areas, as a result, crew morale and mental health tended to suffer in vessels of this class, requiring Starfleet Command to institute a far faster crew rotation policy for these starships.
But even with these drawbacks, the class would seem like a success. Having a mobile comm array would mean as the Exploration Starships ventured further out, ships of this class would do the same, and inter-fleet communications would remain relatively quick and stable.
Though it should be noted that many Starships of this class would serve their first terms, not in the frontier of deep space, but rather closer to home until several destroyed comm relays could be replaced with permanent facilities.
But by the mid-2270s the Baud class was beginning to show its age. For a time, Starfleet Command had considered building an entire refit line for the Baud Class, even constructing a few prototypes to test the new technology to be included in the Refit vessel.
But as Starfleet’s technology had also begun to grow by leaps and bounds, and with the Klingon and Romulan Empires seemingly now at a stalemate offensive-wise, the urgency for a Baud class refit simply no longer really existed, as Starfleet could now simply fabricate easily combined components to create Communications Arrays that could be carried into position by dedicated construction starship classes.
So, the Refit Baud Class Project would be considered an obsolete project and abandoned in 2278 and the last of the Baud Class Starships, the USS Eternal September would be decommissioned in 2283.
Created by a loophole for necessity, the Baud Class would prove its worth during a time of uncertainty and fear for the United Federation of Planets.
Earning this “Out of the Box” design it’s placed in Starfleet History…
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