Hello and welcome to another episode of Truth OR Myth, a Star Trek web series that looks at the Truth, or canon, information to dispel the myths that have surfaced on a given topic. Today’s episode is going to be a bit different as we’re taking a look at the Curry Class.
Starfleet knew a war with the Dominion was coming. And in preparation, they began to step up their shipbuilding processes to ensure a large fleet of Starships would exist when the war happened. But during this acceleration of shipbuilding, Starfleet quickly realized they wouldn’t have enough ships, nor would they had enough of certain types of ships to ensure victory, but what could Starfleet do? How could they get more function-specific ships? Well, the Curry Class ended up being one of its answers to these questions…
Normally, this series only gives you, the audience, canon information on a starship class. Unfortunately in the case of the Curry class, there really isn’t that much canon information available on it… So what I’ve done is thoroughly researched the Class through Beta Canon, or headcanon, filled in some of the pieces with my imagination and of course logic, to give you all a little bit to chew on about this class.
As a result, though, everything in the video should pretty much be taken with a grain of stardust, and only considered a little bit of Star Trek Fun! Id also likes to take this opportunity to thank GermanTrekkie for providing me with the Curry Class animations for this video. Be sure to check out his channel and I’ve included the link to it in the description below. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy, and with all that out of the way, let’s begin.
Being very worried Starfleet Command began to assemble a task force to put together alternatives to bolster the Federations Fleet.
The Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets, were once again in a state of shaky diplomatic relations, though this break-in strong diplomatic ties, and the disillusion of the Kitomer Accords, would only be temporary, as when all-out war broke out in 2373, the Klingon Empire would re-establish the Accords and come into the fight on the Federations side.
But during this time the Federation felt they couldn’t count on the Klingon Empire for any type of assistance and as such were very worried about what could be done.
With new technologies being developed and implemented through out the Federation to combat the Borg, Starfleet had begun to design very strong yet complex starships to replace some of the aging classes in the fleet. But with construction times on these new classes increased, as well as these new technologies still needing some shakedown time, Starfleet began to think outside the box and came up with a plan.
Taking inventory of all Starfleet Decommission and salvage yards, Starfleet’s task force immediately began pulling ship’s out of mothballs adding new weapons and power systems and bringing these starships online to bolster the fleet numbers.
it was a great plan and ended up being quite effective, but Starfleet still had another problem, they didn’t have enough carrier ships to transport Starfleet fighters, which were easily constructed, into battle.
Looking at the large number of Excelsior-class parts and dead hulks in the shipyards, the task force came up with the idea of re-configuring the standard design of the class and thus the Curry Class would be born.
The Curry Class sat at a length of approximately 384 meters and a height of about 149 meters. it would be crewed with approximately 290 officers and crew, although these numbers would vary greatly depending on the mission the specific ship was to be assigned too.
By moving the excelsior class secondary hull almost complete under the saucer section of the ship, Starfleet’s Taskforce found that this ship could adequately and effectively become a carrier-class of vessel, the secondary hull itself acting as landing and transport deck, while the saucer section itself acted as added protection to allow the fighters to launch during the heat of battle.
One problem with Starfleet’s plan, however, came in regards to Excelsior Class Warp Nacelles. Though there were a lot of hulks in the shipyards, not many of the original warp nacelles for that class were still attacked or functional enough to be utilized.
This would only end up being a minor problem, however, as Starfleet also realized that these shipyards contained many of the older style warp nacelles used on the old Constitution Class and Miranda Class of ships.
Attaching 2 of these older engines to the underside of the Saucer Section, and with a bit or conduit routing, the Curry Class came to life.
With Starfleet’s new engine cores that had been developed these starships were actually quite powerful in themselves. But with the older, less efficient Nacelles meant this ship was a bit slower than the newly refit Excelsior class.
Having a standard cruising speed of warp factor 6 and an emergency speed of warp factor 9, this decrease in speed would not really become a factor of any sort during the war.
One thing of interesting note in regards to this class was that although there was a standard configuration to it, because of it’s cobbled together nature, there would be many slightly different ships in the class, making certain starship of the class quite original and one of a kind.
Armaments were upgraded for this class as well, having initially 10 type 9 phaser emitters and 2 photon torpedo launchers. But again with Starfleet’s rapid technological developments, these weapons systems would be upgraded to even newer Starfleet standards, even having their Photon Torpedo launchers modified to fire Quantum Torpedoes, which were proving quite useful to the Federation.
Moving the secondary hull under the saucer section also had the added bonus of decreasing the starships defensive shield bubble. This meant less power was required to defend the ship, and allowed this class to stay in a firefight much longer then it’s Excelsior Class Counterpart.
The first ship to be created of this class, the U.S.S. Curry, NCC- 42254, preformed admirably during its years of service.
In early 2374 however, three months into a Dominion, the U.S.S. Curry was one of the surviving ships of the 2nd Fleet, having suffered massive damage including a hull breach to its primary hull. Even so, Starfleet saw how well the Curry had held together during the battle and made the decision to tow the Curry back to a Starbase to receive complete repairs and return the starship to active duty on the front lines…
Once the war ended in 2375, the class itself would be decommissioned en-mass. Never intended to be a regular class in Starfleet, this class would first be mothballed, in case further aggression would require their use again, and eventually decommissioned and deconstruction would begin, once STarfleets newer starship classes began to replace the significant losses during the war.
This classes life though wasn’t exactly over, at least it wouldn’t have been.
Once Admiral Jean-Luc Picard had convinced Starfleet to help the Romulan Star Empire evacuate its homeworld, Romulus, and the surrounding systems after the Hobus SuperNova was threatening massive destruction to the Empire, the remaining ships of this class were once again pulled out mothball and preparations were made to include these vessels in a fleet of over 10000 starships Starfleet was putting together for the mass evacuation.
Unfortunately, when the Utopia Planitia ships yards of Mars was attacked by rogue synths, all the remain vessels of this class were destroyed in the sneak attack.
During the Dominion War itself, many of this class participated in the major engagements, helping to turn the tide of battle to the allies side. And although not the most aesthetically pleasing design in visual terms, this class supported, and performed so well, that it certainly earned its place, in Starfleet History.
Thank you for watching today’s episode of Truth or Myth, what do you think of the Curry Class? Did you like my non-canon interpretation of it? Do you want to see more episodes like this one? Well leave your comments in the section below and don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel, hitting that little bell icon so you won’t miss a single video we release.
Thanks again to GermanTrekkie for making the AWESOME animations for this video, check out his channel and give the guy some loving, the link is in the description below.
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Thanks again for watching, Live long and prosper…
Watch episode 115
