Bridge Officers of the Enterprise NX-01 circa 2151
The First Starfleet ship to bear the name Enterprise. She was the first starship created by United Earth that could travel at Warp 5 and thus able to travel across intersellar space in a period of days or weeks rather than years, making it the first human vessel that could embark on deep space exploratory missions.
Enterprise began life following the short but successful missions of the XCV starliners, including the XCV Enterprise XCV-330, which were responsible for mapping out the star systems closest to Earth including Alpha Centauri. While successful in establishing Humanity first successful interstellar colonies and borders, they still paled in comparison to Vulcan ships by all metrics, especially in speed, making them ill-suited to long term exploration. While some in UESPA and the young Starfleet insisted on continuing development on warp style ships based on the Vulcan design that had a tried and true track record, Zefram Cochrane and other engineers, especially a promising recruit named Henry Archer, believed that the engine design pioneered on the Phoneix in 2069 still had much untapped potential. By the 2120s, the warp 5 complex was established in Bozeman, Montana and was busy designing what would eventually become the warp 5 engine. At the same time, a design for a ship capable of hosting such an engine would also be developed.
Despite the disappearance of Cochrane in 2119 and tragic loss of Henry Archer in 2133 to a degenerative disease, work continued on the engine, with Henry's son Jonathan Archer taking a key role in testing prototype vehicles equipped with the engine. Eventually, after achieving incremental breakthroughs through these test vehicles that were able to achieve up to warp 3, following by the launch and successful flight of the Freedom class starship Franklin which reached warp 4 and proved the viability of the saucer-nacelle design layout at high warp speeds, the keel of the first NX class starship was laid in 2149. By the time of its completion in 2151, the ship was christened Enterprise and would begin Humanity's exploration into deep space.
Enterprise's first mission would be to return a Klingon spy, Clang, to his homeworld of Qo'nos, after the agent had crash landed on Earth while being persued by members of the Suliban Cabal.
By the end of 2153 however, tragedy would strike, an alien probe enterted the Sol system and attacked Earth, carving a trail of destruction from Florida to Venezuela via a particle beam, killing deven million people in the attack. After recovering the probe and its dead pilot, it was determined by that Earth had been attacked by the Xindi, a reclusive collection of races residing in the mysterious delphic expanse. It was also discovered that the probe was only the small scale prototype for a far larger and deadlier weapon that was currently under construction and if allowed to reach Earth, would completely destroy it. With no other Starfleet ships capable of reaching the weapon on time and with the experience to reach it, Starfleet recalled Enterprise to Earth for a combat ready refit and then sent it to the Expanse to find the weapon and destroy it. Enterprise however, would be attacked twice by the rogue Klingon captain Duras, once even in the Sol system itself, before even entering the Expanse. While utimately successful in destoying the rogue Klingon's ship, the experience only further highlighted the difficult journey ahead of Enterprise and the vulnerability of Earth.
Thankfully, Archer would succeed in destroying the the weapon just as it reached Earth's orbit.
In the following year, tensions would rise
In 2156, the Enterprise would undergo a massive refit that saw the prominent inclusion of a new engineering, or "stardrive" section to the ship's dorsal Hull. This significant addition was added after a lengthy and thorough review of the NX class's performance, especially that of Enterprise and its time in the Expanse, which was then compared to both other Starfleet ship types of the time and ships from other other races such as the Vulcans and Andorians. This addition would go on to permanently influence Starfleet design philosophy and would become an iconic mainstay to what would become the standard Starfleet spaceframe design.
With the end of the Earth-Romulan War, it was decided that Enterprise would finally be retired, as her space frame had been too severely damaged to be fully repaired and placed back into operation. She was slowly towed back to Earth, whereupon her and the fleet's crews recieved a hero's welcome. She would soon become one of the first exhibits of the Smithsonian's Orbital Annex after the its acquisition by the institution and meticuously restored over the years, eventually returning tospaceworthy state once more, fully accurate to her condition just before the Battle of Cheron.
The Enterpise-A continues to serve as a museum ship to this day, is even still capable of travel and is often rotated between the Museum complexs at Earth, Vulcan, and Andoria. It is currently stationed at the Smithsonians's San Fransisco Fleet Mueseum annex over Earth where it was originally donated and is still listed as a reserve ship that Starfleet can call upon and recommission into active service at any time if deemed necessary. Indeed, this has occured four times so far, including when Earth was threatened by the Borg twice, directly attacked by the Breen during the Dominion War and during the final battle of the Iconian War at Earth. During these incidents the Enterprise was used alongside the other ships at the Muesum complex to ferry civilians out of harms way.
The Enterprise has often been the centre of celebrations and reunions of the crew over the years. In the years and decades following the end of the Earth-Romulan War and the founding of the Federation, The original crew would regularily return each year for the anniversery of the ship's commissioning. President Archer would visit the ship one last time in 2245 shortly before his death, as would Ambassador T'pol, the last surviving member of the crew, shortly before her passing in 2315. On both occassions, Archer and T'pol honoured their crewmates, their dedication and the sacrifices they made, noting the "Long Road" that they had taken that lead to the formation and growth of the Federation, a journey they stated to have been proud to have made and prouder still to have done so aboard Enterprise.
Comments