Bridge Officers of the USS Enterprise-E circa 2379
The USS Enterprise-E was the sixth Federation ship to bear the name. Originally, she and her older sister ship, the USS Sovereign, were envisioned in response to the new Borg threat following their discovery in 2365. However, following the devastating battle of Wolf 359 in 2366, what had already began as major re-designs to what was normal starship design philosophy at the time would become a full overhaul of the Sovereign class design, chiefly to improve its survivability, speed, defensive and even offensive systems. The Sovereign class would soon bcome the new flagship for the Federation, superceding the Galaxy class much earlier than expected in response this new threat. Aidding in this task would come an unexpected contributor, Montgomery Scott, chief engineer of the original Enterprise NCC 1701 and Enterprise NCC 1701-A.
Scott initally signed onto the project in curiosity following an invitation by the Corps of engineers and another 23rd century time-displaced Starfleet officer, Morgan Batesman. Having taken a number of refresher courses and having learned the Federation's current history, foreign relations and the Borg threat, Scott was interested to see how Starfleet would respond. Upon arriving at the Utopia Plantia shipyards to inspect the prototype USS Sovereign after its initial failed tests, Scott made a number of observations regarding the ship and its performance, drawing both favorable and critical comparisions to the Constitution class and its ruggedness. The engineers were greatly impressed with Scott's observations and Captain Batesman assigned Scott to work on the currently under construction second ship of the class in an effort to address the issues Scott brought up and ensure she did not face the same issues as her older sister.
The result was a massive success, with the second ship not only free of issue but showing a marked increase in performance overall, even compared to the current Galaxy class ships. "Its a merging of the best of the 23rd and 24th centuries." noted one of the engineers, "ships those days could take a pounding and still fly and fight and that trait has been merged with the larger size, computer processing, automation and versatility in mission profile that are current ships are known for." Indeed, this philosophy would go on to inform an overall redesign of the entire fleet that would undergo refitting while new designs would also take on these new traits. The original USS Sovereign would undergo an interrupted refit that would eventually see her brought up to this standard just in time for the Vesuvi Crisis.
Whilst finalising the second ship's construction and sorting through a shortlist of potential names such as the Honarius or Sentinel, the USS Enterprise-D would be critically damaged at Veridian III, losing its stardrive section while its saucer section would crash land on the planet's surface and be deemed irrecoverable at the time. In light of this, Captain Scott immediately suggested that the new ship be christened the Enterprise-E, and would go on to sponser Captain Picard and his crew to take command, despite the ongoing court martial at the time investigating the Enterprise's destruction.
Following an inital shakedown cruise that was interrupted by a renegade Klingon warrior, Captain Batesman would hand command over to Captain Picard, who quickly reassembled as many of his original crew from the Enterprise-D as he could. Aftwerwards, the ship participated in a war games trial with the USS Samson to test out its abilities. Unfortunately the Samson would be destroyed during the trial due to a Changling sabetour which the crew of the Enterprise was able to locate and apprehend. Despite this, the Enterprise was finally cleared for actice service, though the flames of conflict would dictate much of her service life.
Following the bombing of the Antwerp Conference on Earth in mid-2372, the Enterprise was assigned to transport a team of explosive experts to a number of key Starfleet facilities, including Deep Space 9 and Starbase 375. During the course of the voyage, these experts discovered co-conspirators in Admiral James Leyton's attempted coup on Earth and were able to aid the crew in stopping one element of the coup attempt. In early 2373, the Enterprise was recalled to Earth by newly elected Federation president Min Zife who charged Captain Picard and Captain Sisko of Deep Space Nine with attempting to reopen a dialogue with the Klingon Empire. Later, the ship was dispatched to Chiaros IV in the desolate expanse known as the Geminus Gulf to prevent the region from falling under the control of the Romulan Star Empire.
On Stardate 50893.5, the Borg attacked the Federation for the second time, sending anoher cube that destroyed an outpost on IVor Prime and proceeded on a heading for Earth. The Enterprise was patrolling the near the Romulan Neutral Zone when the crew was informed of the threat but were instructed to guard the Neutral Zone while Starfleet forces assembled in the Typhon sector to intercept the cube. However, after recieving communications from the early stages of the battle that indicated it was not going well, Captain Picard elected to take the Enterprise into the fight. The choice would prove decisive. By the time the Enterprise arrived, the cube was already on a final approach to Earth while the Starfleet armada continued to fight a long-running but losing battle asgainst it. With the Enterprise's arrival however, everything changed. After rescuing the crew of the Defiant, Captain Picard would assume command of the fleet from the Enterprise and, using knowledge he reatained of the Borg from his assimilation, ordered all ships to fire on a specific section of the cube. As it turned it, this section of the cube proved vulnerable and striking it with every weapon from the fleet caused a catastrohic chain reaction that lead to the cube's destruction. The Borg had a contingency however, lauching a sphere from the cube that travelled into Earth's past, specifically to 2063, the year of First Contact, with the intent of disrupting this event. However the Enterprise chased down the sphere to past, destroyed it and set about fixing the timeline by transporting disguising engineers to aid Zephram Cochrane with launching the Pheonix on time. The Borg attempted one last attempt to disrupt the timeline, as a number of drones and even a Queen had beamed aboard Enterprise before their sphere's destruction and began assimilating the ship and its crew. While a number of crew were lost, the Borg were eventually defeated by killing the Queen, which resulted in the drones abaord the ship being severed from the Collective. This allowed most of the assimilated crew to be rescued, while also inadvertently leaving onboard a number of former drones that had been part of the original invasion force. While some were members of known races, several others were not and would turn out to be members of Gamma and Delta Quadrent species that had previously been unknown. The Enterpise was successful in its mission to right the timeline and returned to their present, upon which they recieved a hero's welcome and transferred all formerly assimilated individuals abaord to a newly created medical facility set up to deal with the formerly assimmilated.
On stardate 50910, after a brief refit that removed and replaced assimilated components of the ship, the Enterprise was tasked with patrolling near sector 221G, where the Thallonian Empire was located and had recently fallen. The ship was assigned to provide relief to refugees while Captain Picard convinced Former Starfleet Officer Mackenzie Calhoun to return to Starfleet as captain of the USS Excalibur and to aid with the relief effort.
By year's end however, the Dominion War would begin and the Enterprise would play an important role in the conflict.
At the begining of 2374, On stardate 51405.9, the Enterprise was dispatched to investigate an incident on a lab at the planet Galor IV where an attempt had been made to re-create the work of Commander Data's creator Noonien Soong. During the course of the investigation, the crew unraveled a mystery that revealed much about the history of androids in the galaxy. This information was turned over to the Soong Fondation at the Datstrom institute, though work utilsing this information was suspended for a time after the Synth attack on Mars. The Fondation has since been reactivated and continues research into androids today. A curious side affect of this mission howeve has been the spread of rumors that Noonien Soong is still alive or at least someone appearing like him, with several sporadic sightings over the years. These rumors have not been confirmed.
On Stardate: 51701.3, the Enterprise was sent to the homeworld of the Gorn to enlist ther aid against the Dominion. Despite a diplomatic crsis occuring the mission when the Gorn ruling caste where overthrown and replaced by a faction, Picard and the crew of the Enterprise would never-the-less succeed in forming an alliance with the Gorn. This would prove to be a major advantage, as Gorn ships and soldiers proven to be efficent and brutal combatents against the Jem'Hadar, although they would not be able to participate in every major battle, their main contribution proving to be ground combatents.
Later in the year, the Enterprise would lead the charge in liberating Betazed from Dominion occupation, its crew providing aid to the local resistance forces and destroying the newly constructed Carassian base station in orbit, however Betazed casualties were high and the Enterprise would stay to render relief following the planet's liberation.
By the end of 2374, Enterprise was sent to the region known as the "Briar Patch", a large collection of nebulae and gases holding several star systems within. It was to investigate an incident an accidental reveal of a Starfleet survey team to indigenous Ba'ku on their planet. However, the crew would make a number of discoveries, some of them disturbing. The Ba'ku were actually warp-capable and not particularly disturbed by aliens, however the crew also discovered a clandestine plot to forcibly resettle the Baku off world by a member of Starfleet, in league with the Son'a, planning to then harvest material from the Ba'ku world for a medical program. As it would turn out however, the Son'a's true motive was vengeance, as they were discovered to be an exiled offshoot of the Ba'ku. The Enterprise would quickly put an end to the plot, however the incident would lead to the revelation that the Son'a were actually allied with the Dominion and that they had planned to share the spoils of the project with their new allies instead of the Federation, essentially hoping to create undying Jem'Hadar soldiers and perhaps even to use the Ba'ku world as a staging point to attack the Federation. Open hostilities would ensure between Alliance froces and the Son'a and as a result, the Son'a and Dominion were cut off from each other and no longer able to render assistance at the same scale they had previously been able to.
On Stardate: 52603.2, the Enterprise would again defend Earth from an invading enemy force. The Breen, who had recently establsihed an alliance with the Dominion, stunned the entire Alpha Quadrent and launched a direct suprise suicide attack on Earth. The Enterprise had been on a layover visit at the time and was able to avoid being disabled during the initial attack. It then proceeded to rescue disabled or stranded ships and lead a counterattack, against the Breen ships, destroying the entire force, then directing relief efforts on the surface. While San Francisco and several other cities saw significant damage, it remained limited to these locations and was repairable, thanks in no small part to Enterprise and other Starfleet forces preventing what could have been a massacre not seen since the Xindi crisis.
Enterprise would remain at Earth as the war ended as a rearguard to anymore attacks. When Peace was declared, the ship took part in a victory celebration, flying in formation over San Francisco.
With the war over, Enterprise once again assumed its exploratory and diplomatic mission. It began in 2376 by rendering aid to to aritifical planet known as "Gemworld", helping to facilitate peace between the numorous species living there. It would also solve the mystery of warp "dead zones" that had begun to appear throughout parts of the Galaxy that were destalising power sources within affected regions and would rescue the crew of the USS Excalibur after its destruction by a computer virus, forcing the crew to abandon ship.
On Stardate: 53260, the Enterprise was sent back to the Badlands to search for Breen as Starfleet was establishing a permanent presence within the system. It found a derelict Cardassian freighter that had been carrying a Bajoran Orb of the Prophets. It soon returned the orb to the Bajoran people at Deep Space 9, also transferring Commander Elias Vaughn who had been traveling on the ship permanently to the station as its new first officer. The Enterprise would also be present when Bajor was formally inducted into the Federation shortly afterwards.
Enterprise would assist the newly commissioned USS Excalibur-A in exposing Selelvian manipulation of the Federation. By stardate: 53550.8, following a patrol for Dominion holdouts, it would then head to Starbase 612, where it repelled a suprise attack by the Borg. With a potential new invasion by the Collective underway, Enterprise would rally a number of fleets, including some from the Klingon and Romulan Empires, into an armada that stopped a third, much larger incursion at Earth, then chased the Collective down to their staging grounds in the Alpha Quadrent and destroyed not only that base but also their leader, a cloned Locutus of Borg.
In early 2377 on stardate 54111.79, the Enterprise would lead a flotilla against one of the last Borg incursions of the century, although the Borg attack would quickly dissipiate against the emerging threat of the Kam'Jahtae, a servitor species of the Hur'q, which would be dealt with by the crew of the USS Typhon. The Enterprise would then be caught up in the "Genesis Wave" crisis, where a number of Federation and non-Federation worlds had been affected by a Genesis Effect phenomenom. Whilst rendering aid to affected wotlds, the Enterprise tracked down the source of the waves to an unknown species that had kidnapped the effect's creator, Dr Carol Marcus who the species was forcing tocreate the waves as a means of agressive colonisation, which Enterprise quickly put a stop to. Unfortunately Dr Marcus sacrificed herself to end the threat.
At the end of 2377, Enterprise would be present at Earth when the USS Voyager returned home, being one the last reinforcements to arrive to stop what was presumed at firist to be a Borg attack. Members of the crew would talk with and provide counselling for some of Voyager's personnel.
At the begining of 2378, Enterprise would take part in slavage operations near the site of the Battle of Rashanar, then investigated a 200 year old distress signal sent by the Dokaalan, a species believed to have been killed by the breakup of their planet but discovered by the Enterprise to still be alive on a a series of asteroid outposts and attempting to terraform a nearby world into their new home. Enterprise would aid the Dokaalans and prevented the thefit of their terraforming technology by the Satarrans. Afterards, the ship was ordered to Delta Sigma 4 where the Bader and Dorset colonists had been afflicted by medication that causing docilness, even though the two had been traditional enemies. The crew, along with representative Kyle Riker would discover the truth of the situation and aid the two peoples in finding peace with each without resorting to the mind-alteriting medication, though Kyle Riker would sadly die during these events.
The ship was then assigned to assist with the ongoing Vesuvi crisis which had resulted in a small scale war between Federation Aliance forces and rogue Cardassian House Arterius that had manipulated the then unknown Kessok species into launching unprovoked attacks in the region. Captain Picard and Commander Data were invaluable in providing specialist aid to the leading Starfleet ship in the area, its sister ship the USS Sovereign. Both ships and a small joined fleet would take the fight to a Kessok in the Omega Draconis system where Commander Data would reveal House Arterius's deceit to the Kessok, who promplty turned on the Cardassians. Enterprise would defend the colony against remaining Arterius ships while the Sovereign would chase down the leader of House Arterius, Legate Matan, to the system's Sun and stopping him from detonating the Sun with a solarformer by disabling his ship, which then drifted into the Sun and exploded. Captain Picard would then reccomend a commedation the Sovereign's captain and crew before departing the region.
Stardate
Stardate 54111.79 Star Trek Invasion
Stardate 54303.1 - 55432.5 Bridge Commander
Stardate 56200.1 STarfleet Command 3
Stardate 57026.1 Elite Force 2
Stardate 57327.8 Legacy
2379 would see a challenging transformative change for the Enterprise and its crew. At the start of the year, the Enterprise was assigned to oversee an investigation into the attack and eventual destruction of Starbase Unity One, an experimental station jointy built and commanded by both the Federation and the Klingon Empire. It was eventually discovered that the Romulan Tal Shiar intelligence agency was responsible and was attempting to manipulate the Federation and Kligons to war with each other. In response Starfleet ordered Enterprise to lead the newly assembled Task Force Nine to eliminate the Tal Shiar threat by any means necessary, no longer willing to tolerate the agency's activities following what were now considered terrorist attacks by a terrorist organisation. This led to an audacious strike into the Romulan Neutral Zone and even deep into Romulan space itself, with Federation and Klingon forces destroying all Tal Shiar ships, stations and installations that could be found. Eventually, the taskforce reached what was at the the time the Tal Shiar's headquarters which they subseqentially attacked, boarded and captured key personnel from, including the perpetator of Unity One's destruction, Admiral Arai. The station and all Tal Shiar forces in the area were destroyed and the taskforce returned to safe space, though not before being confronted by a fleet led by Prator Hiren, who diavowed Arai's actions as that of a rogue. Since the collapse of the Romulan Empire, information recovered from surviving goverment archives have since shown that that the assault into Romulan space itself was not answered by the Romulan Navy as not only was the Empire in the begining stages of a political upheval which hampered their ability to respond, but the assault itself was so shocking to Romulan leadership that it had become further paralysed in response, only able to hastily muster a fleet after Hiren made heated demands of his admirality. His decision to allow the taskforce to return home however would prove to have devastating and fatal consequences however, for himself and his goverment as it only further angered natalionalist elements who came to view him as weak.
The Enterprise was dispatched to Tezwa after the mad prime-minister Kinchawn had attacked a Klingon fleet with a vicious weapon. Thehe Enterprise remained at Tezwa acting as peacekeepers in the unstable region, an act made more difficult by a bloody insurgency begun by Kinchawn and his loyalists. Kinchawn would eventually be captured and given a life sentance for his crimes. He is currently held at a Federation penal colony.
Shortly after while patrolling close to the Romulan border, the crew recovered another Soong type android named B-4 on a pre-warp planet. The ship was then quickly assigned to head to Romulus as Praetor Hiren and the senate had just been murdered in a coup and the new praetor had invited the Federation to send a ship to open diplomatic talks. Enterprise would find the new Praetor, and the coup's orchestrator to be Sinzon, a clone of Captain Picard, commanding a fearsome battleship called the Scimitar. Sinzon had actually intended to capture Picard to restableise his ailing body, luring the ship closeby using B-4. He then planned to attack Earth with a thalaron weapon built into the Scimitar as part of a twisted scheme of ascending Remans as the dominant force within the Star Empire whilst eventually betraying his Romulan creators and satisfying a misplaced personal hatred for Humanity. Picard escaped and the Enterprise battled with the Scimitar at the Bassen Rift. Despite suffering terrible damage and losing Commander Data, the Enterprise was victorious, with Sinzon dead and the Scimitar destroyed.
The Enterprise would undergo a refit and crew transfer over the next several months through to 2380, losing most of its bridge crew but gaining the Hazard Team from USS Voyager, lead by Lieutenant Munro. The Hazard Team would serve admirably while on the Enterprise during the Exocomp incident in which creature known as Exomorphs began atttacking ships, stations and plaets in the Attrexian sector, including the USS Dallas. The Hazard Team was able to repel these attacks and discovered not only that were the Exomorphs artifically created by the Idryll, who had once been a starfaring empire before their creations turned on them, but also that a Romulan sectret society known as the Empty Crown was utimately responsible for the attacks after having learned of the creatures from mercenaries and had taken over a facility in the Neutral Zone from from which they could control them. The Enterprise entered the zone and transported the Hazard team down to the facility whereupon they defeated all Empty Crown forces, killed its leader and destroyed the facility, ending the threat. This event proved the effectiveness of Hazard teams and would lead to the creation of more teams across the whole of Starfleet. It would also provide inspiration in the Federation's decision to reform the MACO branch during the run-up to the 4th Klingon War. As for the Enterprise, the Hazard team lead by Munro as well as several Dallas crew members such as chief engineer Katterina Scott would permanently stay aboard the Enterprise.
On stardate 57327.8, the Enterprise would have its final battle against the Borg. A rogue Vulcan scientist named T'Uerell, who had augmented herself with Borg technology to increase her lifespan and had been terrorising the Federation since its founding, had returned to Federation space with an armada of Borg ships under her control, collected from the remains of previous incursions by the increasingly-weakening Collective, intent on imposing a new age of peace in the galaxy based on her own views of logic and order. Sent to meet with T'Uerell alongside Admiral Janeway abaord Voyager, Picard and the admiral attempted to make the Vulcan see reason, pointing out the flaws to her argument and the loss of her Vulcan identity, however this failed and the Enterprise was forced to defend several Federation worlds, including Bajor, from T'Uerell's collective alonside Voyager and a joint Federation-Klingon-Romulan taskforce. The taskforce would defeat T'Uerell and her forces, ending the last Borg incursion of the 24th Century.
The Enterprise would contine to serve the Federation under Captain Picard until 2385 when on stardate 62230.13, the ship lead a fleet to Khitomer to assist in evacuating the planet's non-Klingon residents after tensions began to rise with the Empire. The Enterprise eventually returned to Utopia Planitia shipyards for a year-long refit but Picard, who became heavily invested with the plight of the Romulans and the growing crisis of the Hobus suernova, would take command of the prototype USS Verity, a test bed ship that would inform the development of the Odyessy class later on, to lead an evacuation effort of the Romulan people from planets that were threatened. B-4, who had since accumlated Commander Data's experiences and knowledge, enlisted in Starfleet and taken Data's name as a family identifier, was ultimately chosen to command the Enterprise. However, his initial captaincy would be short-lived, as following the Synth attack on the Federation's evacuation fleet at Utopia Plantia and Mars, a ban would be called for all synthetic life across the Federation. Data would remain captain of the Enterprise despite increasing pressure to step down, thanks to support from Ambassador Picard and former Enterprise crew members, until 2387, when the Hobus Sun finally went nova and destroyed Romulus and Remus. Data would take the Enterprise to aid relief effort and then to combat the Nerada, a borg modifed mining vessel under the command of Nero, a grief-stricken Romulan miner who had lost his family in the tragedy and was lashing out against those he felt had betrayed his people. The Enterprise would distract the Nerada long enough to allow Ambassador Spock, onboard the prototype Jellyfish scout vessel, to launch a canister of Red matter into the expanding supernova, forming a short-lived black hole that absorbed in the entirity of the exploding star. Unfortunately the Enterprise was unable to rescue Spock or the Nerada from the black hole before it took them as well.
Following the destruction of Romulus, with synthetics now banned across the Federaton, Captain Data was forced to step down and despite massive protest from Admiral Picard and other formers crew members, was disassembled and stored at the Daystrom Institute. A new captain had to be selected. Eventually, former tactical officer Worf was selected to command the Enterprise, with a promotion to captain.
Worf's tenure would see the Enterprise aiding Romulan refugees and skirmishing with an increasingly aggressive Klingon Empire, to which his more tactical background and understanding of his people was suited to handling, though it did raise questions regarding his lpyalties among some oof the admirality, and he did note his own conflict in issues involving the Empire.
The Enterprise would embark on its final mission in 2385. In september of that year,
Despite enduring extensive damage, the Enterprise survived, but the ship was crippled and catastrophically damaged, to the point that the crew had to abandon ship. After ejecting the warp core, leaving on escape pods and shuttlecraft, the shuttles waited until rescued 7 hours later by the USS Titan, Defiant and Voyager.
As more ships arrived, including two newly arrived support ships, the Cerritos and Paramount, the Enterprise was towed back to Earth. Engineers at the San Francisco shipyard estimated that the space frame was so badly damaged that it would take more than a year to repair the ship. At the same time, Captain Worf had decided to step down from command. It was decided the ship would only be restored to a minimal level and the ship relegated to a mothball depot in the Tellar sector, and that the time had come for a new ship to carry the name Enterprise. At that time, the the first Odyssey class ships were reaching completion and an already popular idea to name one of the ships Enterprise became official.
As the Enterprise-E was sent into mothballs, Geordi LaForge, as he had done previously with the Enterprise-D which he was currently restoring, petioned Starfleet Command to allow him to restore the ship to full operational status for preservation upon his posting as currator of the Fleet museum in the 2390s. It would take until 2397 for the deision to be approved and even then, La Forge has to schedule the Enterprise-E's restoration for after the competion of work for the Enterprise-D given his available resources. This meant that the ship was unavailable for Commodore and his former crewmates during the Frontier Day crisis of 2401. However, by 2402, La Forge, offically demoted to captain for his role in aiding Admiral Picard when he had seemingly gone rogue prior and comandered the Titan-A shortly before that crisis, was given special dispensation to complete restoration for the Ennterprise as his last act at the fleet Museum, which he gladly accepted.
As of the current stardate, the Enterprise-E has been fully restored and remains at the Athan Fleet Mueseum annex 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 occured when Earth was threatened by the Iconians. During this incident, the Enterprise was used alongside the other ships at the Muesum complex to ferry civilians out of harms way.
The Enterprise-E has become the centre of celebrations and reunions, with the original crew now returning regularily for each anniversary.
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