Introduced at the start of 2372, less than two years before the outbreak of the Dominion
War, the Klingon Negh’var class Heavy Battlecruiser, was designed to be the largest and most powerful
warship available to the Imperial Klingon Defence Force, and to serve as the personal
flagship of the Klingon High Chancellor.
682 meters in length with a dry weight of over 4 million metric tons, the Negh’var’s
frame was designed by the famous Kurak, daughter of Haleka, and was intended as a major departure
from the lighter and more agile battlecruisers traditionally employed by the Klingon Fleet.
A Negh’var typically carries a crew of 2,500, with space for a further 2,700 warriors during
assault or boarding operations.
The ruthless efficiency of Klingon assault troops makes boarding attacks one of the Negh’var’s
most effective tactical options, trained to fight with knives and bat’leths as well
as disruptors, these warriors can continue fighting even if their weapons are disabled
by magnetic fields, and when deployed in the hundreds from aboard a Negh’var class vessel,
they can seize control of even the largest ships and stations.
The Negh’var carries an enormous arsenal of weapons, boasting 20 disruptor banks, each
capable of firing in both beams and pulses, 4 torpedo launchers, and a large high-yield
disruptor mounted at the vessel’s bow.
The warship can also carry a pair of super-heavy disruptor cannons fixed to its ventral hull,
but these weapons are inaccurate and largely specialized for siege assignments, leading
most ships of the class to be deployed without these weapons, thereby decreasing the vessel’s
mass and drastically lowering its power consumption.
Like most Klingon warships, the Negh’var Class carries a cloaking device for use in
covert operations, the device provides a huge strategic advantage when mobilising Klingon
fleets, allowing the empire to deploy its warships behind enemy lines, or establish
staging grounds near hostile strongholds.
It should be noted however, that Klingon Cloaking devices like that of the Negh’var, are not
as sophisticated as modern Romulan cloaks, and with the proper application of tachyon
detection grids and sensor platforms, a fortified area can be equipped to prevent the passage
of cloaked Klingon starships.
The original IKS Negh’var was actually intended more as a symbol of prestige for High Chancellor
Gowron, than as a practical military vessel, the prototype’s construction was rushed,
and featured superfluous experimental systems that created serious power drains to the cloaking
device, leading many to believe that the Negh’var would be the only vessel of its class.
After Gowron’s death however, many of the design’s unnecessary systems were removed,
and though High Chancellor Martok preferred to maintain his flag aboard the B’rel Class
IKS Rotarran, the Negh’var began to see more widespread construction across the Empire.
The construction of a Negh’var class vessel was an extremely time-consuming and costly
endeavour, and as a result, the Klingon Imperial Defence Forces commissioned only a small number
of the ships each year.
Several of the vessels were appointed as command ships for important sectors or vast battle
fleets, though most Klingon captains still preferred the speed and adaptability of smaller
attack cruisers and birds of prey, it was widely accepted that the addition of these
larger vessels had greatly strengthened the Klingon fleet.
The Negh’var class remained a crucial part of the Klingon War Machine well into the 25th
Century, undergoing numerous refits and improvements to keep pace with modern technology, and though
the vessel eventually lost its title as the largest warship in the Imperial Fleet, it
continued to serve as one of the most potent symbols, of Klingon Empire’s military might.