So recently I have been looking into the vessels that came out around the time of
First Contact because there were quite a few that were added to Starfleet’s
ranks at the same time. A lot of these were introduced with the same premise in mind,
sort of more aggressive Federation vessels to combat the rising Borg threat, then utilised in
the Dominion War. Because of this shared heritage, I always lumped them together,
the Akira, Saber, Steamrunner and the subject of this video, the unassuming Norway class.
So, in real life, the concept was created alongside a handful of others for Stat Trek
First Contact to bolster the Federation’s fleet and make it look like they had not just been
relying on Excelsior and Miranda ships for over 100 years. It was designed alongside the Akira,
Sabre, and Streamrunner by Alex Jaeger. The vessel was narrower wedge shape,
but a Voyager inspired design. Considering it emerged from a whole host of concepts,
I could not trace a full design lineage but I do see elements of it reflected in earlier
concept work for that film, from the same batch of designs that spawned its contemporary classes.
It was modelled by Industrial Light and Magic’s artists Larry Tan and Paul Theren but with the
vessel only appearing in motion and in passing, the design detailing was minimal and as we can see
from the model itself, the angles were apparent and less circular than Starfleet norms. This
may have been a factor in it not reappearing in Deep Space Nine, during the Dominion War,
as it would have required more reworking that the other models. In later years,
the class was reimagined and remade by Fabio Passaro in 2015 for licensed works.
In universe, it was developed in the year 2369 over the following 2 years, after the Streamrunner
was launched, the Norway class was next in the lineup of more robust, compact vessels,
if not designed for battle, at least created with combat survivability in mind. This
was the case for the Norway class which was designed to fill a vacant role in the fleet.
Medical vessels, such as the Olympic and medical transports like California class
ships were functional but not heavily armoured, which generally does not matter that much.
This was because such ships needed to operate often in other power’s space, so lacked heavy
weaponry, plus not many people actually would attack a purely medical vessel, or such vessels
were seldom deployed into dangerous locales. However, the Borg, for example, do not care.
And in the heat of warfare, sometimes locations end up isolated from reinforcements and medical
aid untenable. So a rapid responder was devised, that would be the Norway class.
It was planned at the Tycho Shipyard in Luna with the engine design schematics created at
Yoyodyne Propulsion Shipyards, Proxima Centauri as well as additional systems from Denobula.
The shape of the vessel was designed to deflect fire away, thanks to the wedge shape
and the nacelles were strategically positioned. Thanks to its role as basically an ambulance
starship, it had extensive medical facilities and research labs dedicated to biological research and
culture development. All in the name of curing people. It was equipped with larger than normal
cargo bays and the nacelle placement was so that should the ship need to transport more
that it could hold in emergencies, a series of tractor beams between the nacelles could hold
further cargo pods. This kept them well within the warp field of the ship, protected and in less
danger of being “dropped”, even at warp speeds. The prototype of the class launched in 2371 as the
USS Norway alongside the USS Finland and it seems that these were the only such vessels for a couple
of years. They were kept close to home where their systems were extensively tested and in 2373,
they took part in the battle of Sector 001 out of necessity and held their own,
proving that the extensive consideration in battle was effective. More or less. The line
was therefore approved, although in very limited quantities and its role was highly specialised.
So it was basically there to dart in and through dangerous zones, carrying a medical team where
it was needed while working on cultures and cures along the way. It could hold its own
in a skirmish, but ideally would evade and outrun anything, considering frequently,
more lives than just those aboard relied on its success to get where it was going. However,
when at its location, it was capable of engaging light resistance to defend its medical teams.
The ships saw extended use in the Dominion War, but also in the aftermath of the Romulan
Supernova, with many such vessels being deployed immediately in the wake of the blast to search
for survivors and treat those who had escaped but been irradiated by the blast. Such missions
violated the Treaty of Algeron and the Neutral Zone, technically and the Star
Empire was, frankly, rather pissy about it. “Congratulations, you are being rescued.”
It was 364 metres long, 225 wide and 52 metres tall, giving it the narrow profile
reminiscent of ships of this era, reducing the oncoming target area. It weighed 622,000
metric tons and was 11 decks tall. It could house a crew of 190 with a maximum capacity of 500.
Its engines were up to par for the time, easily cruising at warp 6 but exceeding this to sprint
at warp 9.7 for 12 hours before cooldown was needed. In an interesting design choice,
the main engineering and warp core was located behind the bridge thanks to the strange shape of
the vessel. That’s kind of convenient, but also it made Deck 1 even more of a target,
considering the the above angle of attack housed the best shot at taking out both
the bridge and the core. This warp core was similar to the Defiant’s in that it had to
be specially designed to function on par with other ships, but at a smaller size;
not as extreme as the Defiant’s over-tuned core, but still, tinkering had to be done.
So as mentioned, it had teeth, despite being a primarily medical or science vessel. It was
equipped with 6 type ten phaser arrays, although some were armed with a further 3 emitters,
making a total of 9. There were two photon torpedo launchers, one fore and one aft (somewhere).
Star Trek Online also added an experimental weapon slot incorporated to the main deflector array.
In terms of auxiliary craft, it had large shuttlebays that always had two shuttles
on standby for quick launch, but it could hold 2 Danube runabouts or 4 other shuttles as well
as a complement of worker bees. These shuttles were housed on vertical lifts,
and moved into launch position, allowing for rapid deployments.
Another useful trait is that the ships of this time, Akira, Sabre and such had
the same hull materials and were actually designed to the same fitting in places,
so that starships could swap spare plates to make field repairs should they be needed.
So, as a disclaimer, the only reference to it having a medical edge, is the Star Trek
Adventures RPG, as most other sources focus only on its combat abilities, but I enjoy this addition
from the tabletop game. It differentiates it from the others that, as I said in the intro,
tend to get grouped together with it. So the Norway class was very mysterious,
despite its basic look, appearing in First Contact but never again in the shows was tied into the
vessel’s history, having them being field tested in the years leading up to the Borg attack on
001. After this, only a limited few were created and even then, their retroactively added role as
a medical response vessel, albeit a heavily armed one, showed us why they may be missing from large
scale battles. They would be in reserve, waiting to dive in to beam up survivors, or were deployed
elsewhere along the fronts of the Dominion War. In time, official media has built up a tale around
it, fleshing it out more and more until we have what it is today, a combining of a scientific
crisis response vessel with a decent amount of escort thrown in because of the Borg and Dominion
pivot in ship design. Honestly there is more to this little vessel than I initially assumed,
which I’m all for. Especially when all the canon states is that, “it existed”.
Bit like the “Voyager-A”, man I can’t wait to do a video on that class when we know more. So
that’s the Norway class, not bad for a doorstop. Thanks for watching, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see
you next time for another lore video. Thanks again and goodbye!