With Romulus facing its destruction, Starfleet created an entire ARMADA to save as many lives as possible,
tragically, this fleet would find itself destroyed before it could fully set out on it’s most notable mission of saving the Romulan people.
Let’s explore what we actually know about this fleet!
Welcome to Trek Central lords ladies and sovereigns! I’m your host, Lieutenant Adam, and let’s get into it!
So, here’s a silly question to start us off: Does anyone but me remember Star Trek 2009?
Like actually remember its events? It seemed to me that everyone was too busy bellyaching about how much Lens Flare there was to notice the actual story, after all.
So let me remind you: Star Trek 2009 introduced us to a terrible, terrible calamity;
Romulus, glorious, grey-obsessed Romulus, the seat of Garak’s long-lost garden, was suddenly threatened by this unnatural supernova.
Yadda yadda yadda jellyfish red matter, fast forward to Star Trek Picard, whose titular former captain who would go on to enhance this story thread.
In this ship breakdown video, we look at the Wallenberg-Class starship
a Starfleet ship explicitly created not for peaceful exploration or scientific discovery (or remarkably, fighting the Berg while being surprisingly tough for its size) but instead for relief and relocation on a massive scale.
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Let’s dive in, shall we?
The Wallenberg-class starship was in fact a class of “tug” vessel active during the end of the 24th century, in the service of Starfleet of the United Federation of Planets.
By the late 24 th century Starfleet’s mission had altered drastically from what it was well known for.
From 2381 onward, Starfleet’s primary mission changed from exploration to the relocation of the Romulan people, in order to save them from their dying sun.
I will absolutely *not* make any tanning jokes. Get it out of your head. Anyway…
For this effort, numerous vessels would have to be constructed to assist in the relocation of the Romulan people, as neither the Federation or Romulan Empire could move a vast number of ships from protecting their borders.
Thus, into the frame waddled the Wallenberg Class Tug, which came to a length of 298.7 metres.
With a fairly standard but still slightly unusual starfleet design. The ship did have a standard two nacelle configuration,
with underslung nacelles which were common for tug style ships, but the saucer section had cut outs on its side, making it have a unique profile.
This common tug style profile can also be seen in a ship last spotted in TOS: the USS Ptolemy.
Underslung nacelles with a protrusion for the hull which is attached to containers. Some of these container pods were also capable of carrying 300 passengers each.
Though we only see a small graphic of this ship in Wrath of Khan, it has been expanded in other content such as books.
Underneath the saucer section of the Wallenberg there were 4 cylindrical containers.
Whether these stored additional deuterium for the ships warp systems or something else is unknown. My guess is Romulan Ale. Because of course it was.
The secondary hull of the ship was actually nothing more than a giant docking clamp, attached to containers, with these containers allowing links between other containers to make a train system like an intergalactic subway.
These containers could be used to carry cargo, but in their most famous usage, were used to ferry refugees from planetary systems that were under threat from the upcoming Romulan supernova.
These Vessels were constructed at the Utopia Planitia Shipyards, and by A-500 type androids
a less advanced Android than the Soong-Type, but built with Bio-Neural circuitry that allowed them to fulfill a labour shortage at the shipyards.
The Hull of the Wallenberg Class was also distinct from its orange markings, which was uncommon in Starfleet ships not usually having coloured markings on their hulls.
This could be attributed to the stripped down nature of the ship, with an orange hull being on atleast California-Class starships underneath their standard hull plating.
As the ships were constructed en masse to serve a singular purpose of ferrying people, they may not have needed an extensive outer hull to protect them like conventional starfleet starships.
The urgent need could also have prompted shipwrights to skip the aesthetic niceties in the name of getting the damn things out of drydock as fast as humanly (androidly?) possible.
The Wallenberg class starships were constructed at Utopia Planitia from the year 2381.
Whether they were a new design for the purpose they were built for, ferrying refugees from star systems that would be affected by the Romulan Supernova to safe star systems, or were an older design simply pressed back into service, is unknown.
What IS known, however, was that Utopia Planitia’s Commanding Officer at the time was Commander Geordi La Forge,
who was put in charge of the operation personally, by then Admiral Jean Luc Picard, who had only himself been recently promoted to the rank of Admiral to lead the Romulan Relocation Effort.
Didn’t Kirk once tell Picard to never, ever let Starfleet promote him, lest he lose the ability to make a difference in galactic affairs? Hm. Shows what he knew. Trollolololololol.
While Admiral Picard was captain of the USS Verity, an Odyssey Class starship, and head of a small task force of ships to move Romulan Colonists from their colonies,
Geordi La-Forge was set to work in constructing the Relocation fleet and ensuring it would be ready in time for mass evacuation.
Utopia Planitia however would start to suffer a man power shortage, which prompted La Forge to enlist the aid of the Daystrom Institute of Robotics, and its Chair Dr Bruce Maddox,
to construct an android workforce of A500 androids.
Considering he and Maddox were not exactly friendly with each other when last they spoke, with Geordi adamantly arguing for Data’s sentience and Maddox rabbitting on about labor armies of Androids… that must have been a fun conversation.
A500s were, after all, less advanced than the Soong type android. They utilized Bio-Neural circuitry instead of Positronics, which still weren’t able to be completely replicated after the death of notable cyberneticist Noonien Soong.
However these androids would become the downfall of the project, as on First Contact Day in the year 2385
convenient timing there - they were hacked by a secret Romulan Cabal known as the Zhat Vash, which hid behind the already secretive Romulan Secret Service the Tal Shiar.
The Zhat Vash despised cybernetic life, and would even doom their own people, in order to turn galactic opinion on synthetic life and stop a prophesied doomsday event caused by synthetic life.
Just like how Section 31 had an operative at the head of the Tal Shiar, the Zhat Vash had an operative at the head of Starfleet Security with Commodore Oh,
a Half Vulcan half Romulan women who was able to hack the androids and the defense network surrounding the planet of Mars. And who probably second guessed herself a lot.
The planet was attacked by these synths, with the use of Synth attack ships, whose origin and current whereabouts are unknown.
This attack destroyed the Utopia Planitia shipyards and the entire fleet of Wallenberg Class freighters.
Mars was so heavily bombarded that flammable vapors in its stratosphere ignited, which caused the planet to continue to burn well into the year 2399.
The Wallenberg class ship was designed by John Eaves, who not only has designed many ships for previous trek shows, but also for Picard and Star Trek Discovery.
Having worked on these previous shows, Eaves has a large collection of ships he has designed for previous shows which never got made.
This was similar for the Inquiry Class starship - which some incredibly handsome somebody did a video on a while back, do you remember? I don’t -
as well as the Wallenberg Class starship, with its design originally being for season 1 of Discovery as a large flat vessel with large shuttlebays for launching fighters as a carrier.
An original sketch for the Wallenberg Cargo Tug had an entire saucer, with the lines on the saucer still being there where the saucer is eventually cut in the final model.
This gave the model a very USS Shenzhou look to it, the first ship we see in Star Trek Discovery, with its saucer section and underslung nacelles.
We also have some other pictures of what this tug ship might have looked like, tweeted out recently by Dave Blass, the Production designer for Star Trek: Picard.
These are pictures of the Relocation fleet above the surface of Mars also done by John Eaves. Instead of the singular Wallenberg design we ended up with, this relocation fleet seemed to be made up of two separate variants.
The ships still have the cargo pod towing system, but are very different from our final design. One of them is quite stubby, and also does not have a saucer section, but looks very much like the Discovery Section 31 ships seen in use during the 23rd century.
The Cargo Pods connect onto the inner side of the nacelles of the ship, with the nacelles being very much embedded into the main hull.
The other design, which I actually really like, looks like it shares some design philosophy from Andorian ships rather than Starfleet ships.
The saucer section is very similar to the wallenberg class we got, looking almost cut out of a saucer, but is a very flat design with nacelles on either side, behind this “saucer” section, just like the Andorian ships we have seen in Enterprise and Lower Decks.
If this variant of ship also towed Cargo Pods we do not know, as we can’t see them doing so in this concept art, but the Cargo Bay of the ship looks large enough to interlock with the cargo pods.
Separate from the ships, and just a nice thing to talk about, we also see a giant ship building complex in these concept arts,
which look to be big enough to contain hundreds of galaxy and sovereign class ships.
That would have been amazing to see in the show, especially if we got shots of some sovereign and galaxy class ships being destroyed in the attack, since we have such a strong connection to those two ship classes.
And that is all we know about the Wallenberg Class starship. Hopefully the destruction of Utopia Planitia didn’t destroy them all,
because it would be nice to see them in some scenes every now and then towing cargo. But what do you think of this interesting tug style ship? Let us know!
And if there is a Star Trek Starship you would like us to take a look at let us know in the comments, because as usual, if you’re talking about Star Trek, then we want to hear about it!
And again, if you want to keep up to date on all the latest Star Trek news, lore and more, then make sure to hit that subscribe button to never miss a video from the team here at Trek Central! You can also follow us on social media, or join our Community Discord Server!
For now, I’ve been Lieutenant Adam, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!