There have been a flurry of new starships introduced in the recent years, but none of
them quite like the Sagan class cruiser!
In that it looked like it was going to be a hero ship for a series then was immediately
put aside and also lost its captain.
It was also a major security issue apparently.
In fact…
why did Starfleet make this thing?
Well let’s take a look!
In real life, the Sagan class was designed primarily by Doug Drexler and John Eaves with
Thomas Marrone alongside Dave Blass.
That is a lot of big names that have all cropped up in starship design from both recent vessels
and past Star Trek lineage and it certainly looks the part.
The vessel was clearly created to pay homage to the four-nacelles variety of starship and
the namesake of Captain Picard’s first command, the USS Stargazer which was a constellation
class.
Internally we have more Trek veterans working on the design with Sean Hargreaves, Micheal
Okuda and Geoffry Mandel all working on creating the look.
The approach was rather simple, to create an early 25th century contemporary of the
Constellation class, hence the extensive list of prior Trek artists all lending their input.
This led the design to feature accurate additions such as RCS thruster placement, transporter
beam emitters and all sorts of technical parts that had a reason to exist beyond detailing.
This was probably in response to the chief criticism levelled at the prior new introduction,
the Inquiry class being so bland on first reveal.
Now, on screen the Stargazer was referred to as both a refit and a new vessel, much
in the same way as the USS Titan was and this has become a much talked about point.
While undoubtedly a new class, the vessel might extensively utilise the components of
a prior vessel, but if so, it cannot be the original USS Stargazer of Picard fame because
that vessel was shown preserved in the fleet museum.
So the sagan class is a new class of ship, and it’s more likely that the Admiral misspoke
when he referred to it as a refit.
Right, now that is out of the way, let’s look into the in universe design origins of
the Sagan class.
Around 2380, the Borg made an incursion into Romulan space where they assimilated a Tal
Shiar vessel and all aboard.
Unfortunately for them, this ship contained the fractured-by-AI riddled mind of a Zhat
Vash agent which broke the collective down, severing it from the hive mind.
This put it into a dormant state, and over the next few decades, the Romulans Free State
set up a research outpost aboard it, with the ability for others to share in the technological
finds.
On top of this first hand look at Borg technology, Voyager had brought back extensive records
not to mention all the debris Starfleet would have recovered from Sector 001 and Wolf 359.
So the Sagan was among the first vessels to truly incorporate a lot of this technology
into its design across all levels, not just a ship to test out a new piece of gear here
or there, or to be the culmination of the latest advancements, no.
The Sagan class would be new from the ground up and all using cutting edge reverse engineered
Borg tech as well as other additions.
The main computer was incredibly adaptive and quite free “thinking” for a Starfleet
computer thanks to the hybrid bio-neural gel pack with upgraded isolinear circuitry built
around it.
This in essence takes a grizzly sort of inspiration from the Borg too as it married biology with
technology, following on from the developments made in vessels like the Intrepid class.
Of course, although this was to be such a cutting edge vessel, it needed to remain true
to Starfleet’s spirit and since their last vessel had been an all out battlecruiser (still
not referred to as one though), the Sagan was also a statement.
It was an explorer first and foremost.
Even its defences were made for exploration with multiphasic shielding being standard,
a type of shielding which better covers a wide range of phenomena and radiations than
standard deflector shielding.
Something a science vessel is more likely to encounter.
The decision was made to call back to the older four-nacelle versions of starships to
capitalise on a different approach to warp.
Vessel’s with multiple nacelles (like the Cheyenne) operated on the principle of warp
coasting, enabling one pair of nacelles to reduce in power and “cool down” while
the other pair picked up the slack.
Doing this enables not necessarily faster travel, but more consistent high speeds.
In many ways, this ship had a lot in common with the Intrepid from the bioneural circuitry
to the mission profile of a long range exploratory science vessel and a focus on it being “smarter”.
So the Sagan class was 540 metres long, making it rather large when compared to prior ships
that took this role.
It was 230 metres wide and 127 metres tall over 16 decks.
It held 887 personnel, but could house more than this.
So, its warp drive, as mentioned was streamlined for sustainability over speed and while the
Intrepid had approached this with its variable warp geometry approach, the coasting systems
of the Sagan class were to be even more efficient.
It housed two warp cores as part of this system and it could cruise at warp 7 indefinitely,
with fuel obviously, reaching a maximum of around warp 9.5 pushing slightly higher.
This is actually a lower warp factor than the Sovereign and intrepid, however those
ships often needed a cooldown period after high warp bursts, 12 hours being standard
high warp time.
The Sagan could cruise at 9.5 for far longer than prior ships, so although not the fastest,
it ultimately could make it to those distant frontiers faster because it did not have to
stop off along the way.
This was additionally helped by the prominent warp governors which maintain warp bubble
integrity and shape on the fly.
The final piece of the warp pie was the new nacelle design which would be the new standard
for the era.
Now it’s unclear if the Sagan was the first in canon to support these new nacelles as
standard, but they would go on to be a recurring design.
It had 10 phaser arrays, because unfortunately even a science ship needs them, but I could
not locate any torpedo arrays so I’m not entirely sure it actually has any which would
fit the profile.
Phasers can be tools, torpedo launchers?
Not so much unless they doubled as probe launchers.
Finally the shuttlebays were expansive and it featured three entry hangars at the rear
containing mostly the new Type 14 shuttlecraft which were minimally armed, if completely
unarmed but were long range transports between runabout and shuttle scale.
In 2401, Admiral Picard returned to Starfleet in full and in celebration, the first of the
class was christened the USS Stargazer NCC-82893 under the short-lived command of Captain Rios.
The vessel might have been renamed the Stargazer, but it did not receive a legacy registry as
not every vessel with the same name receives that privilege, that’s only for special
occasions and while the original Stargazer had its moments, it was not on the level of
Enterprise, Voyager or Titan.
Finally, there is a class of vessel called the Echelon class which is suitable for different
missions entirely and slightly shorter too.
This is accomplished by the removal of the two underslung nacelles, which otherwise increased
the length of the ship.
However this one alteration means that the warp coasting ability is gone from the Echelon
class but they were retooled to be able defensive ships.
Their phaser arrays for example left an ionic trace in the hull or even defector shielding
of a struck target.
This meant that they had tracking phaser arrays so that they could tag a ship and then follow
it, or dispatch others after it.
Such ships were often assigned to patrol space around critical areas of Federation territory
and a far cry from the Sagan class’ purpose, despite being the same frames, just altered.
It’s also unknown if they had all the upgrades present in the Sagan class, but it’s likely
the two were developed in tandem for the differing roles.
So overall, the Sagan class was an experiment into a new frontier of starship design ran
in parallel with the sixth generation technology fleet modernisation program that saw the Reliant,
Sutherland and Gagarin classes come along.
Of course, the future of such extensive Borg technology within the vessel proved to be
a major exploit, but only against the Borg.
However the rest of the fleet did not seem to fare much better in this regard so perhaps
it’s just not a good idea to network all your ships together.
The Sagan class is minimally armed but with most of its smarter systems geared towards
exploration which works for the name of the class.
I suspect this is why there was a separate version built and given a different name,
the Echelon.
The Sagan class remains in service but its future is unknown considering the major fleet
rework Starfleet may have to undertake in the face of its push to create a more autonomous
and networked fleet.
With some more security measures and some adaption, the Sagan would likely continue
to operate in the role it was intended for, a great complimentary craft for things like
the Constitution 3 and Pathfinder.
Thanks for watching this breakdown on the Sagan class, I’ve been Ric so long and see
you laters!