Gagarin-class

Spacecraft Registry

Special Project 1 Gagarin-class explorer
Spacecraft Characteristics
Base Hull	Custom hull
Length	133.01m / 436.4 ft.
Width	228.3m / 749.1 ft. (wingspan)
Height	20.7m / 67.85 ft.
Mass	558,000 kg / 1,230,179 lbs.
Drive Type	2x impulse engines 1x warp drive
Drive Rating	Peak velocity 0.041c
Armament	2x point-defence laser array 2x multi-mission launchers
Primary Manufacturer	Utopia Planitia Shipyards (under license)
Owner	VVS EXFOR Starfleet Command
Faction	Soviet Air Force United Federation of Planets
Registry Number	Variable
Launched	30 July 2013
Purpose	Multi-mission cruiser
Primary Crew	40 (standard operating) 10 (minimum req.) 350 (emergency evacuation)
Auxillary Vehicles	4 iPods (Soviet) 2 shuttlepods (Starfleet) 1 Type-7 shuttle (Starfleet)
Operational Status	In Production

The Gagarin-class explorer (also known as VVS Special Project 1) is a deep-space vessel designed by the Soviet Air Force and built by the United Federation of Planets.

History

Special Project 1 was designed during a general bull session following the VVS expedition to Epsilon Indi. While the expedition had succeeded well beyond expectations, the limitations in Ptichka as a long-distance explorer were clear. The Central Committee spent several long nights working out what was best about Ptichka (maneuverability, landing capability, high-resolution sensors), what they needed (better capacity for survey gear/sample return) and what they wanted (enough room so nobody was walking over others when trying to get from the bunkroom to the head), crunched the numbers and put together a basic hull that fit those criteria. Then, realizing that a) they didn't have the manufacturing capability needed to build the hull, and b) contracting out to a 'Danelaw firm would easily run in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Central Committee stuffed the plans into the big folder marked “Someday.”

Someday arrived in mid-2012, when the Committee approached Utopia Planitia Shipyard with an eye towards licensing Special Project 1 or selling the design outright. The Trekkies at the time were expanding their shipbuilding facilities as a forerunner to building the Archer-class – the design originally known as the NX-class, which was (at the time) stuck in development hell. Special Project 1 was similar to the Archers if not quite as massive or as capable. Starfleet Command decided that, if nothing else, the Soviet design would make for good practice in large-vehicle construction and operation while the engineers continued working out the problems with the Archer. Starfleet licensed Special Project 1 from the VVS shortly after SOS-Con. The Soviets would get the first prototype and a discounted (to the point of symbolic) price for any cruisers built afterwards.

Despite the Boskone conflict putting a dent in construction schedules, the first Special Project 1 (now renamed the Gagarin-class) left the Utopia Planitia slipways on 30 July 2013. The prototype ship GCU Yuri Gagarin was accepted into the Soviet Deep Space Exploration Forces and flew on the 2013 Delta Pavonis expedition. The second ship off the line, USS Alan Shepard launched on 28 August 2013, and was assigned to extended duty in the Alpha Centauri A system.

Gagarin-class starships are currently under construction at Utopia Planitia. The production line is expected to continue running until 2030 at the earliest.

Design

The original Soviet design for Special Project 1 was a blended-wing body aircraft 85 m long with a wingspan of 160 m. This design incorporated two decks, one outfitted with living quarters and one built for cargo or other mission-specific operations space. Utopia engineers refined the Special Project 1 design, extending the main hull length to 100 m and wingspan to 228 m, increasing the overall height of the hull to 20.7 m and adding three more decks through the centerline.

The most visible Trekkie design element on the Gagarin-class is of course the warp drive. The warp nacelle sits on a pylon on the aft fuselage directly above the main impulse engines. The nacelle extends 33 m past the aft fuselage, bringing the ship's total length to 133 m.

In a departure from Federation designs the Gagarin-class main bridge is smaller than usual, with only four stations - captain, helm, sensors/communications and engineering. This “mini-bridge” allows for both the traditional Starfleet bridge crew as well as the more abbreviated flight-deck crews common on Soviet ships.

The Gagarin-class is capable of landing on the surface and taking off again. However, the ship is so large that only a very small number of airfields on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system can accommodate one even in the short term. Crew and cargo transfers are usually handled via docking with a facility (using the Fenspace-standard docking collar) or through smallcraft. The Gagarin smallcraft bay can handle four Soviet iPods, two Starfleet shuttlepods or one Type-7 shuttle depending on service or mission requirements.

Designed as a research craft first and a warship second (or fifth, depending), the Gagarin-class is not heavily armed. The class has a laser point-defense system based off a similar system used by USSR Ptichka during the Boskone war. Gagarins also have two missile launchers which can fire the Starfleet standard torpedo or NOMAD survey probes.

Class Quirks

• We Are The Trek Collective: The computer-generated voice synthesizer on all Gagarin-class ships uses the distinctive tones of Majel Barrett. This applies to ships that ought to have a different voice as well as any (non-AI) computer hooked into the ship intranet for longer than 12 hours.
• Slit-Screen Power (part 1): In FTL flight, the view outside the windows, external cameras, etc. is a shifting two-dimensional light show very similar to that seen in the last half-hour of "2001: A Space Odyssey."
• Slit-Screen Power (part 2): Related to the first, engine performance can be improved by playing Pink Floyd's "Echoes" for the first twenty minutes of any flight. (The original track off "Meddle," not the short version from the "Best Of" album.)

Variations

The main Gagarin model is the Block I, which is as described above. The Block Ia model is a design change requested by the Soviet Air Force in order to use the vehicle as a mothership for the VVS flagship Ptichka and the MCU Columbia. The distinctive warp nacelle is replaced by two smaller nacelles integrated into the hull at the wingroots. Where the original support pylon was located, a cradle and umbilical rig designed for space shuttles is integrated into the airframe.

Block II vehicles are expected to come into service in 2016-18, as Utopia Planitia absorbs and improves upon the technology in the Whole Fenspace Catalog. The Block IIs are expected to be faster, more reliably quirk-free and easier to maintain than the Block Is. Starfleet may or may not authorize building a Block IIa variant for their own flagship, USS Enterprise (OV-201).

Vehicles of Note

GCU Yuri Gagarin

Spacecraft Registry

GCU Yuri Gagarin
Spacecraft Characteristics
Owner	VVS EXFOR
Faction	Soviet Air Force
Registry Number	NX-100
Launched	30 July 2013
Purpose	Deep space exploration
Primary Crew	Maj. Elena van Oorebeek (CDR) 4 operations 35 mission specialists
Other Crew	Yuri (NAV) Kei (ENG1) Mughi (SYSOP)
Operational Status	Active

The Yuri Gagarin was the first Gagarin-class to be contracted and built. The ship was formally delivered to the Soviet Air Force on 1 August 2013 (it had been launched with great ceremony two days earlier). Yuri Gagarin underwent shakedown with a short circum-Uranian flight, then was remanded to the VVS staging area at L2 for outfitting for the 2013 Delta Pavonis mission.

On the Pavonis expedition Yuri Gagarin performed according to expectations. The ship acted as mothership for the expedition proper and as such did not undertake any planetfall operations. The science team onboard Yuri Gagarin was responsible for charting twenty small bodies in the outer system and producing high-resolution photographic maps of the major planetary bodies.

GCU Yuri Gagarin has undertaken solo missions to Proxima Centauri, Barnard's Star and Alpha Centauri B in the interim. Plans are currently underway for a survey of the Sirius system.

Known Vehicle Quirks

• A House Divided: When the Gagarin was constructed, the expected AI ship avatar (a highly exuberant Russian man named Yuri) sparked in the navigation mainframe. However, not long after another AI sparked in the engineering mainframe. This AI, avataring as the infamous Kei from "Dirty Pair," took an immediate dislike to her companion in the navigation system, and vice versa. Planitia engineers were almost ready to scrap the Gagarin and start again when a third AI sparked, this time in the interwave router. The router AI called itself Mughi and devoted most of its time to making sure Yuri and Kei kept to their jobs and didn't try to kill each other (and by extension, the crew). The balance of power is uneasy, but stands.

GCU Laika

Spacecraft Registry

GCU Laika
Spacecraft Characteristics
Owner	VVS EXFOR
Faction	Soviet Air Force
Registry Number	NCC-104
Launched	12 September 2015
Purpose	Deep space exploration, support for Ptichka and Columbia
Primary Crew	Maj. Aristarlarus Merquoni (CDR)
Other Crew	Laika (NAV)
Operational Status	Active

Laika was the first (and so far only) Block 1a configuration Gagarin-class constructed.

Plans are afoot for Laika and Columbia to visit the 51 Pegasi system sometime in 2016-17, making this the second-furthest voyage from Sol of any fen craft.

Known Vehicle Quirks

• Good Dog: Laika's primary AI represents itself as a medium-sized dog of uncertain pedigree. Though Laika is much more intelligent than the average dog, her avatar will act like a dog unless otherwise instructed. Furthermore, Laika only barks.
• Moio Sudno Na Vozdušnoy Poduške Polno Ugrey: Laika will accept requests, commands or even simple conversation in both Fen-standard English or Russian. She's also a huge fan of the great Russian authors.

Known Crew Quirks

• What's That, Lassie? Despite the fact that Laika only communicates in barks and growls, anybody who spends more than a few days aboard the GCU will begin to understand the language (see Ptichka, Known Vehicle Quirks). Bunkhouse rumor says that long-term crewmembers can now understand mundane dogs & other canines. The Soviet Air Force denies all culpability, of course.

SCSV Rinna Kazamatsuri

See main article: Rinna Kazamatsuri

The Fleet

Name	Hull Number	Service	Type	Ordered	Delivered
Yuri Gagarin	NX-100	VVS EXFOR	Block I	2012	2013
Alan Shepard	NCC-101	Starfleet	Block I	2012	2013
Yang Liwei	NCC-102	Starfleet	Block I	2012	2014
Neil Armstrong	NCC-103	Starfleet	Block I	2012	2014
John Glenn	NCC-106	Starfleet	Block I	2013	2014
Valentina Tereshkova	NCC-107	Starfleet	Block I	2013	2014
Sally Ride	NCC-108	Starfleet	Block I	2013	2014
Laika	NCC-104	VVS EXFOR	Block Ia	2013	2015
Alexei Leonov	NCC-111	Starfleet	Block I	2014	2015
Michael Melvill	NCC-112	Starfleet	Block I	2014	2015
Anousheh Ansari	NCC-114	Starfleet	Block I	2014	2015
Edwin Aldrin	NCC-115	Starfleet	Block I	2014	2015
Arbitrary	NCC-105	VVS EXFOR	Block I	2013	2016
Gherman Titov	NCC-116	Starfleet	Block I	2014	2016
Virgil Grissom	NCC-117	Starfleet	Block I	2015	2016
James Lovell	NCC-118	Starfleet	Block I	2015	2016
Christa McAuliffe	NCC-119	Starfleet	Block I	2015	2016
Undocumented Feature	NCC-109	VVS EXFOR	Block I	2013	2017
It Was Like That When I Got Here	NCC-110	VVS EXFOR	Block II	2013	2017
Eugene Cernan	NCC-120	Starfleet	Block I	2015	2017
Shannon Lucid	NCC-121	Starfleet	Block II	2015	2017
John Young	NCC-122	Starfleet	Block IIa	2016	2017
Vladimir Komarov	NCC-124	Starfleet	Block II	2016	2018
Frank Borman	NCC-125	Starfleet	Block II	2016	2018
David Scott	NCC-127	Starfleet	Block II	2016	2018
Takao Doi	NCC-128	Starfleet	Block II	2016	2018
Marc Garneau	NCC-129	Starfleet	Block II	2017	2018
Rolled A Twenty On The Random Encounter Table	NCC-123	VVS EXFOR	Block II	2016	2019
Eileen Collins	NCC-130	Starfleet	Block II	2017	2019
	NCC-134	Starfleet	Block II	2017	2019
	NCC-135	Starfleet	Block II	2017	2019
Roger Chaffee	NCC-137	Starfleet	Block II	2018	2019
Cultural Imperialism Is Better Than The Other Kind	NCC-126	VVS EXFOR	Block II	2016	2020
Edward White	NCC-138	Starfleet	Block II	2018	2020
Ronald McNair	NCC-139	Starfleet	Block II	2018	2020
Judith Resnik	NCC-140	Starfleet	Block II	2018	2020
Ellison Onizuka	NCC-141	Starfleet	Block II	2018	2020
Just Passing Through	NCC-136	VVS EXFOR	Block II	2017	2021
	NCC-142	Starfleet	Block II	2019	2021
	NCC-143	Starfleet	Block II	2019	2021
Fibonacci	NCC-144	Starfleet	Block II	2019	2021
	NCC-145	Starfleet	Block II	2019	2021
Rinna Kazamatsuri	NCC-113	Stellvia Corp.	Block II	2014	2022
Ludicrous Mandelbrot	NCC-131	RR HARDIE	Block IIa	2017	2022
Remarkable Fractal	NCC-132	RR HARDIE	Block II	2017	2022
	NCC-146	Starfleet	Block II	2019	2022
	NCC-147	Starfleet	Block II	2020	2022
Singular Anomaly	NCC-133	RR HARDIE	Block II	2017	2023
	NCC-148	Starfleet	Block II	2020	2023
	NCC-149	Starfleet	Block II	2020	2023
	NCC-150	Starfleet	Block II	2020	2023

Stories

The Gagarin-class starships have appeared in the following stories:

• Into the Great Wide Open
• Anschluss

Related Images

• 

  Yuri Gagarin ship's emblem

• 

  Yuri Gagarin dedication plaque

• 

  Laika ship's emblem

• 

  Laika dedication plaque

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