the Akira class is older than you think it is | Star Trek Lore

[@Stu1701]

Check out We Have Engaged the Borg, an oral history of the Battle of Wolf 359: www.wolf359project.com Find out more about USS Kaneda here: bsky.app/profile/wolf359project.bsky.social/post/3lemajjqfnk27 Epic Games Creator Tag: STU1701 Real Merch Discount Link: real-merch.com?rs_ref=sgfaWYII Volante Design Discount Link: www.volantedesign.us/discount/stu1701

[@CaptainForsyth]

I don't really like having the Dominion War or post-war designs being around before the battle of Wolf 359, I always think of them being built in response to that Massacre.

[@madklingon6529]

This has been my head cannon about the ship's origin for a while so its cool that other people have been thinking along the same lines. I've also played around with the idea that the large hangar bay was conceived by Starfleet originally for mass evacuations but got repurposed into launching fighters when those started to be brought into service.

[@Stu1701]

I like the idea of the the hangar bay originally being used for evacuations or planetary rescues and relief missions. It's very in line with Federation thinking and after Setlek III, it absolutely something Starfleet would take into consideration have designing a ship to counter the Cardassians.

[@Nemoticon]

I literally bought the First Strike Bundle with the recent flash sale for my first Legendary ship in the Matsumoto (Akira) Class... the Melponar is pretty amazing too. Earned it entirely through F2P, grinding the sh!t out of Dil for the Zen exchange, lol. I've been binging on Akira lore vids, so your video is PERFECTLY timed!!! Great stuff, Cheers o7

[@Boxfortress]

An absolutely beautiful ship

[@Nemoticon]

@@Boxfortress Yeah, I'm loving it! Not as strong as I had hoped, I've got a few fleet ships that can take more as well as give more damage, as well as the Inquiry Battlecruiser. But the Matsumoto is sexy and fun, which is exactly what I wanted😆👍

[@Stalazon]

Ditto!

[@richardajoy79]

The reg numbers are supposed to denote commission/launch order, but some writers seem to forget this; using reg numbers for what they're supposed to be for, the Akira is seemingly older than even the Galaxy-class, perhaps even a decade earlier and maybe the Akira's we see later are refitted versions in readyness for the Borg.

[@GalacticGaming96220]

9:18 "Which is why you can see the Kaneda in the Battle of Wolf 359" So what about that Yorktown class back there? /j Great video man, really enjoyed listening to this

[@Stu1701]

What I bring into a TFO is usually irrelevant to lore

[@michaelmacleod6517]

Legend has it that there was a Starfleet project called 'Kusanagi' in 2271 that was designed right after the V'ger incident. With Starfleet finally realising the need for vessels to act in rapid response to threats thatr were approaching the sol system. Details are sketchy but construction of 'Project Kusanagi' commenced under strict secrecy for two years. Supposedly there were three prototypes built: USS Atlantis (NX-1933), USS Warspite (NX-1977), and USS Matsumoto (NX-2199). The vessels would patrol federation boarders along the Klingon and Romulan Neutral Zones. In 2375, the Warspite entangled with Generals Kor and B'vat at Caleb IV and was believed to be destroyed. in 2278, with tensions between the Klingons and Romulans settling down...both the Atlantis and Matsumoto were decomissioned and broken down/recycled for other ship building projects. Or...so the story goes.

[@radeadcool]

We almost see it as tne enterprise from 22nd. The producers love it and wanted it to just be ported over.

[@Stu1701]

Yeah, I've heard this, the producers planned to just use the Akira for Enterprise since it was considered a fan fave, but made no sense for the time period so the art department was like "NOOOO!" but that's also why Doug Drexler used the Akira as inspiration for the NX's design.

[@stegic-storeinc.3011]

All I can say is I love the Akira and fly it in STO since the T3 Version was available. I even used to play PVP back in the day in that T3 ship lol.

[@ryanhau1073]

STO also include a TMP version of the Akira

[@matthewkeeling886]

Outside of Starship Spotter (which has lots of odd and non-sensical lore choices) old official lore books were unanimous in showing the Akira as the newest ship class in the fleet, purpose designed for fighting larger opponents and supporting sector wide operations with the shuttle bays. While Anti-Bore-g design was often assumed I always figured it entering construction was a response to the reemergence of the Romulans and their big new Warbirds. It takes lots of time to design a ship, especially a cruiser, so the design probably took a bunch of different paths throughout development. Border wars are often long running stop-start affairs with brief and relatively small scale, but violent, actual combat. It is entirely possible there was little actual fighting for the last few years of the conflict because the Federation is not aggressive (or paying that much attention to the annoying gnats) and these short periods of conflict have worn out the vastly weaker Cardassians (who threw everything at them and failed to achieve any of their goals). This kind of start-stop conflict, without the power disparity, is very similar to what I have always pictured the 4-years-war from the mid-23rd century as being... not whatever the nonsense was that Discovery came up with.

[@Davis_237]

My head cannon is the Kusinagi Class by Diogo Vincenzi/Matsumoto Class by Howard Day were the first iteration of the Akira Class but with ship classes like the Ambassador coming online with new technologies and design doctrines, the TMP looking variants were quickly replaced with the Akira design.

[@Stu1701]

Matsumoto class wasn't done by Howard Day. That's a STO original, it would've been done by one of their artists, or one of the artists they usually outsource to.

[@Davis_237]

@@Stu1701 Ah gotcha, could've sworn i read Howard was behind it somewhere.

[@Stu1701]

I know he's don't his own renders of the Kusinagi class, but I don't think he had anything to do with the creation of either ship. He does work though.

[@housecoatgaming]

...I've been saying the Akira is a lost era starship for _years._ Registry codes are pre-Galaxy. Design elements look more like the Ambassador and refinements of the Excelsior and have _nothing_ Galaxy-esque about them. With _one_ exception, the entire First Contact fleet is all pre-TNG. And that one exception is the overhyped, self-destructive _go-kart_ that is the Defiant.

[@khidorahian]

Even the saber and steamrunner?

[@AzraelThanatos]

One other thing for the registry numbers could be that there was a large lot of ships that were cancelled and their numbers repurposed for the Akira there

[@mattsalsbury5196]

That Garak gif... perfection! 😂

[@ottism1773]

That Garak gif got me good, glorious!

[@terranadmiral6758]

There’s a channel called venom geek media 98 he has a good cardassian border wars series

[@SuperGamefreak18]

Venom geek and trek wars do some good stuff great people

[@Boxfortress]

Love that guy's vids. Personally I'm really fond of the vid he made on multiple and offset nacelles

[@LMG1792]

I am down for any Akira ship videos haha

[@petrameyer1121]

I think it was inspired by the Andor Class from FASA's Tactical Simulator, a vessel heavy in torpedo systems.

[@Fyrehart97]

I was actually planning on leaving a comment from the beginning stating how the design of the ship is actually more in line with the Sovereign and Defiant design language until I really looked at the ship again and specifically those nacelles. Oh the Akira nacelles - how I've always found them odd! They don't fit the profile of the rest of the ship and it was in this video that it hit me: those nacelles - the buzzard collectors specifically - are very Galaxy and not at all like the more advanced looking Sovereign. Perhaps they're actually more related timewise with the Galaxy than the Sovereign?

[@Jason-pj9pb]

Stu, off topic, looking at the flight deck duty officers.. Using Bernard Zack Bertozzi as an example, he basically increases accuracy to pet under the effects of carrier command - intercept. This works for PC because on PC you can change the pet modes. Console does not have that option..so do these duty officers not work for console, or is it just automatically applied for console?

[@Stu1701]

I honestly have no idea how those would function on Console if you don't have those carrier pet commands. I actually didn't know you didnt have them over there.

[@ViroVV]

Well there is a factor from canon. Though I wouldnt call it proof. In Chain of Command, Jellico refered to Cardassian as wolves who like to fight in packs. Quite possibly he meant literally as well as figuratively. We saw this all through the dominion war where Cardassian ships tend to come in groups of 2 or 3. I seem to recall there being explanations in the show that those ships were powerful ships in their own right, they were clearly a step down compared to say a D`eridex, hence the need to hunt in packs. So there is a logic in designing a ship built to handle what would be 3 mini boss grade opponents. So its realistic they put 2 of them in service, perhaps initially under NX designation, but its specs are where the older theory gets weaker. Look at ships similar to models of car spread across decades. Like a 1966 camaro vs a 1976 camaro vs a 1996 and so forth. They will share similar lines if created at the same time. But the further apart they grow the more different they become. So even if the prototypes were laid before the EntD they would not look more advanced than the D, yet the exteriors absolutely look more advanced. Similar aesthetics but the D is much more graceful, even in its aztecing. Now, you could still have that prototype, but its going to look a lot different. Like for example the prototype might not have that AWACS style pod. Meaning when put into production "in response to the borg threat" they likely did a major overhaul of the designs. Effectively putting its production on par but before Voyager. Which is also why Voyager/Sovereign look more advanced and streamlined. It also means it would be outfitted with Voyager era technologies of which it helped prototype. The interiors and specs is really what decides what a ship is and even if it was prototyped with Oberth era design aesthetics, it was mass produced with those pre voyager era aesthetics. Compare the engine rooms of the D, to Defiant, Voyager, and the Sovereign you would find that the Akria class resembles a souped up version of the voyager warp core. So more of that brushed aluminum look. Its interiors would look a LOT like voyager. But every design factors into others. More power likely means bigger this or that which changes layouts and shapes of things like rooms, hallways, ect. So if there is a developmental stall of say 15 years, Designers are much more likely to rebuild a new ship from state of the art than pull a chassis out of mothballs and build within its confines. So I do believe the Akira was a ship that was designed to fight the Cardis, I just have a lot more trouble believing that it predates the D. It could be possible, but it brings with it a lot of baggage as far as theory crafting is concerned. Ultimately being a fitting design given that Maxwell was vindicated and if you want to get real technical, the Cardassian war didnt end, It went into a period of cooled hostilities trying to work at peace but never finding it. True anti borg ships would likely be the Odyssey class. Moreso than even the Sovereign. That is reflected in design details like its MUCH larger size and its overwhelming power capacity of having multiple warp cores. That is a design better equipped to fight a threat than a Galaxy which was literally like spitting in the wind. The Sovereign would be like using new but off the shelf parts for a new design, as opposed to a full design to address that threat. ANY sort of development is going to be plotted out over decades. The Akira gets called part of the anti borg fleet but it was not the ship designed to fight it, Only the newest design ready to go when the need of Wolf 359 created the need for replacement ships. So much like a design such as the Defiant sitting in Mothballs, Likely too did the Akira sit, clad in beige hell interiors looking like a scaled back galaxy and without a lot of the innovations it was known for. The version we know is younger than the D but it was still effectively the prototype for many of Voyagers standards and would most closely resemble an Intrepid. Like building a new truck engine line and after its launched use that same engine as a platform for your next gen sports car which would have been Voyager. Roughly same sized ships but one can hold about 150, While the utilitarian big brother can house 500 AND support ships. First true "anti borg" ship would have to be the Prometheus with its multi vector assault mode which DOES seem designed to combat a threat from a much bigger opponent like a Cube. Innovation often lags substantially behind tragedy.

[@panelvixen]

If only they named the ships Akane, Akari, Uzaki, Sakura, or Himeko. Names that dubbing companies have difficulty figuring out how to pronounce correctly .

[@Tuberuser187]

The escape pods confuse me though, it has the later "anti borg" style pods like the Sovereign and other ships rather than the ones behind the square hatches as seen on the "Brahms" ships like the Galaxy and New Orleans, as well as Voyager.

[@chrisjohnson1146]

Don't think the pods are "anti-borg". Could have been doing tests on new escape pod designs.

[@Stu1701]

While the triangular escape pods were first seen on the Sovereign, there's so way to no when those were put into use. It's possible those pods were first tested the smaller ships seen in First Contact (Akira, Steamrunner, etc) before being implemented on what would basically become the new flagship. Escape pods have always been weird in Star Trek, anyway. The D and other early TNG ships had the square hatched pods (pretty sure Ambassador is the earliest example). Defiant had different hatches, but had the exact same pods as Intrepid, which also had the square hatch. Then we get the triangular pods from first contact on Sovereign, Akira, and the rest. Then Prometheus along with hexagon shaped hatches, which we never see again. Then the ships in Picard (Sagan, Duderstadt, Connie III) don't seem to have any visible hatches for escape pods, while the early STO ship (Odyssey, Avenger, etc) keep using the triangular pods, but later STO ships (Gagarin, Reliant, Sutherland) are back to the square hatches. Escape pod design makes as much sense as registry numbers in Star Trek lol

[@ealan3694]

@@Stu1701 Honestly, the only reason we see escape pods remain consistent to class in the show is down to the re-use of existing physical models and then 3D assets. That's the real reason. Honestly, if we were to take real-world into account, lifeboats on ships would vary based on availability and manufacturer of the Escape Pods. Real world ship design probably only calls for a Lifeboat to be located at location X on the ship, hung from Crane/Davits #1-5 with capacity for X number of persons, and then the Life boat is purchased for the ship from an available lifeboat manufacturer. In Trek, I figure the escape pod "decks" or the space would be allotted into the design for X number of escape pods, and the specific shipyard that builds the ship would then fill in with the escape pod design docking / launch port / hatch that is readily available, or that the shipyard is already setup to manufacture itself and we would then see variations in escape pod designs on ships of the same class that are built at various, different shipyard facilities. But specific ship classes would remain consistent, because they're only built in 1 shipyard, like the Sovereign-class, as far as we know it was only built at the San Francisco Shipyards early on. Which is what I like about STO in that we can select the different window / escape pod skins and get that variation.

[@theoneyoudontsee-c8o]

I would agree! the rottery torpedo pod is a devastating scary 2 stage system. let me explain from the visuals you can see the 6 acceleration rail ports in front and 4 more acceleration rail ports in back. the middle two in front look dead center 12 o'clock then 2 more aside that at a small offset let's say 11:30 and and 12:30 then the outer most 2 are 10 o'clock and 1 o'clock, then for the rear you have 2 center 6 o'clock and 2 outer that are 4:30 and 7:30 angles. now what makes it a rottery pod is the loading and arming section of all those tubes are combined into something looking a revolver cylinder and it's hard to say how many torpedoes can fit but let's say 12 to make it better than the galaxy that it's more of a bay that shoots up to 9 torpedoes like a shotgun so the first stage of up to 15 torpedoes is dune then you have all these angles to choose from and fire as fast as the acceleration rail can be cleared. this makes the rottery pod more useful for being completely surrounded and the angles of the acceleration rails aid in keeping a target lock on something making pilot maneuver as the ship it self is moving removing some of the challenges of hitting a moving target from a moving target with torpedoes both shooting energy weapons at each other too. then the 4 more direct broadside torpedoes on the saucer section make this a scary torpedo boat made for more dedicated smaller war ships not thunder clap alpha striking the borg that can handle kinetic threats easily anyhow.

[@xians.d.dorsey6735]

If the Federation was concerned that the Akira class would represent too much of a militaristic Starship, why would the Terran Empire not have their own version of the Akira class as they would clearly not see its militaristic properties as an issue? Personally, I would love to see the Terran version of the Akira class. I think it would be an absolute monster.

[@Stu1701]

It was the 2360's, the Terran Empire had been defeated by the Klingon/Cardassian Alliance well before then.

[@xians.d.dorsey6735]

Thank you for the info, I try to trust the experts, but how then does the Terran Empire have the Lexington Class (and other ships like the Hydra) if they were defeated before they could build an Akira? Unless we're not taking STO into the lore. I clearly need to study more Terran lore. And by the way, how come these not an official Terran Empire playable race on STO? (Sorry, just babbling at this point.)

[@joshuapierce5988]

@@xians.d.dorsey6735 sto is beta cannon and shouldnt be taken as offical lore theres alot of ships in there that dont exist/or are for gameplay purposes added a t6 variants so players had nee shipsbto buy

[@Allosaurus87]

akira class can melt alone fleet of the best canon cardassian ships... before dominion upgrades and even so, probably can still take down 3 obsidial order keldon, 50% chances

[@capt.robertson9703]

I think you theory is correct on the Akira. The USS Akira was probably constructed in the mid 2350-s (NX/NCC-62497). The USS Galaxy (NX/NCC-70637) before 2362. The Kaneda/NX-62498 registry is kinda sto-stupid. The NX registry is for lead ship of the class only for evaluation/experimental status before getting into serial production. From NCC-63498 it would be an acceptable registry.

[@Stu1701]

Technically, the NX registry prefix is used for experimental ships. While it's only been seen on ships that were first of their class (Excelsior, Defiant, Prometheus) in the shows/movies, there's nothing to say they can't be used on other experimental ships. Kaneda was the second of two prototypes, both of which were used as R&D ships, so you could argue that NX still fits, as the class still hadn't been greenlit for full production. While canon hasn't done something like this, beta canon has. USS Theseus from the IDW comics (which was added to STO about a year and a half ago) uses the NX prefix. Theseus isn't the first of its class, its actually a Discovery class starship according to the comics, which even by the comic's time period is actually very old, but still has the NX prefix because it's used as a testbed for various experimental technologies. Under your definition, USS Incursion should have the NCC prefix too because it's actually just a refitted Defiant class, but it has the NX prefix because it's an experimental refit using (at the time) experimental tech (the holo-cloak).

[@dustind3960]

I would like to think that the akira class ship was orginally design to take over the long range heavy cruiser/carrier roll of the aging over worked and under powered constellation class ship. I cpuld see starfleet have 3 to 6 akira class ships on the design boards as early as 2347 to 2349 and had a fee prototype build fpr testing mid 2350's though later 2360's

[@ryankelly8783]

Damn it STU.....dont ruin one of my top 3 fed ships!!!

[@Stu1701]

how does this ruin anything about the Akira?

[@ealan3694]

The initial Akira prototypes built circa 2360 could have been very different ships technology-wise as compared to the production run design. Prototyping is a process by which to refine and determine what best works on a design, then make changes, then move to full production. If the Akira was a ready-made Off-the-Shelf design, as implied by this lore, it doesn't mean the loadouts of the prototype really matched the production run of the ships we see in the 2370s. Starfleet began refitting the existing fleet after the 1st Borg Contact. Not in time for Wolf 359, but the design work was already in progress.

[@dustind3960]

I wluld also like to think that the starfleet saber class and sream runner class are were designed oringally aroud the or just 2 to 3 years after the destruction of the enterprise c but were recalled after tje signing of federation cardassin boarder wars cooled befpre wolf 359

[@thejamfoxthejamfox8078]

Space ships can be as old or as new as you want to be. What a spaceship looks like is meaningless to how it functions or how capable it is.

[@MrNBridger]

Reg-Numbers mean nothing in Star Trek

[@Stu1701]

Yes, but also no. Like I said, I've already gone down this rabbit hole. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4fchHqrnbeMh8Usi=PPjPPUUQtm6fTyvH

[@ealan3694]

@@Stu1701 To add to that rabbit hole, a few things to consider. I've always figured the Shipyards in the Federation are being alloted blocks of Registry Numbers. It's somewhat chronological, but it accounts for the blurriness in the registry system somewhat. Say, Shipyard A is contracted to build 300 ships in registry block 63700-64000. Now that contract could vary by delivery dates, and class and even have a mix of various classes. But then the actual need from Command / Political establishment shifts, ships of a specific class are added or removed to the order, or outright cancelled, and then butt that up against the actual production / delivery rate of the shipyard in question, and you can have a real mess years into the 2370s, those ships with those lower registry numbers are still being launched. Still brand new ships, but the registry numbers don't track with the years. Also, it's probably good to stop thinking of a registry number as attached to the Starship name. They are not typically added near the end of construction and filling out of the ship, right before it's ready to launch. Instead, think of it as a Hull Number. Famously, in the real world RMS OLYMPIC and RMS TITANIC were Harlond and Wolf Shipyard Hull#'s 400 and 401, respectively. This hull number is attached to everything from the Design Schematics, specific to the specific ship, right down to being stamped into each component, hull plate, ect in the Forge / Factory before it was even wheeled out to the gantry / shipyard slip to be assembled onto the hull. This is still done to this day basically to identify the specific part and which ship it's meant for, because shipyards are usually building multiple ships at any given time! Now here's ANOTHER consideration to take into account and it has to do with the actual construction process and the timelines involved. To illustrate, the easiest way to understand is to look at Google Maps and watch a few videos of it, but New Port News Naval Shipyards, in the real world, where we build Aircraft Carriers starts constructions years in advance before the actual structure of the ship begins to take shape. USS ENTERPRISE, CVN-80 began construction with a steel-cutting ceremony back in August 2017. The hull structural members and plates, but mostly critical components like the reactors and engines were all being produced and stockpiled before in warehouses and storage lots years before they even began bolting and welding these things together in the actual shipyard slip. CVN-80's KEEL, the backbone of the ship, the first part actually assembled, was only laid in April of 2022, and the hull will be launched in November of 2025, only to then continue being filled out and completed over the course of the next 3 years when it is expected to be delivered to the Navy and commissioned in 2029. That's 12 years of construction, start to finish at the Shipyard with a fairly established production cadence, though I think if I recall right, it was delayed during the 2020-2022 timeframe by a year or two. My point is, that a lot of the same process in the fabrication / manufacture of are probably going on with Starship production in the Federation. And production lines can be delayed or accelerated. I'd be very surprised if the fabrication, delivery and assembly of the component on a starship is on-demand and then instantly installed on the ship as it's built. Replicators exist in universe sure, but there's no real canon indication that they can replicate large components and hull plates for starship construction. Infact, we have images of the surface facilities of Utopia Planitia of a partial Galaxy-class being stored in a large storage lot essentially in an alternate reality. It almost looks like was being built planet-side, but that contradicts later construction that we know happened in orbit. So it may have also been being dry fitted and partially assembled planet-side. Or the parts were being stored, like New Port News stores Aircraft Carrier components in storage lots and bays, before assembly. The only thing we know for sure, is that Starfleet can replicate small components for repair work. It's also sort of implied this was what was going on in Star Trek Beyond in the Kelvin universe with the construction of the Kelvin Enterprise-A! At the beginning of the movie, it's mention Starbase Yorktown was building a new starship. But we only see the ship being built at the end from the ground up. What they meant at the beginning of the film, was that the components (ie Warp Core, Warp Coils, Impulse Engines and Computer cores, basically the big ticket items) were already under construction. And then we see the assembly portion at the end.

[@Revkor]

sorry but no. Galaxy and Nebula clearly whack Galors. so Amabssadors and Niagra likely could beat them easily. At best a Galor can match an Excelsior. the reason the war and peace go as they do is because of idiot policies.