The Protostar-class was a small starship class launched by Starfleet during the late 24th century that was later approved for full production in 2384 after the destruction of the prototype and namesake vessel, the USS Protostar. (PRO: "Lost and Found", "Supernova, Part 2")
Following the Attack on Mars, the Protostar-class was deemed to be impractical for anything but exploration which Starfleet was moving away from and was scheduled for decommissioning. However, Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway managed to get the class into a new pilot program under her command as Starfleet training ships. (PRO: "Ouroboros, Part II")
Technical data[]
Based on its size, Zero estimated that the ship needed at least twenty crew members, or "depending on species, thirty-seven appendages". (PRO: "Lost and Found") A picture of the crew suggested that there were at least eight initially, including the captain and first officer. (PRO: "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part I")
Unlike other Starfleet ships, the Protostar class had its navigational deflector mounted on the underside of the saucer instead of the engineering hull, which instead has a large loading ramp for entrance into the vessel. (PRO: "Lost and Found", et al.) The navigational deflector also incorporated a tractor beam. (PRO: "Asylum")
The Protostar class possessed a "sufficient tactical array", including three phaser arrays (covering the dorsal saucer firing arc, ventral saucer arc, and ventral aft secondary hull arc), pulse cannons, and fore and aft torpedo bays loaded with type 6 photon torpedoes. It was protected by deflector shields and polarized hull plating. The tactical array ran on automatic and didn't require an operator. (PRO: "Lost and Found", "Starstruck", "Terror Firma") It also possessed temporal shielding. (PRO: "Who Saves the Saviors", "Ouroboros, Part II")
The ship's airlocks could generate a force field bridge to dock with other spacecraft. (PRO: "Asylum") In the case of a breach, the ship automatically generated a field to stop decompression while an auto-repair system closed the breach in the hull in a matter of seconds. (PRO: "Supernova, Part 1")
Landing strut extended
The ship was capable of entering a planetary atmospheres and landing on a solid surface, for which it was equipped with a single large landing strut beneath its center of gravity. The strut was wide and sturdy enough to withstand skidding across surfaces. (PRO: "Dream Catcher", "All the World's a Stage", "Crossroads")
The ship featured Bussard collectors for gathering deuterium gas. They were located in the third nacelle. (PRO: "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II")
The ship also had emergency power cells which could be recharged through the use of solar collectors. In the event of the ship being marooned on a planet without antimatter and thus no warp core, these rechargeable power cells could run the ship in a low power mode for at least ten years. However, each year the collectors lost efficiency. Even in this limited power mode, the Emergency Training Hologram and the Bussard collectors still had enough power to be run, allowing for the possibility of refueling the ship should the chance arrive. (PRO: "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part I", "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II")
Propulsion systems[]
The warp cores and proto-core
When it was developed, the Protostar class was the fastest ship in Starfleet. The class featured two distinct warp drive modes, one was a conventional warp drive capable of warp 9.97 and powered by twin warp cores. Normal space propulsion systems included impulse engines and RCS thrusters. (PRO: "Lost and Found", "Starstruck", "Kobayashi", "A Moral Star, Part 1", "Supernova, Part 1")
The proto-drive enabled
This class of ship also featured a gravimetric protostar containment, which was powered by a protostar and allowed it to travel in a second warp drive mode considerably faster than conventional warp speed. The ship could cross over four thousand light years in a matter of minutes, a journey that would originally take four years at maximum warp. When activated, a third nacelle would deploy from the stern of the ship while the two main nacelles were shifted to a lower angle. The engine itself was a high-priority system and consumed a large fraction of the ship's total power. (PRO: "Terror Firma", "Kobayashi") The drive required recharging after at least two uses which could be accomplished through the use of rapid regeneration protocols. (PRO: "A Moral Star, Part 1")
Interior design[]
Mezzanine connecting the bridge to the rest of the ship
Unusual for most Federation starships, this class had several staircases to travel between some decks, although the ship was equipped with a turbolift as well. (PRO: "Lost and Found", et al.)
Bridge[]
The bridge had a white, black and steel color scheme, and adopted a blue LCARS software interface.
The bridge lacked a standard viewscreen typically integrated into the ship's bulkhead of most 24th century Starfleet vessels and was instead dominated by a transparent roof dome for direct visual contact with the exterior. However, a holographic viewscreen could be summoned for hails or subspace communications. (PRO: "Terror Firma", "Supernova, Part 1")
The captain's chair was located at the center of the bridge and had holographic displays and consoles. Standard paired operations and helm consoles were fitted at the front of the bridge. Two additional consoles were also placed slightly behind and to either side of the captain's chair. (PRO: "Lost and Found", et al.)
Additionally, the holo-emitters on the bridge could create a holographic overlay of older bridge designs such as a mid-23rd century Constitution-class, and command inputs from the holographic consoles could be translated to the ship's helm. (PRO: "All the World's a Stage")
The USS Prodigy had a similar bridge design to the USS Protostar prototype, but it was equipped with two chairs instead, one for the captain and one for the first officer. (PRO: "Ouroboros, Part II")
Sickbay[]
The ship contained a sickbay equipped with biobeds. (PRO: "Kobayashi")
Brig[]
Brig
This class of starship was equipped with a brig, labeled as a holding cell on the ship diagram. It was located in the starboard side of the ship. (PRO: "Starstruck", "Dream Catcher")
Mess hall[]
Mess hall
This class of starship had a communal mess hall, with at least three food replicators. Each replicator had two dispensing slots with a transparent sliding door in a stacked formation, with the higher one being slightly smaller than the lower one. Once the order was replicated along with a tray and any eating utensils, the door automatically retracted upward, and the tray extended outwards so that it could be removed from the slot, as a single tray virtually took up all the horizontal space within the slot. (PRO: "Starstruck")
Crew quarters[]
Captain's quarters
Much of the ship's crew were berthed in the bunk room, where individuals shared bunk beds. (PRO: "Starstruck", "First Con-tact")
The ship's commanding officer had individual quarters, which featured a large bed, work station, wall-mounted display screen, tables, and shelves. (PRO: "Starstruck")
Holodeck[]
Holodeck
The ship included a holodeck available to the crew. (PRO: "Kobayashi", "A Moral Star, Part 2", "Let Sleeping Borg Lie", "Ghost in the Machine")
Transporter room[]
Transporter room
This class had at least one transporter room. The distance from the transporter room to the warp core was at least 200 meters. (PRO: "First Con-tact")
Auxiliary craft facilities[]
The shuttlebay was located in the lowermost section of the secondary hull. There was a separate section for shuttlecraft fuel storage. (PRO: "Starstruck", "Dream Catcher")
The ship's escape pods were located in two banks of six each on the underside of the saucer section. (PRO: "Starstruck")
It was equipped with a vehicle replicator which could be used for the production of shuttlecraft. The shuttlebay could deploy both shuttlecraft and aquashuttles for away missions created by the vehicle replicator. The vehicle replicator was not limited to Federation vehicles, able to replicate anything that had its schematics added to it from alien robots, to containment suits and alien ships for crew usage. (PRO: "Starstruck", "Asylum", "Time Amok", "A Moral Star, Part 1", "Ascension, Part II", "Touch of Grey")
It also served as practical storage and deployment of ground vehicles like the Runaway, and the disembarkation and boarding point for the crew on planetary surfaces. In addition, there was a compartment where workbees were stored. (PRO: "Starstruck", "Dream Catcher")
Ships commissioned[]
- USS Protostar (NX-76884)
- USS Prodigy (NCC-81084)
Appendices[]
Appearances[]
- PRO:
- "Lost and Found"
- "Starstruck"
- "Dream Catcher"
- "Terror Firma"
- "Kobayashi"
- "First Con-tact"
- "Time Amok"
- "A Moral Star, Part 1"
- "A Moral Star, Part 2"
- "Asylum"
- "Let Sleeping Borg Lie"
- "All the World's a Stage"
- "Crossroads"
- "Masquerade"
- "Preludes"
- "Ghost in the Machine"
- "Mindwalk"
- "Supernova, Part 1"
- "Supernova, Part 2"
- "Into the Breach, Part II" (holographic recording) (Season 2)
- "Who Saves the Saviors"
- "Observer's Paradox"
- "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part I"
- "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II"
- "A Tribble Called Quest"
- "Cracked Mirror"
- "Ascension, Part I"
- "Ascension, Part II"
- "Brink"
- "Touch of Grey"
- "Ouroboros, Part I"
- "Ouroboros, Part II"
Background information[]
Early concept art exploration for the Protostar was done by John Eaves. Director Ben Hibon eventually approached Gia Nguyen of Nuen Studio to further refine the design. During the early stages of production, they decided to change direction from Eaves' original ideas and developed a new direction for the Protostar. [1]
Implied by "First Con-tact", It was at least 200 meters in length. According to Nickelodeon, the Protostar is 139 meters in length. [2] It was also confirmed by Aaron Waltke to have six decks. [3]
Apocrypha[]
The Protostar-class appears in Star Trek Online as a prize in the Prodigy Lock Box under the name "Protostar Temporal Science Spearhead". The Season 29 update "Unraveled" also featured the Protostar-class USS Waltke (NCC-93669), named after Aaron Waltke.
External links[]
- Protostar-class at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Protostar Temporal Science Spearhead at the Star Trek Online Wiki