Alpha Quadrant Expansion

Alpha Quadrant Expansion by Pope Torak

For much of the preceding century the Federation's attention had been on the Beta Quadrant. An inevitable product of tensions with large Beta Quadrant states like the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire, the resources spent countering the two empires led to a state of benign neglect in much of the Federation's nominal territory. Despite the more militant posture adopted by the Federation Council's more hawkish members in the period between 2310 and 2315, the election of the famed explorer Gan Laikan to the Presidency in the 2312 election marked an end to the Short Twenty-Third Century.

After the Treaty of Algeron in 2311 the Romulan Star Empire resolutely refused any further attempts at diplomatic contact. The new Klingon Chancellor Kaarg, though a known opponent of the Khitomer Accords, appeared more interested in cultural retrenchment within the Klingon Empire than military adventurism. With the interstellar status quo at a tenuous equilibrium, and the Federation's relative power the greatest in decades, the Laikan Administration began focusing Starfleet resources into exploration and charting missions in the Alpha Quadrant.

This shift in emphasis was bolstered by the civilian leadership of the Federation. President Laikan managed to coax the venerable Heihachiro Nogura out of retirement for one last bit of public service as a cabinet secretary. Laikan nominated Nogura as both Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Technology, merging the two posts for the first time since Jonathan Archer's appointment in 2172. Although there was some grumbling about placing too much authority into one individual, the Federation Council was sufficiently intimidated by the Old Man's reputation that they confirmed the nomination with a voice vote.

Nogura's reputation, along with the strong support of senior Starfleet officers such as Sinclair-Alexander, Sulu, Harriman, and Mentir helped ease the bureaucratic competition between Federation science agencies and Starfleet. The end result did not quite reach the full integration hoped by Laikan when he nominated Nogura, but relations between the two communities improved substantially from the 23rd century where scientists often viewed Starfleet as a purely militaristic agency. In turn Starfleet was able to increase the breadth of its missions and try out the full capabilities of their ship designs.

The emphasis on a mixture of exploration, charting, and surveying missions brought the full value of the post-2295 building program to fruition. Though no longer large enough to contain all of the desired payloads for deep space exploration, the Miranda-class proved well equipped for nearspace surveying. The introduction of food replicators starting in refits from 2316 onward simplified the logistics aboard the old workhorse, providing space to install greater creature comforts and cargo space while ample auxiliary craft capability and flexible secondary option mounts made them ideal for scientific missions within Federation space. With most of the high-speed "crisis" missions handled by the new Centaur and Apollo class starships, the Miranda-class fleet was able to function as the ubiquitous face of Starfleet within Federation space. Colonization support missions, planetary surveying, mobile medical support and diplomatic missions became the most common uses for the Miranda.

Greater numbers of intermediate classes also freed up Excelsior and Constellation-class ships for deep space exploration missions. In particular the Constellation-class received extensive modernization refits in the period leading up to the 2320s in the hope of sending them out on extreme duration exploration missions. Ultimately mission duration proved to be less than the 10-15 years between starbase lay-overs imagined by planners, but the extended range significantly expanded the Federation's frontiers in the Alpha Quadrant.

The expansion of Federation territory brought it into contact with additional interstellar states. During the Laikan and Thelian Administrations the Federation made official first contact with the Cardassian Union, Breen Confederacy, Tzenkethi Coalition, and Talarian Republic. The early years of contact were limited in scope, with a handful of small trade missions, diplomatic exchanges, and border incidents. The Federation Diplomatic Corps, Federation Merchant Marine and Starfleet Intelligence had limited success in establishing more permanent relations with the Tzekenthi or Breen. Cardassian-Federation relations started out cordially enough with a small but steady commercial relationship developing between the Federation's frontier outposts and Cardassian worlds.

None of the new states were on their own large enough to rival the Federation's influence in local space. The Tzenkethi and Breen had rough technological parity with modern Starfleet technology, but the Cardassians and Talarians were at least two generations behind the current state of the art. The increased needs for Starfleet presence in the newly added Alpha Quadrant sectors meant the Federation continued to expand its civilian procurement program, expanding the Miranda-class hull procurement to 100-hulls per year, with 65 being commissioned in various configurations. Excelsior and Centaur procurement continued at a total of 25 hulls per year, which could be configured as the full fledged starships or auxiliary designs such as the Shelley class.

New developments in warp geometry technology began the development of a new generation of starships. The Hokule'a and Wambandu-class starships were built from the keel up as SIF-integrated designs with a greater beam than previous generations. Serving as high-speed surveyors and scouts, these starships formed the bulk of Starfleet's deep Alpha Quadrant presence, backing up discoveries made by the Constellation-class explorers with the ability to ferry large numbers of auxiliary craft and subspace relay buoys. With the introduction of these 750,000 cubic meter starships, Excelsior production was reduced to a half dozen per year, with more hull frames going into Ordinary.

Starfleet Fleet Strength 2330

Excelsior-class Starships

In Service: 200

Ordinary Reserve (Hull only)*: 258

Undergoing Refit/Repair: 9

Lost/Missing: 3

*Note: Excelsior-class hulls in reserve were also used for Centaur-class construction.

Miranda-class Starships (Note Includes only post-2293 builds)

In Service: 1,509

Ordinary Reserve (Hull only): 995

Undergoing Refit/Repair: 155

Lost/Missing: 12

Constellation-class Starships

In Service: 22

Ordinary Reserve (Hull only): 0

Undergoing Refit/Repair: 0

Lost/Missing: 2

Centaur-class Starships

In Service: 245

Ordinary Reserve (Hull only)*: 0

Undergoing Refit/Repair: 10

Lost/Missing: 1

*Excelsior-class hulls in Ordinary are used if Centaur-class production is needed for activation purposes.

Apollo-class Starships

In Service: 6

Ordinary Reserve (Hull only): 5

Undergoing Refit/Repair: 4

Lost/Missing: 5

Hokule'a-class Starships

In Service: 12

Ordinary Reserve (Hull only): 0

Undergoing Refit/Repair: 3

Lost/Missing: 1

Wambandu-class Starships

In Service: 19

Ordinary Reserve (Hull only): 0

Undergoing Refit/Repair: 0

Lost/Missing: 1

All Other Ship Classes (Note: By 2330 most pre-2300 starships have been retired. This category instead refers to auxiliaries such as the Istanbul, Sydney, Mediterranean and Shelly-class ships)

In Service: 520

Undergoing Refit/Repair or in Reserve: 230

Lost/Missing: 47

Total Fleet

In Service: 2,533

Ordinary (Hull Only): 1,258

Undergoing Refit/Repair or in Reserve: 411

Lost/Missing/Decommissioned: 75

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