I got some specs and a backstory (inspired by an AIM convo with Falkenhorst) for my ships to keep y'all entertained till Crayz9000 tells me it's OK for me to link em here (Thanks again CrayZ! You're a real prince!)
Ship Specs:
Fed Gunship Prototype: Codename Falcon (note: Fed production version essentially the same)
Length: 77.05 Meters
Crew: 1 Pilot, 1 Gunner
Powerplant: Standard Small Warp Core with Two Warp Nacelles; One Fusion Reactor with Standard Impulse Deck
Performance: Warp 6 (cruise), Warp 9 (max)
Weaponry: One Four-Barrel Rapidfire Pulse Phaser Cannon, Provision for 1000kg Disposable Stores
Defense: Standard Shield Grid; 1-5cm Ablative Armor
Special Equipment and Capabilities: Internal Sensor Monitoring Network (for ship's testing); Standard Transporter; Can enter atmosphere at orbital velocities and sustain a velocity of Mach 2.8 at 1 atmosphere with no ill effects, Outer Wing Panels Fold Inward on Landing
Confederate Gunship: Eagle
Length: 85.35 Meters
Crew: 1 Pilot, 1 Radio/Sensor Operator, 6 Gunners
Powerplant: Small Quantum Singularity Power Core with Two Armored and Uprated Warp Nacelles; One Fusion Reactor with Afterburning Impulse Deck
Performance: Warp 9 (cruise); Warp 9.9 (max)
Weaponry: One Four-Barrel Rapidfire Pulse Phaser Cannon, Four Long-Range Disruptor Cannons, Six Light Pulse-Disruptor Turrets, Provision for 2000kg Disposable Stores
Defense: Multilayered Regenerative Shield Grid; 2-10cm Neutronium-Composite Armor; Transporter Inhibitor/Sensor Jammer
Special Equipment/Capabilities: Romulan-type Cloaking Device; Upgraded Sensor Systems; Can enter atmosphere at orbital velocites and sustain a velocity of Mach 4.5 with no ill effects
As you can see, the Rebs took an uncommonly good idea from the hated Federation and, with much technical information stolen from the Romulans and Klingons through intelligence work against them and the Federation, ran with it, creating a ship considerably better than the Fed prototype and overwhelmingly superior to the Federation's Peregrine fighters and anything else they may have under a hundred meters in size.
The Confederacy Will Rise Again!
And the Backstory:
During the fires of the Dominion War, the Federation was, as usual, desperately short on ships and long on hostile empires willing to take advantage of the situation. In order to rectify this, Starfleet embarked on secret weapons and design research programs. Out of this came a request by Starfleet to design and build a cheap, expendable gunship that could be fielded in the thousands. The result of this was the "Falcon" Heavy Fighter program. The idea was to build a flying warp core and mount the biggest gun possible onto it. The weapon selected was a four-barrel Pulse Phaser Cannon with a rate of fire of 1200 shots per minute as well as two Disruptor Cannons on the wings as backup. As with the Defiant's pulse phasers, this was not without its problems from massive recoil and vibration, causing the weapon to overstress the first few prototype hulls. This led to several fatal accidents during testing, after which the nose weapon mount was redesigned. After the pulse phaser issues were ironed out, the Falcon was cleared for production.
Shortly after, a renegade Son'a battleship ship was intercepted by USS
Nimitz and her wing of 24 Falcon fighters in the Briar Patch attempting once again to harvest metaphasic particles from the Ba'ku homeworld's rings, echoing the first Son'a attempt several months before. The Son'a ship opened fire with its isolitic weapons, prompting the
Nimitz and her fighters to return fire. The subspace rip from the isolitic burst destroyed nine fighters, at which it dissipated. The remaining fifteen fighters set upon the Son'a battleship like vengeful wasps, overloading its shields and blasting its kilometer-wide hull apart within seconds with merciless strafing runs; but not before the Son'a scored a few quick phaser hits on its attackers, killing a further two before it finally blew apart. When Starfleet Command got wind of the devastating performance of the new fighters, they quickly realized they had dynamite on their hands...
Meanwhile on the frontier, the Maquis were gaining allies and taking advantage of recent Federation blunders in the Dominion War to fill their ranks with large numbers of ex-Federation citizens disillusioned with recent Fed policy. When several Starfleet captains defected and helped a few frontier colonies secede, the Confederacy is formed. This small nucleus sparks a massive snowball effect, causing most of Starfleet not controlled by the commissars to defect to the Confederation. Naturally, this results in Civil War between the communistic Federation and the capitalist, egalitarian Confederacy. While the Civil and Dominion Wars rage, Confederacy scientists and engineers spend great efforts to redesign and rebuild their starships, buildings, and shipyards for greater efficiency, ruggedness, and safety.
This design philosophy is reflected in the far superior "Eagle" derivation of the Falcon Gunship. Whereas the Falcon was designed to be a cheap-and-cheerful mass-produced fighter, the Eagle was designed to maximize capability and survivability despite the much-increased cost. This explains why the Eagle, while superficially similar to the Falcon, is far more capable than its predecessor yet markedly less common...
Credits:
Ein (aka Dale aka me) for the good ships and crappy backstory
Crayz9000 for the webhosting at Foobar
Falkenhorst for the excellent storyline (and helping me iron out some continuity errors; thanks again Falk!
Aya for starting this thread and inspiring me to design said ships
Microsoft for making MSPaint
Mike Wong for, well, we all know
EDIT: Fixed a continuity error: changed "years" to "months" to rectify the continuity problem (the Second Battle of the Briar Patch was before the end of the Dom War).
EDIT: Fixed another continuity error: changed "with help from the Klingons and Romulans" to "with much technical information stolen from the Romulans and Klingons through intelligence work against them and the Federation".
Note: this is only a rough sketch as to the history. It may still be different in the final story Falkenhorst writes.
