Star Trek Ships Of The Line-The USS Defiant- NX-74205

USS Defiant - NX-74205 

Base: Deep Space Nine 

Belonging to the United Federation of Planets and operated by Starfleet, the USS Defiant was officially launched in 2370, on stardate 47538.5, from the Antares Shipyards. 

The Defiant was designed as a warship in response to the devastating Federation defeat at Wolf 359 at the hands of the Borg. It was the first ship of the Federation with a minimal science crew, no recreational areas, focusing solely on its tactical purpose. DS9 Commander Benjamin Sisko, formerly the first officer of the lost USS Saratoga and a survivor of the battle at Wolf 359, helped design the ship. 
Initial test runs of the ship did not go well, and with the Borg threat abated, the ship was shelved at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards till the Dominion threat.  

Specs  

The Defiant measures a length of 170.68 meters, a width of 134.11 meters, a height of 30.1 meters, and a mass of 355,000 metric tons. It has 3 decks with 5 deck areas. The standard crew for this ship is 40 but can hold up to 150 as its evacuation limit. It can reach and hold a maximum warp speed of 9.982 for 12 hours.  

The Defiant’s warp core was compact, and its power plant rated at over 1,500 cochrane units in output to 2 warp nacelles. Complementing the warp system were two impulse engine fusion reactor plants and thrust emitters. 

It’s one of the few ships capable of planetary landing and lift off. 

The Defiant’s armaments were 4 pulse phaser cannons, 2 phaser arrays and 2 torpedo launchers that could launch either photon or quantum torpedoes. 

The defenses included a deflector shield and ablative armor. Ablative armor gives starships an extra layer of protection, keeping the disintegration of the hull at a controlled rate. The Defiant was the first to have this type of armor. 

The auxiliary craft compliments were 2 type-10 shuttlecraft, and 4 shuttlepods. 

There was a major design flaw that was corrected finally at Deep Space Nine: The ship’s structural integrity when it went to maximum warp nearly tore the ship in half. 

There were concerns, as well, about it being too small for the amount of fire power that it had. 

Cloaking 

The Federation had banned the development or use of cloaking technology in 2311 with the Treaty of Algernon. This was amended to allow only the Defiant to use this technology at the advent of the hostilities with the  Dominion in 2370. It was given as part of an alliance with the Romulan to use their technology in exchange for intelligence gained on their mutual enemy. The original agreement was that the Defiant had to stay in the Gamma Quadrant but Commander Sisko bent that rule when he felt it was called for. 

Noted Crew Members: 

Commanding Officers 

Benjamin Sisko (2371-2374; 2374-2375) 

Jadzia Dax (2374) 

Executive Officer/Tactical 

Kira Nerys (2371-2375) 

Worf (2372-2375) 

 Chief Engineer 

Miles O’Brien (2371-2375) 

Chief Medical Officer 

Julian Bashir (2371-2375) 

Science Officer 

Jadzia Dax (2371-2374) 

Notable Missions 

The Defiant joins the fight 

The Defiant decloaks as the officers aboard Deep Space Nine are considering their few choices as the likely invasion of the Jem’Hadar (the soldiers of the Dominion) threaten both the station and the planet Bajor. They can make a stand, by abandoning the station on Bajor, or collapse the wormhole that leads to the Gamma Quadrant. Major Kira Nerys dismisses both, she wants a third option. It is then that there is a subspace surge which activates the security sensors. A cloaked ship is within the Station’s shield perimeter and has come completely undetected up to that point. It hails the station as it decloaks. On the screen is Commander Benjamin Sisko, on board the Defiant. 
He explains the mission to the crew, that it won’t fight the Dominion yet, but first go to the Gamma Quadrant to locate and speak with the Founders who are believed to be the leaders of the Dominion. Their mission is to convince them that the Federation is not a threat to them. If the Founders can’t be convinced with the carrot, then the Defiant is the stick, and the Defiant is the proof that the Federation can and will defend itself from attack. 

The crew of the Defiant also includes a Romulan, named T’Rul assigned to keep the crew or anyone else from stealing the cloaking device technology from the Romulan Empire. 
Quark, a Ferengi business owner on DS9 is also invited to go on the trip to the Gamma Quadrant, to help with their small chance of successfully negotiating with the Founders. 

The ship contacts a Trader who has contacts with the Dominion but not the Founders. They direct the Defiant to Callinon VII, where a subspace relay station is located that can help to reach out to the Founders. Some of the crew trip an alarm and are trapped. The rest of the crew retreats, leaving an unknown and difficult path to recovery. The ship leaves knowing the likely possibility of interrogation or worse for their left behind crew members. 

The Defiant has 3 Jem’Hadar ships following, Sisko has the ship drop out of warp, shuts down all power, and hopes that they pass by without detecting them. It doesn’t work and the Defiant has to go on the defensive against the 3 battleships who have already penetrated the cloak. 

The battle doesn’t go well and boarding parties capture some of the Senior Officers, who are then tested by the Jem’Hadar. The crew are however eventually rescued by the Bajorian Militia, and Major Nerys and Odo. 

After returning to DS9, O’Brien fixes flaws in the structural integrity field and other design flaws of the Defiant. 

Marquis infiltrating the Defiant 

Marquis operative, Thomas Riker infiltrates and steals the Defiant by manipulating  Major Nerys, and then stunning her. In order to get the Defiant back, Commander Sisko travels to meet on Cardassia Prime to negotiate with Gul Dukat for help to locate the ship. At first Dukat wants to destroy the Defiant, but he ultimately helps track the stolen ship down. 

Worf joins the crew of the Defiant 

The Defiant, with Lt. Commander Worf, formerly of the USS Enterprise, travelled to Karemma to meet with one of their ships. During this, the ships are attacked, and several Senior Staff are incapacitated. Worf takes command and is successful in defending the Defiant and defeating the Jem’Hadar ships. 

The Borg return 

The Defiant finally gets to battle the enemy it was designed for, the Borg. Under Worf, it travels to Earth, and enters the Battle of Sector 001. The ship fights the Borg Cube, taking critical damage to the ship. Worf orders the ship to ram the Cube when the USS Enterprise-E comes to aid them in the battle. The Enterprise-E rescues the survivors of the battle-damaged Defiant but leave the ship adrift but salvageable. A Borg sphere, from the destroyed Borg cube, having the technology to create temporal vortexes, enters one. The Enterprise-E follows close enough to be in its wake, and is not affected by the changes to history by the Borg on Earth in a newly created timeline. They have just enough time before entering the vortex themselves to see that the Earth’s atmosphere has now become toxic and is completely inhabited by Borg.  The Enterprise-E knows that they must prevent the Borg from making these changes to Earth’s history, Once the Enterprise-E emerges from the vortex to engage the Borg, they use quantum torpedoes and destroy the sphere. 
The Crew beam to the surface to find that they are in 2063, right before Earth’s first space flight using warp technology, created by Doctor Zefram Cochrane. Following this flight, Earth’s first contact with alien races would occur. 
The Enterprise-E finds they have unwanted Borg visitors on board and there is a lengthy struggle to take back the ship. They are successful as the first flight occurs with help from the away team on the surface that also helps Dr. Cochrane find his confidence and finish repairing and building his ship. His ship, the Phoenix launches and is successful. It lands to find that Vulcans had observed the flight and now that Humans are a warp capable race, they can join a bigger universe. 

The Enterprise-E and its away team are able to return to their own time unnoticed, with Chief Engineer LaForge recreating the temporal vortex to get them home. They depart knowing the future is safe. 

The Cascade Virus 

The Defiant is tasked with finding Marquis defector, Michael Eddington, he is responsible for the virus called the “Cascade Virus” planted in the ship’s computer core. The ship is disabled and has to be towed in. 

The Breen 

There were more rescues and fighting of the Jem’Hadar but the Defiant’s last mission involved a new race that had joined with the Jem’Hadar, called the Breen. 

The destruction of the Defiant 

They used a new type of weapon, with a new form of energy using dampening technology. The Defiant, along with 310 other vessels, were destroyed during the battle, but the crew were 'permitted' to escape in life pods by the Dominion forces who wanted the Federation to know the full might of their new power. 

The USS Sao Paulo, the Defiant’s sister ship, was soon after assigned to DS9 to replace the Defiant after its destruction. Captain Sisko was granted special dispensation by the Chief of Starfleet Operations to rename the Sao Paulo to "Defiant" in honor of this "tough little ship” that went on to help win the war against the Dominion.