Alternate U.S.S. Potemkin

Description
In an alternate universe that closely matched our own, the evolution and service life of the Constitution Class took a slightly different course.

Taking lessons learned from the Valiant refit program, as well as from the Excelsior program, Starfleet engineers designed the next upgrade/refit for the Constitution Class, beginning with the U.S.S. Potemkin.

When the Klingon moon Praxis exploded, tensions began to run high between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Starfleet, fearing the worst, began exploring the possibility of initiating an extensive refit of the Constitution Class. The Potemkin, already in space dock for standard servicing, was chosen to undergo the experimental refit, which included a second-generation experimental transwarp drive.

Although the original experimental transwarp drive on the Excelsior failed, Starfleet engineers continued their research and designed a new transwarp drive system, with the failsafe included that should this attempt fail as well, the ship could be retrofitted with a state-of-the-art third-generation warp core with very little downtime. In addition, the new experimental warp engines were designed to work with either warp core system installed.

Along with more power generation capabilities, the Potemkin refit sported stronger shields, thicker hull armor and plating, updated impulse engines and thrusters for increase sub light speeds, and newly designed phaser systems, which modestly increased the ship\'s phaser firepower.

The new phaser design featured slotted emitters in addition to the recessed banks originally introduced on the Valiant. Using the same power couplings as the standard ball turret phasers, these new slotted emitters would be paired up in the standard twin emitter grouping. An experimental force field system was set in place to adjust the direction of phaser fire in combat, but unfortunately this limited the angles at which the ship could fire phasers. However, the slot emitter design in conjunction with the force field direction system provided additional, and quite unexpected, protection for the phasers.

Although engineers felt the initial design flaws concerning the Valiant\'s additional torpedo systems could be corrected with the new technology developed for the Potemkin refit, Starfleet Command didn\'t want to take the chance that the same problems could creep up again. Although the ship doesn\'t have additional torpedo bays, she was equipped with an experimental burst fire torpedo system, developed from torpedo technology first pioneered by the Excelsior. This new system could only fire a spread of two torpedoes, per tube, but provided increased power efficiency and heat dissipation, reducing the wear on the torpedo tubes by 15%.

When minor hostilities broke out in 2295, a third of the Constitution fleet was already refitted to the Potemkin\'s specs, but only the Potemkin ever had the experimental transwarp drive installed, but the experiment had failed again, and the Potemkin was immediately refitted with the third-generation warp core and sent to the front lines.

These new refits proved to be formidable vessels in combat, and with the Empire\'s dwindling resources, the Klingon High Council surrendered and resumed peace talks again at the beginning of 2296. The Potemkin refit proved useful again later that year when the Romulan Empire attempted an invasion of Klingon space. A joint Federation/Klingon task force repelled the Romulan attack.

Half of the remaining Constitutions that had yet to be refitted were brought up to the Potemkin\'s specs, while the rest received minor to moderate updates.