Graphic Artwork, delivered direct to your eyes.
This year’s TrekAdvent project has come to an end, and I hope you all found some enjoyment in it. Don’t forget to check out the Star Trek Holiday Projects page to see the sets from 2019, 2020 and 2021. And let me know what you’d like to see as the theme for 2024’s project by leaving a comment or sending an email to scott@planetrisecreative.com.
Happy Holidays everyone!
Despite the relative calm throughout the quadrant in the wake of victory over the Dominion, tensions remain and animosities continue to grow. The recent influx of unfamiliar, seemingly fictional ship designs has caused widespread confusion but one thing remains clear; none of the major powers are preparing for a lasting peace. Noting that the Romulans have added Colonial Vipers to their fleet, the Klingons have adapted Cylon Raiders, and the Cardassians are showing their teeth with Cylon Basestars, the Federation Council has given Starfleet a simple directive. Prepare to defend. As a result the Starfleet Corp of Engineers have found the one ship they believe has the best chance to stand against Cylon and Colonial warships, the famed Colonial Battlestar. Where once the Defiant-Class was a prototype for a Starfleet warship, the Battlestar-Class would become Starfleet’s War Machine. The designers and engineers knew it would be a challenge: Augmenting the existing railguns and missle tubes with phaser cannons, phaser banks and quantum torpedo launchers for a wider array of offensive capabilities. Upgrading the DRADIS system with state of the art long and short range sensor arrays. Installing an interphase cloaking device. Fitting the hull with ablative armor plating. And finally, replacing the original FLT drive with a centuries-old secret; a Displacement-Activated Spore Hub Drive. Supported by an escort group of three Defiant-Class ships and a complement of upgraded Colonial Raptors onboard, which none of the opposing powers had managed to co-opt, Starfleet stood ready to face down any and all who target the Federation in the future.
That was when a new Sith Order appeared at the edge of known space with their newest converts, the Dark Side Iconians.
Having noticed several of the other major powers in the Alpha Quadrant adopting ship designs from the Galactic Empire, the Romulan Praetor has decided that the senate is not to be outdone. Foregoing fighter craft and battleships, it was decided that a touch of elegance was called for and thus the Romulan Star Empire dispatched a small team of Tal’Shiar operatives to acquire the plans for the Lambda Class shuttle, known to have ferried Emperor Palpatine at one time. Modified with warp engines, modest yet effective armaments and an upgraded cloaking device designed to confound the most advanced sensors, this class of shuttle is reserved for transporting only the highest ranking members of the Senate. Consequently only three have been constructed, one each for the Praetor, Proconsul and Vice-Proconsul. Wherever they go, their designated shuttle remains cloaked in orbit, maintaining a constant emergency transporter lock which can be activated instantly by the individual. After the annihilation of the Senate by Shinzon in 2379, it seemed the most prudent decision.
It’s another double post because hey, sometimes sleep has to come first. Apologies to the fan who has consistently liked most if not all of the images in this Advent Project. (I’m looking at you DirtySciFiBuddha.)
The Borg have paralyzed multiple quadrants in terror with their singular objective to assimilate all they encounter. With their efforts repelled more than once by Starfleet, the Collective sought new means with which to achieve their goals. Thus they chanced upon the Epsilon Erdidani system and there what the Borg Queen would describe as “two million five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal…all alone in the night.” With dozens of races and their disparate technologies housed onboard the Babylon 5 station the Borg were able to add the inhabitants’ distinctiveness to their own and tremendously increase their power. But the worst was yet to come, as the Borg Queen turned her sights below, to the Great Machine beneath the surface of Epsilon III. Soon Zathras heard a chilling voice echo through the cavernous facility, “Resistance is futile.”
After a long night of story, song and bloodwine, Worf made an uncharacteristic wager with Chancellor Martok. If Worf were to best Martok in a B’aht Qul challenge he would win the right to select a ship design of his choice to serve as Martok’s new Capital Ship. After a fraught competition, Worf was victorious and, having already decided on his choice, his bellows of laughter were heard throughout DS9’s Habitat Ring. Some weeks later the vessel finally arrived at the station; the ancient Terran vessel Discovery 1. Martok was enraged and hurled epithets at his comrade all the way to the ship’s bridge, where the Chancellor immediately ordered for departure. The computer replied sedately “I’m sorry, Mark, but I cannot do that,” and shut down all engines. As Martok rose to berate Worf yet again the tactical officer shouted that a Klingon vessel was entering the system; a newly constructed D9 Dreadnought flying the Flag of the Empire. In short order the crew transported to the Dreadnought which towed the Discovery 1 to a safe distance before Martok used it to test his new flagship’s targeting systems. And never did he allow Worf the honor of a B’aht Qul challenge again.
For untold years the name Star Destroyer has been synonymous with the Galactic Empire and its unending reign over a galaxy far, fa….you know that bit. But now, after the cruel devastation of Cardassia Prime in the closing hours of the Dominion War, the survivors of Cardassia have made the decision to change how the Alpha Quadrant views this ship and its name. With their Basestar Class vessels taking on the role of transporting combat craft, the new Star Destroyer Class cruiser has been upgraded with modern warp engines and the original hangar bays housing scores of fighters, shuttles, troop transports and walkers have been converted to living quarters. This massive starship is now capable or relocating tens of thousands of displaced Cardassians whose homes were razed by the Jem’Hadar on the final, diabolical orders of the Founders. The ship that claimed to destroy stars is now given a new purpose, to create new homes.
Having gotten a glimpse of Starfleet’s attempt to curry favor with kind-hearted brigands in the form of their new Firefly Class ships, the Klingons are taking a cue and constructing an analogous vessel intended for use by bounty hunters and soldiers of fortune. Inspired by the ship used by a fighter of great skill and cunning, the Razorcrest Class will bring honor to the empire through the exploits of lone warriors seeking their own glory.
The Dominion has grown and thrived for over 10,000 years according to certain Vorta, and has gathered information on many ancient civilizations. It is no surprise that The Ancients would be one of them. Deciding that the Dominion would best be served by quietly seeding itself across the stars, the Founders drew inspiration from the Ancients and recreated one of their Seed Ships, originally used to plant Stargates across this and other galaxies. The Dominion’s Destiny Class starship deposits cloning facilities for Vorta and Jem’Hadar along with the necessary materials to construct Ketracel White refineries and shipyards. Within a year there will be a battle-ready detachment of ruthless soldiers with ships to command, minded by loyal Vorta patiently waiting for their gods to return with instructions.
Starfleet. The stuffy middle management of the Alpha Quadrant. Alway sauntering around, sector to sector, in their fancy starships looking like they just rolled out of Utopia Planitia. Until today! In an effort to convince unaffiliated, often charmingly rogueish and occasionally “outrageous” freelance ship captains to officially operate under Starfleet’s purview, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers searched high and low for ship designs that would embody those qualities. Enter Captain Malcolm Reynolds, whose brief exploits garnered lasting attention for the now infamous Firefly Class. With its trademark patchwork look and user-friendly interior it exemplified the precise “vibe” Starfleet was seeking, to use 21st century vernacular. Now an entire fleet of privateers flying Starfleet livery could maintain their Scoundrel With a Heart of Gold lifestyle in this shiny new vessel with a rear-facing warp core, deflector plates and a massively reinforced transparent aluminum viewing port up front to protect pilots from errant projectiles.
I mean…it’s common sense.
The Cardassian Union expands their fleet once again on Day 16. As previously mentioned when they co-opted the Daedalus design from Stargate Command, plans were already in motion to create a vessel capable of housing the Starfury fleets constructed by Central Command, making the hangar bays on the Daedalus Class unnecessary; this was their solution. Having closely examined an inoperative Klingon Raider adapted from the Cylons, the Cardassians discovered a homing signal deep in the code of the Raider’s synthetic mind and traced it back to an abandoned Cyclon Basestar. Salvage and retrofitting operations began immediately in the Orias System, where construction took place for the fleet used in the ill-fated attack on the Founders many years ago. Once completed, the Cardassians possessed a Basestar Class vessel intended to unleash a swarm of Starfuries against Klingon forces while simultaneously using its technological connection to the Raiders as a way to confound the Klingon attack efforts.
“Victory is life.”
-Jem’Hadar
“Victory or death.”
-The Star League
Although their motivations and philosophies may be polar opposites, the Jem’Hadar and Star League seem to place similar values on emerging from battle through the defeat of one’s enemies. It is through this thin kinship that the warriors of the Dominion pay homage to the Starfighters by fashioning their newest line of battle cruisers after the Gunstars that once secured the Galactic Frontier against the Kodan Armada. With each manned by one pilot, one gunner and equipped with the formidable Death Blossom weapon system, these vessels cast a fearsome shadow over all the Alpha Quadrant races whose sleep is fraught with terror at the thought of the Founders once again seeking to topple the Federation, the Klingon Empire and any who stand with them.
This entry is a day late because I got two sentences into the post before falling asleep in my chair. That’s how exhaustion works sometimes.
It’s Day 14 of TrekAdvent and we’re looking in on the Klingons once again. Over the course of decades the Empire has heard rumors of colossal, relentless sentient machines from outside our dimension. They were called Reapers, and they once were within striking distance of making this galaxy their own. Through the efforts of an honorable warrior, Commander Shepard, these soulless invaders were consigned to the depths of Gre’thor. In a show of admiration and respect for Shepard, the Empire commissioned a new craft based on their famed vessel, the Normandy. Adapting the ship’s “Mass Effect” technology proved difficult without a network of Mass Relays in the Alpha Quadrant, but the Klingons kept the systems in place to augment the ship’s deflectors and have quietly been opening discussions with the Federation to explore the potential of Mass Relays as a replacement for wormholes and transwarp conduits to traverse greater distances.
PlanetRise Creative