User:CrimsonTacit/Sandbox/Damar Class

The Damar-class battleship is the premiere warship of the Cardassian Union, launched after a decade of extremely secretive construction and design to put the Union back on an even footing with its neighbors. Built as a direct counter to the Federation's Odyssey-class heavy explorer and the Klingon Empire's Bortasqu'-class dreadnought, the Damar incorporates technological innovations derived from the Dominion along with captured and reverse-engineered equipment from Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers. While not as fast or as large as the Odyssey, or as heavily armed as the Bortasqu', the Damar incorporates passive stealth technology into its hull design, which allows it to evade most long-range sensors to execute surgical strikes and other force projection missions.

Science and Exploration

While built primarily with a military application in mind, the Damar has powerful sensor arrays and extensive laboratories. The Cardassians are nothing if not thorough, and they have designed the Damar to be able to understand everything it possibly can about both the Union's enemies and potential areas for resource exploitation. As such, a Damar-class warship embarks a core scientific crew that spans biology, geology, astrophysics, and cultural studies so that every resource can be brought to bear against whatever the ship encounters in deep space. Compared to earlier Cardassian warships, the Damar's engines and life support equipment are much more efficient, which allows it to explore independently, but, given their rarity and importance for the Union's program of saber-rattling and intimidation, it isn't anticipated that many of these ships will be assigned to such missions.

Diplomacy

Damar-class starships are a key component of the Cardassian Union's diplomatic agenda, both as a deterrent and as an emissary. They are equipped with impressive conference facilities and quarters to woo potential allies and to scare potential supplicants into submission. The purpose of sending a Damar to a negotiation is so that this revolutionary and well-armed starship can be seen up close by those who have become used to thinking of the Cardassian Union as feckless and impotent.

Engineering

Retaining the ankh-shaped hull common to most Cardassian designs, the Damar is significantly larger than the Galor-class destroyers and Keldon-class cruisers that still make up the bulk of the fleet. As with smaller designs, the ship's reactor is located in the stern and uses massive heat exchangers located in prong-like protrusions to obviate the need for liquid coolant. The ship's warp coils are located in the "wings" flanking the main body, which also contain two of the main impulse engines, supplemented by a third amidships. The engines aboard the Damar are tuned for as low emissions as possible to make targeting her difficult. Power generation systems and computers are a hybrid of native Cardassian technologies and components developed by the Dominion, which makes maintaining her systems a challenge.

The lower hull of the Damar contains extensive cargo and hanger facilities, which allow it to support a fleet of Hideki-class vessels which serve in both tactical and logistics roles. The intent is to allow the Damar to subjugate entire planets on its own, and these facilities are also more than capable of supporting humanitarian activities.

Tactical

First and foremost, the Damar is a warship. It sports the newest and most impressive weapons developed by the Cardassian Union: hybrid polaron-phaser arrays which combine the shield-piercing power of Dominion warships with the reliability and ease of maintenance of Cardassian phasers. They are a compromise between these two design types that exceed the power of the Federation's latest Type-XV arrays and match Klingon heavy disruptors. The ship's main armaments are three heavy polaron-phaser arrays that are routed through the ship's forward deflector array. An additional three heavy arrays fire directly aft from the aft sensor platform. This arrangement maximizes the efficiency of the ship's power grid, at the expense of being a significant vulnerability if struck directly. In the claw-like protrusions flanking the main deflector there are sixteen forward-facing polaron-phaser pulse canons that incorporate technology stolen from the pulse phaser cannons in use aboard the Federation's Defiant-class escort. A further dozen pyramid-shaped energy beam emitters are spread around the ship to provide all-around coverage. Apart from energy weapons, the Damar has four forward and four aft torpedo launchers capable of launching all standard torpedo types.

Shields aboard the Damar are very impressive, developed from combining the massive shield generators developed for the Hutet with metaphasic technology acquired through the Ferengi. While not as powerful as those aboard the Odyssey, they give the Damar the ability to shrug off most assaults long enough to put enemies in the sights of her weapons. For her size, the Damar is fast and maneuverable at sublight. Indeed, an issue still being resolved is that she is faster than the Galor and Keldon-class ships that would often be escorting her. Thanks to her passive stealth systems, Damar-class ships utilize a first strike approach. They will cripple potential threats before announcing their presence if any hint of hostility is detected.