#thunderchild class

[hazel-of-sodor]

Traintober 2024

Hello Loves! As a suprise this year I'm doing both @tornadoyoungiron 's prompts

and @joezworld 's prompts.

That's right! 62 fics in 31 days

TornadoYoungIron's Prompts

Day 1-Gem

Day 2-Exiles

Day 3-Heather

Day 4-Antique

Day 5-Cenntenial

Day 6-Musical Twins

Day 7-Tired

Day 8-Unsinkable

Day 9-No.127

Day 10-Duty-Bound

Day 11-Sodor Blues

Day 12-Push-Pull

Day 13-Sideplates

Day 14-Paint it Black

Day 15-Compromises in Colour

Day 16-Friends

Day 17-A Question of Class

Day 18-Cut Off

Day 19-Our Colours

Day 20-Scot Free

Day 21-The Giant

Day 22-Surrounded

Day 23-Tap Out

Day 24-Visitor

Day 25-The Final Train

Day 26-Oliver and Company

Day 27-The Titan

Day 28-Thunderchild

Day 29-Choices

Day 30-Shaken

Day 31-Stay

JoezWorld's Prompts

Day 1 A-Replacement

Day 2 A-Plan Delta

Day 3 A-Express Run

Day 4 A-Company and a Show

Day 5 A-Avoid the Sheds

Day 6 A-Rex

Day 7 A-Running Late

Day 8 A-Invicta

Day 9 A-Playing Dumb

Day 10 A-The Grey Ghost

Day 11 A-Stalled

Day-12 A-Cherryoak

Day 13 A-Express Chase

Day 14 A-Mid-Sodor No More

Day 15 A-Aircraft and the Heavens

Day 16 A-The Sudrian Wind

Day 17 A-Contented

Day 18 A-Grief

Day 19 A-Something New

Day 20 A-Sister

Day 21 A-Take it as We go

Day 22 A-Berate

Day 23 A-Pilot

Day 24 A-Spirit of Norramby

Day 25 A-Tall Tales

Day 26 A-The Shadow

Day 27 A-Harwick

Day 28 A-Morro Castle

Day 29 A-100 Years

Day 30 A-The Lady

Day 31 A-Leave

[jack-in-the-dark]

Jack Builds Spaceboats: The Rally Vincent, Part 2: Akira-class, My Beloved

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert at this game and the information I present may be erroneous.

I love the Akira-class. I cannot overstate that. Ever since I first saw the beautiful USS Thunderchild and her sisters at the Battle of Sector 001 in Star Trek: First Contact, I have been in love with this ship.

I love that way she looks. The way her design makes her swoop. I love her lore. I love that she's basically what you get when Starfleet decides to throw subtlety out the window. I love how she's sleek and aggressive while still maintaining that Starfleet feel.

So here comes an autism rant.

The development of the Akira-class starship started after the Battle of Wolf 359, where an entire fleet of starships was annihilated by a single Borg cube in a matter of hours, if not minutes. It was a massacre, and a wake-up call. It was a reminder to Starfleet that having fighting ships, while frowned upon by Federation ideals, is an absolute necessity for the peace and safety of the Federation.

So the engineers got to work, and designed four new classes of ship designed primarily with kicking Borg ass in mind: the Defiant, the Sabre, the Norway, and the Akira. While the Defiant, Sabre, and Norway were more compact and smaller designs, the Akira-class was a full-fledged cruiser at over two-thirds the length of the massive Galaxy-class explorers.

She also had a truly massive hangar bay that ran the full length of the saucer section, allowing her to carry an unheard-of amount of support craft.

What truly set the Akira-class apart, though, was the fact that she is absolutely fucking covered in torpedo launchers. Most Starfleet ships have, at most, four torpedo launchers - two fore, two aft, with phaser arrays covering the ship (the Galaxy-class, for example, is considered a battleship with two torpedo launchers and over a dozen phaser arrays). The Akira-class has three phaser arrays. She has fifteen photon torpedo launchers. Four facing forward in the weapons pod, three on each side covering the aft port and starboard quarters in the mission pod, one in the saucer section just above the deflector dish and, most unusually, two photon torpedo launchers on each side of the saucer section facing directly port and starboard.

A big part of why I started playing Star Trek Online was because I wanted to fly an Akira-class. I longed for it. So naturally, I pounced on the opportunity the moment it presented itself.

You can imagine that it came as a bit of a shock when I learned that the torpedo-heavy cruiser-carrier I loved was, in game terms, an agile glass cannon designed to use dual cannons.

I exploded. A lot. So much so, in fact, that I straight-up swore off flying escorts almost altogether and started flying cruisers instead because they could take a goddamn hit.

I was angry, I was disappointed, and even a little heartbroken.

But as my knowledge of the game grew, I kept going back to the USS Rally Vincent, re-evaluating and tweaking, and eventually even making a ship that I felt actually worked with what an Akira-class should be.

Then, in 2022, I started seeing rumors around the STO subreddit: Cryptic was working on a Legendary Akira-class. Now, "Legendary" variants are typically only for "Hero" ships, those that served as the focus of a series (like the various Enterprises, the Defiant, and Voyager). The idea of a Legendary Akira-class was... curious, but also very very exciting.

So I immediately started saving up, and holy shit am I glad I did. When Cryptic announced the Legendary First Strike Bundle and the stats of the ships it would come with (the Legendary Multi-Mission Command Carrier and the not-talking-about-it-in-this-post Legendary Temporal Ops Strike Wing Escort Warbird), it was like Cryptic had read my Christmas list and decided I'd been such a good boy this year that I was gonna get everything I wanted.

This was finally a frame that could be an honest-to-goodness Akira-class. Still nimble, but not a dogfighter, able to take a few on the chin, packing enough firepower to make a Klingon blush, and full Command specialization seating primary and Miracle Worker secondary, giving her access to some fantastic Bridge Officer abilities and arguably the best torpedo-buffing BOFF ability in the game, Concentrate Firepower III.

It was truly an evolution of the Rally Vincent's build, going well beyond mere improvement. The advent of the Advanced Hangar consoles elevated the build even further, making her one of only a handful of ships I have capable of dealing with Elite content despite her decidedly off-meta build.

I genuinely wish I could give this ship a hug. She really is a dream come true for me.

[grayrazor]

Knight of the Federation's primary setting is the Thunderchild-class light cruiser Swiftsure. Compared to a civilian spacecraft she's heavily armored with ferroalloy, but all the necessary features for non-combat operations can extend from behind plates that swing open like the door of a bank vault.

[alphamecha-mkii]

Thunderchild - Launch Day by Euderion

[defconprime]

Thunderchild Class from Star Trek Online

[stra-tek]

The Akira-class U.S.S. Thunderchild CG model, as she appeared in the movie Star Trek: First Contact. Built by ILM. Despite looking fantastic on film, looking at the model close up reveals lots of 1990's CG crust.

The Akira-class would go on to be the inspiration for Enterprise NX-01, from Star Trek: Enterprise. Supposedly the producers wanted the Akira model used unchanged, and Doug Drexler and others had to plead to be permitted to build a new similar-but-different model with era-appropriate detailing (since ENT was set more than 200 years prior to FC)

[spockvarietyhour]

Select Starfleet Ships, Vol. 2: TNG Edition 2

Top to bottom: Excelsior-class U.S.S. Hood “Encounter at Farpoint” Excelsior-class U.S.S. Repulse “The Battle” Constellation-class U.S.S. Victory “Elementary, Dear Data” Miranda-class U.S.S. Lantree “Unnatural Selection” Galaxy-class U.S.S. Yamato “Contagion” Ambassador-class U.S.S. Zhukov “Data’s Day″ Nebula-class U.S.S. Phoenix “The Wounded” Oberth-class U.S.S. Cochrane “Relics” Nebula-class U.S.S. Farragut “Star Trek: Generations” Akira-class U.S.S. Thunderchild “Star Trek: First Contact”

[reedalert]

I want to be the person who names spaceships

Like, who the fuck came up with all the classes and the names of the starships?

Who dug up Thunderchild and Puget Sound?

[rev-krissy]

under the lantern - (because I never post fics)

Captain Krysta MacFarlane was laughing. It was an obnoxious laugh but her crew would never tell her that. It wasn't fear, nor admiration, but genuine affection that kept them quiet. In one way or another they each felt the Captain had saved them.

“What’s funny Cap’n?” queried Wex’mi - the slight teen of indeterminate gender who served as MacFarlane’s navigator.

“I was thinking about ancient family history - legend really, from a damp, cold, rocky little country on earth called Scotland. Apparently some of my ancestors would go on night raids and steal cattle - got so good at it that folk started calling the full moon ‘'MacFarlane’s Lantern”. Some silly fool one time said “last MacFarlane standing gets the lantern.” And here I am, not even the last one standing and I own this silly moon! It isn’t THE Lantern, but it’ll do all the same.”

The United Federation of Planets and it’s Starfleet would never admit to using privateers, but when Krysta had captured a Defiant class escort from the Borg they hadn’t asked for it back. When she named it Thunderchild after the ship in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds a couple of admirals and ambassadors had cringed but not one protested. MacFarlane and her Thunderchild had proved useful in several Federation wars, skirmishes, and even diplomatic situations - she could capture enemy ships and personnel and Starfleet kept its hands clean. She and her crew got a cut, Starfleet got materials and Intel.

But it was in a gambling den on Rigel where she’d won her lantern playing poker - five card stud... With a dead man’s hand  - full house 8s and aces...

Krysta MacFarlane, dread pirate, Captain of Thunderchild was laughing.

[djlyer]

Canada’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women December 6, 2022

Coeur de pirate - Impossible a aimer - Une chanson brisee - Can

Lana Winterhalt - Diamonds - Ava Maria - Can - Local

French Class - Tape 2 - Taxi Cab - Can - Local

St Vincent - The Nowhere Inn - Palm Desert

Bobby Dove -Thunderchild -  Cowgirl Bob 

Christine Mc Vie - The Legendary Christine Perfect Album - Wait and See 

The Tragically Hip - Saskadelphia - Montreal 

Selena - Selena - My Love

Christine Fellows - Stuff We All Get - Pop Bottle Chickadee 

The Distillers - Live in Lockdown - Sunsets (Live)

Fleetwood Mac - Mirage - Only Over You

Anne-Marie Williot -Cheval Geant - Nage la Neige 

[hazel-of-sodor]

Day 28-Thunderchild

Day 28-Plot Twist

Other Stories

Other Days

Admiral William Murdoch stared out at the massive battleship sitting nervously in Drydock 4. Strictly speaking Drydock 4 was not for military vessels, but it was the only open Drydock capable of fitting the German Behemoth. HMS Hood normally was an impressive sight, and in fact the Admiral Class battlecruiser was longer of the two by some 60 feet, but with Hood alongside Bismark in drydock 3 it was clear at a glance which ship was the larger vessel.

The Admiral drummed his fingers on his arm as he observed Hood happily chatting to her German rival. Officially Hood had been put in drydock for routine inspection, which was being carried out. Unofficially it was to keep her new friend calm as her ammunition was removed.

Most ships, having found their enemy's new flagship drifting abandoned on the Atlantic, would have sunk it without a second thought. Instead Hood had befriended the blasted thing and brought it home.

He frowned, Hood had deeply complicated matters. The Royal Navy now had Germany’s Flagship sitting in drydock, and no idea what to do with her.

If Vice Admiral Holland’s report was correct, the ship had already managed to wrestle control from her original crew, so putting her into service with the Royal Navy was not an option unless the vessel agreed to it. Hood's report read much the same. While intelligence reports had noted unrest at the shipyards Bismark had been built at, no one had realized the dissent towards the regime among the shipyard workers had been taught to the new battleship, much less cause her to desert outright.

The Admiral stared at the battleship for a moment longer then returned to his desk. No matter what was done with their guest in the long term, he knew they could not let the Germans find out they had her. Better for them to think she had been lost outright. She needed to be made to look like part of the Royal Navy, and named as such.

He nodded, yes that was the best plan. Let Germany wonder how they had built such a monster without them realizing. If they handled this right, Germany would probably think their ‘new’ ship had sunk Bismark. 

He considered names for a long moment as he wrote out orders for her to be repainted into royal navy livery, and for the changes necessary to disguise her as a British built ship

 He smiled as the perfect name occurred to him.

HMS Thunderchild, first of her class.

A/N: Hello Loves! Hood found Bismark adrift in the Atlantic andshowed up to Vicarstown like "She followed me home, Can I keep her?" I hope you enjoyed, Love Y'all!

[voyagesofthebataan]

The Meeting

“So, Lieutenant, now that you’ve had some time to familiarize yourself with the Bataan, tell me, what have you noticed?” Lieutenant Aster was seated in the officers briefing room, just aft of the bridge. Along one wall sat a mural depicting the USS Bataan against a field of stars. Under that mural sat three golden miniatures of previous ships that had carried the name Bataan. Two were ancient sea-faring vessels of a clearly military depiction. The third was an Eclipse-class starship, now more than a century out of service. “Well, sir, from my time on the Thunderchild, that layout is roughly the same. Sickbay is larger, crew quarters are smaller. I haven’t had a room mate in 3 years. More doors, but a lot of them are left open. The transport pads are larger. A standard Starfleet pad supports 6, 7 in an emergency, but yours accommodate 12. I see more crewmen, enlisted, I mean, and most of them are wearing yellow. So, I’d say, mostly what I’ve noticed is how you’ve taken the Akira layout and...stripped it down into something...else, sir.” Captain Rodgers smiled despite himself. “Good job, Lieutenant. You learn quickly. Yes, you’re absolutely right. The outer hull of the Bataan looks like a fairly standard Akira-class, same general saucer section designs, but the guts are different. As you saw yesterday, the interior has been drastically re-arranged. The sickbay is larger to support casualties. The transporter pads allow us to land armed security officers more rapidly, and we carry more of them because their duties are mostly to provide security on the ground during a crisis.” “And the doors, sir?” Rodgers hesitated, glanced at his desk, and assumed the proto-typical gaze into the middle distance of painful recollection. “I was the XO of the Musashi during the war. Galaxy-class, typical Starfleet design. Never really meant for battle. Sure, she had phasers and torpedoes and shields and all the accoutrements she needed for a fight, but she was meant to explore the galaxy, not defy an empire...The Breen had their energy-dampening weapon, of course, which they used to great effect. They could cripple or disable a ship, rob it of the ability to maneuver, defend itself, and take it down with ease. The weapon didn’t discriminate between the energy used to power the engines, the weapons, the shields...even the internal force fields.” “Now, your typical Galaxy-class, if it takes a hit big enough to rip a hole in the hull, they’ll raise shields, activate force-fields, do whatever it takes to plug the breach...but if you lose power...well, a lot of people died because of that design concept. A starship should feel open, inviting, spacious and welcoming. Personnel should be able to easily traverse the ship from stem to stern, keel to bridge. Lots of warm neutral tones and big wide hallways. Its an aesthetic. Palatial and luxurious, I’m sure you’ve seen the bridge of the Enterprise-D a few times in the Academy.” “Yes, sir.” “Like I said the other day. Nice, big, open and inviting, an unparalleled view of the stars, of the whole galaxy to explore.” “...so more doors that can’t fail if the power goes out.” “Exactly. At red alert, those doors close and seal, and have to be manually unlocked at the panel. In the event we lose power, they stay locked until physically overridden. No force fields to fail at the worst possible moment and condemn an unprotected crewman to the emptiness of hard vacuum.” “I also noticed, sir, when I was looking over the schematic...Your quarters, sir, they’re just off the bridge. You go through the ready room to get there. On the Thunderchild, the captains quarters were on deck 3, forward of the bridge.” “Yes. Best view on the ship, save for 10-Forward, of course. I have a monitor in my cabin that shows me whatever I want to see, but I can be on the bridge in a few seconds rather than a few minutes. In a crisis, response time matters. So my quarters are immediately adjacent to the bridge. It also cuts down on the chances the Captain will be injured travelling from his quarters to the bridge. Most of the senior command staff have their quarters above the bridge, and we have a dedicated Combat Information Center directly below. Most of the crew quarters are actually even more spartan than your own, son. The enlisted tactical personnel are 4 to a room, more like a dorm in the Academy. They share a head, there’s two enlisted mess halls on portside and starboard. An officers mess separate.” “It reminds me of the old warships, sir.” “How so?” Aster gestured to the two ancient nautical vessels below the mural. “These were not comfortable vessels, sir. They were cramped, dark, dingy, full of tight corridors and functional spaces. No facilities for scientific experimentation at all. They were dedicated to their task, which was to wage war against their enemies. Earth’s oceans are still so full of mystery, but they weren’t built to plumb their depths or explore the horizon, they were built to find someone to kill, sir. Crew slept in bays of nearly 100 men, stacked 3 high in bunks the size of coffins. An officers quarters would be about the size of your ready room, even an admirals cabin on a ship twice the size would be about the size of your ready room and cabin put together. The original Bataan was originally a cruiser that had been converted, at great haste, into an aircraft carrier. The  second was an amphibious ship, meant to land soldiers on the beach and support them with aircraft. The third was built in response to increasing Klingon aggression. Klingon warships were always more powerful in a stand-up fight, and so that Bataan had more of its scientific abilities stripped back to make room for phaser banks and torpedo launchers, although it must be said its power-generation capabilities were highly stressed by so many weapons. They had to turn the lights off to keep up.” “So you read my design proposal.” “Yes, sir, but it makes sense. You and the team that designed this ship built her to fight another war. But rather than react to a threat, you want to anticipate it. We got caught flat-footed when the Dominion started shooting. Same as the Borg, the Cardassians, the Klingons, everyone back to the Suliban. We’re always reacting too slowly to threats as they emerge. So you buried the bridge deep in the saucer section, where it could be protected from hull damage. You put guns wherever you could, to provide a complete wrap-around of fire during a shooting match. And rather than over-stress your primary warp core and have to rely on a second, you dedicated a third warp core just to providing power for weapons, leaving the primary and secondary to run shields and engines, and if you lose one, the other two can still provide enough power.” “Very good, Lieutenant.” “Sir...you built a warship. Starfleet, and the Federation in general, has always promoted itself as a humanitarian armada. We disbanded our military faction a century ago. This ship is totally antithetical to that vision. It's an affront to everything Starfleet has stood for, for nearly 100 years.” “Thats absolutely correct. But there are some at Starfleet Command who believe that we can protect the quadrant by showing our teeth a little more often.”

[departmentq]

Commemorated in the 24th century as the Borg busting, Akira-class, USS Thunderchild, in Star Trek: First Contact

HMS Thunderchild vs the Martian Tripods

[alphamecha-mkii]

USS Thunderchild in drydock by Chris Cardwell

[hellowelcome2mars]

The Martian Mystery Chapter 20: Ceremonies of Requiem

story archive

Recomended Listening: Agnus Dei

Martian Communist Ship (M.C.S.) Ashirena Shesna, May 7th, 2061.

    The traditional Martian funeral is flexible, to say the least. Funded by the state department for memorials and cryostasis, they usually take place on a Thunderchild class starship, but the family can chose to have the funeral take place on the smaller Victoria Class, or the Darwin class science vessel. The family can also choose to have an open or closed casket, depending on preference or the condition of the body, or lack thereof.

    Whalen Shesna’s family had chosen to have a traditional martian funeral, with a closed casket. Being the son of one of the most important war heros in recent Martian history, the Martian Government had decided the flagship of the Martian Star Forces would be the best ship for the ceremony.

    The ceremony took place in the observation dome, a massive room that sat above the bridge, at the front of the pylon for the dorsal warp field extender. The dome provided a breathtaking view of Earth, the massive green and blue sphere of which hovered in front of the great spire that formed the bow of the ship.

    The funeral congregation sat in rows of temporary chairs, which faced forward towards the massive windows. In front of those windows, standing at a podem, was the conductor of ceremonies, a role which historically had been taken by members of a religion’s leadership, but since the majority of Martians were atheist, or agnostic, the role was now an official position at the department for memorials and cryostasis. The task required great auditory skills as the role required to give the traditional martian burial sermon, a long drawn out speech. The conductor of ceremonies for Whalen’s funeral was an old martian, his fur matted with grey streaks, his eyes old and worn. Behind him, there was an small orchestra and choir, waiting for the command to play.

     The conductor’s words washed over Akerna, but he did not listen to them. He was instead reliving memories of his and his late friend’s childhood. He remembered playing in the snow in the biodome in San Clemente Colony during a winter. They ran around the park, throwing snowball at each other. The memories danced before Akerna’s eyes, reminding him of simpler times, times when he didn’t known who assassins were and why they wanted him dead. These memories faded from his thoughts as the conductor entered the last section of the sermon.

     “Our chief astrophysicists say that the atoms that make up our body came from the supernovae that marked the death of stars, whose ash and dust spread out to form the star we call Shavala [the sun]. And from this ash rose us, living being, made of the ash of the stars which died so that we and billions of other different life forms could live. From the stars we came, To the stars we return.” The conductor closed the book in front of him. “All rise.” Everyone stood up, and the orchestra began to play and sing a Martian Funeral Adagio.

     Martian funeral Adagios have been described to be so beautiful that any creature, no matter how cold or cynical, will cry upon hearing it’s depressing notes. This occasion was no exception, as everyone in the room cried silently as they watched the coffin slowly fly away from the ship. The triplet of dorsal gun turrets, each having three cannons, raised silently in the sunlight. Each of the turrets fired, one after the other, shooting a trio of glowing bluish white plasma, saluting the fallen soldier. After the cannons had finished firing, the conductor opened his arms in a flowing gesture signalling that the congregation was free to talk among themselves.

    Akerna slowly walked over to the giant windows, memories dancing in his head as he took each step. Tears streamed down his face and snout as he walked. He reached the window and placed his hand on the glass. He watched as Whalen’s coffin slowly shrank into one of the numerous stars in the night sky.

    “Goodbye, Old Friend.”

[feather-dancer]

You’re talking to the person who brought this to Primary School for Drama class and gave these poor bastards NIGHTMARES and I was just gleefully banging on about how much I loved it.

Forever Autumn will ALWAYS be one of my absolute favourites followed by Thunderchilde. Humanity being completely fucked never sounded so amazing.

Re: War of the Worlds - /I knew you had fantastic taste/

SDJLKDJFGKLDJFGFLDKGJSDLK THANK YOU HAHAHAHA

Like?! LIKE CAN I JUST GEEK OVER HOW AWESOME THIS IS CAUSE LIKE I’VE BEEN OBSESSING OVER THIS FOR THE PAST WEEKS NO JOKE NO LIE! IM AT THE POINT OF QUOTING THIS MOTHER TRUCKER

To those who don’t know what we’re gabbing about and are curious BAM-

FUCK IT    W A R   OF THE  W O R L D S

How can anyone not just listen to these opening bars and just dlfgjdklfgj GET COMPLETELY SUCKED IN?!!? ~NO ONE WOULD HAVE BELIEVED~

It’s the perfect amount of CAMP, SLAPPING GOOD JAMS, AND T E A R S and just GAAAAH idk friendo, I know I probably don’t need to convince you I’m just flailing and vibing haha. 

There’s just something about listening to the world get devastated to the point of destruction at the hands of forces stronger than our own, and...still managing to come out of the other side that just...idk