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Name - USS Paul A. M. Dirac
Class - Galileo (Starcruiser)
Registration - NCC-8898
Government - United Federation Of Planets
Built - Sandia Shipbuilding and Conversion, Albuquerque Division, Earth Spacedock
Facilities
Keel Laid - 4/8/2305
Christened - 7/1/2307
Commissioned - 8/2/2309
Motto - "There are always alternatives"
First sailed from Sol system in 2309 under Captain Sharon Case, on 7 year mission to plot the borders between the Gorn Alliance and UFP, and to establish stronger cultural and diplomatic ties between the two star leagues. This mission was extended after a one year refit in 2316-17, to a six year goodwill tour and Federation survey of Gorn space. After a successful mission, the ship returned to her home base at Starbase 115, and Captain Case, then 56, was promoted to the Admiralty as Vice Admiral for Diplomatic Services Division of Starfleet. Case, who served in this position well for ten years, was later Ambassador to the Gorn Alliance, from 2333-2347, and retired at the age of 80 to the planet Clanhaven.
After Captain Case left the ship, she was assigned to her former Exec of the past four years, who was promoted to Captain. Captain Muna Sajan, only 37, and from the Science Division originally, was commanded to take the ship into the Zotar Nebula for a five year plotting and survey mission, and was equipped with an extended First Contact team, since the Fleet had detected several transmissions from sentient races in that area. The mission, which was extended to eleven years and ended in 2334 when the ship was damaged by a well equipped raider fleet and the Captain and Exec were both killed, was otherwise highly successful, plotting and surveying at total of 201 star systems and identifying 45 new planets with sentient species and making first contact with 23 of these, five of which have become Federation member worlds.
The ship, active for 25 years at the end of her Zotar mission, returned to Earth for major refit and technological enhancements. After eighteen months, she was recertified under the command of Commodore Jered Matthias and his wife Captain Alice Newton. This officer team, only in their late 30s and with a growing family, was assigned to a twelve year mission of exploration and research at the galactic rim. The ship was crewed by an array of races from throughout the Federation, including approximately 12% representations each from Vulcan, Betazed, Alpha Centauri, Tellar, Andor, and Coridan. Most of the rest of the crew was from Terra and her colonies. Many crewmen were families and they brought their children with them.
The twelve year mission was highly successful, and the ship returned to the Federation for only a brief re-supply and re-fit, before returning to the galactic rim from 2348-55 for a second grand survey trip, and was stationed at the planet called Huron by the UFP. Huron is an advanced world with humans apparently transplanted from the North American continent approximately 3000 years ago. They have evolved a blend of technology and natural living that has made their world an Eden-like parkland and a place capable of supplying the needs of a Federation starship. Huron was discovered in 2346, late in the first Rim mission, when it's exploration craft, equipped with an early version of Warp technology, discovered the Dirac doing a survey of a star approximately 40 light years from their own world. The Iroquois Confederation extended then to five other worlds, and now controls a sphere of space reaching to 50 light years from their own world, with seven colonies, eleven other occupied bases, and eleven worlds under terraforming. They are a treaty state to the Federation, and maintain cultural and technological exchanges with the UFP. Their major contributions to technologies are in terraforming, at which they are masters, currently at work on nearly a dozen worlds, and elaborate construction work, in harmony with natural environments. The Confederacy had also integrated alien races as members, including an avian race with one world (advanced biotechnologies at UFP levels), a race of octapedal mammals from an ocean planet (non-technological artisans), and a three-world race of five foot tall brachiators who have an ancient culture that had colonized two star systems over a 2400 year period using impulse engine technology. There are also two Vulcanoid races as protectorates (one at bronze age levels and one at early industrial revolution).
Using Huron as a base, the Dirac was able to explore a vast amount of space, in conjunction with an expanded Confederacy fleet. Due to the success of the mission, the UFP co-constructed Outpost 81, the so-called Friendship Rim Station, in 2355-58. This station, and the other orbital trade centers, are rapidly growing, and a testimony to the highly successful interactions between the UFP and the IC. In 2373, the station was renamed .Deep Space Fort Ticonderoga. by her new UFP commanding officer.
In 2355, the Dirac returned to the Federation for additional refits and enhancements. Her Captain and a large portion of the crew opted for placement on the new station orbiting Huron. As a result, the ship was recertified under a new captain late in 2356, Captain Paula Firenzi, a Welsh scientific prodigy who had been raised on Betazed and education on Alpha Centauri and Vulcan. At the age of 20, Firenzi had a Ph.D. in Astrophysics and entered the Starfleet Academy. First in her class in 2344, she was able to move to Captaincy in only eleven years, and became the top UFP scholar in space-time theory during that period. Just before her 36th birthday, she took command of the Dirac for a deep space exploration mission into the Gamma quadrant. Her Executive Officer was the former Chief of Warp Space section of Starfleet Science, Commander Justin Kyle M'Benga, a powerful telepath, aged 42.
The mission was to discover a suspected series of semi-stable wormholes and to investigate their regularities as a means for moving ships rapidly across vast gulfs of space, achieving a form of transwarp flight. In 2358, the experiments began, and messages back to the Federation were positive. Several actual point to point transfers were made successfully between the wormholes, demonstrating the reality of the theories of Firenzi. However, several months later the ship disappeared without a trace.
At the end of 2372, evidence began to accumulate that the USS Paul A. Dirac might not have been destroyed. A subspace scanning device was emplaced near the site of the loss of the ship, and detected a warped subspace message from Firenzi near the end of 2373. Adm. M.B. M'Benga, Chief of Psych. Warfare, Starfleet Intelligence, detected psi contact with the XO of the Dirac, his brother, during the first few days of 2374. As a result, Adm. M'Benga was able to take leave aboard the Knight and redirect the ship on a mission to locate the lost 'ghost ship'.