Sovereign Class history began after the USS Enterprise D
was hurled into system J-25 in the Beta Quadrant, where
it encountered the Borg for the first time. The data that
Enterprise collected on the Borg projected a grim shadow
on the defense systems of the Federation. After the
Enterprise presented its report on the capabilities of
the Borg, Starfleet began three different programs.
Project Defiant, The Bradbury Project and Sovereign
Project. These ships would incorporate new technologies
to combat the Borg threat. Design and research was
nearing completion for the Sovereign Project on Stardate
43998.0, when the Borg invaded the Sol system.
Unfortunately, the advancements made under the Sovereign
Project were still only conceptual, with no working
prototype at the time. On stardate 48972.4 the USS
Sovereign prototype was tested. The overall design proved
amazing, but problems in the Warp Drive system required
that an overhaul be done. On Stardate 49843.2 the ship
was renamed U.S.S. Enterprise and launched from Starfleet's
McKinley Station. The Neuro-cortical Warp Drive system of
Sovereign class vessels, takes warp drive technology to
an all-new efficiency. The fluctuation superimpellor,
which once helped Zefram Cochrane straddle the
light-speed barrier, has been upgraded tremendously to
enable a starship to straddle the warp ten barrier.
Although the top speed can never reach warp ten, The
newly revised warp propulsion system (WPS) will allow a
ship to reach warp 9.9975, without ever crossing the warp
ten barrier, Therefore allowing the ship to remain
unaffected to the devastating effects of the warp ten
velocity. When designing the Sovereign Class ship,
Starfleet engineers took special care to ensure the use
of several dozen warp field layers, Enabling the new
septuple-shaped field to use almost half of the energy a
normal warp system utilizes. The asymmetrical peristaltic
field manipulation which the ship uses is only possible
because of the Neuro-cortical system's interaction with
the field coil's firing order. The amazingly complex
nature of the septudle-shaped field would never be
possible with even the best standard computer by itself.
The WPS utilizes over 275 gigawatts of energy just to
maintain the warp field, while traveling at warp seven.
The warp field coils themselves went under hundreds of
re-creations, mainly because of the thousands of theories
of the physics of subspace. The enhanced materials making
up the coils have increased efficiency and performance by
astounding measure. The ship now suffers only a very
minimal amount of quantum drag, Thereby allowing the
systems to escape the tremendous energy penalties due
from the drag. The amount of power to initially establish
the warp field - the peak transitional threshold - has
also been significantly lowered making the warp curve
slightly more rounded. On a standard ship, the coil's
electrodynamic efficiency unavoidably drops as the
velocity approaches warp ten. The new system's coils,
however, keep the efficiency significantly higher, thus
avoiding the incredible strains on the engines at high
warp speeds. Another improvement is the dual plasma
coolent tubes on either side of the warp core. On
previous starships, there was only one coolent flow.
Therefore if there was a coolent leak, the warp core had
to be shut down. With the Sovereign class warp core, the
dual plasma coolent tubes allow the ship to stay at warp
even in the event of a coolent leak.
