Hello, everyone! Aaron Pollyea here. In this series, Continuing Missions will publish some of the original and side canon starships that I had written up for inclusion in the Star Trek Adventures Utopia Planitia Starfleet Sourcebook that didn’t make the cut. Many of them will be original creations that I designed to help fill in gaps in canon where I felt starships needed to be. Others because they are from beta canon and STA doesn’t have the rights to use them. Fair enough!
The first ship is an original creation that I made to help fill the gaps between First Contact and the Phoenix class and the vessels we see in operation during the 2150s in Enterprise. While Phoenix may be the first warp-capable vessel Earth launched, I wanted to design the first ‘proper’ starship Earth created to go to the stars, as hopping at warp 1 for a few minutes at a time would still take decades to get to the nearest star when you take into account recharging the warp coils for the next warp hop. Phoenix II, also known as the Unity class is the result. I hope you enjoy the vessel!