Early Years
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The Early Years is an historical setting of the fictional Star Fleet Universe, most commonly associated with the Alpha Octant of the inhabitable Milky Way Galaxy. It indicates the early Tactical Warp era of the Octant, originating with the launch of the United Federation of Planets' first warp-powered starship in Y62, and ending with the liberation of the Hydran Kingdom in Y135. The Early Years era is often more narrowly defined as being from Y79 to Y119. The concept has also been used to define the eras of the Omega Octant and Small Magellanic Cloud during which Tactical Warp emerged among the major powers of the regions involved.
At present, the Early Years era is detailed for the Alpha races in Star Fleet Battles Module Y1, while the Magellanic Y-era ships are listed in Module C5. At the time of writing, no Early Years ship designs for the Omega races have been published.
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[edit] Background
The concept of the Early Years is tied into the onset of Tactical Warp drive, as well as the many technological advancements that TW facilitated in the years following its emergence.
The earliest Faster than light engines in the SFU were fusion-powered Non-Tactical Warp drives - which were capable of allowing a ship to traverse interstellar distances (at about nine parsecs a day), but were unable to allow the ship to travel faster than sublight speeds in a combat situation. As fusion drives had a more limited output, and were used on ships belonging to races for which space combat was in its infancy, these ships were armed with primitive lasers and atomic missiles as their primary weapons systems (such ships fought the First Federation-Romulan War). Also, these ships had few if any of the more renowned systems seen on later ships, such as transporter beams and replicators.
With the emergence of antimatter-powered Tactical Warp engines, not only could starships fight at (low) FTL speeds, they were faster at interstellar travel than previous ships. Also, they began to incorporate new systems (transporters etc) and new weapons (such as phasers and photon torpedoes, or warp-tuned lasers in the SMC).
In the Alpha Octant, two distinct classes of early TW ship can be determined:
- W-series: older NTW ships re-fitted with new engines and systems (such as the old Province-class Federation Light Cruiser, or WCL),
- Y-series: Two categories of ships fall into this category - New designs of ships, intended from the beginning to fully incorporate Tactical Warp into their designs (such as the Federation Republic-class Heavy Cruiser, or YCA, the forerunner to the famous Constitution-class) and W-era vessels given further warp enhancements - such as in the case of the Federation Light Cruiser (the WCL was refitted into the more powerful YCL).
(Note that the NTW ships with 'sublight' weapons are referred to as Q-series, while NTW ships with warp-speed weapons - such as the Romulans in the Early Years era - are known as S-series.)
[edit] Early Years races, starships and technologies
For most of the Alpha races, the ships of the W- and Y-series were a significant step forward from their previous ship assets, with the Y-era ships acting as precursors to the more powerful (and more refined) ships of the 'modern' era seen in the likes of Federation Commander and so forth. They carry less heavy weapons than modern ships (the Fed YCA had two photon torpedo tubes compared to the CA's 4, for example) and weaker phaser suites (most races only carry phaser-2s, less effective than the later Phaser-1, which only the Vulcans and Tholians possessed in the Early Years era).
Interestingly, the Federation Star Fleet was composed of a wide range of vessels, from the new Y-series ships such as the Republic, to the refitted Earth old cruiser (the only race-specific ship to remain part of Star Fleet proper), to the other race-specific ships of the member planet's National Guards (including ships from Vulcan, Andoria, Rigel and others).
Also, two empires can be found in the Alpha Octant in the EY period which are no longer present in the General War era - the Paravians (which re-emerged in Omega) and Carnivons (who were mostly exterminated, but may yet survive in more distant reaches of the galaxy, as hinted at in the fiction story The Last Command) - which each possess unique weapons systems and ship tactics.
Of note in Alpha was the arrival of the Tholians in the Milky Way in Y79, in a part of Klingon territory which had been intended for use as a springboard for an invasion of the Romulan Empire. (The Romulans lagged behind their rivals on the technology curve, failing to develop TW engines independently - only receiving the technology from the Klingons decades after the end of the Early Years era. They did, however, focus their efforts at developing their plasma torpedo and cloaking technologies during this time.) The Tholians were a vivid example of the distinction between Early Years and modern technology ships, as until the Klingons devised their own modern ships in the Y120s their fleet was significantly disadvantaged against Tholian ships, even those of a smaller size class! (The Tholians had too few ships to use this advantage as a tool of expansion, however.)
[edit] System Defence Command ships
The modern era post-Y120 did not see the end of the line for the Y-era ships in the Alpha Octant. Many cruisers, destroyers and frigates were converted for use as local defence ships, tasked with fleet training, guarding against piracy, showing the flag at important colony launches, and looking after the odd space monster. (The Federation used these converted ships in their National Guards, gradually replacing the race-specific ships which had hitherto occupied these roles.)
While the ships were fitted with modern weapons systems, such as improved phasers and transporters, they were ill suited for front-line service. However, through the fulfillment of their given roles, they continued to serve their home governments with distinction for decades to come.
