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Description
Check out my website to see more of my art: www.blabberdock.com

Observe the recent rains of a lush and alien planet gleaming off the space-weathered hull of a Galaxy Class saucer landed in a far-flung world littered with abandoned ruins of an ancient culture - a world on the borders of Federation space - the ship preps colonization efforts (habitat construction and infrastructure) like a mother hen watching over her chicks - the 500 colonists aboard who will remain behind at the end of the month-long efforts.

"Settlement" is one of my many pieces of art detailing my head-canon of the refitted Galaxy class concept I first shared on FB years ago. The idea was labelled "entirely feasible" by Rick Sternbach in conversations on the FB thread - Rick is one of the great Star Trek design talents (designer of the Vor'cha class and the U.S.S Voyager for starters) and wrote the section in the Galaxy Class Technical Manual on Impulse Engines (the impulse engine field would be needed to pull off this landing/take-off cycle).

This idea was that after the highly public and embarrassing loss of the Enterprise saucer on Veridian III, Starfleet engineers began planning an overhaul and refit of the Galaxy class saucer to make a safer entry to atmosphere and survive landing. New technologies developed in for the U.S.S. Voyager made that easy as landing gear for heavy ships had been successfully tested in combination with antigravity buffers. The engineering team on Mars realized that not only could the saucer land with relative ease, but it could return to the stars again afterwards.

However, the advent of the Dominion War put these designs on hold and it wasn't until after the conclusion of that conflict that Starfleet reaffirmed its charter directive to explore space, which green-lit the Galaxy refitting project. While new and original explorers like the Luna class were still being developed and built, there was no need to build an entirely new fleet of exploration vessels as the Galaxy class had a phenomenal record as an unparalleled explorer (almost to make up for the fact that it wasn't the best warrior).

Technology upgrades to the Galaxy ensued, but the largest changes came to the Saucer section, where the engineers integrated landing gear and new avionics.

Aside from the saucer's continued role as an emergency "life-boat" for the extensive crew of colonists and explorers (albeit in its new configuration, it could actually survive landing and take back off again) the saucer could now also serve as an initial base of operations and colony fabrication hub for the settlement of new worlds once successfully landed. The Main shuttlebay could be rapidly converted into a fabrication center and the powerful tractor arrays would move assembled habitat components and machinery to the planet's surface. The assortment of shuttle craft served as survey and resource acquisition role as the colonists and crew spread out to explore the new world.

All in all, the refitted Galaxy class leapfrogged the Federation into a new golden age of Starfleet exploration.

Description
Check out my website to see more of my art: www.blabberdock.com

Observe the recent rains of a lush and alien planet gleaming off the space-weathered hull of a Galaxy Class saucer landed in a far-flung world littered with abandoned ruins of an ancient culture - a world on the borders of Federation space - the ship preps colonization efforts (habitat construction and infrastructure) like a mother hen watching over her chicks - the 500 colonists aboard who will remain behind at the end of the month-long efforts.

"Settlement" is one of my many pieces of art detailing my head-canon of the refitted Galaxy class concept I first shared on FB years ago. The idea was labelled "entirely feasible" by Rick Sternbach in conversations on the FB thread - Rick is one of the great Star Trek design talents (designer of the Vor'cha class and the U.S.S Voyager for starters) and wrote the section in the Galaxy Class Technical Manual on Impulse Engines (the impulse engine field would be needed to pull off this landing/take-off cycle).

This idea was that after the highly public and embarrassing loss of the Enterprise saucer on Veridian III, Starfleet engineers began planning an overhaul and refit of the Galaxy class saucer to make a safer entry to atmosphere and survive landing. New technologies developed in for the U.S.S. Voyager made that easy as landing gear for heavy ships had been successfully tested in combination with antigravity buffers. The engineering team on Mars realized that not only could the saucer land with relative ease, but it could return to the stars again afterwards.

However, the advent of the Dominion War put these designs on hold and it wasn't until after the conclusion of that conflict that Starfleet reaffirmed its charter directive to explore space, which green-lit the Galaxy refitting project. While new and original explorers like the Luna class were still being developed and built, there was no need to build an entirely new fleet of exploration vessels as the Galaxy class had a phenomenal record as an unparalleled explorer (almost to make up for the fact that it wasn't the best warrior).

Technology upgrades to the Galaxy ensued, but the largest changes came to the Saucer section, where the engineers integrated landing gear and new avionics.

Aside from the saucer's continued role as an emergency "life-boat" for the extensive crew of colonists and explorers (albeit in its new configuration, it could actually survive landing and take back off again) the saucer could now also serve as an initial base of operations and colony fabrication hub for the settlement of new worlds once successfully landed. The Main shuttlebay could be rapidly converted into a fabrication center and the powerful tractor arrays would move assembled habitat components and machinery to the planet's surface. The assortment of shuttle craft served as survey and resource acquisition role as the colonists and crew spread out to explore the new world.

All in all, the refitted Galaxy class leapfrogged the Federation into a new golden age of Starfleet exploration.