HOME | DD

Description

Ported to OBJ from one of several different fan-created models made for the Starfleet Command (SFC) series of video games. Original Loknar design in both TOS/TAS and TMP era forms created by Forest Brown and Dana Knutson for FASA Corporation's various Franchise licensed Trek gaming products back inthe day. USS Phobos TMP era concept and original CG model by "Lt. Kevin Riley." Iverson class comes from Jackill's Starfleet Reference Manual Volume 1. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. NO MODEL DOWNLOAD.

Loknar was without a doubt the Federation Starfleet's best starship combatant of the TOS/TAS era, not to mention its best heavy frigate class fielded up to that time. For the TMP era, Starfleet wanted as many Loknars as it could get upgraded and back in the field as fast as possible, given all the new Klingon stuff that was also coming out for the TMP era. To make this happen they farmed out the Loknar upgrade program to multiple shipyards, as well as granting each of these some leeway in how they interpreted what they needed to do so long as it got done and done right, given what happened with the initial launch of the upgraded Enterprise. To their credit each Loknar sent in for its full LN-64 upgrade was completed and put back in service as fast as it could be physically managed, but this also resulted in a number of builder's variances on the original Loknar TMP upgrade proposal which in turn made for some rather interesting visual differences from one upgraded class member to another, given which particular shipyard did its upgrade (the relocation [if done] of the shuttlecraft bay, the navigational deflector or deflectors, the location and number of photon torpedo systems, etc.). All the same Starfleet was able to get 17 of its surviving 27 Loknars upgraded to the full LN-64 linear warp standard and returned to service before money ran low. It was a good thing they did too, given the subsequent appearance of the Klingon's brand new Sivista class heavy frigate. It was the only ship of the era that could beat the upgraded Loknar in a straightforward one-on-one engagement assuming veteran starship captains of equal skill in command with no slip-ups on the part of either one, but computer war games sims also consistently showed that Sivista would get badly mauled in the process and there was a one-in-three chance that both of its dual fly-by-wire custom flight control computers would get knocked out during the battle, which in turn would dramatically flip the odds in favor of the upgraded Loknar even if she was badly damaged. Perhaps the Klingons ran their own sims and got the same results as well, because they pointedly avoided any engagements where a Sivista might have to tangle with a upgraded Loknar. The few times such encounters managed to happen anyway, they showed that the sims had been correct. As one civilian starship spotter at the time put it, "Sometimes being second best is still good enough to get the job done." ^_^

Starfleet was never able to raise the money to give the rest of the Loknar class either the LN-64 or LN-60 upgrades, so in the end it had to settle for the less-than-desirable LN-52 path for them. They became known as the Thufis class and I have a separate entry on them. As for those Loknars that did get the full LN-64 upgrade, they served at the forefront of all major Starfleet actions and more than a few minor ones for the rest of the TMP era. They did so well that as the TMP era neared its end and tensions with the Klingons began to ratchet even higher, the Federation Council changed course and authorized the construction of ten (10) more Loknars built from the keel up in full LN-64 TMP era form. These became known as the Iverson class and sported even more differences with the original TMP era Loknar upgrade proposal, given that they were built late and that there was plenty of service data available on the various earlier upgraded Loknars upon which to base improvements. At the same time, as each new Iverson entered service one of the older TMP era Loknars was brought in and upgraded again to as close to the new Iverson standard as its older hull form permitted. When all was said and done and also taking into account the use of the second-tier LN-52 upgraded Thufis class for duties and missions that didn't need one of the better LN-64 upgraded Loknars (save for the loss of Noma da Ren, best discussed elsewhere), this combination assured that the Loknar class continued as the dominant Federation Starfleet Class I heavy frigate type for the whole of the TMP era.

In closing, I would like to note that perhaps the most famous of the upgraded TMP era Loknars was USS Phobos (NCC-2786, see above image). She had quite the service record both in the TOS/TAS era and through the whole of the TMP era. Efforts to save her from the scrapper's torch at the end of her Starfleet career were successful, and you can still see her today (at the end of the TNG/DS9/VOY era - ed.) docked at the Starfleet Museum orbital complex at Terra. Beside her in the same dock is the Klingon Sivista class heavy frigate IKV meqleH, third ship built of her class and likewise preserved after considerable effort on the part of both Federation and Klingon interests (long story there, best somebody else tells it). This author was told that the arrangement was deliberately done this way by the museum spaceyards curators, so that visitors would be able to see and experience for themselves the two best starship combatants, Federation and Klingon, of the TMP era.

Loknar in her original TMP upgraded form, as well as the original backstory for the class (see FASA's Federation Ship Recognition Manual), is semi-canon as it comes from the old FASA gaming continuity. All else is fanon including both the tale of the upgraded Phobos (look for it on YouTube!) and my overall writeup above, which has been rewritten from the one I originally did for my old Federation Fleet Review (FFR). What you do with all of this in your own Trek multiverse thread(s) is of course up to you.

Live long and prosper.

NOTE - The business about TMP era Loknar class builder's (shipyard) variances is a real world take that will work in all Trek multiverse threads and is a good means of hand-waving away all of the various Loknar TMP era fan designs out there, because this actually happened with the various World War I era British "Admiralty" destroyer design programs and how these were both implemented and built in practice. A couple of somewhat similar United States Navy examples for the early Cold War era are the subsequent SCB-27 and SCB-125 upgrade programs for the old World War II era Essex class aircraft carriers, and the FRAM I and FRAM II upgrade programs for selected World War II era destroyer classes, and so on. In all three cases you wound up with a lot of ships in all affected classes that didn't quite look like each other even though they were actually members of the same class. Something different here, something missing or removed over there, something else relocated elsewhere, and so on. Just some brain food there for you non-naval types to chew on. FYI this was something the Gunther/Sofia school of classic Trek tech fandom did in their day if you actually read their stuff instead of just goggling at the pics, and you can do the same thing too in hand-waving away a lot of other fan created and modded stuff out there if that's the route you want to go. Builder's variances ... yeah! That might just work!

Description

Ported to OBJ from one of several different fan-created models made for the Starfleet Command (SFC) series of video games. Original Loknar design in both TOS/TAS and TMP era forms created by Forest Brown and Dana Knutson for FASA Corporation's various Franchise licensed Trek gaming products back inthe day. USS Phobos TMP era concept and original CG model by "Lt. Kevin Riley." Iverson class comes from Jackill's Starfleet Reference Manual Volume 1. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. NO MODEL DOWNLOAD.

Loknar was without a doubt the Federation Starfleet's best starship combatant of the TOS/TAS era, not to mention its best heavy frigate class fielded up to that time. For the TMP era, Starfleet wanted as many Loknars as it could get upgraded and back in the field as fast as possible, given all the new Klingon stuff that was also coming out for the TMP era. To make this happen they farmed out the Loknar upgrade program to multiple shipyards, as well as granting each of these some leeway in how they interpreted what they needed to do so long as it got done and done right, given what happened with the initial launch of the upgraded Enterprise. To their credit each Loknar sent in for its full LN-64 upgrade was completed and put back in service as fast as it could be physically managed, but this also resulted in a number of builder's variances on the original Loknar TMP upgrade proposal which in turn made for some rather interesting visual differences from one upgraded class member to another, given which particular shipyard did its upgrade (the relocation [if done] of the shuttlecraft bay, the navigational deflector or deflectors, the location and number of photon torpedo systems, etc.). All the same Starfleet was able to get 17 of its surviving 27 Loknars upgraded to the full LN-64 linear warp standard and returned to service before money ran low. It was a good thing they did too, given the subsequent appearance of the Klingon's brand new Sivista class heavy frigate. It was the only ship of the era that could beat the upgraded Loknar in a straightforward one-on-one engagement assuming veteran starship captains of equal skill in command with no slip-ups on the part of either one, but computer war games sims also consistently showed that Sivista would get badly mauled in the process and there was a one-in-three chance that both of its dual fly-by-wire custom flight control computers would get knocked out during the battle, which in turn would dramatically flip the odds in favor of the upgraded Loknar even if she was badly damaged. Perhaps the Klingons ran their own sims and got the same results as well, because they pointedly avoided any engagements where a Sivista might have to tangle with a upgraded Loknar. The few times such encounters managed to happen anyway, they showed that the sims had been correct. As one civilian starship spotter at the time put it, "Sometimes being second best is still good enough to get the job done." ^_^

Starfleet was never able to raise the money to give the rest of the Loknar class either the LN-64 or LN-60 upgrades, so in the end it had to settle for the less-than-desirable LN-52 path for them. They became known as the Thufis class and I have a separate entry on them. As for those Loknars that did get the full LN-64 upgrade, they served at the forefront of all major Starfleet actions and more than a few minor ones for the rest of the TMP era. They did so well that as the TMP era neared its end and tensions with the Klingons began to ratchet even higher, the Federation Council changed course and authorized the construction of ten (10) more Loknars built from the keel up in full LN-64 TMP era form. These became known as the Iverson class and sported even more differences with the original TMP era Loknar upgrade proposal, given that they were built late and that there was plenty of service data available on the various earlier upgraded Loknars upon which to base improvements. At the same time, as each new Iverson entered service one of the older TMP era Loknars was brought in and upgraded again to as close to the new Iverson standard as its older hull form permitted. When all was said and done and also taking into account the use of the second-tier LN-52 upgraded Thufis class for duties and missions that didn't need one of the better LN-64 upgraded Loknars (save for the loss of Noma da Ren, best discussed elsewhere), this combination assured that the Loknar class continued as the dominant Federation Starfleet Class I heavy frigate type for the whole of the TMP era.

In closing, I would like to note that perhaps the most famous of the upgraded TMP era Loknars was USS Phobos (NCC-2786, see above image). She had quite the service record both in the TOS/TAS era and through the whole of the TMP era. Efforts to save her from the scrapper's torch at the end of her Starfleet career were successful, and you can still see her today (at the end of the TNG/DS9/VOY era - ed.) docked at the Starfleet Museum orbital complex at Terra. Beside her in the same dock is the Klingon Sivista class heavy frigate IKV meqleH, third ship built of her class and likewise preserved after considerable effort on the part of both Federation and Klingon interests (long story there, best somebody else tells it). This author was told that the arrangement was deliberately done this way by the museum spaceyards curators, so that visitors would be able to see and experience for themselves the two best starship combatants, Federation and Klingon, of the TMP era.

Loknar in her original TMP upgraded form, as well as the original backstory for the class (see FASA's Federation Ship Recognition Manual), is semi-canon as it comes from the old FASA gaming continuity. All else is fanon including both the tale of the upgraded Phobos (look for it on YouTube!) and my overall writeup above, which has been rewritten from the one I originally did for my old Federation Fleet Review (FFR). What you do with all of this in your own Trek multiverse thread(s) is of course up to you.

Live long and prosper.

NOTE - The business about TMP era Loknar class builder's (shipyard) variances is a real world take that will work in all Trek multiverse threads and is a good means of hand-waving away all of the various Loknar TMP era fan designs out there, because this actually happened with the various World War I era British "Admiralty" destroyer design programs and how these were both implemented and built in practice. A couple of somewhat similar United States Navy examples for the early Cold War era are the subsequent SCB-27 and SCB-125 upgrade programs for the old World War II era Essex class aircraft carriers, and the FRAM I and FRAM II upgrade programs for selected World War II era destroyer classes, and so on. In all three cases you wound up with a lot of ships in all affected classes that didn't quite look like each other even though they were actually members of the same class. Something different here, something missing or removed over there, something else relocated elsewhere, and so on. Just some brain food there for you non-naval types to chew on. FYI this was something the Gunther/Sofia school of classic Trek tech fandom did in their day if you actually read their stuff instead of just goggling at the pics, and you can do the same thing too in hand-waving away a lot of other fan created and modded stuff out there if that's the route you want to go. Builder's variances ... yeah! That might just work!