It’s been a brutal few years for Starfleet. The Dominion War is just
over, but Starfleet has suffered significant losses. It’s time to
rebuild and explore. In the far corners of the Federation, near the
infamous Briar Patch in sector 441, a new station is built. Slowly but
surely, Solaris Station takes shape.
A remote Outpost at first, the Station slowly was expanded into a
major Operations Hub for the Federation, trade with the near Ba’ku
starts to pick up even more frequent than first anticipated. The Station
becomes a Social Hub and magnet for many sorts of characters. But with
every light there is a shadow too. Smugglers, low life, criminals and
people left behind by the Federation in the War, are drawn to it.
Solaris itself was never intended to be anything more than a remote
base, but faced with new responsibilities and new threats to the
Federation. The Station Command is requesting patrol vessels in order to
at least patrol the near systems and eventually defend the Station.
Unfortunately, the Federation still hasn’t recovered from the previous
war with the Dominion yet. Realizing the strategic importance of Solaris
, Starfleet assigns 3 combat hardened Veterans to Solaris: Captains
McMillan, Sørensen and Slade. Their mission is simple: Protect Solaris
and it’s neighboring sectors by any means necessary.
Starfleet can’t spare any state of the art ships though… but they did
have a few old ships, which were simply gathering dust. These were
experimental designs, created roughly 200 years ago, which were never
put in production. It is upon these vessels that the three captains
arrive at Solaris: the Artemis class frigates USS Franklin and USS
Odyssey, and the Hunter class attack vessel USS Nexus.
And so, the work begins. Updating the many systems to the Starfleet regulations of the 24th
century proves to be impossible, so the three captains decide to only
replace the most necessary parts, like the computer- and warpcores.
Besides their ships though, they need crews as well, but Starfleet has
already made it clear they can’t simply send additional crew this far
out. So, the captains turn to the Solaris Station crew, travelers
passing by and people looking for action. And so, the Solaris Support
Fleet is created: a fleet that officially answers to Starfleet, but
doesn’t go out of its way to always follow Starfleet’s rules and
regulations to the letter. Their mission, after all, is to protect
Solaris Station by *any* means necessary…
Sadly, disaster strikes the Solaris Support Fleet in their early
days: because Captain Slade succeeded in making the USS Nexus
operational first, she took her ship out to patrol the outer edges of
the system. Unfortunately, she never came back. Once operational, the
USS Franklin and the USS Odyssey went out searching for her, but there
was no sign of her.
With just Sørensen and McMillan left, both captains decide to keep on
going, protecting Solaris Station… and hopefully find out what happened
to Slade…
