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| − | Wallenberg-class tugs are specialized vessels intended to move chains of large cargo modules long distances. A successor design to the Ptolemy-class, it was first designed in the late 2370s, but did not see widespread service until the 2380s. They were notably used during the abortive evacuation of Romulus in the early 2380s. Hundreds of these ships were destroyed during the Synth Attack on Mars in 2385, but hundreds more are still in service as of 2402, in Starfleet and civilian hands. Utilitarian and easy to build, they are essentially a large warp sled with powerful tractor beam emitters.
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| − | ===Class History===
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| − | The class was designed in the late 2370s as a replacement for the Federation's aging cargo tugs, especially the Ptolemy-class and its subsequent refit designs. The brief was relatively simple: accomplish cargo towing missions with reliability and endurance. Unlike the Ptolemy, the Wallenberg would accommodate only cargo and colony pods that were self-sustaining, which would streamline construction and minimize the possibilities for component failure. By 2379, several of these starships were already under construction when Starfleet was given the assignment to evacuate Romulus in 2381, under the designation Type-17 Cargo Tug. The design was simplified even further, with half of its superstructure removed (which left the design with the appearance of literally being cut in half) and it was slated for mass production at Utopia Planitia. The class was finally given a name, as well, Wallenberg, after Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who used his influence and immunity to help many Jews escape the Holocaust in German-occupied Hungary during Earth's Second World War.
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| − | The existing ships, such as the Nightingale, were also pressed into service here. With a full train of colony pods, a Wallenberg could take a thousand people per trip. It would take 250 of them to move a million people per month (assuming a distance of about 20 light-years to the evacuation site), so Starfleet placed an essentially unlimited order to handle the gargantuan task of evacuating the entire population of Romulus, along with pressing every available ship into service.
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| − | These ships moved so rapidly off of the assembly lines that many were not painted or named when they left for Romulus. To speed up production, Starfleet dramatically increased its use of A500 synths at Utopia Planitia, and once production was ramped up, they were leaving the yards at a rate of nearly 25 per week. Between 2381 and 2385, nearly 5,000 of these ships were built, but even a fleet of that size would take nearly 25 years to fully evacuate the planet. Between Romulan military assets and other starships, though, Starfleet was tentatively optimistic that the bulk of the population could be evacuated before the predicted demise of the Romulan sun in 2387 or 2388. A major issue with the evacuation was that the evacuation pods needed to be made again for each trip, as the SCE was having trouble building enough housing at the refugee sites and the life support systems of the pods that weren't consumed in this way needed an overhaul after each mission, anyway. The Wallenberg's engines also needed periodic refits after pulling five pods on extended interstellar trips over and over again, which meant that at any given time, there were more ships in port receiving new pods or repairs as there were ships ready to leave on their first trips.
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| − | Disaster struck in 2385, though. On First Contact Day, when the bulk of the Wallenberg-class fleet was at Utopia Planitia, rogue Synths destroyed the shipyards, the entire fleet, and the majority of the planet's surface, which put an instant halt to the evacuation efforts. While there were still several hundred transports off world, they were not nearly enough to complete the evacuation. Indeed, the Federation Council pulled the plug on the entire effort within days of the attack.
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| − | The remaining Wallenberg-class ships were either refit to full Starfleet standards and assigned to important strategic cargo routes (such as moving starship parts between shipyards or fuel tanker duties) or passed to civilian agencies and private groups for freight transport duties. While the design is not retired, there are so many still in service that it is not presently being built, as of 2402, and is a favored vessel for colonial transport duties.
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| | [[Category: Engineering]][[Category: Starship]] | | [[Category: Engineering]][[Category: Starship]] |
Wallenberg Class Tug
