Summary

Name: U.F.S. Pioneer
Registry: TF-1618
Fleet: Terran Starfleet
Class: Nautilus Cruiser
Crew: 110
Launched: December 2041
Cruising speed: 10.4 ly/day

The U.F.S. Pioneer is the third ship of the Nautilus Class that has been built, and the eighth interstellar ship ever built by Terra under the Federation's stewardship. The ship is one of the oldest designs in the fleet, and Terra was finding its feet in interstellar travel when designing the Nautilus class cruisers. The class has its flaws, despite using off-the-shelf components from UFIS, such as the tight interior design with narrow corridors and low ceilings that some larger UFIS members and allies will have trouble with, and the fact that not all decks are accessible by elevator. Nontheless, the Nautilus class would prove to be a vital stepping stone of Terra's ventures into the galaxy, of which the Pioneer was one of them.

The Nautilus Class is a large cruiser, with a length of 314 meters and a wingspan of 312 meters. It has eight fully accessible decks (and a ninth deck at the bottom for equipment), and has three modules that can separate from the main hull of the ship. The most important of which is the Primary Survival Module at the back of the ship. This large module is at the back of the ship and contains the majority of the crew's quarters, as well as the Bridge, Sick Bay, the main computer, life support, back-up systems, mess hall, kitchen, material resynthesiser, fitness area, its own subluminal drive and the black box telemetry recorder. The two Secondary Survival Modules towards the front of the ship contain guest rooms and a few crew quarters. These survival modules can be ejected from the ship in case of an emergency, and the secondary modules can reconnect with the primary one, forming one ship again. The main hull contains all equipment for the warp drive, as well as the main power generator and the shuttle deck (with a complement of two shuttle craft). The main hull also hosts some labs, primary sensor arrays, primary weapons weapons, deflectors, a "Battle Bridge" for when the Primary Survival Module is separated, and plenty of cargo space. For safety and tactical reasons, the main hull doesn't contain any crew quarters, and only a few rarely used guest quarters. In cases of emergency, some of these cargo bays can be transformed into makeshift sleeping areas (e.g. evacuation missions). The bottom of the hull is covered with ceramic plating to allow this ship to survive atmosphere re-entry for planetary flight, and it is able to land on planets.

What makes the Pioneer remarkable is that it's the first ship in the Terran fleet that has several alien crew members in its staff. This was done with the idea in mind of promoting diversity, and therefore maintaining peace, with the Wellspring War still fresh in the Terran admirality's memory. Although some crew members were assigned to the ship with this goal genuinely in mind, it was also cynically used by the admirality to dump all the "deviants" on the ship. This resulted in a crew of misfits, who found a family in each other and formed a cohesive crew unlike any other ship before them. Under the command of captain Higgs, they even gained a crew member in the form of the new Holographic Assistant system, which with the help of some crew members became a sentient being. After an incident put captain Higgs out of commission, the command of the ship was transfered to the up and coming Hedseon captain Ceigh, the first alien to ever command a Terran ship. It is under their command that this ship became something truly special....
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So here we finally have a look at the actual ship this series takes place on. It took me quite some hours to model this ship, but she came out a beauty!

UFIS story universe is by  Sabrina-taur
Ship design inspired on an UFIS cruiser design by  Dame Zephyr

Modeled in Blender