| USS Asaph Hall |
|
| Class | William Lassell |
| Registry | NCC-1494-B |
| Owner | United Federation of Planets |
| Operator | Starfleet 5th Fleet |
| Launched | 2358 |
| Status | In Service |
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USS Asaph Hall
William Lassell-class Starship
Starship Registry NCC-1494-B
USS Asaph Hall is a William Lassell-class support and exploration cruiser currently in service with Starfleet, under the command of Gisele Moury. The ship is one of three surviving ships of her class, commissioned in the late 2350s as front-line exploration cruiser. She saw action in most major campaigns between 2360 and the Klingon War of the 2400s and has undergone several refits to extend her service life. Hall is considered a support vessel in modern Starfleet and operates out of Starbase 514.
History
USS Asaph Hall, hull number NCC-1494-B, is the third vessel in the four-ship William Lassell class of exploration cruisers. Laid down at Salazaar Shipyards in 2355 and commissioned in 2358, the ship was hustled into service with a base of existing technology to bridge a perceived “explorer gap” created by delays in the new Galaxy-class starships. A larger class run was envisioned, but a planned 12-ship order was pared down to just four as Starfleet ironed out problems with the Galaxy.
Hall took her name from American astronomer Asaph Hall, discoverer of the moons of Mars. The ship is the third in Starfleet to bear the name, following NCC-1494 (a Valley Forge-class cruiser circa 2227) and NCC-1494-A (an Excelsior-class cruiser commissioned in 2297). The name has been recycled mainly in recognition of the original Hall's celebrated duty jacket: The ship saw action at the Battle of Axanar among other battles and led the Federation defense at the Battle of Tau3 Eridani in early 2257, where a small fleet of older Federation ships defeated a larger Klingon strike force to forestall a push on Sector 001. Originally laid down as Showalter, the ship’s name was changed at the behest of Admiral Donald Rudd, whose grandfather had captained the original Hall at Tau3 Eridani.
Command of Hall was entrusted to CAPT Asfand Sadozai. The ship conducted an initial flyover of Mars, with a ceremonial close pass via Phobos and Deimos, before embarking on a seven-year exploration tour. The ship conducted mainly exploratory and colonial duties, including transporting a thousand colonists to the Federation outpost on Rana IV in 2361. The ship would be recalled later that year to conduct operations along the Cardassian frontier, taking part in a number of fleet actions. In 2363, Hall led a cross-border strike on the Cardassian outpost in the Hamal system, unsuccessfully attempting to knock out a major frontline supply depot but disabling four ships in the process.
By the time peace was reached in 2366, a battle-scratched Hall returned to Starbase 47 for minor tune-ups. Plans to dispatch her on a deep-space mission were scuttled by the depletion of Starfleet following Wolf 359, prompting Hall to be reassigned to regular patrol of the Neutral Zone and support for colonies there. The ship conducted surveys of several star poorly-documented systems around the Paulson Nebula and documented no less than 31 run-ins with Romulans between 2367 and 2373. A notable incident involved Hall and her crew recovering a partially intact Iconian datacore from a planet near the Hyralan system, allowing it to be isolated and studied by scientists at the Daystrom Institute.
Hall was recalled to frontline duty at the outbreak of the Dominion War. The ship notably led Starfleet’s eventual relief force to Betazed in 2375, pushing Dominion forces out of orbit following valiant ground action by local partisans and resistance fighters. Sadozai and crew joined the combined Alliance fleet thereafter and participated in the Battle of Cardassia. The ship was struck by a kamikaze Jem’Hadar fighter during the conflict, avoiding a catastrophic warp core breach only through the heroics of her engineers; she was towed back to the Draylon system thereafter and fully repaired.
During the ship’s repair cycle, CAPT Sadozai accepted promotion to Admiral and exited service. With Hall suffering significant crew attrition during the war and with the executive officer spot at the time vacant, the ship was eventually assigned to CAPT Ushra-Medi, one of the more notable Grazerites in Starfleet at the time. Her first year of command was spent supervising repairs and shakedowns before the ship formally re-entered service in 2377 with a mostly-new crew.
Under Ushra-Medi’s command, Hall was posted to the duties she was originally designed for: Deep-space exploration. The ship was sent coreward on a seven-year expedition, contributing to numerous discoveries in the constellations Hydra and Norma while making periodic visits to the coreward arm of the Federation. The ship was regularly spotted at Deep Space 4, close enough to Romulan space that she was able to respond not long after the Hobus supernova. Hall ferried several thousand Romulan refugees to shelter at DS4 and later the Norkan colony, though later cutoffs in relief efforts saw the ship reassigned, despite Ushra-Medi’s protests. Throughout the 2380s, Hall racked up numerous star system discoveries and no less than 20 first contacts in the rimward area.
Hall returned to Utopia Planitia in 2393 to undergo a lifecycle extension refit, including the installation of a new warp core and computing system. At this time, CAPT Ushra-Medi retired from Starfleet, passing command on to her newly-promoted Orion first officer, CAPT Aiyella Varei. The ship returned to the front lines in 2394, by now somewhat behind the technological cutting edge as newer classes of starship proliferated. With vessels like the Sovereign and Luna-class ships increasingly shouldering the frontline exploration burden, Hall was reposted to Deep Space 10 to provide support and relief in the Cardassian sector and conduct policing and presence missions in the broader Minos Korva region. The ship was routinely used as a platform for Cadet Cruises and enlistment tours, assisting in the training of no less than a thousand Starfleet officers and some 5,000 enlisted personnel between 2393 and 2403.
The ship was withdrawn coreward in 2403, coinciding with CAPT Varei retiring to pick up command of a deep-space explorer. CAPT Jim Cater assumed command of the ship that year, overseeing two years of relative peace before the ship was transferred to Deep Space K-7 with the outbreak of the Klingon War. By now no longer a front-line combat ship, Hall was attached to the Third Fleet as a long-range observation vessel, tasked with conducting intelligence-gathering with her long-range exploration sensors. The ship saw little combat during this period beyond a cat-and-mouse engagement with a more capable Negh’var-class ship over Beta Leonis Minoris, during which Hall and her crew successfully disabled the ship with the aid of a deflector beam and a transient spatial anomaly.
In 2410, Hall was recalled to Utopia Planitia for a complete modernization refit, preparing her for what Starfleet projected to be the final 25 to 30 years of her career. The ship received modern phaser arrays and propulsion systems, a modern torpedo-launching infrastructure, ultra-high-resolution data imagers, up-to-date computing systems and a range of other key equipment. These upgrades brought the ship to modern spec, enabling her to re-enter the fleet as a fast scout cruiser.
The ship encountered difficulties fairly quickly: Hall was dispatched to the Breen frontier, where she was caught up in a Breen attack during a mid-2412 relief effort to Defera. The attack severely injured Cater, who relinquished command and eventually accepted a medical discharge. First officer Ramon Ruiz accepted provisional command for the remainder of the year and into early 2413 as part of efforts to pacify the Breen presence over the Preserver archive. However, Hall was reassigned to Sector 001 thereafter, and Ruiz and crew were transferred to a more modern ship, with Hall reassigned to a long-duration study of several spatial anomalies, under the command of CAPT Anastasiya Honcharovna.
Years of relatively dull scientific service gave way to CAPT Honcharovna’s 2416 retirement. Command passed from there to CAPT Zell Letzke, formerly of USS Cypria. Her command was largely seen as a demotion following the loss of Cypria during the Hur’q Crisis - and a recognition that the young Trill had been pushed too far, too fast. An initially resentful CAPT Letzke spent a full five-year term aboard Hall, competently seeing the ship through a series of stellar surveys and a few encounters with Klingon rebel forces. By 2421, the young captain was considered to have largely restored her good name, returning the ship to McKinley Station that March.
Hall spent five months undergoing a final brace of upgrades, modernizing the ship with current-era phaser arrays and propulsion technology, among other systems upgrades. These additions are expected to extend the ship’s life to approximately 2437, when she is expected to be withdrawn from service. Command was allocated to CAPT Gisele Moury, another young captain whose service jacket includes postings aboard Starbase 381 and as executive of USS Quelimane The ship, now assigned to survey and support duties out of Starbase 514, is largely seen as a launch pad for a promising young captain to make her mark.
| Specifications |
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Length
Draft
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689 meters
118 meters
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| Decks | 29 |
| Standard Crew | 847 (149 officers, 698 enlisted) |
| Emergency Capacity | 2,750 |
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Armaments
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4x Type XIV phaser array
10x Type XIII phaser array
3x multi-purpose torpedo tube
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Defenses
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12x shield grids generating 5,600 MW
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Auxiliary Craft
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6x Type 11 shuttle
4x shuttlepod
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