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Liberty Class Enterprise

By Jay Smith

This is the USS Enterprise, the second Liberty class starship to be commissioned.

She was launched in 2229 under the command of Captain Katherine Kane, who over the space of two consecutive five year missions made more first contacts (including the Zaranites, Xelations and the Edoa) than any other starfleet captain (up to that point), including Jonathan Archer. The Enterprise was also instrumental in fostering peace between the Kryans and the Fanzzini, which helped lower tensions in the Metronis sector and surrounding area.

Kane (who had now been promoted to commodore at the beginning of the Enterprise's second five year mission) made contact with the Velotia, helping them to evacuate there home world which was on the verge of an ecological disaster. The Federation engaged in a massive relief effort, headed up by the Enterprise, to relocate the Velotian Population to a new home world. Within thirty years the Velotians where able to rebuild their society and where on the verge of joining the Federation.

In 2239 the Enterprise pulled into dry dock at starbase 15 at the end of its second five year mission to under go some minor upgrades and repairs. At this time, Kane left the Enterprise to take command of Starbase 15 and the newly promoted Captain Robert April took command of the Enterprise for its third five year mission.

Captain April took the Enterprise out into the Typerias region where they made contact with the peace loving Caitians, a sentient feline race, but also made first contact with their distant cousins the Kzinti who attempted to raid and capture the Enterprise. April was able to see off the attackers and the Enterprise was able to escape with only minimal damage. In the same sector the Enterprise where able to arrange a meeting with a trading partner of the caitains, the Aurelians, a race of avian's who advances in science even outstripped the Federation's at that time. Both races would become allies and eventual members of the Federation in no small part due to April and the Enterprise.

By 2244 April had completed his first mission and the Enterprise herself was now in its fifteenth year of service. Many new advances had been made in the fields of warp power, construction, defensive and offensive systems and Starfleet command decided that rather than going to the large expense of a major refit it was better to retire the Enterprise from active service. On 4th June 2244 the Enterprise arrived back at Earth Space dock to a massive fanfare and celebration of the final voyage of the Starship Enterprise NCC-1501.

Close by in dry dock sat Captain April's next command, the newly completed USS Enterprise NCC-1701.

After seeing the movie Star Trek I found that I preferred the overall look of the USS Kelvin compared to the USS Enterprise (while not a bad looking ship, it just wasn't what I would have liked).

I had bought several of the 1/2500 scale Kelvin kits from Gizmotron models and so figured why not build a ''Kelvin-esque'' Enterprise. The only parts that needed to be built from scratch where the connecting dorsal as well as the engine pylons which I was able to do quite quickly. the decals are taken from various different sheets.

Although the original model is meant to be in 1/2500 scale I think it doesn't look too out of place along side my other 1/1400 scale models.

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