Spacedock Birmingham

Based in Birmingham, this is a meeting chapter of STARFLEET International. Home dock of 8 vessels; USS James Watt, USS Matthew Boulton, USS J. R. R. Tolkein, USS George Cadbury, USS Geekology, USS Terry Pratchett, USS Julie Walters and USS Optimus Prime.

RL: A centralised club for fans of Star Trek in the Birmingham and surrounding area of the West Midlands and beyond. Meets to start in 2017, and alignment with SFI being considered.

In Universe: The year is 2397. It is 20 years since the end of the Dominion War. It is 18 years since Shinzon of Remus took control of the Romulan senate and was promptly removed. Peace with the Romulan Empire was made by Captain Riker of the U. S. S. Titan in the years that follows, but unfortunately a supernova in 2387 destroyed Romulus and in the following 10 years there have been major shift in the political landscape of the galaxy.

The Romulan people have become part of the Federation along with Cardassia, and after more internal unrest, the Klingons have also come in from the cold. As a result the Federation spans a great deal of both the Alpha and Beta quadrants and Starfleet is a much more diverse organisation, four times that of the size it was in 2364, in order to patrol the much larger Federation, support it's citizens and still explore further.

Starfleet is now an organisation made up of four command branches to enable efficient chains of command and effective administration. Each of these command branches has it's own symbol and Starfleet as a whole has encouraged the return of both individual ship symbols and the return of division symbols for command, science, medical, operations and intelligence. Section 31 has been cut out of the Federation and consigned to history along with the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order.

The Federation is big and powerful and misunderstood by many in the rest of the galaxy who have, to their perception, seen the fall of the Klingon, Romulan and Cardassian empires to this bohemoth that even managed to neutralise the Dominion. Border skirmishes with the Orions, the Breen and the Gorn have become more frequent and every day brings new first contact opporunities.

Spacedock Birmingham is a large Ournal class Spacedock in geosynchonous orbit above the city of Birmingham. Though she can house ships as large as the Galaxy, Soveriegn and even Odyssey classes her dry dock facilities and those around her making up the Birmingham fleet yards are bulding the latest regeneration of the Constitution class starship that proved once again, during the Dominion War, that it was an extremely capable and flexible spaceframe. Two generations on from the Wyvern subclass that the "Connies" took on during the war, the new James Watt subclass (AKA Constitution X) offers a well known spaceframe, a legendary silhouette, known across the galaxy and a modular approach to make it the most flexible series of ships in the fleet. An inital 8 vessels are being constructed for deployment as Spacedock and Ambassadorial support, with further orders expected potentially to support Earth's other 3 main Spacedocks and beyond.

With culturally diverse crews and an ever expanding frontier, new challenges are always around the corner.