During the great wasteland between TOS and TNG, fans turned to grey market productions of ship schematics and fandom supposition to feed our need for more Trek. Based in part on real world publications like Janes Defense Weekly- the defacto public source for military information in the 1980’s – some fan productions created entire mythologies and new ship classes around these publications.  Dreadnoughts, cruisers and even (gasp!) carriers skirted the lines between hand drawn fan art to professional rendered schematics with the advent of personal computers.

With tomorrows launch of the new flagships in Star Trek Online, Ship Designer Thomas Marrone produced an amazing fictional look at the creation of the Federations T6 flagships with his take on Jane’s Defense Weekly – Jayce’s Navy Interstellar.

This lavishly illustrated periodical covers all three variants touching on the history of the creation of these new flagships, with insights and technical information that any ship-lover drools to see.  And yes, Thomas’s badges are represented here as well.  Note: the technical stats are entirely fictional, and are not representative of the ships in Star Trek Online.

You can view and download the PDF version of his article here.  It’s worth the read, and frankly goes a long way to help with immersion in the game.  Kudos to Thomas for this amazing example of game backstory.