Fleet History

The Early Days

STF’s Third Fleet has a long history with STF, long before the development of the WeBB, when the Third Fleet was the colony fleet on Prodigy’s Star Trek BB. In fact, even long before the official establishment of the Third Fleet, the ancient “Colony” of the former Arts BB, could be considered the original progenitor of this proud tradition. The Third Fleet has always been the explorers and the colonialists of STF, and that tradition continues, as the Third Fleet was the first STF fleet to exist on the Internet, via the new WeBB system.

Unfortunately, in 1995, the Third Fleet was disbanded due to inactivity on Prodigy. It is an unfortunate fact that the long time home of this great group has become stagnant, (due to the fading popularity of Prodigy in general and poor business decisions by the management of the company), which has made the need to develop the Internet side of the club a new priority of STF. The Former STF President, Greg Hertzsch, ordered the formation of the new WeBB, as a replacement for STF’s original interactive environment, the “Web Colony” of former President Randy E. McCullick.

The WeBB

On August 1st, 1997 (or, Stardate 97080.1), the Third Fleet was officially activated. The WeBB board, designed by Mike Bourdaa, was brought into its infant form, and President Hertzsch officially reactived the fleet, and the flagship, the USS Athena, to be placed under the command of Mike Bourdaa (AKA Captain Joshua Patrell).

The success of the Third Fleet has been so great, that it has overwhelmed the ability of one Fleet to contain all the vessels. An executive working decision was made that the Fleet would be split in half so that no fleet would ever have more than 6 different vessels within it. Fleet Headquarters Starbase 157 (formerly Starbase 117) is not technically an RPG area, instead it houses the Out of Character area for the third fleet

Fleet 4

Commodore Jeff Field, CO of the USS Montgomery, had assumed command of the Fourth Fleet as of 97101.7. The USS Ares, another former STF3 vessel, joined the Montgomery in the Fourth Fleet, along with two new vessels: The USS Alliance, and STF4's Headquarters, Deep Space 14.

Fleets 5 & 6

The Fifth Fleet, once a mere joke, was predicted to have a “decision made on it” by February 1998, in a previous version of this page. Well, it was off by about a week. On March 8, 1998, STF3’s then AFComm, BJ Phillips, was promoted to his own command, the new Fifth Fleet. With him, he took the USS Olympic, an as-yet-undetermined STF4 vessel, and the new USS Andorian, under the command of former president Randy McCullick.

Sixth Fleet was added on August 8, 1998

Present Day Fleet 3

The Third Fleet currently consists of five ships plus an outpost, all currently active and RPGing well, proving that the experiment in STF's future is a success.  The Third Fleet also includes Starbase 157, the command and control headquarters for the fleet. For a time, when there were only 4 approved ship classes, the Third Fleet had a partial Engineering Crossection of STF, having 4 different classes of vessels represented.

From text by James Speck.


Area of Responsibility

Fleet 3 had been assigned the part of the Federation nearest the galactic core in the Beta Quadrant, near the Romulan Star Empire. With the decommissioning of the Fleet 7, the area of responsibility has increased to the whole coreward area between the Cardassian Union and Ferengi Alliance on one side and the Romulan Star Empire on the other side. It covers stations like DS3 and DS4, the Typhon Expanse, Delta and the Angel System, where the matriarchal Angel One is.


Third Fleet Ships

Outpost 42

Captain: Captain Alexandra Bowley
First Officer: Commander Philip Graham

Outpost 42 was constructed some 24 years ago, and is stationed just above the Planet Xia. The Outpost is a place where aliens and human alike can join and discuss various things. The post is also a trading post where traders come to barter for and purchase merchandise. Many civilians are on the outpost, including the native inhabitants of Xia. Some of the Xians aboard serve in liaison positions. Others are vendors or are involved in other occupations. Xians are respected by many of the starfleet officers and enlisted personnel, even if they do not hold official positions. The Xian on board serve to guarantee that Xia is treated well by Federation employees.

USS Athena

Captain: Captain Andrew Robinson
First Officer: Commander Ian Kerby

The Athena is the flagship of the Fleet, currently commanded by Captain Andrew Robinson

The Athena has an illustrious history. Her first captain, Fleet Captain Joshua Patrell had literally lost his head while making an important command decision. Her second, Fleet Captain Charles Robinson, was removed from duty after billions of nanites slowly rendered him insane from the inside.

USS Atlantis

Captain: Captain Kendra Abbott
First Officer: Lt. Commander Robin Bird

The Atlantis is currently commanded by Captain Kendra Abbott

USS Aztec

Captain: Commodore Kenson Koh
First Officer: Commander Dean Inglis

The USS Aztec (NCC-89725) started off as a Visigoth class ship. It was destroyed at about stardate 02021.0 in an encounter with renegade Romulans. The USS Asten, a newly built Phoenix class ship was renamed the USS Aztec NCC-89725-A on stardate 02030.1 after successfully rescuing the Aztec's crew. After being heavily damaged by an accident onboard, the name transferred to a Victoria-class ship with a new registry number: NCC-89725-B.

USS Brandywine

Captain: Captain Catt Bennett
First Officer: Commander Richard Michaud

The USS Brandywine was formerly part of Fleet Seven. When the Fleet was dissolved, she was transferred to the Third Fleet.

USS Dresden

Captain: Captain Tim Martin
First Officer: Lt. Commander Edward Brough

The USS Dresden has a long history; longer than any other ship currently in the Third or Fourth fleets. It originally served as a member of the original “Colonial” Fleet, even then known as the Third Fleet, although that fleet was far different than the modern Third.

It was decommissioned sometime in 1995, due to membership downturns in STF on Prodigy, after having joined STF2 when the original Third Fleet was removed. It was recommissioned in August, 1997, as the second ship in the Third Fleet. The first commander of the vessel was Tyrall Brak. The ship went through several leadership changes in the CO and XO spots, while STF3 stabilized, before Captain Franco Torres took command in November 1997.

The Dresden has already been important in the history of the Third Fleet. Many important STF figures served on the ship, e.g. Seamus Hughes, Jean Flinois, Kat Blue, Colin Wyers.