Haakona Class

The Haakona-class warbird battleship is a large Romulan starship that serves as a successor in role to the D’Deridex-class warbird battleship. Though envisioned as early as the Dominion War, this class didn’t start production until an extremely large vessel was needed for the evacuation of Romulus, starting in 2381. Ships of this class were later refit by the fledgling Romulan Republic as a warship, serving as the early backbone of their navy. Uniquely among Romulan ships, the Haakona is capable of separating into two independent, warp-capable vessels: the much larger alpha section that contains the vast majority of the ship’s armaments and other systems, and the smaller beta section that serves as a more nimble escort vessel and scout. As of the 2400s, the Haakona serves as a generalist capital ship with additional fleet support, logistics, and engineering functionality provided by its massive cargo holds.

Science and Exploration

Haakona-class warbirds are large and complex vessels that require crews in the thousands to operate at peak efficiency. While they maintain a capable suite of science labs and sensors, their primary role is not exploration. They will occasionally take on scientific surveys that may be along their normal course, and, like all Romulan ships, they will divert to investigate phenomena that may have value for the Republic, but they are better used for military purposes. They are large enough to serve as a resupply point for smaller exploratory vessels, though. For long-range expeditions they can serve as a logistics centerpiece or flagship, similar in many respects to the function of a Federation Odyssey-class heavy explorer, but it would not make sense from a capabilities standpoint to task this ship with independent exploratory missions unless the mission profile requires her size for large equipment.

Diplomacy

Due to their sheer size, Haakona-class vessels can be used for diplomatic missions where the purpose is to impress or intimidate the Romulans’ negotiating partners. They’re also more than capable of hosting large multi-party talks. They’re not particularly fast, however, so they’re unsuited to diplomatic courier roles. They’re often sent to handle border disputes or other minor diplomatic interactions that are near their patrol stations, since their commanders are generally quite experienced officers, given the time in service necessary to rise up the ranks and lead a crew of 5,000.

Engineering

At a glance, Haakona-class vessels are significantly larger than D’Deridex-class vessels, but on further inspection the size difference becomes even more substantial, as the Haakona does not have the hollow spaces that the D’Deridex does. When used as evacuation ships, this massive internal volume was used to hold up to 60,000 refugees. Much of that space has since been replaced with weapons, labs, and more comfortable quarters, but they retain massive cargo bays and the ability to transport up to 20,000 troops or refugees, even configured as a warship. Propulsion systems aboard the Haakona are not particularly innovative, just large. When in docked mode, the ship has two singularity cores that each feed two nacelles, and in separated flight mode the lower beta section is capable of both warp and impulse speeds. The separation systems were reverse-engineered from the Romulans’ brief possession of the USS Prometheus, and the ship separates primarily for tactical functions.

Tactical

Among the largest ships ever built by the Romulans or any Alpha/Beta quadrant power, the Haakona is an intimidating and capable battleship. It is not, however, pound-for-pound stronger than other warbird classes, as so much of its internal volume remains configured to carry cargo and personnel. These lumbering ships rely on precision timing with their cloaking devices to get more agile ships into their forward firing arcs for devastating alpha strikes. Once an engagement has begun, they can fend off other ships with their weaker side and rear-mounted weapons, but they can easily get bogged down by concerted swarms of frigates. To counter this, the beta section can detach to drive off smaller vessels. Alternatively, a Haakona will remain connected and use the power of both sections to simply allow other ships to exhaust themselves trying to take her shields down.

In most situations, Haakona-class warbirds are used for border patrol missions, but aren’t a first choice for missions where they must function in purely tactical roles on their own. They do make excellent supply, support, and command ships for fleets of smaller ships, however.

Shipboard Life

The internal structure of Haakona-class starships shares a lot in common with earlier warbird classes, in that it is austere and utilitarian. Life aboard a ship of this class is very similar to the experience serving aboard a D’Deridex-class warbird, but with a much larger crew. When packed with colonists or troops, they can feel quite crowded, but for exploratory missions, the crew has more room to spread out. For most officers, this can be a rather staid or boring posting, as these ships generally stick to bread-and-butter missions, but they are an opportunity to grow in their experience supervising larger departments. Sometimes, officers being considered for independent command are given command of the beta section to allow them to demonstrate their ability under controlled circumstances.

Haakona-class History

When first conceived, the Haakona was intended to be a super-capital successor to the D’Deridex-class warbird during the Dominion War, but the design was not realized until well after the war had ended. The Romulans’ brief possession of the USS Prometheus caused the Romulan Navy to investigate how multi-vector technology could be incorporated into their newest designs, which further slowed the design process. Before the first units could be built, it was discovered that Romulus’s sun was only years away from a supernova. As such, the design was stripped of much of its internal systems to serve as a massive evacuation ship.

Many of these vessels were hastily constructed to aid in the evacuation of Romulus, many without full weapons suites installed or even cloaking devices. Some of them were broken down for materials to expedite the construction of refugee colonies, but the bulk of them remained in service after the eventual destruction of Romulus. Because of their role in serving refugees, the majority of these ships were quickly appropriated by the fledgling Romulan Republic.

In Republic service, the Haakona was quickly brought up to full military standards with weapons systems salvaged from other ships. In their role as the military backbone of the early Romulan Republic Navy, they were able to deter would-be raids from powers that saw the Romulans as vulnerable. While slower and less agile than purpose-built Republic ships, the Haakona remains a solid design that has few peers when it comes to moving large groups of people from place to place. They have settled into an all-rounder capital ship role, providing additional logistics and support capabilities to Romulan Republic fleets. Several ships of this class are used to construct Romulan space stations and planetary facilities.

The Haakona-class In Play

• While large, the Haakona is not the most powerful Romulan warbird class; its bulk is largely taken up by cargo and passenger quarters, as its first role in the fleet was as an evacuation ship. Even still, they are capable warships when called upon.
• The captain of a Haakona-class ship would be experienced enough to command a large crew, but likely would not be as senior as an officer assigned to command one of the purpose-built Romulan Republic ships. Engineers and logisticians would be excellent candidates to command these ships.
• In some ways, this class serves a similar function to the Federation Odyssey-class heavy explorer, in terms of its ability to sustain a fleet of smaller ships with its logistics and engineering facilities.
• Many citizens of the Romulan Republic would have been transported on these ships at one point or another in their lives, and so they are remembered with great affection.