Olympic Class

The Olympic-class medical frigate is the only class of vessel in active Starfleet service designed from the keel up as a hospital ship. Developed in the mid-24th century, the Olympic was Starfleet's response to growing humanitarian needs that could no longer be met by retrofitted medical vessels. Her distinct spherical primary hull maximizes the number of full-height decks for patient wards and treatment rooms compared to saucer-based designs. This class saw a steady production run for civilian and Starfleet Auxiliary service as a passenger liner, replacing patient spaces for passenger staterooms. In addition, there was been a limited run of vessels in this class configured for scientific research rather than medical treatment, with that variant serving with Starfleet, Starfleet Auxiliary, and Federation civilian research agencies. Production ended in the 2380s, but this class will remain in service for the foreseeable future and continues to receive routine systems upgrades.

Exploration and Science

Olympic-class vessels in mainline Starfleet service are used for routine, low-risk scientific and exploratory missions when they are not needed for medical duties, and they are well-equipped for these tasks. Both the primary and secondary hulls boast long bands of lateral sensors—typical for mid-24th century vessels—giving them expansive sensor coverage in all directions. These arrays mount the standard suite of Starfleet data collection instruments, and can also handle multiple secondary and tertiary equipment packages for experiments run separately from the ship's primary mission. These arrays are connected directly to two advanced computer cores, one in the sphere and the other in the stardrive section.

The ship's standard lab complement is six mission-configurable generalist labs, alongside ten dedicated medical labs and ten general biolabs to facilitate medical research and the analysis of patient samples. Vessels configured specifically for scientific research rather than medical functions have twenty configurable labs, and all of the space reserved for treatment facilities can be used for additional labs, meeting rooms, and specialized equipment bays to allow for dozens of projects to be conducted simultaneously.

Olympic-class vessels have an array of four probe launchers on the upper hemisphere of the saucer, which allow for the deployment of any standard probe. Medical and transport vessels routinely launch probes for Starfleet bureaus and projects while in transit. Vessels configured for research also possess the facilities to manufacture advanced custom probes.

While scientific missions are a secondary assignment for most ships of this class, the handful that are configured purely for research are among the most capable long-term research platforms in Starfleet. While they don't have the range or defenses to regularly leave Federation space without support, they can support multiple large teams for complex projects. Several of these vessels have also been configured to support the work of various Federation civilian research agencies and universities. They're also well-suited for scientific exchange programs, as they retain the large common recreation and reception facilities that other versions of this class have.

Diplomacy

Olympic-class ships are not only practical tools for Starfleet's humanitarian mission, but also a symbol of the Federation's commitment to benevolence. As such, they perform a diplomatic role anytime they're seen bringing relief to a troubled area. They're also used for direct diplomatic duties when mission priorities allow, particularly when Starfleet has been satisfied that there is no risk of hostile intent from any of the parties involved. The Federation regularly answers distress calls from neutral worlds that are experiencing medical crises, and so the captains of Olympic-class vessels must often negotiate with alien leaders for the vast array of considerations that must be made during a humanitarian response, ranging from the safety of the ship's crew to the proprietary nature of Federation technology to possible future collaborations or even membership in the Federation. Like any other mid-sized starship, they have sufficient conference space for bilateral and multilateral diplomatic talks, but they also have large lounges and other recreational facilities that are used for patient or passenger comfort, but which are equally well suited to hosting receptions.

The Starfleet Diplomatic Corps also maintains a handful of vessels in the personnel transport configuration that have been equipped with upgraded, luxurious interiors. These ships are used to host summits or to transport delegations from warp-capable civilizations whose vessels may not yet match Federation standards for speed, safety, or comfort. In a pinch, they can also serve as couriers, but their large crew size makes this a task better left to smaller vessels.

In any situation where combat is even a remote possibility, an Olympic-class ship must have an escort, or, ideally, another vessel will be sent in their place.

Engineering

Starfleet's medical vessel inventory before the Olympic class was mainly made up of older light cruisers and frigates that had been converted for use as hospital ships. Almost always, this left these ships a generation or more behind the latest engine technologies, rendering them slower and underpowered compared to the rest of the fleet. The Olympic incorporates capital ship-grade power generation systems and warp coils derived from the Ambassador-class emissary. With the significantly lower mass of the Olympic, these are able to propel these vessels to crisis areas at speeds that are still considered extremely fast by early 25th century standards. Over the decades, this class has received regular propulsion upgrades thanks to lessons learned by later classes, which have improved both performance and reliability.

Other than the engines, many of the systems on the Olympic are automated, and most are capable of some degree of self-repair or are hardened to reduce the amount of manual service required. This keeps the engineering crew small, to devote as much space as possible to mission-critical needs.

While still maintaining a distinct primary and secondary hull like most Starfleet vessels, Olympic-class vessels use a spherical primary hull rather than the saucer-shaped primary hulls found on most other classes. The spherical design actually has less total surface area than a saucer of the same diameter, but more of the decks are full height with vertical or near-vertical exterior compartments, which allows for better standardization of patient rooms and treatment facilities compared to saucer-shaped designs, which have varying heights along the edge of decks. This design further serves the needs of a medical ship by allowing for escape pods to be positioned at deck level, extremely close to patient care facilities. The secondary hull is long and thin, with windows on nearly every deck.

Olympic-class vessels are capable of routine vehicle separation and reintegration procedures. While reintegration could only originally be done at a starbase, the class has since been equipped with the same automated docking latch system found aboard ships such as the Galaxy-class explorer that allows this to be done in the field. The primary purpose of this maneuver is to allow the sphere section to be used as a self-contained lifeboat. Another use is to contain a virulent outbreak in one section of the ship without risking the crew and patients in the other section. When separated, the secondary hull has its own bridge and small deflector array, in addition to the ship's primary warp and impulse engines, while the sphere is limited to thruster propulsion. The sphere can be effectively left in orbit to serve as a hospital station, while the rest of the ship serves patients on the other side of a planetary body. Starfleet has experimented with using this capability to have specialized spheres tailored to different missions, but the process of swapping primary hulls takes at least several days with the proper calibrations to ensure a perfect match between the two sections. Since the secondary hull also has mission-critical features (sickbays for the medical variant and passenger quarters for the transport variant), it's not possible to fully change the function of an Olympic-class ship without a full refit.

The large aft shuttlebay is capable of holding a dozen large shuttles, runabouts, or other such craft, typically six personnel shuttles and six runabouts, for evacuation missions. It is positioned directly aft of a large transporter complex with eight personnel transporters between the ship’s primary port and starboard airlocks. This complex serves as the common point through which passengers or patients enter the ship, to either be greeted or triaged as is appropriate. There is also a runabout pad on the stern of the ship to allow multiple simultaneous departures or recoveries to occur at once. A large cargo hold in the lowest decks sphere section is accessible through cargo doors on the front of the vessel, which facilitates the rapid transfer of pre-fabricated hospital units or medical supplies.

Tactical

The Olympic is not a combat vessel. It has three Type-IX phaser arrays, two on the north and south poles of the primary hull and one on the aft end of the ship. These are primarily used to drive off small raiders or for navigational and scientific purposes, such as cutting into or destroying asteroids. The probe launcher could theoretically launch torpedoes, but they are not stocked on any Olympic-class ships to maintain their non-combatant status. Security details aboard the ship are also restricted to hand phasers only, no rifles or other heavy ordnance.

The ship is, however, equipped with shields as powerful as you would find on an explorer, powered by her ample warp core. In addition, her best defense is her speed: she can easily outclass almost any threat long enough to get help. On top of that, the Federation has made it a policy to respond extremely aggressively to attacks on these peaceful vessels, so their reputation alone makes any pirate think twice before attacking one. As of the early 25th century, these ships have been upgraded with regenerative shielding.

Shipboard Life

Olympic-class ships are quite comfortable to serve on. Demands on the command, engineering, and support crews tend to be low, as the ships are largely automated. Ships configured for medical or science duties have large crews of doctors and scientists who operate in a very collegial environment, typically with a captain drawn from the appropriate branch of service. There are several holodecks and two dozen smaller holosuites, any of which can also be used as medical facilities should the need arise, along with multiple lounges, an arboretum, gymnasia, and a library. The corridors are wide and bright, both to accommodate gurneys and to help the crew deal with extended periods in space.

A standard sickbay module is located near the center of the primary hull in all three variants, equipped with an EMH and substantial supplies. All Olympic-class ships have been upgraded to use full-ship holographic projectors, which can also be used to turn the cargo bays into medical facilities.

Variants

The Olympic was designed first and foremost as a medical frigate, and this is the configuration that the majority of the class operates in. Over the years, additional non-combat uses were found for the design, resulting in other variants for scientific research and personnel transport. A ship can be converted from one use to another, but this would take months in spacedock.

Medical Frigate

In their default configuration, Olympic class medical frigates are extremely capable mobile hospitals. They are "frigates" in the sense of being specialized vessels not equipped for the generalist mission profiles assigned to cruisers. With a medical crew of 750 supplemented by holographic medical personnel, they are capable of treating up to 2,000 patients during mass casualty events by using every available patient room, ward, holodeck, and cargo hold. In more standard operating conditions, they have 400 patient rooms that have data, power, and gas hookups to handle up to two biobeds for intermediate care patients or just a single biobed for intensive care patients. In addition, there are multiple large wards for limited care patients, allowing for a standard patient total patient load of 1,000. Beyond the main triage complex in the neck of the ship, there are a dozen treatment facilities equivalent to the standard sickbays found on most starships, along with ten fully-equipped operating rooms and numerous specialized treatment facilities.

These vessels carry multiple pre-fabricated mobile hospital units that can be deployed to planetary surfaces using cargo transporters or runabouts. During large-scale disasters, it's preferred to treat as many people on the planet's surface as possible if conditions allow for that, with only the most critical patients beaming up to the ship. Several independent EMH programs are available, along with specialised nursing holograms to supplement the biological crew.

A few of these vessels are owned and operated by civilian agencies. In addition, several dozen of these vessels are kept in ready-reserve status around the Federation under the auspices of Starfleet Auxiliary. Unlike permanently crewed medical frigates, the Starfleet Auxiliary crew gets the ship to its destination, and the medical staff meet the ship either there or along the way. At that point, the ship's chief medical officer assumes operational control of the mission, with the Starfleet Auxiliary captain responsible only for the safe navigation of the vessel.

Passenger Liner

The second variant to be developed, the passenger liner iteration of the Olympic class is the simplest in both form and function. In all respects similar to the medical version, the Olympic simply trades patient rooms and treatment facilities for passenger staterooms and added recreational facilities. Using the same powerful engines as any other member of her class, an Olympic-class passenger liner can transport 2,000 passengers from one end of the Federation to the other in both style and comfort.

Operating as part of Starfleet Auxiliary, many of these vessels operate regularly scheduled routes between the Federation's many member worlds, colonies, and starbases—though they're almost always reserved for the highest volume routes. A group of these vessels are also used for second-wave colonial transport. They lack the logistics capabilities to establish a new colony, but they have adequate cargo space to bring along the personal belongings of colonists ready to join an existing one. Starfleet itself also operates some of these liners in mainline service when it's necessary to support medical ships with additional evacuation capabilities or to move large numbers of personnel from place to place. For instance, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers has two Olympic-class vessels that are used to transport engineering teams between large worksites, such as starbases under construction.

The vessels in Starfleet and Starfleet Auxiliary service can be converted to hospital ships within ninety days, as all staterooms are equipped with the necessary hookups for biobeds and the ship's recreational facilities are cleverly built with paletized flooring to allow for surgical suites, patient wards, or other treatment facilities to be rapidly swapped in. A close observer will see that all of the public spaces aboard these ships have subtle lines in the flooring where bulkheads can be slotted in that mirror the configuration of the hospital version precisely.

In addition to those vessels in direct service with Starfleet, a number of Olympic-class liners are in service with civilian agencies, ranging from colonization and refugee initiatives to educational tour groups and cultural institutions. This includes both governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations. For instance, the largest mobile opera house in the world is housed aboard an Olympic-class vessel operated for the Federation Bureau of Culture's Xenomusicology Initiative. All such vessels are operated under a leased basis, with operational crews drawn from Starfleet Auxiliary and the understanding that they can be pressed into transport or medical service with Starfleet during times of crisis. There are no Olympic-class ships in purely private or commercial service.

Science Vessel

While Olympic-class medical frigates conduct routine scientific missions, there is also a purely scientific version of the class. Built in comparatively small numbers, the niche this variant plays is to provide a large, stable platform for multiple scientific teams to work simultaneously on projects within Federation space. They can operate with up to 750 scientists, depending on the mission. Unlike a true research cruiser such as the Sutherland, the Olympic in its scientific configuration doesn't bring the largest or the most advanced scientific equipment into the field, but instead focuses on bringing as many minds as possible. These ships have been used as force multipliers for groups of survey ships working in the same system, with the teams on the Olympic helping comb through data or analyze samples brought in by the other ships. They're also well-suited for types of science that require large, multi-disciplinary teams, such as archaeological digs. Their comfortable facilities make long-duration expeditions less taxing on morale. In many ways, they are like the scientific departments of a large explorer-type vessel.

A handful of Olympic-class science vessels are in service with Starfleet itself, while the remainder are operated by Starfleet Auxiliary on behalf of Federation governmental agencies or academic institutions, including the Daystrom Institute and Memory Alpha.

Class History

By the 2330s, Starfleet had already begun employing older Miranda II-class frigates as supply vessels, transports, and medical frigates. While they were perfectly adequate to move people or cargo, they were never considered ideal as medical vessels. For one, they were markedly slower than other ships in the fleet, and for another, simply removing their exploratory and tactical systems was not adequate to create a layout that was efficient for a medical vessel. As that decade bore on, Starfleet Medical began lobbying more seriously for a dedicated hospital ship, even as the Starfleet Corps of Engineers proposed further conversions of Constellation and even mothballed Constitution-class heavy cruisers for that role. The proposal spun in its tracks well into the 2350s, when the outbreak of open hostilities between the Cardassians and the Federation made the need for a dedicated medical ship extremely clear.

The final inciting incident that led to the development of the Olympic was the Setlik III massacre in 2355. Relief vessels were simply too slow to provide meaningful help to the civilian population there. Starfleet tasked the ADSB to design a vessel that would pair the engine systems of a heavy cruiser with accommodations for 1,000 patients and the requisite medical staff. With the Cardassian conflict approaching its height, the ADSB rushed to develop the class, borrowing the engine systems directly from the long-serving Ambassador-class cruiser, though the design was able to take advantage of advances being made for the Fleet Modernization Program classes.

Olympic began space trials in 2358, and the class was approved for full production by the end of 2360. The design immediately proved to be popular with both her crew and patients. By the end of that decade, Starfleet also authorized the passenger liner and science vessel variants, though the bulk of the production lines for this class remained for the medical frigate.

Between the Klingon-Federation War from 2372-2373 and the outbreak of the Dominion War in 2375, advances in treatment techniques, the advent of the EMH, and lessons learned from triage led to the maximum patient capacity of the Olympic increasing to 2,000 in a pinch. Throughout the Dominion War, they rescued countless thousands of Starfleet, civilian, and even Cardassian patients during post-battle search and rescue operations.

The Olympic class also served prominently with the Romulan Evacuation Fleet during the 2380s, providing much-needed supplementary medical support for the bare-bones personnel transports being used for that mission. The class has continued to be kept up to date through regular refits. While the design is no longer being built, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers maintains updated schematics and the supply chain to be able to do so on short notice should the need arise. As of the beginning of the 25th century, Starfleet plans to keep the class in service for the foreseeable future.

In Play

• Medical Frigate might at first sound like an odd turn of phrase, given that a frigate is a small naval vessel, but in this context, frigate just means that it's a specialized vessel that doesn't have the multi-mission capabilities that a cruiser does.
• While the primary role of this class is as a hospital vessel, you can also think of it as a cruise liner in space. It's not huge by 25th-century standards, but it's got the capacity to handle lots and lots of people on long journeys. In our version of the ship, it flips the narrative by being a hospital ship that can also serve as a passenger liner, rather than vice versa.
• The medical versions of this ship would also see other assignments, like scientific studies and routine exploration, just as long as they're still close enough to their home port or their duty station to be sent out for medical missions when necessary. Doing these types of missions is both a good use of the ship's resources during downtime and something that gives you as an author the chance to write more story types.
• You would almost never see these ships unescorted outside of Federation space where they might be threatened by hostile forces; they have powerful shields but only very light phasers for defensive purposes. Firing on an Olympic-class hospital or passenger ship would be a war crime.
• If you are a doctor or a scientist and want to make command rank, this is a class of ship you might end up commanding. If you are a captain-level CMO, you might be assigned to command the medical detachment on this ship under a very green captain who’s come up the normal line officer track. The transport variant would likely also have a relatively inexperienced officer and wouldn’t be a very exciting assignment, though most of those would actually be under Starfleet Auxiliary anyway.
• The science version of this ship would be like flying university: lots of scientists and projects going on all at once in an atmosphere of innovation and creativity. Unlike a Sutherland, it's not bringing the latest gadgets with it, but it has lots and lots of actual brainpower aboard.
• Serving on this ship would be prestigious from a certain point of view, depending on what department you’re in. For a medical officer? Yes. For an engineer? No.
• There are a few civilian versions of this ship in service, which you might encounter on the starlanes. What you won't see are any truly privately owned Olympic-class ships—they're too big and they have too much proprietary Starfleet tech aboard them. See the section above on passenger liners for more information.