The Bajoran Defender

| In this story Bajor maintained close ties to, but did not join the Federation. |

After the Dominion war the Bajoran government began exploring the viability of a custom defence force for Bajor and its Colonies. The fundamental idea was to not be entirely dependent on Federation intervention especially in light of the Derna incident during the war.

Knowing full well that they could get nowhere close to the industrial production of the larger forces in the Quadrant the engineering team focused on designing for a smaller number of better equipped ships.
The result was a versatile and compact design that took many clues from the Federations successful Defiant-class project; the firepower of a cruiser in a destroyer sized hull.
While primarily designed for border patrol and defence the impressive speed and the use of an exchangeable pod in the back give the ship great flexibility.

A Fleet of initially 8 vessels was built in shipyards near Ferenginar (after a suspiciously good deal extended by the Grand Nagus). They are currently stationed at the newly constructed militia headquarters on the moon Derna.
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I am really pleased with how this came out. While the project was a haze of indecision and procrastination the final result is just what I imagined. The shapes are exactly as I wanted them and the design language of an evolved bajoran-build ship really comes through (at least in my opinion).

All Work in Blender and Photoshop

6 phaser emitters, 3 double chambered torpedo launchers, 2 pulsed phase cannons and a high intensity phaser lance make for an arsenal that can easily give pause to much larger ships and serve as an effective deterrent.

The multitude of design clues come from sometimes unlikely places. The forward facing high intensity phaser lance is inspired by the Cardassian Galor-classes heavy forward disruptor.

Below the wings two pulsed phase cannons make no effort to disguise the primary design influence of the Defiant-class.

In the construction of these ships, an older transport is scrapped and used to assemble the new hull. Some parts like the nacelles are simply refitted and reused. Any new components are manufactured exclusively on Bajor.