Location of the Antares Shipyards

[BrentMc]

The dedication plaque of the Defiant puts the Antares shipyards in the Bajor Sector. That much is canon. Memory alpha says that the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical manual says that the Enterprise-B was launched from there, but it is seen launching from Earth in Generations.

I am writing a story and part of it takes place at The Antares Shipyards. I am trying to come up with a good location for it and reason it is there. I think I am going to ignore the Technical manuals statement about the Enterprise-B and say that Starfleet placed it there for some reason like to provide jobs for Bajorans and part of a peace treaty etc.

We know the Defiant was launched from there in 2370, so that is the earliest in canon it was known to exist. I am going to say it was new and Defiant was one of the first ships built there.

I think I might put it in orbit of Bajor 6. It is an L-class planet. L-class is barely habitable. None of the other planets seem to work. Maybe Bajor 6 could provide metals. We know DS9 was an ore processing facility...

Any ideas Opinions?
I would like to offer a good reason it is there and choose a location that makes sense.

 

[T'Girl]

Antares Shipyards might not be named after a place, but instead a shipbuilding corporation.

Would a major shipyard be located in the star system of a non-member?

 

[Albertese]

If a sector is a roughly cubical volume 20 lightyears per edge (8000 cubic lightyears), then the Bajor sector could well include several other systems that are not the Bajor system itself. One of which could well be annexed by the Feds.

--Alex

 

[MacLeod]

If a sector is a roughly cubical volume 20 lightyears per edge (8000 cubic lightyears), then the Bajor sector could well include several other systems that are not the Bajor system itself. One of which could well be annexed by the Feds.

--Alex

Or a Federation Member.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Memory alpha says that the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical manual says that the Enterprise-B was launched from there, but it is seen launching from Earth in Generations.

A ship may be built at one place, but launched at another. The Voyager was built at Utopia Planitia, but lists McKinley Station as where she officially entered active service. For the Enterprise-B, she could have been built who knows where, commissioned at Antares, and just had an official launch ceremony (for PR purposes maybe) at Earth.

 

[BrentMc]

Memory alpha says that the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical manual says that the Enterprise-B was launched from there, but it is seen launching from Earth in Generations.

A ship may be built at one place, but launched at another. The Voyager was built at Utopia Planitia, but lists McKinley Station as where she officially entered active service. For the Enterprise-B, she could have been built who knows where, commissioned at Antares, and just had an official launch ceremony (for PR purposes maybe) at Earth.

Since it is only mentioned in the technical manual I think I am going to ignore it. Why would Starfleet have a shipyard out there at that time? It is canon that the Defiant was built there, so it might be reasonable that Starfleet put it there because of post-occupation relations with Bajor.

 

[BrentMc]

If a sector is a roughly cubical volume 20 lightyears per edge (8000 cubic lightyears), then the Bajor sector could well include several other systems that are not the Bajor system itself. One of which could well be annexed by the Feds.

--Alex

Interesting Idea. I am wondering where in the Bajor sector it would make sense to put a shipyard.

 

[BrentMc]

Antares Shipyards might not be named after a place, but instead a shipbuilding corporation.

Would a major shipyard be located in the star system of a non-member?

That's a good point and a good question. The Defiant dedication plaque says it is in Bajor sector, so it's not out at Antares.

 

[Timo]

The very fact that there's a need to specify a location for the yards might be taken as proof that Antares Ship Yards has yards in a dozen places.

Why one of those would be in the Bajor Sector, and why the Defiant would be built or launched or commissioned there, is an interesting question. But before tackling that, we have to wonder where Bajor Sector is. Is it anywhere near the planet Bajor? Or is it just named that way because Bajor is a cool name (because it's the name of that famous ancient civilization that nobody ever visits and few know the location for)?

Now, the Defiant was not built anywhere near Bajor, that's clear from the fact that Starfleet didn't have any business near Bajor when the Defiant was built. But the Defiant probably wasn't formally launched at all before becoming Sisko's personal ship in "The Search", and the launch date also coincides with that episode rather than with the original anti-Borg project. So it might be that Starfleet designated DS9 a branch office of Antares Ship Yards, or that Sisko did, mostly for shits and giggles.

It may also be that Bajor Sector is in no way related to Antares Ship Yards, though. After all, the two names are on completely different lines of the plaque. It may be that Bajor Sector is instead supposed to be paired with United Federation of Planets, the other name on that line of the plaque. That is, yes, the ship is UFP property, but she's homeported at Bajor, outside the UFP proper, perhaps flying the Bajoran flag in today's nautical terms.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

Memory alpha says that the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical manual says that the Enterprise-B was launched from there, but it is seen launching from Earth in Generations.

A ship may be built at one place, but launched at another. The Voyager was built at Utopia Planitia, but lists McKinley Station as where she officially entered active service. For the Enterprise-B, she could have been built who knows where, commissioned at Antares, and just had an official launch ceremony (for PR purposes maybe) at Earth.

Since it is only mentioned in the technical manual I think I am going to ignore it. Why would Starfleet have a shipyard out there at that time? It is canon that the Defiant was built there, so it might be reasonable that Starfleet put it there because of post-occupation relations with Bajor.

Or it could be that the region wasn't originally known as the Bajor Sector at the time the Antares Yard was established there. It might have been initially known as Sector [INSERT NUMBER HERE], and then was later coined the Bajor Sector. Sort of how like Deep Space Nine wasn't its original name.

 

[BrentMc]

Hmm interesting ideas. I planned my story near Bajor because I read that the Antares Shipyards were there. According to memory alpha
"The Bajor sector, or Bajoran sector, was a region of space in the Alpha Quadrant. The sector contained the Bajoran system, the Federation space station Deep Space 9 and Starfleet's Antares Ship Yards."

I'm not sure where they got their information.

Since it's just a fan-fic. I think it is reasonable for me to say that the Antares shipyards are near Bajor and that they were put there soon after the occupation. It is canon that the Defiant was launched from there in 2370 and the occupation ended in 2369. it is not canon that the Enterprise-B was built there and in Generations she Launches from a drydock orbiting Earth.

Maybe it was a goodwill gesture by the Federation. Maybe it gave Bajorans jobs, Maybe it used metals from Bajor providing income for reconstruction...

 

[Chronos]

It may also be that Bajor Sector is in no way related to Antares Ship Yards, though. After all, the two names are on completely different lines of the plaque. It may be that Bajor Sector is instead supposed to be paired with United Federation of Planets, the other name on that line of the plaque. That is, yes, the ship is UFP property, but she's homeported at Bajor, outside the UFP proper, perhaps flying the Bajoran flag in today's nautical terms.

This is the most likely scenario.

The plaque reads:

USS DEFIANT
STARFLEET REGISTRY NX-74205 - FIRST SHIP OF HER CLASS
LAUNCHED STARDATE 47538.5 - ANTARES SHIP YARDS
BAJOR SECTOR - UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS

Pieces of information are separated by dots, and further separated into lines. For example, "USS DEFIANT" and "STARFLEET REGISTRY NX-74205" are separate lines, not one continuous thought.

Furthermore, other plaques, such as the ones for the USS Enterprise, do not state the location of the shipyard in this way. The Enterprise-D has one single line which says: "UTOPIA PLANITIA FLEET YARDS, MARS" on both versions of the plaque, and the second version has "UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS" on another line as a separate statement.

I don't think that the Antares Shipyards are in the Bajoran Sector.

 

[BrentMc]

Where do you think they are?

 

[Timo]

Mars, most probably. After all, Sisko worked there at the time the Defiant was built, as per "Emissary".

Utopia Planitia is a location on Mars, and might be construed to be a location for many organizations and installations, among these the Antares Ship Yards (appropriately, "Antares" means "against Mars" or "opposite Mars"). In physical-literal terms, Utopia Planitia is not an equatorial surface feature, so no orbital installation could be located directly above it in freefall, but Trek technology doesn't require freefall orbits... And a starship yard might consist of a surface element or several, and additional orbital elements, only the former (or one of the former) needing to be located at Utopia Planitia exactly.

More probably, "Utopia Planitia" in this context is a trade name just as much as "Antares" is, and both just happen to be loosely associated with the planet Mars (perhaps HQ there, perhaps the first and possibly already defunct business premises there, whatever). But any Trek writer pondering Sisko's past and the history of his tough little ship would go for the literal Mars connection, whether relying on his or her real-world knowledge about the whereabouts of Utopia Planitia or the Memory Alpha articles on the man and the vessel.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

the Enterprise-B ... in Generations she Launches from a drydock orbiting Earth.

In Generations the Enterprise B is christen with champagne, that usually the formal naming ceremony. Where she launched from is anybodies guess.

We never saw the Enterprise B "slide down the ways."

 

[Mysterion]

Boeing has assembly plants in more than one location. Perhaps the same is true of Antares Shipyards.

 

[BrentMc]

Interesting responses. Thank you.