Cell Ship - Specs

Universe :	Prime Timeline
Affiliation :	Suliban
Class Name :	Cell Ship
Type :	General purpose interstellar vessel
Unit Run :	Unknown, but large numbers existed circa 2151.
Commissioned :	Unknown; in service since at least 2151 [1]
Dimensions :	Length : 3.25 m [2] Beam : 3.25 m Height : 3.5 m Decks : 1 [3]
Mass :	7 metric tons
Crew :	1 [1], up to five can be carried. [4]
Armament :	1 x particle beam cannon, total output 100 TeraWatts
Defence Systems :	Standard shield system, total capacity 13,500 TeraJoules Light Duranium / Tritanium Single hull plus 0.2 cm High density armour. Low level Structural Integrity Field
Warp Speeds (TOS scale) :	Unknown, but top speed in excess of Warp Factor 5 [5]
Strength Indices : (Galaxy class = 1,000)	Beam Firepower : 2 Torpedo Firepower : - Weapon Range and Accuracy : 10 Shield Strength : 5 Hull Armour : 23.13 Speed : - Combat Manoeuvrability : 20,570
Overall Strength Index :	31
Diplomatic Capability :	1
Expected Hull Life :	Unknown

Notes

These small but highly advanced vessels were in use by the Suliban during the early 2150s and were encountered several times by the NX class Enterprise. The ships were capable of warp speeds at least as great as the NX class, and possibly much greater. They also packed potent firepower. Although a single cell ship presented no threat to an NX class vessel, their large numbers made them a considerable danger. [5]

The cell ship was fitted with a cloaking device and a particle cannon. [4] Like all Suliban ships they are highly modular in nature, allowing individual cell ships to combine to create larger, more capable vessels. They can also combine to form part of a Helix station. [1]

Colour key

References

#	Series	Season	Source	Comment
1	ENT	1	Broken Bow
2			Speculative	Scaled against Trip and Mayweather in 'The Communicator'.
3			Generic canonical information
4	ENT	2	The Communicator
5			Various Enterprise episodes

Comments

Like many of the Enterprise ships, the Suliban Cell Ship is a craft that is far, far in advance of its time. Unlike most ships in Enterprise, however, the Suliban do at least have an excuse for this - their advanced technology is presumably a donation from the future given as part of the whole Temporal Cold War arc.

The size of the ships comes from "The Communicator", in which we see Trip and Mayweather standing next to a full sized model on one of the ships. This episode also states that the cell ships are armed with particle cannon; presumably other Suliban ships also use this type of weapon. We have seen that they carry cloaking devices on several occasions. Their top speed is unknown; certainly they can match an NX class ship at warp 5 or so. Potentially they can go much faster - warp 10 stars are at least days apart according to the official scale, and the cell ship doesn't seem large enough to comfortably live in for that long. So either they can go at very high speeds indeed - like warp 20+ - or perhaps more likely, the Suliban don't need the same creature comforts that Humans do.

We've seen Enterprise destroy the larger Suliban modular ships without too much difficulty, so it is not likely that the cell ships pose much of a threat on their own. But when several or more join together as in Shockwave, they clearly do have the Starship heavily overmatched. I tried to balance the strengths to represent that, but the strength system doesn't work too well at the low end so take this with a grain of salt.

What happened to the Suliban ship technology will probably remain a mystery at least until Enterprise finishes. I'm betting that the Suliban will end up being erased from history somehow to explain why we have never seen or heard from them in later versions of Trek. If so then their technology will go with them.

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Last updated : 2 Jan 2009

Series :	ENT Season 1
Episode :	Broken Bow

Series :	ENT Season 2
Episode :	The Communicator

Series :	ENT Season
Episode :	Various Enterprise episodes

Source :	Speculative
Comment :	Scaled against Trip and Mayweather in 'The Communicator'.