Starship

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Starship is the generic term for a vehicle of interstellar transportation, exploration and defense used by a space-traveling culture, built to travel the great distances between stars (as opposed to spaceships limited to interplanetary travel).

Starship design ranges from relatively primitive to advanced, indicating a society's understanding of science and technology, and often retains a common configuration-aesthetic per culture (as with Starfleet's saucer section and nacelles attached to a stardrive section). Most starships are equipped with warp drive, enabling them to bridge interstellar space at faster-than-light velocities via subspace.

United Federation of Planets

While many alien races (e.g. Vulcans, Romulans, Andorians, Tellarites, Klingons, Cardassians, Bajorans) traveled the stars centuries or millennia before Earth humans, Federation starship history began with Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix, Earth's first known warp-capable craft. Cochrane's early warp flights, commencing with the first public contact with Vulcans in 2063, launched the Warp Age, leading to the establishment of Starfleet then the Federation.

Federation/Starfleet ship design progressed in small steps of sophistication over following centuries, until a significant leap with quantum slipstream drive in 315 CE. QSD paved the artificial wormhole network and subspace transporters, enabling personal long-range travel and remote exploration without starships. This was expected to reduce the need for starships except on local scales; however, environmental issues (Liberty, 330) and political turmoil caused a slight regression from this new "golden age" of star travel, leaving starships as the Federation's preferred mode of interstellar travel as late as 347 CE.

In truth, keeping starships lets Arcadia parallel developments in the Star Trek universe such as Nemesis and Star Trek Online, without diverging too far from those continuities. Most Trek fans expect starships (presumably including Arcadia readers & contributors).