The original U.S.S. Benjamin L. Sisko (hereby referred to as ‘Sisko’) with the registry NCC-255108, was a Gosnell-class starship based on the Akira hull. The primary difference between the Gosnell-class and her parent Akira class was that the Akira class was a carrier for Peregrine-class attack fighters and a torpedo boat. The Gosnell-class did not have any fighters, and in general, was a standard Starfleet ship.
The Sisko was the only ship in the Gosnell-class, somewhat foreshadowing her life as an experimental ship. Contrary to popular opinion on board, the Gosnell in Gosnell-class was not related to the name of the ship’s lone civilian, Gosnell, but was named for the famed 20th-century director of the second Scooby-Doo movie, Raja Gosnell.
The Sisko’s bridge was pretty typical for a ship of her time with a command console in the middle of the bridge that had the captain’s chair in the center, the chair and terminal for the executive officer to the captain’s right, and a seat and terminal for a second officer to the captain’s left. Often this seat was filled by the ship’s counselor or other mission specialists.
Between the main viewscreen and the command console were the operations and helm stations. The operations station was to the left and helm to the right. Behind the command console was the tactical and security station. This station was manned by a single officer and seemed to be the only station on the bridge that lacked a seat, forcing the officer to stand for the entirety of their shift.
On the back wall of the bridge were five other stations that could be used for any purpose. Looking forward towards the viewscreen, on the port side of the bridge were two turbolifts, the captain’s ready room, and a restroom. On the starboard side, there was another restroom, access to the main conference room, access to the deck one lifeboats, and an emergency Jefferies tube which led to deck two.
The Gosnell-class, like her Akira parent class, was well-armed. She did lack some speed with her normal cruising speed topped out around warp 9.25, though she could get close to warp 9.8 in emergency situations. She had standard Starfleet armoring and shielding. She had a crew of around 500, the majority being enlisted Starfleet.
On stardate 60177, the Sisko returned to Earth and dropped off her entire crew. She was then taken to the classified Lincoln Park Shipyards, located in the Chii Nebula, for a refit. There she had her engines and warp core removed and replaced with new, experimental engines that could regulate power better allowing the ship to hold high warp for longer periods of time. The engine redesign and replacement now gave her the cruising speed of warp 9.7 with emergency speed up to warp 9.89.
She was equipped with polarizing hull plating so that if her shields and armor were penetrated, she could last longer before losing structural integrity. This would allow her more time to get away, or should the need arise, hopefully, keep the ship together long enough to ensure all her crew would be able to escape. To help make sure it never got to that, she ended up being the only ship in Starfleet equipped with ablative armor across the entire ship. This greatly increased her mass, making the need for her new engines even greater. The Sisko was equipped with redundant shielding, with the first level being regenerative - hits to the shields would theoretically recharge the shields somewhat, keeping them up longer in battle. This left her with the risk of overloading, which is why she had ‘standard’ Starfleet shielding as a backup.
There was no denying that the Sisko was being refitted into a ship of war. The number of torpedo launchers was doubled and the power output from her phaser banks was increased (again, the new warp core being responsible for burdening this additional power drain). She was equipped with four point-defense phase cannons (two dorsal, two ventral, able to rotate 360 degrees on the X-axis and 180 on the Y-axis) that were designed to deal with small fighters, torpedoes, and other targets that might be too small for the larger weapon systems to deal with.
Her sensors were refined and she was equipped with a ‘temporal protection array’ to try and prevent any kind of issues with temporal rifts, subspace anomalies, and things like that. The TPA was never activated on the NX-95077.
The Sisko’s bridge was also changed to more reflect her status as a warship, and to test out new station configurations. The command console underwent a couple of changes due to staffing changes, but in general, had a captain’s and executive officer’s seat and terminal next to each other. In the front of the bridge was an elongated flight operations console. Along the port wall, from fore to aft, was a restroom, fore turbolift, access to the captain’s ready room, the science station - large enough to be manned by two people, the operations and communications station - also large enough to be manned by two people, and the aft turbolift.
On the rear wall was the master situation display, a cross-section of the ship that usually displayed an overhead view and a side view of the ship and alerted the bridge crew to any problem area. Areas could be focused on as well.
On the starboard side of the bridge, from fore to aft, was access to the main conference room, the engineering station - like all stations on the bridge, large enough to be manned by two crew, access to the deck one lifeboats, the emergency access to deck two, a small break room, and a restroom, and finally, the tactical and security station - like the others, manned by two crew.
Finally, the Sisko’s crew was reduced slightly to 450, including 25 NEO crew and 200 Starfleet security and Starfleet Marine crew. The enlisted to officer ratio of the crew was 3:5.
On stardate 60918, in what later was deemed to be intentional sabotage, the USS Sisko experienced a massive engine malfunction, was sent into transwarp, and ended up crashing into the surface of a planet (see The Valari Incident). Local circumstances required the evacuation and destruction of the Sisko.
On stardate 61372, the U.S.S. Nassau was renamed the U.S.S. Benjamin L. Sisko. While the name changed the new Sisko kept the Nassau’s registry number. The Nassau, now Sisko, was intended to be a second Trinity-class ship to house a second NEO force, but due to the circumstances behind the demise of the NX-95077, that crew was assigned to the NX-74133.
This Sisko, in general, was identical to the previous one. The Lincoln Park Shipyard staff had made some changes thanks to the recommendations of the Sisko’s crew. Over time as well the Sisko got more upgrades including a sensor mirroring system which acted as a defacto cloaking device while not technically being a cloaking device and therefore not violating any treaties. Her engines continued to be tweaked to the point where she could hit speeds of warp 9.9995, though for limited amounts of time.
She also had her point-defense phase cannons upgraded to antiproton cannons.
As of stardate 63031, the Sisko was still in service.