by April Welles

These pictures show the USS Calex, NSC-972 in transit on her way to meet up with the USS Enterprise at Federation Outpost 4. The year is 2266, 106 years after the Earth-Romulan War. The Commander of the Calex, Captain M'Lenard, is a close friend of Captain James Kirk.

Kirk and M'Lenard met at Starfleet Academy Command School, and became fast friends, both having very similar interests, tactical skills and crew handling beliefs. (He and Jim Kirk are very glad that they are friends and not enemies, though M'Lenard admits that if the Federation and Romulan Empire were enemies, he believes that Kirk would probably succeed in a battle between the two of them ). Eventually they received command of their own ship, and the two of them have kept in touch as often as possible.

After receiving a call from Starfleet Command about a possible Klingon invasion over the Neutral Zone, Captain M'Lenard volunteered to assist once he heard that the USS Enterprise was being sent there as well.

The Model

The premise for this model was, "What if the Federation, taking a page from the old United States, gave the Romulans economic assistance after the Earth-Romulan War of 2160"?

In this scenario, the Romulan Star Empire signed a peace treaty with great appreciation, and opened trade betwen the two powers. Soon after, the Romulans received the first of federation technology to help rebuild: Efficient warp engines.

I have wanted to build this design ever since I first saw the TOS 3-ship kit 15 years ago. Finally, with the help of this contest, I had a reason to do it.

The model went together very quickly - the fact that the BoP is only a total of 3 pieces and the warp nacelles were 6 pieces (total) was a big help . I cut off the upper impulse from the Romulan ship and cut the back and front off of the bottom one, leaving a curved ledge to rest the war engines on. I attached the nacelles to them using pins to secure them to the hull.

I figured that since the original BoP was an impulse propelled ship, I needed to add some new impulse engines. Those were made by using Evergreen tube, as were the forward Plasma tubes.

Being that she now travels at FLT speeds she needed a Navigation Deflector. Being that they are an alien race, even though they trade technologies they would still have some of their own touches. This deflector is just as powerful as the one on the Enterprise, even though it is 1/3 the size. The deflector came from a etched brass sheet of 1/350 scale radar details. I didn't add the deflector to the model until I had completed it, so as not to damage the dish.

The ship was now completed. All that was left was paint and decals. The paint job was done using Testors Acrylic White mixed with 1 DROP of Testors Acrylic Clear Blue. The resulting color is a slight blue tint that's difficult to see in the pictures. After airbrushing it and letting it dry, I decided on the color detain scheme. I feel that the Romulans would be proud of their vessels and show them off (look at the giant bird underneath). So the colors I used were Testors Acrylic Silver, and Tamiya Gold.

I like the idea of the inboards glowing blue, so I painted them with the above Clear Blue, and drybrushed it with Silver. The effect was to give it the illusion that the grills are silver until she enters warp speed, then the blue energy shows through.

The Bussard Collectors were done using Testors Acrylic Clear Orange and Clear Red. The first layer was a number of stripes in Clear Orange. I started with the brush at the base of the Bussard and made a stroke toward the center but stopping before reaching it. Once the Orange was dry i brushed over that with Clear Red. With that the painting was completed.

Now for the decals. Oof! That was a bit tough. I used decals from left over JTGraphics sheets. The name was pieced together from his sheet of the 1/1400 scale Starcraft Enterprise kit, as were the hull code and number. I felt that since this ship is a part of Starfleet it would have some of their markings, but use Romulan code. The NSC stands for 'Navy Ship Code'. The number was just pieced together, but flowed well when said with the "NSC".

The windows are left over square lit/unlit ones from the JTGraphics Nova-class decal sheet. I wanted to make this ship 1/1400 scale as it is a good scale to work in (even though the model is apparently 1/1600). Basically, with the 1/1400 scale windows on the model it works and just looks like a smaller ship when compared with the rest of the 1/1400 fleet.

The bird is from the kit itself and placed appropriately. The most difficult aspect of that was to get it to fit around the warp nacelles. After the bird was placed, I used a decal from a Thomas Models sheet to get the UFP pennant, and placed it on the bird's chest. It looks a bit like it is wearing the pennent like a necklass (the laurels being the chain).

While placing the decals I used Micro Scale Decal Set. Once the decaling was finished I let the whole thing sit and dry completely. I then placed MicroScale Decal Solvent, to make it all adhere to the model. I then let it sit overnight. The next day I sprayed it with Testors Dullcoat to protect it all and not make it so shiny. I then used Testor Clear Gloss on the Bussards to give them a bit of a 'glow'.

With that she was finished. Now I have a very nice alien ship in my collection.

Image: New deflector

Image: Top/rear view

Image: Head on