USS Sutherland

The USS Sutherland (NCC-72015) was a Federation starship that was in service with Starfleet in the late 24th century. It was built at the San Francisco Fleet Yards orbiting Earth and completed in 2367, on stardate 44820.5. Her propulsion systems were constructed by the Yoyodyne Division.

In early 2368, the Sutherland was docked at Starbase 234's spacedock for major repairs. It was prematurely deployed, despite the yard superintendent's belief the ship was not ready for launch, to serve as part of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fleet used to interdict the supply lines between the Romulan Star Empire and the House of Duras during the Klingon Civil War. For the duration of that mission, the Sutherland was temporarily commanded by Lieutenant Commander Data, with Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Hobson as his first officer.

During the blockade, the Sutherland was hit by a massive tachyon pulse by the Romulans, which disabled the tachyon detection grid in a radius of ten million kilometers around the ship. Data disobeyed Picard's orders to regroup at Gamma Eridon and modified the Sutherland sensors to detect a residual tachyon signature around the cloaked Romulan ships. He then exposed the ships using modified low-yield photon torpedoes. 

During the mid-2370s, the Sutherland was assigned to the Ninth Fleet near Bajor, during the Dominion War, under the command of Captain Shelby. In mid-2374, it docked at Deep Space 9 to be resupplied along with the USS Exeter (NCC-26531), the USS Akagi, and the USS Potemkin (NCC-18253). The Sutherland was due to revisit Deep Space 9 a few months later. 

Crewmembers

 * See: USS Sutherland personnel

Background
According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, "the Sutherland was named for 's flagship in the classic novels that served as one of Gene Roddenberry's original inspirations for Star Trek. The dedication plaque of the Sutherland reads "There will be an answer, let it be..." which was quoted from Let it Be'', written by  in  and performed by.

In a scene cut from, when the Cardassians threatened to invade Minos Korva, the Sutherland, USS Aries, and USS Berlin were dispatched to the sector to assist the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D). However, because the ships were three days away, the Enterprise was forced to find an alternative means of preventing the invasion.

According to writer Ronald D. Moore in an extra feature on the DS9 Season 6 DVD, the Sutherland crew was to have been a more regular element on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The concept, according to Moore, was that the Sutherland maintained a number of Hawaiian and Polynesian traditions, and would have appeared when a script called for "wacky party guys".

The scenes aboard the Sutherland in "Redemption II" were filmed on Friday on Paramount Stage 9.

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