USS Dundalk

Shipgirl AI of USS Dundalk, a fourth-generation Port Weller girl who became fully sentient in 2330 under Project Fort to provide the synthetic "soul" of an Edward-class utility ship, a very versatile freighter design which had been specifically structure into becoming a colony support ship. However, Dundalk's mission would be fine-tuned to make it a specialist cargo transport/repair supply vessel; her holds would be filled with those goods that couldn't be easily created by replicators or were of such high value that putting them through a transporter buffer was seen as a serious no-no. When she became sentient, she took on the form of a "forced augment" descent from European stock, scant few which survived the Third World War; this was done as a memorial to what happened in her namesake town in Ireland during that dark period. Dundalk perpetuates HMCS Dundalk, a coastal tanker from World War Two which was built ironically by the Canadian Bridge Company based out of Windsor in southwest Ontario; they had been involved over a decade before in the construction of the Ambassador Bridge connecting that city with Detroit in Michigan. As the class-name was seen as "Dun", she took her name from a village in Grey County southeast of Owen Sound on Highway 10. That village was named after the shire town in Ireland's County Louth near the border with Northern Ireland. The Canadian ship would serve in World War Two, then because of her utility, she was retained post-war as a naval auxiliary vessel, lasting in service until the mid-1970s when she was wrecked shortly after being dismissed from service. As expected of someone like her, Dundalk's career in Starfleet has been quiet. Her original commission lasted a spectacular forty years, that hull being paid off in 2370 after she had shuttled cargo across the Federation and even to parts of the Klingon Empire and the Orion colonies. Even if she was primarily a cargo ship, she wasn't defenceless; Dundalk would acquire the odd battle honour or two in that period when she was caught in various border skirmishes. After she was paid off, she would get one of the first Olympic-class support ships built at Port Weller's Phäeton works. Primarily a hospital ship, her new hull was mosified to become a medical stores vessel as well as serving as a specialist cargo transport. This hull would last through the Dominion War (where she participated in the "Hockey Night in the Confederacy" incident in 2375 against the Breen) with scant losses even if the median age of general service personnel decreased siginificantly during those two harsh years. Dundalk would join other Port Weller girls in the evacuation of Romulus and Remus in 2387 when the Hobus Supernova effectively wrecked the Star Empire as one of the three main space powers in the Alpha/Beta quadrant border zone. This was an act that earned her much praise by survivors of that event; this would see many refugee Romulans flock to Canada where they joined Dundalk's tender ship, HMCS Wellington, and allied regiment, the Grey and Simcoe Foresters, for the chance to serve aboard her. The second Dundalk would pay off at the turn of the XXV Century when the Amishk came up with a specialist Horizon-class design which fit Dundalk's traditional mission profiles; thanks to Frontier Day, Dundalk and a dedicated crew activated the nearly-complete ship to help out over Earth; fortunately, the Romulan volunteers never went through proper Starfleet training, thus were never affected by the Borg virus spread by the rogue Changelings to bring the younger crews under the control of a possessed Jack Crusher. All of Dundalk's hulls come with standard Canadian amenities one might expect of a warship of the Royal Canadian Navy back in the Third World War. The famous Tim Hortons coffee chain provides all drinks (including their own take on Romulan ale, which the natives of that world actually consider a good takeoff of the original recipe) and fresh food is a constant must on her hulls; replicators are great for normal ships, but a good treat of natural food does wonders for morale. She also has massive freshwater stores, stores of other lifebearing liquids for those who don't need water and specialist desalinization plants to keep colonies supplied for long periods away from standard trade routes.