Cardassian Ship Classes

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Known ships

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General description

Known ships

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Class specifications

General description

Known ships

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Class specifications

General description

Known ships

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Class specifications

General description

Known ships

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1. In TNG: "The Wounded" the USS Phoenix attacked one Cardassian freighter which was represented by the model of the Pakled ship. The color was changed to a more intense ochre, according to Cardassian design principles. 
2. We might decide to keep the number of different Cardassian freighter designs reasonable. If we don't look too closely, we may claim that type 3 is identical or at least similar to type 1, even if the model actually didn't have the warp nacelles.

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1. Rick Sternbach designed the Galor for TNG: "The Wounded". 481m is the supposed original design size of the ship at which it was shown in TNG. In the course of DS9, the Galor was purportedly scaled to be only 372m long (reference: DS9TM and David Stipes). On the other hand, we have a clear shot of the Galor with the Defiant directly above it, where the Cardassian ship must be about 500m long (and even larger if we believe in a 170m Defiant). In DS9: "The Way of the Warrior" the Galor is the same size as a Klingon Vor'cha, 481m. I think most battle scenes in the Dominion War would corroborate a 481m Galor too.
2. The color of the deflector array at the very front of the ship was originally yellow or orange in TNG: "The Wounded" and "Ensign Ro". The color was later consistently switched to red, also on the CGI versions for later seasons of DS9. Strangely the publicity shots of the Galor on the box of the Ertl model kit or in Star Trek Mechanics show a blue deflector like it was never on screen.

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1. The physical Hideki model was first used in DS9: "Profit and Loss" and implicitly identified as a shuttle, but it was more prominently identified as "Cardassian patrol ship, Hideki class" in DS9: "Tribunal". The model's basic color is gray as opposed to the usual Cardassian ochre or brown. The plasma glow is bluish. There is something like a cockpit window, indicating a small size of the vessel. Still, the comparison to Deep Space 9 in "Profit and Loss" shows a ship close to 100m length, quite large for an alleged "shuttle".
2. A CGI model of the Hideki was built for the Dominion War episodes. While the basic proportions seem to be the same, some details were altered. The cockpit windows are gone. But most obviously the color is now the typical Cardassian ochre; the plasma glow is yellow. We usually see the ship act as a fighter in the big battles. It may be a matter of taste whether the two variants can be still supposed to be the same class. I have decided to regard the fighter as a Hideki variant, since the shape is the same and the size is largely consistent.
3. The name "Hideki" is taken from a Japanese physicist. Of course, the Cardassians wouldn't name a ship class for a human scientist, so the name must be a coincidence.
4. The DS9TM says: "One interesting note about the Cardassian fighter is that the basic planform seems to have been adapted from that of the USS Defiant, particularly in the forward hull notch, bridge morphology, and aft hull assembly. Starfleet is of the opinion that some classified design documentation may have been compromised." The fighter resembles the Defiant indeed, but the suggestion that the two designs could have influenced each other in any way is silly. What use could the Defiant's mere superficial shape have for a Cardassian ship with completely different technology, and how could the Cardassians come up with a plagiarized design so quickly, even sooner as the Federation with the Defiant? Like many other things in the DS9TM starship section, I'm ignoring this notion which is just bad speculation.

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1. The Keldon makes its first appearance in DS9: "Defiant" where its class seems to be already known. Not the appearance of a new ship type, but rather the fact that the Obsidian Order is building their own fleet of Keldon-class ships, was the surprise to both the Cardassian military and the Federation. Except for DS9: "The Die is Cast" where a fleet of about ten of these ships is destroyed (the other ships being Romulan Warbirds), the Keldon class never appears again.
2. The Keldons in "The Die is Cast" are capable of cloaking, thanks to a technology transfer with the Romulan Tal Shiar.
3. Since the fleet that attacked the Founders' homeworld consisted of nothing but Romulan D'deridex-class and Cardassian Keldon-class ships, it is safe to assume that the Koranak was of the Keldon class, although the ship was not visually identified in DS9: "The Die is Cast".

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1. Gul Dukat's Groumall (DS9: "Return to Grace") was supposed to be smaller than the later green Klingon variant, and since some details were changed too (most notably nacelles were added), I no longer assume they are the same size.
2. According to John Eaves's concept sketches as shown in Star Trek: The Magazine, the bridge is located at the ship's rear end, above the impulse engines.

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Known probes

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Known stations

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1. The CGI model used for the shipyards in DS9: "Shadows and Symbols" is a still coarse prototype of what would become the more detailed repair facility in "Tacking into the Wind" (see below). The round central complexes of the Monac Shipyards are connected with arms to which smaller drydocks are attached. These are missing on the repair station. The structures of the Monac Shipyards have to be much larger anyway. Each of the small drydocks is large enough for a Galor-class vessel. A Jem'Hadar fighter has about the same size relative to the repair station as these little "spiders". The repair station is about 1400m across as listed below, while one central complex of the Monac Shipyards measures roughly 3500m.
2. Because of the similarity to the repair station, I assume that the shipyards were already built by the Cardassians, although they are called "Dominion shipyards".

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1. The assumption that the type of this station could be named "Nor" is somewhat conjectural but would be very fitting (although we don't know what "Nor" means). There may be more stations of this type. It is not clear if all of them serve to process ore, though. Empok Nor was said to be largely identical to Terok Nor, but we don't know where and how the station was in service before it was abandoned apparently in open space.
2. The original design size of Deep Space 9 was 3600 feet or 1097m, as the window heights and the diameter of the promenade deck and especially the diameter of the Ops easily prove. One reason for scaling the station up was probably to make it simply more "important". The other reason may have been to allow a Galaxy- or Nebula-class ship to dock underneath the upper pylon which would be easier at a total diameter of significantly more than 1000m. In some shots with a Nebula-class ship (and in the opening credits since the 4th season) the station seems to be even more than 2km wide. The 1451m diameter in the DS9TM is actually a compromise between these two extremes. Nevertheless, I tend to ignore the rather few shots with the Nebula and go with the design size, in order to match the interior and exterior sets. It would also help to keep the Defiant consistently at 120m instead of 170m, considering that 120m/170m for the Defiant is roughly the same as 1097m/1451m for Deep Space 9.

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Known satellites

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Known probes

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1. The relay probe was first shown in DS9: "Destiny", where it allowed subspace communication with the Gamma Quadrant through the Bajoran Wormhole. The probe was destroyed by the Jem'Hadar in 2373 (DS9: "By Inferno's Light").
2. The model of Amargosa Station from "Star Trek Generations" was redressed to act as the much smaller relay probe. Essentially the two long arms were shortened by taking away some of the sections and putting on the end caps again. The pole on the bottom side of the station was removed together with the struts running between the pole and the arms. There were similar struts on the upper side, close to the arms themselves. These struts are missing too on the relay model. The receiver was removed from the focus of the antenna dish. The vertical arm is still the same as on the Amargosa station, although it was cut off from the Fact Files image. Oddly, the lighting of the relay model is the same as of Amargosa station, so it seems there are inhabitable rooms on the tiny probe.

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Known shuttles

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Known shuttles

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