The Trouble is a small ship, measuring 240m long, 140m wide and 28m deep. The current crew complement is 96 out of 100 possible. It is truly a multi-species ship, carrying a wide variety of species, both as crewmembers and as guests. The ship can easily accommodate both land-based and aquatic creatures as well as flying ones, and the crew is always on the lookout for someone else new and interesting to add to the complement, and often hosts a handful of guests.

The USS Trouble's history is a fraught and interesting one. Since its inception, the UFP has prided itself on saying that it is open to all sapient species, regardless of form, environment and any other factors that contribute to that species being “non-humanoid.” Nevertheless, it was often pointed out, sometimes with great acrimony, that crews of Federation starships were overwhelmingly humanoid. Additionally, while the Federation constantly promotes its peaceful nature, even its exploratory ships are typically better armed than they are set up for scientific exploration. Reasons typically given for the former are that building a ship for many habitats is prohibitively expensive and exposes the ship to unnecessarily frequent maintenance problems. The reason given for the latter was entirely political.

Two Starfleet officers, Fara Shimbo, who was a Lt. Commander “in pay grade only” at the time, and also a professor of zoology at the Academy, and Admiral Germaine Swanson, decided to challenge this, and proposed the Trouble as a proof of concept. The proposal was bitterly opposed by another officer, Commodore Richard Mayell, who was utterly against the idea unless his son Alexander be given the Captaincy. Curiously, Shimbo and Mayell have been bitter rivals since fourth grade.

Once the non-humanoid races heard rumors of the ship, they too began pushing for its construction. The ship was finally completed in 2334. It was built in a hurry and largely out of spare parts, and the betting was 10-1 against it successfully completing its first mission in some quarters.

The name “Trouble” is a curruption of the Shzhet word “Trghbo” which means something akin to “smooth sailing.” Someone (among the many) who couldn't pronounce it said “Here comes Trouble!” and the name stuck.

The Trouble consists of a saucer section and a detachable nacelle section, a standard configuration for Starfleet ships. Warp and Impulse drives are the Starfleet standard.

The Saucer section consists of five decks:

Deck A contains the bridge, the Captain's ready room, environmental controls for the bridge itself, a replicator room which has been turned into a pub of sorts, a single-person transporter and various other oddments. The bridge contains the usual stations, all of which can be individually configured for the various persons using them. The turbolift has been decorated as a Tardis, “for luck.” One of the stations is reserved for Rosie the Robot, the crew's “Tea Lady,” who keeps everyone supplied with their own version of tea and scones, and sometimes pizza.

Outside the Ready Room, the captain keeps a potted palm tree, on the idea that if ever the potted palm is thrown overboard, the crew has decided to be done with her. A sign on the door reads, “Lasciate omne sperante, voi ch'intrate,” or “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

An intriguing—although unintentional—feature of the Ready Room is that the Captain can transform it into various different settings. While it is normally very plain, it has also been known to be a Pirate Cabin and Sam Spade's office, in glorious black and white. This is the result of Istvan Sandor's work on a “holography room,” which somehow bled into the Ready Room. The captain thinks this is all pretty cool.

Deck B comprises quarters for those who prefer a temperate climate, relatively high in oxygen. Most of the humans have their quarters here. There are also labs, a museum, a gymnasium and various other amenities.

Deck C is similar to Deck B except that is meant for those who like their environment warm and wet.

Deck D is similar again, although the environment cool and dry.

Deck E is concerned with life support systems, emergency equipment, a small docking bay, emergency engines, and equipment needed for keeping meteoroids from hitting the ship.

The Trouble is normally run on three 8-hour watches:

Watch Alpha Bridge Complement:

     Shimbo
     Chip
     Sandor
     Mirin
     At'dna      

Watch Beta Bridge Complement

     Dorcas
     Gus
     Sloda
     (TWO POSITIONS OPEN!)      

Watch Gamma Bridge Complement

     Iterri
     (FOUR POSITIONS OPEN!)

—-

While much of the Trouble's workspaces are small and fairly cramped (as well as made from extra or experimental parts), the Bridge is completely new and meant as an example for other ships of the Trouble's size.

Cats and other pets are welcome on the Bridge, so long as their caretakers take care of them. Facilities such as food, water and litter boxes are provided for them. A long-haired calico named Sumiko is almost always to be found on the bridge. Food is also welcome on the bridge provided it's cleaned up afterward.

While it still takes time to get from place A to place B even at Warp 9, Alpha Watch plays Dungeons and Dragons to pass that time.

The Deck B Cafeteria features a Nathan's Famous franchise, alongside a full-time chef. A hot-dog eating contest idea is occasionally floated there, but none has so far taken place.

It is a cozy place where, as in Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want. While the preferred place for making clandestine plans is the Deck D cafeteria (Deck Decaf) because it is considered to have the best coffee, Deck B is a better place for a general shmooze.

The Deck B Cafeteria is also home of a monopoly game that has been going on amongst various members of the crew for about ten years and spanning at least three different starships.

The engineering area in the Nacelle section is the typical Star Fleet Standard, but a much cozier area, from which everything can be controlled anyway, is included on Deck E. Its main features, aside from what is considered to be the very best coffee-maker on the entire ship, is a box marked, “In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass,” which contains three slide rules.

This area also contains an airlock, and a number of devices belonging to Jaskeerat Singh, the purpose of which is anyone's guess.

One might thing the one truly modern area of the Trouble would have been Sickbay, but one would be wrong. Sickbay was deliberately made bare-bones, on the “you want better, you can pay for it yourself” idea. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Opp "Ratty" Ji did indeed make a number of modifications herself. Most of these are not usually in evidence, as Ratty prefers the “surgically clean” look for the whole place.