With the tension between the split Romulan Star Empire building up, war seemed inevitable. The splinter faction, under Empress Donatra, had Klingon support, while the remainder of the Romulan Star Empire has been reeling from the shocking news of the entire Senate's assassination and Shinzon's death, rallying under the banner of Praetor Tal'Aura. The Federation could hardly remain neutral, as Klingon ships fended off the Praetor's attacks, Starfleet starships are obliged to come to the aid due to the longstanding alliance with Qo'nos.

At the height of the unease between the three major powers, and on the brink of a civil war which could determine the fate of a major faction in the Beta Quadrant, or even the entire Alpha and Beta Quadrant, Starfleet was in for a quest to find way to fight efficiently, after seeing a huge loss in personnel in the Dominion War, thanks to the suicide tactics unleashed by the Jem'hadar and the seemingly innumerable number of those fighter clones. With one way to minimize the casualty rate being to make the ship less unlikely to be lost in battle, Starfleet spent years in research to enhance a starship's defense and, probably, offense capabilities. When one arm of Starfleet R&D emerged from the shadow with this advancement in its defense systems, it was a totally unexpected move, a shock even to many within the Federation itself.

Introducing the USS Dominion, Starfleet registry NX-88000, commissioned 66250.0 (1 April 2389).

While officially classified as an experimental starship under Prometheus-class, this ship far exceeds the capabilities of a Prometheus-class, one of the most powerful starship classes and the most gritted, armed-to-the-teeth starship class. Without doubt, its most distinctive feature - one that makes a strong impression on anyone who manages to catch a glimpse of it, is its shining, majestic, even fearsome, golden armor. Drawing inspiration from mecha holonovels which are still popular today, it is definitely not there for cosmetic purpose; in fact, this the where the very bulk of the budget for development of this experimental vessel went into - phased-energy diffracting armor (PDA).

The information on the armor kept as a tight secret, the armor is made up of layers of materials manipulated down to the molecular level controlled by an independent tactical system, the armor uses its built-in sensors to gather the information on incoming beams and, interfacing with the ship's primary tactical systems to locate all nearby hostile ships, reflect the beams to another enemy starship, turning hostile attacks against one another; offense in defense.

The technology reflects not only the Federation's strong will to produce the best technological advancements, ahead of its time, but a philosophy of its tactic, in which the Federation is never one to fire first, but a formidable enemy once provoked who can turn a defensive situation around. Practically, 99% of the ship is immune to any beam weapon - phasers, disruptors, cutting beams - you name it, the PDA can handle it by simply reflecting it back at you. The only modern weapons that remain effective against the ship are the torpedoes, which are easily handled by the shields. With a combination of beam-reflecting armor and deflection shields which are now left to handle only physical objects like the torpedoes, the ship's defense and offense capabilities are immensely boosted. To this regard, the Dominion's shield has been reconfigured to allow all directed-energy weapons to pass through by default.

Mind you, the Dominion is well-armed in its own right, no less than her sisters the standard Prometheus-class, with phaser strips and quantum torpedoes. While extra power is required in maintaining the PDA's systems, the increase in power consumption has proven to still be bearable with the standard warp core's power output, so the weapon systems lose no firepower due to the armor.

Due to the high cost involved in installing the materials on the hull, the Dominion is only covered with the PDA when it is in single-vector assault mode, that is, when all three parts of the ship are merged. The parts are exposed to have parts of normal duranium ablative hull armor when separated, and the shield configuration will need to revert back to standard shielding.

If you made it this far, I wish you a very Happy April's Fool Day!

This is what happens when you have Star Trek, Gundam, and a mind involved with university studies and a graphing calculator, you see. xD Had this lame idea that I simply had to put through. Imagine the Romulans say, "oh my Praetor, a golden starship!" xP

So, sorry if you don't get it. Still one weird ship anywayy.

No, this is not viable for Starfleet so no, even in my fandom timeline this didn't happen, even though the concept sounds good. R&D is most likely way too prohibitive, even for Starfleet. Not that they won't have the resources, but they're better off putting their money elsewhere. This sounds like something that will remain theorical for a very long time.