Today, ten years and a war after the inception in service of the Nike Cruisers, it is not out of significance to trace a summary of their overall performances, and a balance of their tactical use.
I wanted to write these few words because, in a certain measure, I feel myself as the "spiritual Father" of this class of ships, that was conceived and outlined by the EFNI Technical Department following the specifications and in accordance with the requirements of the EFNI Operations Division, of which I was Director when the Nike was outlined.

At this point, maybe it is not useless a small view of the situation when the Nike was conceived, and the needs, the initial ones and the latter ones that gave to this unit hers definitive shape.

The first steps in the design of the Nike were made just after the end of the Civil War: in that period a series of technical innovations were available, in first the Gravitic technology, that was yet partially available in the mid 2250's in terms of gravitic enhanced fusion reactors and gravitic enhanced plasma engines, like the ones used on the Warlocks, and that saw the availability of artificial gravity environments thanks to the technologies given by the ISA in the wake of the Civil war and of the participation of Earth Alliance to the ISA.

These emerging technologies allowed to design the very first true gravimetric drive of human design, the Waverider system.

The lessons learned in the years spanning from the Minbari war to the 2261 teached us that a gravitic driven ship had significant advantages in terms of strategic and, if well designed, tactical mobility.
To summarize: a gravitic driven ship, during cruise navigation either in the normal space and in the Hyperspace, consumes only the fusion fuel needed to produce the small amount of thrust strictly needed for the navigation - usually a few percentage points of one G, while she does not need to use propellant mass. This means much more endurance, range, and, eventually, speed, if the gravimetric drive is used with more power in hyperspace, than hers newtonian equivalent.

Almost equally important, a powerful gravimetric drive, pulled at full power in addiction to equally powerful newtonians engines, allows to develop impressive levels of acceleration, with consequently high tactical speed and maneuverability.
In that period, the ships available to the Earth Alliance Navy were the effective and multimission capable Omega destroyers, the not so numerous Nova Dreadnoughts, more than a few Hyperion Cruisers, and the first Warlock Heavy destroyers.

All these ships were still capable of good performances, but the Hyperions were clearly at the end of their growth potential, and in many fields were not more up to the task. This was a significant problem for the EFNI naval service, that in that period was based upon a few improved Nova-N Dreadnoughts - excellent units, but few in number and better suited for antiship engagement thatn for deep intrusion and reconnaissance, and Hyperion-N improved cruisers.
The Hyperion N's had not too much in common with the standard hyperions of the Navy: an Hyperion N has almost twice the acceleration, four times the range, an enormous edge in terms of maneuverability and a significant edge in terms of firepower and armor in respect to the standard Hyperions: but, even with all these improvements, was clear that a new design exploiting all the technical innovations of those years could have allowed a quantum leap in terms of operational capabilities.

Range and speed are of paramount relevance for the EFNI Naval service, and the possibility to match these two performances with good firepower and an heavy armor was the dream of the EFNI naval service. So, our Technical Department designed a ship that, in a hull with dimensions similar to the ones of the Hyperions, could use all these new technologies at their best.

The design went on well, mostly because the first experimental Waverider gravimetric drives performed flawlessly from the beginning: the rest of the equipment and of the armament was the direct outcome of the Battlemaster/Warlock project, with the single exception of the lightweight, high Rate of Fire Q-spoiling lasers, that were chosen because they packed a very high piercing power with light weight and small mass and dimensions.

Unluckily, the very first Nike cruisers came out of the production lines with the Drakh War raging wit all its devastations, in a moment in which the Earth Alliance economy was in a deep chrisis, and the Nike seemed too much expensive and specialized, in a moment in which the whole humanity was still bracing against its extinction.

But, at the end, what has shown the Nike to be capable of, in these ten years of service, both in the EFNI Naval Service and in the Navy? Well, a lot of things.

Today, the Nike Cruiser is the fastest, most ranged and nimblest ship of the Earth Alliance. She is well capable to outrun and outmaneuvre almost all the capital ships of the races we have made contact with - except the ancient ones, of course - and she packs a good punch, with a very good and well shaped protection: in fact, she has all the attributes of the "Cruiser" concept at level of excellence: just to give an example, a Nike can easily outrun and outmaneuvre a Sharlin or a Shargoti warcruiser, let alone a Drakh heavy cruiser, has more than enough firepower to cripple almost all the standard capital ships in a matter of seconds, and may God have mercy of whatever finds itself at the business end of hers Heavy Particle Cannons.

The Nikes have participated with relentless efficiency to the second half of the Drakh war, and until now the Drakhs have shown to have nothing barely capable to hold their own against one of these ships in combat: our battlecruisers have been instrumental in countless fightings in forcing the Drakhs to fight even in the less favourable circumstances: their superior speed and maneuverability allowed them to pursue and force the fight with the Drakh units, and the alien ships had neither the firepower to whip away the heavily armored and well protected Nikes, nor the passive defence to survive their firepower.

Actually, even if relatively few in number, the Nike Cruisers make up for one of the essential tactical and strategic assets of our Navy: thanks to the Nikes, finally, we have a core of pursuit units that allow us to force the combat at our will, carry on long range strategic offensive, and disrupt with maneuvered attacks an enemy formation, just before our other units can engage them: this tactical capability of being the fast maneuvre element of a fleet or of a task force is precious even in intercepting and disrupting enemy tactical wings and flank attcks, and in the strategic pursuit of a fleeing enemy force - this last task is well helped by the excellent sensor suite of the Nikes.

Honestly, I don't think that is needed a further dissertation to allow to understand how well these ships can perform for the missions of the EFNI Naval Service: range and speed alone, with the excellent sensors, would have been well enough to make of them a formidable reconnaissance unit: the addictional benefits of firepower and the capability to shrug off even an hard punishment, and reply with deadly effectiveness, is the realization of a hope for our crews - and a nightmare for our enemies.

Taken into account what said above, not only I, but almost all the observers and the technical experts, can easily agree on the fact that, even if the Nikes will never be the backbone of a fleet due to their cost and to their limits in terms of polyvalence, indeed they have shown to be a class of ships that fills perfectly that gap of capabilities that has always been the weak spot of our forces: to force a fight in favourable circumstances, and to outmaneuvre and flank an enemy formation during a fleet engagement.