Notes : The Klingons have always been relatively secretive about their military hardware but during those periods when they have been allies the Federation has built up a good knowledge of the Klingon fleets numbers and capabilities. During the Dominion war Klingon and Federation ships worked very closely together, giving each a good picture of the numbers and capabilities of the other. When it comes to those military forces based within the Klingon Empire itself, however, rather less is known.

The Federation was aware that the Klingons had developed a new class of space station in the mid 2360's, and that it was designed to provide heavy defences to fixed installations such as planets and asteroids. But there was no information regarding the nature of this station, and for a long time it was assumed that the system was based around relatively small unmanned weapon platforms.

In 2373, Captain Sisko discovered information indicating that Chancellor Gowron had been replaced by a Changeling. He led a small team into Klingon space in an attempt to infiltrate the Klingon base of Ty'Gokor, the site of an upcoming ceremony which Gowron would attend. The asteroid proved to have several defence stations orbiting it, and the Defiant was able to conduct detailed passive scans of them whilst Sisko was away.

The stations proved almost all of Starfleets expectations wrong. Instead of small weapon platforms, they were fully manned and equipped stations in their own right. Each one was over a kilometre and a half tall and was equipped with both disrupter and torpedo weapons. The upper and lower sections were studded with various antennas, indicating a formidable communications and sensor capability. The central section is the largest, and is thought to contain most of the crew quarters and major systems.

Above this is a narrower section which has four hangar bays emerging radially from it. Each of these is large enough to accommodate a bird of prey, and it is thought that every station has four such vessels permanently assigned to it in order to provide a local patrol capability and augment its firepower - in much the same way that Starfleet assigned the USS Defiant to Deep Space Nine.

Since it was limited to passive scans the Defiant was not able to ascertain anything beyond the basic details, and there are still significant unknowns regarding this station design.