La Sirena, a Kaplan F-17 Speed Freighter, piloted by Cristobal Rios, and first introduced in Star Trek: Picard, was described as "an unregistered, warp-capable" starship, according to Memory Alpha.
Chris, or "Rios," as the crew would call him, is a good, responsible, well-trained pilot. It makes sense that he owns a ship, and he deserves one. However, does it make sense to own a warp-capable starship without registration?
It might be possible in a future where starships are as common as cars in our current times--but this isn't just some normal cargo freighter.
First of all, Kaplan F-17s are warp-capable.
If you have a criminal with an unregistered, high-tech, high-velocity, warp-capable ship, it's going to be mighty difficult catching that criminal. They could land, terrorize some planet community, and warp off again.
Second of all, Kaplan F-17s are highly maneuverable.
We see La Sirena dodging the fire of the upgraded Romulan Bird of Prey in PIC: "Absolute Candor," and the Bird of Prey missed often enough for La Sirena's shields to stay up the whole time. We also see La Sirena doing high-speed flips, rolls, and other maneuvers. That makes it a formidable opponent.
Third, Kaplan F-17s re well-shielded and have a phaser.
So, not only does La Sirena have advanced propulsion systems and decent shielding systems, but it has a powerful, subatomic level vaporizing phaser.
Phasers, as we know, are extremely powerful, and even hand-held ones can be really destructive. But La Sirena, even thought it might be small, has a ship-mounted phaser that could obviously disintegrate the majority of un-shielded settlements/colonies/cities/ships. Not having someone register a ship with a phaser seems idiotic to me.
Ex Astris Scientia, run by Bernd Schneider, with its newly-updated starship database, has covered this in its description and makes a good speculation;
La Sirena is an unregistered ship, probably unlike other freighters of this type. It doesn't become clear what exactly that means in the late 24th century. Rather than being illegal in the Federation, Rios's ship may be unaffiliated and may acquire licenses to operate on a case-by-case basis, rather than under a permanent contract.
Oh, really? Unregistered with the Federation? A starship with advanced propulsion, advanced shielding technology and a 24th century phaser?? Okay. Well, let's just hope that it's not an inhumane, or rather "inhumanoid" person piloting a Kaplan F-17, rendering resistance highly futile.
So what does "unregistered" mean, and how does this registration, or licensing system work?
