Vaughan Rittenhouse was the antagonist of the Star Trek novel Dreadnought! A villanous Starfleet officer, he sought to overthrow the Federation government in a coup d'état.
By 2270 Rittenhouse had reached the rank of Vice Admiral and maintained the USS Pompeii as his flagship. Sometime around 2270 Rittenhouse began planning his coup, gathering officers who felt like he did to his cause, and having the dreadnought USS Star Empire built as the first in a line of warships that he would use to seize power. With its weaponry and high warp capability the Star Empire seriously outmatched Constitution class vessels like the Enterprise.
Learning of Rittenhouse's plans to overthrow the council, a group of "terrorists" led by Paul Burch stole the Star Empire to prevent Rittenhouse from moving forward with his coup. The Enterprise was summoned to help retake Star Empire, and the Enterprise crew quickly became suspicious of Rittenhouse. After the Enterprise senior officers escaped from the Pompeii the Enterprise and Star Empire engaged in combat against the Pompeii and three other vessels loyal to Rittenhouse.
In the ensuing battle the Enterprise and Star Empire overwhelmed Rittenhouse's ships. Rittenhouse tried to ram Star Empire with the Pompeii, but died when the Enterprise destroyed his ship to keep him from doing so. The other Rittenhouse loyalist ships surrendered soon afterwards.
After the conspiracy was exposed and defeated, Kirk recommended the Star Empire be decommissioned and dismantled as it went against the ideals of Starfleet. Still, the conspiracy was very damaging to Starfleet's reputation, with many Federation citizens coming to regard Command as a collection of secretive cabels looking to overthrow the Federation. Admiral Heihachiro Nogura was assigned to perform damage control, and as part of the effort to restore the fleet's reputation, convinced Kirk to finally accept a promotion to Admiral.