UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
How about the rock whisperer?
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- star trek exploration fully automated luxury gay space communism top level canon (canon) #hashtagcontent all-encompassing space amoeba cardassian boy bands cardassian magical girls darkest bureaucracy debate makes the qm cackle like palpatine hoh is an empire quest it has to be foreign infiltrators more ships ship happens singers delenda est starfleet this is not an empire quest ur waifu is collective?
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
Grab the Oberth when no one is looking and leave a note behind on her desk?
aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
- Location
- Laniakea Supercluster
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It is actually, something on the order of a 50% increase or more, last I checked. Admiral Leonard McCoy, for example, was touring the Enterprise D at the ripe old age of 137.
By TNG we are occasionally bumping up over 140, with fairly stable mental abilities.
Anyway!
Still wouldn't want to get in a fist fight with a Klingon in those later years.
Wouldn't want to do it in the younger years either, if we're honest.
Yeah, that's the one on screen.
Anyway!
Still wouldn't want to get in a fist fight with a Klingon in those later years.
Wouldn't want to do it in the younger years either, if we're honest.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Adorable but you'll make poor Enterprise jealous.
Hm. Really need to finish Chapter Four.
One possibility is that we could send a ship out to escort the Kadeshi only part way, so that our ship is only away for a reduced span of time. Say, for the duration of a five-year mission. During those years, the Federation personnel will train up the Kadeshi in deep space surveying and tactics and all the stuff they would otherwise not know. Then they turn around before getting so hopelessly far from home that it would be particularly unlikely that they'd return.
I mean, if our ships can move one map square a week, then if we accompany the Kadeshi fleet for even a single year that is fifty or so squares off into the depths of the galaxy. Quite a feat of long range exploration even if we don't accompany them all the way.
I like this, but I do want to point out that we really don't want to strand our heroic explorers far from home with no viable means of return. With good planning that won't be a problem, I hope, so I'm not actually disagreeing with you here.
Uh... every Constitution-B was laboriously assembled by our yards within the past few years. Hopefully none of them are being decommissioned any time soon. And as for the Constitution-As, with the exception of Cheron, only a lunatic would take one on a long space voyage. Plus most of the ones in the least-terrible shape have been taken apart for spare pieces to build ConnieBees.
Put this way. Depending on how we plan the expedition, it could be contrary to our interests (by effectively destroying one of our ships). Or it could promote our interests (by giving us a wealth of scientific and cultural information on a great swath of galactic space). The latter is very much a thing that Starfleet, as opposed to a Generic National Military, would stand for.
We spend a lot of time getting thwacked with the reality that by playing Starfleet, we are not playing a Generic National Military. Our ability to build weapons is limited, we have to be very restrained in the use of force even against people who are begging to have force used against them, and so on.
So maybe, for once, we should set things up so that it is to our advantage to be Starfleet, rather than just being a generic navy that's trying to optimize its spreadsheets of iron to have the maximum number of space dreadnoughts with which to oppose the inexplicably persistent depredations of the Generican Space Empire of Evil.
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Information on places a long, long way away is inherently less valuable than information on places closer to home that other Federation ships can potentially travel to. I was down with sending an Oberth. Lots of great research data to transmit back and probably worth it in the long term.
Now people want to send an Exploration Corps Excelsior, and I feel like the train is starting to leave the tracks. The Stargazer would still be exploring if we kept it closer to home. The difference would be that the resources it finds and the new races it contacts would be things that we could, you know, actually follow up on. I mean, imagine the mission reports we'd get back:
1. Have contacted new race! - We have no way to continue contact with race.
2. Have found great site for special resources mining colony! - We have no way to establish said colony.
Etc. An Excelsior can still be doing a lot of great work closer to home, where it can benefit us more.
Okay, let's put this thing to bed. Warp 6 is about 250 times the speed of light. A destination 5,000 light years away would take 20 years at warp 6. I'm guessing that's somewhere around the speed that the Mothership will be making, taking into account having to stop for resupply and such. How fast is one of our ships in a sustained cruise?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If we end up sending an Excelsior, Briefvoice, I would favor escorting the Kadeshi only a fraction of the total distance. Maybe not a large fraction, either.
And to back you up on some of the numbers issues, given that we're using TOS scale...
Our fastest marathon-running ships can manage Warp 12 for no more than a few days before needing a total drive of overhaul. That is about eight times the hypothetical Warp 6 speed of the Mothership. But none of our ships could keep it up for any really significant length of time.
The very best marathon-running ship in our fleet (Enterprise) can manage Warp 11 for a few weeks. She did this without totally burning out the engines and needing an overhaul, but it seems very unlikely she could have kept it up indefinitely. Warp 11 is about six times faster than Warp 6. So it seems likely that one of our explorers could escort the Kadeshi fleet for, oh, three months, and make it back to our space within two weeks of running very fast.
But this mission profile can't be stretched indefinitely; if we escort them for a year it will probably take more than eight weeks to get back.
Warp 10, one thousand light-years per year, is still about 4.5 times faster than Warp 6, and is somewhat more credible as a sustained cruising speed for our ship. Notably this is roughly the speed that Janeway expected to be able to average when crossing the galaxy in Voyager. On the one hand, Voyager is almost certainly faster than our best ships by a large margin. On the other, that was presumably a very, very long term average including stops for repairs, maintenance, and refueling.
It is believable that we could, say, escort the Kadeshi for a year, and get our ship back within three months.
The farther out we go, the worse it gets. Four years out will probably mean MORE than a year coming back. That's still within the bounds of what we can reasonably do, I think... but pushes the edge of the envelope pretty far.
And to back you up on some of the numbers issues, given that we're using TOS scale...
Our fastest marathon-running ships can manage Warp 12 for no more than a few days before needing a total drive of overhaul. That is about eight times the hypothetical Warp 6 speed of the Mothership. But none of our ships could keep it up for any really significant length of time.
The very best marathon-running ship in our fleet (Enterprise) can manage Warp 11 for a few weeks. She did this without totally burning out the engines and needing an overhaul, but it seems very unlikely she could have kept it up indefinitely. Warp 11 is about six times faster than Warp 6. So it seems likely that one of our explorers could escort the Kadeshi fleet for, oh, three months, and make it back to our space within two weeks of running very fast.
But this mission profile can't be stretched indefinitely; if we escort them for a year it will probably take more than eight weeks to get back.
Warp 10, one thousand light-years per year, is still about 4.5 times faster than Warp 6, and is somewhat more credible as a sustained cruising speed for our ship. Notably this is roughly the speed that Janeway expected to be able to average when crossing the galaxy in Voyager. On the one hand, Voyager is almost certainly faster than our best ships by a large margin. On the other, that was presumably a very, very long term average including stops for repairs, maintenance, and refueling.
It is believable that we could, say, escort the Kadeshi for a year, and get our ship back within three months.
The farther out we go, the worse it gets. Four years out will probably mean MORE than a year coming back. That's still within the bounds of what we can reasonably do, I think... but pushes the edge of the envelope pretty far.
Personally I think an excelsior is good idea in that it has the best chance of surviving both the trip out and the return. I was semi serious about the Endurance by the way - I don't think we should use an EC Excelsior.
Think of it as putting an excelsior on 6-8 Five year missions. We are going to get hella benefits during the initial phases of its trip and when it comes back. Assuming it survives. Which again, an excelsior has the best chance of
Think of it as putting an excelsior on 6-8 Five year missions. We are going to get hella benefits during the initial phases of its trip and when it comes back. Assuming it survives. Which again, an excelsior has the best chance of
- Location
- Australia
Convoy speed is Warp 5, which I set as one grid square per month. Warp 7 is customary travel speed for Starfleet, while Warp 9 cruise speed is allowed for states of emergency (square per week), while maximum warp is allowed for distress call sprints and the like (speed of plot).
- Location
- USA
So 20 years there, 10 years back I take it? Or until we develop better warp engines that let us go faster (or transwarp). Also is this TOS warp speeds or TNG warp speeds since I think in the newer ones they capped it at Warp 10, while original series went more then that.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
TOS.
We should never transition to the TNG system.
Why? It is illogical.
- Location
- Australia
TOS system - you'll get the opportunity to change next year (just in case you've all lost your minds and really like playing with 9.9999s).
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'd like to send an Excelsior, honestly; it'll be a bite out of our budget as we essentially write off one of our heavy hitters, but it means we can focus on something other than impending war with one or more neighbors for a change. Shame we don't have the new Ambassadors or Keplers in production yet, though...
If we send something like an Oberth, I would prefer we sent more than one ship - a new Oberth along with a pair of new Mirandas or Centaurs, as an example, although I don't know just how many Federation ships the Kadeshi are willing to support for their journey.
If we send something like an Oberth, I would prefer we sent more than one ship - a new Oberth along with a pair of new Mirandas or Centaurs, as an example, although I don't know just how many Federation ships the Kadeshi are willing to support for their journey.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
We have to remember that for things like warp cores and shield systems, Kadeshi manufacturing is incompatible with ours. I doubt we can retrofit our stuff onto the Pride of Kadesh.
From that standpoint it will be extremely hard to justify sending anything less than a cruiser, as any ship we send needs to be capable of supporting its own repair efforts on critical systems from a manpower and engineering standpoint. Our escorts and Oberths are likely too small to support all the necessary expertise, and our older cruisers may be as well.
From that standpoint it will be extremely hard to justify sending anything less than a cruiser, as any ship we send needs to be capable of supporting its own repair efforts on critical systems from a manpower and engineering standpoint. Our escorts and Oberths are likely too small to support all the necessary expertise, and our older cruisers may be as well.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
One point in favor for the Excelsior is that it is capable of long term independent operations.
How sustainable is Warp 7/8/9/10? Which way are they headed?
For reference, here's the warp speeds.
Code:
| Warp | C |
| ---- | :--: |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 8 |
| 3 | 27 |
| 4 | 64 |
| 5 | 125 |
| 6 | 216 |
| 7 | 343 |
| 8 | 512 |
| 9 | 729 |
| 10 | 1000 |
| 11 | 1331 |
| 12 | 1728 |Going at warp 8, which should be relatively doable for an Excelsior, we should be able to catch up after a year – a relay of sorts.
And if we can sustain 5 years at warp 8, we should be able have whichever Excelsior we send return after 25 years – 20 there, 5 back.
@OneirosTheWriter Can the old Connie-As hold up for 20 years with a refit? We might be able to send one along with a generation ship crew.
That's about where I'm sitting at as well for the mission design, but I'm not sure we can afford the hulls.
I do want to throw in a robotic cargo ship if nothing else, full to the brim with subspace amplifiers for messages to and from home and heaps and heaps of spare parts.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
IF there was some real exponential function connecting the high-end warp factors to real-space speeds, TNG warp factors wouldn't bother me so much.
But there isn't, because all speeds above Warp 9 on the TNG scale are the result of some guy doing a hand-drawn graph. And below Warp 9, the TNG system works enough like the TOS system that there's no obvious reason why it was ever picked in favor OF the TOS system. Especially since the only thing they change is an exponential dependency, and in physical laws the choice of exponent is normally set by... physical law.
The whole point of the narrative regarding the Constitution-As is that they cannot be returned to service as functioning explorers or even cruisers. The best you can do is take a few non-ruined parts of one and splice them into a whole new hull.
So I personally hope he says "no."
For a 20-30 year trip it would have to be an Explorer, nothing else has any chance of being able to carry the fuel/other consumables required plus have the self-maintenance capability. We will be able to get some from the flotilla, but they use a different tech-base, so we cannot get everything as needed.
And I would honestly expect the ship to be such an amazing array of repairs/emergency fixes on it's return to be written off and scrapped. Our explorers appear to get minor maintenance periodically and an overhaul after every five year mission as is, and that will not be an option on the trip.
The crew (long lived species volunteers only) would be guaranteed several promotions on their return and their pick of assignment, if they stay with Starfleet.
And I would honestly expect the ship to be such an amazing array of repairs/emergency fixes on it's return to be written off and scrapped. Our explorers appear to get minor maintenance periodically and an overhaul after every five year mission as is, and that will not be an option on the trip.
The crew (long lived species volunteers only) would be guaranteed several promotions on their return and their pick of assignment, if they stay with Starfleet.