Day 18-Forgot to ask; How do we get around?
" 'We travel across this sea of stars in sailing ships that ride on waves of light. We catch not the wind to do so but must make this wind ourselves. Put your body into it, your mind, and your clarity of being.'
This verse by the well known, contemporary Vulcan Poet Silik, is one of my all time favorites. I gazed skyward as a child and imagined going there, into that 'sea of stars' but I never believed I would just appear there. I knew I'd be taking a spacecraft. I'd need a ship.
Now I'm the navigator, the Chief Navigator, on a Starfleet Light Cruiser.
I get to be the one to set the course as we ride those waves of light."
Starships
Generally speaking, a Starship is a manned spacecraft capable of fast-than-light travel, almost exclusively by means of a Warp Drive. The Warp Drive and Warp Engines create a field or 'warp bubble' of subspace around the vessel, allowing it to bend the normal laws of physical relativity and thus move the ship at speeds much faster than the speed of light.
All the major galactic powers possess warp capable vessels, with those of the United Federation of Planets, the Gorn Hegemony, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, and the Tholian Assembly being the most powerful and efficient. While many of these starships are in the service of navies or interstellar corporations, smaller commercial and privately owned warp enabled craft not only exist but seems almost common place across outer space.
Classes of starship are determined by purpose, size, and configuration, ranging from small Runabouts, Scouts, and Couriers to Frigates and Heavy Cruisers. Commercial and other civilian classes include Freighters, Research and Survey Ships, and Yachts. The USS Prosperity is a Mark III Ventura Class Light Cruiser in the service of Starfleet Command, for example. It's primary purpose being Exploration but it has served in multiple additional roles including Defense, Diplomacy, Emergency Response and Rescue, and Scientific Research.
While there have been experimental craft, alien vessels, beings, and creatures able to travel at FTL speeds with alternative forms of propulsion [other than a Warp Drive], these are rare exceptions. In many of these cases, the nature of the FTL used can not be mechanically duplicated, is ineffecient, or produces dangerous side effects or phenomena.
Shuttlecraft
Typically an auxillary spacecraft attached to a starship, the term is often used interchangeably for any small spacecraft launched by a larger 'home base' like a space station or even a planet's surface. The vast majority of vehicles dubbed shuttlecraft, or simply shuttles, are not warp capable and at most travel at maximum impulse.
Shuttlecraft Mondrian departs USS Prosperity for a planetoid in an ion storm.
If a shuttle does have warp capacity it is usually given its own separate designation, such as a Scout Ship, Runabout, or Diplomatic Transport. Basically, its no longer generally referred to as a 'shuttle'. Some shuttles can connect to an independent Warp Sled, basically a set of warp nacelles, a warp core, and little else. Once linked together the shuttle takes on the title of 'Warp Shuttle' and will travel as quickly as the Warp Sled can move it.
There are Starfleet Shuttles, Federation Shuttles both government and civilian owned and operated, and of course commercial shuttlecraft of all kinds. All the major powers have their own and make use a variety of models for different situations.
Transporters
A Transporter moves people and materials nearly instaneously between two locations, one of which is a Transporter Station with a Transporter Pad. Matter is converted into a recorded energy pattern and that pattern is then beamed to a targeted location. There, the pattern of energy is reinstated back into its previous matter form.
USS Curiousity Landing Party beams down to a planet
Transporters are a common means of travel throughout the domains of all the known interstellar powers and have been for some time. That said, there are still individuals who are made uncomfortable by this technology and it does have its limitations.
Transportation, or 'Beaming' as it is colloquially referred to, requires a lot of sophisticated technology, an operator with a good technical knowledge of the machinery, and skill with the use of this technology. Only the best and most advanced transporters can beam an object or person into an open space, with most needing a receiver station, a transporter pad on the other end, to safely reintergrate someone or something.
Transporters can be blocked - that is, prevented from operating properly - by a starship's shields, high level radiation, charged particle interference such as ion storms, mineral dense rock formations, and other energy, material, and spatial phenomena. For these reasons and others, while there is increasing use of Transporters throughout known space, Shuttlecraft and other such space vehicles will always remain a popular alternative means of getting around.
Ground Vehicles
Most wheeled, tracked, and other traditional ground contact vehicles were phased out of use almost 150 years ago, roughly by the Earth's early-to-mid 22nd century, with scattered appearances among the settlements of far flung colony worlds or by contacted species who had not yet mastered anti-gravity and artificial gravity technology. These days most planetary travel is achieved by transporter or in-system shuttle throughout the civilizations of the galaxy.
There are exceptions however. The Federation, including Starfleet Command does see the occaisional use of Gravity-Effect vehicles, often called Grav or Hover Vehicles or, less commonly, 'speeders'. A small number of Starfleet outposts in frontier sectors will be equipped with one or more Runaway Class Grav Vehicles, used to patrol or review security and/or scientific checkpoints across a planetary surface with especially difficult terrain or hostile lifeforms. Also available, though even less common, is the Swift Class Grav Cycle or Grav 'Bike'. These are usually only given to Starfleet personnel on long-term planetary survey missions.
"On a final note, the Prosperity's crew are particularly fond amd dare I dare proud of a small ship only carried by a few Starfleet vessels at this point since the craft is fairly newly commissioned, the Cochrane Class Long Range Scout Ship, 'Rockwell'. Bearing the registry number NCC-1587 / 3S, the Rockwell both defies and defines the starship and shuttlecraft categories I mentioned earlier.
It is a shuttlecraft for all intents and purposes but it has much better sensors, shields, and overall handling than a standard Type F shuttle. In addition, it is equipped with a single Phaser Bank and is capable of achieving Warp 1 for a prolonged period. As she can reach warp speed, she can not be classified as a shuttle and is therefore a Long Range Scout Ship.
Only a handful of Starfleet vessels and bases have a Conchrane at this point in time and the USS Prosperity is one of them. She is an absolute beauty and a very fine ship."
We started the campaign with four shuttles given our ship size of 4 but traded in two of the shuttles for the Rockwell.
Moving on...
AD
Barking Alien
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