If it were me, I'd want that mothership to stay in orbit.
First of all, it's easier to maintain quarantine in cases of epidemics that maybe aren't quite totally as under control as you might like, plus you don't have to worry so much about things like the local civil war heating back up and some of the local guerrilla forces (or just random criminals/desperate people/corrupt government officials) deciding to just walk onboard and seize all of your supplies.
Second, air travel to remote locations will be far more easily done from a ship in orbit than from one that's grounded. Natural disasters don't just hit big cities, plus big cities are also generally more able to deal with said disasters than the remote areas. A shuttlecraft from orbit is a far more efficient method of getting large amounts of goods from the ship to where it's needed than dropping down into that gravity well and then having to haul it overland - and any society capable of space travel is going to know the value of making gravity work for them, not against them.
Third, not everything is going to be needed in every emergency, and stuff that isn't used is going to have to be hauled back out of that gravity well again. That means extra fuel, which means money that isn't going towards trying to get more supplies.
no subject
First of all, it's easier to maintain quarantine in cases of epidemics that maybe aren't quite totally as under control as you might like, plus you don't have to worry so much about things like the local civil war heating back up and some of the local guerrilla forces (or just random criminals/desperate people/corrupt government officials) deciding to just walk onboard and seize all of your supplies.
Second, air travel to remote locations will be far more easily done from a ship in orbit than from one that's grounded. Natural disasters don't just hit big cities, plus big cities are also generally more able to deal with said disasters than the remote areas. A shuttlecraft from orbit is a far more efficient method of getting large amounts of goods from the ship to where it's needed than dropping down into that gravity well and then having to haul it overland - and any society capable of space travel is going to know the value of making gravity work for them, not against them.
Third, not everything is going to be needed in every emergency, and stuff that isn't used is going to have to be hauled back out of that gravity well again. That means extra fuel, which means money that isn't going towards trying to get more supplies.