Star Trek questions -- please help?

[edenfalling]

I am working on a Star Trek: AOS (i.e., the new movie) request fic for valles_uf, which is currently at 3,700 words. The thing is, it involves a lot of world-building. Among other things, I am attempting to insert the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies into the Star Trek world, on the theory that no matter how good Starfleet Medical is, a volunteer-based NGO is probably still useful and less likely to be distrusted as an arm of the military and/or government. (On that note, I am troubled to learn that the main medical regulatory agency in the Star Trek universe is part of the military. Yes, Starfleet is not solely a military agency, but when all is said and done, they are the Federation's military.)

Anyway, I am having trouble finagling some details out of the internet. So I ask the collective widsom of lj and dreamwidth: has anyone established a generally accepted location and extent of the Orion Congeries, and their border with the Federation? I am not sure if I am going to bother being too specific, but it would be nice to know what sector of space I am dealing with (and what other fictional political entities are in the neighborhood).

Also, is there any generally accepted consensus about the how big a starship can be and still make a planetary landing rather than needing to stay in orbit or at a space station and send shuttles (or beam crewmembers) down to the surface? Because my Red Cross ship has a fairly small crew -- it's a simple ship -- but it carries a lot of cargo, because its mission is emergency first response. And right now, I do not have a clear picture of its size or layout.

Comments

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

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.

[edenfalling]

All very good points! Okay, I think what I am going to do is add two or three more crew members, up the size of the ship, and have them establish a sort of base camp down near the colony's main settlement. I think they will be doing a lot of research on the surface (since that is where the patients are available to be scanned and to give samples), but they will probably beam data and samples onto the main ship as well, so they have two labs working on multiple lines of inquiry.