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

[vehrec.livejournal.com]

In theory, the structural loads placed on a Star Trek ship sitting on the ground or preforming a powered reentry are nothing compared to the ones inflicted by normal and warp travel. Remember that even half built, Enterprise was apparently supporting its own weight under 1g in drydock. The question isn't how big can a starship be and make a planetary landfall, but at what point to people delete that requirement from the design specifications? It's not so much a question of can it stay in one piece without falling apart, but more a question of can it land safely without lithobraking (Aerobraking taken to the next logical step, but basically crashing into the ground to stop your ship.) and then take off again. Preferably using some sort of engine that doesn't inflict massive damage on the surroundings every time you take off.

If you want to know what you ship can do, it's important to first define what you want it to do. How fast should it be, as a first responder? How much cargo is the design target, in mass and in volume? What surfaces is it supposed to land on, and how much cleared area will it need? For instance, a spaceship that carries 100,000 tons of cargo and is designed to make water landings by design must either constantly support its mass with some kind of engine or be less dense than water so it can float.

As for the location and size of the Orions I've got no clue, other then general notions that they don't have Klingons in the area but Boarders are even more complicated. Remember, space is three dimensional, so the border in this case isn't a line but a plane. And if the Federation has put the squeeze on a particular sector, you may actually wind up with a bubble of Orion administered space completely surrounded by Federation space. It's rare for obvious political and practical reasons-Mahn was never more relevant than he was on the interstellar stage, but it can happen. It all depends on how planets are related to each other, how much defensive depth you can afford, and how much pressure the neighbors are putting on your territory.

[edenfalling]

I think I am just going to have to be vague about the exact space location, then, since not even Memory Alpha has much to say about where the Orions are based. *sigh*

The ship has to be fast, and it has to carry a lot. Interstellar distances are so vast, and (at least in the 23rd century) the Federation seems so loosely knit near its frontiers, that the Red Cross has taken to having ships patrol various sectors to extend their reach; the ships check several times on each colony in their area, and listen for any emergency transmissions. The Red Cross wants those first response ships able to handle a lot, since they are generally dealing with colonies that have not yet achieved self-sufficiency, and may not have adequate infrastructure, funds, or medical facilities to deal with natural disasters, diseases, or outbreaks of violence. I think that once a colony gets up to speed, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies encourages the formation of a planetary Red Cross, and takes that world off the regular patrol list. But anyway, rurounitriv makes some good points about why you wouldn't want to land the main ship on most worlds that are likely to need such a ship's intervention.

[vehrec.livejournal.com]

Vagueness generally works for star Trek. Especially NuTrek which has incredibly fast warp drives when you think about how quickly Enterprise's fleet made it to Vulcan.

Ok, the ship needs to make long unsupported patrols, cruising from one star to the next and putting loads on its engines the whole time. I see two possibilities for this in terms of maintenance. They can either have a large store of spare parts and significant space for replicators and machine tools or they can stand down at the end of a patrol, give he crew time with their families and turn the ship over to a dockyard who work it over. The first one presents a problem-it requires people or robots to operate the machines and conduct repairs. The matching problem of the other method is that if something breaks while you're out there and you can't fix it, which is likely, you'll need to limp back to a spacedock or call Starfleet for a tow. If they can provide one.

Since you've stated that you want a small crew, it's the second option for you! This also helps keep the costs down when building the ship, although it might make it a pain to have to head home when a circuit breaker on C deck gets stuck and you can't bypass it because there's no way to access the part outside a ...what the hell do you call a drydock for a spaceship anyways?

[edenfalling]

They do have some self-repair capabilities (including lots of technical manuals! *grin*), and one of the crew is generally an engineering and maintenance specialist (who also keeps the lab equipment in shape), but yes, if something goes badly wrong they will need to call for help, just as many other starships probably need to do. I think there are probably Federation laws mandating aid to any stranded starcraft, becauese to ignore a call for help is tantamount to murder.

IIRC, the generally accepted term for space drydocks is, straightforwardly enough, 'spacedock.'