I'm assuming once they're there the fleet will be braking up to go explore there own areas of expertise, and meeting up with each other as and when necessary for whatever they get up to. So I can see a lot of potential for a short story anthology once the mission is underway; we could see follow-ups to all sorts of Delta Quadrant dangling threads as each ships goes off and explores and what not.
DQ Fleet? Cool, I love Dairy Queen. Not sure which ship this will be on but I'd like 2 hot dogs & a blueberry cheesequake blizzard.
I can see them maybe going off in pairs, particularly the science and medical ships staying with a better armed ship. But it seems pretty normal for Starfleet to send single ships off on missions of exploration, and considering these few ships are Starfleet’s entire presence in the Delta Quadrant there's a lot of space for them be looking at. Plus with slipstream even spread out the fleet is always going to be easy to get back together if one ship needs backup.
Can ships that aren't travelling in slipstream keep regular contact with those that are? Meaning: Is it not like B5's Hyperspace, where it's easy to get lost if you lose the beacon?
More than occasionally; there wouldn't be much point going all the way to the Delta Quadrant if they spent the whole time zooming about inside a slipstream vortex.
Exactly. So whenever a ship drops out of slipstream, how do they find their way back to the rest of the fleet?
^ Given how inflexible slipstream vortices are (with deviations of a few degrees to either side liable to toss the ship out), one imagines there are preset coordinates shared by the fleet for jumps and rendezvous. Although whether vessels in their respective, though proximate, vortices can communicate is an interesting one. If a ship is forced to drop out of slipstream for whatever reason, can it inform its fellows or will they realize it's absence only once they reach their own predetermined destination? Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Well they're deploying subspace communication thingies all the way from the Alpha Quadrant; surely they're going to be putting the same system in place for communications across the Delta Quadrant too...
The only ships capable of handling the necessary tactical capacity of a D.Q. Expedition. Starfleet's not acting within its usual benevolent leniency toward The Prime Directive this time around, according to the "Voyager: Unworthy" synopsis I've read. Sovereign-Class (with or without a Typhon-Class carrier piggybacking in "docked mode" off the ship's engineering hull, as seen in "Star Trek: Invasion".) Intrepid-Class Akira-Class
I had the impression they'd be splitting into groups of three: one capital ship, one science ship, and one specialty ship per group. Although the specialty ships each have different functions, so they'd have to come back together fairly frequently.
Some thoughts on the limited information so far: 1. While they have not said what class the science vessels are, since they said they'd be "assigned" to the three capital ships, that's instantly made them Nova-class starships in my mind. Memory Beta has already labeled one as Nebula-Class based on one of the names being from a game. 2. I'm very glad they're including a hospital ship. Very sensible. I too hope the Galen is Olympic-Class. Perhaps this is a real opportunity to "introduce" the Olympic-Class for the first time since AGT (15 years ago!). 3. I think I might be more impressed with the inclusion of two Vestas if we were more aware of what the class profile is. Are these the successors to the Sovereigns? How big are they? Plus side: so glad they're keeping up with a theme with the names of this class. Same with the science vessels. 4. I'd like to think that the Achilles is Prometheus-Class, but that just doesn't sound like a type of vessel that would essentially be the fleet's supply ship. I'd say the lack of a Prometheus in this fleet would be kind of mind boggling. I mean, it's a deep space tactical vessel for crying out loud, introduced in this very series! When else would they use it? 5. At this point, kind of hard to tell if the Demeter could just be a modified, pre-existing class or if it'll be a very atypical design to accomodate this airponics bay. Something like the holo-ship for example?
I don't get the connection. See the Aventine thread: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=96905 They've already got nine ships. Why would they need a silly gimmicky ship that can split into three?
Why not? What do you find "silly" and "gimmicky" about the Prometheus? Is it the fact that it can split into three ships that act together in co-ordinated attacks? Personally, I find that kind of cool. I agree with Sxottlan's 4th point...the ship was first seen in Voyager, and since Voyager is off on a mission that fits a Prometheus class's mission parameters, why not use one ?