• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Starship Museums: why?

From DS9: Emissary

KIRA: Mister O'Brien, what would it take to move this station to the mouth of the wormhole?
O'BRIEN: This isn't a starship, Major. We've got six working thrusters to power us and that's it. A hundred sixty million kilometre trip would take two months.
KIRA: It has to be there tomorrow.
O'BRIEN: That's not possible, sir.
KIRA: That wormhole might just reshape the future of this entire quadrant. The Bajorans have to stake a claim to it. And I have to admit that claim will be a lot stronger if there's a Federation presence to back it up.
DAX: Couldn't you modify the subspace field output of the deflector generators just enough to create a low-level field around the station?
O'BRIEN: So we could lower the inertial mass?
DAX: If you can make the station lighter, those six thrusters will be all the power we'd need.
O'BRIEN: This whole station could break apart like an egg if it doesn't work.

So at least we know a space station (albeit a Cardassian one) can be moved a lot faster thanks to 'subspace fields'. As to whether they could get it up to warp speed, I don't know.
 
From DS9: Emissary

So at least we know a space station (albeit a Cardassian one) can be moved a lot faster thanks to 'subspace fields'. As to whether they could get it up to warp speed, I don't know.
The way the episode plays out, it's implied that there is a high risk the station "breaks apart like an egg," meaning it's not intended to fly across the solar system in a day.
 
The Search for Spock where it appears with no warp drive and is obviously a "space station."
None of which answers the question of whether it was designed and engineered to be moved at warp. I see it as akin to how ships aren't land vehicles but are designed and engineered to be lifted out of the water.
 
The way the episode plays out, it's implied that there is a high risk the station "breaks apart like an egg," meaning it's not intended to fly across the solar system in a day.
No, indeed, but it shows that it's doable in principle.

Also, stations could perhaps be designed with this in mind (the Cardassian station obviously wasn't) - e.g. with stronger field emitters, and stronger Structural Integrity Fields or whatever gizmos it'd need. It might be possible to get such 'optimised' stations up to low warp - though they'll probably never soar around with Voyager's warp 9.975 'sustainable top cruising speed' .
 
No, indeed, but it shows that it's doable in principle.

Also, stations could perhaps be designed with this in mind (the Cardassian station probably wasn't) - e.g. with stronger field emitters, and stronger Structural Integrity Fields or whatever gizmos it'd need. It might be possible to get such 'optimised' stations up to low warp - though they'll probably never soar around with Voyager's warp 9.975 'sustainable top cruising speed' .
Across a solar system, sure. Nothing on screen to say it can be warped away, except PIC S3 fan-fiction-level writing. :crazy:
 
Warp drive and stargates, not the same thing.
Warp drive is just a matter of scale, that's all. Trek repeatedly shows that going bigger is always possible.


And Stargate Atlantis has a city ship called, um, Atlantis. So with enough power and capability it's possible.

That's the beauty of science.

Across a solar system, sure. Nothing on screen to say it can be warped away, except PIC S3 fan-fiction-level writing. :crazy:
Par for the course in this Season.
 
Warp drive is just a matter of scale, that's all. Trek repeatedly shows that going bigger is always possible.


And Stargate Atlantis has a city ship called, um, Atlantis. So with enough power and capability it's possible.

That's the beauty of science.


Par for the course in this Season.
I'm not addressing scale regarding starships. I'm addressing not designed with warp drive in mind and when that is the case, scale does matter, because the bigger the space station, the more fragile it will be.

In Stargate: Atlantis, the cityship was designed with interplanetary and hyperspace flight in mind from the word go. Spacedock was not.
 
Also, stations could perhaps be designed with this in mind (the Cardassian station obviously wasn't)
Even two months isn't an outrageously slow time-table for moving a "fixed" object under most circumstances, it's just that they were on a time-crunch on DS9. With over a hundred years between when we last saw Spacedock and PIC, it could've been moved from Earth to Athan at that unacceptably slow speed, depending on how close the systems are (and they're probably pretty close, for a shuttle to make the trip in a couple hours, tops).
 
I'm not addressing scale regarding starships. I'm addressing not designed with warp drive in mind and when that is the case, scale does matter, because the bigger the space station, the more fragile it will be.

In Stargate: Atlantis, the cityship was designed with interplanetary and hyperspace flight in mind from the word go. Spacedock was not.

Did you design these fake structures? No? Then how are you privy to how they are moved around?
 
Did you design these fake structures? No? Then how are you privy to how they are moved around?
From an engineering standpoint, the larger a structure, the easier it is to come down.
Same logic would apply to a space station that's not designed for warp and has no nacelles.
As for Atlantis... it's literally explained in the TV show.
 
From an engineering standpoint, the larger a structure, the easier it is to come down.

There is no down, in space. :shrug:

And, considering we can take objects apart at the quantum level, and then put them back together, again. Moving a large object, even at warp, should be child's play.
 
Anyway back to a Fleet Museum:

It comes from the episode Relics at the earliest (following is from memory):

Picard looks around the Enterprise 1701 Bridge: Hm. Constitution Class.
Scotty: Ay, you know her?
Picard: There's one like her at the fleet museum.

Which apparently now is the 'New Jersey'. Terrible name for it, but whatever, it does expand the verse and fleet a bit - not everything was done by the 1701s!

And it hearkens back to the 'Starfleet is totally not the USN/Navy of the UFP' thing since the beginning. While the USN doesn't have a singular fleet museum, Museum ships exist aplenty, and its just something we do: pride in our history, our institution, our achievements, to educate the future generations on what was achieved and what could be done. Many institutions, military or not, do this, have little museums.

Why wouldn't Starfleet have one? They're all about exploring, science, new phenomenea, human/alien achievement and diplomacy, having a Museum would be one of the least surprising things ever.
 
Last edited:
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top