Why was the Stargazer abandoned?

[Xerxes1979]

The hull appeared in pretty good shape. The ship had shields, partial and or main power plus warp drive.

It seems that staying onboard would have been a pretty sensible thing to do.

What type of fires were raging out of control? The normal type generally stop when they exhaust the supply of availble oxgyen. Therefore could not the crew have taken shelter in safe areas or reboarded the ship after they had burned out?

Sans a decaying orbit or a warpcore breach your ship is very good place to be.

 

[Kemaiku]

Middle of a battle, ships shields failing, bridge seriously on fire, engineering sending reports of system failures and fires erupting all over the ship, loosing control of the vessel.

They had no choice, taking care of the damage alone would have been hazardous but they were under fire, Picard decided it was the best thing to do. Environmental control seems to have gone offline at some point and the oxygen used up before the fires hit a main plasma line etc but it very well could have.

 

[RAMA]

Prob a question of damage control and repair vs survival.

RAMA

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

The Ferengi may have patched things up a little as well - who would buy a ship with a gaping hole in it? DaiMon Bok may have wanted his revenge, but he also knew that if he didn't make it look like he was out solely for profit, his crew would probably mutiny.

 

[nx1701g]

I always took it that the ship had been on the verge of collapse. If you listen to the reports closely the ship had taken massive damage in the combat and it was probably to the point that if they'd stayed they'd all have died.

What's stranger is Picard didn't set self destruct. It's presumable they were close to the Cardassian Border and, at that time, the Federation was at War with Cardassia.

 

[T'Girl]

Pet theory, the battle damaged the Stargazers life support beyond repair, the only breathable atmosphere remaining was that present in the ship when the life support quit. That was major problem number one, if the that was all, Picard could have had the majority of the crew live in the lifeboats without ejecting them, while a skeleton crew piloted the ship to safety. For a small number the air would have lasted with out recycling. But now comes major problem number two, the warp drive engines were damaged as well, the Stargazer couldn't generate a warp field that didn't collapse after only several seconds. They perhaps could have fix this problem, but not with out life support.

So Picard abandon ship, the warp capable shuttles towing the lifeboats, they "limped through space for weeks" and were pick up by a ship responding to their distress call.

What's stranger is Picard didn't set self destruct.

This is odd, also if the ship wasn't destroyed, why did not Starfleet search for and locate the ship?

 

[Timo]

It wouldn't be all that unlikely for Picard to have been sailing in waters that were too far away from home for a recovery mission. One exploration sortie in that direction might have been all that Starfleet could afford to mount - and when that ended in combat defeat, it was considered too risky and costly to send another mission.

"The Battle" makes it sound as if Bok's son knowingly ambushed a Starfleet vessel. He wouldn't have done that if there was fear of Starfleet reprisal. Probably the ambush took place at a safe distance from UFP territory and out of regular Starfleet reach, then.

Regarding self-destruct, we don't have any evidence that this would be a standard Starfleet maneuver. Kirk used it as an offensive weapon once (ST3), was gonna do it once (ST:TMP), shied away from it once ("By Any Other Name"), and used it as a blackmail bluff twice ("I, Mudd", "Let That Be"). Picard used it for blackmail in "Where Silence Has Lease" but never considered it again until ST:NEM. Sisko had no patience for suicide.

Janeway was often pushed into a corner where self-destruct either offered a means out or then at least denied the enemy access to advanced technology. But she was in a rather unique position: no other Captain had to worry that much about an enemy hungry for Federation technology.

Perhaps Starfleet skippers back at Alpha Quadrant do not have standing instructions to scuttle their ships, unless this provides some direct tactical advantage or removes some immediate danger? We have seen many times that dead starships are extremely difficult to spot by Starfleet-level sensors. A slowly cooling hulk would thus not be likely to be located by primitives who shouldn't have access to its technological marvels, whereas species advanced enough to locate the wreck would have no use for it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[KirkPicard]

If you are so inclined, I would recommend reading about the Battle of Maxia scenario as depicted in Christopher Bennett's engrossing book "The Buried Age"

 

[MrGoodAlex]

Maybe the self-destruct initiator was offline. It has happened before.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Maybe the self-destruct initiator was offline. It has happened before.

Better the initiator than the abort button!

"It's out of order!"
"Shit!"

Talk about a bad day.

 

[Timo]

If you are so inclined, I would recommend reading about the Battle of Maxia scenario as depicted in Christopher Bennett's engrossing book "The Buried Age"

In that book, though, Picard attempts self-destruct - which doesn't match "The Battle" where the sight of the intact ship doesn't result in any speculating/agonizing over the failure of a self-destruct attempt.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Alrik]

Picard used it for blackmail in "Where Silence Has Lease" but never considered it again until ST:NEM.

Timo Saloniemi

You're missing two other important times. In both 11001001 and ST: First Contact he initiated Auto Destruct to keep the ship from falling into the hands of the enemy, or in the case of 11001001 the perceived enemy.

 

[Trekker4747]

If you are so inclined, I would recommend reading about the Battle of Maxia scenario as depicted in Christopher Bennett's engrossing book "The Buried Age"

Very good book, highly recommended.

 

[Marten]

I'm gonna go with the idea that the ferengis fixed it somewhat (Or hired someone to do it).

 

[Trekker4747]

Though it's not canon, here's what happens in the book "The Buried Age" for those who don't want to read it, though they really should.

Spoiler: what happens to the Stargazer in the book.

The attack left the Stargazer crippled but, IIRC, otherwise mostly functional. However some-sort-of containment breach in a science lab risked flooding the ship with deadly levels of radiation so the ship had to abandoned. Picard activates the self-destruct, he and the rest of the crew abandon ship and leave and soon discover that the self-destruct has stalled and/or malfunctioned. Unfortuanly the radiation leak has rendered the ship uninhabitable for a return to fix the problem and the survivng crew has no means of destroying the Stargazer and leaves her adrift. Presumably after recovering the ship the Ferengi were able to decontaminate the radiation troubles and repair the ship.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Though it's not canon, here's what happens in the book "The Buried Age" for those who don't want to read it, though they really should.

Spoiler: what happens to the Stargazer in the book.

The attack left the Stargazer crippled but, IIRC, otherwise mostly functional. However some-sort-of containment breach in a science lab risked flooding the ship with deadly levels of radiation so the ship had to abandoned. Picard activates the self-destruct, he and the rest of the crew abandon ship and leave and soon discover that the self-destruct has stalled and/or malfunctioned. Unfortuanly the radiation leak has rendered the ship uninhabitable for a return to fix the problem and the survivng crew has no means of destroying the Stargazer and leaves her adrift. Presumably after recovering the ship the Ferengi were able to decontaminate the radiation troubles and repair the ship.

Spoiler: Buried Age spoilers

Didn't they also try plunging her into a gas giant to finish the job, but Bok's ship arrived before it could happen? I seem to recall that being part of the explanation given at Picard's court martial.

 

[Trekker4747]

Possibly, been a couple years since I read it.

It cannot be said enough how much I recommend this book, though.

 

[Crewman Wunline]

The hull appeared in pretty good shape. The ship had shields, partial and or main power plus warp drive.

It seems that staying onboard would have been a pretty sensible thing to do.

What type of fires were raging out of control? The normal type generally stop when they exhaust the supply of availble oxgyen. Therefore could not the crew have taken shelter in safe areas or reboarded the ship after they had burned out?

Sans a decaying orbit or a warpcore breach your ship is very good place to be.

Your question about "kinds of fires" made me remember something that I had clean forgotten all about for years; somehwere, in one of the series, there was reference to some extra-dangerous, extra-deadly science-fictional kind of fire, like "plasmatic fire" or "warp coolant fire" or something. I think it was shown, onscreen, as some sickly-green crawly stuff. Normal fire suppression techniques, like venting atmosphere down to vacuum, were supposed to be useless against this stuff. Could that be why the ship was lost?

 

[Trekker4747]

The closest thing I can think of of what you're talking about was the "plasma fire" in "Disaster" that ignites when Geordi opens a panel while trapped in a cargo bay. But this fire was extinguished when the cargo bay door was opened and the atmosphere vented.

 

[FormerLurker]

Vented explosively, remember. The idea was to deprive it of an oxygen source so quickly it could not adapt to other fuels before burning itself out.