In "The Conscience of the King", Captain Kirk asks a favor of Captain John Daily of the Astral Queen: strand the Karidian Company of Players theatrical troupe and crew on Planet Q so the Starship Enterprise can haul them to Benecia.
This tantalizing bit of never-actually-seen canon captured my imagination and apparently Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's as well. In FJ's 1975 Technical Manual publication, FJ posited that the Astral Queen was actually a large, tubular uni-hulled cargo pod with impulse power only, built to be ferried from one star system to another by the Federation Starfleet's Ptolemy-class Transport-Tug starships.
If you look at FJ's work closely, you will see that he presupposed that the United Federation of Planets was a fairly recent development, apparently being chartered only as a result of the Treaty of Axanar ("Whom Gods Destroy"). He assumes that the construction of the Starfleet's starships-of-the-line (Ptolemy among them) was laid down in his Articles of Confederation. So the history and structure of the Federation and starships is both young and simple compared to the canon of subsequent TREK series.
So FJ seems to have asserted quite a bit about the Federation's TOS-era transport systems. There was no suggestion of non-Starfleet Federation transport vessels, or of robot ships like the Woden ("The Ultimate Computer"), or of hybrid manned and/or robot convoys like what the faked Deirdre distress call alluded to ("Friday's Child"). Nor are there any suggestions in FJ's Tech Manual about lesser Federation starship-transports that are not Class I starships-of-the-line.
If we take TOS-in-isolation, and if we assume that the Federation is perhaps about one hundred years old (give or take), what other alternatives could there be?
There is a great deal of logic to the idea that the Astral Queen would be a "starliner" pod, which could be tugged by a wide variety of "tug"-like deep space vessels, both Starfleet and non-Starfleet. Logistically, this would make a great deal of sense, since any tug could be attached to any transport pod, and tugs could either mix a variety of personnel and various types of cargo or be configured and dispatched to very specific missions.
This would make an enormous amount of sense in the TOS Universe unto itself, as it would mean that engineering/design and construction personnel and resources could more easily build simpler pods for a variety of uses, while the tugs (of various configurations and capabilities) could be designed and constructed simply to haul a general pod spec. So the "tug" is like a manned (or robot) warp-sled (ST:TMP) and the pods are simpler mass-transit vessels (without warp drive or other elaborate facilities found aboard an actual starship) along for the ride.
FJ does create a grand and intricate infrastructure here, like crossing a starship with a mail train, a cargo jet and a cruise ship.
But envisioning something like this in a TOS worldview, what would it look like in terms to its interior facilities and overall capabilities? FJ's "starliner" specs suggest a vessel that hauls 15 officers, 150 crew, and up to 500 passengers. I wonder what would happen if this concept were further explored, extrapolated upon and evolved...
Any ideas?
[NOTE: this is not just a technical discussion. It is a conceptual discussion from a TOS worldview.]
This tantalizing bit of never-actually-seen canon captured my imagination and apparently Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's as well. In FJ's 1975 Technical Manual publication, FJ posited that the Astral Queen was actually a large, tubular uni-hulled cargo pod with impulse power only, built to be ferried from one star system to another by the Federation Starfleet's Ptolemy-class Transport-Tug starships.
If you look at FJ's work closely, you will see that he presupposed that the United Federation of Planets was a fairly recent development, apparently being chartered only as a result of the Treaty of Axanar ("Whom Gods Destroy"). He assumes that the construction of the Starfleet's starships-of-the-line (Ptolemy among them) was laid down in his Articles of Confederation. So the history and structure of the Federation and starships is both young and simple compared to the canon of subsequent TREK series.
So FJ seems to have asserted quite a bit about the Federation's TOS-era transport systems. There was no suggestion of non-Starfleet Federation transport vessels, or of robot ships like the Woden ("The Ultimate Computer"), or of hybrid manned and/or robot convoys like what the faked Deirdre distress call alluded to ("Friday's Child"). Nor are there any suggestions in FJ's Tech Manual about lesser Federation starship-transports that are not Class I starships-of-the-line.
If we take TOS-in-isolation, and if we assume that the Federation is perhaps about one hundred years old (give or take), what other alternatives could there be?
There is a great deal of logic to the idea that the Astral Queen would be a "starliner" pod, which could be tugged by a wide variety of "tug"-like deep space vessels, both Starfleet and non-Starfleet. Logistically, this would make a great deal of sense, since any tug could be attached to any transport pod, and tugs could either mix a variety of personnel and various types of cargo or be configured and dispatched to very specific missions.
This would make an enormous amount of sense in the TOS Universe unto itself, as it would mean that engineering/design and construction personnel and resources could more easily build simpler pods for a variety of uses, while the tugs (of various configurations and capabilities) could be designed and constructed simply to haul a general pod spec. So the "tug" is like a manned (or robot) warp-sled (ST:TMP) and the pods are simpler mass-transit vessels (without warp drive or other elaborate facilities found aboard an actual starship) along for the ride.
FJ does create a grand and intricate infrastructure here, like crossing a starship with a mail train, a cargo jet and a cruise ship.
But envisioning something like this in a TOS worldview, what would it look like in terms to its interior facilities and overall capabilities? FJ's "starliner" specs suggest a vessel that hauls 15 officers, 150 crew, and up to 500 passengers. I wonder what would happen if this concept were further explored, extrapolated upon and evolved...
Any ideas?
[NOTE: this is not just a technical discussion. It is a conceptual discussion from a TOS worldview.]
