Could a Connie crew rebuild their ship?

[Wingsley]

I got this idea from watching the 1980 NBC miniseries "Shogun", based on the James Clavell novel. If you remember the show, and the final chapter, Pilot-Major Blackthorne (Richard Chamberlain) tried to build a sailing ship from scratch after his own ship was lost in 1601 Japan.

Let's assume we are in the TOS or pre-TOS era and we're telling the story of the Constitution-class starship exploring deep space when a catastrophe occurs. Whether it was an accident, or a hostile encounter, or maybe the crew had to take their ship to its limits to carry out a mission, the ship is damaged severely. Maybe there was a systems failure, maybe an explosion. The ship's engines are damaged; she looses high warp capacity, as well as subspace radio and scanners. She is, for all intents and purposes, beached in a foreign land.

Can the crew repair the ship in deep space by themselves? What if the nacelles were damaged? In ENT, Archer and company kept the NX-01 barely together after having been shot full of holes. Did Constitution-class starships and their crews have the capacity to rebuild in deep space? Would "Where No Man Has Gone Before" indicate they could? What if there were no installations around?

I was thinking up a story called "Constitution", in which Kirk in the TOS/TAS era responded to a low-speed, low-energy subspace distress call (ENT "Regeneration") from the missing U.S.S. Constitution, which had been sent out to deep space as a finalized prototype over 20 years ago, and had been missing for at least 15. The Enterprise diverts beyond explored space to find the Constitution tooling along at Warp 2 (maybe less), badly damaged, no apparent radio contact or tracking scanners left, minimal power and life support, and Kirk and company board her to find the aging crew surviving an endless crisis of system failures, patchwork repairs, and scarcity of resources. The ship is not going to make it home as-is, and no quickie repair job will do it. The Constitution's crew improvised and scavenged inferior ores from asteroids to repair a ruptured nacelle and keep their starship moving, but recent patchworks failed and the nacelle reptured again, damaging the reactor and leaving the ship one heartbeat away from dropping out of warp and stranded in deep space. Without sufficient power to send out a high-power distress beacon, the crew managed a low-speed distress burst.

Scotty and Spock determine the Constitution is spaceworthy and fully salvageable. But her crew cannot survive indefinitely in deep space with exhausted resources. Scotty says the best solution would be to tow her to a repair base ("The Doomsday Machine", "The Paradise Syndrome"). Uhura signals Starfleet, and the eventual reply is that Starbase 27 could send an automated warptug with a fully manned and provisioned spacedock pod in tow, to rebuild the refit the Constitution on the spot, but Starfleet would not have the pod ready and mated to the warptug for at least 20 solar weeks. So Kirk is left with the inevitable decision: can the Enterprise undertake the salvage operation by themselves, get the Constitution fully repaired, and able to get underway? Spock and Scotty list the options:

1: Offload most or all of the Constitution's crew to the Enterprise, haul them to Starbase 27 (a significant diversion) at maximum warp, and leave the Constitution in deep space, unable to move, with either minimal crew, or repair party, aboard. This would strain the Enterprise's life support and leave a spaceworthy ship out on the frontier.

2: Offload the Constitution's entire crew to the Enterprise, take them to Starbase, and either abandon or scuttle a spaceworthy ship.

3: The Enterprise could wait there with the Constitution, possibly for months, for a proper spacedock to arrive via warptug.

4: Most risky: Enterprise could attempt to carry the Constitution piggy-back style, straining her warp engines to the critical point, to serve as an improvised tug to get the ship back to Starbase. It would take almost as long as waiting for the spacedock pod, and risk severe damage to both ships.

5: The Enterprise could separate its primary hull, use it as a command base to host repair crews and give the Constitution's crew some rest and rehab, while the Enterprise's stardrive section probes deeper in this region to gather the raw materials necessary and bring them back to refit the Constitution without a proper spacedock. This could take at least 2-3 solar months, but if done properly, Constitution could be fully re-energized and her crew exposed to the latest technology while rebuilding their ship. This would amount to modernizing the crew so they would not be out of time when the Constitution finally reached Starbase under her own power.

I would expect that if "The Cage" were any indication, replication technology may not have been as polished as it was during TOS, and the old Constitution may have had far less capacity to repair her damage on her own. I would also assume, with little to go on, that, to borrow a term from DS9, only the Main Engineering station in the stardrive section of the Enterprise would be equipped with "industrial replicator" technology capable of fabricating/rejuvinating needed parts for the repairs, so maybe Scotty would have to refit the saucer with this kind of heavy machinery before anyone could go anywhere, plus the saucer would have to accommodate shuttlecrafts and/or work bees for demolition and construction. It would also be interesting to consider if the stardrive section would be equipped to function on its own for deep space exploration and perhaps mining for bulk raw materials. (I'm assuming the only feasible way for repair/rebuilding operations on this scale to work would be to conserve energy by having industrial replication machinery that draws on raw materials (perhaps refined ore) to build hull components, etc.)

Does this make sense?

 

[SchwEnt]

Interesting ideas. Reminds me of a similar theory I once read about the Constitution class (I'm thinking it was in one of the novels, can't remember which).

Of course 1960's idea of high tech was seen in TOS, with bulky monitors and knobby buttons and all sort of tech that really isn't so advanced now in our 21st century.
So how to account for 23rd century technology that looks dated now?

The idea was that a Consitution class ship and crew really will be where no man has gone before i.e. no bases, no re-supply, no spare parts, etc.

The crew might literally have to keep the ship together with their own hands,
or re-build it, with very limited resources (TOS replicators notwithstanding).

So rather than go all flashy high tech, keep with something more workmanlike that gets the job done and is easily repairable. Hence the tactile and bulky style of technology.
Something more rugged and fuctional, that can take a beating, and can be more
hands-on repaired if need be.

At least that's how I recall the idea.
Sounds like it would work for you.

 

[Timo]

I think Diane Carey once rationalized the dated looks of the TOS ship that way. Darned if I remember which book it was, though. (Could have been the other Diane, too.)

I'd say that repairing the warp drive once it's as badly down as in "Paradise Syndrome" or the end of ENT S3 is something that can't be done, not without access to resources that amount to already having another starship built. The above scenario sounds plausible, then. However, I'd think life support could be restored by the resources of a fellow starship fairly simply and quickly, allowing our heroes to go for Option 6: leave the Constitution as is. She has done quite well for 20 years, so certainly she could continue to do so for 20 more weeks, with minimal life support repairs. Just stay sufficiently mum about it so that all sorts of scavengers won't flock to take advantage of the victimized ship.

Of course, one wonders how desperately Starfleet would want a 20-year old shipwreck back, from the technological point of view. Scuttling might not be a major loss, as the resources expended in repairs might be better used in building a more modern successor. Indeed, such a successor has no doubt already been built, as Starfleet can't have been counting on getting the lost ship back.

But no, I don't think a TOS heavy cruiser crew could rebuild their ship after major structural or power system damage, unless given a dockyard that can build ships from scratch. Yet yes, I think they could cobble together some sort of a low-warp starcraft if given the remains of a not-quite-crippled heavy cruiser and at least minimal dock resources. And yes, they could create a sublight spacecraft or survivable space habitat out of just the shipwreck.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Santaman]

Hmm, I think it all depends on one thing: available energy, if there's a few fusion reactors left to power equipment then I think it would be possible to repair the hull in such a way that it would be able to sustain lifesupport and the like, as for warpdrive, depends on how damaged the nacelles are, but even if few coils have been blasted to pieces in one nacelle then I imagine they could swap a few from the other nacelle to balance the whole thing out, would mean she would run slow and probably inneficient but still at some low warp speed, I imagine that the rest of the systems on board are very modular and that parts from a lower key system can be used to fix something more important, as for the rest, the Connie always seemed to be one of the most resilient designs ever, call me optimistic.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Well, in a way, you're ALWAYS rebuilding the ship -- since there's always something breaking down! Fact of life, unfortunately.

Now, if you're talking a Mass Casualty type situation (which I'm guessing you are from the start)... then it all depends on the tech you use, timeframe, etc. It's your story -- just run with it, basically.

Granted, I doubt if the crew could pull off a "Flight of the Phoenix" type maneuver, but you never know...

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[FordSVT]

It would depend on the available resources (including manpower) and access to power. With enough time and energy, everything but the most exotic composites found on a starship could probably be either replaced or substituted. You might never be able to get all of her systems back up and running, or have full weapon and engine functionality, but it might be enough. Then again, if most of your engineering team, for example, was wiped out in whatever catastrophe befell the ship, you'd be screwed.

You might have to manufacture your own parts, even your own construction machinery, and it might take years and years of work.

There's one thing no one here has mentioned. There would come a point were, given enough damage to the original ship, the best option might be to build a new one from the scavenged parts of the old. If you're just trying to get off the planet and get the hell home with your crew, it might be the better option.

 

[JoeZhang]

I think Diane Carey once rationalized the dated looks of the TOS ship that way. Darned if I remember which book it was, though. (Could have been the other Diane, too.)

Are you thinking maybe of this? where Uhura is asked why the Enterprise doesn't have tiny self-managing quantum circuits?

"Tell me, Lieutenant," she said carefully as she connected a simulator lead to the four-gate and ran a test signal through it,

"have you ever seen a twenty-year-old cruisees circuit complex after it's been hit by a Klingon broad-beam disruptor while traveling at warp seven?" The telltale on the simulator lead glowed green. Uhura had finished the circuit.

"Cruisers can't go at warp seven," Abranand said carefully, as if he were expecting a trick question. "Well, this ship can, mister. And a disruptor blast that connects can drop it out of warp so fast that any quantum switches that just happen to be tunneling at the microsecond we hit normal space are liable to pop back into existence three meters from where they should be."

Uhura stood up from her station and hefted the number-ten board in her hand. "You know where that leaves you?" Abranand shook his head. "Sitting around waiting for the Klingons with a circuit complex full of more holes than a light sail in the Coal Sack."

From Memory Prime by Gar and Judith Reeves-Stevens

 

[JM1776]

Another consideration: Would it be possible to cobble together construction facilities by further cannibalizing the available resources? If much of your equipment could be reconfigured as an industrial replicator, and you had sufficient energy to power it, could one not stockpile necessary components, reassemble what you'd taken apart and then commence reconstruction?

Could one not fashion at least a rudimentary spacedock facility by, say, hollowing out an asteroid with phasers (even hand, pistol and rifle phasers, if necessary), employing a couple of shield generators for redundant protection against the vacuum of space, then using ship's life support to pump heat and air into the enclosed area created? Such would make work on the vessel's exterior a lot faster and easier, I would think, since one could dispense with spacesuits.

 

[Wingsley]

^^ Memory Prime. That's what I remember!

 

[Ronald Held]

How much energy is available? What are your local resources both technical and minerallogical? How much and waht parts need to be repaired?

 

[Wingsley]

Constitution:
I'm assuming that at least one nacelle suffered serious damage, but still intact and both retained the capacity for minimal warp; the reactor and attached components were severely damaged but still able to produce minimal warp. Saucer section and other secondary hull sections intact. The crew is aging but with few exceptions are alive and well. Ship definitely salvageable. (I am considering the possibility that replication technology may still have been crude when the Constitution launched; the crew may not have had the capacity to repair the ship as the TOS Enterprise would. I'm also considering the possibility that Pike's remarks in his cabin about being responsible for only 207 lives suggested that earlier starships had bulkier equipment on-board, which limited the crew size, but I'm still not conclusive on that.)

Enterprise:
Fully functional, no damage, crew of 430, on a deep space exploratory run when she receives Constitution's message.

 

[Plecostomus]

Find a planet with a sheet-metal fabrication shop. Sheet-metal mechanics are latter-day blacksmiths they (we) can fix damn near anything including 20-year obsolete starships.

 

[snap]

Was there not a set of books were the Enterprise led a convoy to a new system called Belle Tera and the Frigate that stayed to protect the settelers was badly damaged so they cobbled together what was left of that ship and the convoy ships and called it Challenger?

 

[Santaman]

Constitution:
I'm assuming that at least one nacelle suffered serious damage, but still intact and both retained the capacity for minimal warp; the reactor and attached components were severely damaged but still able to produce minimal warp. Saucer section and other secondary hull sections intact. The crew is aging but with few exceptions are alive and well. Ship definitely salvageable. (I am considering the possibility that replication technology may still have been crude when the Constitution launched; the crew may not have had the capacity to repair the ship as the TOS Enterprise would. I'm also considering the possibility that Pike's remarks in his cabin about being responsible for only 207 lives suggested that earlier starships had bulkier equipment on-board, which limited the crew size, but I'm still not conclusive on that.)

Enterprise:
Fully functional, no damage, crew of 430, on a deep space exploratory run when she receives Constitution's message.

Reading this scenario I expect Scotty to repair the hull damage and propulsive systems within the month, as for the damaged nacelle, I don't know if its possible to make warpcoils from scratch but besides that it doesn't sound like anything too difficult to pull off, everything damaged other then the coils should not be a problem to fix since Scott has the entire resources, man power and energyfrom the Enterprise at his disposal.

 

[AlxxlA]

I think that the best solution to this problem would be for the Enterprise to tow the Constitution with a tractor beam. If they don't have enough power, they could augment the warp drive with the reactor, or nacelles, from the Constitution. Even if they can only manage low impulse velocity, it would reduce the time it would take to intercept the tug.

 

[Robert Simmons]

1. Damage Control Teams do basic repair to replaceable parts onhand from spares storage. ( Like replacement dylitium crystal plates )

2. Starbase with repair yard does more extensive repairs like component replacement and light physical damage repair. ( example like replacing a phaser mount or a standard stock component of a warp engine like replacing a beyond repair conduit or dylithium plate housing as seen in "Elaan of Troyius" )

3. Main Fleet Construction Yard like the San Franciso or Singapore facilities where major ship systems or components can be stripped and overhauled or replaced outright. ( Replacing an entire warp nacelle or a warp core or a entire phaser bank near where they manufacture the parts is a necessity and a convenience...)

Your question supposes that the entire ship could be rebuilt from scratch if lost and they were stranded. I say the answer is no. This is due to the necessity such construction of critical components madate that exacting industrial tolerances and strength of material to meet minumum specs to operate to be sound. But to acchieve that without some form of industrial assistance stranded on a remote planet is virtually impossible. In Shogun the sailing ship they were building is more elementary in being able to sail. Cut wood, make it fit....and viola! Building a starship or a small craft to escape a planet is much more demanding on the requirements beyond of...cut wood...make it fit. It would be make frame....make engine...make life support...make a navigation system, and make fuel. Much more than making a raft out of wood to escape an island.

Can a ships crew do damage repair to a ship that has suffered light damage? Yes. But if they parts necessary is more than what they have onhand in spare parts, then it necessiates a trip to the nearest starbase for emergency repairs. ( Court Martial as an example...) The means of repair is done by the Damage Control teams. But at best they can do light repair to keep a ship spaceworthy. ( engines, hull breach, phaser syustems repair, guidance, fire control, communications...but lesser conponent replacement and patch work, and not the more larger and impossible to keep spares onhand of outright large systems components like a war core. ) In "The Doomsday Machine" the damage control team is needed to access damage for a report, and to repair what if possible to get the ship operating again. No small task given the circumstances they were in trapped with only one damage control team, one captain and one chief engineer to make a dead ship not to just move...but TACTICALLY move and shoot, raise sheilds, repair and turn on a viewscreen, and recharge on bank of phasers. But this is although each normal tasks that a damge control party would be expected to perform, this is going the extra mile in delivering what they normally are expected to do COLLECTIVELY. If say in a starship fight like say in "Elaan Of Troyius" the Enterprise took damage, the damage conrtol parties would be assigned to fix stuff to keep the ships status optimal in a fight, and in the very least to guarantee the ability to retreat when ordered to. ( It really sucks ordering a retreat and the engines can't make that happen needing to remove yourself from a loosing fight...)

So to sum up the anser your question...no. That capability falls more to a main fleet yard or starbase. But even a starbase with repair facilites can even do so much and is limited. To consturct out of whole cloth a ship would require having some industrial manufacutirng abilities requring precision and the manufacture of materials that weould meet the bare minumum standards for a space from let alone load bearing frame and components and parts for the sub-systems. Having crew with the technical knowledge to make it won't make up for the shortfall. It's like asking the Professor to make a new boat with the Skipper out of bamboo. And even at that they have a better chance in pulling that off than the crew in your origional question making a new ship from scratch could do. Heck...they wouldn't be able to make a small lifeboat that would make orbit. Now using local materials to make fuel to get a small craft like a shuttlecraft back int oorbit like in "The Galileo Seven" is possible. But that is still pushing to extremes the most likely scenario that deliver a "yes" to your origional question.

 

[Wingsley]

1. Damage Control Teams do basic repair to replaceable parts onhand from spares storage. ( Like replacement dylitium crystal plates )

2. Starbase with repair yard does more extensive repairs like component replacement and light physical damage repair. ( example like replacing a phaser mount or a standard stock component of a warp engine like replacing a beyond repair conduit or dylithium plate housing as seen in "Elaan of Troyius" )

3. Main Fleet Construction Yard like the San Franciso or Singapore facilities where major ship systems or components can be stripped and overhauled or replaced outright. ( Replacing an entire warp nacelle or a warp core or a entire phaser bank near where they manufacture the parts is a necessity and a convenience...)

Your question supposes that the entire ship could be rebuilt from scratch if lost and they were stranded. I say the answer is no.

The more I think of it, the more I must respectfully disagree.

The point of this idea is not to show Kirk, Scotty and crew fully restoring the Starship Constitution. It is simply to show them accepting a challenge to help repair the damaged starship enough so it could get back to base in a timely fashion to begin the real refit.

The goal in the idea I outlined is not for the Enterprise crew to embark on a mission to completely rebuild the Constitution. That would obviously take more time, personnel and resources than Kirk and company could reasonably offer. But what happened with Archer and company after they were attacked by the Xindi should make it clear that starships occasionally can (and must be able to) forage for components to keep the ship going in the event of severe damage. I would expect that Kirk's Enterprise's engineering section would have an industrial replicator built into their shop, so fabircating components might take time, raw materials and energy but it would not be impossible.

I would expect that starships, like the hand technology their crews use (witness what Spock did with a tricorder and some crude electronic accessories in "City on the Edge of Forever") are built simply and designed so that their personnel can take an emergency situation and with enough time, material and energy be able to make something happen. It might not always work well (witness Spock's blue screen of death moment) but these Starfleet people are trained to do what it takes to get the job done, even if it isn't pretty.

As for the notion that only the home planets can completely refit a starship, I must also disagree there. If you check out my Starbase 11 thread, it looks like fellow posters are uncovering the hints that the base is indeed huge, and I do not see why a complex of that size could not be used to refit starships to the latest specs. Coming up with those specs may be an inter-world effort, but I doubt that starship construction and reconstruction is only possible at Earth or at Earth and only a few other ports. I would say that Starbase 11 would be a facility that could definitely do the job if need be.

 

[Robert Simmons]

1. Damage Control Teams do basic repair to replaceable parts onhand from spares storage. ( Like replacement dylitium crystal plates )

2. Starbase with repair yard does more extensive repairs like component replacement and light physical damage repair. ( example like replacing a phaser mount or a standard stock component of a warp engine like replacing a beyond repair conduit or dylithium plate housing as seen in "Elaan of Troyius" )

3. Main Fleet Construction Yard like the San Franciso or Singapore facilities where major ship systems or components can be stripped and overhauled or replaced outright. ( Replacing an entire warp nacelle or a warp core or a entire phaser bank near where they manufacture the parts is a necessity and a convenience...)

Your question supposes that the entire ship could be rebuilt from scratch if lost and they were stranded. I say the answer is no.

The more I think of it, the more I must respectfully disagree.

The point of this idea is not to show Kirk, Scotty and crew fully restoring the Starship Constitution. It is simply to show them accepting a challenge to help repair the damaged starship enough so it could get back to base in a timely fashion to begin the real refit.

The goal in the idea I outlined is not for the Enterprise crew to embark on a mission to completely rebuild the Constitution. That would obviously take more time, personnel and resources than Kirk and company could reasonably offer. But what happened with Archer and company after they were attacked by the Xindi should make it clear that starships occasionally can (and must be able to) forage for components to keep the ship going in the event of severe damage. I would expect that Kirk's Enterprise's engineering section would have an industrial replicator built into their shop, so fabircating components might take time, raw materials and energy but it would not be impossible.

I would expect that starships, like the hand technology their crews use (witness what Spock did with a tricorder and some crude electronic accessories in "City on the Edge of Forever") are built simply and designed so that their personnel can take an emergency situation and with enough time, material and energy be able to make something happen. It might not always work well (witness Spock's blue screen of death moment) but these Starfleet people are trained to do what it takes to get the job done, even if it isn't pretty.

As for the notion that only the home planets can completely refit a starship, I must also disagree there. If you check out my Starbase 11 thread, it looks like fellow posters are uncovering the hints that the base is indeed huge, and I do not see why a complex of that size could not be used to refit starships to the latest specs. Coming up with those specs may be an inter-world effort, but I doubt that starship construction and reconstruction is only possible at Earth or at Earth and only a few other ports. I would say that Starbase 11 would be a facility that could definitely do the job if need be.

You disagree? I find your answer in response to mine conflicted. Fans can read into anything they elect to see. There were plenty of references in TOS that tell us that Starbases were repair and maintenance facilities which are not constuction yards. Looking at the matt painting of Starbase 11 in "Court Martial" would suggest a facility that had around 2500 on site and maybe that many in orbit in the yard facility. To be generous let's say 10,000 tops to allow flexability in looking at this. That's a far cry for a full blown yard facility to be able to manufacture those types of compnents to cover all the bases for repairs for this discussion, let alone be big enough to service several ships at once visiting the Starbase 11's facilites. And I think that is an IMPRESSIVE ACCHIEVEMENT by itself that far from Earth to be able to offer those kind of services that early on the edges of the Federation frontier despite some colonization around and near the Starbase to build up some form of commerce and some form of local economy to sustain the Starbase independantly from Earth. Minus of course anything like larger ship components and parts for repair replacement. And the land facilites of Starbase 11 in the Matt painting of the facility really seem small for any base installation for comparison. Remember that TOS Trek is still early in the early years of Star Fleet and remote command bases like Starbase 11 were not as robust then out on the edges of the ""frontier" that they have until recently been patroling. They are not much more than mere "toeholds" for Star Fleet to establish a prescence in a region providing basic necessities for ships far from more centralize construction yards. When we see them in TOS they are probably one or two steps beyond a toehold at best to wherethey have then built up sufficent yard facilites to conduct major repairs at best with materials and part they probably had shipped in from the main constuction yards like the two at Earth. Suggesting that Starbases in that era are that robust is somewhat of an over-reach at best. Basic reason holds the further you get away from your central produciton facilites, the less remote you are from repairing the larger stuff like major hull components. In TOS it at least to me it seems apparent to be sturctured like our modern navies today. The closer to home you are the more major repairs can be made. Now I do agree with the notion that a Starbase could be built up over time to take on the role of a full blown construction yard. But that would necessitate building up a local industrial output to meet constucting those modular components that these ships need. ( But also keep in mind in TOS Trek that Starbases were remote cammand bases far out on the perifery of Federation space, and thus less industrially independant to manufacture the more heavy duty compnents and parts for repair which a greater facility would be able to produce [that they more than likely had to have shipped in and cut from raw materials to make replacment parts from]....like a fleet drydock / construciton slip near Earth...) Let's keep replicators out of this since that technology is basically a fudge and was used for food early on in Trek history. My response is using TOS Trek only. And since "Enterprise" is not accepted by alot of fans giventhe B&B abrasive contemptiousness out there and taken as a poor joke by some that took canon and tossed it into the wind for the sake of writing convenience......which suggests it SHOULD be taken with a tiny grain of salt, let's just stick with your origional premise of a TOS "starship class" or Constitution class as some would call it. Pulling from other areas of Trek developed later, I think is a desparate over-reach to arrive at a desired conclusion / outcome. And I think that TOS Trek is developed enough despite it's minor inconsistancies to deliver for you a solid answer that you are looking for.

Now your response to me you admitted that your origional premise was crew performing damage control to allow the ship to retrun to a repair facility or main yard. On that note I do agree and I think my tiered step response does address that squarely within point #1 and could to a extreme do repairs to a more major component by some skilled juryrigging in point #1. It's basically a logic tree. If damage is less than skill and parts onhand...then repair is possible and produces a yes to your origional question. If damage exceeds parts and onhand skill to compensate...then it falls to skill to improvise to overcome the shortcoming of available parts to repair damage. If skill is insufficient to overcome this shortfall then the answer is no to your origional question. It's a graduation scale determined by how extensive the damage is verses what parts they keep onhand and what tools and skill to take damaged parts and teturn them to operating specs. The greater the damage, the less probable that repairs can be effectuated indenpendantly by the damaged ship by itself to return to a repair facility. If a call for help yeild either a ship to deliver replacement parts and repaior crews or be able to offer a tow base to a repair facility...then our heros in question are not stranded by any means.

Since you stated that your premise was whether they could perform repairs themselves, I will still say no IF the damage becomes too extreme to do it themselves. Let's again look at the Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine" in how the ship was dead...no power...phasers useless. Decker himself says it. He as the ship's commander wrote it off personally focusing more on the survival of his crew to get them off the ship with a low power to sustain life support and nothing to generate more. They were stuck without warp in a remote system they only recently explored with no chance to get home on their own. Thus the distress signal in the hopes of a recue. It took a damage repair team from another ship to do these repairs on the Constellation. Now the question begs...if they could be done...then why didn't Decker have his crew do the work themselves? Warp engines beyond repair, impusle engines controls fused solid, bridge gone and viewer out in auxillary control. With allthat let's assume then the question...what is different that the damage control team from the Enterprise could effect repairs but the crew of the Constellation couldn't? Hummmmm? It is possibly due to the damage control team was able to call for backup replacement parts from the Enterprise after perfoming their damage control check? The missing piece of the puzzle is that Decker didn't have the parts necessary to repair the warp drive or anything else onthe ship. It was due to Scotty's experience and skill to do cross connecting the warp controls to the impulse engines which as Scotty mentions would make the ship nearly impossible for one man to handle. So it suggest that this option for repairs was ruled out by Decker as undoable and not pragmatic, since the warp drive as Scotty said was a hopeless pile of junk and unable to be repaired without additional stuff. First order of survival...if ship now presents an impediment to crew's survival...jettison the ship after beaming the crew to a safe planet with a distress beacon to call for help. So in this case a total write off for Decker. But being trapped on that same ship during a battle forces Kirk out of desparastion to push up some solutions that normally would have been deemed not profitable or worth the effort in light of the tiny benefits under normal circumstances. In a battle...being able to move and shoot a little is better than nothing at all. And Scotty's skill and insight under these circumstances I think is what pushed up those options when Kirk was being forced to do anything more than jsut sit there doing nothing. But in the bigger picture / scope of things...that little that Kirk and Scotty were able to do normally wouldn't be worth it in the results to even bother with agaisnt the question of making it home on their own with the ship "as is" or even "juryrigged" as Scotty did with the warp controls rigged into the impulse drive controls. Even doing this they were limited to what low power they had in the reserve power banks and impulse drive at best. But that definately wouldn't last them for long with limited fuel for the impulse engines. So they are still stranded locally along way from home. In light of your origional question this outome points to a solid no as the answer to your origional question and what your stated premise in your reply to me.

Here's how it pans out in relation to your origional question as stated by you in your last response to me....

Damage<supplies and manpower on hand to fix=yes
Damage>supplies and manpower on hand to fix=no

The nut of your question should be where the breaking point in extreme damage to where they could no longer do it themselves and need outside assistance. ( like Decker did. )

I think Scotty's replies to Kirk on the damage control report speak for themselves as to HOW to answer your question.

 

[Wingsley]

I was not assuming that the Constitution would have been as badly damaged as Decker's Constellation was. Scotty said of the Constellation: "the warp drive, that's a hopeless pile o' junk". Scotty seemed to make it clear to Kirk that the entire ship would need a spacedock before it could go anywhere.

I'm assuming that Constitution is seriously damaged, but when the Enterprise finds her she is still underway, albeit too slowly to make a Starbase soon and with her engines at risk of failure.

While I do agree that ENT was seriously flawed, I don't see a problem with Archer & co. holding the severely damaged NX-01 together as they did in "Damaged", based on the premise that Archer and Tucker (and possibly others in their crew) were so deeply involved in the NX program from the beginning. That was one of the (few) good things about that show.

 

[Robert Simmons]

I do agree then that strong skills from experience IS a strong hedge to counter shortage in parts and mateiral. Sometimes a good hammer and alot of patience is what is needed to bang things back into working order. Otherwise is seems the old joke / pun of taking a hammer to something out of futile desparation as a means to express frustration.

But Scotty's reference to needing a space tongue / tong? to repair the warp drive is no doubt a major repair device / tool to remove major warp drive components. Probably the warp coils and or the core which were pretty much toast on the Constellation to begin with. And I do expect that tool / device to be at a repair facility like Starbase 11. So I do see it defiantely possible that if they were able to get the Constellation backto a Starbase, that they could make her full service worthy again. But after her getting the crap beaten out of her, the question begs if her hull was still sound enough to weather being restored to full service. That kind of pounding shredding sections of the hull and impact sheer on the hull members and frame I think would have severly weakened her that more than likely would have been written her off as a total loss, due that her frame was compromised and weaked beyond the point of being able to weather normal operating stress. Probably a good candidate tehn for a reserve training vessel no longer fit for front line combat. The exception to that rule would be in wartime where every unit would need to be fixed and rushed back into frontline service out of a need of depsaration. But even then there would be a point to where how well it could serve and hold up after that under those demanding circumstances. Wartime examples of this kind of severe damage and repair would be the Yorktown coming out of the battle of the Coral Sea and going into the Battle of Midway. Another extreme example applicable to this would be the total raping of the USS Franklin and later restoration to be placed into reserve after the war. But even then the Franklin was laid up for so long that she was not able to return to service to any benefit before the end of the war to be of any real value or use in this instance. So the Constellation would more than likely fit the example of the USS Frankin than that of the Yorktown after Coral Sea due to Franklin had to be towed while Yorktown after a bit was able to make way under her own power.