Mobile planets

[USS Triumphant]

Obviously, it would run out of fuel before too long, but not before you make it to the next solar system to find a replacement planet you can steal.

...or consume for fuel, ala Unicron.

Whatever kind of mobile planet you're envisioning, you're probably leaving the neighborhood of a star behind for extended periods. In which case, you'd either need an appropriate substitute - a few ZPMs, a Green Lantern ring and a wielder with incredible will, some large-scale fusion or anti-matter reactors, or a steady supply of Powerthirst - or a planetary environment and inhabitants that are compatible with being powered down during the journey between stars - like some versions of the backstory for The Transformers have Cybertron doing during most of the millions of years that the Ark lay dormant under the volcano on Earth. (Which provides about the best explanation I've heard for how that long span of time could have passed, and yet Shockwave, Elita One, and other contemporaries of Optimus and Megatron could still be kicking around even though there's a war on.)

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What about a large asteroid hollowed out inside?

You mean Yonada?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Obviously, it would run out of fuel before too long, but not before you make it to the next solar system to find a replacement planet you can steal.

...or consume for fuel, ala Unicron.

Whatever kind of mobile planet you're envisioning, you're probably leaving the neighborhood of a star behind for extended periods. In which case, you'd either need an appropriate substitute - a few ZPMs, a Green Lantern ring and a wielder with incredible will, some large-scale fusion or anti-matter reactors, or a steady supply of Powerthirst - or a planetary environment and inhabitants that are compatible with being powered down during the journey between stars - like some versions of the backstory for The Transformers have Cybertron doing during most of the millions of years that the Ark lay dormant under the volcano on Earth. (Which provides about the best explanation I've heard for how that long span of time could have passed, and yet Shockwave, Elita One, and other contemporaries of Optimus and Megatron could still be kicking around even though there's a war on.)

But see, if you only use the planet as a transportation device, while the actual ship merely parks itself in a safe spot deep underground. Use some tractor beams to compress the planet like a giant h-bomb until its internal pressure builds to the point of a nuclear chain reaction, then allow the planet to release that pressure through a single cavity on one side. Or better yet, twist its insides enough to produce an electromagnetic/subspace field and have the entire planet go to warp.

Once you use up the planet, you imply detach, fly around no your own power and find another one. Think of it like a hermit crab on a planetary scale.

 

[Timo]

That'd depend on the type of pseudotech you have access to. You'd need a primary energy source for using the planet's matter as propellant, or for compressing it into a secondary energy source such as a fusion fire. And Star Trek primary energy sources (AM annihilation) seem to be of a sort that needs very little fuel mass, whereas Star Trek propulsion technologies (warp) can convert that primary energy into propulsion without needing any propellant mass. You might then be better off not using any part of the planet for either power production or propulsion.

Overall, it seems that there'd be two main categories of planet-based starships. There'd be the ones used because standard Star Trek space travel methods aren't available (since those would probably relocate a planetary population more efficiently if they did exist) - and then there'd be the ones used because the whole point was to drag the planet with you, in its original condition. Perhaps for use as a habitat at the destination, perhaps for use as a habitat en route, perhaps for use as a sinister lure, perhaps for some less fathomable reason. Or then because it was important to remove the planet from its original location, but one didn't have the means or the heart to outright destroy it.

In Trek, we'd thus be much likelier to run into the second-category wandering planets...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS Triumphant]

but one didn't have the means or the heart to outright destroy it.

I'd think that if you have the means to apply the energy necessary to hold it together structurally, including an atmosphere, while moving it through space, you have the means to destroy it.

 

[Timo]

Ah, I guess so...

Say, your original goal might have been to deny the planet from a superior enemy. You could devastate the surface, but if the enemy was after the minerals hidden within, then blowing it all up into small chunks would just make everything easier for the enemy. Trying to move the planet might become an option, then - either for plunging it into the local star, or for hiding it in interstellar space.

Not a Star Trek scenario, that, because Trek species don't utilize planetary mantles or cores, not yet. And they could easily track down a planet you tried to hide in space outside the original system. But a different scifi environment (one without warp drives for starters) might cater for a scenario where your enemy's expansion could be crucially curtailed by removing an entire planet from a key star system.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

That'd depend on the type of pseudotech you have access to. You'd need a primary energy source for using the planet's matter as propellant, or for compressing it into a secondary energy source such as a fusion fire. And Star Trek primary energy sources (AM annihilation) seem to be of a sort that needs very little fuel mass, whereas Star Trek propulsion technologies (warp) can convert that primary energy into propulsion without needing any propellant mass. You might then be better off not using any part of the planet for either power production or propulsion.

Overall, it seems that there'd be two main categories of planet-based starships. There'd be the ones used because standard Star Trek space travel methods aren't available (since those would probably relocate a planetary population more efficiently if they did exist) - and then there'd be the ones used because the whole point was to drag the planet with you, in its original condition. Perhaps for use as a habitat at the destination, perhaps for use as a habitat en route, perhaps for use as a sinister lure, perhaps for some less fathomable reason. Or then because it was important to remove the planet from its original location, but one didn't have the means or the heart to outright destroy it.

In Trek, we'd thus be much likelier to run into the second-category wandering planets...

Timo Saloniemi

A third category exists for races who don't have access to antimatter and find it difficult to control the incredible forces of warp fields. It's just a different approach for a familiar concept.