That must look imposing from head on to see something as massive as "Space Dock" to come flying at you at Warp Speeds.
I can imagine the Warp Signature for moving a Space Station of that size must be MASSIVE and very hard to hide.
Ship/station combo
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
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I can imagine the Warp Signature for moving a Space Station of that size must be MASSIVE and very hard to hide.
Not until the future when they get Cloaking Tech as a default feature =D
Then we can skulk around on occaision when the situation calls for it.
As a general SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), they don't skulk around.
Don't worry, in my 26th Century Head Canon, UFP has already integrated Romulans, Klingons, and many familiar species into the UFP.Pish, I tell you! The far far future doesn't count, and neither do alt-future timelines. Starfleet is squeaky clean!
Cloaking is now a standard feature.
But the SOP is that while exploring, StarFleet doesn't use Cloak, even if it would be advantageous on first contact.
For combat or Anthropological purposes for Primitive Pre-Warp civilizations, yes.
But as a general rule, they don't use Cloak unless the situation calls for it.
Le sigh... I was joking (I actually quite enjoy the idea of late C24th Starfleet using cloaks in the wake of Romulus' destruction), but as you seem to be taking it seriously:
The mobile starbase I mentioned was very much of a C24th aesthetic, having been designed irl a good decade or so ago, so C26th behavior is irrelevant. Personal head canon is entirely irrelevant however, no matter the century...
In any case, yes a big-ass honking annular/coleopteric warp drive trying to haul an entire station across the quadrant would light up the sensor boards of every listening post from Cardassia to Qo'nos. I don't anticipate this being something its SEC designers would have been preoccupied with, though I will grant you that if it were around during the Dominion War then they may well have come to regret that, and be wishing they did have a way to cloak it
That was already part of my 'Head Canon' for my 26th century setting LONG BEFORE you posted this.
I've already thought about it along with the SOP's for when/where to use it.
Dude it doesn't matter when you decided on your own head canon for something; it's still irrelevant to anyone but you. Chill the heck out.
Ok.
Oooh, what if they flew as separate smaller ships that are modular parts of a larger station when put together? To fly under the radar, mitigate the effect of losing one section, etc.
Wait a sec, do you count Discovery's 32nd century as the 'Far Far Future'?
Cause MA counts only 38th century & beyond as 'Far Future'
And we see our protagonists in ST: Discovery use Cloaking Tech.
So we know that 32nd century & earlier, there has to be a starting point where the UFP gets to use Cloaking.
And the 'Treaty of Algeron' with the Romulan Star Empire is the ONLY thing that I know of that is holding back StarFleet from using it. The Romulan Free State apparently still upholds that treaty in place of the Romulan Star Empire.
The reunification of Vulcans & Romulans effectively nullified the 'Treaty of Algeron'. That's why Federation Ships have Cloaking tech.
Spock would've been recorded as having died in 2387 in the TNG era timeline since he got consumed by the "Black Hole".
So the question is when did they first Unify? It had to be between the 25th Century and 32nd Century timeline.
- In 2402 was when Riker & Troi were considering taking a Beach Vacation on Vulcan
- In 3189, after assisting the Federation in a skirmish with the Emerald Chain warship Viridian and a commandeered USS Discovery, Ni'Var was considering rejoining the Federation.
So somewhere in between 2402 & 3189, the Romulans joined the UFP and eventually Re-Unified with the Vulcans.
Thus ending the 'Treaty of Algeron'
Had an Idea for a story awhile back of a "Small" Space station that could take a small fleet, like 5-6 vessels internally at quantum slipstream speeds over to the Large Magellanic Cloud. and when there it set camp, and the vessels would explore the cloud.
This was basically the "Operation Full Circle" arc from the Voyager relaunch novels, except they only went back to the Delta Quadrant. And no station, just a small fleet, albeit some of the ships were explicitly support vessels.
Even QS drives probably put intergalactic voyages on a multi-year timescale. We're not at Traveller/Q level yet.
I used to play storylines like that when I build blocky ships and stations out of Lego bricks.
There was a nice flying starbase here:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/universe-class-starship-starbase.265027/page-2
The art disappeared
Now there is this:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/universe-class-starship-starbase.265027/page-2
The art disappeared
Now there is this:
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Yes... the Spacedock-Type station does seem to be repeated at least once, but the Fleet Museum at Athon Prime was intended to be "old" Earth Spacedock. I'm not sure it's ever actually confirmed on screen, but that was the intention.
"Realistically", there's probably no reason a starbase couldn't travel at warp. It may not get ideal warp geometry and might have to somewhat plug along, but there's no real reason or indication that size is any real limitation on warp.
I do like the idea of a "mobile starbase". I always thought that made more sense in Trek than something like a carrier. I feel like you could just take the spacedock-type, chop off the botton part and just keep the upper "saucer" part.
It was confirmed on screen.
The "New SpaceDock"-Type has 4x Little Island Saucers attached to the central unit.
True, but maintaining the Warp Nacelles is extra maintainence work over not having to maintain them and using a Warp Tug for transportation.
It was confirmed that there is a new Spacedock at Earth, and there was a Spacedock-Type station at Athon Prime...
It's somewhat splitting hairs, but we know Earth Spacedock was not the only station of that type, so just assuming it's Earth Spacedock would be a bit of a leap. But... background info says it is.
Sure, I guess it just depends on how mobile you want the base to be. If it's a situation of being "mobile" but more of a long-term solution, sure. But if you want the base to be a truly mobile starbase that can essentially move on command as needed it would be better for it to be able to move on its own. I was going to suggest that perhaps rather than built-in warp drive, it could just have dedicated warp tugs but... at that point it's the same difference of just having its own drive.
I'm envisioning something that is more of a truly mobile starbase that tends to not spend very long in any given location... otherwise just build a starbase.
Or perhaps even this mobile starbase is a Kurlan Naxos of starbases where it's primary function is moving in and... building a starbase. It's like, a starbase carrier.
I believe... you are correct. *tips hat
