Shrooooooms....

[Deks]

It's a shame we never got to see one of these bases rip apart a Borg cube.
Given it's size, it's entirely possible it would be able to do that with the same effort as a whole fleet of 100, perhaps 150 ships.

As to their function and why SF decided to create them ...
Well, as I said, having a strong/solid foothold for one thing and being used to create/repair/upgrade/maintain ships, large scale industrial capabilities of a smaller but fully self-sufficient city, an actual fortress about 2 or possibly 3x more powerful than DS9 in defensive/offensive capabilites.

If you wanted to establish a strong presence in a remote sector for example which is of strategic importance, then I would surmise a base like this one would provide an excellent staging ground.

 

[ancient]

Having one in orbit of Earth is a matter of prestige I would guess. Plus they probably take out a small fleet of warbirds.

Anyway, I see them as mainly providing a safe shelter for ships without actually having to land them.

In STIII there are two ships in the base:

-The Excelsior, which is a brand new test ship apparently never tested.

-The Enterprise, a ship with phaser holes in it the size of SUVs. Scotty clearly was looking to 'refit' the ship here, ie, replace/repair it's engine and big chunks of hull.

Remember that space, even orbital space, is a harsh environment. The dock would keep the ship and workers out of the sun radiation, eliminating the need for that bulky suit the lattice worker guy was sporting in TMP/TWOK. It's probably good to keep a ship under repair out of the sun. Working on the ship under that heat, who needs it?

And really, the TMP dock isn't so much a dock as it is a scaffold. It can't manufacture big replacement parts or provide much in the way of refuel.

In the movies it seems to be mostly a repair dock:

In STIV:

-The Enterprise-A, a brand new ship.

-The Excelsior. Probably still recovering from Scott's hachet job.

In STV:

-Same. The Enterprise-A is virtually a cripple ship in this one.

In STVI:

-Enterprise-A, a ship of the line.

In TNG:

-Enterprise-D, also a ship of the line.

 

[Maurice]

And really, the TMP dock isn't so much a dock as it is a scaffold. It can't manufacture big replacement parts or provide much in the way of refuel.

As designed. The manufacturing is done over at the space office complex, and the parts are moved to the drydock.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Or maybe the manufacturing is even done on Earth (y'know, like in the new trailer ), and then pulled up into orbit.

 

[trevanian]

Or maybe the manufacturing is even done on Earth (y'know, like in the new trailer ), and then pulled up into orbit.

Please don't throw that into the equation. Can't we just figure the stuff gets mass-drivered back from Luna to the office complex, and keep things just a little bit based on credible and extrapolatable concepts?

 

[Deks]

I would figure that building ships in space is far easier due to the fact you wouldn't have to mess around with anti-gravity generators or worry for anyone falling on the ground ... not to mention to lift remaining ship components into space when they are done.

I would surmise that the mushroom bases do have the ability of constructing ships.
I mean, the Terrans in the Mirror Universe were able to do it at DS9, which I think isn't used for building ships.
They even made a makeshift arms of the drydock around the ship to do it.
So I would think that a self-sustaining orbiting city would be able to do not just that, but far more.

 

[Timo]

In STIII there are two ships in the base:

Actually, a third peeks from behind the leftmost pier (it's the stern of one of the McQuarrie study models), and several other ships may well be behind the other piers, as we only witness one quarter of the interior. In ST4, the facility is seemingly full of ships.

-The Excelsior, which is a brand new test ship apparently never tested.

-The Enterprise, a ship with phaser holes in it the size of SUVs. Scotty clearly was looking to 'refit' the ship here, ie, replace/repair it's engine and big chunks of hull.

I don't really think Scotty was going to do anything to the ship there. Kirk merely parked it for the duration of sorting out the paperwork...

We've never seen these facilities or their TNG equivalents sport any gear that could be used for constructing or repairing starships. Mainly, we see things suited for replenishing starships and their crews: umbilicals, access tubes, nice lounges... The things look more like airports than like aircraft factories.

SB 74 in "11001001" only did computer maintenance on the E-D. The base in "Phantasms" apparently conducted more "physical" work on the warp core, but we don't know if this happened inside the mushroom or in some separate, better equipped facility or segment of the mushroom facility.

I would surmise that the mushroom bases do have the ability of constructing ships.
I mean, the Terrans in the Mirror Universe were able to do it at DS9, which I think isn't used for building ships.
They even made a makeshift arms of the drydock around the ship to do it.
So I would think that a self-sustaining orbiting city would be able to do not just that, but far more.

Agreed on this, but I don't think the mushrooms actually do much of that in practice.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RobertScorpio]

In STIII there are two ships in the base:

Actually, a third peeks from behind the leftmost pier (it's the stern of one of the McQuarrie study models), and several other ships may well be behind the other piers, as we only witness one quarter of the interior. In ST4, the facility is seemingly full of ships.

-The Excelsior, which is a brand new test ship apparently never tested.

-The Enterprise, a ship with phaser holes in it the size of SUVs. Scotty clearly was looking to 'refit' the ship here, ie, replace/repair it's engine and big chunks of hull.

I don't really think Scotty was going to do anything to the ship there. Kirk merely parked it for the duration of sorting out the paperwork...

We've never seen these facilities or their TNG equivalents sport any gear that could be used for constructing or repairing starships. Mainly, we see things suited for replenishing starships and their crews: umbilicals, access tubes, nice lounges... The things look more like airports than like aircraft factories.

SB 74 in "11001001" only did computer maintenance on the E-D. The base in "Phantasms" apparently conducted more "physical" work on the warp core, but we don't know if this happened inside the mushroom or in some separate, better equipped facility or segment of the mushroom facility.

I would surmise that the mushroom bases do have the ability of constructing ships.
I mean, the Terrans in the Mirror Universe were able to do it at DS9, which I think isn't used for building ships.
They even made a makeshift arms of the drydock around the ship to do it.
So I would think that a self-sustaining orbiting city would be able to do not just that, but far more.

Agreed on this, but I don't think the mushrooms actually do much of that in practice.

Timo Saloniemi

Can they move at all? When we build those things in far off reaches of space, do we use replicators only? Or do we use resources of the planet??

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Deks]

Nothing on-screen indicates the mushroom starbases can move ... then again, I think they do have an ability to adjust changes in orbit through thrusters (but they cannot be used in an effective manner to move the station itself across large distances).

If you'd want to move the station through large distances, then reducing it's mass by creating a subspace field around it and using several ships to tow it to designated coordinates is a good place to start as they don't have their own impulse or warp engines (unless SF decides to retrofit them with multiple impulse engines).

 

[Peach Wookiee]

That'd be interesting to know.

 

[Timo]

Of course, the stem of the mushroom could be one gigantic warp engine, only difficult to recognize as such - and the base could be what Starfleet uses for carrier when it goes to war. (It just happens to be such an expensive asset that it is never sent to the front lines, but merely to a safe distance from where it launches its waves of starships, which we then see on screen.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

Or a more reasonable explanation would be that the writers or producers would never do it because they consider bases as stationary objects and dumbing down the technology to suit the drama (because they lack the ability to retain it without dumbing anything down) is the best what they do.


In a Trek universe, it's entirely possible a mushroom star-base is capable of warp, but are mainly used on stationary points to provide security/support in a certain system.

 

[Timo]

In a Trek universe, it's entirely possible a mushroom star-base is capable of warp, but are mainly used on stationary points to provide security/support in a certain system.

Or then they have virtually nothing to do with Starfleet, and are mainly orbital colonies that just sometimes happen to accommodate a starbase or other Fleet installation inside.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

possibly, but on-screen reference points into the direction of multi-purpose city really given their size

 

[Gepard]

possibly, but on-screen reference points into the direction of multi-purpose city really given their size

Right. There are windows all the way down those things, so pretending the majority of spacedock is anything other than living space seems...silly.

 

[trevanian]

possibly, but on-screen reference points into the direction of multi-purpose city really given their size

Right. There are windows all the way down those things, so pretending the majority of spacedock is anything other than living space seems...silly.

Yeah, but this is ILM we're talking about here. They use windows mainly for SCALE, not for any legitimate reason, especially during that era.

 

[Gepard]

Yeah, but this is ILM we're talking about here. They use windows mainly for SCALE, not for any legitimate reason, especially during that era.

So what? In the absence of any other evidence about the spacedock's function, all we have to go by is what we see on screen.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Yeah, but this is ILM we're talking about here. They use windows mainly for SCALE, not for any legitimate reason, especially during that era.

So what? In the absence of any other evidence about the spacedock's function, all we have to go by is what we see on screen.

When I see the scenes of the SHROOOM in orbit of Earth, I am always blown away. They are so massive. The scene where the Excelor chases the Enterprise around the outside of it really puts it in scope in terms of size. Are there any technical schematics that say how long that sucker is? It would have to be at least two miles long you think???

Rob
Scorpio

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, but this is ILM we're talking about here. They use windows mainly for SCALE, not for any legitimate reason, especially during that era.

So what? In the absence of any other evidence about the spacedock's function, all we have to go by is what we see on screen.

Which is not necessarily consistent (check the way the BOP changes size during SFS ... or for that matter, TVH) ... the arbitrary dot lights in the distance inside dock are indiscriminately placed, only for visual effect. I gotta go back to ILM's Bill George for his "continuity is for wussies" comment. With that coming from the art dept., you can't really expect anything that withstands the slightest criticism.

As for the other comment about size ... geez, you guys have GODZILLA complex or something. Aesthetically, I'd take Epsilon 9 over that blimp hangar mushroom anytime.

 

[Gepard]

Which is not necessarily consistent (check the way the BOP changes size during SFS ... or for that matter, TVH) ... the arbitrary dot lights in the distance inside dock are indiscriminately placed, only for visual effect. I gotta go back to ILM's Bill George for his "continuity is for wussies" comment. With that coming from the art dept., you can't really expect anything that withstands the slightest criticism.

Which is irrelevant insofar as determining if there's a "giant warp core" or some such nonsense taking up the lower half of the spacedock, as was being discussed upthread. You may not like the windows, you may not like the motives of the modelmakers for putting them there, you may be able to make the argument that they're not "realistic" in some real-world way. But impugning the motives of the modelmakers doesn't change the fact that the windows are there, visible on-screen. And until we get some other in-universe evidence as to what the lower half of spacedock does, it makes the most sense to assume that windows=living quarters=habitation, just like with every other Starfleet and Federation ship and station we've ever seen.