Specialized designs

[shapeshifter]

Thanks for your contributions to my inquiry.

One thing I've had in mind ever since those hugh blimp-y looking things in the sky in ID is, could Starfleet (or a civilian agency) have and operate never before seen class(es) of ships for Tourism among Federation Worlds - Warp Capable Cruise Ships!

Surely the massive civilization depicted in NuTrek, and by extension, an assumption civilization exists on that scale and beyond throughout the Federation, would have need to travel between worlds for reasons of both pleasure and business.

Sure, Jackill's third volume includes such a design specifically (the Rising Star class liner), and the Sydney might also fall under the same classification. I think FASA might have had one or two civilian designs like this as well, but I could be remembering wrong.

Setting the Sydney aside for a moment, as for the Rising Star class - nice ship. While familiar looking it has distinctly different lines combining to present a softer, more nautical appearance. It would certainty work as a cruise ship class in the primeline.

We have often seen passengers travel on what look like military transports (the Sydney class vessels in DS9), but this need not mean there wouldn't be other types of liner, as well as cruise ships and the like. Then again, it can mean exactly that - perhaps Starfleet really controls everything relating to starflight?

Ah, as in the Jenolen. Butt ugly, and not very big, but yeah, could it be one of only a few options for civilian space transport? Could resources within the Fed have been stretched so thin so as to prohibit producing any thing resembling a luxury civilian liner? That could have been an [in universe] intention, or were the producers forced to give that impression because they couldn't afford to make anything better on their budgets. I think the latter.

Yet it is curious that we never get a dialogue mention of space tourism. Civilians traveling on liners or military transports always seem to be on serious business. Or then they travel to a specific resort, usually Risa, which is not quite the same as booking a cruise.

Again, lack of funding probably tied producers hands from really expanding the Trek Universe to visually match its potential.

Really, the closest thing to cruise vacations is the Boomer lifestyle from ENT, with all the stories about strange alien ports. But it's not quite vacation, either, even if one might theoretically consider some of the family members "passengers" rather than "crew".

In Universe, this suggests things were better earlier in the history of that timeline for civilian space travelers, (while still not as great as one might expect) and getting worse with the passage of time.

Reality probably was the producers had to make money stretch so, in universe, making resources within the FED scare served as a excuse to downsize the sandbox.

As for noncanon ideas, the old Spaceflight Chronology already had a cruise ship included. The Stellarford (nod to the illustrator?) is called a "starliner", but described as carrying "tourists" to "excursions" to "galactic wonders", rather than running a line in the traditional sense.

Timo Saloniemi

Timo, during my search for info on the Stellaford I found another thread about it on these forums which may have been a better place to bring up this topic, but I hadn't seen it yet. Transferring there now... Thread title: Stellarford class post 22

 

[Tim Walker]

Apparently, by early TNG, tourism to some planets, such as Risa, is an established custom. Risa was very much on the beaten path, and would certainly be a destination for luxury liners.

If there is any form of interstellar tourism in the aftermath of the Dominion War, I expect that places like Risa to be it. Using pre-crisis liners and infrastructure.

I don't know about luxury once you get off the beaten path. Maybe you have to hitch a ride on the equivalent of a tramp steamer?

 

[Timo]

Again, lack of funding probably tied producers hands from really expanding the Trek Universe to visually match its potential.

That shouldn't limit the use of dialogue to expand the universe, though.

People like Vash were always booking transport aboard X ship, insert random alien species in place of X, so Starfleet holding monopoly on space travel doesn't really sound likely or even possible. Military transports like the Jenolan lookalikes probably just add to the options available to the civilian traveler. But dialogue could have been used to establish not merely liners but also pleasure cruisers (beyond small yachts such as the Aurora from "Way to Eden", or bigger but very private vessels like Kivas Fajo's ship)...

I guess the concept of tourism would appear "commercial", as in "consumer-driven", as in "evil unsustainable consumption for no practical gain". Not just in terms of the writers trying to outline a future paradise without money, exploitation or a raison d'etre for Greenpeace, but also in terms of the in-universe politicians and citizens trying to invent suitable Newspeak to hide their factual consumerism. Perhaps we could find Trek space tourism between the lines? Risa is for many but not for everybody, and there are all those romantic tales about Berengarian dragons and the great scenic spots Wesley or Geordi recreates on holodeck to impress their dates. Supposedly at least some people actually go there - or at least did, before holotech was perfected.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tim Walker]

As for resources for luxury liners, the early 24th century seems to have been a fairly peaceful and prosperous period, Also, the early TNG years.

 

[Ithekro]

The Enterprise-D is almost a luxury liner, with bad service staff, by 20th century standards.

 

[Timo]

with bad service staff

Well, what do you expect from a ship commanded by a Frenchman? He apparently handpicked at least the bartender...

I'd say the construction of luxury liners would be less dependent on prosperity (there's money to be made on catering for even the less affluent travelers) and more on stability (piracy and constant wars eat into profits big time). Assuming an economy like today's, that is. We don't know what rules apply to definite "luxury items" like this in the moneyless utopia of TNG - but we do hear Vash needed to share some of her personal wealth to book passage to DS9, and if liners don't operate on charity basis in the UFP (or its exciting borderlands), cruise ships probably don't do that, either.

Timo Saloniemi