Rigil's New Endeavour thread...

[Jedikatie]

Well, Zane, technically we had to use a back up database after the crash to get the board back up. And the back up is from January 9th. So everyone is in the same boat you are as far as rank goes...

Um, I agree with KTR, Rigil, I don't think they could tow the ship that far even at a lower warp speed. Especially with the damage they've sustained themselves. Now a quick jump to warp and then drop out somewhere behind the lines, where they're away from the main battle and it's unlikely they're going to be attacked, and having another ship or ships, which are undamaged, that can get it back to port, that I could believe... maybe have the Vulcans, act as a towing service or something, they're still ahead of Earth at this point, technology-wise, and could take the Horizon the rest of the way back to a port for repairs.

[CX]

I think it has to do more with how much the warp field can be expanded than anything else. A normal ship's field would be designed to encompass just that ship itself, but as has been seen on screen that can be adjusted, making towing possible, even without a physical connection so long as the objects remain inside the warp field. Endeavour not only has a grappler but a tractor beam to help hold Horizon close to it, and undoubtably at a much lower speed than warp 5.2 or whatever it was Ent was doing when Columbia caught up to it.

[Rigil Kent]

The episode that immediately springs to mind for me is Bound and how Harrad-Sar had secured Enterprise with a tow line. ENT's warp drive was down, and the mission of the OSGs seemed to make sure that it remained down. Harrad-Sar definitely wasn't going to tow the ship to its destination at impulse, so it stands to reason that ships can be towed at warp speed.

The thing is, warp speed is still slow. Say they bugged out of Zeta Reticuli (which is 39 point something or other ly from Earth) and drop out of warp 1 light year away. Based on my calculations, a 1 ly trip at warp 3 will take 13 days. At warp 4, it'll take nearly 6 days. As the Vulcans are currently still reorganizing their own forces (yeah, it's taken them years - they're like elves: they think in the long term.) so they're not capable of participating in the war ... yet, so that eliminates them as being able to tow a ship (in the unlikely event there is a warp 7 ship within hailing range of Acheron.)

Thus, slowing down and offloading the crew of Horizon is both logical and something that happens (I've already written it), but just abandoning the ship when Earth is reeling from a massive defeat like this doesn't make sense. They're going to need all of the ships they can get and, if nothing else, a non-warp capable craft can serve as planetary defense...

Your points are well taken, though. I think I'll insert a line or two in this next scene about Trip discovering that maintaining the larger warp field is more difficult than he expected it to be, and is leading to some ... creative adjustments...

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

The episode that immediately springs to mind for me is Bound and how Harrad-Sar had secured Enterprise with a tow line. ENT's warp drive was down, and the mission of the OSGs seemed to make sure that it remained down. Harrad-Sar definitely wasn't going to tow the ship to its destination at impulse, so it stands to reason that ships can be towed at warp speed.

Yeah, Orion ships can probably do that!

Thus, slowing down and offloading the crew of Horizon is both logical and something that happens (I've already written it), but just abandoning the ship when Earth is reeling from a massive defeat like this doesn't make sense. They're going to need all of the ships they can get and, if nothing else, a non-warp capable craft can serve as planetary defense...

I'm not saying that they should abandon the Horizon (it depends on how damaged it is). But it makes sense to have some supply ships (including some warp towing vessels) waiting "behind the lines". That way the Endeavour can tow the Horizon to the rendez-vous point and hand it over to the towing ship.

[Reanok]

I really am enjoying this discussiona about the Endeavour and their technology I wished we had a book that had Enterprise& Columbia's engine capabilities at warp 5 and how long they could sustain it and other federation ships as well the different classes of ships.Having to carry a damaged ship after dumping it's damaged warpcore and fleeing the Romulans under fire would be difficult to deal with how far the warpfield could carry 2 vessels.How long can they maintain their shields too?

[JadziaKathryn]

Hmmm - I wonder if it would be easier for two ships to pull a damaged ship. Say Endeavour and... oh, no - another Enterprise-class... were to join together and tow the Horizon. Would that be easier or just harder with the warp fields?

[hth2k]

I know the U.S. Navy has seagoing tugs for towing vessles back to port from the open ocean. They do about 3 knots top speed but will still do close to that towing a carrier.

Perhaps they make a couple jumps to get a reasonible distance away such as said rallying point. From there the support vessles would be waiting. They dispatch some of the support ships to go get the cripples and get them back home.

How about a empty Deadalous hull with two big engines just for towning damaged vessles. Could be the fleet tug. Each fleet would have a couple.

HtH

[Rigil Kent]

The episode that immediately springs to mind for me is Bound and how Harrad-Sar had secured Enterprise with a tow line. ENT's warp drive was down, and the mission of the OSGs seemed to make sure that it remained down. Harrad-Sar definitely wasn't going to tow the ship to its destination at impulse, so it stands to reason that ships can be towed at warp speed.

Yeah, Orion ships can probably do that!

Uh ... you remember that Endeavour (PRE-refit) kicked the living excrement out of Harrad-Sar's ship, right? If an Orion ship can do it, it frankly defies belief that Endeavour can't, especially since they captured that ship and allowed the R&D guys to tear it apart to reverse-engineer it.

I'm not saying that they should abandon the Horizon (it depends on how damaged it is). But it makes sense to have some supply ships (including some warp towing vessels) waiting "behind the lines". That way the Endeavour can tow the Horizon to the rendez-vous point and hand it over to the towing ship.

Yeah, it would make sense, but the distances involved make such a thing not likely. The Neptune-classes (of which Horizon was one) were redlining their engines the entire journey from Sol to Zeta Reticuli to participate in this engagement, and even then I had to presuppose a warp conduitof some sort. A "tug" or any other kind of supply ship in the fleet is not going to be capable of the velocities necessary to be effective. At best, they might be at the halfway point (which also doesn't make sense as that means they would be traveling without any sort of ship protection, thus making them big targets for raiders of any sort.) There were 30 human ships that arrived at Zeta Reticuli, and every one of them had the NC classification (Naval, Combat). Yes, it would make sense to have supply ships waiting in the wings, but Starfleet doesn't have supply ships fast enough to be within range.

And email that I received some time back from a fan who had just discovered Elysium had a wonderful quote that I'm adhering to in this regard: "Accuracy where possible, but stretch for a good story."

Hmmm - I wonder if it would be easier for two ships to pull a damaged ship. Say Endeavour and... oh, no - another Enterprise-class... were to join together and tow the Horizon. Would that be easier or just harder with the warp fields?

There are no additional Enterprise-class ships in the combat theater. In fact, there is only one still operational (the Discovery) as both the Atlantis and Columbia were destroyed in this engagement.

As to your other question, I'd think it would probably be more difficult with two ships, but I'm not an expert.

I know the U.S. Navy has seagoing tugs for towing vessles back to port from the open ocean. They do about 3 knots top speed but will still do close to that towing a carrier.

That's the problem. Speed. The equivalent, I guess, would be warp 2 or so, and that would take something like 4 years to go 40 ly.

How about a empty Deadalous hull with two big engines just for towning damaged vessles. Could be the fleet tug. Each fleet would have a couple.

Now that's definitely something to think about. I think I'll have Archer come make a suggestion along those lines after this battle. What's the old saying? You learn more from a failure than a success?

[Rigil Kent]

At any rate, complain about my decision-making processes after this...

Act 5, Scene 1 is up.

Aftermaths...

=/\= =/\= =/\=

Up at Fanfiction.net for those of you who prefer it there.

[Mitchell]

So Hess did make it good.
Is she gona have a pissin match with Rick now over who has the most battle scars?

Wonder how many survived on the Horizon?

So their all wired, an needin something to do. Cant say I blame ny of them one bit.



Loved it Man.



Ok Here's an Idea about the towing of Horizon. The closer the ship actualy is to the Endeavour, The smaller the Warp field will be. So When they (assuming they already havent been there) arrive at the rallying point. Why not put those Hull polarizers to use. Gerry rig the Horizon's polarizers so that their on line, an have them set to the oppiste polerzation of the Endeavours own Hull polarizers. In other words Turn the damn ships into Giant Electro magnets, an slap them together Hull to Hull. Use the Tethers to stablize, an evenly displace/Line up the Horizon to the Endeavour's hull. Since Tractor beams seem to be used to tow, at a respectable distance away from the towing vessel.


(waits for someone to come in an laugh at that idea, or poke holes through right an left.)

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Nice to see a scene from T'Pol's POV. You really manage to "capture" her character.

Heh, I smiled at Archer being slightly annoying with his repeated "are you sure" comments!

And I suppose I can buy them towing the Horizon like that!

[JadziaKathryn]

What's Veh? (I don't have my computer with my bookmarks down here.)

One small quibble: I can't really see T'Pol thinking/saying "hot bunking." Maybe "what she had heard referred to as 'hot bunking'" or something like that, but not just by itself.

Anyway, I like that you're showing the aftermath from different angles - that is, not just the grief but also the stress, repairs, etc.

[Zane Gray]

Re: Towing the Horizon... doesn't the US Navy have floating repair ships - like mobile wet docks for major repairs? I seem to recall seeing old FASA Trek designs for space docks with warp nacelles on the sides. So if there's ever a heavily damaged Starship that can't enter warp, the mobile dock can warp out to them to make at least some repairs. But those were TOS Movie era designs, as I recall. I suppose Starfleet might not have anything like that yet. The Vulcans however may...

One small quibble: I can't really see T'Pol thinking/saying "hot bunking." Maybe "what she had heard referred to as 'hot bunking'" or something like that, but not just by itself.

Yeah, my one quibble with this series continues to be just a little too much military speak - ranks, jargon like "hot bunking" and the like. I know it often feels right with the Rom war on and all, but it doesn't seem very Starfleet - either of Archer's era or of Kirk's era either - so it doesn't seem to fit the continuity. Rigil, I know a lot of this comes from your own military background. How do you justify it storywise? Do you figure that it's just for the Rom war that Starfleet got very militaristic and it faded in later eras? I know it probably seems natural to you, but for those of us with less military experience, it seems a little bit overdone. Again, it's a minor quibble.

By the way, here's to hoping there's a scene impending with Archer and Trip sharing a bottle of something strong to help Archer deal with the loss of Erika...

[Rigil Kent]

What's Veh? (I don't have my computer with my bookmarks down here.)

Look it up.

One small quibble: I can't really see T'Pol thinking/saying "hot bunking." Maybe "what she had heard referred to as 'hot bunking'" or something like that, but not just by itself.

Very good point. I knew there was something in that scene that was bothering me. Let me know if the tweak works.

Yeah, my one quibble with this series continues to be just a little too much military speak - ranks, jargon like "hot bunking" and the like. I know it often feels right with the Rom war on and all, but it doesn't seem very Starfleet - either of Archer's era or of Kirk's era either - so it doesn't seem to fit the continuity. Rigil, I know a lot of this comes from your own military background. How do you justify it storywise? Do you figure that it's just for the Rom war that Starfleet got very militaristic and it faded in later eras?

Yeah, I am very cognizant of that particular disconnect. I'm pretty sure that I made a reference in one of the early Endeavour fics about the incorporation of the MACOs serving to add an entirely new lexicon to the service, but that's not entirely it. To be perfectly honest, I don't see how the Starfleet of Archer's era could possibly survive a major war with the Romulans without a major transformation. That's not a slam against ENT or anything, just an observation based on what I perceived to be their capabilities on the show. Realistically, Enterprise would not have been able to last as long as it did in season 3 except for the "script immunity" that it enjoyed ... and a fullscale war with a militant and expansionist empire? Hell, I had to invent an actual Fleet to go with the "Starfleet" name just to keep the Rommies from rolling over the ten or so ships that Earth evidently deployed.

My theory is that they rapidly transform into an actual military force during the War (with the appropriate jargon) because they had to in order to survive. After the war is over, they probably maintain this very strict discipline for about ten years before Starfleet undergoes another minor transformation from strict active duty military force to a peacekeeping and exploratory force with emphasis still on military standards. About ten years after that, their emphasis changes again as they haven't faced any major engagements or battles in that time. Military focus is slackened even more, and exploration rises back to the forefront. The horror stories of the E/R War are still being told, though, so they don't completely abandon the lessons learned. Ten years or so after that (some 30 years after the E/R War), they probably more closely resemble Kirk's Starfleet than this one.

There's actually precedence in history for something like this. Look at how the US didn't even have a real military when the Spanish-American War broke out, or when First World War broke out, despite the number of soldiers fielded during the Civil War. During the Second World War, the Army realized that they needed a specialized school for snipers ... and they promptly closed it after the war was over. Come Korea, they had to start from scratch ... and it got closed when that engagement ended. When Vietnam rolled around, there was a need for snipers and no school...

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[hth2k]

Works for me.

I presume we will see a Romulan post action review of some sort.

I still think the Deadalouses need a great big gun.

HtH