Medical Vessels

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Tinadrin Chelnor
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Medical Vessels

Post by Tinadrin Chelnor »

Regarding medical ships like the Olympic and any others the Federation may employ.

If I recall correctly, the Pasteur never fired any weapons in the episode "All Good Things...". It seems to me that medical vessels shouldn't be armed, as there intended role is as a hospital in space. The idea of an armed medical ship just doesn't sit right with me, as their lack of armaments would minimize any potential for them to be used offensively, and allow them to remain neutral when rendering aid to a colony or world. For example, say that a Romulan colony or a world in the Neutral Zone, or the DMZ had an outbreak of plague. If the Federation started sending armed ships to "help" the world, I could understand the Romulans or Cardassians being uneasy at the prospect, but if they sent in unarmed vessels then the risk of them being used offensively is pretty much nil. Yes they may be at risk, but then even if they were armed it wouldn't be enough to fend off any real warship threat.

Thus, would it be more logical to employ unarmed hospital / medical response vessels.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Jim »

I disagree. Due to pirates and raiders and such they should have some level of offensive weapons. Put one decent sniper rifle on a tanker and the Somali pirate issues would drop drastically. Same would go for a case like this. I am sure that an "Olympic" ship full of medical supplies and equipment would go for some serious latinum on the black market.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Captain Seafort »

Jim wrote:I disagree. Due to pirates and raiders and such they should have some level of offensive weapons.
If you need to send a hospital ship into a high-threat area that's what escorts are for, not arming it, partially for the reasons Tinadrin gives, partially because as soon as you put weapons on anything it becomes a military target.
Put one decent sniper rifle on a tanker and the Somali pirate issues would drop drastically.
That's an entirely different can of worms. Light weapons have been effective in repelling attempted boardings, but there are a lot of legal and practical issues to navigate, and there's always the risk of it sparking an arms race or a change of tactics from the pirates.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Mikey »

I agree with the sentiment of not arming medical ships... but only so far.
Tinadrin Chelnor wrote:For example, say that a Romulan colony or a world in the Neutral Zone, or the DMZ had an outbreak of plague. If the Federation started sending armed ships to "help" the world, I could understand the Romulans or Cardassians being uneasy at the prospect, but if they sent in unarmed vessels then the risk of them being used offensively is pretty much nil.
This works if and only if the other powers in question agree. That is, if there is some sort of understanding that unarmed aid vessels are off-limits, then great. If one of the powers has shown an intention to attack vessels fo the other powers be they hospitals or battleships, then the deal is off.

Also, we have seen may times in 'Trek the use of armaments for patently non-offensive uses. Perhaps there is a low-power version which would be proof against asteroids, over-pressure in planetary crusts, etc., but would be so minimally effective against other vessels as to be tantamount to being unarmed?
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Tinadrin Chelnor »

Mikey wrote:I agree with the sentiment of not arming medical ships... but only so far.
Tinadrin Chelnor wrote:For example, say that a Romulan colony or a world in the Neutral Zone, or the DMZ had an outbreak of plague. If the Federation started sending armed ships to "help" the world, I could understand the Romulans or Cardassians being uneasy at the prospect, but if they sent in unarmed vessels then the risk of them being used offensively is pretty much nil.
This works if and only if the other powers in question agree. That is, if there is some sort of understanding that unarmed aid vessels are off-limits, then great. If one of the powers has shown an intention to attack vessels fo the other powers be they hospitals or battleships, then the deal is off.

Also, we have seen may times in 'Trek the use of armaments for patently non-offensive uses. Perhaps there is a low-power version which would be proof against asteroids, over-pressure in planetary crusts, etc., but would be so minimally effective against other vessels as to be tantamount to being unarmed?
Similar to the low power disruptor on Dukat's freighter? Or if I recall (didn't really watch Enterprise often) the plasma cannon on Mayweather's family's freighter. Both seemed to have very low powered armaments, which don't appear to be too dangerous to starships, but I would guess could be used for other, non offensive uses.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by McAvoy »

The Pasteur could easily have been a ship repurposed to be a medical ship. The Olympic class could have been another type of science ship. Maybe a long distance one.

There is a case for both. Escorts work and if other powers agree, a unarmed medical ship works too.

I like the idea of a medical vessel. Fits perfectly with the incidents we have seen pop-up in Star Trek.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Mikey »

Tinadrin Chelnor wrote:Similar to the low power disruptor on Dukat's freighter?
IIRC, he mounted a hugely powerful surface-to-air phaser cannon on the freighter in order to function as a sort of Cardie Q-ship.
Tinadrin Chelnor wrote: Or if I recall (didn't really watch Enterprise often) the plasma cannon on Mayweather's family's freighter.
No, those were really supposed to be a deterrent to piracy... they just weren't effective because of obsolescence. What I mean is something that is SOA but obviously not suitable as a function of its specs for s2s combat.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by McAvoy »

If I remember Dukat's original disrupted was a wide beam something that had an issue with asteroids.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Tsukiyumi »

Dukat's freighter did have a beam weapon before the 'upgrade'. It just sucked.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Tinadrin Chelnor »

Mikey wrote:
Tinadrin Chelnor wrote:Similar to the low power disruptor on Dukat's freighter?
IIRC, he mounted a hugely powerful surface-to-air phaser cannon on the freighter in order to function as a sort of Cardie Q-ship.
Tsukiyumi wrote:Dukat's freighter did have a beam weapon before the 'upgrade'. It just sucked.
Which is when they came upon the idea of mounting a large surface-orbit disruptor cannon in the cargo bay.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Mikey »

I see. No, not the same thing, then. The freighter's original weapons probably just sucked because of obsolescence and being at the back of the line for upfits. What I'm talking about is something intentionally non-threatening so as to just about count as "unarmed."
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Nutso »

If it's unarmed, it's got to stay within the Federation borders and use established travel routes (to avoid asteroids and all that). If the Pasteur is out of Federation space looking for people to save, the only thing protecting them from raiders/pirates is the Starfleet colors (Red, white and blue?). Pirates might not want to suffer the wrath of Starfleet.

I like the idea of an unarmed hospital ship being able to traverse open space unmolested even in times of war. The thing is for something to be that free, it might have to be a vessel independent of the Federation. That will just open them up to raiding, piracy, and kidnapping.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Reliant121 »

In the universe in which it is set there appears little guarantee that pirates, small militia, renegades like Lursa and B'Etor etc would leave the ship alone. Against a real combat ship a couple of phaser arrays is not going to be even remotely a problem but they are an effective deterrent against raiders. Plus as Mikey has already said shipboard phasers appear genuinely useful for all sorts of things. Cutting into rock surfaces, breaking up asteroids etc, just the sort of thing a ship with mission parameters designed entirely around benevolence would be doing
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by Tholian_Avenger »

Tinadrin Chelnor wrote:sending armed ships to "help" the world, I could understand the Romulans or Cardassians being uneasy at the prospect, but if they sent in unarmed vessels then the risk of them being used offensively is pretty much nil. Yes they may be at risk, but then even if they were armed it wouldn't be enough to fend off any real warship threat.
As you said, a dedicated warship is much more lethal, but consider that something with the size, power, and technology of starship is a weapon in its own right. I'd think a Federation starship could really damage a planet with several of its "nonweapon" systems up to outright self destruct or ramming at a very high velocity with respect to the planet.
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Re: Medical Vessels

Post by sunnyside »

I could see having unarmed medical ships. And that does seem to match what we see yes? Mostly I could see their use in particularly sensitive regions. The Cardassian Demilitarized zone comes to mind. Where both sides would be various suspicious of any armed vessel for any reason, even if only because of those "ooops, looks like the captain went rogue and started blowing stuff up" incidents.

In various times you also have the Klingon and Romulan neutral zones. Presumably the Federation might have arrangements like that with other powers. There might also be various contraining laws and whatnot even with Federation allies that would preculde weapons, rather like the situations that leave our cargo ships vulnerable to somalian pirates.

Totally unarmed ships might also be able to assist aliens that would be distrustful of anything else (be that might be able to provide their own escorts to keep pirates at bay).

As for asteroids and whatnot, that's what the navigational deflector is for. If an asteroid is too big for that you should detect the thing far enough away to either alter course or use a tractor beam.
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