Death and re-birth

[Meste17]

If a starship had only its stardrive destroyed and the saucer crash-landed on a planet, but was deemed salvagable, could it be possible to recover said saucer and re-commission said vessel? Say as a hypothetical situation the USS Enterprise-H had saucer separated like the D in Generations or the nu NCC-1701 in Beyond and the saucer made a crash landing, but was still intact? Would it be possible to recover the saucer and mount it on a new stardrive section?

[Graham Kennedy]

If the saucer crashlands on a planet, I'd say it's a very unlikely scenario. The standard landing appears to be to glide in and belly land. That's pretty much got to rip the entire bottom of the saucer to pieces, and that's before you consider whatever trees and large rocky outcroppings it might smash into as it skids out.

But in theory, if it wasn't that badly damaged, I don't see why you couldn't get it into orbit again. We know in the Abrams movies at least that the thrusters can lift the ship against 1g - it happens in Into Darkness. And presumably that's how they launch them from the surface in the first place.

All in all, it's pretty much guaranteed that your saucer is going to be badly damaged when you get it back. It might be possible to repair it and return it to service - spend enough time, money and effort on it and most anything is possible. But it's probably going to be cheaper and quicker to just build a new one.

[Meste17]

If the saucer crashlands on a planet, I'd say it's a very unlikely scenario. The standard landing appears to be to glide in and belly land. That's pretty much got to rip the entire bottom of the saucer to pieces, and that's before you consider whatever trees and large rocky outcroppings it might smash into as it skids out.

But in theory, if it wasn't that badly damaged, I don't see why you couldn't get it into orbit again. We know in the Abrams movies at least that the thrusters can lift the ship against 1g - it happens in Into Darkness. And presumably that's how they launch them from the surface in the first place.

All in all, it's pretty much guaranteed that your saucer is going to be badly damaged when you get it back. It might be possible to repair it and return it to service - spend enough time, money and effort on it and most anything is possible. But it's probably going to be cheaper and quicker to just build a new one.

Well I was hoping it would be possible to say have the Enterprise-H crash, but deemed salvagable sans what you specified, recovered, re-commissioned and put back in service where it continues its voyages boldly going where no crew has gone before.

[Graham Kennedy]

Well, here's how I'd go about it then.

First, have the planet it crashes on a small, low gravity world. Something like Mars, which has 1/3 of Earth's gravity. Lower gravity means lower impact.

Second, have it come down somewhere that's very, very large and very, very flat. That way there's nothing to smash into in the way of rock formations, trees, etc. Option 1 would be the ocean. That's problematic because water is incompressible, so if you hit it fast enough that it can't get out the way, you may as well be hitting concrete.

Option 2, a wide flat desert. Better, but sand if a good abrasive. Not good for your hull to be dragged across it at several hundred miles per hour.

So I'd go with Option 3, which is a very large flat area of deep snow. It's soft, it will compress a good deal to soften the impact. People have jumped out of aeroplanes without a parachute and survived because they've fallen into deep snow. And if you're skidding across it, it will build up in front of you and slow you down nice and gradually. Nature's crash barrier.

Next, make a point of mentioning that a lot of the maneuvering thrusters still work, and that they were used to kill the descent rate and give you a very gentle landing. Likewise the structural integrity fields worked perfectly, reinforcing the hull, and the inertial dampers meant the ship didn't get shook up too much.

And with all that, you also got damned lucky.

Oh, and you'll need something big and beefy with a hell of a tractor beam to get your saucer back into orbit.

Mention all that, and I'd believe your saucer is salvageable.

[Mikey]

OMG, here we go again. You are posting these things in order to precondition the response that you'd like to hear; otherwise, why would you have asked a question while again embodying the desired answer in the frame of the question? You said:

...the saucer crash-landed on a planet, but was deemed salvagable...

(my emphasis.)

The word "salvageable" means "able to be salvaged." I'm presuming that you aren't ignorant of this definition, because it is a) obvious and b) you used the term correctly. So you are, in effect, asking "If the saucer were able to be salvaged, then could it be salvaged?"

[Teaos]

What ever you wish is possible.

[Captain Seafort]

Option 2, a wide flat desert. Better, but sand if a good abrasive. Not good for your hull to be dragged across it at several hundred miles per hour.

This might not be much of an issue for a starship - a desert is unlikely to be more abrasive than a cloud of hydrogen encountered at a significant fraction of c.

[Teaos]

With or with out deflectors.

[McAvoy]

Planes that belly land are salvagable. Huge things like ships can't be. It's the equivalent of running aground but much worse.

If it crashes and it is 'deemed salvagable' than yes they could salvage it. You know since it's deemed salvagable.

However, if the ship is old for example, they may not consider it worthwhile to salvage it. Take for example the USS Oklahoma capsized in Pearl Harbor. The US raised her and more than likely could have rebuilt hee but by that point she was very obsolete, the war's end was in sight and just a waste of resources.

So how did this hypothetical Enterprise H crash land?

[Teaos]

The oh could salvage it for scrap, but the amount of repairs involved... You could fix it, but it is Luke always be better to just build a new ship.

[McAvoy]

Yes. Traditionally to salvage a ship usually involves alot of work and the reason why they would is because mainly if it would cost less than to build a new ship, less time involved or they really need that ship.

[Meste17]

Planes that belly land are salvagable. Huge things like ships can't be. It's the equivalent of running aground but much worse.

If it crashes and it is 'deemed salvagable' than yes they could salvage it. You know since it's deemed salvagable.

However, if the ship is old for example, they may not consider it worthwhile to salvage it. Take for example the USS Oklahoma capsized in Pearl Harbor. The US raised her and more than likely could have rebuilt hee but by that point she was very obsolete, the war's end was in sight and just a waste of resources.

So how did this hypothetical Enterprise H crash land?

I was hoping it would in a storyline, engage a stolen vessel, say a Klingon bird of prey or something similar in orbit of a planet as described with his requirements (low gravity or a snow like planet), and as in Generations the BOP type vessel is destroyed, but the saucer has to separate because the stardrive would be so heavily damaged it would explode in a warp core breach, but as Graham would suggest, the battle would take place in orbit of said planet and the saucer would land safely, but the stardrive .... *BOOM* gone. And the crew would wait for whatever reason to lift the saucer in the air again and fly it back to a Starfleet base somewhere.

[Mikey]

You don't need our approval to write things as such. That's the great thing about a fictional story - things happen if the writer wants those things to happen.