Civilian Ships

[Mark]

I'm kicking around an idea for a story in my head involving a Starfleet Officer, who, after a mission going bad with S.I. or S31 gets cut loose and CAN'T return to Starfleet. So, he turns to civilian ships. And starts to see a side of the Federation never explored before, from the perspective of a ship on the fringe of the law. The problem that I'm having is with the ship he hooks up with. Does ANYBODY have any stats for any of the civilian ships? And what kind of or how many weapons would they be restricted too. That kind of thing.............

[Tyyr]

I think we've seen a few civilian ships though the only one that I'm sure was part of the Federation was the Vico. It was an Oberth class ship though. Nothing in the way of hard data to offer.

If I had to design one I'd probably put the limits of a civilian ship somewhere around the refit Connie/Miranda level of tech, maybe the equivalent of an Excelsior as a top of the line civvie ship.

[Mikey]

Bernd has some decent images, including the ubiquitous and multi-sized Merchantman platform, Cassidy Yates' ship, and the crashed Erewhon. Check out Ex-Astris-Scientia.org.

[Lazar]

How about the Raven-type?

[Atekimogus]

You mean basically Firefly with an ex Starfleet Officer onboard? Well it would probably depend what this civilian ship is supposed to do.

For instance if it is just a transporter for goods I see no reason why they shouldn't still have a few ptolemy transports maybe with slightly more modern tugs.

Or you could use the merchantman from ST III, the one with the klingon chick onboard. Or you could search for stats of the Maquis ships/raiders which I think were just civilian ships a bit bumped up with weaponry.

[Mark]

I was thinking of the merchantman.......but I can't find any stats for it.

[Mikey]

Bernd doesn't allow hotlinking, so c&p this in your browser:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schem ... _ships.htm

scroll down, you'll find the merchantman as well as a number of other civvie ships.

[Atekimogus]

Here you have the stats/blueprints of the merchantman:

Federation Class J Merchantman


And another freighter I found:

Independence Class Freighter


They are not canon of course but may provide a good starting point.

[Reliant121]

I think its a possibility that old decommissioned Starfleet ships (Refit Connie Era) are definite possibilities, as well as the freighter style ships like the merchantmen.

[Graham Kennedy]

The only civilian ships I know of in TOS were Mudd's ship, which was a blur of light in the original but a nice ship in the remaster :



Then the cruise ship Aurora, which looked like a Tholian ship in TOS :



But was revamped for the remaster :



We heard of the "SS Beagle", which was a "class 4 stardrive survey vessel, in operation under the authority of the Merchant Service". The crew was 47. but we don't have stats on it.

Of course, we do have stats on the famous Kobayashi Maru :

[Mark]

This is awesome stuff.

I'm fleshing out the ship nicely....as that will be where most of the action takes place. The characters usually develop around the the ship for me at least....let's see what happens. We have our protaganist.....once upon a time a young starship Captain, that was unwillingly recruted by a deep cover agency (either SI or S31....I haven't decided), when they faked his death. They promised to fix everything if he succeeded. Now that the mission is over, they screwed him and cut him loose (not worth the trouble of reversing a faked death). Having nothing else left, he joins the civillian merchant fleet on a ship of a somewhat cloudy legal standing with a morally ambigious crew.


What do you guys think of the premise?

[Captain Seafort]

Have you ever read Consider Phlebas? The broad strokes of this plot sound very very similar.

[Atekimogus]

I don't know I am not a big fan of S31 even if it is used only as plot device to get the story started. Why not a promising young captain who doesn't happen to have any connections at all and is basically stuck on one of those lousy frigate-ships, so after another 5year tour to the ass of the universe mapping s**t so to speak and no prospect of advancement he just quits starfleet.

I mean even Kirk quit starfleet for a time and there you have a dedicated person with all options available to him. Now that wouldn't be as dramatic as a S31 plot but with the maincharactar not offically dead you would have nicer options to have him still interact with starfleet-personell, maybe even call in a few favours from former crew etc.

[Mark]

Have you ever read Consider Phlebas? The broad strokes of this plot sound very very similar.

Can't say that I have.........what genre is it?

I don't know I am not a big fan of S31 even if it is used only as plot device to get the story started. Why not a promising young captain who doesn't happen to have any connections at all and is basically stuck on one of those lousy frigate-ships, so after another 5year tour to the ass of the universe mapping s**t so to speak and no prospect of advancement he just quits starfleet.

I mean even Kirk quit starfleet for a time and there you have a dedicated person with all options available to him. Now that wouldn't be as dramatic as a S31 plot but with the maincharactar not offically dead you would have nicer options to have him still interact with starfleet-personell, maybe even call in a few favours from former crew etc.

Part of the premise of the story is the fact that the main character is a hotshot Captain, of an envied ship of the line. He has everything an officer could want, then litterally has his life STOLEN from him by part of the very orginazation he had given everything to, and has to find a new path. Imagine Picard, the man who had his ships replicator system replaced because it didn't make his tea just right suddenly forced so serve as a crewman on a floating POS in space. Interested contrast, wouldn't you say? Wonderful character interactions.

[Sionnach Glic]

Can't say that I have.........what genre is it?

Science Fiction. It's one of Ian Banks' Culture series, which is one of the more unique sci-fi universes around. Definitely worth a read if you can find any of his books. They're really good.