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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Timo: [QB] So far, we haven't really heard of a starship "running out of oomph" - save for the one infamous moment in VOY where a severe deuterium shortage hit the ship. And when it did, boy if it didn't make a mess: the ship was, like, totally crippled and had to limp to the nearest suitable planet to refuel. Whether we like it or not, "Demon" is canon. And it's our only real source to information about starships running out of their endurance envelope. So what can we learn from it? The fuel shortage was apparently rather sudden and unpredicted, to be such a threat to the ship. This might actually suggest that the ships need to refuel fairly often while cruising, and Voyager simply missed two or three of these pit stops in a row. "Fairly often" would probably mean mere months between refills, then. If the shortage was long time in coming, surely Janeway would have taken preemptive action. (Or was the fuel gauge of the ship broken?) Larger ships might have a different fuel economy, which is why we never ran into the fuel shortage issue when the E-D was stranded a long distance from home, say, by the antics of Q. They might be able to sail sufficiently long between refills that they would never be caught between two refill points - one refill interval would span dozens of such points. But if smaller size means reduced economy, then the Defiant must be especially screwed unless there's a tanker or a friendly harbor nearby. Also, "Demon" proves that the famous ramscoops cannot refuel the ship in all conditions, not even for impulse flight purposes. Whether the conditions in "Demon" were exceptional or commonplace is not known. Perhaps the ramscoops are only useful across a narrow range of operating parameters. And perhaps the range is different for ships built to perform different missions? In light of "Demon", it seems possible that the seeming independence and endurance of TOS, TNG and DS9 ships is just an illusion. The ships from those shows probably refuel whenever the camera is turned away. In DS9, such refueling probably involves starbases (during the regular, "peace" episodes) and tankers (during the "war" episodes"), but the exploratory voyages of TOS and TNG cannot rely on starbases alone. Perhaps Kirk and Picard rendezvoused with tankers fairly often. Or then there are "sweet spots" in space for ramscoop refueling, and the ship sought out those (but left a safety margin, unlike the Voyager). Certainly they couldn't refuel from the surfaces of Demon-style planets, since only the Voyager met the hardware requirements for that. Possibly the Defiant would meet those requirements as well, given how she has demonstrated semi-controlled planetary landing ("Children of Time"), tractoring of large objects to orbit ("The Ship"), and maneuvering in atmospheres ("Starship Down" et al). But overall, she looks like a ship that would rely heavily on tankers and tenders and other external support if forced to take on a long-range, long-duration mission. We have to remember, though, that the Valiant operated for a long time without any external support... Perhaps that's the best benchmark we have for Defiant-class exploration potential. (Uh, and I just remembered that "Night" ought to set the standard for Intrepid class endurance. Two years without any chance at refueling beyond ramscoops didn't seem to worry Janeway there.) Timo Saloniemi [/QB][/QUOTE]
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