"Life Lines" added a new designation to our classification scheme for Starfleet ships. The new designation is waste transfer barges. There are hundreds of these barges and are maintained by Mark 1 EMHs. (Dr. Zimmerman mentioned 675 Mark 1 EMH, 675 may be the lowest, highest, or median of the number of barges.) So, canonically, we have cargo drones, cruisers, destroyers (?), escorts, explorers, fighters, freighters, frigates, scouts, shuttles, surveyors, transports, tugs, and waste transfer barges.
In the episode previous, "Fury", there is mention of a Class 1 Shuttlecraft. So, the canonical classification is as follow-Class F, Class S, Class 1, Class 2, and Class 6.
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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory
Posted by Justin_Timberland (Member # 236) on :
Does that mean then the EMH on the Enterprise-E is cleaning the ship's engines?
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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I'd wager that these waste barges are 100% automated vessels, with no humanoids or other biological lifeforms aboard. It would then make sense to use former EMHs for cleaning duties and other such menial jobs, since they would be so much more practical than adding a human cremember and all the life support required to keep him working.
Aboard a ship that has biological crew, it makes no sense to dedicate an artificial intelligence to do something a crewmember or a simple machine controlled by a crewmember can do.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :
*sniffs the air*
Smells like 'Revulsion' to me.
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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Hmm, moral issues coming in...
Freedom To All Holo-Characters!!!
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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I wouold hope that Starfleet would at least remove the EMH's adaptive sub-routines. I mean if the hologram can grow and learn and develop, pretty soon he's going to become aware that he's a slave on a waste ship. They're just asking for trouble. However, he was just a robot with nothing resembling a consciousness, it'd be o.k.
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