There's also the possibility of civilian vessels (passenger liners, transports, etc.) being requisitioned for the evac. It really does depend entirely on the timescale; the timeline mentioned by MinutiaeMan seems to imply it took place within a year. I suppose it would be possible, but the effort would have to be massive.
To be honest though, I'm entirely behind Jason's idea. 50-60,000 isn't really that much out of 10 million, is it?
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posted
1. "It's 29,392,499,070,661.5 miles to Alpha Chicago, we got a full tank of deuterium, half a pack of rations, it's dark, and we're wearing spacesuits. Hit it."
2. Very nice work on the calcs. Transport time values could be augmented with what was observed during the emergency beam-out in "1100100101010-awthehellwithit"[TNG1] . . . I seem to recall very rapid beaming. Cargo bay transporter use for beaming out personnel confirmed in "Starship Mine"[TNG6].
3. In spite of the TM evac limit, I would think that a Galaxy Class starship should have greater capability, provided that comfort is not part of the equation. As per estimates by Bernd and myself on the actual floorspace of the GCS, they should have on the order of a million square meters of room (SCN link).
Giving everyone a generous ten square meters to play in would result in 100,000 beings throughout the ship.
The only issues would be in regards to life support and replicator usage. The latter could be minimized with rationing, or (if possible) trying to have everyone bring some grub along. Impact on the life support system would basically be in regards to the air scrubbers . . . though 100 times the standard amount of poop could present a problem. I can't imagine, though, that buckets are an unknown in the 24th Century.
4. Shuttlecraft evac limits are established in "The Ensigns of Command"[TNG3], wherein it would take over a month to remove 15,000 colonists by shuttlecraft.
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posted
100,000 additional people might tax the engines a bit as well.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
I doubt "diverting of Starfleet resources" would be that much of an issue. It's a once-in-a-thousand-lifetimes thing anyway, not something Starfleet would be *expected* to be capable of handling ever again.
With an entire planet at stake like that, it wouldn't be that far-fetched to essentially build a second Starfleet, or even an organization larger than the then existing Starfleet, just for the purpose - and then dismantle it immediately afterwards. People down on the planet wouldn't be doing much else useful anyway; making them build ships for themselves would keep them from looting and pillaging, at any rate.
Starfleet's pre-existing starships would probably mainly be there to stop the looting, to control the traffic, to help with medical matters, to keep the people fed and clothed and in communication when the planetary infrastructures shut down. They'd probably move more stuff in than out.
Sending a few Manns to shuttle trivially small numbers of people out of the planet would not be worth the while (I think we discussed this in connection with the DS9 "Gateways" novel already). If the evacuation really hinged on the few thousands of seats on the Manns, then there would be no hope anyway, and the ships would be better used in euthanizing the population from orbit...
posted
Well, why not use some type of stasis/sleeper pods, that would allow you to carry thousands of people with minimum effort? Stack them 10, 20, or 30 high in a cargo ship and all you have to worry about is power. Also it would allow you to store them for a period of time before shipping them out.
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quote:Originally posted by Hunter: Well, why not use some type of stasis/sleeper pods, that would allow you to carry thousands of people with minimum effort? Stack them 10, 20, or 30 high in a cargo ship and all you have to worry about is power. Also it would allow you to store them for a period of time before shipping them out.
Yes, but where do you get thousands of stasis pods from? And moving a load of them into orbit would be even more difficult than moving people into orbit.
posted
Just remember, if the logistics get to much to bear.... Call the Crystaline Entity.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Or do it the Star Trek way, and move the entire planet.
Actually the Spaceflight Chronology explains a bit more about Bayards Planet. USS Endurance, Mann class, only supervised the evacuation, while the actual moving of people was done on what the book calls "superconvoys". These convoys could carry "a hundred and more" cargo containers at warp, "powered by linked configurations of warp tugs". They were refitted for life-support.
More on the superconvoys, powered by Provider class tugs:
quote: USS Muletrain Provider Class This was the lead ship for the warp superconvoys, the 100-kilometer cargo carriers that revolutionized interstellar industrial transport. Configured in 8-ship linked octagons at the head of the convoy, with 4-ship squares of booster tugs after each 10-container segment, and all controls subspace-radio synchronized, these superconvoys transported billions of kilograms per superconvoy
And apparently, these superconvoys can do Warp 2.
May have sounded reasonable in the Chronology's context, but it's a bit over-the-top for current Star Trek.
posted
And no doubt, if the matter of evacuating a whole planet (and not just one of those one-horse colonies of TNG/DS9 fame) arose in aired Trek, it would be called a "first" for dramatic reasons.
Which wouldn't actually be a problem wrt SFC if the matter arose in ENT...
Still, for all we know, something like the superconvoys may in fact be at work in Trek. The transports we've seen are laughably small for hauling low-buck-per-pound bulk stuff such as "ore", which nevertheless is being hauled somehow. Few of the TNG or DS9 storylines would have touched upon the superconvoys, really.
posted
And the few that did, never took the opportunity to show them. "The Sound of Her Voice," for example, had the Defiant escorting a convoy.
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posted
Berlin Airlift, was a massive airlift, while the sealift was done with craft that could carry thousands of tons at a time the aircraft could only do a few tons each.
100 km long ship? hell you could make a bridge spanning the distance with the materials used to make the ships.....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: making them build ships for themselves would keep them from looting and pillaging, at any rate.
Would people bother looting and pillaging if all they were allowed to take with them was the clothes on their backs and a backpack full of personal effects? I mean, in an evacuation they wouldn't people take grandma's credenza along.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: Still, for all we know, something like the superconvoys may in fact be at work in Trek. The transports we've seen are laughably small for hauling low-buck-per-pound bulk stuff such as "ore", which nevertheless is being hauled somehow. Few of the TNG or DS9 storylines would have touched upon the superconvoys, really.
Timo Saloniemi
I alsay thought it was rather stupid to haul raw ore around anyway. I'd expect such starfaring civilizations to have mobile refineries (a la what the Nostromo was towing in Alien), which would process the raw material into more finished resources which then would be shipped to their destinations.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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