posted
Wouldn't the probe Quadros I be a good example of far flung automated exploration on the part of the Federation - this is the probe that discovered the Idran system that lies at the other end of the Wormhole.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
It might be, if we knew more of it. Did it actually fly to Idran? Or did it rather conduct long base interferometry measurements from within the Alpha Quadrant? Was it launched by the Federation (that is, after 2161), or "inherited" from a member species that had launched it decades, centuries or millennia earlier? Was there a Quadros II, and possibly six thousand other sister probes of rough photon torpedo size, or did the resources of the UFP get drained by building just one of these moon-sized long range behemoths?
Generally, it's difficult to see how probes could perform meaningful exploration unless they were as big and complex as full starships. And if probes like that can be built, why does Starfleet pay Kirk a salary? But the titular probe of VOY "Friendship One" proves that relatively compact automated vehicles can attain extreme speeds and sustain them for long periods of time, spanning the galaxy in their journeys - so there must be some technological trick to doing automatons that are so clearly superior to manned vehicles. Perhaps the super-duper probe engines would kill any crew with their special warp fields or powerplant radiation?
posted
Or it's a matter of putting large nacelles onto a tiny sensor probe- no mass for crew or consumables would allow for greater warp fields at a lower mass vs. power rate.
Who knows? Mabye starfleet got Transwarp working but not for living things...
I like the notion of a probe that zipps along for decades at high warp and slows to low warp when passing through star systems- recording only basic information (planet numbers, stellar classes, stellar cartography, etc.) and returning on an eliptical path to relay it's findings once it's close enough to the Federation frontier.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Hmmmm....or that the four-armed pod people of the Quadros star system made the probe and shared the information with the Federation in exchange for shiney beads, candy and pornograpgy (photoshopped so there were four arms on each model, of course).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
About Ringworld: Yes, the panels are explicitly mentioned. As you may recall, a girl in the village cut her hand off trying to pick up a piece of the cord that held those things together.
Registered: Jul 2005
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