Appendix B:

Starship Enterprise.

To Boldly go where no man has been before…

Generation ships have been around for ages, a popular concept in science fiction. The facts however are that travel to the stars is more likely to be achieved with a generation ship then to find some bizarre freak of natural law that will allow faster than light travel. A generation ship in itself is a new world, and going from an orbiting colony to one is only really a matter of strapping on an engine and making sure you are truly self sufficient.

In this scenario we assume that earth has made the decision to expand to the stars, so they have constructed a huge vessel, packed it full of colonists and supplies, glued on a reaction drive, stapled on boosters and off we go. And to make sure things run efficiently we remove the human element as much as possible and use Mechanoids. The humans, fragile and inefficient as they are, are stored away in deep freeze awaiting the arrival day when they can be thawed out and returned to action. The advantages of this are enormous, you don’t need to provide food and a safe environment for flesh bodies, you don’t need to provide the extra space so they don’t go crazy, you don’t need to worry about one of them going psycho and blowing something up, you remove all emotional risks. All of this means the ship can carry many more colonists, and will run much more efficiently, plus we can strap on some really big boosters at the start to get up some speed (frozen bodies can survive high G forces much better).

Once the boosters drop off and we have built up some speed you deploy the reaction drive and ram scoops to provide a steady acceleration, as well as providing a reliable energy source. The ram scoop collects interstellar gases (mainly hydrogen) using a large electro magnetic field and directs the gases into the reaction drive, which is essentially a huge fusion reactor that squirts plasma out the back end at huge speed. Even a small amount of mass can provide momentum if it is travelling with enough velocity.

As an added bonus you can have a huge ice shield out the front of the ship. This is essentially a huge lump of water ice held in place by a frame. The ice shield provides protection from front on objects as well as being a source of fuel for the reaction drive.

Of course if you want humans involved in some way you can have a bigger ship (much bigger) with a suitable human habitat, or you might assume a skeleton crew who are unfrozen for a year or two and return to the freezer. A good mix is to have a smaller human habitat that will be used once the ship arrives, allow the first wave of people to be unfrozen and then live on the ship while they work out what to do. As people are moved to the new world the next wave is unfrozen etc. Using this method gives you a greater range of environments to work with.

The timing of your scenario is also a major element, is it mid flight or during the end flight. During the end flight is probably the best as it gives you a future target and a series of triggers for changes. If things happen mid flight then nothing it likely to create change from outside the ship, but there are still possibilities (such as being boarded by some strange alien life form, or crossing paths with another, alien, generation ship.