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and, by mimicking a radically increased gravitational field, pulls it
closer to the ship for examination or other purposes. Pressor beams use
the same technology but with polarities reversed to exert great
gravitational pressure on a small area. Conventional tractors and
pressors are effective only on masses less than several hundred thousand
tons; this makes their effect on other starships minimal. The net effect
of a full force tractor or pressor on a starship is equivalent to a hard
shove. Therefore, tractor and pressor beams generally are not used in
battle situations.
SCREENS
Defensive screening is one of the largest power drains in a Federation
starship and its main protection in battle. (Klingon -- being more
interested in offensive armament -- pay relatively little attention to
screening. But the better-engineered and -powered screens of a
Federation ship are a match for Klingon phasers.) The screens are a set
of classic force fields, domains of tuned high-state
particle/wavicle-packet fluctuations: six sets of field domains,
overlapping and reinforcing one another in a manner reminiscent of the
tuned reinforcement of phasers (i.e., one screen's destruction weakens
all of the others by 10 percent).
Enterprise has six screens -- fore, aft, right high, right low, left
high, left low -- that completely surround the ship when all are
running. Power can be selectively channeled to each of them to reinforce
one screen that's being attacked more forcefully than the others, though
this decreases the total power available to the others. Screens are
powered out of the warp drive and do not function at peak capacity while
the ship is in warp and running. This tends to encourage a captain to
choose "stand-and-fight" battle situations whenever possible.
Self-destruct can be effected by overloading all of the screens and
channeling full power to them. This option is available for last-resort
situations but is not considered a viable alternative in most battle
scenarios for obvious reasons. Those who bluff self-destructs often
find their bluffs called.
SENSORS
Enterprise's main sensor array (sometimes referred to as "scanners")
includes a variety of tachyar-based devices capable of detecting
movement or radiation and analyzing the composition and location of
almost every known element. At short range (up to 500 miles), the
sensors can detect individual creatures' life signs. At medium range
(500 to 50,000 miles) they are better at detecting movement and
radiation from the infrared up through visible light, the ultraviolet,
and x-rays; and doing compound analysis. Long-range sensing (50,000
miles to approximately 10 parsecs, or 32 light-years) is confined
primarily to very strong and artificial radiation sources (i.e., other
ships, which in warp drive tend to leave a readable "ion trail" behind
them) and large-scale physical movement (planetary orbits, stellar
motion, etc.). Certain lead-bearing and heavy-metal-bearing compounds
(pitchblende, etc.) will interfere with scanner functions. Long range
scanning in particular is easily disrupted by interstellar "jamming" and
"bad weather," because of the extreme length of the tackyon
particle/wave on which it relies.
Personal scanners, such as the tricorder, are also more effective at
close range (1 to 1000 feet) than at long range (5 to 10 miles).
Tricorder readings usually have to be supplemented with on-site
investigation: they tend to be vague.HF
TRANSPORTERS
Close-range transporters move people and objects by analyzing the energy
states of their atoms and then creating an equivalent set of states, or
Dirac jumps, at another location. (Therefore, one briefly "ceases to
exist" while in the transporter, which is what always makes Dr. McCoy so
nervous about using it.) The transporter's maximum range is 30,000 miles
(a little more than the usual orbital altitude of a visiting starship).
Because of the extreme proximity of the tolerances to which they must be
tuned to ensure that living beings get safely from one location to
another, transporters are cranky and delicate, and are constantly
malfunctioning for one reason or another: dilithium-crystal
misalignment; interstellar jamming, or "black noise" that threatens to
distort the signal: and so forth. When screens are up, the transporter
cannot be used to beam out of the ship. Overuse (heavy continuous
transporting for more than several hours) may cause transporter
circuitry to burn out. Intraship beaming is extremely dangerous and is
not recommended except in utmost emergencies. The result of beaming from
one location to another within the ship is almost always fatal.
SHUTTLECRAFT
Shuttlecraft are small general-use spacecraft powered by impulse power
only. They are used: for trips that exceed the transporter's effective
range, when the transporter is malfunctioning, and for carring objects
either too large or too delicate to entrust to the transporter. Their
power supply is rechargeable from the Enterprise but is still somewhat
limited. Their effective range is about 500,000 miles at .10 c.
(Shuttlecraft do not exceed this speed limit for fear of relativistic
effects.) This gives them up to about eight hours at cruise or an hour
at top speed.
COMMUNICATIONS
Subspace "radio" is actually a tachyon-based technology bearing little
resemblance to the radio of old. It is not dependent on lightspeed --
indeed the slowest it can go is c; its high speed limit is about 136,000
c, or warp 9. But even this great speed becomes insufficient for
effective communication as one's distance from Star Fleet increases. Out
near the Romulan Empire, for example, it takes nearly three weeks for a
message to reach Fleet. This leaves a starship captain pretty much on
his or her own, although regular communication with Star Fleet is
expected and advised. Subspace radio can be jammed purposely or
interfered with by bad interstellar "weather."
Communicators use the same technology but with a shorter range (about
40,000 miles) and much lower power. Use in atmosphere limits their range
to about 20,000 miles, because of the dissipation of tachyon pulses into
Cerenkov radiation on contact with the gas molecules in air.
Ship's intercom systems permits audio and visual communication and
conference calling to and from any location on the ship. One may also be
"patched in" to external communications, allowing these same
capabilities from virtually any location.
COMPUTER
Enterprise's computers are extraordinarily versatile, with a total
memory and "effective synapse number" that make some people wonder
whether they're slightly sentient. Their exact virtual memory size is
classified; it is rumored to be in the multiple petabytes(1 PeB equals 1
quadrillion bytes.) Computers can report verbally or visually (hard copy
or display) on any phenomenon the ship's sensors can detect and, if
requested, will include analysis. The computers also contain a vast data
base of general information on ship's function and other subjects.HF
SICK BAY
Sick bay contains various kinds of medical scanning equipment and
numerous devices for healing the sick: primarily the "anabolic
protoplaser," which forces tissue regeneration. The more delicate or
specialized the tissue (heart, brain, etc.) the longer such regeneration
takes. A broken bone can be reknit in about an hour. Damaged brain or
neural tissue regenerates in one to two days, but rehabilitation or
retaining time must be added.HF
SHIP LAY-OUT
DECK #1 DECK #7
Bridge Security
Library
DECK #2 Sickbay
Lab Transporter
Engineering
DECK #3
Turbo-lifts DECK #8
Recdeck
DECK #4
Turbo-lifts DECK #9
Reclamation
DECK #5
Spock's quarters DECK #10
McCoy's quarters Cargo hold
Scott's quarters
Uhura's quarters DECK #11
Chekov's quarters Phaser banks
Kirk's quarters
Cafeteria DECK #12
Briefingroom Observation deck
DECK #6 DECK #13
Turbo-lift Lounge
DECK #14 DECK #20
Turbo-lifts Gym
Pool
DECK #15
Maintenance DECK #21
Kitchen
DECK #16 Bowling alley
Warp-drive
DECK #22
DECK #17 Computer
Turbo-lift
DECK #23
DECK #18 Turbo-lift
Hydroponics
DECK #19
ShuttlebayHF
MISSION AREA
Partial description of active mission area: Galactic "southern
hemisphere,"Quadrantboundries:GalLong 290-310 degrees; distance
fromarbitrary Galacticcorevaries, 24000-27000 light-years.(Abstracts
ofplanets freelyadapted from Jane's Interstellar Gazetteer and
SystemCatalogue, 231st edition.By kind permission of the publisher, Jane
Interstellar Ltd., London WC1/Deneb V.)
ORNA/IOTA TRIANGULI