K'treel

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K'treel "Explorer" Class Exploration/Surveying Ships

   K'treel "Explorer" Class ships are specialized for long deployments without external support and thus appear to an outsider to be a bit of a mongrel design, too big to be classed as a Corvette -- and not powerful enough to carry the required armament for that role -- and too small to be a practical freighter.  Most ships made available to humans have an AI designed by the Darjee, but the K'treels have a Tu'ull AI as their greater independence is an asset on extended operations. Humans do not know who built these ships for the Darjee (the working assumption, due to the AIs, is a race called the "Tu'ull" but all questions about them are ignored) but they are very impressive, even if not suitable as warships.
   This was one of the the first ships released by the Confederacy to Human control.  While by pre-Confederacy Human standards the ships are impressively capable, they are effectively useless for both combat and commerce.  It can be argued that the ship was released to us as a set of experiments: primarily to see what we would do with starships that obeyed us before more powerful designs were released to us, but also to see if we could find a use for this type of ship.  Only government inertia had allowed 30 (29 standard and the last one completed to a different design) of them to be built before the original program was stopped, as they had been found to be uneconomical in their planned trade expansion role. Those thirty were then put up for sale and half a dozen were sold as yachts to the rich and famous.
   This class was designed to deal with the wear and tear of long deployments without support, and thus have a far greater capacity for self-repair than is normal for commercial or military ships which sacrifice endurance and repairability in order to maximize cargo capacity and armaments, respectively.  The power plant and engines were designed for reliability instead of output, so the class cannot generally go as fast as other current ships and cannot drive many current weapon systems.  On the other hand, mean time between failure (MTBF) for the propulsion plant is on the order of 50 years, as opposed to only months for higher-output plants currently used in warships.  This philosophy can be seen throughout the ship, leading to a very low minimum manning level.
   The class can safely be operated with only 4 crew (two bridge and two engineering) for short periods if required. Minimum crew to use all systems is 13 (3 Bridge, 2 Command/Navigation, 5 Engineering and 3 Weapons), although that can be reduced to 8 if the standard armament of two low powered phased beams and a single plasma torpedo launcher are not to be used, as that eliminates the two gunners, the fire control officer, and two engineering techs.  Additional crew will be needed for any refitted equipment.  Included in the standard support equipment inventory is a Galileo Class shuttle, but a dedicated small-craft pilot is not part of the above minimum crew list.
   The ship is able to carry nine cargo containers which use the standard mount used throughout the Confederacy so they can be replaced by habitat pods as used on the colony ships with no issues. As originally used by the K'treel, these containers held stores allowing the ships to remain away from port for ten or more years.  CORRECTION: Further analysis has shown that the "cargo containers" _are_ habitat pods; each of the Confederacy's standard pods is AI-controlled and these are merely two different configurations that they can assume when directed.
   We have been unable to find any use for them beyond their design purpose of exploring unknown systems and surveying uncontrolled systems.  As they are of no value in storage, BuShips has stated that they are available for anyone who can demonstrate a valid use for them.  As of this update, 11 have been placed in service, 4 are earmarked, and 15 are waiting to be claimed.  The Targeted Extractions Task Group has 5 of these ships, as TETG did not need any special capabilities beyond mobility.
   The Copernicus was laid down as a K'treel, but was completed as a deep-space observatory that was never intended to enter a planetary system during a mission, much less enter an atmosphere.  Large telescopes replaced the weapons mounts.  It carries three additional pods along the ventral section of the hull.

Notes from the author's email list (not necessarily canon):

Zen Master on 11/22/2013:    When I first started trying to figure out how I could build my colony on $5 a day, I had to make do with ships no one else wanted.  All I could find were those K'treel Explorers that only held 9 pods.  Now, what really were these?  I chose to parse that as a brand (or name) + type, as in "Chevy Pickup".  They are Explorers, whatever that is, either made by the K'treel or a particular model named K'treel.  Okay, what's an explorer?  That word is an industry-speak term for a small ship that goes out in the middle of nowhere doing research, surveying, etc.
   It has to be self-sufficient.  It has to have the repair shops, the hydroponics tanks, the redundancy it takes to come back even when the portside hyperspace doubletalk generator fails on emergence 300ly from home.  Ergo, it is a complete ship, not just a beanpole to hang pods from.
   Well then, if you already have everything you need, why have those pods at all?  For two reasons.  First, because sometimes you want to carry stuff that doesn't quite fit in your core storage, the way pickup trucks have tow hitches for trailers.  Second, if you carry lots of supplies you can stay out a longer time doing your exploring job.
   But, those pods aren't really that big.  That's okay.  They can expand out quite a bit, to a much larger "cargo" configuration.  And _that's_ what the Explorers carry.  Their mounting brackets (with integral hatch) are far more robust than the ones on an Aurora or other small-pod carrier, and the brackets themselves are spaced very far apart, to match pods in cargo config.
   An Explorer _does_ look funny, if you hang nine habitat pods on it.  Which is the way we got them after having been mothballed for millennia.  The Darjee passage crews didn't get told to bring any big cargo, just activate the ships, hang some pods on them and deliver them to Earthat.

   That gave me a ship roughly as big around as the cargo pods themselves, and not much longer than the stick of three pods.  There's no need for any of the core to "stick out" in front of the pods.  There is a small amount, maybe 5 meters, because that's where the bridge with its big windows is; a K'treel isn't a warship and it doesn't have the CIC that us humans build into our ships that are supposed to get shot up and keep working.  It also means the engines are built for durability, not acceleration or maneuverability, and they don't have that huge "cone of death" that the Auroras have.
   I never did figure out why the "two rows down each side and a third one across the top", unless the bottom was kept clean for some unknown reason.  Maybe so it could land, maybe so it could stick whatever mass sensor it wanted out the bottom to analyze a planet's vanadium ore quality, maybe so that it could carry, if needed, a FUCK THAT'S BIG HONKING GREAT CARGO POD bigger than itself.  Dunno, the plot never made me figure it out.

   Anyway, no need to stick out beyond the pods very far at either end.  100m is good for overall length.


Hull Listing

(Canon says we got 30 but we have not yet tracked them all down)

  • AGS001 Pytheas - Used in Boldly Go
  • AGS002 Ferdinand Magellan - Used in Ford Explorer
  • AGS003 Erik the Red - Used in Ford Explorer
  • AGS004 James Cook - in progress story by Anne Mouse
  • AGS005 Ibn Battuta
  • AGS006 Zheng He
  • AGS007 John Cabot - Assigned to Office of Targeted Extractions as Flagship
  • AGS008 Christopher Columbus - Assigned to Targeted Extractions Task Group
  • AGS009 Vasco da Gama - Assigned to Targeted Extractions Task Group
  • AGS010 Vasco Núñez de Balboa - Assigned to Targeted Extractions Task Group
  • AGS011 Sir Francis Drake - Assigned to Targeted Extractions Task Group
  • AGS012 Marco Polo - Assigned to Vulcan in A Perfect 10
  • AGS013 James Lovell - Assigned to Militia Training Command after the AI developed a tendency play practical jokes.
  • AGS014 Alan B. Shepard
  • AGS015 David Scott
  • AGS016 John W. Young
  • AGS017 Eugene Cernan
  • AGS018 Auguste Piccard
  • AGS019 Jacques-Yves Cousteau
  • AGS020 William Beebe - Assigned to Beerat Defence Command Years 7-10 then retired again
  • AGS021 Frederick Otis Barton, Junior - to Beerat Year 7, became shipyard manager
  • AGS022 Edmund Hillary - Assigned to Beerat Defence Command Years 7-10 then retired again
  • AGS023 Tenzing Norgay
  • AGS024 George Vancouver aka 'Eddie' appears in First Cruise of Lt. Steward, Stewart's Second Mission, The Assassin. Will be referenced in The Beard
  • AGX025 Copernicus - used in Destination Azahar
  • AGS026 Helva - Appears in We Gotta Get Outta This Place
  • AGS027 Amelia Earhart - Appears in The Assassin
  • AGS028 
  • AGS029 
  • AGS30 Lewis and Clark Appears in the coming Jordan's Delemma
  • (no hull number assigned by CC) CNS Valdez - Built at Azahar to service mines and tankers


Notes on Explorers (Taken from Wikipedia)

  • Pytheas (380 – c. 310 BC) - Greek explorer. First to circumnavigate Great Britain and to explore Germany. Reached Thule, most commonly thought to be the Shetland Islands or Iceland.
  • Ferdinand Magellan (1480 - 1521) - Portuguese explorer. Initiated the first circumnavigation of the globe in a single expedition. Sailed through Strait of Magellan and named Pacific Ocean. Died in the Philippines after claiming them for Spain.
  • Erik the Red (950 - 1003) - Norwegian Viking explorer. After being cast out from Iceland, he sailed to Greenland and settled there.
  • James Cook (1728 - 1779) - English naval captain. Explored much of the Pacific including New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii.
  • Ibn Battuta (1304 - 1377) - Berber explorer.
  • Zheng He (1371 - 1433) - Chinese explorer.
  • John Cabot (c. 1450 - 1499) - Italian explorer. Discovered Newfoundland and claimed it for the Kingdom of England.
  • Christopher Columbus (1451 - 1506) - Italian explorer. Sailed in 1492 and discovered the "New World" of the Americas.
  • Vasco da Gama (c. 1469 - 1524) - Portuguese explorer. He sailed from Portugal to India by rounding the Cape of Good Hope.
  • Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475 - 1519) - Spanish explorer. The first European to cross the Isthmus of Panama and view the Pacific ocean from American shores.
  • Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 - 1596) - English explorer. The first English captain to sail around the world and survive.
  • Marco Polo (1254 - 1324) - Italian explorer.
  • James Lovell, Alan B. Shepard, David Scott, John W. Young, Eugene Cernan - commanders of Apollo 13 through 17 respectively.
  • Auguste Piccard (1884-1962) - Swiss creator of the bathyscaphe Trieste.
  • Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910-1997) - Undersea explorer, filmmaker, ecologist, co-creator of the aqualung.
  • William Beebe (1877-1962) - Undersea explorer and naturalist, using bathysphere co-world record holder for 15 years for deepest dive on August 15, 1934 with Frederick Otis Barton, Junior.
  • Frederick Otis Barton, Junior (1899-1992) - Deep sea diver, inventor of bathysphere, co-world record holder for 15 years for deepest dive on August 15, 1934 with William Beebe.
  • Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay - First to climb Mount Everest.
  • George Vancouver (1757-1798) - British naval officer and explorer. Explored North America's north-west coast and Australia.


See Also


Story Usage

A textual analysis of the story repository, current as of 2018 and performed on 2019-09-06 identified the following top ten usage counts for K'treel:



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