Aurora

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Aurora Class Pod Freighter

   An Aurora is the Confederacy's basic cargo transport ship.  It consists of a cylindrical core, a bulbous center section, and six rings of pods with three rings forward and three rings aft of the center ball.  The Confederacy uses pods the same way we use shipping containers: for cargo, for offices, for residences.  The Aurora class carries 96 pods, and before we built purpose-designed passenger ships we used pods as portable apartments and used the Auroras to get colonists to their colonies 96 families at a time.
   While the humans who have recently joined the Confederacy tend to think of these ships as "the Aurora class of transports", in reality they are neither transports nor a 'class' as we use the word.  They are the Confederacy's version of a tramp steamer; a design that is so simple, so reliable, so versatile that it has been basically fixed for tens of thousands of years.  Any Confederacy shipyard can turn out as many as you want.  They may use different materials, and some of the dimensions might vary from the one you were last on, but they are all basically the same.

   The ship's core or backbone is a cylinder, usually about 30 meters across and roughly 250 meters long.  It is usually divided into four or five decks, but anywhere from three to seven is common.  However many there are, the middle deck is usually as large as possible to facilitate loading, securing, moving, and unloading bulk cargo which sometimes can include large and undomesticated animals.
   This hold volume, normally open for cargo handling and storage when used as a freighter, is configured in the colony ships to provide the medical facilities, canteens, classrooms, and recreation areas the colonists need.  While the main cargo deck has two full-sized hatches to pass cargo through the central bulge, it appears common for Darjee crews to leave these hatches closed and use large transporter pads to connect the forward and after cargo areas.  This maximizes their safety by preventing any of the cargo from ever gaining access to the central bulge,
   The central "ball" section, a roughly spherical 60 meter bulge that looks as if a group of bees had built a nest on a stick, is off limits to all except the ship's crew.  It contains crew accommodation, the ship's control systems including the bridge, assorted ship systems like hydroponics tanks, and a hanger bay for the ship's small craft.
   The rings (about 70 meter diameter) are attached to the core by four "spokes" each, with three forward of the central bulge and three aft of it.  Both the rings themselves and the spokes that attach them to the core can be considered as tubes that are 10 meters in diameter.  These rings are the true purpose for the Aurora design, as each one has sixteen docking collars on its outer edge.  In normal use, each collar will have a standard Confederacy pod attached.  If all collars on all six rings are used, the ship can carry 96 pods.
   If the ship is serving as a general-purpose freighter, these pods will be filled with various materials, merchandise, additional supplies or fuel for an extended trip, or whatever the crew desires.  If the ship is serving as a personnel transport, each pod will be configured as a living space for one or more families.  In most cases, the passenger pods are deployed to the colony's surface and become the permanent -or at least long-term- homes of the new colonists.  In the early years of the Diaspora, this need to mount new pods before the ship could make another colony run led to delays and scheduling problems.
   At the forward end of the core the ships have an emergency helm/bridge/docking station, but the normal "bridge" that the ship is controlled from is buried in an armored citadel in the middle of the central bulge.
   Aft of everything else is a collection of fuel systems and engine modules. These last are not permanent, but rather are easily removable by design, so that the ship can be reconfigured, upgraded, or given emergency repairs with alternate parts, all with a minimum of fuss.
   When used as a freighter, a typical Aurora will carry two Pod Tender tugs and a single "House-Cat" type passenger shuttle.  The pod tenders are capable of delivering a pod to a planetary surface and returning to the ship with a different pod.

Use by the Confederacy Navy and Naval Auxiliary

   The Darjee-initiated but AI-led effort to find a solution to the Sa'arm Problem led them to Earthat, where they found a species aggressive enough to serve as a military force, but the humans needed complete infrastructure support.  The cheapest way to get this started was to simply donate a couple hundred of these freighters, with their built-in AIs, to the humans.  Some ships came with no pods, some came with empty pods, some came with pods already full of varied merchandise -some of which the humans were not even allowed to see, much less assume ownership of.  While many were sent to Earthat with crews hired for this purpose, interaction with the AI and/or the crew revealed that some of the crews were actually the Darjee who had been using the ship for their livelihood when they were directed to go to Earth and transfer the ship.

   All received at least one new human name upon transfer, as humans could not pronounce the original (usually Darjee) names.  The ships were all originally simply numbered as "Freighter #1", etc for convenience but as soon as each ship formally transferred to human crews (and the Darjee transport crews left, being unwilling to do anything as risky as being on a ship with an untrained crew).  No human received any direct personal ship-handling instruction from any Darjee.  This lack of trainee oversight led to a rash of training accidents of varying severity, as the AIs adjusted to the impulsiveness, inquisitiveness, lack of knowledge, and general recklessness of their new crews.
   These ships served as office space, living space, school ships, and exploration vessels at first.  When purpose-built office and living space became available, and other ships became available for instruction and exploration, the Auroras reverted to their original function as freighters.
   However, the humans locally produced everything possible in any system they colonized, so after initial delivery of colony-building machinery, there was little need for freighters.  Fairly rapidly, almost every one was reconfigured as a personnel transport and used to deliver the first few waves of colonists to the new colonies.  Many had crew or command-team changes, and several had name changes, making it difficult to tell which ship did what.
   Transportation from Earthat to the colonies was always the choke-point of the colonization effort.  As long as the Auroras were all we had they were needed for everything, but colonist transport was the highest priority.  Once the Kilos came online they became our primary transport class, but the Kilos were more addition than replacement in DECO's transport fleet.  Since each Kilo could move ten times as many bodies as an Aurora, the Auroras became available for conversion again to yet another use, but DECO was always able to fill any Aurora that showed up for another load of colonists.
   There were quite a few colonies which couldn't handle a thousand new families once a month from a Kilo but could absorb a hundred every week or so, so those colonies ended up with a dedicated Aurora just making a round trip as quickly as possible.  The fleet took a few to use for transfers of sponsors and their families, and the Fleet Auxiliary had to keep several making the rounds of all the systems with picket stations.  DECO also used a couple as dedicated "pioneer" ships, to get a new colony going and smooth all the rough edges before sending a fully-loaded Kilo to the new colony.  And, of course, any colony that built a shipyard pumped out a couple Auroras just to make sure that the new recruit pipeline stayed open.
   Some of these ships were lost in training accidents, some were lost to enemy action during the first few years of the war, and a few were converted to special functions once larger and more capable personnel transports were built.  Several were stripped of their pods and rings and then used as the core for fixed control stations at Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune as well as in other systems.  Most of them, however, eventually reverted back to their "tramp steamer" origins and continue to move from system to system, moving personnel and cargo between colonies.  Again, many of these conversions were accompanied by yet another name change.
   Many colonies started to build their own ships once they had constructed a shipyard.  Building an Aurora was the obvious first task, as that ship would be able to go to Earth and pick up colonists to their own schedule instead of DECO's schedule.  We ended up with dozens, probably fifty or more, that were built during the war.  It would be almost impossible to track every Aurora we ever had.

Medical Facilities

   Those Auroras configured as colonist preparation and delivery transports generally had far more medical equipment available than those configured for freight or other uses.  Each of the 96 pods could reasonably be expected to have an average of 6 passengers (1 Volunteer, 2 or more Concubines, and 2 or more children), so a colony transport Aurora could expect to need to at least examine 600 baseline people within a day of their boarding the ship.  While most of these initial evaluations and checkups could be performed in as little as 10 or 15 minutes, there was still some down time between 'patients', and some 'patients' turned out to need significantly more time when life-threatening conditions were found.  Enhancements, improvements, and alterations could all be scheduled later, but each extractee needed at least a quick look as they arrived.    Running those numbers leads us to the conclusion that each Aurora needed a minimum of 12 med-tubes available for passenger use.  Various stories have described Med Bay as having at least two 'banks' of med-tubes lined up.  Also, Darjee-crewed Auroras may well have separate forward and aft facilities.
   (update 2/5/2015 - TH said "Two med bays....Eight pods per bay....Local adjustment allowed under any reasonably explainable circumstance!")

Aurora Class Colony Ship

Hull Listing

(Note that this list is by no means complete. The Confederacy gave us upwards of 200 of these freighters; not all of them were designated as transports and many changed names.)

  • AP001 - Aurora (Class Ship)
  • AP002 - Borealis
  • AP003 - Foxfire (mentioned in Wayward)
  • AP004 - Northern Lights
  • AP005 - Southern Lights
  • AP006 - Dance of Spirits (may be lost in R&C if it ever gets published....)
  • AP007 - Terra Cimmeria
  • AP008 - Diaspora
  • AP009 - Andromeda
  • AP010 - Chiang
  • AP011 - Orion
  • AP012 - Challenger
  • AP013 - Lucky Break
  • AP014 - Kon Tiki (mentioned in In Loco Parentis and The Interview)
  • AP015 - Mayflower Madame
  • AP016 - Atlantic Princess
  • AP017 - Pacific Princess (Assigned to Heimdal Military district. Used exclusively for pickup duty. Captained by 'Captain Stubing' for three years before he was transferred to command of a Kilo)
  • AP018 - Indian Princess
  • AP019 - Arctic Princess
  • AP020 - Mediterranean Princess
  • AP021 - Caribbean Princess
  • AP022 - Asimov (used in The Librarian and Destination Azahar)
  • AP023 - Zephyrus (used in The Librarian and Destination Azahar)
  • AP024 - Chronos (used in The Librarian and Destination Azahar)
  • AP025 - American Princess
  • AP026 - European Princess
  • AP027 - African Princess
  • AP028 - Asian Princess
  • AP029 - Australian Princess
  • AP030 - Scandinavian Princess
  • AP031 - Island Princess
  • AP042 - Isaac Newton (Used in Woolly Wilds)
  • AP054 - Sadi Carnot (Used in Mister Bozo and Kindertransport)
  • AP073 - Silent Breaking of the Golden Dawn (Heimdal Military District, All Japanese crew. Dawn was one of the first to experiment with the Heimdall FleetAux crewing regulations, all possible jobs given to condubines cut the number of sponsors needed in half) -- no references to this available, may be unpublished.
  • AP097 - Sunshine (Assigned to Heimdall Military District, transferred to Militia Training Command in month 33, Destroyed month 34, AI salvaged and used in MTC command ship 'Minerva'.
  • AP111 - Boreas - Assigned to Space Bats, month 61
  • AP233 - Aeolus - built at Azahar



Transports mentioned without hull numbers:


Non-Transport (freighter) Auroras mentioned in The First Command:

  • Swims with Crocodiles (Early 'scout' at Trumanat)
  • This is Nice (Early 'scout' at Truman)
  • That's Crazy (Early 'scout' at Truman)
  • Archery Butt (Early 'scout' at Truman)
  • Pequeña Piñata (Early 'scout' at Truman)
  • Proctologist's Training Aid (Early 'scout' at Truman]]
  • Fish in a Barrel (Early 'scout' Aurora)
  • Clay Pigeon (Early 'scout' Aurora)
  • Mostly Harmless (Early 'scout' Aurora)
  • Who's this "We", Kemosabe? (Early 'scout' Aurora)
  • For teh Win (Early 'scout' at Truman, missing and presumed lost, debris later found)
  • You Want us to do What? (Early 'scout' at Truman, missing and presumed lost)
  • Shanghai Express - assigned to Scout Flotilla 17


Civilian (not under Fleet orders) Auroras:

  • Rosencrantz - (Tu'ull build and AI), unofficial name for Tu'ull freighter "T’klikrooz", destroyed in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
  • Guildenstern - (Tu'ull build and AI), unofficial name for Tu'ull freighter "T’kliktguul", to CNS with name changed to Walt Whitman, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.


Story Appearances

A text analysis of the story archive as of 2018 identified the following stories mentioning the Aurora:


See Also



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