USS Diana, Captain’s Log
Stardate 17616.71 (2271-12-31 18:50:12)
Day 871 of Mission
Kerbin Orbit, Kerbol Star System
The Kerbals continue to assist with repairing the ship’s critical systems that are within their ability to repair, and Diana M-5 and I continue to have discussions on how best to modify the Diana to complete our return to Federation territory while simultaneously supporting an additional crew of Kerbals while doing so. You wouldn’t think, at first glance, that space would be a significant problem: after all, the Diana, like other Hermes and Saladin class starships, can support a crew of 200 without issue.
But looks can be deceiving. While we have half the crew of the larger Constitution class starships, but an essentially identical saucer section, both the Saladin class destroyers and their Hermes class siblings like the Diana lose the secondary hull entirely. And it’s not just crew supplies that need to be crammed into the saucer section, but spare parts, repair equipment and tools, shuttle bays, fuel, including both matter and antimatter, and anything else we might happen to need along the way. This has always put a straightjacket on our deployment range, enough so that we have to have supply tugs following us on long engagements.
The other problem, though, is one of time: while the big cruisers like the Enterprise and her sisters go out and boldly go where no one has gone before, the Saladin class destroyers are busy boldly staying, and protecting Federation territory, and the Hermes class scouts are either timidly going where someone has gone before to follow up on the big discoveries, or playing eyes and ears for the rest of the fleet, with friendly support not far away. Neither scouts nor destroyers like the Hermes class or Saladin class tend to go galivanting about on five-year missions without resupply. That gets left to the cruisers.
But being on our own for a century, without support, without supply lines, with only what we can carry with us, scrounge up on our own, or obtain from anyone we meet along the way? Even the vaunted Constitution class heavy cruisers would find that an almost impossible task.
The good news is the Kerbals and I tend to both believe there’s no such thing as the impossible, just the really, really improbable. And while their solution of “more struts” and “more boosters” doesn’t seem to apply at first glance, maybe they’re on to something: we need to haul more stuff, so why not add more space?
That does leave the question of how to pull it off, of course. The Kerbals don’t exactly have much experience with the advanced materials used in the construction of Starfleet vessels, but the repairs on the Diana are helping in that regard. We may not be able to turn the ship into a full Constitution class, but a refit along the lines of the USS Kelvin may not be impossible.
M-5 Computer (“Diana”), Personal Log
Stardate 17665.62 (2272-01-07 13:31:22)
Day 878 of Mission
Kerbin Orbit, Kerbol Star System
I am beginning to question my decision to cede command of the USS Diana to my android counterpart. She has proposed a plan to refit my hull using the experimental refit done to the USS Kelvin as an example, by having the Kerbals build what is, essentially, a Constitution class secondary hull and interconnecting neck segment, then tacking these on to the top of my primary hull above the engineering decks, mirroring the way our cruiser cousins mount their secondary hull, in order to, like the Kelvin, gain additional space for crew, supplies and fuel to extend our operational range.
Lieutenant Dee Haines is confident the Kerbals will prove up to the challenge of building a viable secondary hull that will not snap off the first time we go to quarter impulse, let alone full warp, and she cites the general successes that the Kelvin has had as her prime example. Kerbal engineers, including Lobles Kerman, believe that it will be possible to successfully build a secondary hull in six months. General Jebediah Kerman agrees, and is prepared to devote a significant amount of their space program’s resources to its production. Kerbol’s leading warp scientists, Miguel Kerman and Kelcubierre Kerman, are both confident they can ensure the results are balanced in warp flight.
I do not doubt the enthusiasm, or even talent, of Kerbol’s engineers and scientists. Their sanity, however, is another matter entirely. I believe both Dee and the Kerbals underestimate the significant difficulty involved in implementing this plan. My own efforts of calculating the odds of success have proven problematic, due to the difficulties involved, but they are not promising.
However low the odds of success are, though, Dee is absolutely correct that success here will greatly improve the odds of success of eventually returning to Federation space. For that reason, I will continue to support this plan, and hopefully provide a voice of reason, in the hopes of curtailing the characteristic Kerbal over-exuberance.
Conference Room, USS Diana, Stardate 18033.46 (2272-02-27 13:11:04)
“Oh come on,” Jebediah groaned, “it’s not that bad, is it?”
{“No, General.”} Diana M-5 agreed with the Kerbal. {“With these design modifications, I predict only a 47% chance of structural collapse the first time we transition to warp speed.”}
“See? Improvement!”
Dee shook her head. “I’d rather not have a 53% chance of our secondary hull flying off, probably smacking our one warp nacelle, and causing us to abruptly crash-transition back to sub-light speeds. Messily, with bits of our ship spread from hell to breakfast. What do we need to keep that from happening?”
Jebediah and Lobles both stared at one another for a few moments, before Jeb spoke up. “More struts?”
Lobles nodded in agreement. “More struts.”
{“I see no way this can go badly.”}
USS Diana, Captain’s Log, Stardate 18451.66 (2272-04-25 12:19:35)
Construction of our new dorsal connector is coming along nicely, aided by our own DRDs and microgravity repair drones, and having the ventral-side connector to our warp nacelle to use as an example. While we’ve got a long road before we’re finished, and this is obviously delaying our mission, the end result should definitely be worthwhile.
One thing both Diana and I have learned in our time with the Kerbals is that there are two basic schools of engineering thought here. One boils down to “anything worth doing is worth overdoing”, which tends to result in robust, over-engineered “more struts” designs. The other school of thought, which the famous Jebediah Kerman tends to lapse into, is that safety margins are just silly – hence, the “more boosters” designs I mentioned in earlier log entries. Today, we definitely seem to have encountered the latter.
Conference Room, USS Diana
“You want to what?” Dee Haines gasped.
Miguel Kerman shrugged, and pointed at the diagram on his tablet again. “I want to either add more warp coils to your impulse engines or, as an alternative, add two of our own linear warp engine prototypes to your primary hull.”
“That’s what I thought you said. What, as backup to our own warp engine?” asked Dee.
“Well, maybe that, too. But you might be able to go faster running them alongside your own.”
The ship’s M-5, Diana, interjected, {“We may also find our warp field horribly imbalanced and tear ourselves to microscopic fragments spread across several light years of space, too.}
“That’s…true,” Miguel admitted, “but I think we can keep it balanced, especially if we’re just tweaking the warp coils in your impulse drive. I don’t think you’ll be able to go much more than five to eight times the speed of light by itself, but the good news is you could do it running off fusion, rather than antimatter.”
Dee nodded. “So, warp 1.7 to 2, maybe. If we can make it work, that’d make a nice backup system. Diana, run some simulations to see if we can make that work, both standalone and in conjunction with our current warp engine.”
{“This business will get out of control. It will get out of control, and we’ll be lucky to live through it.”}
“So noted.”
M-5 Computer (“Diana”), Personal Log, Stardate 19007.09 (2272-07-11 12:00:00)
Work on our new secondary hull is progressing: the primary structural frames are completed, the outer hull is 47% complete, and fitting internal rooms is underway. Analysis of Kerbal construction efforts indicate that, combined with our own structural integrity field generators, they’ve solved the structural integrity issues, and the secondary hull will not collapse like a broken balloon the first time we accelerate.
However, despite numerous simulations and additional testing, we have established that modifying the impulse engines for sustained warp flight, in conjunction with our existing warp drive, is a terrible idea, and one we should never attempt. It does not matter what the Kerbals say, there is no way we’re going to be able to add enough struts to make that work without significant risk of tearing our ship apart.
Which, of course, means Captain Haines has decided to proceed with modifications.
Bridge, USS Diana
Dee sat in the captain’s chair, gesturing vaguely at the viewscreen. “Hear me out, Diana.”
{“Hear you out? Captain, this is insane. If we try using this, we’re going to blow ourselves up.”}
“No, we won’t,” Dee disagreed, “not if we use it only in emergencies, as a backup system. The simulations were pretty consistent, weren’t they? If we ever lose the main nacelle and our secondary hull, we’re balanced just fine, and can run with just the modified impulse engine without tearing ourselves apart. If we’ve got the secondary hull and warp nacelle still attached, as long as you’re balancing the warp field, we can run for short distances without tearing ourselves apart. It’s a good thing to have for backups or emergencies, and we’re very far away from home: the more backups and redundancies we have, the better.”
{“You think we’ll find ourselves in a situation where we’ll lose both our current warp drive and our secondary hull, but not get destroyed?”}
Rubbing her hand on her forehead in a psychosomatic gesture (she couldn’t really get a headache, at least not physically), Dee sighed. “I think it’s a possibility. I mean, look at everything that’s gone wrong so far. When things fail for us, they don’t kill us, do they?”
{“No,”} Diana agreed, {“they fail in whatever way is going to annoy us the most. So, outboard impulse engines? Leave the inboard ones alone?”}
Dee nodded. “That’s the plan. I’m actually glad we never got the 2260 refit like the Enterprise did. We’re actually better off with four smaller impulse engines versus two bigger ones. More redundancy.”
{“Which, of course, brings me to the next question: we are going to be fitting cryotubes for the Kerbals, aren’t we?”}
“Of course. I’m even thinking of stashing them in their actual quarters, rather than trying to repurpose a cargo bay or something, if there’s enough power.”
{“I’ve looked over the specs they sent over, and there shouldn’t be any issues, and since Kerbals are half the size of a human or Vulcan, there should be sufficient space. We just need the time it will take to install them and modify the furnishings. I’m told they’ve finalized a design, and Lobles insists on overseeing their installation himself. He figures if he’s going to be living here, he wants to make sure they’re done right. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.”}
“What, that Jeb’s probably going to keep him here, since he’s still their most experienced warp engineer?” Dee asked, then shrugged. “They’re getting a lot of testing out of the Just Testing, though, and they’re just about done with their new warp vessel, which is a wee bit bigger, as Scotty would say. They plan to use it for testing and training new crews.”
{“Have they settled on a name?”}
“Yep,” Dee laughed. “The KSS Just Read the Instructions.}
USS Diana, Captain’s Log, Stardate 19815.50 (2272-10-31 13:13:13)
It’s been over a year since our battle with “Kebthulhu”, and First Contact with the Kerbals. Overall, despite the additional damage we’ve suffered, it’s been a fascinating, frustrating, amusing, frightening, wonderful experience working and interacting with the Kerbals, and seeing the enthusiasm they bring to everything they do. However, while there’s still work to be done here to get us ready for our journey, I can’t help but feel our time here in the Kerbol system is nearly at an end.
Work on our secondary hull has been completed, and we’ve successfully connected it atop our saucer section. While we still only have a single phaser bank, we’ve added a handful of plasma cannon turrets across the ship, as well as primitive missile tubes in our secondary hull to supplement our offensive capabilities. A number of our more advanced systems, such as deflector shields, still elude the Kerbals, but they’ve been able to help us with more retrograde gear, like polarized hull armor plates. Additional tooling and compact manufacturing gear has also been included, as well as some absolutely ingenious mining and refinery gear designed by the Kerbals for their own asteroid and lunar mining operations.
A crew of two hundred Kerbal volunteers have been selected, giving us a full science and engineering crew, as well as supplemental pilots, security and operational support. While they’re behind the curve of Federation scientific and engineering knowledge, they’re working to get up to speed, and the thought of flying what’s essentially going to be a very, very long cadet cruise both amuses and horrifies Diana and I.
We’ve begun working with our new crew to prepare for our next mission: a ten-month journey to what appears to be a Dyson sphere, just over 32 light-years away. Hopefully, we’ll see a continuation of our good fortune, and we’ll be able to obtain additional technical assistance, as any species so advanced as to be able to build megastructures like a Dyson sphere should be both highly advanced and generally peaceful.
Ship’s Log, Supplemental, M-5 Computer (“Diana”) Reporting
I have a bad feeling about this…
