The Athena contains a number of different systems that are carefully integrated and allow for the multipurpose functions for which the ship was designed. The following are the important ship systems (either scroll through the document or click on the links below to go to a particular topic):
Bridge
Engineering
Weapons
Shielding
Sensors
Communications
Transporters
Environment
Computers
Holodecks
Tractor Beams
The bridge is the command centre of the starship, where the vessel itself and important ship functions are conducted. The bridge and the surrounding rooms form the whole of deck one. The Athena bridge is basically an oval, with two sections, an upper section and a lower section, with a platform in the middle where the commanding officers can sit. Click here to see a diagram of the Athena bridge. Click on the back button to return to this page. The consoles provide the following functions.
The flight control station allows the operator to control all aspects of the ship's flight, including access to the engines, navigational controls and the sensors. The console can also operate the weapons.
The central console consists of two related consoles, the tactical console and the sensor/science console. The tactical officer controls the ship's weapons and shields, and also handles communications, remote transporter operations, shuttlebay operations, tactical sensors and can also access the library computer system and the wide range of sensors available. The sensor/science console allows the science officer complete access and control to the ship's sensor systems, and also access to the library computer system. The sensor console can also duplicate the functions of the tactical console, so the weapons and defense systems can be controlled by two officers in combat situations.
There are two consoles on the port and starboard sides of the bridge termed wing consoles. The starboard wing console is the engineering console. That console allows the engineer access to all engineering and power-distribution functions, as well as environmental control, the tractor beams, shielding and related systems. The engineering console is also configured as a master backup console and all bridge functions can be controlled from it.
The port wing console is the security console. The security officer manning it has access to internal communications and sensor systems, and from that console can co-ordinate security operations such as tracking down intruders and damage control. The ship's system of escape pods and isolation doors, as well as security forcefields, anesthezine release and full monitoring of the security section are all co-ordinated from this console.
At the rear of the bridge are two mission operation consoles. They serve as backup consoles should any primary console be damaged or otherwise rendered inoperable. They can be configured for particular missions as needed, and are usually manned by mission specialists who are on board.
All the bridge consoles are highly flexible. The surfaces consist of touch-sensitive glass under which are three membranes that can generate colours in various intensities and to an extremely fine resolution. The panels can produce a mixture of control icons, readouts and graphical images, and they can be configured to the taste of the user and to the requirements of the situation.
In general, engineering involves the generation and distribution of power, and to the provision of propulsion on board the Athena. The ship has four engine systems:
Warp Engines
Impulse Engines
Gravitonic Induction Drive
Manoeuvring Thrusters
These engine systems all have specialized usages. The manoeuvring thrusters are simple propellent rockets and are primarily used to turn the ship at low speed and to impart spin in three dimensions when necessary. They are not used to provide forward momentum.
The gravitonic induction drive is used to move the ship at low speeds, typically less than 1000 km/h. They work by generating gravitational fields along thick plates of metal attached to the spaceframe of the ship. The gravitational fields are modulated so that they "pull" the ship in the desired direction. When the Athena is approaching or leaving a dock or operating in an atmosphere, the gravitonic induction drives are the most commonly used system. They are also used on shuttles because for the smaller craft, they are quick and completely quiet. The gravitonic induction drives can also steer the ship when the more powerful engines are used.
The impulse engines are the main engines used by the ship when travelling at less than the speed of light. They consist of a combination of a reaction thruster and subspace drivers. The subspace drivers generate a subspace field through the hull of the ship, linking with the structural integrity field, to reduce the effective mass of the starship and increase the rate of acceleration. Without the subspace fields, the impulse engines would not be powerful enough to accelerate the ship much beyond 5 psol (psol is an acronym meaning "percentage of the speed of light", and is used as a measure of sublight speed, so fourty psol is fourty percent of light speed and 1 psol is roughly 2997.92 km/s). With the subspace fields, the engines are powerful enough to accelerate the ship upto ninety psol, although it rarely goes that fast. Not only do the subspace fields reduce the effective mass of the ship, but they also cancel out the effects of time dilation. In fact, the most efficient setting for the subspace fields is called the "ETEIT" mode, for "External Time Equals Internal Time". With the fields set at that level, the flow of time outside the ship equals the flow of time inside the ship, no matter what the speed.
The impulse engines are controlled by their thrust levels, and so expressions such as "full impulse" do not refer to a speed but to a rate of acceleration. For the Athena, these thrust levels are (for low speeds, under twenty-five psol; at higher speeds, the rate of acceleration decreases according to relativity):
Full impulse: 1 psol/5 seconds
Half impulse: 1 psol/10 seconds
Quarter impulse: 1 psol/20 seconds
Eighth impulse: 1 psol/ 40 seconds
Thus, the Athena at one-eighth impulse will gain one percent of the speed of light (2997.92 km/s) of speed every fourty seconds. When preparing to jump to warp speed, a speed of twenty-five psol is sufficient (away from gravitational sources), and so at full impulse, it would take the ship just over two minutes to achieve the necessary speed. When travelling at sublight speeds within a planetary system, thirty-three to fourty psol is usually considered sufficient. Ships rarely have to travel above fifty psol.
The Athena has four impulse engines, and they usually work in pairs. Two are located on the rear of the saucer section, and two are located on the superstructure that connects the lander with the engineering section, as is shown on the rear view diagram of the ship. The lander also contains impulse engines, and these are just as powerful as those on the main ship, but since the mass of the lander is considerably less, the rate of acceleration is approximately four times better (1 psol in 1.25 seconds at full impulse). The impulse engines generate thrust through ion and photon emissions, and can be boosted by the positive-energy outflow from the warp engines.
The most important engines on the Athena are the warp engines, since these propel the starship at speeds greatly exceeding the speed of light. The essence of warp travel is that a negative-energy warpfield is created around the ship, and this warpfield interacts with the universe at large just as a faster-than-light particle called a moton would. Subspace fields are used to moderate the effects of the mass of the ship on the warpfields themselves, which reduces the power necessary to generate and maintain the warpfield. This compels the ship to travel faster than light. The most curious thing about warp travel is that the equations that produce it suggest that it is the universe, and not the ship, that has accelerated past the speed of light with a discontinuity in the acceleration curve. The transition is instantaneous, and the universe just seems to move past the ship at hyperlight speeds. The ship itself, in fact, retains the speed it had when it made the jump to warp speed.
The Athena uses as its warp drive an Odonan warp drive system, which varies somewhat from the standard Federation model. The Odonan warp drive uses tam-ulk-yr as the crystal to pull out the higher-order terms from the mass-energy equation, and it is capable of pulling out the first seven terms and some of the eighth, while the conventional dilithium warp convertor can only pull out the first two and some of the third. As a consequence, the Athena is a very fast ship. The specifications are given below:
Standard cruising speed: 100,000 c (approx. warp 9.9945)
Top safe speed: 800,000 c
Top theoretical speed: approx. 1.32 million c (H-factor eight)
The standard cruising speed is pretty impressive. The Federation is an estimated ten thousand light years in diameter, and at its cruising speed, the Athena can cross the Federation in about thirty-seven days. The Athena can also reach any area of the galaxy in reasonable time, and is able to circumnavigate the galaxy (estimated circumference of 320,000 light years) in about three and a half years.
There are two limitations on extreme speeds. The first is that the navigational deflectors must probe far enough ahead to push aside dust grains and molecules in the path of the ship, and it must push them sufficiently far to clear the ship without accelerating them to speeds faster than light. It is for this reason that starships have such narrow cross-sections, so that there is always a direction that a particle can be deflected that is not too large. Nevertheless, the faster the ship travels, the further the deflectors must probe ahead of the ship to sweep the area clear of dust and other debris, and this increases the strain on the system. The second limitation is fuel. The greatest fuel usage is when the ship is accelerating or decelerating since the warpfield and the energy density of the field must be adjusted, but the faster the ship goes, the more the field erodes due to positive-energy radiation hitting it and the molecules of hydrogen and other gases that the deflectors miss. To maintain the field, the engines must continue to run even when the ship is at a constant speed. The rate that the engines must run increases with the speed, and this consumes fuel. The Athena contains enough fuel to travel for approximately fifty thousand light years at a normal spread of speeds. If it sustains operations at higher speeds, then the fuel consumption increases. If the ship travels for a prolonged period at 100,000 c, then the range drops to under twenty thousand light years. However, since the fuel consists simply of hydrogen nuclei (protons), the ship can refuel basically anywhere. Although the Athena is equipped with a ramscoop system that allows it to pick up hydrogen atoms as it travels through space below warp speed, the ship uses a supplemental system called the remote resupply extendable port. This system allows the ship to refuel rapidly by entering a hydrogen-rich environment such as the atmosphere of a gas-giant planet. The system can also separate hydrogen from deuterium, with the latter used in the internal fusion reactors (to provide power to the ship when the engines are not running) and the impulse engines. The Athena also contains standard resupply ports to be directly refueled with liquid hydrogen at a Starfleet facility.
The warp engines work in the following manner, although this is a somewhat simplified explanation. The fuel source is hydrogen, usually stored in liquid form in tanks on decks thirty to thirty-two. The Athena carries very little in the way of antimatter. Instead, it relies on on-line convertors, which converts matter into antimatter as needed by forcing streams of protons through a subetheromagnetic quark charge realignment procedure (it should be noted that in subetheromagnetics, charge is not a conserved quantity). A stream of matter and antimatter is heated to a high temperature (typically 2400 K) with lasers and accelerated to near light speed by magnetic fields within the injectors. The injectors are capable of aiming the target stream to the accuracy of an atomic diameter. The stream of matter and antimatter is fired into the dilithium sleeving covering the tam-ulk-yr crystal, and the whole assembly is bathed in liquid helium to keep the atoms in the crystal as still as possible. When annihilated, the proton and antiproton generate a gamma-ray photon and virtual particles. The gamma-ray photon flies through the warp convertor to a pickup coil surrounding it. The gamma-ray photon either powers the ship's electroplasma power transfer system or is directed to the impulse engines to aid with acceleration.
The virtual particles, one of positive energy and a corresponding one of negative energy, are separated by the hyperatoms in the tam-ulk-yr and guided out of the convertor and into the pickup coils that surround the convertor. These motons are carried along by superconducting materials into the nacelles. The negative-energy motons are stored in superconducting coils in the nacelles, while the positive-energy ones are used to power the subspace drivers or are diverted to the impulse engines. The motons flow through the warpfield generators in the coils to generate a subetheromagnetic field that mimics the moton itself, compelling the universe to regard it as a faster-than-light object. Once generated, the warpfield maintains itself unless disrupted by flooding it with positive-energy motons. In addition, positive-energy photons and motons that fall on the warpfield interact with it, weakening it. The engines must replenish the warpfield on a continuous basis, and so run at about five percent of capacity to maintain the field. If the warp engines do not maintain the warpfield, it slowly erodes (by a rate determined by the radiation flux falling on it) and the ship slows down, a condition called "hyperdrift." It is possible to collapse a warpfield from outside the ship, but this is a risky procedure and can damage the sensitive materials in the field generators. The speed of the ship is determined by the composition of the warpfield and the energy level of the motons that generated it. The rate of acceleration is determined by the types of motons that are produced, how many of the higher-order ones are available and how fast the system can move them through the generators (the flow through a generator cross-section per unit of time determines the field strength). Various field patterns are available, with a variable relation between fuel usage, flow-through strain and linkages with the shape of the ship and the subspace drivers. In deep space, the most system-efficient and fuel-efficient warpfield is generally used, but within a gravitational field, especially a strong one, attempting to form this field could lead to a warpfield instability, with catastrophic results. Different warpfield configurations would have to be used in that environment. Although it is possible to morph from one warpfield configuration to another while the ship is travelling at warp, this is not recommended. Instead, the ship should drop out of warp and then reset the configuration before returning to warp speed. It is highly recommended that the ship be well away from any gravity source, such as a planet, natural satellite or a star, before engaging the warp drive. It is not possible to engage the warp drive of the Athena or its lander within the atmosphere of a planet, since the deflector would be unable to push away the atmosphere fast enough, and the warpfield would be overwhelmed by the atmospheric atoms slamming into it (not to mention the gravity effects of going to warp in an atmosphere). Clearly, warp travel was meant for interstellar travel only (it is not recommended within a planetary system as well).
The Athena contains a variety of weapon systems. These can be divided into two groups, the directed-energy weapons and the detonation weapons. The directed-energy weapons are usually called phasers. There are three types on the starship. There is the conventional phasers, which are generated by the phaser arrays on the upper and lower sides of the saucer section and the underside of the engineering hull. The ship also contains pulsed phasers, which concentrates the energy in pulses to increase the destructive effect. The pulsed phaser arrays are also located in the upper and lower phaser arrays, and there are pulsed phaser arrays on the lander as well. The third type of phaser is the powerful pulse cannons, which are mounted on the lander. These use a variety of energy to increase the destructive effect of the phasers and increase their shield-penetrating power.
The detonation weapons can be divided into two parts, weapons that are launched at a target and weapons that are transported into a target. The former consist of photon and quantum torpedoes. Photon torpodes are small devices, sometimes equipped with a simple drive system, that consist of antimatter and matter held apart by magnetic fields. Either through an impact detonator, a timer or a transmitted signal, the fields collapse, matter annihilates antimatter and the result is an explosive effect. Quantum torpedoes are smaller, more compact devices designed for close-range combat. These consist of small quantities of antimatter and matter, but the reaction is channeled through hypermatter to increase the explosive effect. Quantum torpedoes can be controlled and accelerated by magnetic fields generated by the ship, and they too are detonated either by impact, a timer or a signal from the ship. A modified version of either type of torpedo includes a more sophisticated drive system that allows an operator on the ship to guide the torpedo precisely to a target. This version is most commonly used when the torpedo is not likely to be fired on.
Transporter weapons are devices that are beamed into the target, which is usually unshielded or has lost its shields. The most common transporter weapon is the tricobalt device, a rather powerful thermonuclear explosive. This device has the unusual property that it can be destabilized in transport, so that when it rematerializes, it immediately detonates. This prevents the target from beaming the device back out again if it has this ability. Tricobalt devices and other nuclear or photonic (antimatter) weapons can also be planted or placed and then detonated with a timer or a signal from the ship.
In addition to ship-mounted weapons, the Athena is also equipped with portable weapons. The ship's armory is equipped with a variety of phasers, including Type-I hand phasers, usually carried by an individual who wishes to be discretely armed. The Type-I phaser contains the same range of settings as the larger Type-II phaser, but their power cells and range is more limited. The Type-II phaser is the standard sidearm phaser, with thirteen settings from light stun (to slow the target without rendering him unconscious) to full vapourization (totally atomizing the target). The higher the setting, the more power is consumed. The Athena stores enough Type-II phasers to arm all members of the crew in the case of an emergency. Finally, the ship also carries Type-III phaser rifles. The standard rifle has the same capabilities as the Type-II phaser, except that it has a much larger power storage unit and a better targeting system. There are also enough of these on the ship for every member of the crew. In addition, there are a number of the compression phaser rifles, which are much more powerful versions of phaser rifles, with a pulse mode capable of destroying small ships. All officers and non-commissioned officers on board the Athena are given full training in the use and handling of all weapons except the compression rifles. All security officers, senior officers and some others have the training necessary to handle the compression rifles. Most weapons are stored in the ship's armory, but some are stored in secured equipment lockers in the transporter staging rooms. The computer tracks all weapons and is aware of all crewmembers that are supposed to have them.
The most powerful portable weapons are the phaser cannons, which is essentially a portable version of the same kind of phaser weapons mounted on shuttles. Phaser cannons are stored unassembled, but which can be transported by cargo transporter off the ship, where they may be used to get through shielded structures or other obstacles. All security personnel are trained in the assembly, use and handling of this weapon. It is not all that often used, especially on an "exploration class" ship like the Athena.
The Athena is equipped with a powerful shielding system to protect the ship from the rigors of intersteller travel and combat. It is also equipped with an Odonan cloaking device. In the simplest sense, shields are lines of electromagnetic and subetheromagnetic force that surround the ship in an oval-shaped shield bubble. These intercept concentrated energy at a point, such as a phaser striking it, and modify and distribute the energy over a much larger area before reradiating it back into space. The shields also act as a momentum buffer, so that if something with momentum hits the shields (like a photon torpedo or a small ship), the momentum is quickly distributed over the whole ship and the shields, instead of in one point. Three properties make up how a shield works, the frequency, the density and the energy flow rate. The frequency is the overall frequency at which the shields operate. This is a scanable property, so when the shields are "deployed," what is really happening is that the frequency of the shields is being randomly modulated, using very sophisticated (and classified) algorithms that prevent an enemy from scanning the frequencies and adjusting the weapons accordingly. The shields are always deployed in order to protect the ship from such hazards of space as micrometeors and cosmic rays, but in their normal state, they are held at a single frequency. This allows the ship to use its transporters, communications and sensor systems efficiently.
The second property is field line density, which measures how strong the shields are, and the upper limit of the size of particles that can travel through the shield. The higher the field line density, the more efficiently the ship can absorb momentum transfer.
The energy flow rate is a measure of how quickly and efficiently the shields can absorb and reradiate energy falling on them. If the amount of energy exceeds the energy flow rate (either locally or globally), that could weaken the shields. In addition, if the flow rate is too low, the energy cannot be reradiated fast enough and it flows through the shields and into the generating mechanism, either destroying it or reducing its effectiveness. High flow rates on the other hand draw a lot of power from the ship's systems, stressing the generating mechanism and overheating it (dissipating heat and waste energy from shielding systems is the biggest engineering challenge involved with shields). Because of the important nature of shield systems, their components are extremely modular and designed for quick swap out-swap in repair. The Athena carries two spare generator systems for each shield generator, and has teams of officers, engineers and others, trained in the high speed (and risky) task of on-the-fly shield repair.
The Athena, like most recent Federation starships, is equipped with a cloaking device. A cloak is really nothing more than an elaborate shielding system that does not reradiate radiation randomly, but in an organized way. In essence, what a cloak does is that it detects all radiation falling on the ship, including type, direction and energy level. It then causes the shield to reradiate the identical particle from an antipodal location on the shield bubble so that it appears that the radiation travelled through the ship. Cloaks require a great deal of computing power with faster-than-light particles in order to have the shield emit the particle at precisely the right instant. If it is reradiated too quickly or too slowly, that could increase the chance of detection. More primitive cloaking devices often give themselves away because the reradiation of light is not perfect, leading to very slight but detectable variations in the light reaching a sensor as the cloaked vessel passed in front of it. The Odonan cloaking device is very advanced and virtually undetectable, as the designers continue to develop strategies to counter any attempt to detect the cloak. The Dominion devised a way to use antiproton beams to scan for a cloaked ship. This worked because the shielding would trap protons (hydrogen atoms) and the shield energy would put them into a particular quantum state. When annihilated with an antiproton, the photon emitted would be of a distinctive energy level that is generally associated with shields. If the antiproton beam produced such a photon, the scanning ship can determine that the cloaked vessel is out there. The cloaking device on the Athena counters this scanning method and others by generating a second cloaking device further out. This layer of shielding would intercept the specific photon and replace it with one showing a conventional energy level. Thus, a ship scanning with an antiproton beam would determine that there was definitely no cloaked ship there.
Nevertheless, there are limitations on cloaks. A cloaking device cannot hide a ship's mass or its volume. Subspace fields can reduce the effect of mass on surrounding masses, but the volume problem remains. If the ship is moving through a higher-density medium such as an atmosphere, the airflow around the ship will reveal its presence, reducing the effectiveness of a cloaking device. Ships with adequate sensors can even detect the passage of a cloaked ship through a region of space where the gas concentration or dust concentration levels are higher than normal because a cloak cannot replicate particles or somehow pass them through the ship.
The Athena is equipped with a number of different sensor systems, designed and configured primarily for the ship's main mission of exploration. Sensors, using various electromagnetic and subetheromagnetic frequencies, are designed to gather information about the target, including such things as mass, density, molecular and atomic composition, velocity and momentum, quantum state, energy presence and usage, subatomic particles and a variety of other characteristics. Active sensors involve sending out a beam of radiation and interpreting the return signal, while passive sensors read radiation and other detectable effects that arrive at the ship. Active sensors, of course, can be detected in use, and so are usually not used when he ship is cloaked, but passive sensors are not detectable. Active sensors are more accurate and detailed in the informtion they provide, but through complicated computer interpretation and extrapolation, passive sensor data can be quite detailed as well.
The two most common things a starship will actively scan for are lifeforms and other ships. If the other ship is a distance away, the only reliable method of scanning is subetheromagnetic radiation to sample the mass and density (how the material making up the ship is distributed). This data can be compared to a database of all known ships in order to identify the vessel. If a ship is particularly energetic or moving at an extremely high speed, then the energy output and the warpfield signature can also be detected. One limitation to long-range scans of ships is that their mass could be obscured by a large mass nearby, which makes it difficult for a ship significantly outside a star system to detect a ship in orbit around a planet.
Lifeforms can be scanned in one of two ways. The most intrusive and detailed scan is a DNA scan, which can be conducted from orbit although it takes time. The second method is to detect things such as the shape of the body, electrical presence in the brain and elsewhere, the body temperature, metabolism and other factors. Together, these form a precise profile that varies by race. By comparing the data gathered by the sensors to a database, the race can be identified, assuming it is known, of course. This method of scanning is usable to isolate a member of one race who is in a group of beings from another race.
The range of the sensors depends on what they are being used for, and the desired level of detail and accuracy. Long-range mass-density scans of open space are good for distances up to two and a half to three light years. Conventional lifeform scanning has a range of twenty thousand kilometres, while detailed DNA scanning of lifeforms is only reliable within one thousand kilometres of the target. Sensors can generally be blocked by setting up fields that scramble the incoming or outgoing beams. On a starship, it is often possible to scramble a sensor beam using the structural integrity field, making it difficult for another ship to scan the interior. The shields can also dampen or block a sensor beam as well, and the presence of heavy shields can impair sensors, unless they are especially calibrated to take the shielding into account.
The Athena contains the usual assortment of communications devices. It has standard subetheromagnetic and electromagnetic communications systems, along with a universal translater capable of real-time translation of all languages that are adequately known. The Athena also has on its crew a linguist who can study alien languages and improve the linguistic database. Subspace communications requires digital coding parameters, a way to turn visual and audio information into digital code for transmission, and naturally every race uses different coding, and over time, coding parameters do change. The Athena has the ability to communicate using all known communications coding parameters, and also retains a full set of historical codes, just in case it encounters a relic ship from the past. An analog communications system is also available to attempt communications with an alien and unknown race.
Innovations in communications are not that numerous, but a recent one was the introduction of the holocommunicator. This device works not by transmitting sound and image, but a data stream that can be rendered at the other end as a holographic image of the person who is transmitting. At each end, the person, and the chair he or she is sitting on for visual effect, appears and talks to the person receiving the message as if they were present. Holocommunications requires a whole new etiquette for communicating with others, and it is not all that popular with some officers. The Athena has two holocommunicators, one on the bridge and another in the communications lab. The latter is often used by crewmembers who wish to communicate with a relative or friend at home who has access to the communication. When in use, the holocommunicator generates a forcefield to prevent the interaction with the hologram. Technology-or etiquette-is not yet ready for that level of communications just yet.
Each member of the starship crew is equipped with a communications pin, commonly referred to as the commbadge, which he or she wears pinned to his or her uniform. The commbadge serves several functions. It acts as a communicator when the person is on or off the ship, and it also functions as a personnel tracker (when the person is on the ship) to allow the computer to locate any individual. Off the ship, it serves as a transponder to allow the sensors to locate and track any individual. The Athena commbadges are an upgraded model and are capable of informing the computer that is tracking it whether it is being worn by the proper individual, someone else or not worn at all. When a person is on the ship, the communications request is made through the ship's computer, which locates the individual being contacted and sends out an audible chirp. Tapping the commbadge turns it on, and also turns it off again. If the link is terminated at one end, the computer automatically terminates it at the other. The system can be programmed to turn on the commbadge automatically or only when a person taps it when that person is being hailed. Each ship has its own preference for the default state. On the Athena, the commbadges only turn on when tapped, out of respect for personal privacy.
The commbadges also serve as a communications medium for away teams off the ship. In this situation, the commbadges themselves provide the network. In this mode, if a person taps at the commbadge and activates it, he or she must speak the name of the person being contacted (or the ship). If nothing is said after a couple of seconds, a link with the ship is opened. If a name is spoken, contact will only be made if the individual is in the immediate area. If the name is not of a member of the away team, then the commbadge will audibly warn the individual that an invalid hail has been made. In this network mode, the range of a commbadge is restricted, no more than a hundred kilometres. The range when communicating with the ship is upto twenty thousand kilometres, because the ship's communication system is more capable of picking up a signal weakened by distance.
When a member of the crew is heading into a situation where a language he or she does not know is being spoken, that person will be equipped with a universal translator. This is a small device that is inserted (almost) invisibly into the ears, and intercepts sounds entering the ears and translates what it can from other languages into the wearer's language. The universal translator is powerful and accurate for translating known languages, but it cannot decipher unknown languages, since sounds and words in alien languages are essentially random. With a small fraction of words and grammar from one language, it is impossible to predict any unrelated words or grammatical forms. The universal translator cannot translate the wearer's spoken words from the target language into another. To function, the person speaks his own language and hopes the other person also has a universal translator programmed to understand his language. To avoid communications problems, it is Starfleet policy that all members of the crew of a starship should be fluent in one language (usually English for ships manned by humans), including alien crewmembers, without use of translators.
Because the commbadges and universal translators are somewhat limited, more powerful communications tools are available to away teams when necessary. Pocket communicators, small but powerful devices with a variety of functions, are available when necessary. Enhanced translation devices are also available, and these function as universal translators, but also contain processors that allow the user to refine the language being translated as additional data becomes available.
The transporter is the primary method by which members of the crew can enter and leave the starship. In most situations, it is simply much faster to use the transporter than to attempt to land the whole ship, or the lander, or to use a shuttle. The Athena has eight personnel transporters, each of which is capable of transporting six people upto fourty-five thousand kilometres, although in practice, it is very rare to use the transporter for distances of more than ten thousand kilometres. Because of the integrated and dense nature of transporter beams, they are easy to block, so shielding can effectively block transporter beams, and the ship's structural integrity field can be adjusted to do likewise, although this is not commonly done. Beaming through dense material like rock also can impair the transporter beam, so transporters are limited to beaming through no more than twelve to fifteen kilometres of rock. Six of the eight transporters are located on the main part of the ship, including two near the bridge, one in the security section and another near engineering. In addition, the lander has two more six-person transporters, and the ship also possesses a dedicated medical transporter, which functions somewhat like a regular transporter except that the individual being transported rematerializes in the sickbay trauma unit.
In addition to the personnel transporter, the ship also contains two cargo transporters, which can handle upto fifteen tonnes of cargo at once on a molecular-level setting. The cargo transporters, in an emergency, can be configured as twenty-person emergency personnel transporters, but this conversion is done in emergency situations only since the cargo transporter system is susceptible to damage when it draws that much power. The shuttles also have short-range transporters, capable of transporting two or three persons over a range of about ten thousand kilometres.
Transporters have one or two settings, quantum-level transport and molecular-level transport. Although the transporter does its actual beaming using electromagnetic waves, the process requires faster-than-light processing and action. Quantum-level transporters read the quantum state and position and momentum of every molecule within the target matrix, and then uses subetheromagnetic radiation to break down the target, converting the mass of the target into energy that is transmitted within an annular confinement beam. The quanta of energy is precisely defined according to the base information of the molecule that was dissolved. The energy quanta are converted back into the appropriate molecule, with bonding state, quantum state and all other properties intact. Because of the Heisenburg uncertainty principle, which states that the position and momentum of an electron cannot both be determined at the same time, there is some "guessing" involved in a quantum-level transport. Basically, the system knows where the molecules are supposed to be, so positioning is not as important as the quantum state. It is the solving of the problem of the "guessing" that allowed transporters to become a practical means of moving people on and off the ship. The whole routine that allows successful quantum-level transport is called the "Heisenburg Compensator".
Molecular-level transport does not rely on quantum states of the molecules, simply on their position and bonding. Molecular-level transport is used for moving cargo, since a living entity cannot survive a molecular-level transport, as its quantum state would be scrambled. This actually has the practical purpose of allowing any cargo being transported to be sterilized, which can be useful when moving cargo into or out of a quarantine situation. Molecular-level transport also uses about one-fifth of the power of a quantum-level transport, so it is used whenever possible for moving cargo. The range of molecular-level transporters is also much greater than quantum-level transporters, upto a hundred thousand kilometres.
There are several things that a transporter is not capable of doing. Although transporter accidents can happen, usually when the data stream is interrupted or scrambled, some accidents are not possible. For example, a transporter cannot add mass to something, so it is impossible for one person to somehow be split into two separate and completely whole people. It is equally impossible to take the mass of two people and combine that into one individual of normal mass. The rules of quantum mechanics and other advanced physics preclude either of these events from happening. On the other hand, antimatter can be transported, but there is a slight risk in doing this since the antimatter must be dematerialized first and then its container, while at the other end, the container must be rematerialized first and then the antimatter. Hypermatter can also be transported, but this requires a totally separate transporter mechanism. A quantum-level transport takes a great deal of energy and computer processing power, since the information collected, if converted into mass at the rate of one molecule per data item, would equal considerably more than the mass of the person being transported. As a result, complete transporter patterns cannot be stored, and the whole transport process is continous. During transport, a person is literally half in one place and half in the other at the same time. This fact prevents the transporter from being used as a "prepetual youthfulness" machine, since the pattern of the youthful individual could not be scored. Also over time, there would be changes in the molecular composition of the individual, which would make the pattern, even if stored, less reliable. Nevertheless, theory does suggest that it is possible to make an old person young again through a transporter, but there would be a great deal of extrapolation of the quantum state. In essense, the transporter becomes a replicator that produces a "young" body that is reanimated using a quantum state that is believed to work. It is possible in such a state to transfer all the memories from the old body to the young, but needless to say, research in this area is decidedly unethical and not generally pursued.
Transporters can also be used as a weapons delivery method, where explosive devices such as antimatter can be beamed onto a target. When beaming antimatter, it is usual practice not to transport the container at all, just the antimatter.
One of the most important functions of a starship is to keep the crew alive and comfortable, which means providing food, atmosphere, suitable temperatures and gravity. Life support or environmental systems are needless to say critical functions on board a starship like the Athena.
Replicators play a key role in providing food, equipment and clothing, as well as maintaining the atmosphere and disposing of waste products. In fact, a starship essentially becomes a closed biosphere (not taking into account people leaving or entering the ship) where the environmental systems transfer energy from the engines into the lives of the crew. The key component of this is the replicator. Replicators are based on transporter technology in that a sample of material is dematerialized and then rematerialized at a different location, but the diffrence is that in the pattern buffer, the pattern is arranged from the simple configuration of the base matter into the more complex material of the item selected. On the Athena, replicator base materials are stored in containment units separated by element, so hydrogen is in one container, carbon in another, and so on. When a replicator request is made at a terminal, the system will use the pattern program to determine how much of each of the base materials to use, how to arrange them into molecules with appropriate bonds and at what energy levels (hot or cold), and then it sends the signal to the remote terminal where it rematerializes.
Replicators attempt to speed up the process and reduce the computing demands and memory requirements for the programming through a process called "coarseness." In this, an item of food, for example, is replicated using a repeating pattern of molecules that could be upto one thousand times the size of a single molecule. In real food, the pattern of molecules is essentially random, but in a replicator, the patterns are repeated at various coarseness settings. It is this effect that leads some to be able to distinguish replicated food from the real thing, although most people cannot tell the difference. Because replicated food is made without variation, there is some criticism about blandness, how, for example, a piece of chedder cheese tastes exactly like the last piece of chedder cheese. This is a problem not easily fixed, but there is the fact that a replicator on board a starship can produce a thousand different varieties of cheese, so one does not always have to eat the same kind of chedder. One significant advantage of replicated food is that it is pure, and free of bacteria and all other contaminants that can be harmful. Replicators can be set at unit-level replication, with no coarseness at all, but this is generally not done with food. However, it is done with medication, so that the replicated medicine will be completely accurate.
The reverse of the replicator is the deconstructor, which basically takes a complex item, like uneaten food, the plate (and if one dares to think about it, all waste products), and breaks it down into the component atoms, which are then sent to the base matter containers for future use. Naturally, not every atom that leaves the base matter containers returns, but the crew can replenish the tanks anywhere there is the necessary molecule. Below the main shuttlebay is a large-scale deconstructor that can be used to break down larger items, such as vegetation taken from a class-M world used to replenish the organic base matter.
The atmosphere on the Athena is maintained through the use of replicators. At seven locations throughout the ship are environmental nodes, where the air supply system passes through a series of special deconstructors and replicators. In this process, carbon dioxide is removed by the deconstructor, and then returned to the air as an oxygen molecule. The carbon atom goes into the base matter storage container. Other impurities in the air, especially dust and smoke particles, are removed from the air in that manner and sent to the storage containers. Humidity is not added to the air at this point. Instead, air is made humid and cooled or heated to the desired temperature at the point where it leaves the air supply system and enters the room or corridor. Humidity and temperatures in the corridors and common areas are set at some ship standard (usually fifty percent humidity and twenty degree temperature), but the air in the individual quarters can be set at the desired levels of the occupant. Contrary to popular belief, a functioning starship does not have to be heated to escape the coldness of space. The problem in fact is keeping it cool, since so much heat is generated by all the various electronic and energy-consuming systems. The hull is not an efficient transmission of heat, although waste heat can be radiated through the engine vents, so the air must be cooled internally in an organized fashion that allows for the orderly extraction of heat. Without cooling, the internal temperature of the ship could rise several degrees every hour until a thermal equilibrium is achieved.
Because of bathing and other uses, a quantity of waste water is produced on board the ship. This is treated by passing it through a deconstructor, which uses its pattern buffer to remove everything but the water molecule. The contaminants are broken down to their representative atoms and stored in the bsae matter units, and pure water is returned to the holding tanks, where it can be used again. Additional quantities of water can be replicated from material taken from the hydrogen and oxygen base matter storage units. In addition to the replicator-based system, conventional water purifier systems are available, but they are used for backup only.
Finally, there is gravity. Prolonged travel in space is only possible with artificial gravity, since the human body is so accustomed to functioning in a gravity environment and is impaired in a zero-gravity environment. Gravity is generated throughout the ship by the gravity plates built into the floor of every deck, corridor and other location of the ship. The gravity plates interact with matter in the vicinity by exchanging graviton-like particles. This is not precisely "gravity" as one would find it on a planet, but it is indistinguishable from the real thing as far as the body is concerned. Because the gravity plates run all the time and are designed for durability, gravity is one of the most stable systems on the ship. Gravity is generally only lost if power is cut off to the plates, as the plates themselves very rarely fail. Certain sections of the ship have no gravity (such as the turbolift shafts, so there is no chance of a turbolift car hurdling down a shaft to its doom; instead, it would slow down and stop because the only force acting on it is the air resistence) and in others, the gravity can be shut off as needed. In general, a member of the crew cannot shut off the gravity in his quarters, but the level of gravity can be adjusted.
One major problem in a multiracial organization like the Federation is the difficulties in having ships with more than one race on them. In fact, there are very few ships that are truly multiracial. Instead, they are primarily crewed by one race with some others on board almost as exchange officers. In the Federation, all the member groups (humans, Vulcans, Andorians and others) design and build their own ships and man them with their own people, although some races will purchase vessels built by others. Humans, in particular, are known for building ships and selling them to other races in the Federation. All these various ships serve under the Federation banner and Starfleet Command. This explains why, for example, all the Nebula-class ships, all the Galaxy-class ships and all the others built at Utopia Planitia or the San Francisco Naval Yards or McKinley Station have names stepped in Earth history, places or people. The Andorians build their own ships at Andor, crew them mostly with Andorians and operate as an Andorian ship doing the work of the Federation (and Andorian interests too, just as human ships often deal with human interests). It is possible that a ship built and named by one race could be turned over to another to be crewed by them. The Kentyans, for example, rarely build their own ships, but do purchase ships built by other races, like humans. Exchange officers, like Rodall Dewuchun on the Athena, have to deal with an environment that might not be normal for them. The level of oxygen could be wrong, and the gravity could be wrong, as well as the cycle of night and day (and the shifts). There is also the problem of having to program the replicators to provide not only a rich variety of human foodstuffs, but Odonan ones too. Odonans require vitamins, proteins and other nutrients that are different from human ones, so pure human food would not be sufficient for an Odonan, or for members of any other race. Even something as simple as air temperature can be a factor. For a human, twenty degrees would be comfortable, but for an Odonan, twenty degrees is warm. Dewuchun keeps his quarters at a nice, comfortable twelve degrees. T'Kor, on the other hand, would keep her quarters at about twenty-seven degrees and very low humidity, to simulate her natural environment. Nevertheless, in their day-to-day tasks on the ship, Dewuchun has to deal with being too warm, and T'Kor has to deal with being too cold. It has to have an effect on their efficiency. Language is also a problem. It is desirable for all members of the crew to be able to speak one language. On an Andorian ship, it would be the standard Andorian language, and all the consoles would be labelled in this Andorian language and using their designs. On the Athena, the working language is English, and so all alien crewmembers have to speak and read English fluently. Undoubtedly, the crewmembers, or at least most of them, could also speak the language that they grew up with (so Matsubara undoubtedly could speak Japanese, for example). Dewuchun, of course, can speak his Odonan languages (he too would have his birth language, plus Standard Odonien, that race's universal language). Although universal translators are fine for translating spoken speech, they cannot read one language into another. Of course, for example, Dewuchun could configure his engineering console to display in Odonien, but what if someone else wanted to look at it? The policy of one language for the whole ship is undoubtedly a sound one, but would be difficult to implement on a heavily multiracial ship.
On board the Athena or any starship, the computers are very important. Much of the detail of starship operation is left up to the computer, so that the crew merely has to make the most basic of decisions and control interactions, and the computer is capable of responding in carrying out the difficult and complex tasks associated with that decision or interaction. Because of this feature, operating a starship is not really that complicated.
The Athena has four primary computer cores in the main part of the ship, and two more in the lander. Two of the cores contain volatile memory that runs on ship power, although there are dedicated power sources within the cores. The memory used is quantum state bubble memory, which relies on the quantum state of single atoms to hold the binary state. A scanner can read this quantum state and access that particular bit of data. The capacity of the cores is quite large, and can comfortably contain a copy of virtually every piece of writing, art, music and cinema developed throughout the known galaxy. The core also contains the billions of lines of code used to run all of the ship's operations, and contains the buffered sensor and communications data. In addition to the primary core, there are volatile memory buffers connected to each of the fourteen hundred computer terminals on the ship, and also backup modules and portable modules. Finally, there is also the archive core, which duplicates most of the information in the main cores, except that the memory is sixty-two bit elemental memory that does not require power to maintain. In fact, since the elemental memory is made of stable atoms in a lead base, this memory is preserved as long as the structural integrity of the lead base is maintained. In essense, elemental memory lasts forever, but it is not easy to create. New elemental memory blocks are made using an atomic replicator, and are used to hold data that is meant to be permanent. Elemental memory is used for permanent data only. The fourth core is a backup core, used when one of the two main cores is not available for whatever reason. The ship can function on one core, but two are usually used.
Each computer core has two processor arrays. These arrays contain four hundred processors, operating at two terahertz, that can operate in parallel or in series, as needed. They have faster-than-light connections between each processor in the array and the other arrays, as well as similar connections to the memory pathways. Each console and each terminal has its own processor array to handle simpler tasks, and to also prepare data for transmission to the core and to interpret data coming back. The consoles, and dedicated hardware computers, can function independently should the connection to the main computer be lost. The computer is also capable of controlling all aspect of ship operations in the absence of a functiong crew, and when put into "full automatic" mode, the computer assumes almost sentient properties in its ability to control the ship and respond to threats to it.
Although often used for entertainment purposes, holographic environment simulators were intended to be advanced simulation and training devices. They operate by fooling human senses into believing that the images coming through the senses are real when in fact they are computer simulations designed to perfectly fool those senses. Because each race's sensory adaptations are based on their environment and their response to physical and chemical signals around them (which are the same galaxy-wide), it is a rare race that can detect that something in the holographic simulation is not real.
In the most basic sense, holodecks operate by creating illusions using holographs, holodeck-replicated matter, replicated matter and variable gravity fields. Forcefields that bend andor generate light and can cause a sense of forced perspective are used to create an illusion of space within a holodeck. The holodeck illusions are formed in one of three ways:
Large-scale and distance objects are holographic illusions, created by light and forcefields
Objects meant to be touched but not picked up or intimately handled are created by what is called "holographic matter." This is in fact real matter (since there is no other kind), but instead of replicating an object accurately, the holodeck uses a limited arrangement of materials, normally carbon and silicon, to form the shape and texture of the object, but the strength and most of its bulk is generated by forcefields and the object is held together with a structural integrity field. This is done because it allows the large-scale objects to be replicated very quickly, to preserve the illusion. An object that is made of holographic matter cannot leave the holodeck areas because the forcefields and other fields will collapse, leaving whoever is carrying the object covered in carbon and silicon.
Small-scale objects meant to be touched and handled, including such things as clothing worn by people on the holodeck, food and drink consumed and other small things are from the ship's regular replicators, and so they can be freely taken off the holodeck, and exist as real as any other object produced by the replicator.
Movement in a holodeck is created by shifting the holographic background and manipulating gravity so that a person is essentially walking in place-but it feels real-while everything around him seems to move. Holographic characters are created by variable forcefields, which are heated to the necessary temperature and the forcefield frequencies are adjusted to produce realistic textures of skin and clothing. Light is also manipulated within the forcefield matrix to produce realistic colouring. Holographic characters cannot leave the holodeck, naturally, so should they attempt to leave, they will fade out of existence when passing outside the range of the holoemitters. The technology used to create holographic characters has been used outside of the holodeck to create emergency crew assistants or replacements, to assist the crew in emergency situations when there is insufficient personnel. On the Athena, there are two such emergency holographic entities, one in sickbay and another in engineering. These entities are generally patterned after a real individual or an amalgamation of real individuals, and have access to a wide variety of information related to their tasks. Because holographic emitters are limited to certain areas of the ship, the entities are confined to those areas.
Tractor beams are the primary way that a ship can attach itself to another object, either to be secured to that object or to tow that object. The Athena has two tractor beam emitters, located on the underside of the saucer section in front and on the lower part of the rear superstructure. In addition, there are less-powerful tractor beams mounted on the underside of the lander and inside the shuttlebays, the latter used for guiding shuttles into the bay. The tractor beam works by generating a stream of particles at a frequency so that the interactions between the particles sets up standing waves that are rigid enough to allow a significant amount of momentum to be transferred through the beam; in other words, if something is pulled at one end, the beam will not stretch, but will remain the same length and allow the momentum to be transferred along this beam to the other object. However, the amount of "pull" on the beam will increase the energy requirements to the system, which could overheat the emitter and generator mechanism. If this happens, the beam would break. The tractor beam can pull a mass that is upto thirty-five percent of the mass of the ship (a combination of dead mass of the object and its resistive momentum, an object that is being towed willingly would not have resistive momentum unless outside forces are acting on it) before the beam could fail.
The tractor beam has a variety of uses, but is most commonly used for towing other vessels that are either disabled or need to be captured or controlled, or need to be moved from a dangerous location more rapidly than the vessel itself can achieve. The tractor beams can have their particle frequency altered in use so that the beam lengthens or shrinks. This feature is used to either draw something closer to the ship or to push it away (and alternatively, to push the ship away or pull it closer if the attacked object is much larger than the ship).
The Athena has three areas for support craft. There is a small shuttlepod on the lander with two shuttlepods docked to it, and there is a small shuttlebay at the rear of the ship, which is accessible by some of the smaller ships and is used primarily for short-range operations, such as the ship to a nearby space station, for example. The majority of the ship's shuttlecraft activity, however, goes through the main shuttlebay. This is a large, open area that spans two decks, decks four and five, between the upper decks leading to the bridge and the lander docking pylon. Unlike most other ships, the Athena has the main shuttlebay hatches on the top of the deck, not at the rear. This is done since a rear exit would mean any ship would have to immediately veer to one direction or the other to avoid hitting the pylon. However, there are two small rear exits designed mostly for shuttlepods and small craft to exit the ship, mostly to work on the ship itself. The main shuttlebay has a control deck on deck four which looks over the shuttlebay. On each side of the shuttlebay area are maintenance docks, where shuttlecraft can be worked on or simply stored. The shuttlebay has storage capabilities for one Danube-class runabout, and thirty other smaller craft. The Athena has in fact one runabout, the Styx (maintaining the pattern of naming ships of this class after Earth rivers, although in this case it is a mythical river) which is used on off-ship missions. In addition, the Athena has an assortment of other shuttles. There are four type-10 warp shuttles, of a relatively new design. There are eight non-warp capable landing shuttles (type-8) intended primarily for operations on the surface of the planet from the orbiting starship. In addition, there are six type-15 shuttlepods, whose primary purpose is to assist in extravehicular activity around the ship, or to travel to other ships or stations. The shuttlepods are equipped with docking ports to allow them to dock externally to other ships or stations.
The Athena also has two type-12 long-range passenger shuttles, modelled after typical Odonan craft. These vessels are designed to transport upto fifteen passengers over longer ranges, within a star system or to neighbouring ones. These shuttles, along with the Styx, are equipped with Odonan engine components and have cloaking devices. Finally, there are two specialized craft, the type-22 cargo shuttle, with a large cargo hold and dedicated cargo transporters built into it, and the type-19 amphibious shuttle, which is aerodynamic for intense atmospheric operations and also it can operate under water or within most other liquid substances.
Shuttlebays normally operate with barrier fields over the exits. These fields are simple forcefields at fixed frequencies and are capable of holding in an atmosphere. When shuttles enter or leave the shuttlebay, they adjust their own shields to the frequency of the barrier fields so that they can pass smoothly through them. The shuttlebays can be depressurized if, for whatever reason, an approaching ship cannot pass through the barrier field or else the approaching ship must be brought in with the tractor beam. Depressurization is done by the simulataneous execution of three processes, vacuum pumps to draw out the air, ionization beams to ionize the air and draw it towards a cathode, and dedicated transporters remove the air. Repressurization works by reversing these procedures. Because these devices work together and the machinery is abundant on the shuttlebay walls and ceiling, the whole, large volume of the deck can be depressurized in fifty seconds and repressurized in twenty-five.
For security reasons, the barrier fields can be quickly stepped up to full defensive shields. This is done to prevent anybody without authorization from taking a shuttlecraft and using onboard weapons to destroy the barrier field, its generators, or the hatch. Standard operating procedure is that the hatches are closed any time a ship is not arriving or departing, and when the hatches are open, the deck must be cleared of all personnel not wearing environmental suits or inside a shuttlecraft. This is done because there is the possibility of a ship passing through the barrier field and disrupting it, leading to explosive decompression of the shuttlebay. Although the probability of this happening is low, it does on occasion happen. Replacing the air from the ship's reserves can severely tax those reserves, so naturally all is done to prevent any form of explosive decompression from happening. The procedures and features of the smaller shuttlebay on the main ship are the same as for the main shuttlebay. However, the shuttlepod bay on the lander is not pressurized since it is only accessible by docked shuttlepods, and access to the shuttlepods is through their docking port.
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"Star Trek" is a licenced property of Paramount Pictures, and commercial usage is prohibited. "Star Trek: Athena" is copyright 1998 by White Tornado Publishing, and the contents of this site may not be copied or used elsewhere without permission of the copyright holder. Ideas, technology and speculation provided on this page are from the imagination of the site creator and may not reflect current thinking in technology or physics, nor may not be what is considered "canon" in the Star Trek universe.
