STARSHIP | |
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Name: | Prometheus |
Class: | Columbus |
Type: | interstellar explorer |
Affiliation: | ISA/NASA |
The UNSS Prometheus was built as an interstellar explorer for the International Space Agency and the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration, assigned to explore and survey the Epsilon Indi system.
A series of launches for all five Columbus class craft was set for mid-2044, then pushed back to late 2045 due to some class-wide iterative equipment alternations. However, in September of that year, as UNSS Columbus prepared for the inaugural launch, a serious mishap during methane fueling resulted in the loss of eight crew and support service lives. Damage to the ship, while not extensive, would require a complete safety overhaul.
A few weeks of working the schedule and crew rosters resulted in UNSS Icarus taking over the Alpha Centauri mission from Columbus, with her original destination of 40 Eridani deferred, possibly until the class ship was fully operational again. Instead, the first launch—now in January 2046—would be assigned to UNSS Nautilus, her crew of 40 charging for Tau Ceti at a distance of 6.12 lightyears downrange. UNSS Prometheus launched in mid-March. Each ship had nearly identical mission itineraries for the intrasystem transit, with all crews fully suspended in cryosleep prior to passing Martian orbit. The news streams constantly relayed each vessel’s relative position to Earth, including on May 5th, as Nautilus proceeded through the Oort cloud and auto-reported an allision with an object too massive to be countered by the hull protection measures. Sensors had been reporting an increasing level of ionic activity upon entry into the phenomenon and now indicated an extremely higher-than-anticipated amount of macrometeoroids and cometary fragments. The ship appeared to have suffered non-catastrophic casualties with that first event and, as the Earth-based incident management team considered options, she proceeded on at her high velocity. Telemetry had already been spotty due to the interference of the ion exhaust plume, but was suddenly interrupted by what was determined to be “uncontrollable oscillatory movement,” or wild spinning. The minimal transmissions received from Nautilus suggested a continuous barrage of meteoroid collisions and multiple onboard fires. Space telescopes witnessed the vessel's demise within days.
Voices all around the planet clamored for the imminent recall of the three remaining ships and their 120 slumbering passengers. However, ISA was adamant that each of the vessels, even the Icarus (which had not yet entered the cloud), would be well into the same relative region by the time forward momentum was overcome and then each would have to traverse back again, exposed to the exact same threats. There was no certainty that the overwriting tasks transmitted from Earth would even be completely received, due to the high ionic activity experienced by Nautilus. It was forecasted that the interplanetary objects would be more dispersed in the outer cloud, if the original movement directives stood. The ships continued their pre-plotted routes as mission-reserved data frequencies grew more and more quiet with each passing hour; the partner agencies all but shuttered their telemetry monitors within weeks. The four operational vessels—and their Human crews—were considered lost to the depths of deep space.
The crew of the Prometheus had, up until a point, a very similar encounter to that of the Icarus upon their arrival in the Epsilon Indi system in May 2080. Like their sister ship, they awoke to low-level radio signals, this time between the second planet of Epsilon Indi A and the first planet of Epsilon Indi C. Where their story diverged was with the first video contact: they were also greeted by a relatively familiar visage, but this time it was actually Human. The Verne class survey cruisers had started departing the Sol system as early as the late Sixties and the first Human footprint was left in the sands of Draylax in the early Seventies. Even the news of the Icarus’ first contact with the Centaurians had made its way to the alien system, so the arrival of the Prometheus was not unexpected by the Human guests of the Vulcan diplomats already on-planet.
An astounded crew got to meet three new alien races shortly after making orbit: the Vulcans had established a mere outpost of an embassy in the Draylaxian capital city and provided shuttle service to Tarl, the long-established and extensive domed colony on the Kesh class world of Epsilon Indi C I. The Tarl, a large, green-skinned people could not recount much of their origins, as their own recoverable history only went as far back as a point well after the presumed construction date of the environmental domes. To the newly-arrived Humans, they were an odd encounter: friendly, pre-disposed to engineering (primarily of life support equipment), and incessantly imbibing alcohol, from which they derived their sustenance. They avoided more typical solids and most especially acid-based foodstuffs, such as citrus juices, which quickly left them inebriated.
Back on Draylax, a Harauk class world most noted for its seas of sandy dunes and hard-pan plains, the Prometheus crew learned how the early (per Vulcan policy) first contact by Humans the previous decade had jump-started an interplanetary industry. This had allowed the two civilizations in the large trinary system to finally meet and establish ongoing relations, 30 years after first making radio-only contact. The Draylaxians, a feline species with significantly leonine facial features, were already working to develop their own interstellar capabilities, to correct what was threatening to become a trade imbalance precipitated by the steady arrivals of aliens from other warp-capable societies.
Historical accounts of the Prometheus crew’s reactions indicate they were far more astounded by their interactions with these unexpected alien cultures and their own home world’s post-launch achievements than they were disappointed to not be “the first” to contact another species. The ship itself was mothballed—with considerable ceremony by the Draylaxians—in the Epsilon Indi A system, while the crew returned—quite rapidly—to Earth via a scheduled Vulcan envoy ship.
(Star Fleet Starship Recognition Manual: Report #308: Columbus Interstellar Explorer)
See Also[]
Columbus-class ships (Delta Dynamics) |
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UNSS Columbus - UNSS Nautilus - UNSS Hector - UNSS Prometheus - UNSS Icarus |
Class Article: Columbus class |