Guide:Bonaventure (survey cruiser)

Bonaventure
Class Overview
Category	Survey cruiser
Operational	2064 - 2077
Constructed	1
Dimensions
Length	206.1 m
Beam	63.4 m (radiator wings deployed)
Height	66.7 m (radiator wings deployed)
Mass	79,400 mt
Performance
Cruise Speed	w 2.0
Max Speed	w 2.5
Endurance	6 years
Complement
Officers	5
Enlisted	40
Tactical Systems
Beam Weapons	2x Sorac 1.2 Plus Class lasers, fwd hull
Shields	Electromagnetic shield (10 T) Gas envelope deflectors Glass-cloud anti-laser shields
Laboratories	1 GP 1 planetary sciences
Auxiliary Craft	2 atmospheric shuttles 2 shuttlepods
Canonicity
Design	SFC
Name	SFC
History	SFC

The development of the Defiant and the Valiant had created a significant pool of expertise and skill among the international construction teams. Earth still lacked the resources to mass-produce warp explorers, but the teams wished to push on with development of more practical warp drives and more useful exploration vessels. The national pride that had driven earlier space programs was replaced by a combination of professional pride and competitive spirit, with the frighteningly advanced Vulcans as the opposing players.

In 2052, during the final stages of the econo-technological race against the Econ, the US government had begun to construct a large defensive space cruiser, tentatively christened the Seneca, for challenging Econ orbital supremacy in the 800-4000 km region. The vessel was in many ways just an enlarged copy of the Keldysh design, and something of a departure from the classic USAF spacecraft lineage. Indeed, the more traditional, less ambitious Guardian series of large manned combat spacecraft remained the budgetary favorite, and work on the Seneca was aborted before the outbreak of the war. In 2064, the ship was floating dead on a decaying orbit within the shrapnel cloud that had been Freedom Assembly Berth 02 prior to the war. The warp development teams promptly attached a tug onto the hulk and towed it to the Valiant construction berth.

Within a year, the ship sported two 30,000 ton warp coil assemblies in hexagonal protective nacelles fashioned out of the lateral fuel tanks, and a three-chamber fusion powerplant with huge radiator surfaces bolted astern of the centerline tank. Her old national insignia were retained, but the registry and name were painted over to give room for the national symbols of the rest of the teams. Instead of the rather martial names chosen for the first warp explorers, the ship proudly carried the words “Bonaventure – the dream is alive” on her hull. Still, the ship was far from being a purely pacifist science project, as the financial backers of the project did not wish to see their interstellar envoy appear defenseless to the unknown dangers of space. Two laser emitters were installed on the arrowhead-shaped forward hull, and a full range of missile warning systems and glass bead emitters covered the propulsion modules and nacelle assemblies.

Since the ship was primarily intended to explore strange new planets, she required landing craft and remote mapping gear, neither of which was provided for in the original cruiser design. Two former USAF sentry platform maintenance shuttles were hauled from Earth and bolted onto the ventral surface of the fuel tank, and a selection of telescopes crowded the forward hull. A completely closed-circuit life support system was also installed for a maximum endurance of six years, representing a quantum leap over the primitive systems aboard the Valiant/Defiant ships.

The gigantic vessel fared better than the two initial survey cruisers: her second operational warp sortie under the command of Captain Hadrian Huckleby took her to Tau Ceti and, more significantly, back. Mankind’s first two-way interstellar journey had been completed in just eight years. During the following decade, the successful Columbus sublight explorers would also return to Earth, but too late to claim the honor. It mattered little that the Bonaventure went missing on her third mission, to Sirius – Earth had been firmly established as capable of interstellar exploration now, and would continue to expand its efforts in the upcoming years.

While the capability of Earth to construct something the size of the Bonaventure was severely limited in the postwar environment, scavenging of existing space structures would help Earth equip for its warp exploration spree. The basic structure demonstrated by the Defiant, the Valiant and the Bonaventure would remain popular in early purpose-built warp vessels as well. A central fuel tank and reactor compartment flanked by two nacelles and mounting reaction engines and fusion powerplant aft, and an angular habitation compartment forward: all this would see service well into the mid-2100s, although the amount of onboard fuel required would gradually decrease and thus free internal space for other applications.

The most direct successors of the Bonaventure would be the Messier class heavy cruisers, Earth’s first true interstellar warships that in the 22nd century would be drafted to serve in the desperate struggle against the Romulans. However, the course of Earth warp technology was far from charted in 2064, and at least two major competing basic configurations would soon emerge. It is a matter of some specieist pride to humankind that the native Bonaventure configuration would persevere where the alien-influenced competitors would not.

Missions

• Mission 2065: Three-month shakedown cruise outside the Sol system
• Mission 2066: Exploration of the Tau Ceti system
• Mission 2077: Exploration of the Sirius system (craft lost)

Gallery

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  Bonaventure
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  Bonaventure departing Tau Ceti
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  Alpha-canon Bonaventure

Notes

• The canon image of the Bonaventure (included in the gallery) is-unfortunately-not being used here, as it does appear to fall outside the design scope of both the article description and the lineage of early warp ships from Earth. I'd love to find a way to make it game-canon, maybe even as the described Seneca, but because of the warp nacelles, it clearly is a post-2063 ship.

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• Appendix A: Of Ship Statistics
• Appendix B: Glossary
• Appendix C: Starfleet Organization - General Outline
• Appendix D: Abbreviations From Outside