Guide:TAU

TAU series
Class Overview
Category	NASA extrasolar exploration vessel
Operational	2036 - 2069
Constructed	5
Dimensions
Length	102.4m (typical) 149.3m (w/ booster stage)
Beam	23.3m (launch configuraion) 60.6m (antennas extended)
Height	23.3m (launch configuraion) 60.6m (antennas extended)
Mass	6,400 mt (Daedalus, Charybdis, Phlebas) 6,200 mt (Betelgeuze) 6,800 mt (Jacob, TAU VI-VIII)
Performance
Max Speed	0.2c
Endurance	6 years (w/cryosleep)
Complement
Crew	15-18
Tactical Systems
Shields	electromagnetic shield (max 12 mt)
Auxiliary Craft	2 maintenance pods 1 atmospheric craft (Daedalus, Charybdis, Phlebas only)
Canonicity
Design	Kris Trigwell
Name	own
History	(own, adapting TNG and SFC)

In the first decade of the 21st century, various new countries on Earth entered the space race. Technology leaps implemented by the genetically-augmented scientists enabled most industrialized nations to mount elaborate space programs. Between 2000 and 2009 alone, a total of 212 interplanetary and 51 interstellar probes were launched, and six major manned orbital platforms were assembled – typical actions by a fledgling space power, although the time scale is slightly shorter than the galactic average. Manned missions to Mars, the asteroids and the Jovian and Saturnian moons were performed using combined NTR and ion drives and cryosleep techniques. A tentative colony was founded on the Moon but later abandoned and destroyed; today, the basalt bed of Lake Armstrong covers the site of the ruins. All the time, the various nations were preparing for the next giant step for mankind: the first manned interstellar mission.

The first crewed probeships to attempt flight outside the star system of Sol were built in the late 2030s. The program was mainly run by the de facto only surviving economical superpower, the United States (through NASA), although an international crew was selected for the missions to appease vocal critics of the US in the New United Nations. Still, France, Texas, China and India were skeptical, to say the least, of the motivations behind the technology alliance that created the craft.

Like most early 21st century craft, the so-called TAU ships (Thousand Astronomical Units, the grandiose but ultimately unrealistic intended range of the craft) were put together around AmJet engines copied from Singh empire vessels. Crew facilities and other equipment were developed and built around the world in an international cooperation effort of previously unseen scale. This cooperation was not without incidents, as evidenced by sabotage of component shipments by both TexanChinese and Greenpeace submarines and the daring theft of five experimental EM shield generators by suspected Russian operatives. The completed vessels, built in Earth orbit, took the shape of multi-modular ‘trains’, with a large booster stage attached to the stern. The booster was used to throw the craft out of the solar system, after which gas-core fission engines, coupled with Singh-style hypervelocity exhaust systems, provided continuous 0.8 g acceleration, theoretically up to as much as 0.5 c. Ahead of the booster and the fission stage lay support system compartments, sporting communications antennas and long radiator surfaces. Foremost were a centrifugal habitat compartment and a command pod, with maintenance pods and, in some cases, landing craft attached.

Five manned TAU vessels of slightly varying configurations were sent to probe the space beyond the heliopause. Their missions varied, from the testing of future interstellar flight hardware or military spacecraft systems like EM shields to experiments on long-term life support and cryosleep. With some flights reaching as far as 350 AU from the sun, long-base interferometry measurements were conducted in hopes of locating extrasolar planetary systems and perhaps even civilizations.

Unfortunately, shielding on the craft proved woefully inadequate. Contact with the main computer of the Daedalus was lost five months into the mission, soon after the ship had passed the orbit of Pluto. After a month of frantic efforts at re-establishing communications, brief telemetry contact with the monitoring systems revealed a series of onboard fires and subsystem failures. Soon thereafter, the ship vanished in the inner Oort cloud, and was presumed destroyed. A massive charge buildup on her hull was deemed the likely cause after a detailed telemetry analysis. TAU Two, the Betelgeuze, incorporated extensive protective measures and was configured to carry two crewmembers awake at all times, to provide a better response to such completely unexpected contingencies as the Daedalus catastrophe had been. The Betelgeuze completed a six-year mission into interstellar space and finally proved the concept of cryosleep as a long-term life support method.

Beyond the orbit of Uranus, engines idled, the Betelgeuze prepares for the coasting phase of her mission by orienting herself for optimal thermal control. Torque forces from the centrifugal-gravity habitat section at one end of the support truss and the massive thrust complex at the other made maneuvering such vessels a slow and tedious business.

TAU Three, the Charybdis, was lost as her still rather poorly understood Singh-derived drive systems apparently jammed open and propelled the ship out of communications range. Two of the following missions attempted to locate the vessel, without any success. It was later found that the ship had been rescued/abducted by unknown extraterrestrials who had apparently transported her to Theta 116 system; the remains of the sole survivor of the crew, mission commander Lt. Col. Stephen Richey, USAF, were in 2365 found on Theta 116-VIII by the away team of USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D). A similar fate must have befallen several space probes and manned missions in the early 21st century, but the identity of the abductors still remains a mystery. Vulcan survey files from the early 21st century appear devoid of clues in this respect. The abductions seem to have ended after the invention of warp drive on Earth.

The two disasters could have been expected to end all efforts at interstellar travel for a good while. Instead, interest in such missions increased constantly. A fierce econo-technological competition between the US compact and a new Eurasian alliance called the Econ drove both researchers and manufacturers to double their efforts in constructing an interstellar exploration vessel, at virtually any cost. During the 2030s, Earth spaceflight rapidly progressed beyond the level reached by the genetically engineered supermen, and it very much seemed as if interstellar flight would indeed become reality within the next twenty years. Unfortunately, the two competing superpowers had other goals as well – among them elimination of the competitor and supremacy of mankind’s own solar system. Numerous combat spacecraft, both cislunar and interplanetary, were fielded and weapons of mass destruction based on Earth orbit. By the 2040s, it was difficult to predict which of the wishes of the superpowers would be met first.

Missions

Vessels of the TAU series were named after mythological characters.

• Daedalus - TAU One (2036): presumed lost
• Betelgeuze - TAU Two (2037-2043): successful heliopause mission
• Charybdis - TAU Three (2037-2038): lost; remnants found orbiting Theta 116 VIII
• Plebas - TAU Four (2037-?): heliopause mission; mission conclusion unrecorded
• Jacob - TAU Five, Six, Seven, Eight (2038-?): Charybdis search mission; follow-on Oort cloud missions; mission conclusions unrecorded

Gallery

• 
  Charybdis mission patch

Notes

• Timo reports only 5 ships were launched, though the data column indicates 8. As it doesn't make sense that 3 vessels of that time would be built and not utilized, the data column is being adjusted and it is presumed the last vessel, the Jacob, was restricted to inside the solar system, possibly making up to three TAU missions to the Oort cloud.
  

• The symbol 'θ' has been replaced by 'Theta' for sake of simplicity and to match official canon.

• In order to not have the Columbus series craft as too fast (arriving at destinations pre-First Contact), all max speeds have been drastically reduced, (except for the DY-50).

• Timo suggested Texas had seceded from the United States by the period in which the TAU ships were being built, with the reference to the entity being "skeptical" of the American intent for the missions. Additionally, "Texan submarines" engaged in hostilities against NASA assets. I've decided to make the adversary Chinese, which is more fitting with the trend towards global war.

Alt Sources

• Memory Alpha: Charybdis

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• Back to the Table of Contents
• Back to "The Playground"
• Appendix A: Of Ship Statistics
• Appendix B: Glossary
• Appendix C: Star Fleet Organization - General Outline
• Appendix D: Abbreviations From Outside