Guide:Questor

Questor
Class Overview
Category	runabout
Operational	2259 - 2286
Constructed	149
Dimensions
Length	16.0 m
Beam	7.7 m
Height	4.9 m
Mass	511 mt
Performance
Max Speed	w 3.0
Endurance	15 months
Complement
Crew	1
Passengers	1-3
Tactical Systems
Shields	1-layer conformal forcefield 1x navigational deflector (bow)
Historical
Ships of Note	SY Cybil Mae (NDG-22821)
Canonicity
Design	TAS: "The Survivor", "Mudd's Passion" (Kris Trigwell)
Name	Timo
History	Timo

Background: Hobbyist's Guide

Among the first small warp-driven Federation craft that were truly suited for interstellar operations was the Questor class warp yacht. The extremely compact Class H commercial design featured a small one-man cockpit with six angled windows at the bow of a main body of oval cross section, and was propelled by two impressive-looking PNG-2 warp coil assemblies on sturdy side-by-side dorsal pylons. The ratio of drive system volume to habitable volume was exceptionally high, but this alone did not yet allow such a small craft to break the barriers of interstellar flight.

The craft gained its interstellar legs through the adoption of a military-standard RMR-400 antimatter reactor, a simple and reliable design relying on a pulsed antimatter feed and a gas vortex containment and cooling system. Second-stage plasma chargers added power to the design. An impulse nozzle peered from atop the main hull, between the nacelles and above the main powerplant. Ram air intakes on both sides of the hull and large skid-type landing pads were the other significant protrusions from the geometrically simple hull. A speed of warp three could be maintained for more than a year if necessary, allowing a determined pilot to reach a wide range of interstellar targets.

Naturally, fifteen-month cruises were full of hardships for a one-man crew, and onboard conditions could become unbearable in far shorter time. It took special courage for a pilot to venture that deep into space aboard such a small craft. In addition to guts, special competence in warp engine repair and antimatter technology was required for obtaining a master’s license for a Questor, not to mention the considerable wealth needed to purchase the vessel in the first place. Typical customers were corporations that utilized the vessels in short interstellar or insystem liaison operations; in these less arduous journeys, up to three passengers in addition to the pilot could be semi-comfortably accommodated in the simple bunk compartment amidships and the central social space and entry foyer forward of it. Access to and from the interior spaces was through side doors with integrated one-man airlocks, or a dorsally deployed docking tube.

A corporate Questor touching down on Mars, displaying the simple but efficient landing gear to advantage. Gas-heating atmospheric engines handle precision guidance at final approach and touchdown, negating a need for powerful lateral gravitics.

Some lone eccentrics in possession of sufficient resources did buy the vessels for personal use, be it simple pleasure or more altruistic goals. Of the latter, the Australian-Denevan dilithium zillionaire and philanthropist Carter Winston is a good example. Tragically, this colorful if controversial researcher perished while exploring space on his own, in search of ancient, alien arts of healing. His battered vessel Cybil Mae, recovered near the Romulan border by USS Enterprise, was in 2270 brought to display on the Winston memorial grounds in Canberra.

While theoretically stowable aboard starships, the Questor design did not quite meet Star Fleet’s needs for an advanced starship auxiliary. There were obvious shortcomings in the design from the military point of view, like the lack of combat shielding or long-range communications or sensor gear, or incompatibility of refueling and resupply systems. Much of the warp performance was superfluous for a starship auxiliary, whereas onboard spaces were optimized for habitation, not cargo and passenger volume and efficient ingress/egress. Still, an evaluation period in 2261-63 established the value of the craft in outpost liaison missions, and Star Fleet purchased some 149 Questors for use as runabouts. These were mainly distributed across the administrative outposts of the colonization zone, as well as a number of embassies and consulates on non-Federation worlds.

The last Questors were drawn from Fleet service in 2286, at which time comparable types of long-range shuttlecraft were already in regular use on starbases and being deployed on large starships as well. Still, the Questor design had whetted Star Fleet’s appetite for modern runabouts, and directly prompted the development of the Juneau class in the 2280s. Unofficially, several distant outposts retained Questors for liaison tasks well into the 2320s.

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References

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