the Jupiter Mining Corporation starbug
class ship to Surface Transport fills an
important role within the corporation's
fleet assigned to the JM C's massive
solar class mining ships the starbug is
used to carry cargo and personnel from
the larger vessel to a planet surface or
orbital installation the starbug was
famously unreliable cheaply made and
prone to malfunction the numerous class
ii starbug's assigned to the JMC mining
vessel red dwarf suffered from the same
budget cutbacks as their mothership and
were beginning to show their age
even before the cadmium 2 radiation leak
which exterminated the ship's crew
shortly before the incident the class 2
star bug was withdrawn from service due
to major flight design issues and red
dwarfs compliment was scheduled for
decommissioning despite their obvious
flaws the star bugs aboard Red Dwarf
endured the following 3 million years of
neglect uncharacteristically well
requiring only minor repairs before they
could be used again slightly larger than
the standard blue shuttlecraft
the star bug is able to undertake
journeys of a much greater distance and
though cramped and uncomfortable provide
basic living conditions for a small crew
though the star bugs design function is
that of a freighter and transport
shuttle the ship often found use as a
scout vessel and survey craft providing
its gargantuan slow-paced mothership
with a means of investigating potential
dangers and points of interest without
deviating from its own course though the
factory star bug was not equipped with
energy weapons the ship did carry limpet
mine launchers and a basic cloaking
device providing the ship with some
means of self defense and stealth
functionality the Starbuck was not only
capable of atmospheric flight but also
of operating underwater in addition to
this the vessel was equipped with
deployable caterpillar tracks for slow
movement across land and carried small
boats and boogies for use by landing
parties the star bugs design team was
apparently so convinced that the ship
would never find itself engaged in
combat that they installed only a single
light bulb in the cockpit alert light so
that bringing the ship to Red Alert
condition required the crew to manually
change the bulb of the various star bug
craft left aboard Red Dwarf many were
lost to accidents and malfunctions but
the lead vessel of Red Dwarf
compliment starbug one not only survived
far longer than its sister ships but
also received a great deal of upgrades
in refits across its lifecycle after the
remaining crew of red dwarf lost control
of their mothership following the
despair squid incident Starbuck Wan
became the crews primary means of
transport as they pursued their lost
vessel lacking any real weaponry the
crew made use of the ship's garbage
disposal unit to launch molten balls of
waste at attackers during the hunt for
red dwarf star bhagwan encountered a
hostile simulant death ship whose crew
in order to provide themselves with a
greater challenge equipped the starbug
with laser cannons flares and improved
engines much to the surprise of the
simulants the starbug crew then used
these weapons to destroy them
immediately later encounters led to the
ship receiving a 300% engine speed
upgrade from an intelligent virus and a
212 percent increase in the ship's
internal space after a complex
dimensional anomaly the anomaly created
a pocket dimension which increased the
size of the vessels interior while
keeping it exterior the same size the
extra space was used to outfit starbug
one with extra sleeping quarters a
larger cargo bay a Medical Center and
the upgraded artificial reality suite
sadly starbug one was eventually lost
after an uncontrolled crash landing
aboard Red Dwarf but the former crew of
the star bug recognizing that the small
and outdated spacecraft had time and
again shown resilience and reliability
far in excess of its design and
reputation had another of the mining
ships many remaining star bugs renamed
Starbuck one in honor of the ship that
had helped them pursue and reclaim their
stolen home
thank you for watching Spacedock please
remember to Like subscribe and share for
more science fiction space craft
summaries and if there's a particular
spacecraft you'd like to see looked up
let me know in the comments below and
I'll get right on it