In space, things can go balls up in minutes. Seconds even. For when this happens, and the
worst case scenario is realised there is always the option to abandon ship. Hi Ric here examining
what happens when things go wrong and the role of escape pods and the like within a
Starfleet vessel. Escape pods themselves come in a variety of
shapes and sizes and while the technology involved is much the same, the outward design
of them changes to reflect the vessel that they’re built for. This is because the ships
need to be near the surface of the hull and also unobtrusive in design so as not to create
unneeded protrusions and the like. Some share a design such as those on the intrepid
class and the defiant, which were manufactured at around the same time, so it makes sense
that they’d fit a universal pod design. Other times however, a vessel’s design necessitates
the construction of a uniquely shaped escape pod to maximise use of space. After all, these
capsules need to accommodate the entire crew of a Starship and guests so an economical
use of space is a must. The emergency escape pods, or lifeboats, are
stowed across many ships, just below the hull and aimed outwards and away from the vessel.
Whereas ships like Intrepid class stored their escape pods beneath outer hull hatches, the
Sovereign class needed their own completely new design that slotted directly into recesses
in the hull. This would have both benefits and negatives. A hatch protects the vessel
and the more fragile pods from debris and the like, but equally could become damaged
and not deploy correctly. The hatch-less variant was prominent in ship design moving forward
from the 2370s. The various designs thereby had different
interiors but each seated 6 to 8 people. The Intrepid had 36 pods located across several
decks so its total evacuation capacity was 216 to 288 depending on seating. This also
does not include Voyagers infinite number of magic shuttlecraft. I’m joking but in
all honesty, a quickly prepped shuttle might also serve as a useful escape vehicle, the
only downside is shuttles need prep time that wasn’t always an option. The Defiant class
has 26 of the same model lifeboat so it could have evacuated its entire crew plus quite
a bit extra. I’ve already done a video on the alert conditions
which are sounded when a Starship is about to encounter danger and what they actually
do to the makeup of a vessel at ready status, so If you want a thematically linked video,
that ties in nicely. Presuming whatever danger the vessel has encountered is deemed terminal
to the ship, the captain or whoever is in command at the time can give the order to
“abandon ship”. It’s very important to note, that only the current commander of
a vessel can execute that order so as to avoid any confusion.
When an evacuation alarm was issued, an automated PA system would make sure that everyone on
board knew of it. Part of life aboard a Starship, civilian or otherwise was the involvement
in drills, one of which would have been evacuation actions. Every person on the ship was assigned
to a pod to which they had to report to in case of evacuation. This strict designation
was to prevent people scrambling over one another trying to reach the nearest pod and
allow for a more orderly evacuation while practice ensured speed.
Once seated within the capsule and its capacity reached, the pod was jettisoned away from
the vessel with a powerful and sudden acceleration lessened by the inertial dampeners. This was
to accelerate the diminutive craft away from a potential blast radius of and exploding
Starship and hopefully lessen the chance of any debris impact. Once adrift the pods are
pretty much waiting to be rescued. The escape pods are without a warp core so there is no
warp drive at all. At most, they have a mild impulse engine, but more often than not, they
simply have Control Thrusters that allow for some basic manoeuvring, stabilisation and
course correction. What they do have however, is a very powerful subspace transmitter that
can cut through a lot of interference and has a rather large range. This beacon is of
course to capture the attention of friendly rescue vessels; however it can be silenced
on command in case of nearby hostiles. Depending on the make of the lifeboat there
are now several different options. In most of the cases, the pods simply drift awaiting
rescue. Those installed on the Intrepid and Defiant classes had enough provisions and
power to last its occupants for 8 months. Older models, like the ASRV, only had room
for one occupant but had a gaggle mode function where they would seek out the other pods and
link up, creating a pressurised seal to share space and resources. These ones had enough
power to keep a single occupant alive for 86 days, however the docking of more of these
vessels increased survivability drastically. Aside from drifting in space, the vessels
had decent scanners and would be able to locate and guide pods towards any landmarks, such
as a planetary body, ideally an M or L class world. The H-class escape pods had a heat
shield across their outer surface that was as strong as the hull of the vessel from which
it came. This made for a powerful barrier and although all makes of pod were suitable
for atmospheric re-entry, the H class was even more so adapted. Generally the pods had
enough thrust to escape gravity wells before they became an issue, but once down, could
not produce enough to take off again. Making safe landfall drastically increased
survivability too and was usually recommended. Unless you died on impact. Or your pod was
damaged. Or the planet was a gas giant. Urgh, that would suck., imagine sinking to crush
depth in a gas giant. Like beans in a can being run over by a bus. Or beans with those
little sausage things in them. I’m’ hungry. Speaking of… the pods. They had ration packs
but I suspect from the whole 8 month supply thing, that they had emergency replicators
installed. I couldn’t find much to confirm that however, so that’s just an educated
guess, but it would save on a lot of space and if the power died, then you could turn
over to rations packs. Feeding 6 for eight months is going to take up quite a lot of
room otherwise and escape pods were all about maximum survivability in minimal space.
Speaking of space, there was very little room in them, especially when fully occupied. There
were recycling facilities aboard which meant that, well. Everything would be recycled and
broken down to be reconstituted, including waste. I suspect there would be at least a
closet to house the latrine if it were needed to capture and break down all waste. I hope
that’s not where the food comes from. On top of this, most escape pods had a single
phaser strip. I highly doubt it was very powerful and after all, using it would cut into power
reserves, but perhaps it could be useful at times. So time spent in such an escape pod,
simply drifting would be rather taxing no doubt. At only just over three metres cubed,
there was very little room to exercise and after too long, any rescued personnel would
be in dire condition, but hopefully alive. On the bright side, chances are good that
if you were jettisoned in Federation space, there is a high chance you’ll be rescued
and even battlefields are surveyed after the fact to look for survivors.
If your beacon is inactive for some reason, than there’s also the chance that your life
signs could be detected and there’s always that pod’s phaser array. Pew pew, I’m
over here! Ideally though, making planet fall would be
best where you can then reunite with other dropped pods and set about implementing your
Starfleet survival training. As dire as the situation is, think about this. The amount
of times that people have been rescued from shuttles that have crashed and those things
aren’t even designed to keep you alive for months at a time, so yeah. Escape pods for
the win. The exact contents of a lifeboat are not disclosed
in prime canon, but as real life equivalents contain things like flares, fishing lines
and a basic survival gear, it’s likely that the Star Trek equivalents contain similar,
but futuristic variations. Maybe not a fishing line, although it would make sense to have
some form of hunting gear if the pod were to make landfall.
Adding to this, we get a thorough look at the inside of a Star Trek Kelvin universe
survival pod, and although these were limited to one occupant, each did have a survival
kit inside it. That kit contained tougher attire to protect against the elements, communication
gear, a hand phaser and medical supplies. Although from a different universe, those
sorts of basics make a lot of sense and are likely included in most Prime counterpart
models. Again though, cannot confirm. Starfleet guidelines in survival situations
require crew to seek each other out and make every attempt at being rescued. Most Starfleet
subspace transmitters were detachable from their ship, such as those in runabouts, so
maybe the pod would even contain something like this, where you could remove the transmitter
and relocate it should the need arise to leave the point of landfall. I like saying landfall,
you may have noticed. So there we go, the general actions during
and after an escape attempt from a doomed Starfleet vessel. I was surprised at how little
information there was on this sort of thing. I could find a lot on the specs and design
of the escape pods, but most of that was beta canon and Trekyards did a useful video focused
on that element a while back, linked below, but as for the actual survivability and what
comes after the launch, that is kind of lacking. Would make for a cool episode however.
Anyway, thank you for watching this video on the Starfleet style escape pods and I hope
it was entertaining. Maybe I did this because I’m sympathetic to the idea of staring at
the same four walls in a small room for months at a time, but at least here I can crack open
a window. Wouldn’t recommend that in space. Thanks again for watching, I’ve been Ric,
goodbye!