A. Chief Science Officer (CSO)
B. Assistant Chief Science Officer (ACSO)
C. Other Science positions
III. Science Stations
A. Introduction
B. Science Station Functions
IV. Science and Remote Sensing Systems
A. Introduction
B. Long-range sensors
C. Lateral sensor arrays
D. Navigational sensors
I. Overview
Aboard Federation starships/starbases, the Science department crew members are responsible for scientific research and investigations and for providing the ship's/base's Commanding Officer with scientific information needed for command decisions.
The head of the Science Department on a ship or base is the Chief Science Officer; the CSO has a staff which is usually commensurate with the size and mission of the ship in question. Small ships may have only one science officer, and he may also function as the ship's First Officer. On the other hand, larger starships, such as the Galaxy or Sovereign class, may have dozens of science officers. The CSO on larger ships will have an office, smaller ships may not have the space.
II. Position Descriptions
A. Chief Science Officer (CSO)
The Chief Science Officer is generally responsible for obtaining and analyzing all scientific data received from the ship's sensors, whether from the main sensor arrays or hand-held tricorders. The CSO is responsible to take raw data provided by these input devices and translate that data into dialogue easily understood by the crew, especially the ship's Commanding Officer. The CSO is also responsible for overseeing the different science labs/teams under their control and reporting to the Commanding Officer on a regular basis.
B. Assistant Chief Science Officer (ACSO)
The Assistant Chief Science Officer (ACSO) is responsible for aiding the Chief Science Officer in the execution of his/her duties. The Assistant Chief Science Officer is required to assume the role of Chief Science Officer if and when the need arises or if the Chief Science Officer is unable to perform his/her duty adequately.
C. Other Science positions
The following positions in the Science Department are not part of a vessel's Senior Staff. Therefore, they do not always have a role in plots. They can be officers or enlisted personnel. With your captain's permission, they can be your main PC, an SPC or NPC.
Science Officer (SciO)
A regular Science Officer may either be a specialist, concentrating in one or two specific areas, or be a "general practitioner", a jack-of-all-trades.
Archaeology & Anthropology Officer (AAO)
A ship's Archaeology and Anthropology specialist is responsible for providing the captain with any historical data necessary for the completion of a mission, and is called upon to investigate historical records and archaeological sites during the course of a mission.
Stellar Cartographer (SC)
Stellar Cartographiers specialize in the mapping of the galaxy. Since planets and stars are in constant movement, they are required to adapt maps as needed using the ship's computer and sensors. They also track other interstellar phenomena.
Astronomy Officer (AO)
The Astronomy Officer studies celestial bodies, and are responsible for providing the Science Officer or Captain with data regarding any celestial bodies a ship may encounter.
III. Science Stations
A. Introduction
The Science stations on the command decks of Federation starships/starbases are used by Science personnel to provide realtime scientific data to the Command personnel. These stations need not to be assigned full-time personnel, but they are available for use as needed.
Individual Science stations are generally configured for independent operation, but they can be linked together when to or more researchers need to work cooperatively. Primary Science stations on the command deck have priority links to Flight Control, Operations and Tactical. During Alert status, Science stations may have priority access to the Sensor systems of the vessel, if necessary overriding ongoing Science department observations and other secondary missions upon approval by the Operations manager (OPS).
B. Science Station Functions
Primary functions of Science stations include:
The ability to provide access to Sensors and interpretive software for primary mission and Command intelligence requirements and to supplement Operations in providing realtime scientific data for Command decisionmaking support.
The ability to act as a command post for coordination of activities of various Science laboratories and other departments, as well as for monitoring of secondary mission status.
The ability to reconfigure and recalibrate Sensor systems at a moment's notice for specific Command intelligence requirements.
IV. Science and Remote Sensing Systems
A. Introduction
The internal and external sensors in a starship/starbase are in control of the Operations Department. Besides the navigational and tactical use of the sensor systems, the sensors are also an important system for scientific use.
Federation starships/starbases have three primary sensor systems:
Long-range sensor array
These sensors are a collection of high-power devices, designed to sweep far ahead of the ship's flight path, or the starbase's orbit, to gather navigational and scientific information.
Lateral sensor arrays
These include the forward, port and starboard arrays on the Primary hull as well as the port, starboard and aft arrays on the Secondary hull. Additionally, there are smaller upper and lower sensor arrays located around the ship/base to provide coverage in the lateral arrays' blind spots.
Navigational sensors
These dedicated sensors are tied directly into the ship's/base's Flight Control systems and are used to determine the ship's location and velocity. On the starbase they are used to control flight operations, much like ancient air traffic control systems controlled aircraft movements.
In addition, there are several packages of special-purpose and engineering sensors such as the subspace flow sensors located at various points on the ship's/base's hull.
B. Long-range sensors
Some of the most powerful scientific instruments are part of the the long-range sensor array. The array consists of several high-power active and passive subspace frequency sensors, which are located behind the deflector dish in the Engineering hull.
Most of the long-range sensors are active scan subspace devices, which permit information gathering at speeds greatly exceeding that of light. Maximum effective range of this array is approximately five light years in high-resolution mode. Operation in medium-to-low resolution mode yields a usable range of approximately 17 light years (depending on instrument type). At this range, a sensor scan pulse transmitted at Warp 9.9997 would take approximately forty-five minutes to reach its destination and another forty-five minutes for the signal to return. Standard scan protocols permit comprehensive study of approximately one adjacent sector per day at this rate. Within the confines of a solar system, the long-range sensor array is capable or providing nearly instantaneous information.
Primary instruments in the long-range array include:
Wide-angle active EM scanner
Narrow-angle active EM scanner
2 meter diameter gammar ray telescope
Variable frequency EM flux sensor
Lifeform analysis instrument cluster
Parametric subspace field stress sensor
Gravimetric distortion scanner
Passive neutrino imaging scanner
Thermal imaging array
C. Lateral sensor arrays
Federation starships/starbases are equipped wit the most extensive array of sensor equipment available. The spacecraft/base exterior incorporates a number of large sensor arrays providing ample instrument positions and optimal three-axis coverage.
Each sensor array is composed of a continuous rack in which are mounted a series of individual sensor instrument pallets. These sensor pallets are modules designed for easy replacement and updating on instrumentation. Approximately two-thirds of all pallet positions are occupied by standard Starfleet science sensor packages, but the remaining positions are available for mission-specific instrumentation. Sensor array pallets provide microwave power feed, optical data net links, cryogenic coolant feeds, and mechanical mounting points. Also provided are four sets of instrumentation steering servo clusters and two data subprocessor computers.
The standard Starfleet science sensor complement consists of a series of six pallets, which include the following devices:
Pallet #1
Wide-angle EM radiation imaging scanner
Quark population analysis counter
Z-range particulate spectrometry sensor
Pallet #4
Active magnetic interferometry scanner
Low-frequency EM flux sensor
Localized subspace field stress sensor
Parametric subspace field stress sensor
Hydrogen-filter subspace flux scanner
Linear calibration subspace flux sensor
Pallet #5
Variable band optical imaging cluster
Virtual aperture graviton flux spectrometer
High-resolution graviton flux spectrometer
Very low energy graviton spin polarimeter
Pallet #6
Passive imaging gamma interferometry sensor
Low-level thermal imaging sensor
Fixed angle gamma frequency counter
Virtual particle mapping camera
The standard Starfleet sensor complement comprises twenty-four semi-redundant suites of these six standard sensor pallets. These 144 pallets are distributed on the Primary Hull and Secondary Hull lateral arrays. The instrumentation is located to maximize redundant coverage. A total of 284 pallet positions are available on both hulls.
The upper and lower sensor platforms provide coverage in very high and very low vertical elevation zones. These arrays employ a more limited subset of the standard Starfleet instrument package.
In addition to standard Starfleet instruments, mission-specific investigations frequently require nonstandard instruments that can be installed into one or more of the 140 nondedicated sensor pallets. When such devices are relatively small, such installation can be accomplished from service access ports inside the spacecraft.
Installation of larger devices must be accomplished by extravehicular activity. A number of personnel airlocks are located in the sensor strip bays for this purpose. If a device is sufficiently large, or if installation entails replacement of one or more entire sensor pallets, a shuttlepod can be used for extravehicular equipment handling.
D. Navigational sensors
Federation starship systems constantly process incoming sensor data and routinely perform billions of calculations each second to solve the problem of interstellar navigation.
Sensors provide the imput; the navigational processors within the main computers reduce the incessant stream of impulses into usuable position and velocity data. The specific navigational sensors being polled at any instant will depend on the current flight situation. If the starship is in orbit about a known celestial object, such as a planet in a charted star system, many long-range sensors will be inhibited, and short-range devices will be favoured. If the ship is cruising in interstellar space, the long-range sensors are selected and a majority of the short-range sensors are powered down. As with an organic system, the computers are not overwhelmed by a barrage of sensory information.
The 350 navigational sensor assemblies are, by design, isolated from extraneous cross-links with other general sensor arrays. This isolation provides more direct impulse pathways to the computers for rapid processing, especially at high warp velocities, where minute directional errors, in hundreths of an arc-second per light year, could result in impact with a star, planet or asteroid. In certain situations. selected cross-links may be created in order to filter out system discrepancies flagged by the main computer.
Each standard suite of navigational sensors includes:
The navigational system within the main computers accepts sensor input at adaptive data rates, mainly tied to the ship's true velocity within the galaxy. The subspace fields within the computers, which maintain faster-than-light (FTL) processing, attempt to provide at least 30% higher proportional energies than those required to drive the spacecraft, in order to maintain a safe collision-avoidance margin. If the FTL processing power drops below 20% over propulsion, general mission rules dictate a commensurate drop in warp motive power to bring the safety level back up. Specific situations and resulting courses of action within the computer will determine the actual procedures, and special navigation operating rules are followed during emergency and combat conditions.
Sensor pallets dedicated to navigation, as with certain tactical and propulsion systems, undergo preventative maintenance and swapout on a more frequent schedule than other science-related equipment, owing to the critical nature of their operation. Healthy components are normally removed after 65-70% of their established lifetimes. This allows additional time for component refurbishment, and a larger performance margin if swapout is delayed by mission conditions or periodic spares unavailability.
