UCS Voyager

The **UCS *Voyager* (LHA-1804-C)** or ***Voyager-*C** is an Atlas-class long-haul exploration starship comissioned for a five-year exploratory mission in Messier 23 at the edge of the Settled Systems.

## History

### Background

The Settled Systems, humanity's interstellar territory, is always expanding. The population boom in the decades following the Great Galactic War pushed humanity's population into the hundreds of billions, bordering on trillions, necessitating further expansion into new habitable worlds. Such planets, termed "golden worlds", were detected on several unmanned expeditions in Messier 23, an open cluster of stars 16 light-years across, at the edge of settled space. By 2467 three planets in the cluster were confirmed to be potential "golden worlds", along with a multitude of less suitable worlds that could be explored for resources. In light of this news, the Admiralty Board comissioned the *Voyager*-C, the third such spacecraft to bear the name, to explore the cluster and deploy colonists to the habitable worlds.

Over the course of its five-year mission, the mission of the *Voyager* would adapt from colonization, to safeguarding, to administration; this required a crew that could adapt just as quickly to their changing responsibilities, which in turn required a captain known to have a history of thinking outside the box when it came to obeying directives while remaining completely loyal to SPACECOM's mission.

In 2475, just before the *Voyager* deployed, such a captain was found: commander Richard "Rick" Goodspeed, a veteran of the U.C. Marines who had earned his reputation by saving an entire colony from Twin Moon raiders despite orders from his superiors to withdraw. Goodspeed came recommended by commander Spyder of Military Intelligence, one of the many colonists saved in Goodspeed's endeavour.

#### Preparation

As the *Voyager* neared completion, its mission reached the ears of the Herschel Nations, who filed an official complaint with the U.C. embassy. According to the Herschel Nations, Messier 23 lay on the bounds of settled Free Republic space - the Free Republic of Diomede to be exact - while being of significant distance from the closest U.C. stronghold; with these factors in mind, the Herschel Nations had every right to declare Messier 23 as sovereign H.N. space. The diplomatic nightmare that resulted delayed the start of *Voyager*'s mission by an entire year, although both sides came to an agreement: the U.C. could commence with their exploration mission of Messier 23 if a H.N. liason joined the crew. Despite knowing that such a liason would almost certainly be a spy, the U.C. agreed; as a result, veteran DFFR intelligence officer Horatio Mede joined the crew of the *Voyager*.

The final pitfall came when Goodspeed himself was informed of his new command; until that point, Goodspeed had expected command of a frigate fleet or even a governorship. The offer, which Goodspeed was free to refuse, came at a time of personal difficulty: his pregnant wife was due in a few months, and he would miss the first five years of his son's life. Although he planned to turn it down, Goodspeed was convinced by his wife to accept command, adding that their son would always know him; suitably assured, Goodspeed accepted command of the *Voyager*.

## Overview

### Operations

#### Propulsion

The *Voyager*'s primary propulsion system are a set of ten high-efficiency pion rocket engines supplemented with a liquid-propellant thermal plasma core drive that can accelerate the *Voyager* to 5% the speed of light.

For FTL travel, the *Voyager* possesses a military-grade roemer drive, one of the most advanced ever built, with a HZQ capacity of 25 light-years per jump. This particular roemer drive is part of SPACECOM's long-haul program and was specially built for seamless jumping, thus minimising the physical and mental stresses on the crew and the ship itself.

#### Power

While the *Voyager* is equipped with radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), like most modern vessels, most of its power comes from the two truss-mounted solar panel arrays on either side of the operations sector. These are the largest solar arrays fitted to a spacecraft of its kind and were deemed necessary due to *Voyager*'s exploration of Sol-like stars and habitable planetary systems.

### Companions

The *Voyager* is joined on its journey by a handful of support ships - C1, C2, C3 and C4 - and a small fleet of *Sojourner* shuttles, each of which is assigned to a colony group destined for one of the "golden worlds" found within M23.

## Crew

### Command

* Rick Goodspeed - captain
* Spydr - first officer, astrogator
* Lynda Shawe - pilot
* Charles Ling - communications
* Buck Blythe - combat specialist
* Mara Channing - doctor
* Horatio Mede - Herschel Nations liason

Rick GoodspeedSpyderLynda ShaweBuck Blythe