Oolite Bulletins

cbr wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 3:37 pm

Pandorum movie, freight = ~60k humans

ffutures wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 3:20 pm

SF works where substantial parts of the plot are set aboard space FREIGHTERS. For the purposes of this question a freighter is a ship designed primarily to transport cargo, not passengers, from one place to another and it must be actually doing this for a substantial part of the work - I'm prepared to be flexible within reason about how substantial that is.

Disembodied wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 4:44 pm

Alien, set aboard the M-Class Lockmart CM 88B Bison starfreighter USCSS Nostromo. There are acres of fascinating facts about the Nostromo in this article from the website Typeset in the Future, not least that the Captain's jacket has the ship's name written across the back in Pump Demi, ‘recently voted “Most 70s Font Of All Time” by the International Font Council.’

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 6:27 pm

ffutures wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 3:20 pm

SF works where substantial parts of the plot are set aboard space FREIGHTERS. For the purposes of this question a freighter is a ship designed primarily to transport cargo, not passengers, from one place to another and it must be actually doing this for a substantial part of the work - I'm prepared to be flexible within reason about how substantial that is.

OK, I'm going to go to the (I think un-named) General Products #4 ship where significant action in the Niven/ Lerner "Fleet of Worlds" takes place. In the book, the ramjet-propelled human colony ship ("Long Pass" - a nod to Pern?) is taken by the Puppeteers, gutted of embryo banks then stored inside a GP#4 freighter (colloquially known to the "Colonists" reared from the embryo banks as a "grain ship" - it's design task) which is placed in orbit around a "Nature Preserve" world. It isn't clear, but the colony ramship was seized when it encountered the "Nature Preserve" world being freighted to the Fleet of Worlds, and this GP#4 ship may have been carrying parts/ supplies for the planet-moving task force, and was then co-opted for storing/ experimenting on the captured colonists. But this cargo was then transported, firstly to the Fleet of Worlds, then within the fleet to a location where the "Colonists" were unlikely to find it.
If the GP#4 ship had a name, it wasn't a big point because the "Colonists" got access to it by accidentally finding the SDTP (Stepping Disc Transfer Protocol) address for it.
Convenient things, stepping discs - odd that they emerged into Known Space not long after Star Trek's transporters started malfunctioning with monotonous regularity. Reminds me of how lifts (elevators) were a technology in waiting until Elisha Otis developed a brake system that turned a snapped hoist rope into an abrupt halt without a preceding 32ft/s/s plummet. Nice case of nominative determinism too.

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 1:38 am

The ship's design is as a freighter, for certain - they get mentioned at several points in Known Space stories. This one's individual history isn't discussed much - up until it's destruction. Which, for a supposedly indestructible hull, is a significant point.
Niven must have regretted inventing indestructible hulls, because pretty much the moment the first royalty cheque for Neutron Star cleared, he started inventing ways to destroy them. Even some of his characters have noticed.
This freighter is a storage cupboard at the time of this story, but having worked shipping which has alternated minute by minute between riding at anchor as a "floating deck extension" and travelling as a link to shore (with occasional service as an emergency heliport), I don't see a lot of distinction between the classes. Put a pilot and service crew aboard (to check out or reinstall the heavy duty stepping discs) and it could be back into being a freighter as soon as it gets to an appropriate port.

cbr wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:40 pm

Mainly Cargo Freighter I believe, Serenity from Serenity...

ffutures wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 6:49 pm

OK, a few clues.