Maybe it's a stupid post but I've decided to try my luck. As much as I love reading sci-fi, my new short story is my first attempt at writing it. I have been struggling with one very important thing, the setting. I can see the large spaceship where all the action takes place, but even at a threat of imminent torture, I can't make out exactly what kind of ship it is. Reasearch... Military... Cargo...? argh... Maybe someone has any ideas on what the ship might be, what kind of large spaceships could there be. It's large, crew of 100-120 people. Will be very thankful for any ideas! Thanks in advance!
A story about a cargo/scavenger ship that has to fight off pirates and such would be cool. Maybe a "day in the life of" type story that's broken up with action. Most people make stories about galactic war, and such. Be nice to show what civilian spacefarers go through.
There has to be a reason for a ship to be manned by 100 people. For a merchant ship, I'd imagine that the crew would be a bit smaller than that, as the ship just has to haul around Cargo, but a scientific or military vessel may have more personnel due to the nature of its mission. 100 people sounds like the crew of a destroyer or cruiser to me, although it really just depends on how many people are required to man ships in your universe. 100 people seems like too few for a passanger ship to me, unless they are headed to a remote colony. Unless interstellar travel is very cheap, I'd think ships would have more people on them thn 100.
I think such ships of the future would be organized along military or commercial maritime lines, with captain, deck officers, engineering gang, and deckhands (laborers). Is this an interplanetary or interstellar ship?
Depends. What do you want the characters to be? Are they soldiers? Are they upper class? Lower class? If they're soldiers, you might have a military transport, it might be a scout ship, a medical ship, a landing craft, something designed for planetary bombardment.... If they're intended to be white collar, reasonably well-off types, it might be a research vessel, a diplomatic vessel, a pleasure yacht. If they're blue-collar working class types, it might be a mining ship, a cargo ship, a prison transport. Or it might be a ship which incorporates some of the above; a generational colony ship, for example. This will depend on your characters and story. How does the government work? Is it peacetime or war, etc. and what role do your characters play in it?
I find the settings I use to be world built by the characters I make. Whatever they need, seems to shape the world they interact within. So, As they develop, the settinng develops withh them. that's how it seems to work for me. For your space ship, the kind, what sort of action are you anticipating? What are the character traits and what sort of people are those traits common with? If you are building the world they operate in first, then look at todays world of ships/planes/trains. There's always freighting, traveling, fighting, cargo. There's support vehicles for all of them. A tow truck, moble service and field repair, aircraft carriers, medical ship, science vessels for oceanography. Etc. There are literally endless combinations you can come up with. What ones of those have 100 people on them? how many do you think it takes to run any of them but also in space? Youll need a few mechanics to keep the thing fixed, air tight and running, crew to keep it moving, and the staff to do what the ship is for. Science vessels are cool, and unprotected I would say - specially cool if you are runnning a fantasy space story. Long ago I disasterously started an accident investigator floating in his suit checking out the damage of a lost and newly found derilict starliner sent out for colonization. four hundred years old it was and coated with ice ike a comet. Heavily influenced by the concept of the space hulk games. Anything can be done, but you need to figure out what your characters problems to overcome will be. Then put them in a ship that would likely encounter that and then build off there.
Thank you so much for all your answers! I was brainstorming and now am trying to think 'what if it were larger'... The thing that scares me is getting some of the scifi mechanics wrong :/ like I've said, love reading it, never tried writing it. At the moment I am thinking of making it a harvester/refinery ship. Kind of a moving colony which travels to distant stars to harvest ore/gas/something else from other far off planets.
That's a good start. Then I would look at commercial fishing ships, the big ones, maybe whalers, fishing factory ships like the Russians use, or stationary oil rigs for the type of people you will find in that line of work. And you will be likely to have a few scientific types on board, and like as not they and the blue collars won't mix well together. And don't worry about genre... it's all about people, sci-fi is just a different setting
So you are looking at a mining vessel. Well it will be massive if you plan on having storage space for ore/gas, along with the equipment necessary to mine it and gather it. It will not travel all that fast, unless you are ok with FTL travel. Would recommend having a large green house or terrarium on board for sustaining food (like farmed food, livestock, and maybe fish). Depending on how 'realistic' you can have the old artificial gravity generator, or always have to spin the craft to maintain a form of gravitational field. The quarters can be small individuals, or just have more of an open barrack. They will also need some equipment to harvest ice from misc. bodies on the way, and should try to recycle what they can form optimum efficiency. Might also want to have small amenities like a gym, or a lounge/bar for entertainment and recreation. Otherwise your crew will get bored and go bananas, or insane and do some crazy stuff. Well there are a few thoughts in the direction you can go. Check out the specs for a ship like the Nostromo from the Aleins movies, it was a mining vessel until it got blown up. Had a much smaller crew was massive and utilized cryo pods instead of housing for the crew. Hope this helps you get an idea for what you can play around with in writing your story.
Harvester refinery ships. Oh fun, because you now have a multiple-ship scenario that can play into this. On earth, today, they have large giant barges that anchor in gas fields and mine the gas, storing it. The Shell Prelude sits in the ocean and collects natural gas. Usually it was then piped to the shore for refining to liquid form, but now with teh Preude, its done so on the ship and then they have a LNG product to be pumped into another ship and taken wherever it needs to be delivered, removing an expensive step that limited the floating barge's range. It's the world's largest ship at this point I think, yet it doesn't have any engines to move it around - relies on tugs. so, in space, a barge to collect resources, that other ships visit to take on the product and move it.
Since no one said it: Cultist ship full of drug addicted omnihumans. Their ship is broken, they take turns living in the radiation heavy areas, and the only food is a cultist who dies. They push on, a captured pilot guiding them to Dst'Walud, the reborn life-maker(a collapsing star). Theirs is a journey is required by the life-maker.