Research Vessel (Ship Classification)
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Type: | Civilian/Military |
| Designation: | RV (Civilian), PNC (Military) |
| Builder: | BaeNorGrumLockMart |
| Decks: | 1 |
| Length Overall: | 21 meters / 7 standard frames |
| Height: | 9 meters |
| Beam: | 9 meters |
| Primary Mission: | Civilian: Research Vessel; Military: Personnel Transport Auxiliary Vessel |
| Drive: | Alcubierre Warp, Alcubierre Sub-Light |
| Warp Capable: | Yes, up to Warp 5 |
| Rotation Capable: | Civilian: Yes; Military: With retrofit controls |
| Atmosphere Capable: | Yes |
| Armament: | Light, primarily defensive |
| Complement: | 2; pilot and navigator |
| Passenger Capacity: | 6 in seats |
| Freight Tonnage: | TBD |
| Commanded By: | Depends on mission |
Research Vessels are first mentioned in The Lion of God. Pinnaces (the military version) are first mentioned in The Lion and the Lizard (as a possible new Space Force vessel class) and first seen in action in The Lion in Paradise.
At some point between the end of The Lion and the Lizard and the beginning of The Lion in Paradise, USSF frigates begin carrying two pinnaces each, along with their previous complement of 12 Space Force Marine dropships.
History
The first RV (Frumious Bandersnatch) was actually designed and built as the first testbed of the Alcubierre singularity drive developed by John Wolff and Christopher von Barronov in the 2020's. Because they expected to use the ship on exploration runs for extended periods, they had the passenger compartment outfitted rather comfortably, if not luxuriously, by RoadTrek (a (real world) RV manufacturer in Canada). While this outfitting was done at their own expense, and despite it being continually pointed out the ship was a privately-owned vessel, it nevertheless raised a number of eyebrows in Space Force.
John Wolff told Sarah Rivers the pilot's and navigator's station was emblazoned with a "FORD" logo because they'd had Ford's racing division design the cockpit. Delaney Wolff Fox later relates (in A Dragon in the Foie Gras) that her mother (Ariela Rivers Wolff) disparaged the whole thing because it was really an homage to "that damn Heinlein book," which Ariela had read as a teenager, and despised. ("That damn Heinlein book" being The Number of the Beast, and the homage being to Gay Deceiver being a Ford aircar capable of rotating in four dimensions, though the Bandersnatch's ability to rotate actually came later than the design and construction of her cockpit dashboard.) Delaney tells us, while describing the Bandersnatch's dashboard:
(Which for some inexplicable reason has "FORD" prominently embossed on it, in that old-fashioned 20th Century script emblem they used to use. I keep meaning to ask Grumpaw why. Keep forgetting. And now's not the time. Mom says it has something to do with "that damn Heinlein book" I've never gotten around to reading because she hates it so much. Grandma Sarah, on the other hand, says Grumpaw told her it was because some fancy division at Ford Motors and Aerospace built the console for them.)
-- A Dragon in the Foie Gras
Armament
Originally, the Frumious Bandersnatch was unarmed. In Chapter 3 of The Lion and the Lizard, it is revealed that a roof turret has been installed, containing "a cut-down Constellation-class tribarrel, three four-inchers, [putting] out about 250 million electron volts each. So the total is 750MeV."
Side guns are added later, I haven't the time to go look for when I added that innovation.
Therefore:
Research Vessels and Pinnaces are very lightly-armed, with only a cut-down tri-barrel plasma cannon in a roof turret and similar "side guns" (one on each side of the ship) which aren't particularly useful since they aren't gimballed and merely point out to the side (but they can deliver a substantive "broadside" to an aggressor coming in from that direction). Neither version of the design is intended as a warship, the armament is purely defensive.
Miniaturized "Rods from God" in Development?
During the course of The Lion in Paradise, Wolff and von Barronov twice mention a miniature implementation of boosted "Rods from God" that would fire foot-long, tungsten kinetic kill rods, again from the sides of the ship. Two issues are finding a place in the ship's already-crammed service module to install them, and the fact that the testbed guns keep exploding when fired. There is no success in this venture during the course of The Lion in Paradise.
Airlock and Outer Hatch
Another point of contention regarding the Frumious Bandersnatch was the choice to install a full, two-man-capable airlock in such a small craft. However, given the environments Wolff and von Barronov expected to be exploring, such an airlock was a highly-desirable feature.
At the time the Bandersnatch was designed and built, there was only one type of "common" airlock outer hatch in use in space -- a commercial, "latch on and inflate" hatch that would mate with the hatches designed for the ISS and other ships, including those constructed by SpaceX and others. (Even the Chinese used them. Stole them, but used them.) In order to dock with these other stations and ships, Bandersnatch had to have a compatible outer hatch.
When BaeNorGrumLockMart received the original order for the six Space Force frigates, it designed a new style airlock outer hatch, known as a "fast-attach" hatch, which uses a mechanism similar to that of the bayonet mount on a modern camera lens to allow dropships and shuttles to quickly rendezvous, mate, and twist only about 10° to create an airtight seal. This is much faster and much less finicky than the old-style locking mechanisms. That said, because of the number of "commercial" airlock hatches still in use on commercial ships, BaeNorGrumLockMart was forced to design a compromise hatch that would accommodate either system.
All of the pinnaces constructed for Space Force, beginning with USSF Tumtum, were built with the "fast-attach" hatch. Frumious Bandersnatch continued to use her old-style hatch until damage done to her hull in 2249 AD necessitated the replacement of all of her external hullmetal plates. At that time, Wolff and von Barronov decided it made sense to change the outer airlock hatch as well. The old hatch, the last of its kind still in use, was donated to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in 2250. Meanwhile, BaeNorGrumLockMart heaved a sigh of relief and tossed the compromise hatch design out the airlock.
Rotation Controls
Much is made in the books of "the big red switches" used by Wolff (and later, Ariela) to rotate the Frumious Bandersnatch through Alcubierre-Heinlein space. Because this particular homage is less obvious than the "FORD" dashboard, the author wishes to point out that the "big red switches" are an homage to the gigantic circuit breakers used by Capt. Tanya Kirbuk Orlova (Helen Mirren) in the film 2010 to engage the main Sakharov Drive of the Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. (He always thought they were too cool for school.)
It should be noted that only the Frumious Bandersnatch and the USSF Tumtum have rotation capability, at least as of 2249.
Known class examples
RV Frumious Bandersnatch, RV-1
USSF Tumtum, PNC-1