"Omega Glory" U.S.S. Exeter status?
- Thread starter Galileo7
- Start date
The Exeter's fate was never revealed onscreen.
In the novels, it was decontaminated and returned to service.
In the novels, it was decontaminated and returned to service.
Thanks!
It is good to know that in the novels this question was answered. I expected that the Enterprise at the end of "The Omega Glory" was going to depart with the Exeter in tractor beam tow. 
And then it was assigned to a new crew led by Captain Garrovick (cousin of Ensign Garrovick from "Obsession"), and they went to the Andorian homeworld and ended up in conflict with the Klingons.
Kor
After which they investigated the disappearance of the U.S.S. Kongo and loss of contact with Starbase 16 on Corinth IV.
I always figured Kirk blew the hell out of it, I mean Picard destroyed the Lantree instead of trying to decontaiminate that ship. Yes, yes, uncurable plague, but please, we can't decontaminate against lots of diseases these days that are uncurable, they're two different things. I figured it was just Starfleet way to cut it's losses and be incredibly wasteful, which does keep in kin with the way they act in all the shows.
Having said that, in the TOS days, since Exeter is only one of 12 Constitution class ships, she was probably cleaned up and returned to service. But nothing canon was officially every written about it, not even in ST Encyc.
Having said that, in the TOS days, since Exeter is only one of 12 Constitution class ships, she was probably cleaned up and returned to service. But nothing canon was officially every written about it, not even in ST Encyc.
Baryon sweep (from Memory Alpha):
A baryon sweep was a procedure used to eliminate baryon particles from a starship. The baryons accumulated as a natural side-effect of warp travel and generally needed to be removed every five years to keep harmful radiation from building up....The sweep was deadly to organic matter, and all lifeforms aboard a ship were evacuated to a safe location before the sweep was initiated.
A baryon sweep was a procedure used to eliminate baryon particles from a starship. The baryons accumulated as a natural side-effect of warp travel and generally needed to be removed every five years to keep harmful radiation from building up....The sweep was deadly to organic matter, and all lifeforms aboard a ship were evacuated to a safe location before the sweep was initiated.
Yeah, but the Lantree was an old ship used as a transport so no big loss. The Exeter was a current ship used for standard starfleet stuff, so probably more of a pain to replace..
One would assume that the agent that made people crumble into piles of dust would have been deliberately engineered to be extremely difficult to get rid of. After all, it was a weapon of war, intended to kill even well-prepared victims.
Whether Constitution class ships as of the late 2260s were expendable or not, we don't know. Yet in light of the newer movies at least, they were midget-category frontier scouts, probably among the most expendable deep space assets in the entire fleet. Sure, Kirk thought fondly of the (surviving!) dozen, but that's no different from the skippers of the tiny Pegasus hydrofoils of the USN valuing their commands and emphasizing their exceptional nature.
Timo Saloniemi
Whether Constitution class ships as of the late 2260s were expendable or not, we don't know. Yet in light of the newer movies at least, they were midget-category frontier scouts, probably among the most expendable deep space assets in the entire fleet. Sure, Kirk thought fondly of the (surviving!) dozen, but that's no different from the skippers of the tiny Pegasus hydrofoils of the USN valuing their commands and emphasizing their exceptional nature.
Timo Saloniemi
Seems like a no brainer as there was nothing wrong with the ship. Would the US or Canadian Navy destroy a perfectly good ship that had a contagious disease on board or would they simply decontaminate it.
I like the idea of the barion sweep. It's kind of like 'space bleach'.
From McCoy's medicobabble, it appears that if somebody beaming down spends enough time on the surface, he not only becomes immune to the local virus, but also ceases to be a carrier. That is, given enough time and exposure to local foodstuffs and whatnot, the body learns to fight and neutralize the virus, and people beaming up will be clean - whatever viral matter they take with them in their pockets, their own bodies aggressively take care of.
So a landing party beaming up after being cured is not (merely) a spreader of the disease, but also a spreader of the cure, immunizing people around them as they infect them. Or something.
Of course, they can also perform whatever standard decon measures the starship has available (Tracey's team may well have skipped those, because we seldom see Kirk's folk use such, and "The Naked Time" suggests there's a very visible effect associated with the procedures) - although I don't think the baryon sweep would do much good, as a virus is not an organic but an inorganic threat.
Timo Saloniemi
So a landing party beaming up after being cured is not (merely) a spreader of the disease, but also a spreader of the cure, immunizing people around them as they infect them. Or something.
Of course, they can also perform whatever standard decon measures the starship has available (Tracey's team may well have skipped those, because we seldom see Kirk's folk use such, and "The Naked Time" suggests there's a very visible effect associated with the procedures) - although I don't think the baryon sweep would do much good, as a virus is not an organic but an inorganic threat.
Amend that to the ship today having radioactive contamination aboard, because that's probably a better match to how difficult it would be for our heroes to clean up the bioweapon. Straight to the scrap heap!
Timo Saloniemi
I think baldly stating that viruses are "not organic" oversimplifies matters. Viruses and based on carbon and contain a single strand of genetic information. They may not be "alive" in the same way that a cell is, but they're mostly made up of the same ingredients, and an active virus in contact with a suitable host cell displays some properties typified by living organisms. Many things which would kill a cell, say by wrecking its genetic material would likely also wreck a virus by wrecking its own genetic material. If a baryonic sweep destroys organic matter say by damaging nucleic acids, it'd also destroy viruses.
Oh, agreed. There are plenty of problems with rationalizing a process that "removes excess baryons", but some of the rationalizations will make this an excellent way to decontaminate a ship of anything that can self-replicate... The difficult part might be to keep the rest of the ship from being too badly hurt in the process.
Since we don't actually see the beam-up completed, we might assume the original landing party beamed up, had all their external gear destroyed, and took a good shower before entering the ship proper: their inner ability to neutralize the virus would make the decon process much simpler and more effective than usually. Sulu and the guards would have to wait it out down on the surface until they had the same ability, though.
Timo Saloniemi
Since we don't actually see the beam-up completed, we might assume the original landing party beamed up, had all their external gear destroyed, and took a good shower before entering the ship proper: their inner ability to neutralize the virus would make the decon process much simpler and more effective than usually. Sulu and the guards would have to wait it out down on the surface until they had the same ability, though.
Timo Saloniemi
I think Starfleet would do everything it could to decontaminate the ship- back then they did not have the resources to replace a ship of the line easily (compared to TNG era).
If they could not then they would have harvested what components they could- warp engines, external gear, things which would have not been exposed to the contamination and sent the rest into the sun.
If they could not then they would have harvested what components they could- warp engines, external gear, things which would have not been exposed to the contamination and sent the rest into the sun.
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