The design of a ship for long term unmanned operation.

[kwlafayette]

First, lets define "long term". Lets call long term, anything longer than 1000 years. In 1000 years, given the FTL drive technology, that is enough time to move far beyond everything that the Ancients would have known about the universe. 1000 years puts them several galaxies away, in completely unknown space. Navigation data would be non-existent; you simply would not know where every comet, asteroid, black hole, super nova, or other hazard would be. I think we can assume that at least a few of the seeder ships were claimed by such random occurrences. The rest would have sent back preliminary navigation data, making it safer for Destiny (not entirely safe though).

I posit that such a ship would need 5 things:

1. Refueling ability.
2. Self defense.
3. An artificially intelligent computer system, to deal with new/unforeseen circumstances.
4. Resource gathering (ie. mining).
5. Self repair ability (includes manufacturing).

Without all of these traits, any long term unmanned mission is doomed to failure, sooner rather than later. Without resource gathering, you will run out of something sooner or later. Without self repair, eventually there will be a critical failure that stops you.

We have seen that Destiny has refueling and self defense. An extremely sophisticated computer system has been hinted at ("How does the ship know we are in trouble? I told it."). The last two there has been no hints either way, the only evidence is circumstantial, that the ship is still operational after all this time.

Any thoughts? Did I miss any traits that would be necessary?

One request; anyone who does not care to imagine anything that has not explicitly been shown in the show, just please don't bother posting here, m'kay? Those arguments have been gone over many times before, there is no point rehashing them. If all you care about is show canon, go find another thread with like minded people. I want to talk about what you would need, given the general rules of the Stargate universe, for a successful long term unmanned mission. Successful being key.

[Puddle-Jumper]

Well Destiny may not have been intended to unmanned for a particularly long time,

But if I was designing a ship for unmanned use, defo have it completely sterile... over that period of time micro-organisms, and bugs and spiders would cause problems if there was anything they could use a food source.. plus they'd use up oxygen (Possible what happened to destiny's air systems)

[Cory Holmes]

If the ship was unmanned, then the interior space (if any) would likely not have any life-support and therefore would quickly cool to near absolute-zero (minus any waste heat generated by the ship's systems themselves).

[Mike.]

The Ancients had the ability to create technology/facilities/cities that lasted millions of years without any sort of maintenance, a fact that has been proved in the show time and time again.

Their tech was not weak and prone to decay like ours is.
Assuming their technology has the same limitations as ours is a flawed premise that results in erroneous conclusions. Your argument is invalid.

In short: the Ancients don't need self repair.

Regarding Resource gathering (ie. mining). this was hinted at by Joe Mallozzi several times at least in the case of the seeder ships. The Ancients also had several mining facilities - the mobile drilling platform on Lantea, the compound located on a caldera ("Inferno") and possibly the device Anubis used to overload stargates - it had "roots" that appeared to get energy from within the planet - so there are precedences.

Another thing I need to address - you're never flying blind, no matter where you are, even if you're in previously unexplored space.

The ships have sensors and telescopes that can pick up neighboring objects. Even if there's something new in the ship's path - like in Faith - the ship will NOT slam into it, it will detect it far in advance and plot a course around it (the detour in Faith took close to 4 weeks).
Even for longer distances telescopes will still work; the navigation computer calculates the new location using speed measurements, factors in gravitational influences, other stellar drift, expansion of the universe etc.

Black holes are easy to pick up because of several effects -
- the massive amounts of radiation released by the accretion disk
- mater jets ejected from the poles
- lensing effect on light coming from objects behind it and further light distortion from other close stars.
- gravitational effects on the motion of neighboring objects - a super massive black hole makes a whole galaxy orbit it, even smaller ones will heavily effect nearby star systems

Other big "stay away from"s
- quasars - black hole feeding on a massive amount of matter - can be brighter than a whole galaxy = easy to pick up.
- pulsars/neutron stars - these have very powerful energy gets coming from the poles - again easy to detect.

A smart navigational computer can even predict supernova and black hole formation just by looking at the stars - the physics are well understood even by us - a star of x solar masses will undoubtedly go hyper/super/nova and one of y solar masses will collapse into a black hole.

Sure, no system is perfect - but the risk is much lower than what you make it out to be.

Also note that all the seeder ships communicate with each other and Destiny - so can they give others a heads up if they detect something dangerous, they share data and can (theoretically) compute together any possible scenarios.

This way the risk is substantially lowered even more.

[kwlafayette]

If the ship was unmanned, then the interior space (if any) would likely not have any life-support and therefore would quickly cool to near absolute-zero (minus any waste heat generated by the ship's systems themselves).

I would assume there would be some optimum temperature range that would be maintained by the waste heat of the systems. There would have to be interior spaces, because people or machines would have had to have access to construct it in the first place.

How would you dissipate excess waste heat in space? I suppose it is only a problem if the heat is being rapidly generated.

PS. Also, there may or may not be life support. If you built the ship inside an atmosphere, then you would not need life support. If you built the ship in space, then life support may be a convenience to speed construction. I would assume the larger a ship is, the more likely it is that it was constructed in orbit or even deep space.

[kwlafayette]

Well Destiny may not have been intended to unmanned for a particularly long time,

But if I was designing a ship for unmanned use, defo have it completely sterile... over that period of time micro-organisms, and bugs and spiders would cause problems if there was anything they could use a food source.. plus they'd use up oxygen (Possible what happened to destiny's air systems)

They did this one time in Star Trek Next Generation, that episode where the ship went into dry dock, and there was to be some sort of energy sweep of the ship to kill any living organism. I think you may have a sixth point to add there, as little critters, or their decomposing bodies, can do a lot of damage over time.

[kwlafayette]

The Ancients had the ability to create technology/facilities/cities ....

So, you did not read the bolded part then?

[Mike.]

So, you did not read the bolded part then?

Sadly it seems you did not read my post at all. I found several flaws in your post and I corrected them.

You are free to speculate about whatever you wish to dream up even if it had never existed in the show - it's your thread - you added this condition, i.e. feel free to make up stuff, I'm not bothering you about this, really.

But if you still want to talk in the "Destiny and the Ancients" general show context you can't contradict their basic essence. What you talked about is completely different - it's not the same in-universe and you should not claim it is.

Dumbed down: if you make a circle square you no longer have the right to call it a "circle".
The words "Destiny", "Ancients" and Ancient "seeder ships" should not be present as you are not talking about them - but something else.

You also ignored the navigation section, outside a minor "Faith" reference, it was unrelated to the show. I'm sorry that you can't accept constructive criticism and have a reasonable discussion, I was enjoying this.

[kwlafayette]

So, didn't understand it then.

I am not interested in anything you have to say, so just stop, m'kay?

[Mike.]

So, didn't understand it then.

I am not interested in anything you have to say, so just stop, m'kay?

Then why did you post a topic if you're not interested in having a discussion ?

The actual person who replies is inconsequential - attack the idea (if you feel it's incorrect) not the person.

[Krazeh]

Then why did you post a topic if you're not interested in having a discussion ?

I think it's because he wants to try and find some way to just make up some stuff about the Ancients because he's unable to grasp the simple rules the show has given us about them and their technology. I do find it ironic that he says he wants to use the general rules of the Stargate universe but apparently doesn't want to have any discussion about canon. Last I checked they were pretty much the same thing.

As for your original question SGU has shown us what's necessary for a successful unmanned mission in the technology onboard the Destiny. The only thing we haven't seen any specifics on is the seeder ships ability to manufacture new stargates but the show creators have all but confirmed they do have that capability.

[Puddle-Jumper]

If the ship was unmanned, then the interior space (if any) would likely not have any life-support and therefore would quickly cool to near absolute-zero (minus any waste heat generated by the ship's systems themselves).

Ya... that would be the best for saving power, but at the same time the ship would need to be kept in a way that it can be easily made ready for a crew asap when its needed... Destiny only gets a few seconds notice before a crew arriving so if the ship was frozen over and theres not enough air, the crew might die before lfie support comes back online.. also.. Im not sure but wouldn't temperatures near to absolute zero mean that computers are damaged? Just a guess

Id probably have set the ship to keep operating life support but maybe only in the gate room and surrounding compartments and not at full capacity

And just to the OP, is this thread just a way for you to try and further prove yourself right that Destiny can self repair? because we've never seen anything to suggest there is, and yes it seems like a good idea to us given we know how long Destiny was unmanned for but the ancients didn't mean it to be unmanned for this lenght of time, they may have only meant for a hundred years or so, less even we don't know. And given the amount of damage the ship has sustained and that we know for a fact that most (maybe all) of the ships systems are not operating anywhere near peak capacity that proves that there isn't a self repair system, or that its been damaged to the point of not functioning for quite a while

[xxxevilgrinxxx]

Ya... that would be the best for saving power, but at the same time the ship would need to be kept in a way that it can be easily made ready for a crew asap when its needed... Destiny only gets a few seconds notice before a crew arriving so if the ship was frozen over and theres not enough air, the crew might die before lfie support comes back online.. also.. Im not sure but wouldn't temperatures near to absolute zero mean that computers are damaged? Just a guess

Id probably have set the ship to keep operating life support but maybe only in the gate room and surrounding compartments and not at full capacity

And just to the OP, is this thread just a way for you to try and further prove yourself right that Destiny can self repair? because we've never seen anything to suggest there is, and yes it seems like a good idea to us given we know how long Destiny was unmanned for but the ancients didn't mean it to be unmanned for this lenght of time, they may have only meant for a hundred years or so, less even we don't know. And given the amount of damage the ship has sustained and that we know for a fact that most (maybe all) of the ships systems are not operating anywhere near peak capacity that proves that there isn't a self repair system, or that its been damaged to the point of not functioning for quite a while

yes And I;m sure we'll see the same question asked in a more complicated way the next time around, LOL!

[kwlafayette]

Ya... that would be the best for saving power, but at the same time the ship would need to be kept in a way that it can be easily made ready for a crew asap when its needed... Destiny only gets a few seconds notice before a crew arriving so if the ship was frozen over and theres not enough air, the crew might die before lfie support comes back online.. also.. Im not sure but wouldn't temperatures near to absolute zero mean that computers are damaged? Just a guess

Id probably have set the ship to keep operating life support but maybe only in the gate room and surrounding compartments and not at full capacity

And just to the OP, is this thread just a way for you to try and further prove yourself right that Destiny can self repair? because we've never seen anything to suggest there is, and yes it seems like a good idea to us given we know how long Destiny was unmanned for but the ancients didn't mean it to be unmanned for this lenght of time, they may have only meant for a hundred years or so, less even we don't know. And given the amount of damage the ship has sustained and that we know for a fact that most (maybe all) of the ships systems are not operating anywhere near peak capacity that proves that there isn't a self repair system, or that its been damaged to the point of not functioning for quite a while

That really depends on the mission, I was thinking in a more general sense of what would a ship need to survive, being sent into the unknown unmanned. They have made it pretty clear that at some point Destiny was intended for a crew, but Destiny's mission is not the only possible long term unmanned mission.

You do not have to comment on every thread, if you do not like the subject. The point is that redundancies and magical indestructibility can only take you so far. If you don't like then, then again, you really do not have to get angry, you will live longer.

[kwlafayette]

I was just thinking, the ship would need long range communication. It would need to be able to communicate its status/mission success/results. Unless, it was programmed to return at some point, but a return trip doubles your time, and increases your risk (ship might be lost on the return). Safer to have some way of sending results, rather than depending on the survival of the ship. Getting 50% of what you were after is better than 0%.

As much as possible, you would want to eliminate moving parts in your design. Moving parts are the most likely to fail.