Yonada - Specs

Universe :	Prime Timeline
Affiliation :	Fabrini
Class Name :	Yonada
Type :	Asteroid spacecraft [1]
Unit Run :	Yonada - Active Only one vessel known to exist [1]
Commissioned :	Approximately 7732 BC [1]
Dimensions :	Diameter : 321,869 m [2] Core Area (m^2, approx) : 280,000,000,000 m
Mass :	52,400,000,000,000,000 metric tons approx.
Crew :	No flight crew; unknown number of passengers [1]
Warp Speeds (TOS scale) :	Low sublight speeds only [1]
Strength Indices : (Galaxy class = 1,000)	Beam Firepower : - Torpedo Firepower : 0.1 Weapon Range and Accuracy : - Shield Strength : - Hull Armour : - Speed : - Combat Manoeuvrability : 400
Overall Strength Index :	7
Diplomatic Capability :	Unknown
Expected Hull Life :	Indefinite

Notes

In 2268 the Enterprise was passing near to Darren V when it came under attack by a flight of chemically fuelled sublight missiles. The ship easily defeated the attack, and upon backtracking their course it found that the missiles had been fired from a large asteroid. It quickly became apparent that the rock, which measured over three hundred and twenty kilometres in diameter, was in fact travelling under power on an independent course through the system.

Scans revealed that the asteroid was in fact hollow, with a solid inner core. The space between the outer and inner layers was filled with a class M environment, including projections of a sun and stars on a day-night cycle. Captain Kirk led a landing party to the core and found it populated by the Fabrini, a Humanoid species which had built the ship they called Yonada some ten thousand years ago to allow their people to escape a nova which destroyed their planet. The ship was placed under the fully automatic control of a computer system which came to be known as the Oracle. Powered by primitive nuclear engines, the ship was designed to travel over interstellar distances over a period of many thousands of years in order to reach a new planet where the passengers could settle.

Unfortunately, during the voyage the Oracle's programming appears to have become corrupted. It took over complete control of the population, forcing them to accept implants which monitored their opinions and inflicted great pain, or even death, if they did not blindly follow its orders. Over the centuries the Oracle became a religious figure to the Fabrini. It convinced them that their ship was in fact a planet, forbidding any attempt to discover otherwise. Other flaws eventually developed, causing one of the ship's eight drive tubes to go out of alignment.

This knocked the ship off course, sending it directly at Darren V - a planet with a population of 3,724 million people. Despite resistance from the Oracle Captain Kirk and his officers managed to break into the Oracle's data banks and repair the systems in order to allow Yonada to reach its goal successfully in 2270. [1]

Colour key

References

#	Series	Season	Source	Comment
1	TOS	3	For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
2	TOS	3	For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky	Stated by Chekov to be 200 miles in diameter

Comments

Seen in the TOS episode "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", this is one of those alien ships that often end up with lots of 'unknown's plastered all over it. However, we know a surprising amount about Yonada. The structure, propulsion system, age, course, size and armament are all as established in the episode. It's never specifically stated that the ship is doing sublight speed, but it should be more or less impossible to do anything better with the simple nuclear engines Spock says the ship has.

I've rated the torpedo firepower as zero because although the ship does have missiles, these probably don't really count as effective weapons by the standards of Star Trek, in much the same way that the first generation of muzzle loading rifles would pose pretty much zero threat to a modern army. Any ship should be able to completely avoid a chemically fuelled missile even on thrusters, let alone impulse drive, while a hand phaser should pack more than enough punch to deal with them. Incidentally it's never established what kind of warheads the missiles carry, but a nuclear device of some sort seems probable.

The overall strength index of 7 for the asteroid probably shouldn't be taken too seriously - the strength system doesn't work too well with ships that have little or anything in most categories and then one or two biggish numbers.

Although it's never made clear just how much space there is between the inner core and the outer shell, this cannot be all that great a distance. One of the residents of Yonada recalls an occasion when he was able to climb a mountain and touch the outer shell - hence the rather bizarre episode title. This would indicate that it's no more than a few kilometres at most, probably only one or two. It also proves that the mountains of the core reach to within touching distance of the outer shell. Indeed, it seems very likely to me that the so-called 'mountains' are in fact disguised columns which are there precisely to hold the core in place with respect to the shell.

The notes are pretty much a description of the episode. I've skipped the whole McCoy plotline because it didn't really tie in with the capabilities of the asteroid itself all that much.

Flushed with the success of the Defender and Gage classes, I tried to mock up a size comparison image for this. Suffice to say it didn't work out too well.... ;-)

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Last updated : 1 Oct 2013

Series :	TOS Season 3
Episode :	For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

Series :	TOS Season 3
Episode :	For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
Comment :	Stated by Chekov to be 200 miles in diameter