Worldbuilding Prompt How Does the Star Army Explore Caves?

[Wes]

I was watching a Youtube video lately about some incidents that happened to people while exploring caves (spelunking), which can get pretty dangerous due to the tight spaces, flood risks, and other hazards. It got me thinking: The Star Army does a lot of exploration including exploring underground spaces (for example there might be enemies hiding in or hiding something in a cave). There's factors like reducing bulk, making supplies easy to slide through with you, oxygen, lighting, insulation/temperature control, and so forth, some of which can be addressed by the tech the Star Army uses in space suits, and some that cannot. I was wondering if any of Star Army's worldbuilders want to answer this is with an idea of how this would work in Star Army?

Another thing I thought about is use of small drones, small species like Bidole the beetle buddy, or mini-Nekovalkyrja to get into small spaces.

 

[HarperMadi]

Fully sealed suits, drones, smaller species, use Hedoro, mini nekos, and beetle buddies to get into the small spaces, and drop a comm relay every few hundred yards. Constant mapping and constant contact with a surface station. Mini Nekos should ride backpack with a larger species.

Can't eliminate the risk, but you can mitigate it.

 

[Hollander]

Slimey Spelunkers
Going off of one of Harper's fine ideas, I think the concept of Hedoro spelunkers is pretty cool. As long as they bring some water and maybe a cube of rations with them, they seem pretty capable at cave-system mapping. Where a networked drone might lose connection, a living being (with a competent team) can hopefully make it back in case they get lost.


M.O.G.S.
From a technological standpoint, one solution is the M.O.G.S.

Mobile Operational Geological Surveyor on Star Army Space Roleplay

wiki.stararmy.com

Here's the quote of the blurb about their sensor capabilities:

Sensors​

• Ground penetrating radar which can be used to image through rock, soil, ice, fresh water. It can detect objects, changes in material, and voids and cracks. Range is 1 kilometer.
• Seismometer to measure and record motions of the ground.
• Seismic reflection the surveyor has two seismic sources that generate controlled seismic energy. A series of receivers along its sides receive the reflected energy.
• Scalar ore scanner uses a scalar transducer to send a Scalar Field out in a 180° arc. The scanner then analyzes the phase shift of the reflected energy to identify ores. Range: 500 meters.

Lorrfolk Spelunkers
You could also look at recruiting the Lorrfolk, who are a subterranean species of Yamatai. Some/many of them might've upgraded to Dai Oni bodies, but I figure they still like living undergound in some cases.

Lorrfolk on Star Army Space Roleplay

wiki.stararmy.com

 

[HarperMadi]

These would be invaluable, yeah. Especially the Lorrfolk on the team as a guide. Nobody goes anywhere alone down there, battle buddy pairs don't (often) just work to get two people killed, they offer two perspectives and reduce the stupid mistakes that would absolutely get someone killed to a "Hey, dude, remember to look up."

Also you want something more reliable than a rechargable battery down there. Nuclear power is reliable and doesn't care about gravity, but RTGs are dependant on having the outside colder than the inside. Nuclear hydrogen fuel cells or catalytics offer good power to weight ratios and stable power with fuel monitoring capability. Aether or HFTs would have issues the tighter gravity gets, plus those systems are bulky and only really good for refuelling at a basecamp.

Also lights!

Not just good for being able to see what you're doing, they're a good indicator of where you are, so unless you're combat spelunking, you want your helmet lights on at all times.

 

[raz]

The Star Army's basic ship sensors include something called a Transmetaphasic Quantum Particle/wave Remote Detection Device (TQP-RDD).

The TQP-RDD has a mode that can perform "a remote scan of a clearly defined area such as an enemy ship. Using the scan, the complete nature of the target can be recorded." This means they can map underground cave networks (barring any "omg there is Star Trek mineral interference so we cannot scan!" gimmicks).

So a SAoY (or SSS) ship would likely first make a complete map of the cave system needing to be explored because it's a simple sensor scan. Then they'd send in appropriate personnel, whether that's a squad of Mindy 4s, some dudes in explorer uniforms, or a gaggle of mini Nekos.

 

[Ametheliana]

Most of the times these caves are talked about in the news, it's some rescue operation. I think exploring the caves is the easy part, but how does the Star Army rescue those that are stuck in them?

 

[HarperMadi]

Most of the times these caves are talked about in the news, it's some rescue operation. I think exploring the caves is the easy part, but how does the Star Army rescue those that are stuck in them?

Therein comes the tricky part.

Rescuing people (Or any search and rescue operation) is very mission dependent, often with complex parameters, and once you've located them, you've got to determine how to get them out, whether that's digging them out from above or transporting injured people back through the system.

Hell, there's a chance even the cave divers would have a rough go at getting to them due to a cave in, so could be beneficial to have some flavor of deployable bracing and excavation equipment. If there's a Mindy deployable sword, that can be used as a shovel or a pry bar. Or deployable force projectors of some flavor to support an unstable roof as revealed by Raz's suggestion of pre scanning with TQP-RDD. Double bonus points if we have a portable module of that system for detailed up close scans.

 

[demibear]

Was doing research for my Visual Synthetic Apretre Radar (ViSAR) wiki article and apparantly ultra wideband radar is used for ground penetration radar work as well. Considering they are low power, they could be used as personnel sized mobile units as small as a binocular or big as a small backpack. Kind of how I determined the different sizes of ViSAR.

 

[Wes]

It might be possible, in theory, to carry a teleportation module to a trapped cave explorer and teleport them out, right?

 

[HarperMadi]

It might be possible, in theory, to carry a teleportation module to a trapped cave explorer and teleport them out, right?

I would say yes, but the teleport flash may do more damage without some protection. @Rizzo has been working on a "stealth" teleport module that might solve that problem.

 

[Rizzo]

The only problem is that this technology to do a “soft” teleportation has only recently been introduced to a single SAINT team. It’s not exactly perfected yet. I plan for the La Prossima team to encounter teething issues as we use them.

 

[raz]

In the last admiral’s meeting, Yui said KFY is developing a teleporter chamber that you do not need protection to use. Essentially a trek transporter in function.

 

[Wes]

I would say yes, but the teleport flash may do more damage without some protection. @Rizzo has been working on a "stealth" teleport module that might solve that problem.

As long as you're only transporting out of the cave and not into it, you shouldn't have a lot of issues with pressure/heat waves.