A liner (short for "passenger liner") was a larger civilian interplanetary manned spacecraft, used for long-distance transporting of large numbers of passengers.
There were several types or models of these in-system passenger liners, differing in terms of overall size, passenger capacity and other ammenities.
Notable liners[]
- High Catherine - a medium-capacity liner, with a capacity of 6,000 passengers
- Bellatrix - a larger-capacity liner, with a capacity of 10,000 passengers
Description[]
"As for those still awaiting transport, our current estimate predicts complete evacuation within four hours, twenty minutes, assuming we can get the liners in and out without incident."
"There's a liner docked now?" Dreyfus asked.
"Not a high-capacity vehicle. The biggest ship we have on-station is the medium-capacity liner High Catherine. She can carry six thousand at a time, but she takes a long time to load. The larger ship we've been using, the Bellatrix, can take ten thousand, but we're also using her to offload people from the Persistent Vegetative State."
- excerpt from a conversation between Baudry and Dreyfus, chapter 25 of Aurora Rising [1]
Appearances[]
- A Prefect Dreyfus Emergency series
- Aurora Rising (a.k.a. The Prefect, 2007)
Notes[]
- Given the differences between the High Catherine and the Bellatrix, it's clear that passenger liners in the Epsilon Eridani system came in a variety of overall sizes and passenger capacities (at least during the 25th century, when the Dreyfus spinoff novels are set).
- Liners are distinct from ramliners, passenger/sleeper-specialised lighthuggers, which are used for interstellar transport of passengers, generally in reefersleep, inside "reefer caskets", a.k.a. "sleeper caskets".
References[]
- ↑ Aurora Rising (2007), chapter 25
See also[]
- Ramliner - An interstellar, lighthugger-based equivalent of the interplanetary liner, used for interstellar transport of passengers in reefersleep.
- Hospital ship - A specialised liner or purpose-built specialised ship, for recovering patients, war veterans, etc.
- Freighter - A cargo equivalent of the liner, an interplanetary freight ship of varying sizes and designs.