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"Mariposa. The Spanish word for butterfly."
"Thank you, Data."
"I thought it might be significant, sir."
"It doesn't appear to be, Data."
"No, sir."
Data and Jean-Luc Picard, 2365 ("Up The Long Ladder")

The SS Mariposa (NAR-7678) was a 22nd century DY-500-class colony ship from Earth, owned by OCC. It was captained by Walter Granger.

The Mariposa was of UN registry. The ship was loaded and launched from Earth's Baikonur Cosmodrome on November 27, 2123. The gross vehicle mass of the ship was 3,000 metric tons. (TNG: "Up The Long Ladder")

Cargo manifest[]

Mariposa manifest

The manifest onscreen

Going by the animals kept by the colonists, ducks and goats were presumably also on the ship.

Mission[]

At the time of launch, the Mariposa was transporting two groups of settlers on a colonization expedition to the Ficus sector, a destination that was not made entirely clear, at least according to what records were available during the 24th century. The first group of settlers were Irish Neo-Transcendentalists, who set up a low-tech colony on the planet Bringloid V. The second group was a collection of technology savvy scientists, destined for the planet Mariposa, located half a light year away from Bringloid V.

Bringloid V was successfully colonized first, but when the Mariposa began its planetary descent to the planet Mariposa, the ship's hull was breached and only five of the original colonists survived. The survivors used cloning to build the society of the Mariposa colony. Both colonies were forgotten on Earth, as no missions were recorded in or near the Ficus sector at the time. Over two centuries later, in 2365, Bringloid V sent out an SOS and both colonies were found. (TNG: "Up The Long Ladder")

Background information[]

DY-500 SS Mariposa

SS Mariposa's behind-the-scene read-out of The Continuing Mission

According to an okudagram not seen in the episode, it further established the first officer's name was Snodgrass and the chief engineer's name was Winrich Kolbe. (Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Continuing Mission, p. 85)

The Starships RPG sourcebook gives the Mariposa's registry as DY-218.

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