NationStates Jolt Archive

[ooc: Since none of my technological research was really worthy of any thread or RP, I'll just put all that stuff here. Note, some of the technical stuff may not make sense because its using certain Largentian measurements you wouldn't know about. Enjoy...]

Section 1 - Propulsion

The Reactionless Drive

The three generally used forms of Reactionless drive are Diametric Field Drive, Pitch Field Drive, and Bias Field Drive. As with all types of ship drive, Each has specific advantages and disadvantages.

Energy for the drive is "borrowed" from the vacuum - a ship on inertial drive colliding with another mass is not going to do much more damage than a normal crash as it does not posses any additional kinetic energy.

Reactionless drive fields enable extreme accelerations with usually minor forces on the ship. Accelerations of 10 to 100 G range (even greater in some very sophisticated craft) are possible, although this depends on the size and power of the drive unit and exotic matter core in relation to the ship's overall mass, and large freighters and civilization ships have a much lower acceleration.

Acceleration results in inertial effects which are not very comfortable, but various adjustments of the fields dampen them to livable levels. The most sophisticated drives do this so well that one traveling on the vessel does not notice anything. On the other hand, some drives have tidal forces that are extreme and unshieldable.

Rapid acceleration, where manageable, enables a much quicker and easier relativistic transit; a vessel may take only a few hours, or even a few days, to accelerate to relativistic velocity, and to conversely accelerate at the other end of the journey. Militarily also, reactionless drive led to a revolution in battlefield tactics, such as the "modern" sneak-rush-dodge tactics, and butterfly flight, wildly predictable fluttering of the acceleration vector that makes the ship hard to hit but also very noticeable and energy consuming.

Reactionless drive is extremely costly in terms of both exotic ('negative') matter and high level (> S4) hyperturings, each of which is because of such a high S level unpredictable (and hence likely to suddenly aquire a high R and/or P rating of sentience at the most inopportune moments). For this reason it is used only by government couriers, certain emergency services, the military, big corporations, luxury liners, and long-range scouts and explorer vessels.

Because of the improvements and advancements in reactionless drive technologies, hyperspace technologies have experienced new developments as well. In the past, due to the fact that hyperspace was a different plane of space, reaction based drive systems were unable to provide propulsion while the ship was in hyperspace, thus, forcing ships to rely upon the natural "currents" of hyperspace to take them to their destination. Such reliance resulted in unreliable Faster Than Light travel. In addition, there was also a tactically disadvantageous side effect (the "zero impulse" phenomenon) where ships exiting hyperspace would enter normal space at a dead stop. Now, with reactionless drive systems, ships are able to continue accelerating during hyperspace transitions and even in hyperspace, allowing for greater hyperspace speeds and no tactical side effect.

--Tech. Note- such powerful engines are monitored by AI so that nothing goes tragically wrong. S levels are the levels of tuning needed to run smoothly. Faster the engine: higher the tuning. R/P levels are measures of sentience (R/P 1-7).

Types of Drives

Diametric Drive - Data Panel

Basic Propulsion: Reactionless

Specific Impulse: n/a

Reaction Mass: n/a

Matter Manipulation: Space-Time

Controller required: while drive operation requires only subordinate non-sentient routines, a dedicated hyperturing ai are recommended to supervise exotic matter stability.

Used in: relativistic warships, ultratech fighters, relativistic commercial liners, relativistic traders and freighters, luxury yatchs (rare)

Advantages: no need for reaction mass, simplicity (relative to Bias drive), extremely high acceleration

Disadvantages: expensive

Construction Costs: Expensive (precision picotech, and incorporation and stabilisation of planktech negative matter)

Running cost: most costs involve replacing the eroded shielding, which can be expensive. Otherwise running costs are moderate

Normal Acceleration: 50 to 100G - more in specialized vessels

Normal top/crusing speed relativistic; limited only by shielding efficiency


Comments

The Diametric Drive employs negative matter to achieve propulsion without expenditure of reaction mass. Negative matter is produced in ultra dense form for use in drive construction. It can also be used for wormhole construction.

Depending on the ratio of positive to negative matter employed and the amount of mass involved there are three classes of Diametric Drive in use in the galaxy.

Class One Diametric Drive:
The Class One Diametric Drive employs an amount of negative matter equal in mass to the positive mass of the ship, cargo and crew. Standard drives use a modular design that allows the amount of negative matter to be tailored to the amount of positive mass aboard the ship. Typically the negative matter is linked electro-magnetically to the ship. When the drive is engaged electromagnetic forces are used to pull the mass of negative matter toward the rear of the vessel. Due to the contrary inertial and gravitational characteristics of negative mass, this cause the negative matter to move toward the front of the ship at a rate proportional to the force being applied, dragging it forward in the process. Acceleration is mostly limited only by the amount of stress that the passengers and cargo can withstand.

Class Two Diametric Drive:
The Class Two Diametric Drive employs an amount of negative matter massing less than the positive mass of the ship. Application of electromagnetic forces to the negative matter in the manner of the Class One drive causes it to move forward at an exponentially increasing rate, which causes the acceleration of the ship to increase exponentially as well. Typically the Class Two drive is only used on solid state vessels and automated probes.

Class Three Diametric Drive:
The Class Three Diametric Drive uses ultra dense positive and negative masses to permit a vessel to achieve high acceleration while still protecting its passengers and cargo from acceleration forces. The drive consists of two large, ultra massive rings (standard design +/- mass 1012 tons, 100g max acceleration) gravitationally coupled to each other with the spacecraft habitation module suspended electro magnetically between them. The positive matter ring is positioned at the front of the craft while the negative matter ring is at the rear. The positive matter ring causes the negative matter ring to accelerate toward it while the negative matter ring causes the positive ring to accelerate away from it. The rings are moved closer or farther apart to increase or reduce acceleration. At the same time the positive matter ring pulls on the habitation module with a force of 50g while the negative matter ring pushes on the habitation module with a force of 50g canceling out the pull of the positive matter ring. Both of these forces combine to cancel the 100g inertial force of acceleration of the drive.
Note: The acceleration cancellation and balancing zone of a Class Three drive is only a few meters across at maximum acceleration. Increasing the zone of inertial cancellation will decrease acceleration and therefore drive performance.

Typically vessels equipped with Class Three drives will employ stasis or hibernation equipment during initial acceleration to minimize cabin crowding. Once the ship has approached maximum cruise speed the drive rings are moved apart, reducing acceleration but providing a much larger area of onboard acceleration balance for the crew to inhabit during the journey.

Pitch drive - Data Panel

Basic Propulsion: Reactionless

Specific Impulse: n/a

Reaction Mass: n/a

Matter Manipulation: Space-Time

Controller required: while drive operation requires only subordinate non-sentient routines, a dedicated ai is necessary to maintain ring equilibrium and stability during hyperfast rotation

Used in: relativistic warships, ultratech fighters, relativistic commercial liners, relativistic traders and freighters (rare).

Advantages: no need for reaction mass, simplicity (relative to Bias drive), extremely high acceleration

Disadvantages: Tidal forces when drive in operation

Construction Costs: Expensive (precision picotech elements, ultradense matter, dedicated hyperturing controller)

Running cost: most costs involve replacing the eroded shielding, which can be expensive. Otherwise running costs are reasonable

Normal Acceleration: 50G, maximum 100G to 400G

Normal top/crusing speed: relativistic; limited only by shielding efficiency

Bias Drive - Data Panel

Basic Propulsion: Reactionless

Specific Impulse: n/a

Reaction Mass: n/a

Matter Manipulation: Space-Time

Controller required: dedicated hyperturing, with subordinate non-sentient routines

Used in: relativistic warships, relativistic commercial liners (rare),
Advantages: no need for reaction mass, extremely high acceleration

Disadvantages: most sophisticated of all reactionless drives, depends on dedicated post-hyperturing, singularity at drive core makes the Bias drive less reliable than the Diametric or Pitch drive

Construction Costs: Extremely expensive (precision femtotech, quark matter, high level (post-hyperturing) dedicated controller)

Running cost: most costs involve replacing the eroded shielding, which can be expensive. Otherwise running costs are reasonable

Normal Acceleration: 300G, up to 1000G maximum

Normal Top/Cruising Speed relativistic; limited only by shielding efficiency

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reaction Drives

Standard GUT drive - Data Panel

Basic Propulsion: Reaction

Specific Impulse: 0.5 - 10 million (depending on efficency of conversion; ideally up to 30 million)

Reaction Mass: any baryonic matter (most commonly hydrogen)

Controller required: dedicated hyperturing, with subordinate non-sentient routines

Used in: relativistic warships, large fighters, relativistic commercial liners, sub-relativistic to relativistic middle to large scale freighters, luxury yachts, high grade exploration probes

Advantages: very high efficency, can use any baryonic matter

Disadvantages: large heavy drive unit, can be unstable, requires careful slaved hyperturing maintenance

Construction Costs: Expensive (dedicated hyperturing controller)

Running cost: Fairly cheap

Normal Acceleration: up to 5G

normal top/crusing speed 0.8 C, but good (mostly higher toposphic) GUTships can reach high relativistic velocities

Drive details:

All of the main power generation systems rely on converting matter into more tightly bound forms. During this process, the "binding energy" is released, and it's that which we use. For example, hydroelectric power works on gravitational binding energy - the water falls, becomes more tightly bound to the Earth, and releases energy in the form of kinetic energy which we use to drive turbines. Burning hydrocarbons or other molecular reactants works by making states that are more tightly bound by the electromagnetic force. Nuclear fission and fusion work by making more tightly bound nuclei, exploiting the fact there's a binding energy maximum around iron so we can fuse small nuclei or fission large nuclei to make more tightly bound states and release heat.

The basic GUT reactor works in the same sort of way, but with grand unified force binding energies. The thing with the exchange of X and Y grand unified bosons ("leptoquarks") is that they interconvert quarks and leptons. GUT reactors ususally use a type of catalysed proton decay reactor - atomic nuclei are fed into extreme reaction conditions in the reactor core which then outputs positrons and neutral pions. The kinetic energy of the positrons is captured, and finally they are annihilated through combining them with electrons to squeeze out the last bit of rest mass energy, while the pions decay into gamma rays. Some of the energy is then used to keep the reaction conditions right.

The GUT drive and antimatter drive have the same sorts of characteristics, because one is converting protons and electrons by various steps into gamma rays and the other is converting protons, antiprotons, electrons and positrons into gamma rays. The difference is that with an antimatter drive one needs to produce antimatter first

The advantage of amat drives is that they are much simpler - one does not need the large and complex proton decay reactor. Some GUT-ships use some of the proton decay energy to produce antimatter to power missiles or remotes.

Amat drives turn matter+antimatter into energy and GUT drives turn matter into energy. The latter is a very important step forward. For example, to refuel an antimatter ship away from amat supplies requires fusing large amounts of hydrogen to produce small amounts of antimatter. To refuel a GUT ship, you just fill the tanks with hydrogen, which is a huge advantage.

Femtotech GUT drive - Data Panel[i]

Basic Propulsion: Reaction

Specific Impulse: up to 30 million

Reaction Mass: any baryonic matter (most commonly hydrogen)

Controller required: dedicated high toposophic hyperturing, with subordinate non-sentient routines

Used in: weaponry, advanced relativistic probes, advanced relativistic ships

Advantages: very safe, can be any size (even nanoscopic), almost total efficency, can use any baryonic matter, very high isp enables sub-relativistic and relativistic velocity

Disadvantages: expensive, rare

Running cost: Extremely cheap

Normal Acceleration: 5G to >30 G)

normal top/crusing speed 0.9 C to high relativistic velocities

Drive Details: works by precision application of bosons to individual nucleons. A femtotech GUT reactor is much smaller and more efficient than a standard ultratetch GUT reactor

[i]TOE drive - Data Panel

Basic Propulsion: Reaction

Specific Impulse: up to 30 million

Reaction Mass: any baryonic matter (most commonly hydrogen)

Controller required: dedicated high hyperturing, with subordinate non-sentient routines

Advantages: almost total efficency, can use any baryonic matter, very high isp enables sub-relativistic and relativistic velocity, control over emission products without sacrificing efficency

Disadvantages: expensive

Construction Costs: Expensive

Running cost: Extremely cheap

Normal Acceleration: 5G to >30 G)

normal top/crusing speed 0.9 C to high relativistic velocities

Drive Details At its most basic a TOE drive consist of three major components: The reaction chamber, the accelerator array and the ai controller.

wow, forgot about this...

Section 2 - Armaments

The Biphase Charged Particle Cannon

This hull mounted BCPC turret contains a pair of linear accelerators
and an independent drive system for rapid deployment

The Biphase Charged Particle Cannon (BCPC or colloquially "BeakPeak" or "BeakPeck", depending on who you ask) is a medium tech, moderate range, cheap energy weapon. It is based on four primary systems: A targeting mount, which controls two linear accelerators linked to opposite feeds on a positron/electron pair generator. The device is capable of firing a tightly coupled stream of alternating charges, with a net 4-radius gap between particles at near light speed. The alternating charges help greatly in maintaining stream coherency on longer-range shots.

Note that the targeting software must take into account local magnetic fields in longer-range aiming, which means that unsurveyed regions can cause the weapon to lose significant amounts of range between a force knowledgeable of local magfield strengths and a interloper force without that knowledge.

These weapons can also be useful in mapping magflux over long distances, but care must be used that a suitably discardable and resilient target be used to prevent secondary damage.

The weapon is not recommended for use against magshielded targets, for obvious reasons.

A more primitive Biphase particle cannon, using electron and proton beams, was developed in the period before interstellar flight in Old Sol System; this weapon was powerful but unbalanced and difficult to use with accuracy.

Bombs

Monopole enhanced thermonuclear explosive devices.

Boostbombs employ monopole doped fissile materials to amplify their explosive yield to anywhere from 10 to 100 times the output of an unenhanced device of similar size. At the moment of detonation the fusion temperatures and pressures achieved at the center of the explosion initiate 'S-wave' sucking on the part of the embedded monopoles, leading to proton decay and a much larger percentage of the bombs mass being converted to energy. In this so-called monopole-catalysed 'fusion' reaction, the protons of the hydrogen nuclei are converted into mesons and photons.

This technology can be further developed to create compact and powerful monopole-catalysis "total conversion" bombs, which are essentially a fusion-total conversion explosive device with more controllability, lethality, and shelf-life than boostbombs or even comparable antimatter weapons. Increased lethality comes from much lower production of muons than antimatter devices; which concentrates the energy density of the monopole bomb compared to the "fizzle" of an antimatter device. Controllability comes from doping the fusing plasma with other exotic particles to generate reactions with other side effects

Muskets

The Electro-Magnetic Musket is a rugged and flexible ballistic weapon. They can be made in either smoothbore or "caged" barrel varieties, with an electro magnetic "Quadrail Acceleration system" that center around 4 long rails of EM magnets that can spin a ball in two axis giving it increased range and accuracy compensating for all types of conditions. Caged versions are more wasteful energy-wise, but better controlling heat buildup and recoil. Solid barrel or smoothbore versions collect excess energy and heat for recycling back into the power supply when possible.

Coil and Gauss versions of the EM musket are available, are cheaper and don't require the same level of maintenance. They are less accurate, due to a lack of spin control afforded by the Quadrail system. This more than makes up for the lack, in ruggedness and cost, if these are concerns.

Using the Quadrail System uses X and Y axis control to allow "spinning" or "hooking" of the ball in pretty much any direction, even allowing the ball to go around corners. Curves of up to 75 degrees per 250 meters have been achieved, and rumors of custom rounds allowing even "hanging" shots or "slideing" rounds have been rumored at.

Musketballs, being a very adaptable shape, allow for a wide variety of specialty rounds to be created and used. Due to the incorporation of the Omni-Feed Loading System, multiple shape rounds can be loaded effortlessly allowing most muskets to double as shotguns as well, granting an even greater variety of ammunition through "buckshot", flechettes, Maxiballs, slugs and bullets.

Although Muskets are usually Electro-Magnetic, chemical Muskets still exist. These are most often rifles that we are more familiar with today. Often these are found on frontier low tech worlds and use a variety of chemical style propellants. There are some truly exotic weapons that utilize laser or particle beam driven projectiles, but these are unique and almost never mass produced and are a fraction of a percentage of the Musket marketshare. Even some very very rare EM and Chemical firing Muskets exist, but they are outstandingly impractical and wear down quite quickly.

An EM musket can carry more and heavier caliber ammo than many traditional chemical propellant rifles because of a similar caliber in the same space. This can be double or triple the amount. Muskets can be single shot, Semi-automatic, or fully automatic weapons. They usually have a max ROF of 600 shots a minute, for most fully automatic weapons are better served by other weapon systems. Some heavy ballistic weapons will use multi-barrel "Gatling" systems, but these are quite large caliber, often mounted on vehicles and considered "anti-armor" weaponry and over 20mm in caliber.

Other benefits available for EM muskets are:


"Bullpup" configuration. By putting the triggers and grips in front of the ammunition, power supply, firing and recoil assemblies this maximizes use of space and power.
Ejecting cartridges or brass is a thing of the past. There is no worry of hot brass or plastic casings being ejected or worry about potentially damaging jams.
Recoil is reduced relative to chemical propellant and some other projectile weapons. Cage/Latticework barrels can reduce this even further by their open design. Recoil is minimized even more because the ball in an EM system is a frictionless barrel and never touches the rails or coils. It follows the linear column of magnetic energy out, no friction in the barrel dramatically reduces heat as well. Only the magnets will warm up due to the energy charge used to fire the round.
The velocity of the Musket is also "tuneable", allowing for high penetration hypersonic rounds or quieter sub-sonic rounds.
The EM firing chamber handles different size ammunition with ease. It holds sub-size rounds as securely as "full size" ones. The current popular calibers of Muskets include 5mm, 10mm, 15mm and 20mm since they can use ammunition smaller than their bore effectivly there is not the same demand for different caliber barrels.

HellBore (http://www.orionsarm.com/tech/hellbore.jpg)

An advanced plasma weapon firing a bolt of monopole contained plasma at near fusion temperatures. An adaptive high energy laser guides the bolt through atmospheres, and via an advanced application of the ponderamotive effect, compresses the monopole contained bolt to a critical density at the desired range.

At critical density, monopole-catalyzed fusion occurs, resulting in rapid release of the mass-energy in the plasma.

In atmosphere, primary energy release is thermonuclear-equivalent shock wave and heat release, with a secondary laser impact.

In vacuum, energy release is soft x-rays, with secondary laser impact.

Some versions add trace amounts of elements in the plasma or monopoles to generate specific effects (e.g. neutron or EMP production), similiar to older style so-called "enhanced nuclear weapons".

MASS Platform (http://www.orionsarm.com/tech/MASS_platform.jpg)

This platform carries 18 multimodal antimatter missilesa

MASS devices are deceptively simple in their design and construction.
Each device contains a small quantity of anti-matter and a larger amount of densely packed normal matter, generally solid hydrogen although virtually any convenient material can be used. One end of the device contains a small rocket motor, the other an explosively pumped X-ray laser. An onboard sensor array and ai navigation system completes the package.
In effect, a MASS warhead operates as its own propulsion system. A small portion of the anti-matter payload is combined with onboard hydrogen to produce a high-acceleration plasma drive which propels the MASS toward its target. This allows the MASS to operate in several different modes:

a) Matter-antimatter explosive:
On impact with the target the remaining anti-matter combines with both the remaining hydrogen and the matter of the target to produce a large explosion. The further the MASS travels the less amat remaining on impact with the target and the weaker the resulting detonation.
However, this is actually an advantage to the system in that it greatly reduces or eliminates the chances of 'live' munitions being left on the 'battlefield'. A MASS that misses its target or that cannot catch up to its target becomes nothing more then a small chunk of flying diamondoid.

b) Kinetic impact weapon:
With even modest amounts of matter and antimatter on board a MASS can accelerate up to a significant fraction of the speed of light and strike a target with considerable kinetic energy. On occasion, MASS devices may be used in this manner either to conserve amat stocks or as low-yield kinetic weapons.

c) Self-propelled X-ray laser platform:
If a MASS weapon cannot impact its target for some reason, or if otherwise deemed desirable, it may detonate its remaining anti-matter payload and use the resulting energy to generate an X-ray laser. This tactic is intended to ensure that a MASS does not waste its warhead chasing a target it cannot catch and allows it to deliver at least a portion of its destructive potential at the speed of light, which no target can outrace.

Most MASS weapons are also designed such that a premature detonation of the device, perhaps due to the efforts of enemy point-defense systems, will trigger the lasing effect and result in the MASS 'getting off a parting shot' even as it is destroyed. In other cases a swarm of MASS devices may purposely lase several of their number in order to intercept incoming point-defense or countermeasure weapons before they arrive, therebye giving the bulk of the swarm a greater probability of reaching the target.

MASS weapons come in a variety of sizes ranging from a few centimeters to several meters. Virtualy all have variable yields through the simple method of adjusting the amount of antimatter loaded on to each unit before it is launched. Often a 'modular' warhead design is used such that many small, identical amat containment units, each containing the same amount of anti-matter, are loaded on board.
The number of units that are loaded to each weapon sets explosive yield.

NCCV: Neutronium Core Combat Vehicle

Design and structure:
The primary structure of the NCCV unit is a spherical mass of stabilzed neutronium 4cm in diameter and massing some 2x10^12kg. The sphere is honeycombed with gamma-ray frequency optical processing circuits supporting an SI:1 level mind that has been savant-focused on strategy and combat tactics.

Using the high strength and superconducting properties of neutronium, each NCCV is also able to store up to 2x1015 Kilowatt-hours of energy within its own mass. The outer surface of the unit consists of a layer of phased-array laser optics operating in gamma or X-ray frequencies combined with a 'fly's eye' optical sensing and energy receiver system sensitive across a wide range of frequencies. Micro- channels etched into various sections of the outer surface contain a wide array of femtotech infection weapons embedded in single atoms held in magnetic suspension.

At the core of each NCCV is a Class II Diametric Drive unit constructed of ultra-dense negative matter held in magnetic confinement. By magnetically exerting tension forces on the negative matter sphere at its heart, the NCCV is able to accelerate at an exponentially increasing rate in any direction required.

Capabilities:
Due to its neutronium structure, the NCCV can operate as its own reusable kinetic kill warhead, gamma-ray laser power source, and high speed processing core all at the same time. Equipped with a Class II drive it can withstand enormous accelerations, and rapidly achieve very high velocities, before having to disengage and restart the drive due to acceleration stress. Fully charged, it can generate X- ray or gamma frequency laser energies equivalent to 200,000 times the total energy output of Information Age Terran civilization and maintain this output for up to a standard hour of continuous firing. If its energy resources are depleted, the unit can optically network with other units in the vicinity using its sensor/receiver array and recharge its reserves, either from other nearby units with power to spare or from a central control node relaying laser energy via intermediate units. Finally, by deploying its cache of femtotech weaponry, boosting individual devices into a target on a low power propulsion beam, the NCCV can infect and subvert a targets atomic structure into a weapon of almost any size desired.

Operations:
NCCVs have four primary operational modes:

a) Reusable kinetic kill vehicle: Due to its great density, the NCCV can pass at high speed through nearly all forms of conventional matter with virtually no damage to itself. Typically a swarm of NCCV units will deploy in a 'cross-fire' or 'buckshot' pattern as they approach an objective and then proceed to make one or more high-speed passes through the target, severely damaging or neutralizing it. In extreme situations, individual NCCVs can purposely collide with each other, destroying themselves in the process but releasing a destructive energy pulse of considerable magnitude.

b) High frequency radiation weapon: Using a portion of its energy reserves, an NCCV unit traveling in close proximity to a target will radiate gamma or X-ray energies toward the target at a level sufficient to severely incapacitate or destroy all biological and cybernetic entities within the target zone.

c) High energy laser platform: Using the laser emitter array on its outer surface, the unit can fire multiple high-energy laser beams in several directions at once. Combined with its sensor array and its spherical shape, an NCCV is able to 'see in all directions, shoot in all directions'.

d) Femtoweapon infection vector: Using a low energy laser boost from its transmitter array, the NCCV can boost femtoweapon infused atoms into a target, thereby infecting it. Standard combat units carry a range of conversion, implosion, and radiation replicator devices, each programmable at the units discretion for a range of uses from generating a decoy energy burst, to disabling a single individual, to detonating a star. If one or more NCCV units choose to suicide- collide they may program their stocks of femtoweapons for delayed activation and then release them at the moment of collision, leaving an expanding cloud of randomly activating femto-infection behind them.

Note: The NCCV unit is capable of operating in multiple operational modes simultaneously, for example impacting a target at several hundred kilometers per second while radiating high energy X-rays, firing gamma-frequency lasers in several directions, and launching femto-replicators into those portions of the target not likely to be as severely damaged by the initial assault.

**RKKS

(pronounced rocks) Relativistic Kinetic Kill System: Relativistic weapons system consisting of an unmanned launch vehicle and dense projectiles. Used in interstellar warfare for extreme planetary bombardment.

The launch vehicle has a powerful drive system and can accelerate to near light speeds fairly quickly. Upon arrival in the target star system the launch vehicle orients itself to its target(s) and releases its payload of projectiles. Each projectile is little more than a dense block of mass with a minimal amat manuvering system for terminal course corrections. The launch vehicle may either continue through the target star system, decelerate and be reused or be used as an additional weapon in its own right. Upon impact each projectile releases its accumulated relativistic mass in a huge explosion. A ten ton projectile, traveling at 99.9 percent of c will produce a 22 million megaton explosion upon impact virtually ensuring planetary sterilization. Alternatively a saturation type attack of hundreds or thousands of microprojectiles could shred a space habitat cluster. At 99.9 percent of c it will arrive less than a second behind its own light, making detection and defense extremely difficult. Only a system of deep space based detectors, linked by wormholes has any chance of detecting such an attack and coordinating any kind of defense.

Detection and countermeasures: Because a sizeable amat (or sometimes GUT-drive) is used to accelerate, this makes them somewhat detectable during their early acceleration phase if they are launched too close to the target. Otherwise secondary gamma rays are probably the best way of detecting a RKKS. But use of stealth principles during the approach (e.g. the side most likely to radiate gamma face away from the densest concentration of detectors) reduces the signature.

A RKKS moving at .999c will arrive approximately .001 seconds behind its own light or gravitational radiation or any warning message sent about it. This makes it is difficult for even the most powerful hyperturing could detect the incoming projectile, identify it, send instructions to its defensive systems and have those systems lock on and destroy the projectile so completely that not even enough debris would get through to cause massive damage, all while limited to the speed of light.

Wormhole based detector systems, in which distant warning stations watch for incoming RKKS and communicate their data via wormholes would certainly alleviate this problem. However, once again stealth techniques might counter this advantage at least partially.

AW (http://www.orionsarm.com/gallery/autowar.jpg)

Derived from AutoWar seed, the AW is found in many variants such as JAWs (Jovian), SAWs (Solar) and BAWs (Bio). Belongs to the greater category Constructor Warseed.

An AW is a missile launched into an opponent's solar system, often without eir knowledge. Different AWs are designed for different environments, but they all rely on stealth to land in their environment and then release nano, which covertly spreads and converts a portion of its environments mass into autowars before the enemy finds out. The emergence of the autowars is sometimes aligned with the arrival of an extra-stellar invasion fleet, but especially against foes of lower tech level autowars are quite capable of taking over or eradicating a system entirely on their own.

The AW is usually fired either from the Oort cloud (enabling lower velocities, thus requiring less of a brake and lower chance of detection of the AW) or from light-years away (allowing the AW to arrive well ahead of a fleet, giving it lots of time to prepare).

The Aron Tech VX12 Trans-atmospheric Fighter

The fighter utilizes a Henry Hlorstein D-3He fusion drive in space and the fairly standard Veron jet system in atmosphere. The cruising speed of the fusion drive is 125 km/sec with short bursts up to 160 km/sec being possible. The Veron jet has a cruising speed of .75 km/sec with short bursts of up to 2 km/sec being possible at the cost of greatly increased fuel consumption.

The VX12 is designed for a biont or vec pilot, but could theoretically be crewed by an AI or virtual pilot (though in this case a cockpit is unneeded and the AM12 TA AI-targeted Fighter would probably be a better choice). The fighter is equipped with escape capsules and an extensive suite of help systems, including the option to upload a slaved AI.

Weaponry is highly customizable, but the most popular space-oriented models are equipped with a Rhyly Thoran Rail Cannon and either nuclear/amat missiles or semi-intelligent attack drones.

** nearly outlawed and only used in extreme cases

EM-CCOM@EM1E-5; SL 0; Tightbeam
From: Mark Schneider, Neptune (Relay list omitted)
To: Whom it may concern, Largent, R&D
Subject: Holla

In case your fingers are hurting from c/ping it all over from Orion's Arm (http://www.orionsarm.com/eg/r/Re-Rg.html#reactionless_drive) (Sample Only), may I interest you in Uncle Joey's Wondrous Ointment? Guarenteed to eliminate any inconvenient pains and ailments in your fingers after many hard hours of work or seconds of c/ping!

Sincerely,

~ Mark Schneider, Advertising

>>>Mark Schneider, Neptune<<<
>>>Standard Diplo Link<<<
{Subject: Holla Back}

Thank you for the ointment. However, in my own defense I did at least take the time to read everything I pasted and openly admit to using that website for nearly all my technology...much better than what I could come up with, yet far more original that Star Wars gear.

note to DA: this post was not copied or pasted from any website. your ointment is no longer required...

Section 3 - The Imperial Flagship

Immortalité (http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/edgeofreflection/giftimages/flag_ship_02.jpg)

Specs

Mass/Displacement - 145 million tons [ready]

Overall Length - 5000m

Beam - 1000m

Volume ~ 82 million cubic meters

Decks - 50

Armor Thickness ~ 20 meters

Power - 15 fusion powerplants, 30 secondary

Sheilding - CSMH Sheilding [chromodynamically stabilised metallic hydrogen sheilding], EMRS Sheilding [Electro-magnetic repulsion sheilding]

Propulsion - 2 Bias Drives, 10 Diametric Drives, 15 Supplimentary Diametric Drives

Endurance ~ 6 years

Max. Acceleration - +/- 400gs, hyperspace capable

Crew - 7840 (104 officers, 6940 enlisted, 796 pilots)

Marines - 628 (four comapnies)

Armaments


8 Quad 1.5 ton kinetic cannons, .2c max muzzel velocity
14 Quad 1 ton kinetic cannons, .205 max muzzel velocity
12 .5 ton kinetic cannons, .25 max muzzel velocity
500 missile launch tubes
60 point-defense systems
3 Hellbore Systems
2 BCPC
4 MASS
1 RKKS

Maximum Rate of Fire


350 boostbombs/ five seconds
16 1.5 ton rounds/ five seconds
28 1 ton rounds/five seconds
48 .5 ton rounds/ two seconds
BCPC/Hellbore systems fire twice every ten seconds

Munitions


24000 1.5 ton rounds
40000 1 tone rounds
40000 .5 ton rounds
72 Antimatter missiles (MASS Platforms)
28350 boostbombs

Support Craft


360 VX12 fighters
30 transport shuttles
4500 targeting drones
4500 attack drones

Description: Decades of tireless research and development have culminated in the completion of the Imperial Flagship Immortalité. As its namesake suggests the Immortalité was designed to withstand any pounding an opponent could dish out. Mounted with guns that could slice most ships in half this ship if a force to be reconed with. The Immortalité is designed to be able to engage at a distance of 4 million kilometers, substantially beyond the range of your average ship-of-the-line. Complete with a fighter with of 360 VX12s, few if any could withstand a direct engagement with the Immortalité. A self-sustained unit, the Immortalité can be out of port for up to an unprecidented six years, carrying a massive crew, as well as a duplicate crew kept in a cold sleep.

The drives on the Immortalité are two types of cutting-edge, "reactionless" drives. They emmit no gravitation signature, but do give of noticeable amounts of electromagnetic charges. The two drives are the diametric drive and the Bias drive. The diametric drive employs an amount of negative matter equal in mass to the positive mass of the ship, cargo and crew. Standard drives use a modular design that allows the amount of negative matter to be tailored to the amount of positive mass aboard the ship. Typically the negative matter is linked electro-magnetically to the ship. When the drive is engaged electromagnetic forces are used to pull the mass of negative matter toward the rear of the vessel. Due to the contrary inertial and gravitational characteristics of negative mass, this cause the negative matter to move toward the front of the ship at a rate proportional to the force being applied, dragging it forward in the process. Acceleration is mostly limited only by the amount of stress that the passengers and cargo can withstand. The Bias driveuses a crystalline lattice of stabilized neutronium infused with liquid Quark-matter. The Q-matter fills the spaces within the neutronium lattice and is contained and controlled by the inter-atomic forces within it. The Quark-Matter Core experiences & produces quantum effects on a macroscopic scale. The quark matter core is extremely dense in order to compact enough matter in a small enough area to produce a useful effect. It is also extremely unstable as a property of the quark matter itself, which is constantly experiencing quantum uncertainty on a scale of cm or more even in its raw state. Using specially designed femtotech quantum bias devices infused throughout its subatomic structure and the structure of the ship, the chaotic substructure of the core is repeatedly influenced in a pattern that results in a temporary macro scale region of quantum uncertainty expanding out from the center of the ship and encompassing the entire vessel and everything aboard it. It is arguable that using bias drives is almost dangerous, but dedicated training towardsthe crews ability at hypertuning has allowed for safety and reliablility to be a minor, if existant problem.

These drives have done wonders for FTL travel. First of all, ships can accelerate while in hyperspace and exiting hyperspace. Something ships were previously unable to do.

With its main guns firing off two 1.5 ton rounds at .2c, every five seconds each gun had to have enormous powersupplies. 22 of the ships reactors are dedicated to each of the 1.5 and 1 ton gun mounts. While the major gunmounts fire four shots per five seconds, extra power was given to the .5 ton gunmounts allowing them to fire at a rate of 8 shots per gunmount every two seconds, rates still unacheived in any other Largentian vessel. In addition to main armaments, this ship carries a massive number of enhanced thermonuclear missiles, known as boostbombs. Modified forms of the orbital bombardment boostbombs were placed onto the Immortalité as anti-capital ship weaponry and are classified as "fire and forget" weaponry. The Immortalité also carries 3 plamsa firing systems, known as Hellbore systems, each capable of eliminating smaller craft in a single shot, and seriously damaging and medium sized ship in the same amount of time. The BCPC systems are designed for medium or--more preferably--short range fighting. Cheap yet powerful, BCPC systems can either pack a solid punch, or at the very least roast enemy sheilds beyond repair. Finally, portable MASS platforms are used as a first attack on enemy fleets approaching the Immortalité. The Platforms detatch from the ship and are guided towards the enemy fleet where they are then ordered to unload their payload in any of four ways. Also, in the unfortunate event of defeat, the crew will not hesitate to use the MASS platforms to scuttle the ship, keep honor, and avoid enemy capture.

Section 4 - Communications

History of Largentian Communications

For many centuries the InterPlanetaryNet (IPN) defined interplanetary civilization. Following the first interstellar colonization the IPN was liked to various colonies by laser link, and despite a lag of what was sometimes many years regarding communication between stellar nodes the InterStellarNet was born. It would become the stepping stone for one of the empire's greatest acheivements ever.

At the same time, colonists and developers established a new ISN node wherever they went, linking it back to the main Solsys nucleus. As distances increased the center was unable to hold, and just when things seemed on the verge of collapse, a new idea was hatched. The Ah'reemi Deep wormhole was constructed in Mars orbit. Over the following century, the galaxy shrunk, and far-flung stars were able to be linked as if they were only separated by interplanetary distances.

The vast interlinkage of data, this information hyperhighway, the wormhole-linked backbone and the relativistically linked rest of settled space, became the Known Net, the totality fo all virtuality within largentian civilization.

Including literallt trillions of nodes, quadrillions of virtual worlds, and quintillions more file-clusters, the Known Net is the single largest and moste complex aggregate of information ever made by Largent. The name is ironic because no-one is exactly certain how vast the Net is, for it is constantly expanding and its hardware itself replicates and spreads with every new star system developed.

The backbone of the Know net is the wormhole Ah'reemi Deep. Every nanosecond, countless quadrillions of bits of information are beamed through the stargate from the SolNet or one IPNet to another. It is often stated, and most likely true, that the true purpose of Ah'reemi Deep is to deal with rapid dataflow between nodes within the Net, and that all other realworld items that pass through it such as ships, passengers, freighters, is just window dressing to keep the nearbaselines happy. Regardless of the truth of this assertion there is no denying that the amount of virtual entities and copies that are transmitted far out number the amount of RL sentients.

Yet although the Known Net is optimally linked by wormholes, it is not dependent on the functioning Ah'reemi Deep for its existence, as each node and mirror is autonomous and itself fractally and holographically incorporates much of the totality; if not the details than at least all the main databases, agents, and simulations, in itself, interfacing with the real world through numerous agents, expert systems, icons, and daimons; and where no infra-structure exists, using neumanns to create the infrastructure where needed, and communicating with other nodes and mirrors relativistically, by laser link, ship, and interstellar catapult. That is why the Known Net was diminished by the catastrophes and alarms that have shaken the Ah'reemi Deep, even if it was slowed for a while. Even now, much of the Net exists outside Ah'reemi Deep, serving countless otherwise isolated habitats and colonies, exchanging packets of information over vast distances at the glacial speed of light, and sometimes even developing and evolving on its own.

With so many levels of sub-sentient, sentient, sub-sophont, and sophont devices around, the level of urban legends and tall tales about tech is truly enormous. Occasionally such legends actually turn out to be true. There have been acounts of sentient beings actually being created within the Known Net. Luckily, to date, they have caused no harm but all people and thinks linked to the Net are truely at their mercy.

Section 5 - Augmentics

Cyrano Mod

With the advent of sensory enhancements that enable people to gauge one another's' moods based on the detection of changing physiological characteristics, the art of negotiating was made much easier. The problem persists, however, that, even if you know that what you're saying is upsetting the party you're trying to sweet-talk, you may not know what to say to set them at ease. While you may now know when to say the right thing, you still don't know what the right thing to say really is.

This is where the Cyrano Mod came into play. Cyrano Mods moniter and analyze the conversation through data being fed to it via psychological sensors and gives advice to help promote the user's desired outcome. Cyrano Mod can be worn as an accessory and tied into the user's processing network via noninvasive interfaces, or it can be installed directly into the user's brainstem--although most prefer to wear it as say a cuff link.

The Cyrano Mod itself is not a complete thinking entity. It has one job, which it usually performs well. Its intelligence is woefully inadequate for tackling problems outside of its area of "expertise," however, and it is incapable of determining when it is out of its element.

Thus, if a Cyrano Mod is fed bogus signals from a physiological sensor suite, or if its language module is out of date and mismatched to the setting in which it is used, it may produce some very bizarre and inappropriate results. It is of the utmost importance to make absolutely certain that the interface between the Cyrano Mod and its sensors is sound. Otherwise, it may prove to be even worse at scoring that hot date than you are.

Reaction Time Enhancement

Before a patient undergoes such augmentation first, the entire synaptic structure must be mapped and interfaced with. Once the nanites placed in the braine are 100% synchronized with what the neurons are doing, they 'cut over' and remove the biologic systems from the link. The only potential problem faced by this is the inability to learn new skills. Augmentists avoid this by increasing the nanotic processor load in the spinal region back to near human neuron densities, increasing the weight of the people by a noticeable amount, although it can cause discomfort, it does not inhibit performance.

Strength Enhancement

Beautifully simply in its design it takes only one shot of pre-programmed nanobots to infinately increase a humans strenght. Once injected, the nanobots travel to the desired muscles and begin to tear peices of the muscle and then helping them heal quickly with the use of various steroids, increasing muscle mass indefinately and semi-naturally.

Increase of muscle is only limited by how much stress surrounding body parts can take. This obstacle can often be overcome by simply replacing tendons and bones with alternate, usually composite, substances.