NationStates Jolt Archive

It was no particular secret that a sister ship for Titan had been in planning since the moment Titan glid from her Ljosan construction slip. There were no particularly innovative technologies developed in Titan's production run - she was, aside from her size, quite conventional.

Of course, the other members of her design lineage were still in active service. The Vanaar class carriers had been the true pathfinders for the technologies of Titan, and the Four Glories introduced improvements to those technologies. Propulsion in first generation Vanaars was sluggish at best, while later refits and refinements addressed issues such as power generation and armament, producing the Four Glories in the process. Further retrofit of those four auspicious vessels, each representing a core world of Kajal, had produced the 4G Solar series of fusio-grav engines, along with improved hangar bay automation systems and protocol.

Sixty years of refinement separated the design of the first generation Vanaar carrier, which itself was a large vessel, and Titan. Refinement resulted in more efficient use of hangar space, three generations of successively smaller yet hardier fighter craft, more energy efficient propulsion systems, and deadlier weapons.

The first retrofit of the Four Glories made the Subspace Compression reactor assemblies practical for vessels smaller than a half kilometer in length. Larger reactors were wholly unnecessary outside of starbases by the time Titan's construction began.

Titan was the product of sixty years of continual design and refinement. Her first sibling would be the product of sixty-one, addressing the shortfalls encountered in the first vessel.

While powerful, Titan's drives remained hybrids, relying on the strength of two technologies to attempt to overcome the shortfalls of both. Standard fusion drives offered excellent accelleration but were unsatiable in their desire for fuel. Second generation gravitic drives, derived from the Farhirra studies, offered higher sustainable accellerations provided enough time was devoted to initial accelleration.

This meant, of course, that when posed with a situation requiring quick maneuvering, Titan would light up the night sky in the way that only a fusion torch can. Her engines were a fifth generation Ljosan design - each with it's own dedicated SCR assembly, providing power for gravitic operation as well as a limitless supply of fuel to attempt to sate the hybrid's hunger while operating as a fusion drive.

When it came down to it, the single most important system of a Kajali ship was the Subspace Compression Reactor coupled with the Atlan E2M Conversion Assembly. Scalable to the needs of nearly every ship in the fleet, it promised fuel for drives, conventional reactors, and ubiquitous plasma weaponry that could not be exhausted until the end of the universe.

It was hypothesized that Subspace Compression Reactors would either accellerate the end of the universe, or delay it. Energy is lowered and matter created is highly organized, and local entropy decreases, or, as the same process is observed, entropy increases due to the removal of energy from what is theorized by some as the realm from which matter in the universe initially emerged.

Most Kajali ships were not ordinarily detectable because of this. Titan's arrival in a theatre was often preceeded by a slight but notable decrease in ambient energy levels.

This was but one issue to be resolved in the construction of Iro-Ilum. Her engines were wholly gravitic, a merger of Menelmacari and Kajali technologies, and were quite prominent in the building slip.

In the time since Gorgon was launched, Iro-Ilum's central core - comprising the hangar bay, main reactor assemblies, and command centre - had quickly come into being in the centre of the skeletal outline of Kajal's second Titan.

Iro-Ilum's construction was about as out in the open as building a ship in a shipyard could be (revolutionary as such practices were). Much of her forward structure was absent, and while it was possible she would share the double forward hull of Titan, structural elements coming together suggested a monohull.

Her biggest secret was that she was being financed by Atla/Ljosa, and such a fact would probably be the furthest thing from the minds of the Aumanii as they howled about militant colonials and the "true" destiny of Mars.

OOC: Iro-Ilum will, when complete, represent the second generation of Titan class vessel, though the difference will be something not unlike that between Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus visually. She'll also be bigger. >.> The name means "Unceasing".

A few things that will be known ICly to agencies and governments...
- She is going to be around three kilometers in length
- The images below can be considered as released to the Martian press.
http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/s...oilum.sized.jpg (http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/ships/iroilum.sized.jpg)
http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/s...ilum2.sized.jpg (http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/ships/iroilum2.sized.jpg)
http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/s...ilum3.sized.jpg (http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/ships/iroilum3.sized.jpg)
http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/s...ilum4.sized.jpg (http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/ships/iroilum4.sized.jpg)
http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/s...n_iro.sized.jpg (http://palara.sularan.net/gallery/albums/ships/titan_iro.sized.jpg)

It had been about a week since the press release showing artist's renderings of what the new ship would look like, and as of yet there had been no major international incidents or outcry, and construction continued on schedule. The basic framework of Iro-Ilum had been completed, which was, of course, the easy part. The coming months would see the hard work of filling that framework be undertaken, and for now, the only truly complete sections of Iro-Ilum had been modular, and attached to the framework when they had themselves come out of the Fabrication Plants.

That Iro-Ilum was technically capable of maneuvering at current was impressive in some circles, but it was not something that she would want to do.

Construction above Mars continued apace, following the new design to the letter as it had been decreed by Atla/Ljosa back on Kajal. The facilities above Mars would have the ship completed within two months, which, while a testament to the installations present, was actually slower than construction over Ljosal Dan would take.

It was, of course, not-so-public that more vessels of the Titan class were in construction above Ljosal Dan under the supervision of the Assistant Director of the Naval Design Department of Atla/Ljosa. None were exactly identical, to say the least - each vessel had been designed with a slightly different purpose in mind.

Titan had been an experiment of her own right, to see if the Kajali could build such a vessel without it being wholly superfluous. Iro-Ilum, on the other hand, was designed to correct flaws discovered in Titan's design, while retaining the same operational profile.

The design of the additional vessels over Ljosal Dan, which, while similar in scope, were quite different in purpose. It was quite apparent, looking out the one window, that this as of yet unnamed fourth ship of the class had a greater emphasis on carrying capacity, as the massive hangar bays currenly neared completion.

Yusaf had been contemplating this new design since the finalization of Iro-Ilum's. Iro's design was the refinement of Titan, but this... this vessel would truly be a Titan.

There was, of course, a flurry of activity within the particular section of shipyard, within which the technicians and designers from Atla/Ljosa, Lossë-elen, and the MIDF. This was a ship that would carry not only fighter craft when complete, but even craft up to the size of the Nightingale and Preybird frigates, in numbers greater than two.

"She will be a monster when she's finished," Yusaf said, the elf beside him nodding. "There may not be a place for her in the universe just yet, but she will certainly be called upon in time..."

"Some would argue that it would be better to build ten frigates than one carrier," The elf said. "But even the largest craft have a purpose."

"Yes... I'm simply afraid that the Military won't know what that purpose is until it's too late."

Construction continued apace, and further away, past the monster that Yusaf was contemplating, the silhouettes of two other craft of similar size, one being itself a 'corrected' version of the original Titan, appearing externally identical, but incorporating many refinements and changes internally, was nearing completion. The second was quite simply too far off to see any great detail.

That there would be four craft, as there were four horsemen, or four prophets, was a decision that currently bothered Yusaf. The Kajali would need more than four of these ships when their true purpose was revealed.

But, until then... Research and Design reigned king. The Titans would be built, tested, and a third generation refined further.

The elf from Lossë-elen was called away to attend to some aspect of the vessel's construction, while Yusaf continued to gaze out the window.