NationStates Jolt Archive


ProtoSpace Tech (FT Documentation)

Godular
05-11-2004, 03:12
As a result of an accident in one of the H.E. Technical University labs several years ago, Godulan scientists were made aware of a particularly lucrative plane of existence which, after documenting its many intriguing properties, have come to name "ProtoSpace"

It is not so much a plane of existence in and of itself as it is the space between dimensions. Indeed, it is the very force that holds the various realities together.

It would seem that this ProtoSpace is only slightly displaced from all other realities that are presently known and documented, enabling a relatively easy transition between one and the other. So little energy is required, in fact, that the trouble isn't in generating the portal, but in making sure the volatile nature of Protospace doesn't blow up in your face due to even the slightest power surge. While kinetic energy has no impact upon the environment of Protospace, it seems that extreme heat and electrical current cause extremely energetic reaction in the form of a sizeable explosion proportionate to the amount of energy input.

This is due primarily to the most lucrative aspect of ProtoSpace: Protomatter. It would seem that with a properly controlled energy input beneath the critical energy that would cause the aforementioned explosion, one can actually craft a short-lived analog of realspace matter. For example, if one were to introduce enough energy to a contained space, one could cause the Protomatter inside that space to actually convert into a particular element, such as hydrogen or lead, depending on the amount of energy input. This temporary material only has a lifespan of but a few minutes.

But, as we have learned, a few minutes is long enough to be useful.

It would further seem that a sizeable enough ship can maintain a consistent connection to Protospace, enabling it to effectively refuel itself as much as it needs to in order to operate at optimum conditions.

Secondly, it would also seem that, while incapable of mass-producing specific munitions, one could turn this into a disastrously powerful kinetic weapon consisting of a mass driver and a Kinetic Lance Generator. Rate of fire is slow, as the Mass Driver would need time to generate this "Kinetic Lance" (nothing more than a 500 Kg iron spike), which is by no means a swift process. Doubtless one can see the applications of this technology in respect to orbital bombardments.

Propelled at hypersonic velocities in space, a Protospace Enabled Mass Driver has the potential to break through even the heaviest armors.

Being that it is a relatively low-energy method to enter another plane of existence, we have also discovered uses in defensive technology, in that a Protospace portal can be maneuvered to capture various projectiles such as missiles and kinetic lances, or even intersperse itself in the path of blasterfire, causing the previously mentioned energetic response. This technology has already seen use in Godulan operations, as it was the first derivation to be discovered. The effective range the portal can be maneuvered has yet to be determined, but as yet we have found that the only limit to its range seems to be line-of-sight.

It has also been discovered that while realspace cannot affect Protospace, and vice versa, mass signatures remain detectable between the two, enabling ships in Protospace to detect the mass signature of planets, stars, enemy ships, or other celestial phenomena, although one cannot tell the exact nature of the object detected until one shifts into the plane the other occupies. What this means is that Protospace actually works as its own version of a Cloaking device, with the simple problem that we can't do anything but look at realspace ships, and they can only return the favor in a like manner, until the ship in protospace reverts into realspace with the purpose of communications or attack.

So, in essence, the Godulan discovery, and subsequent mastery of, Protospace has provided the following:

1) A reliable method of interdimensional travel
-"ProtoShift"

2) A temporary, yet effective refueling capacity
3) Regenerable Ammunition for heavy cannonry
-"Virtual Matter"

4) A defensive direct fire interdiction mechanism with nasty implications to those who use energy weapons
-"VoidShield"

We have also discovered, in our work with respect to interdimensional media, both a particularly interesting method of locomotion, and a devastating direct-fire weapon.

It would seem that with simple manipulation of energies, one can create a small distortion in space-time that has no other effect than accelerating anything on the edge of the field. It has been considered by the Scientists who studied it to be roughly equivalent to a sublight version of warp drive, without that annoying weakness of having outboard weapons that glow like bull's eyes. One of the more surprising aspects of this particular method of locomotion is that it does not matter what medium the generating object is in. The drive works whether one is operating in atmospheric or vacuum environments, although performance is greatly enhanced in Vacuum. The drive also works as its own inertial damper, as it accelerates everything evenly, creating a sense of freefall for those within the generating object.

And last but not least, our little baby. With a particularly large input of energy, one can create a monodirectional wave that hurtles forward until it strikes a drastic change in material, I.E. the wave propagates forward until it strikes the hull of a spacefaring vessel. When this boundary is encountered, the disruption to the wave causes it to violently disrupt the spacetime around it, causing massive damage to the target. Rate of fire is slightly slower than conventional Blaster technologies, but the cannons that generate these waves cause significantly greater damage and with a larger area of effect, as the disruption radiates outward for several meters before the disruptive energy is rendered too low to be damaging. The effect of this wave appears to be proportional to the amount of energy used in generating the burst, in such a manner that fighters and capitol ships can fire the same type of cannon (different sizes of course) to drastically divergent effect.

Also, in essence, we have effectively mastered the usage of:

-Distortion Drive: Sublight mobility that enables extreme maneuverability, its own inertial damper, and extreme speeds in vacuum

-Spatial Flux Cannons (Flux Cannons for short): Line of sight weapons of surprisingly high-yield firepower.

Now that this research field has finally been completed, we can finally devote our energies to Metallurgy and other space technologies, along with populating our new homeworld.

/ooc I dedicated 30 RL days to researching all this, so I can only hope that this was a worthwile investment. For those curious about how the VoidShield works, if one has read any of the New Jedi Order StarWars books, and seen how the Yuuzhan Vong shielding works (singularities that zip about sucking up blasterfire), its a lot like that.

Questions comments?

P.S. it is beginning to come as endlessly aggravating when I do up a lengthy post such as this one, only to have to copy/paste and log back on because the server has kicked me out due to inactivity. GRRRR!
Al-Imvadjah
05-11-2004, 03:27
OOC: I like it, but I don't fear it. It seems pretty good for offense, but I could innundate the voidshields pretty well with RapidRails... and you know how that affected the whatsitthingies from those SW books.
Godular
05-11-2004, 03:33
It is true that those shields are inefficient when it comes to blocking out heavy barrages of gunfire all at once, but think what it could do to ships that focus all of their energy into one devastating shot.

The Death Star, for instance, would be at a particular disadvantage, not only because of the fact that the shield would block it, but it would also "Blow up in their face"

That "Energetic Reaction" will mess it up pretty bad if the voidshield pops up right where those six lasers converge into the final world-crushing weapon.

Also, we're trying to get our hands on secondary shielding systems. We aren't going to be stupid and focus all of our energies on one shield technology. Specialization is breeding in weakness, don'tchaknow.

Edited to add: Truth be told, it isn't so much intended for you to fear it, really. This is basically the basis of our FT technology tree. Its our own system, with its own perks and quirks, and isn't really meant to be some UBER SUPER DUPER MEGA HYPER NASTY KILL YOU IN ONE SHOT OMGOMG technology so much as its... just the beginning.
Al-Imvadjah
05-11-2004, 03:44
Oh, well then... Might I direct you to my storefront (in my sig). There's lots of nce things for you to buy there... and I can design and build special ships for specific customers if they ask.
Godular
05-11-2004, 04:00
You wouldn't happen to have anything in the Ablative Shielding category, wouldja? We wouldn't mind being able to have a shield capable of blocking out both material and energy firepower without having to have two or more separate types of shielding all over the place.

If not, we would be rather willing to have our extremely large contingent of now-bored scientists cooperate in whipping something up.
Al-Imvadjah
05-11-2004, 14:30
No... not by that name anyway... I do have some pretty nice shields... but I've always found armor plating to be the best defense.
Just post what sort of functionality you want, and how heavy the armor and weapons should be, and I'll make something that would work well for that job.
Godular
05-11-2004, 15:18
Truth be told, our Neutronium Steel alloy seems to do a pretty decent job of stopping durn near everything. And we prefer at the moment to stick to our own production capabilities (at the same time we finished our study of these technologies, we finished the construction of a surprisingly large shipyard that had been refitted during production to facilitate Space-Flight capable ships (took 35 RL days to complete the bastage, its pretty durn huge), and intend to commence construction of a space-based shipyard relatively soon. Thanks for the offer though.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Flowers and Kittens for people that have always wanted black lightsabers, for now the dream has been realized!

Several bored scientists yesterday completed construction of the first prototype of what they call a "VoidSword", which utilizes a specially-shaped rift in space-time to provide it with its cutting ability. After initial testing, it was reported that the effective sharpness appears to be on a par with a lightsaber.

"The thing is so light!" one of the scientists, who declined identification, noted. "Its like waving a freaky little rod that spurts a big black blade at the press of a button! WEEE!"

The scientist then accidentally chopped off his own arm.

"Thank the Archons that was my fake one."

It is unknown whether or not the VoidSword will make commercial introduction or be kept as a Godulan Specific weapon.
Weyr
05-11-2004, 15:40
I assume that by LOS you mean the range of your scanner systems. I'd hate to think of a system that relies on human opticals to locate enemy craft in interstellar space. I have taken the liberty of including a shipment of starblades with this message. They're similar to your voidblades, but are not 'feather light', since blades with no mass outside the grip have proven to be difficult to handle for many persons.

Unshattered Hive,
Weyrik Star Guard cruiser Pseudo-Intelligence

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OOC: Comment about inertia -- the problem is the acceleration itself. If you accelerate a human body at a rate of 1000m/sec/sec, you'll liquify it, no matter how even the acceleration is. That's why you can't use standard science to explain high acceleration rates. I'd suggest simply removing the part about the inertial damper. It's usually assumed that your ship already has some sort of buffer system for ptreventing your ship from destroying its human cargo.

Your stealth ships sound like my own subShips, except I use an FTL system that looks more like a slipstream network (tranSpace) than a traditional interdimensional drive thingie. Then again, my ships can use passive scanners when they 'dive' into the area between tranSpace and normSpace if they're equipped with a towed array that literally trails a stealthed craft0 on the end of a long arachnoweave chain. of course, that allows other craft to detect the array...but it's quite small.

Anyways....nice tech........
Godular
05-11-2004, 15:43
Oh, of course.

Yeegh, would suck to sit there with some guy using binoculars going "No! To the right! TO THE RIGHT! The death star is to the RIGHT, dammit!"

And we might try placing an additional weight or two on the Voidsword, as another scientist just lopped off another cybernetic arm.