A Ring On It

The most distinctive feature of any frameslip drive is its ring. Unlike the simple vector-control core which can be tucked safely within the parent ship – the microtides accompanying too-close exposure to a vector-control core have been responsible for little more than a great deal of nausea among engineer apts – the much greater inflection of space required to form the frameslip envelope and the ripple on which it rides needs to be kept as far from the starship itself as practical. Since sensor domes, turrets, drive nozzles, radiators, et. al., protrude beyond the hull and must continue to operate during fittle-flight, a large slipspace volume is required, resulting in frameslip rings often being the most prominent feature of any starship equipped with one.

As frameslip travel has advanced, a variety of techniques have evolved to deal with the unfortunate form-factor this forces upon frameslip drive starships, and the problems inherent in having a large structure packed with relatively delicate metric-manipulation technology outermost in the starship’s structure, especially for warships.

Where the technology itself is concerned, the most important development was the multiphasic frameslip drive, enabling a single core to direct its output through dual or even multiple rings arranged in series along the drive axis. Rather than the spherical slipspace produced by an original-pattern frameslip drive, multiphasic frameslip encapsulates an ellipsoidal volume, more compatible with other aspects of celestime architecture, albeit at some cost in envelope efficiency. Such designs obviously reduce the necessary size of the frameslip rings for a given hull compared to a single-ring design.

Another area of development has been the use of temporary rings. The first systems of this type were simple temporary rings; a number of prototype vessels were constructed with dockable “collar” frameslip modules, similar in concept to the drive module of the Kalantha-class frontier trader. While this proved to be an unpopular paradigm, later developments along this line produced the Flatbread-class frameslip superlifter, which uses an open frame similar to a cageworks to surround the vessel it transports, and the Lanceola-class fleet carrier, a long-spined craft to which cruiser and destroyer-type screening vessels can dock within the radius of its frameslip rings.

Simultaneously, other designers were working on the collapsible frameslip ring, capable of being withdrawn from its active position to lie flat against the hull when not in use, a process requiring first disconnecting and then shrinking the individual segments of the ring. In achieving this, designers concentrated the frameslip machinery into a series of nodes at key points around the ring, permitting the remainder – primarily waveguides and simple couplers – to be mounted within telescoping structures extending from each side of the spar-mounted nodes and interlinking to complete the ring. This has now become the established standard for all but specialized and dedicated frameslip vessels; in more advanced designs, the extended nodes make use of reality graphics to form the full ring out of pseudomatter nanovoxels, eliminating the need for telescoping.

One particular example worth mentioning at this point is the Metamotive-class stargate transport, which hybridizes the above models. It makes use of a unique six-part design, the components of which are capable either of linking together and operating as a single unit while moving between gates, or of separating and docking independently with the transport sockets on a Ring Dynamics Mark IV stargate, extending the reach of the ring to cover the entire structure.

One of the greatest difficulties in ring design, however, was faced by the Imperial Navy’s Bureau of Innovation: that of enabling capital ships – battleships, carriers, and larger classes – to be constructed with frameslip capability. While collapsible frameslip rings, which place the key machinery safely within the protective envelope of the starship’s systems, suffice for civilian use, this is insufficient for a ship of war; the protection of armor is required for survivability in the battlespace environment. Thus, the Bureau developed the Alcarialé-Renaez frameslip mount.

Capital starship design is based upon a core framing structure within which the pressure hull (or hulls) is mounted, along with the drives, power reactors, bunkerage, auxiliary machinery, cargo holds, etc., etc. The outer hull, composed of armor plating, is mounted atop this framing structure by means of flexible spreader trusses; only a few necessary components are mounted to the inside of the outer hull.

The Alcarialé-Renaez frameslip mount separates the frame structure into multiple segments (typically three), along with the armor above it. The points where secondary structural members meet are connected when the segments are closed up using variations of the Ascíël coupler, while flexpipe, concertina couplings, and similar technologies are used to carry power, data, and materiel across the segments regardless of their position. Meanwhile, the junctions in the armor layers are built to a double-overlap pattern which provides protection when closed and do not allow for a vulnerable gap between armor sections. The primary structural members – selected to be sufficient for the stresses of fittle-flight, if not combat – at the division points are replaced by magnetohydraulic rams wrapped in similar variable-length couplers.

When such a vessel wishes to engage frameslip drive, it must first disengage the various couplers between each segment, at which point the multiple magnetohydraulic rams engage to drive the framing segments apart, lengthening the starship and opening gaps in the armor above the division points through which the spars and nodes of a collapsible frameslip ring may be extended, and the ring completed through reality graphic projection. On arrival, the same process is reversed to withdraw the ring and restore battle-readiness.

Of course, as all this is a somewhat complex and lengthy evolution, the frameslip-equipped capital ship must be sure to plan its arrival at a suitable distance from the battlespace, and likewise, may find itself unable to depart without a safe location in which to deploy the frameslip ring without exposing its vulnerable aspects to enemy fire.

– The Evolution of Frameslip (8001-8200), INI Press

Smol But Effective

GERRAWAY-BY-CLASS ORBITAL SERVICE VEHICLE

Operated by: The canine orbital mechanics of regular orbital mechanics.
Type: Orbital transfer/service vehicle.
Construction: Horizon Cageworks, ICC

Length: 2.2 m
Beam: 1.7 m
Dry mass: 784 kg

Gravity-well capable: No.
Atmosphere capable: No.

Personnel: 1 smart dog (prosophont bandal partial uplift)

Drives:

  • Propulsion Dynamics, ICC HX-3 Husky low-thrust orbital maneuvering engine
  • Propulsion Dynamics, ICC cold-gas reaction-control assembly
  • Horizon OrbitSpace, ICC reaction wheels

Propellant: Liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen mix.
Cruising (sustainable) thrust: 0.25 g
Δv reserve: 1,350 m/s

Sensors:

  • Orbital Positioning System
  • Star tracker
  • Passive EM array
  • Short-range collision avoidance and docking radar
  • Transponder

Other Systems:

  • Cognitech, ICC/Family of Species, ICC “Radio Sniffer” audio-olfactory merkwelt translation system
  • Cognitech, ICC/Family of Species, ICC “Starlight Barking” multimodal communications system
  • Exogenesis, ICC AI pilot-assist and remote override system
  • Omnidirectional radio transceiver
  • 3 x Extropa Energy, ICC accumulators
  • Systemic Integrated Technologies radiative striping/solar power collection systems
  • 1 x Extropa Energy, ICC hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell
  • Canned (non-regenerative) life support; CO₂ scrubbers
  • High-intensity LED work lights
  • 4 x fixed-point multipurpose, interchangeable-tool work arms (Horizon OrbitSpace, ICC)
  • optional satellite servicing kit, tool platform, and component rack (Horizon OrbitSpace, ICC)
  • optional interchangeable drop tanks for use with refueling probe
  • optional debris-collecting shield, basket, and tow cables

DESCRIPTION

The Gerraway-By-class of “micro” orbital service vehicle was a unique oddity brought to life by the circumstances of the early space era, and a chance meeting at the Look Out Below Café and Bar. Specifically, a wide-ranging discussion over several beers between some of the celestime architects from Horizon Cageworks, a number of gentlesophs working in various orbital industries, and a trainer of working bandal – and more specifically their “smart dog” variants who had undergone stage one uplift – who happened to be visiting the platform at the time. The topic was the increasing amount of grunt work – refueling satellites, performing basic maintenance, debris collection – that maintaining orbital industry required, and how inefficient it was to continue carrying this out by hand.

The result, a design outline found scribbled on a pile of napkins delivered to the Horizon offices the next morning, was the Gerraway-By.

In its essentials a shrunk-down version of the Minnal-class workpod – refactored so that one or two Gerraway-Bys could be carried by a Minnal, or several by an OTV – the Gerraway-By was intended as a means to bring our old friends with us into the space age. While AI was not quite ready for independent use performing the necessary tasks, it was more than capable of operating in conjunction with a well-trained working bandal, and their eldrae supervisor, to command a small service vehicle operating from a larger ship.

Combined with the work into uplift carried out by Family of Species and Cognitech’s beginning research into merkwelt translation easing interface difficulties, the timing was perfect for an entirely new kind of spacedog to take their place shepherding Eliéra’s increasingly crowded low orbitals, and a new era of partnership was born.

The Naming Of Ships Is A Difficult Matter

pennant number: The Imperial Navy’s best attempt at a general purpose identification code for ships, other means having proven inadequate.

It is generally held that the true identifier of a ship is its name: that is, after all, what is written upon the hull, and with it travels the ship’s crest and other naval heraldry, figurehead, relics, and traditions. More importantly, the name itself travels with the spirit of the ship.

While this is definitive from the perspective of aelvaqor, this is unfortunately inadequate for administrative purposes. Eucharion’s Spear, for example, has in its time been a war galley (w/RG-14¹), two first-rate ships of the line (w/RL1-12 and w/RL1-56), two battleships (w/BB-4 and w/BB-82), a submarine battleship (w/BS-156), two star battleships (BB-6 and BB-183), and three star dreadnoughts (BD-47, BD-200, and BD-486).

A second form of identification is the hull number, assigned to the hull upon construction. Hull numbers consist of an alphanumeric designation for the graving dock in which the hull was constructed, followed by the serial number assigned by the dockmaster to that hull.

This, too, is inadequate for administrative purposes as it relates to the ship entire. Over the course of its life, a single hull may undergo several refits, which may alter many of the ship’s characteristics, even to the point of altering its type. Consider, for example, the case of Damaschira, who began her career as a Simélia-class destroyer (w/DD-1161), was later retyped along with the rest of her class as a destroyer escort (w/DE-2217), and finally was refit as a dedicated minesweeper (w/MS-141).

For this purpose, the pennant number² was devised. Assigned to a given ship (hull) when it is commissioned, along with its name, the pennant number is updated whenever the ship undergoes a significant refit³ and is never reused after the ship is eventually scrapped and passes its spirit and name to an heir, thus providing a unique designation for both the individual ship and its current set of capabilities and characteristics.

The pennant number consists of a type prefix (also known as the flag superior), identifying the type of the vessel, followed by a numerical suffix (the flag inferior), indicating the order in which the ship in question was commissioned as that type. A ship which is refit into a new type and then back into its original type acquires a new pennant number, unless the second refit is merely to restore its original class.

Small craft are not issued names or pennant numbers, and instead – for administrative purposes – use the pennant number of their mother ship with a numerical suffix indicating order of assignment. For communications, a flight number is used instead.

Blackjacket’s Dictionary


Footnotes:

  1. Historically, not all ships were assigned pennant numbers at the time of commission. Type codes beginning with “R” indicate pennant numbers assigned retrospectively to ships of types which no longer exist. Similarly, both the wet navy and space navy use similar pennant number systems; where both are used in the same context, it is conventional to prefix wet navy pennant numbers with “w/”.
  2. Originally flown by wet navy ships by means of signal flags, hence the name and the names of its components. In later years, and by space navy ships, the pennant number is signaled by the ship’s transponder and used in tactical mesh packet headers.
  3. The definition of significant refit is somewhat ambiguous, but is traditionally held to include any refit sufficient to change the type, or even class, of the ship in question.

Is Its Own Replenishment Barge

The Waffle-class drop ship is a starship in mass and displacement, and in many of the other technical senses of the word. But it is not a starship.

The Waffle shares with a variety of small craft (the Marlinspike-class boarding torpedo, the Piton- and Fist- drop pods, and the like) a certain characteristic. Namely, that it is extremely likely, if not absolutely certain, that it will be used only once before being destroyed.

A starship has a name, a spirit, and a history that often goes back through multiple incarnations. Such things, it is generally felt, do not belong with such consumable vessels.

For this reason, the Waffle and its fellows are, by IN regulations, designated “ammunition”.

Very-large-caliber ammunition.

– Traditions and Tales of the Senior Service

Unstuck

FROM: CORE COMMAND (OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT)
TO: ALL SHIPS

***** ROUTINE
***** FLEET CONFIDENTAL E2048
***** ADVISORY

ALL FLIGHT COMMANDERS:

  1. THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES A ROUTINE UPDATE OF STANDING ORDER 147 (TEMPORAL IDENTIFICATION PROTOCOL).
  2. AS PER STANDING ORDER 147(A) TRANSPONDER/IFF SUFFIX PIP 1471 IS TO BE USED BY ANY IMPERIAL NAVY STARSHIP OPERATING NONSEQUENTIALLY IN EMPIRE TIME, EXCEPT AS PROVIDED FOR IN STANDING ORDER 147(C) BELOW.
  3. AS PER STANDING ORDER 147(B) TRANSPONDER/IFF CODES IN SERIES 87413-NNNNNN ARE ALLOCATED TO IMPERIAL NAVY STARSHIPS WHICH HAVE NOT ENTERED SERVICE AT THE TIME OF ENGAGEMENT/ENCOUNTER, AND ARE TO BE CONSIDERED VALID FOR TWO YEARS FROM RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE. SUCH IFF CODES ARE TO BE VALIDATED BY PROTOCOL OROELLE BLUESHIFT FRATERNAL AT EARLIEST POSSIBLE CONVENIENCE.
  4. AS PER STANDING ORDER 147(C) TRANSPONDER/IFF SUFFIX PIP 1472 PLUS INSTANCE SEQUENCE NUMBER IS TO BE USED BY ANY IMPERIAL NAVY STARSHIP OR STARSHIPS OPERATING IN CONJUNCTION WITH ITSELF. INSTANCE SEQUENCE NUMBERS ARE TO INCREASE MONOTONICALLY WITH EMPIRE TIME.
  5. AS PER STANDING ORDER 147(D) TRANSPONDER/IFF SUFFIX PIP 1473 IS TO BE USED BY ANY IMPERIAL NAVY STARSHIP EXISTING SOLELY AS A RESULT OF A CAUSAL LOOP.
  6. AS PER STANDING ORDER 147(E) TRANSPONDER/IFF SUFFIX PIP 1474 IS TO BE USED BY ANY IMPERIAL NAVY STARSHIP WHOSE TEMPORAL ALIGNMENT VIS-A-VIS EMPIRE TIME IS UNKNOWN.
  7. AS PER STANDING ORDER 147(F) TRANSPONDER/IFF SUFFIX PIP 1475 IS TO BE USED BY ANY IMPERIAL NAVY STARSHIP WITH REASON TO BELIEVE THAT IT WAS ACTUALIZED FROM A POTENTIAL ALTERNATE WORLDLINE.
  8. AS PER STANDING ORDER 147(G) TRANSPONDER/IFF SUFFIX PIP 1476 IS TO BE USED BY ANY IMPERIAL NAVY STARSHIP WITH REASON TO BELIEVE THAT IT IS SUFFERING AN ONTOLOGICAL PARADOX OR OTHER RELATED EFFECT NOT COVERED BY THE CATEGORIES ABOVE.
  9. NOTE THAT IDENTICAL TRANSPONDER/IFF SUFFICES ARE IN USE BY STARSHIPS ASSIGNED TO THE IMPERIAL EXPLORATORY SERVICE AND IMPERIAL SERVICE. FOR THE PURPOSES OF STANDING ORDER 147(B), SEQUENCES 87412-NNNNNN and 87411-NNNNNN RESPECTIVELY HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED.
  10. AUTHENTICATION: OGRE ANCESTOR SILVER PLUM STAFF NEEDLE / 0x77BB4129A6678A6A

ADM MACIAN CORINTHOS
DIVISION OF RELATIVISTICS & TEMPORAL NAVIGATION

NOTSPC

From: Talentar Orbital
Distribution: Talentar Orbital Space (all); Talentar Inbounds (all)
Cc: Lumenna-Súnáris SysCon
Priority: PRIORITY
Subject: NOTSPC S00110/7380 PR S00024/7380
Timestamp: 7380 Cálith 25 Waking 0
Type: NOTSPC

*** Notice to Spacers (Autodecoded) ***

This notice S00110/7380 partially replaces notice S00024/7380. This notice applies to all starships and motile satellites and is directed to the immediate attention of flight crew members and flight control automation.

Unacceptably high debris particle counts have been detected in the equatorial orbital zone at orbital level 100. Debris clearing operations (fluffship sweep) have been scheduled in this area from 7380 Sunarast 16 Waking+12 and will continue for 16 Kp.

Due to work in progress, all starships and motile satellites are required to avoid orbital levels 99 through 101 between 30° N and 30° S during this period. Contact Talentar Orbital for new orbital allocations. Crossing traffic may be permitted at discretion of Talentar Orbital. Caution advised.

Ends.

Tempus Fugit

So, here we are at the end of September, and I’ve written all of one thing in the past month. Depression, unseemly heat, and a server deciding to take up an exciting new career as a brick have combined to do a real number on my creativity.

Thank you all for bearing with me through these times of crisis and literary drought. Hopefully October will suck slightly less. Or maybe COVID will come back strong and kill us all. Either way.

In the meantime, here’s one of those little fine distinctions that creeps its way into spacer slang:

topside: In a starship context, on the hull. (An EVA topside is thus distinguished from an EVA outside, which implies leaving the immediate vicinity of the ship.)

– A Star Traveler’s Dictionary

Time Bomb

WATCH CONSTABULARY / ORBIT GUARD
SPACECRAFT INCIDENT REPORT

REPORT: MERI-11-5122

EVIDENCE BLOCK 2A

DESCRIPTION: The following comprises a transcript of conversation occurring in the forward (open) hold of the Magpie-class debris recovery vehicle CMS Comber’s Bounty, in the minutes immediately preceding its destruction. The transcript was recovered from a surviving buffer memory of the local voice command system node and as such is of limited quality and records only local sounds.

BUFFER STARTS

FLTCOM: — you brought this thing onto my ship without checking, you —

[silence, approximately 6s]

FLTCOM: Because you did not bother to check what this “marvelously intact” piece of wreckage was before you brought it aboard. In contravention of procedure, good sense, and every other consideration but the chime of coin behind your eyeballs.

[silence, approximately 14s]

FLTCOM: Oh, yes. It’s an antique. As I profoundly hope did not occur to you, the VI-4 libration point is most famous for the Battle of Meridian VI-4. What we have here – is your camera on? – is a Type 95 Deep Javelin, one of the most ridiculously deadly torpedoes the Bureau ever came up with. Yes, it’s centuries obsolete, but that doesn’t make it any less deadly.

[silence, approximately 7s]

FLTCOM: Let’s start with the drive. See these nice, shiny nozzles? There’s your first clue. They’re as pristine and unsullied by use as your cerebrum. The nuclear salt-water drive on this never fired. That means these tanks are still full of highly enriched uranium tetrabromide, which is unlikely to have decayed enough to help us. If any of the valves marinating in the corrosive nuke-juice decide to fail, we get a nuclear drive plume in here. And if the damn stuff has crystallized on the baffles by now, we could get a critical assembly by poking it too hard.

[silence, approximately 2s]

FLTCOM: The warhead? That’s just a nice, safe, nucleonic shaped-charge driving a plasmated beryllium filler through whatever’s in front of it. That would be Mechanical Switching Three, Auxiliary Avionics, and most of the rest of the ship, if you weren’t clear on that. That uses the X-rays. The gamma rays, meanwhile, they tickle the off-axis lasing rods to give it some extra punch. And that little thing on the nose that’s less than a foot from the bulkhead? That would be the proximity fuse set for a couple of miles. Arms as it leaves the tube, and yes, it is armed.

[silence, approximately 15s]

FLTCOM: Do? What I am going to do is return to the bridge and put out a distress call for the Orbit Guard and the best EOD tech in the system. What you are going to do [sigh] Much as I would like to strap something with the apparent density of your skull to the nose of this catastrophe as improvised shielding, you – assuming you wish to board any starship in the future as something other than ballast – are going to return to your cabin, stay there until instructed otherwise, and while you are contemplating the number of different ways in which you have probably killed us all, you can memorize every single damned illustration in the Dangerous Debris Diges —

BUFFER ENDS

Better Alternative

anti-buckling vents: vents, either permanent or automatically opening (using, for example, rupture disks) in the event of a significant pressure differential across them, installed in non-spacetight bulkheads and deckheads to prevent them from behaving as de facto spacetight compartmentalizations while lacking the structural strength to serve in that role.

After a number of incidents in which decompressions caused by hull punctures and the resulting pressure differentials caused crumples and collapses of non-spacetight bulkheads, severing piping and cable runs passing through or along those bulkheads, anti-buckling vents became a standard component of celestime architecture.

(For this reason, it is important to immediately follow decompression procedures when the alarm sounds, whether or not the source of decompression appears to be in the current compartment.)

– A Space Traveler’s Dictionary

Wakey, Wakey

navigational awareness system: The most dangerous part of space flight, interface vehicles excepted, is close-orbit maneuvering, or rendezvous, in which one craft must maneuver near to, or even to touch, another safely. Since neither starships nor habitats are small, it only takes a minor accident to involve a lot of momentum. For this reason, it is at these times that the soph conning a space vehicle, be they sailing master or pilot, must be most attentive.

The navigational awareness system is an adaptation of older technologies to the space environment, which while not mandated by the Imperial Navigation Act, is often required by celestime insurers. Essentially, when the equipped vessel is in close proximity to another craft or station and operating under manual control, it periodically and randomly prompts the soph at the conn with a high or low chime, to which they must respond promptly by left-depressing or right-depressing an acknowledgement pedal appropriately. (Some systems attempted to monitor the attention state of the helmsman directly using neural sensors, but this technique had the disadvantage of being unable to distinguish between concentration on the conn, and concentration on this month’s issue of Xenophilia Unveiled.)

Failure to do so causes automatic safety systems tied into the NAS to disable the conn controls, to bring the craft (using cold-gas thrusters or other low-power drive systems) to rest with respect to the local reference body in such a manner as to avoid possibly causing a collision, and to pip the transponder to indicate that the craft is not under command. These measures cannot be reverted without removing the current helm key and inserting it, or another, anew. This ensures that an inattentive helmsman, or one who suffers a medical emergency during such maneuvers, should not be able to steer their craft unknowingly into danger.

– A Star Traveler’s Dictionary

Hold the Eggs

Bacon Maneuver: A stealth tactic used by sailing masters with no sense of self-preservation, the Bacon Maneuver involves hiding a small starship within the drive wake of a larger vessel. Large, multiple-drive craft often have “sweet spots” close in where the drive plumes have not yet impinged on one another, and thus in which a small vessel can lurk without being instantly immolated by the larger vessel’s torches. In such a position, the small starship relies on the “white-out” of sensors looking directly at the drive plume to conceal its own presence.

Carrying this out is fraught with a number of problems: the ability to approach the sweet spot through the distal drive wake without being incinerated; the need to sink radiant heat from the drive plumes surrounding the sweet spot; the high likelihood of a collision with the larger vessel or its drive plume should it maneuver unexpectedly; and so forth.

From this litany of difficulties is drawn the name of the maneuver: one who attempts it while being so much as a minim less good than they think they are will assuredly be fried crispy.

– A Star Traveler’s Dictionary

Nope, It’s A Bridge

Many of you, gentle readers, are also devotees of the Atomic Rockets web site. (As well you should be, if you are interested in matters rockety.) And, of course, you may have noted the Atomic Rockets Seal of Approval off in the right-hand column.

But today I’m going to talk about a place where I find myself, and the ‘verse, disagreeing with it. Specifically, with “It is a CIC Not a Bridge“. For convenience, I’m going to quote from it here:

That round room in the Starship Enterprise? The one they call the “Bridge?” Wrong term, that thing is a Combat Information Center (CIC). On a real wet-navy vessel, the bridge is a tiny two-station place used to control the the movement of the ship. It only had stations for the navigation and helm.

In other words, the “bridge” on the Starship Enterprise is that little console that Sulu and Chekov sit at.

The CIC is where all the data from the sensors, scoutships, intelligence agencies, central command, and other ships is gathered and evaluated. The important information is passed to the captain along with tactical suggestions. Exactly the way Uhura, Scotty, and Mr. Spock pass information and tactical suggestions to Captain Kirk.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/misconceptions.php#id–It_is_a_CIC_not_a_Bridge

So, here’s the thing. It’s actually slightly more complicated than that. There are three places on a wet navy vessel all of which do things that people think of as functions of “the bridge”.

There is the CIC, as described above. It’s the information-gathering and decision-making center.

Then there is the wheelhouse, which is where the ship’s movement is controlled from. This, on ships that had a bridge, was usually buried down inside the hull or beneath the superstructure – for one simple reason. You don’t want it shot off. If you lose the wheelhouse, you can’t command the ship any more, so you don’t want it somewhere vulnerable.

And then there is the bridge, which is the place you conn the ship from. It’s up high at the front of the superstructure with generous wings, etc., because its requirement is that you be able to see what the ship’s doing in order to command it.

(On a merchant ship, you probably don’t need a protected CIC, and since you don’t expect anyone to shoot your bridge off, you may have the engine-room telegraphs and wheel up there in one place. On navy vessels, on the other hand, instead of passing engine orders and steering directly, you have a bridge talker yelling “Port 40! Half ahead both!” down voice tubes to the wheelhouse.

On the other hand, the bridge is also exposed to heavy weather, so merchies that expect to encounter the rough stuff may still have a separate wheelhouse. This was actually where they first came from.)

In a historical digression, incidentally, the original bridge is an evolution of what was originally the quarter deck, the raised deck at the stern, on sailing ships. When it became more important to avoid your own smoke than see what your sails were doing, which is to say, as we moved from sail to steam, the raised area moved for’ard and became the bridge as we know it today.

As for the wheelhouse, that came from sailing ship designs in which the poop deck (the highest deck at the stern, typically forming the roof of the stern cabin) was extended forward to cover the quarter deck and the ship’s wheel, on the entirely reasonable grounds that in a storm, it’s easier to steer without being out in the full blast of wind and wave, and in battle, it’s much easier to steer if you have some protection from being shot.

So let’s bring this back around to starships.

You don’t need a bridge in the above sense. As it says further up that page, Rockets Don’t Got Windows – given space ranges and instrumentation, you are never going to be trying to conn the ship with your Mark I Eyeball, which is essentially what a bridge up high is for. Your best view is going to come from sensors, but they can be read just as easily from the CIC, buried deep in the center of the hull for maximum protection.

(Why did the Enterprise designers perch the bridge right up at the top of the saucer, with about three feet between the back of the fancy digital sensor-feed-showing viewscreen and hard vacuum, right where any Tom, Dick, or Kang could shoot at it conveniently? Were they all Romulan spies?)

Do you need a separate wheelhouse? Well, given that starships are certainly going to have fancy electronic controls rather than the hydraulic/pneumatic/etc., systems that imposed constraints on the position of wet navy wheelhouses vis-a-vis the CIC – usually buried down in the bottom of the ship where the armor is thick – I’m going to say probably not. The CIC’s already in the safest place, per above.

(You may have a maneuvering room, as they call the place on submarines, where the engineers translate your requests into detailed instructions to the engines, and given that a starship ACS is probably also rocket engines of some sort, that may also be handled from there – but that’s a different function.)

You are going to have a CIC, because you still need somewhere to coordinate information, make decisions. In my opinion, it will probably also be the wheelhouse (after all, as in the Enterprise example above, it’s just one console, and since the maneuvering orders are going to come from the officer on watch in the CIC anyway, why make him shout any further than he has to?).

The only question is whether it will be called the CIC. The above (combined CIC/wheelhouse) is essentially the arrangement they use on submarines today (where it is called the control room; the bridge is the place you can stand at the top of the conning tower when the boat’s on the surface).

That may be likely nomenclature for starships, too. (Nothing especially that civilian starships are unlikely to have a Combat Information Center.)

On the other hand, the Imperial Navy, and their merchant tradition, call it the bridge. Why? Well, unlike our submarines, there isn’t another bridge somewhere to clash with it – and you get your best view of what’s around from it – and in the meantime, it’s a name that’s got centuries, indeed millennia, of tradition behind it as The Place From Which Ships Are Commanded. It’s a word, in a nutshell, that’s got weight.

And since you’re combining all the functions back together, as they were in the beginning, that counts plenty.

The quarter deck, on the other hand, that’s somewhere else.

Naming Convention

BEING A SUMMARY OF PRODUCTION
AT STARFLIGHT SHIPYARDS, SELÉNE, CAGEWORKS TWO
FOR FIRST QUARTER, 7399

IS Lunar Loom
Custom design (orbital elevator constructor).
Worlds’ Rim Development, ICC; paid in full.

IS Alkahest of Conflict
Harbinger-class diplomatic cruiser
Galactic Arbitrations, ICC; paid in full.

IS The Sun’s Brilliance Scatters All Shadows
False Dawn-class orbital mirror tender
Sahal & Moons Orbital Light and Power, ICC; 12% advanced, mortgage on delivery.

CMS Rosy Conodont
Erlenmyer-class chemical tanker
Biolith Chemical Products, ICC; paid in full.

IS Authentic Communicative Ecstasy
Starwing-class courier, with aftermarket high-intensity communications laser (customer provision)
Private sale; paid in full.

CS Sufficiency
Apocalypse-class battleship
Imperial Navy, per construction contract 7930-02.

IS Only Hard On The Outside
Adze-class orbital construction platform
Homesteads, ICC; six-year payment plan, first due on delivery.

CMS Content Available In Your Area
Shadowcat-class blockade runner
Private sale, paid in full.

CS State Sensor-Ship
Brazen-class recon destroyer
Imperial Navy, per construction contract 7930-02.

CSS Neutrino Simulator
Peregrine-class scout
Imperial Exploratory Service, per construction contract 7930-01.

CMS Performative Optimism
Profit-class free trader
Private sale; 12% advanced, mortgage on delivery.

CSS Celeritous Sciencier
Breadboard-class space research platform, no outfitting.
Starleaper Initiative; payment on delivery.

CMS Perambulatory Debauch
Pleasurable Company-class liner
Centralia Line, ICC; 12% advanced; mortgage on delivery.

IS Seismic Dissection
Skoufer-class smeltership
Celestial Mining, ICC; paid in full.

IS Premonitions of Debris
Brutal-class cruiser
By commission for Galek’s Gutrippers; 12% advanced, mortgage on delivery.

CMS Insufficiently Hyped
Kalantha-class frontier trader
Private sale, payment on delivery.

CSS Algorithmic Beatitude
Merí-class executive yacht, without life support or internal fixtures
Transcendent commission; deliver to Qerach for final fitting-out.

CMS Peripatetic Pilgrim
Flatfoot-class short-range passenger transport
Cilmínar Orbital Charterships; 12% advanced, mortgage on delivery.

IS Bright Aphelion
Icebox-class shardcruiser
Anniax Deep Black Development, ICC; 12% advanced, mortgage on delivery.

CMS Generous Selfishness
Boxcar-class modular trader
Deliver to market.

CMS Truth and Value
Procurer-class freighter,
Deliver to market.

IS Chariot of a Lesser Sun
Sparklebug-class power freighter
Homesteads, ICC; six-year payment plan, first due on delivery.

CMS Bandwidth Advantage
Wain-class megafreighter
Unnecessaries, ICC, under standing construction contract.

Although Most Designs Are Poly

Ascíël coupler: the standard design, in modular habitat and starship architecture, for the coupler that binds adjacent modules into a single unit.

For such semi-permanent connections on a large scale, simple docking adapters are obviously unsuitable; tidal forces and other stresses common in large structures may cause a simple docking adapter to be stressed sufficiently to separate over time, and starship-level thrust applied to a modular design would cause near-immediate failure.

A variety of designs (often based on existing railroad couplers) were tried to prevent this while also avoiding the expense, wasted time, and potential damage involved in bolting or welding additional reinforcement onto the modules, with varying degrees of success, eventually converging on the modern Ascíël coupler.

The Ascíël coupler, as defined in IOSS 64212, makes use of the IUSI androgynous docking adapter (as defined in IOSS 52114) to achieve initial connection. (As such, it too comes in the three there-defined standard sizes.)

Once hard dock has been achieved, the surrounding coupler engages a nested pair of counterrotating helical screws, which intertwine from each side of the coupler to form a solid bond between the modules. Once the screws have advanced to the fully engaged position, twelve locking rods (six per screw, three being managed by each coupler) are electromagnetically released and are forced by springs into their extended position through holes in the screws, preventing them from rotating and thus from working loose over time.

When fully engaged, an Ascíël coupler has an effective strength equivalent to that of the surrounding module hull.

– A Star Traveler’s Dictionary

On AKVs and Survivability

From the questions box:

Dear Gentlesoph,
Having been reading your posts, I have a question about AKVs such as the ‘Daggerfan’ and ‘Slasher’ classes. With high-powered lasers capable of doing damage at one light second, how do AKVs survive the 300,000km journey into single kilometer range? As stated in your ‘Nonstandard Starship Scuffles’ post, military vessels use armor woven through with thermal superconductors dumping heat into ‘thermal goo’. I assume this armor/thermal management system applies to AKVs as well, although you also state that point-defense lasers will shred a vessel unfortunate enough to get into very close range. How can an AKV survive at single kilometer ranges long enough to inflict damage on the target? Thank you for your time, I look forward to more posts!

Well, there are two parts to this: how do AKVs close to skin-dancing range, and how do they survive when they get there? I’ll take ’em one at a time.

On the first point: with great difficulty.

If you take a wing of AKVs and throw them at a fresh battleship, all you’re doing is providing its point-defense computers with skeet; they’ll be chaff and charnel before they get anywhere near the inside of the BB’s point-defense zone.

What you have to do is wear it down first. That’s is the job of the non-carriers on your side of the fight: throw a lot of kinetics at the enemy to make their PD work hard. That does three jobs: one, it keeps the PD grid busy in itself; two, any of it that gets through may just take out a chunk of the PD grid; but most importantly, three, by making them run their point-defenses, you’re building up heat in their ship. Your non-carriers also have the job of pumping heat into their ship directly with the big lasers.

That heat, in turn, is going to eat away at their PD efficiency in a variety of ways. Most simply, it’s going to have to cut back on its firing rate once the heat sinks start filling, because otherwise the crew will cook, but also the hardware becomes less efficient, processor error rates go up, and similar badness ensues.

That’s when you send in the AKVs, and you send in a lot of AKVs mingled with a lot of chaff and decoys, swamping the capabilities of the now-degraded PD grid. They won’t all get through – you plan for a lot of them not to – but once the grid’s sufficiently degraded, enough will to ruin the BB’s day.

As for when they’re there? Remember, they’re described as operating within the point-defense envelope, which is to say, inside its inner boundary, which is defined by the minimum effective range of the PD – set by a variety of factors, such as the range at which firing the PD will seriously damage your own ship, but of which probably the most important is the ability of the PD to track the target and slew to fire on it. At the sort of hug-the-hull sub-km range AKVs like to operate at, it doesn’t take much velocity to generate a huge traversal angle, and what you can’t track, you can’t reliably hit.

(And it’s hard for your screen to fire effectively at the AKVs ruining your day, ’cause even discounting the effects of the AKV exploding at point-blank range, every miss will hit you.)

All of which is to say: While there are some subtleties and complexities to the tactics (defense AKVs, screening vessels sharing PD, etc., etc.), the short answer is it takes a lot of work and losses to get an AKV force within range of a target, but once you do, that target is dead meat.

You’ll Want Us High and Clear

ICED FIRE-CLASS ANTIMATTER TRANSPORT

Operated by: Extropa Energy, ICC
Type: Antimatter Transport
Construction: Islien Yards, ICC

Length: 1,600 km (overall)
Beam: 3,200 km
Dry mass: 39,200 tons (not including cryocels)

Gravity-well capable: No; not even low-orbit capable.
Atmosphere capable: No.

Personnel: 31

  • Flight Commander
  • 3 x Flight Executive/Administrator
  • 3 x Flight Director
  • 3 x Flight Engineer
  • 3 x Propulsion Engineer
  • 3 x Cargomaster
  • 3 x general technicians
  • 2 x riggers/EVA specialists
  • Thinker-class AI

Drives:

  •  3 x Nucleodyne Thrust Applications 1×1 “Sunheart V” fusion torch

Propellant: Deuterium/helium-3 blend
Cruising (sustainable) thrust: 3.5 standard gravities (3.3 Earth G) at nominal load
Maximum velocity: 0.3 c unloaded, 0.1 c loaded (based on particle shielding)

Drones:

  • 3 x general-purpose maintenance drones
  • 3 x tether-climbing rigger drones

Sensors:

  • 1 x standard navigational sensor suite, Islien Yards

Other Systems:

  • 2 x Islien Yards boosted commercial kinetic barrier system
  • Biogenesis Technologies Mark VII regenerative life support
  • 2 x Bright Shadow EC-780 information furnace data system
  • Islien Yards custom dual vector-control core and associated technologies
  • Systemic Integrated Technologies dual-mode radiator system

Small craft:

  • 1 x Élyn-class microcutter
  • 1 x Adhaïc-class workpod

The standard vehicle for ferrying antimatter from the Cirys bubble at Esilmúr to its various places of use, the Iced Fire-class is a starship designed around one core principle, commonly adhered to when dealing with antimatter:

Don’t get any on you.

The core hull itself is much smaller than the dimensions above suggest; a blunted cylinder a mere 252 m in length, including bunkerage. This houses the entire livable volume of the starship, including a dock for the Élyn-class microcutter at the bow, and a bay housing for the workpod. Rather than the typical stern mounting, the three Sunheart V fusion torches are located in nacelles set off from the hull on radiator pylons amidships, located 120 degrees apart; these nacelles are fully vectorable for maximum maneuverability.

The stern of the core hull instead contains the attachment points and winches for a 1,600 km tether, at whose fully extended end is in turn attached the spinhub. This is a simple unit containing monitoring equipment and a centrifugal ring, to which in turn are mounted eight further attachment points and associated tethers, terminating in heavy couplings. It is to these couplings that antimatter cryocels are mounted during loading, and dismounted upon arrival. In flight, the action of the centrifugal ring maintains appropriate safe distance between the core hull and the cryocels, and between the cryocels themselves, while also ensuring that jettisoned cryocels will move away from the main body of the starship in the event of containment failure.

 

Covered In Bees

HURRICANE-CLASS DRONE BATTLESHIP (CARRIER)

Operated by: Empire of the Star
Type: Drone Battleship, General Operations
Construction: Palaxias Fleet Yards

Length: 2.3 km
Beam (avg.): 0.8 km
Dry mass: 2,900,000 tons

Gravity-well capable: No.
Atmosphere capable: No.

Personnel: 1,294

  • 396 crewers
  • 514 flight operations
  • 384 espatiers
  • Thinker-class AI

Drives:

  • Imperial Navy 3×3 “Neutrino Dawn” antimatter pion drive
  • Nucleodyne Thrust Applications 4×4 “Nova Pulse” fusion torch

Propellant:

  • Deuterium slush/metallic antideuterium
  • Deuterium/helium-3 slush blend

Cruising (sustainable) thrust: 5.6 standard gravities (5.2 Earth G)
Peak (unsustainable) thrust: 6.6 standard gravities (6.1 Earth G)
Maximum velocity: 0.3 c (rated, based on particle shielding, with flight deck doors closed)

Drones:

  • 43,200 x AKVs (loadout varies by mission, typically Daggerfan-class)
  • Associated thrust packs and modular swapout payloads, by mission
  • 64 x “Buckler VI” point-defense supplementary drones, Artifice Armaments, ICC
  • 32 x “Rook” tactical observation platforms, Sy Astronautic Engineering Collective (with supplementary IN hardware)
  • 64 x general-duty modular drones (not counting flight operations hardware)

Sensors:

  • 3 x independent standard navigational sensor suite, Cilmínar Spaceworks
  • 6 x [classified] enhanced active/passive tactical sensory suite, Sy Astronautic Engineering Collective
  • Imperial Navy tactically-enhanced longscan

Weapons (Auxiliary):

  • 96 x “Slammer III” dual turreted mass drivers (local-space defense)
  • Artifice Armaments, ICC “Popcorn” point defense/CQB laser grid

Other systems:

  • 3 x Artifice Armaments, ICC cyclic kinetic barrier system
  • Biogenesis Technologies, ICC Mark VII regenerative life support (multiple independent systems)
  • 3 x Bright Shadow, ICC custom-build megaframe data system, plus multiple EC-1140 information furnaces for sectoral control
  • AKV repair facilities
  • 3 x Extropa Energy, ICC “Calviata” second-phase fusion reactors
  • 6 x Imperial Navy AKV tactical management suite
  • 3 x Imperial Navy DN-class vector-control core and associated technologies
  • 3 x Nanodynamics, ICC “Phage-a-Phage” immunity
  • 6 x modular swapout regions (large)
  • Systemic Integrated Technologies, ICC high-capacity thermal sinks and dual-mode radiative striping; 3 x deployable droplet heat radiators
  • Tactical bridge

Small craft:

  • 4 x Nelyn-class modular cutters
  • 2 x Ékalaman-class pinnace/shuttle (atmosphere capable)
  • 16 x Élyn-class microcutter
  • 32 x Adhaïc-class workpod

(You’ll notice the obvious similarities to the Leviathan-class dreadnought in systems installed, which should come as no surprise; these two came off the drawing board at roughly the same time. And if you’re wondering why a BB-sized carrier has a DN-sized vector-control core – well, you’ll note that the much more tightly packed supplies of, for example, bunkerage plus AKV bunkerage, plus the need to propel all those AKVs, make it mass significantly more than a Leviathan in practice. Carriers tend to be thus.)

The core hull of the Hurricane-class drone battleship (carrier) is divided into five segments: from bow to stern, the flight operations section, the AKV bunkerage, the command section, the bunkerage, and the propulsion bus, laid out tail-lander style. The flight operations section, by design, is a hexagonal prism, flat faces to dorsal and ventral, and the other ship segments follow this pattern.

Attached to this on the starboard side, extending to dorsal and ventral of the core hull, and running from 100 m ahead of the flight operations section (to give AKVs exit and entrance cover) back to cover the first 100 m of the bunkerage, is the starship’s “buckler”. The core hull of the Hurricane-class is relatively lightly armored for an IN vessel, since carriers are intended, doctrinally, to stay out of CQB and mass conservation supervenes. However, to provide protection against long-distance fire in the outer engagement envelope, as a less maneuverable ship class, the buckler – heavy armor plate connected to the core hull by shock-absorbing trusses – covers and extends slightly beyond the two starboard facets, providing additional protection for as long as the vessel maintains the proper attitude.

The flight operations section at the bow, taking up the first half-kilometer of the ship, is effectively a single large flight deck, opened to space by an armored spacetight door in the for’ard hull. (Unlike smaller flight decks, this region cannot be pressurized.) The 43,200 carried AKVs occupy hexagonal cells clustered on the inner hull to port, starboard, dorsal, and ventral from which they launch themselves, while a small conventional flight deck at the aft end of the section provides space for the Hurricane‘s small craft. The after hull of the flight operations sections is heavily armored, to provide what protection it can against a lucky shot penetrating the flight deck.

Immediately behind the flight operations section is the AKV bunkerage section, which houses fuel and propellant, along with ammunition and other consumables, for the carried AKVs, permitting refueling and rearming. This is the most protected area of the ship, as AKV fuel and ammunition tends to be highly volatile.

The command section, the primary habitable area of the starship, is a relatively small area sandwiched between the AKV bunkerage and the carrier’s own bunkerage, also protected behind the buckler, and housing both the starship’s own operations and the majority of the outsize flight operations department. From dorsal and ventral, sensor towers extend beyond the buckler, allowing line-of-sight sensing and communications with the battlespace without exposing the core hull.

(As a side note, the Hurricane-class, like most large carriers, is an example of the IN’s dual command system. The starship itself is commanded by a Flight Commander, ranked Captain [O-7], from the line branch, while the AKV wings are commanded by a Group Captain, an equivalent rank. Overall command of both is held by a Mission Commander, ranked Commodore [O-8].)

Aft of these, a conventional bunkerage section and propulsion bus, equipped with droplet radiators for primary cooling, fills out the remaining length of the vessel.

Scattered about the length of the vessel is the same heavy-duty (“Popcorn”) point-defense grid used on the Leviathan-class dreadnought, along with 96 small turreted mass drivers – similar to those used on lighter IN classes – for heavier local-space defense.

(They are not intended as offensive weapons; the carrier has 43,200 of those in its AKVs, and would-be Flight Commanders who can’t resist the urge to take their ships into close-quarters battle are redirected towards frigates, destroyers, and other roles where such is (a) tactically useful and (b) much less likely to get one either cashiered for gross incompetence or relieved of command by an XO for whom it is not a good day to die.)

 

Leviathan, Awake

LEVIATHAN-CLASS DREADNOUGHT

Operated by: Empire of the Star
Type: Dreadnought, General Operations
Construction: Palaxias Fleet Yards

Length: 3 km
Beam (avg.): 0.8 km
Z-Beam (avg.): 0.6 km

Dry mass: 2,500,000 tons

Gravity-well capable: No.
Atmosphere-capable: No.

Personnel: 6,736

  • 4,968 crewers
  • 1,768 espatiers
  • Thinker-class AI

Drives:

  • Imperial Navy 4×2 “Neutrino Dawn” antimatter pion drive
  • Nucleodyne Thrust Applications 4×4 “Nova Pulse” fusion torch

Propellant:

  • Deuterium slush/metallic antideuterium
  • Deuterium/helium-3 slush blend

Cruising (sustainable) thrust: 7.2 standard gravities (6.7 Earth G)
Peak (unsustainable) thrust: 8.4 standard gravities (7.8 Earth G)
Maximum velocity: 0.3 c (rated, based on particle shielding)

Drones:

  • 144 x AKVs (loadout varies by mission, typically Daggerfan-class)
  • 144 x add-on thrust packs for AKVs
  • 72 x “Buckler VI” point-defense supplementary drones, Artifice Armaments, ICC
  • 72 x “Rook” tactical observation platforms, Sy Astronautic Engineering Collective (with supplementary IN hardware)
  • 72 x general-duty modular drones

Sensors:

  • 3 x independent standard navigational sensor suite, Cilmínar Spaceworks
  • 18 x [classified] enhanced active/passive tactical sensory suite, Sy Astronautic Engineering Collective
  • Imperial Navy tactically-enhanced longscan

Weapons (Primary):

  • 4800/2400 mm custom axial heavy mass driver, Artifice Armaments, ICC

Weapons (Secondary):

  • 4 x 4800/2400 mm custom heavy mass drivers, Artifice Armaments, ICC
  • 4 x “Black Lightning” axial grasers, Artifice Armaments, ICC

Weapons (Tertiary):

  • 64 x 2400/1200 mm turreted mass drivers (32 capable of broadside use), Artifice Armaments, ICC
  • 8 x 2400/1200 mm turreted mass drivers (rear-firing for kilt defense), Artifice Armaments, ICC
  • 32 x “Flashburn” turreted heavy lasers, Artifice Armaments, ICC
  • Artifice Armaments, ICC “Popcorn” point defense/CQB laser grid

Other systems:

  • 3 x Artifice Armaments, ICC cyclic kinetic barrier system
  • Biogenesis Technologies, ICC Mark VII regenerative life support (multiple independent systems)
  • 3 x Bright Shadow, ICC custom-build megaframe data system, plus multiple EC-1140 information furnaces for sectoral control
  • Class IV starship repair facilities
  • 8 x Extropa Energy, ICC “Calviata” second-phase fusion reactors
  • Flag bridge
  • 4 x Imperial Navy command communications/tactical networking suite
  • 4 x Imperial Navy DN-class vector-control core and associated technologies
  • 3 x Metric Engineering, ICC “Gloaming” ray shielding system
  • 3 x Nanodynamics, ICC “Phage-a-Phage” immunity
  • 32 x modular swapout regions (large)
  • Systemic Integrated Technologies, ICC high-capacity thermal sinks and dual-mode radiative striping

Small craft:

  • 8 x Reaver-class starfighters, with own AKVs
  • 8 x Nelyn-class modular cutters
  • 4 x Ékalaman-class pinnace/shuttle (atmosphere capable)
  • 16 x Élyn-class microcutter
  • 16 x Traest Sargas-class troop transport
  • 32 x Adhaïc-class workpod
  • 32 x Marlinspike-class boarding torpedo
  • 32 x Sledgehammer-class drop shuttle

From without, the Leviathan-class dreadnought resembles a slender wedge, a dagger-blade without a hilt. It is, of course, rather larger than virtually all equivalent dreadnought classes and even some superdreadnought classes seen elsewhere, in keeping with the Empire’s naval construction policy of “shock and awesome”.

This should come as no surprise to anyone, since the realities of armoring such a vessel mandate such a glacis, and as such virtually all ships of the plane, of whatever origin, share this common feature. The Leviathan mixes this up slightly, having a change in ratio along its length that gives the hull a subtle curve and the ship entire a forward-leaning, sleek and hungry look.

(Although those who serve aboard Leviathans, especially back in the maneuvering sector, tend to describe their workplace as the ship’s “fat ass”.)

As is also usual, the apparent outer hull of the vessel is entirely composed of armor plating, which in the case of the Leviathan is a little over 30m thick, comprised of multiple layers of heavy plate, Whipple foam, radiation-absorbent material, thermal superconductors, dilatant shock gel, flexible spreader trusses, and other necessities for survivability in the modern high-energy battlespace, many of which remain classified.

(The important thing to remember about this armor plating is that it is not there to protect against a direct hit from an opposing capital ship. No practicable material will do that. It’s there to protect against the spallation debris left behind after your point-defense grid sweeps the sky like the hand of an angry laser-spewing god.)

This armor serves as a backup to the triple-layered cyclic kinetic barrier system with which the Leviathan is equipped, along with the likewise triple-layered ray shielding to protect against photonic attack.

The majority of the space within this outer hull is unpressurized volume, occupied by machinery space, bunkerage, stores (tanks and unpressurized cargo holds), accessways, robot hotels, and magazines. The habitable volume is represented by a relatively small (roughly equivalent to a 232-storey building, laid out tail-lander style) cylinder buried deep within this, above the axial passage for the primary mass driver, with two attendant counter-rotating gravity rings providing space for gravity-requiring special facilities. Below and to port and starboard of this passage can be found the eight fusion reactors providing non-thrust power to the Leviathan.

In addition to the primary (axial) heavy mass driver, the Leviathan mounts four secondary heavy mass drivers of only slightly lower power along its dorsal-ventral centerline, spread out at 15 and 30 degrees off-axis (although with off-bore firing capability), along with four heavy grasers clustered around, and aligned to, the axial primary.

Tertiary weapons systems consist of 64 turreted mass drivers and 32 turreted heavy lasers, of which half can slew far enough to be capable of broadside firing. An additional eight turreted mass drivers are mounted on the stern for kilt defense, should the prospect of attacking through, or at best in close proximity to, the emissions plume of the Leviathan‘s 24 torch drives not be sufficient deterrent. Finally, the Leviathan is equipped with the Artifice Armaments “Popcorn” laser grid for point-defense and CQB purposes, ensuring that anyone foolish enough to close to point-defense range will have mere microseconds to contemplate their folly before vaporizing in one of the most spectacular coruscations known to sophontkind.

Also pressurized are portions of the “docks and locks” sections to port and starboard, 500 meters for’ard of the drives, which house the Leviathan‘s small craft complement. These are buried beneath the starship’s outer hull armor, which is designed to retract under non-combat conditions to provide ingress. In light of this, the multiple AKV wings and drones are launched via dog-leg tubes through the dorsal and ventral armor, and recovered – if this is necessary during an engagement – when circumstances permit turning broadside to the enemy and recovering through the far-side landing bay.

As a dreadnought, the Leviathan is equipped with a flag bridge and communications/tactical mesh suite for task force command; with the capability to effect repairs on smaller vessels of its task force; with the ability to deploy starfighters for patrol or remote operations missions; and with a substantial espatier force and the means to deploy them, whether in boarding operations or for groundside raids.

 

To The Moon!

(Turns out the first ship I want to do isn’t one of the ones anyone asked for. Oh, well.)

SILVERFALL-CLASS LUNAR EXPLORER – BLOCK II

Operated by: Spaceflight Initiative
Type: Early exploration vessel.
Construction: Spaceflight Initiative.

Everyone’s heard of the Silverfall-class explorer, the starship that first carried eldrae from Eliéra to its moons. (A surprisingly large number of them have visited the museum out on Seléne where Silverfall Four — Moondancer — rests in state out on the regolith, where she was flown to her resting place by her original crew, and is kept in flight-ready condition by her many admirers.)

The design discussed here is of the Block II variant of the Silverfall-class, which incorporates the modifications made to improve performance and livability after studies performed on Silverfall Zero and Silverfall One, and whose two examples can be considered representative of the class, including as they do the actual craft, Moondancer, which made the first landing on Seléne; later design revisions included a number of specialized variants, but made no further changes to the basic design.

Length: 42.2 m, of which:

  • Mission module: 12.2 m.
  • Engineering frame: 18 m (overlaps with propulsion module)
  • Propulsion module: 12 m
  • Shock absorbers and pusher/ground plate: 12 m

Beam: 12 m (mission and propulsion module); 22m (widest point)
Mass (fueled): 616,200 kg

Gravity-well capable: Yes.
Atmosphere-capable: No.

Personnel: 2 required, as follows:

Flight Commander
Flight Director/Engineer

Accommodates 6 further mission specialists.

Drive: Silverfall-specific fission pulse drive with laser trigger; cold-gas attitude control and landing system.
Fuel: Plutonium coated fuel pellets.
Cruising (sustainable) thrust: 2.4 standard gravities
Delta-v reserve: 16,800 m/s

Drones: Simple automation only.

Sensors:

Star tracker
Inertial tracking platform
Passive EM array
Short-range collision-avoidance and docking radar
Mk. 1 Eyeball

Weapons: None, unless you count the drive.

Other systems:

Thorium pebble-bed power reactor
Omnidirectional radio transceiver
Communications laser
Whipple shield (habitable area only)
Canned (non-regenerative) life support; CO2 scrubbers
Redundant flight control systems
NaK pumped-loop high-power radiators and maneuvering heat-sinks
NH3 low-power radiators

Small craft: None.

DESCRIPTION

The original Phoenix-class orbiter was once described as an explosion in a girder factory, and its smaller cousin, the Silverfall, maintains much of that look, despite at least some improvements in elegance between the designs. That, and that unlike the Phoenix, the Silverfall was designed as a pure space vessel, intended to be built at and operate from Oculus Station in Eliéra orbit, and to land only on airless Seléne and Elárion.

The layout of the Silverfall-class can be divided into four sections: the upper mission module, the engineering frame which sits atop and wraps around the propulsion module, and the shock absorber/pusher plate section at the bottom.

At the top, the mission module is divided into three tail-lander decks with plenum space in between. The uppermost deck, topped by a blunt cupola and surrounded by the various navigational and communications antennae, contains semicircular bridge and mission management sections, surrounded by the ship’s avionics. From it, an axial passage descends through the next two decks, terminating in a small engineering space (housed in an aft projection) where the mission module connects to the primary thrust truss of the engineering frame. A secondary access tube, normally depressurized, runs down from this passage through the engineering frame.

The second deck houses three pie-segment areas; the ship’s laboratory, workshop, and main stowage area. Opposite the stowage area, between the laboratory and workshop, a secondary airlock provides maintenance access while in flight to the exterior of the ship (with a ladder down to the upper levels of the engineering frame), and is the main access point when the starship is docked.

(Opposite this airlock, centered on the mission module’s vertical axis, is the gold plaque bearing the Imperial Star and the stylized rocket-and-crescent-moon of the Spaceflight Initiative, with beneath them the various names and logos of the various contributors making the Silverfall mission possible.)

The third, lowermost deck contains the crew quarters, divided into a number of modular pods, along with the galley, central mess, ‘fresher, and a small medical bay.

Six meters below the mission module is the propulsion module, a heavy steel capsule containing the guts of the nuclear-pulse drive that powers the Silverfall. For the most part, however, it is hidden by the engineering frame which wraps around and atop it, a mesh of trusses containing, most notably, the six pellet silos, evenly spaced around the ship, containing the plutonium fuel pellets, and the spherical tanks of cold-gas propellant and life-support supplies.

The lower surface of the engineering frame (along with that of the propulsion module) is the solid sheet of the protective shadow shield, protecting the upper sections of the craft from radiation produced by the pulse drive. The secondary access tube descending from the base of the mission module connects to the primary airlock, located directly above the edge of the shadow shield vertically beneath the secondary airlock, and from which a descent ladder can be lowered once the drive shroud is in place.

At its edges, laser modules extend past the edge of the shield to trigger the explosive coatings of the fuel pellets; just within those edges, sealed slots permit the segmented drive shroud to be lowered after landing, surrounding the mechanics of the shock absorbers and pusher plate, to protect disembarked astronauts from residual drive radiation.