The Engines and Reactors of Principality (FT/WIP/CLOSED)
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 6:19 amThe Engines of Principality
-Under Construction-
OOC: format credit to New Azura, and Red Talons for space drill idea!
Ever since the cataclysmic annihilation of Marchus Confederacy that kick started the formation of Principality component states and eventually the Principality superstate, the brawns and the brains of each component states respectively are actively striving to create the best propulsion and drives in order to gain a niche time advantage, be it to achieve a more robust logistics, or for more reliable profitable trade lines or simply to outmanoeuvre and out-speed the oppositions. The evolution of such equipments closely dance in concert with the rapid developments of armaments and defensive systems of the component states. Similarly to the swords and shields of the Principality, every propulsion or drive systems fielded by the component states are unique by their own right, forming one of the core tenets of the component states' main doctrines.
++++[FASTER THAN LIGHT]++++
-Under Construction-
OOC: format credit to New Azura, and Red Talons for space drill idea!
Ever since the cataclysmic annihilation of Marchus Confederacy that kick started the formation of Principality component states and eventually the Principality superstate, the brawns and the brains of each component states respectively are actively striving to create the best propulsion and drives in order to gain a niche time advantage, be it to achieve a more robust logistics, or for more reliable profitable trade lines or simply to outmanoeuvre and out-speed the oppositions. The evolution of such equipments closely dance in concert with the rapid developments of armaments and defensive systems of the component states. Similarly to the swords and shields of the Principality, every propulsion or drive systems fielded by the component states are unique by their own right, forming one of the core tenets of the component states' main doctrines.
++++[FASTER THAN LIGHT]++++
Fracture Gate
Fracture Gate technology originated from Marchus Confederacy times and ironically the one that completely annihilated the said nation and kick started the formation of Principality component states a few centuries later. An ancient technology that had been since mind boggling the superstate scientists, the secrets of the Fracture Gates are zealously guarded by their complex and archaic tenet. Recent development in faster than light propulsion engineering and energetic quantum physics however allows the scientists of the component states to replicate the technology again though without knowing the full extent of it.
The gates can be simply thought as large structures orbiting in space which upon liberal application of raw energy allow them to open a 'hole' in their core in a circular fracture-like appearance thus their name. Any Principality Fracture Gate can act as a receiver or a sender given proper absolute quantum coordinates are entered for the transit to work and it's not required for another gate to be present for the travel to commence at expense of precision of the faster than light travel.
In active operations, the gate will distort the space-time curvature around its opening aperture and automatically suck the ship that wishes to jump into its 'fracture', converting the ship into a 'non-event' that will later manifest as an 'event' at a predetermined location based on the used absolute quantum coordinates. Depending on the energy supplied, power distribution systems installed on the gate and the design of the gate, every Fracture Gate in existence do not have a set hardcoded limit on its reach and active aperture time, only limited by its stability in active operations, and the durability of the ship that jumped through it as the risk of annihilation or risk being cease to exist during transit rises exponentially with range.
Stellar Wave Drive
Stellar Wave Drive form the basic Principality standard propulsion unit for faster than light travel that was created upon the formation of the superstate. In essence, the propulsion unit can be simply thought as an amalgamation of all faster than light drives fielded by Principality component states, combining the best of the best in order to create a superstate standard drive that can be used by all states seamlessly. Initially, the drive will create a shaped gravity field surrounding the ship equipped with it, in order to bend the fabric structure of space into an artificial 'dimple' in space-time curvature. As the ship nears the center of the 'dimple', it will motivate the anomaly to move forward to restore its equilibrium with normal space due to introduction of real mass in its center 'stable' point.
The ship then can simply accelerate before the anomaly moves first, staying in front of the center of equilibrium of the 'dimple'. This in effect will automatically push the ship along as the anomaly tries to reset itself, propelling the ship to faster than light. By increasing the amount of artificial 'dimples', the ship can maintain its faster than light speed for an appreciable amount of time, earning the propulsion unit its name given its travel method closely resembles a traveling wave.
Tensor-Snap Drive
This faster than light propulsion unit form the basic superluminal drive used by the Sohonzi State; the drive operates by inducing a formation of a microscopic blackhole in front of the ship while suspending the said ship in an external strong gravitational field. The gravimetric mass of the ship will get reduced by the drive's internal anti-gravity field before shot through the gravitationally dense blackhole. An energy ripple is then sent through the blackhole in order to surge it into a temporary wormhole, creating a temporary micro tunnel between two points of space via space-time curvature ablation and spalling.
The interactions between fields created by the drive will cause the space-time curvature surrounding the ship to be 'stretched' up to the exit point, inclusive of the ship. This gives Tensor-Snap Drive its unique characteristic, any ship that uses it will appear to be infinitely long and 'ghost-like' for an uncertain amount of time in two separate point of space for casual observers in certain field of view, before completely vanishes from one point and appear completely in another point, declared by the sudden compression and decompression of spatial area surrounding the ship.
Heuristic Resonance Drive
Heuristic Resonance Drives were a byproduct of Gauis State's research into energetic quantum physics and are quite similar to Tensor-Snap Drives on utilization of artificially created wormholes but the drives differentiate on the method of travel used; Heuristic Resonance Drive will firstly map out every quantum information of the ship equipped with it, before transforming the said ship into a stream of energy containing quantum information via formation of quantized fields surrounding the drive user.
This stream then is injected directly into the generated artificial wormhole in front of the ship to be automatically constructed at the exit point by literally 'bouncing' the stream across the artificial wormhole tunnel via synergistic quantum energy resonance superpositions. This gives the ship using the drive a characteristic 'wobbly' energetic appearance before and after drive activation, and the telltale Casimir/Hawking radiation pulse generated by each utilization.
Tachyon-Stream Drive
An Aizilti State original faster than light propulsion design, Tachyon-Stream Drive will initially scan for naturally occurring tachyon streams in vicinity of the ship equipped with it. The drive then will bend the space-time curvature occupied by the ship, creating a 'hole' in space before layering it with dense energy field. The energy field serve to slow down nearby tachyon streams and in effect making it slower than light which then can be manipulated by the ship; by changing the energy field's power and the shape of the space-time curvature, the natural tachyon stream can be bended and directed around the ship to propel the ship to superluminal velocities depending on the energy supplied to the drive. Recent Aizilti State effort to modernize the faster than light system grant usage of artificially created tachyon bursts, bypassing the need to scan for naturally occurring tachyon streams in vicinity of the drive user.
Coriolis-Surge Drive
Development for faster than light drives for the Haralci State however carried a different kind of story; the state was the last component state of Principality to create its own indigenous drive system as the sheer manufacture output of Haralcians meant they can simply buy the necessary components from other states via trades. A Haralcian faster than light drive resembles closely toward the Sohonzi State's drive as the former used the latter as a base in exception of several glaring differences.
Instead of creating a gravity field that will stretch the space-time curvature as in Tensor-Snap Drive, the Haralcian faster than light drive drags almost intact space-time frames around the ship via Lorentz-like gravi-magnetometric manipulation fields, and can be thought at its simplest as a dual layer spirally counter-rotating space-time frames akin to a drill. Specific usage of these frame-dragging via gravi-magnetometric lens manipulation around the ship allow the ship to take advantage of the coriolis effect and in return accelerate faster than light whilst remaining in the rotational space-time dragging created by the drive.
++++[SLOWER THAN LIGHT]++++
Antimatter Field Effect Engine
A Sohonzi state powerful engine design, antimatter field effect engine can be thought as an open ended Cadesus particle reactor that accelerate positrons together with electrons via gravity acceleration fields, which the resultant annihilation energy is used to propel the ship equipped with it. Due to the nature of the engine design, it can be easily converted to fire anti-osmium in its highly powerful exhaust as an inaccurate version of Cadesus Bolt Thrower.
Pulsed Fusion Engine
This Gauis state engine design works exactly as its name implies; the engine periodically fuses its deuterium+helium-3 fuel pellets via usage of strong magnetic fields in its reaction chamber before ejected and accelerated further by the engine's nozzle as a hot alpha particles exhaust in a series of pulses. The magnetic fields generated by the nozzle allow ships equipped with the engine to quickly change the generated thrust vector for purpose of manoeuvring or deceleration. The peculiar design philosophy used by the engine meant any ship equipped it will generate either an incoherent exhaust plume or a wobbly exhaust plume.
Plasma Stream Engine
The simplest of all slower than light engine designs fielded by the states of Principality, the Haralcian engine simply heats an ionizable gas (usually hydrogen) into plasma using a nuclear fission reactor, before shot out of the engine via electromagnetic acceleration fields. Plasma stream engines have common characteristics of having an unusually long radioactive plume and the lowest impulse of all slower than light engines used by the Principality. The fuel for the engine is usually provided by a bussard magnetic scoop installed with the engine, which also makes it as one of the simplest engine to construct but daunting to service due to radioactive contamination problems.
Inductive Plasma Pulse Engine
A relatively weird Aizilti state engine design, inductive plasma pulse engine injects its fuel on a spiral drive coil which coil then surged with high power to turn the fuel into plasma and generating an electric field simultaneously. The generated plasma is then axially accelerated by the co-generated perpendicular magnetic field thus creating thrust as the plasma is ejected away from the engine unit. By performing the process repeatedly in pulses, a consistent thrust can be created. Inductive plasma pulse engine usually have power efficiency issues when scaled down and can take voluminous amount of space when installed but it offers the versatility of fuel choice like plasma stream engines and one of two engine types in Principality that offers high degree of thrust scalability and control.
Disintegrating Pico Field Effect Engine
This extremely propellant efficient engine (or a thruster in several literatures of the Principality) utilizes a charging field effect to accelerate pico-sized particles in order to generate thrust which particles will disintegrate automatically after a specific distance from the unit in order to avoid pico-particle pollution which was a very serious problem when the unit was firstly conceived and used. Current disintegrating pico field effect engines are quite delicate and prone to damage but it offers the highest specific impulse of all engine types used by the superstate while having good power efficiency ratio to thrust generated but due to how it's built, the engine only works best on small massed ships and so on. The engine type normally will emit a short, greenish exhaust trail while in operation which indicates the movement of the charged pico-sized propellant.