Post by srbrant on Jul 13, 2017 22:42:29 GMT
As the preface implies, this is not so much a treatise on science as it is a way to share unique ideas on what to put on your ships as well as give you ideas if you want to make a tabletop game or RPG. These are a list of starship features, traits and characteristics I've made for reference for my novel, Kemono. Feel free to suggest and comment. I feel kind of bad for putting in things that are less..."hard" as far as science goes. But I'm sure you can benefit from it. More to come.
Boarder traps: When boarding parties gain access to the crew module, things will become significantly uglier - especially for the cleaning detail. When intruders are detected, a diverse array of traps unfold from the walls and floors for any pirate hasty or stupid enough to fall for them. Traps like kill-floss, flechette launchers and tesla coils are most commonly used, but it is not unheard of for far stranger devices to be used. While efficient at slowing or stopping boarders, they may "strand" repulsors as well.
Clockwork Computer Core - In an age of hacking, bugging and psychic espionage, an analog database like a Clockwork Computer Core (Or “threecie” as it is often informally named) is invaluable, safely storing, collecting and creating hard copies of precious data. Although horribly bulky and heavy due to its nature, when it comes to keeping precious information away from prying scanners, this machine is a godsend.
Custom-made: The ship truly is one-of-a-kind with corridors, rooms, catwalks and gantries that have been constructed piece by piece with little to no adherence to popular design theory. While this dramatically slows down sabotage and boarding actions, it also makes maintenance and repair take longer as well.
Drag Tethers - Long, supertensile grappling hooks on starships that are used to either haul asteroids, debris, derelicts or to pull enemy ships close enough for boarding actions.
Forbidden sanctum: These rooms are private places of worship and meditation for onboard espers, repelling the unworthy with either the visitor’s religious taboos, the heady concentration of psychic energy or just the overwhelming stench of centuries-old incense. Filled with the grey noise of mantras and elaborate sigils, forbidden sanctums are often responsible for convenient “coincidences” like a missile detonating prematurely before it can deliver the killing blow or the enemy ship suffering from strange mechanical and electronic failures.
Gas-Guzzler: A problem for many ancient ships, some vessels are less efficient and consume large quantities of reaction mass for even minor changes in trajectory.
Grand Hall: A massive (by starship standards) room connecting several corridors together, frequently adorned with heraldic shields, banners, framed pictures, trophies and other decor that acts as a sort of “museum” for the ship and the crew itself. The most common use for these rooms are for debriefings, press releases, speeches and parties.
Gymnasium: Onboard life is not exactly an active one, so many ships have a fitness center of one form or another to keep the crew in shape and the Union Navy from having to create plus-size uniforms. Even if it’s just a treadmill in the lounge, exercise has proven to be a deciding factor in repelling boarders.
Hull drones: If the outer or inner hulls (especially the latter) show signs of an imminent breach, these crab-like robots swarm over the damaged sections and cover it with space-age sealants such as ferrofoam, coagulite or scabgel. Countless helionauts owe their lives to these tiny pixies for saving them from a gruesome death and allowing decompressed rooms to be refilled with air. Some ships have relied so much on hull drones that their inner components start to look biomechanical. The Anastasia is a particularly extreme example, its vestibule resembling an alien hive from some science fiction film.
Interatmospheric: Some starships are designed and capable to enter and exit a planet’s atmosphere with ease. These ships are invariably small and often under twenty-five kilotons as the very idea of a capital ship being so close to a city is a major contributor to insomnia.
Library: Few things can match the calming pleasure of the smell, sight and texture of a good book when compared to simply reading text on a screen. These rooms are not only palaces of pleasure for intellectuals, but surprisingly effective defense mechanisms as well. Seek and destroy missions have often turned into boarding or disarmament actions once a library has been detected onboard, with intruders seeking to collect and/or sell whatever musty manuscripts are onboard and the rare knowledge they may contain.
Service drones: The most common of all drones, these football-sized robots are responsible for mending and repairing even the most hard-to-reach components, with snaking ducts and tubes built across the ship to give them easy access and travel. Although regarded as cute by many crewmen, attachment to them is discouraged because of their busy and expendable nature. This has not stopped them from becoming the stars of countless works of children’s literature. Many in the Kemono Union credit the book “The Littlest Drone” by Sheleen Fractor as having a hand in inspiring them to become helionauts.
Repulsor drones: No smaller than a toaster and several times deadlier, repulsor drones skitter and crawl all over the ship's vestibule like worker bees. When hostile intruders pass through the outer hull, they are quick to swarm the offenders with sharp mandibles and microlasers, gruesomely picking them apart piece by piece.
Scrambler: This fiendish little device is the closest thing to stealth technology that a ship can have. When an enemy ship is within firing range, the scrambler emits a wave of signals that heavily distorts all attempts to scan or lock onto the craft - even visually.
Self-destruct system: The big one. When all hope is lost, escape is impossible and the only alternative to face a fate worse than death, a “black key” is taken out of a safe and inserted into the main console, beginning a ten-minute countdown before the remass tanks are flooded with oxidizer and struck alight, turning everything within a mile of the ship into a molten inferno. Over two-thousand self-destructs have been recorded in all two-hundred-and-fifty-years of the Kemono Union’s history.
Solar paint: High-durability paint mixed with microscopic solar cells modified to take in more energy from sunlight than should be logical, not unlike plant leaves. Untold gallons of the substance are applied to a ship’s outer hulls not only to provide emergency energy should the reactor be disabled, but to display the colors and patterns of its aligned faction or of the captain’s aesthetic tastes. Frequently they are applied in wild and bright colors and patterns like poisonous animals, as if to mock the impossibility of stealth in space.
Torture chamber: Thankfully rare outside of most pirate cartels, torture chambers are the dark dens in which the ship’s sadistic crew can extract information (and teeth) from their captives. Alternatively, some cartels use the chamber as an excruciating rite of passage for brave (or stoned) crewmen that are looking to rise through the ranks. Regardless of how they are used, these foul oubliettes are built like museums to pain, walls adorned with tools, blades, clubs, chemicals and other devices of cruelty to remind prisoners of the fate that awaits them.
Trance projector: Among the more esoteric pieces of starship components, the trance projector generates a field that safeguards the crew from psychic attack at the cost of preventing any sort of psychic activity from within, including simple intuition.
Treasury: Seldom more than a glorified cargo bay, treasuries are the vaults where pirates keep the many treasures they have “earned”, be they precious metals, artwork, alien technology, luxury goods or just cold, hard cash. Underlings who dare to pocket even a tiny sum of the captain’s share of the booty will find themselves on the receiving end of a vicious beating.
Vestibule traps: Anti-boarder traps built into the vestibule (the interior space between the hull and the internal components) and activated once hostile intruders have been detected. Like their internal cousins, these deadly devices can slice and dice their prey with nets of hair-thin kill-floss, freeze them to pieces with discharged hypercoolants, electrocute them with shock-fields or simply gun them down with mounted turrets.
Waldoes: Arms and manipulators mounted on and inside starships for maintenance, mining, reclamation or even combat purposes.
STARSHIP FEATURES AND TRAITS
Boarder traps: When boarding parties gain access to the crew module, things will become significantly uglier - especially for the cleaning detail. When intruders are detected, a diverse array of traps unfold from the walls and floors for any pirate hasty or stupid enough to fall for them. Traps like kill-floss, flechette launchers and tesla coils are most commonly used, but it is not unheard of for far stranger devices to be used. While efficient at slowing or stopping boarders, they may "strand" repulsors as well.
Clockwork Computer Core - In an age of hacking, bugging and psychic espionage, an analog database like a Clockwork Computer Core (Or “threecie” as it is often informally named) is invaluable, safely storing, collecting and creating hard copies of precious data. Although horribly bulky and heavy due to its nature, when it comes to keeping precious information away from prying scanners, this machine is a godsend.
Custom-made: The ship truly is one-of-a-kind with corridors, rooms, catwalks and gantries that have been constructed piece by piece with little to no adherence to popular design theory. While this dramatically slows down sabotage and boarding actions, it also makes maintenance and repair take longer as well.
Drag Tethers - Long, supertensile grappling hooks on starships that are used to either haul asteroids, debris, derelicts or to pull enemy ships close enough for boarding actions.
Forbidden sanctum: These rooms are private places of worship and meditation for onboard espers, repelling the unworthy with either the visitor’s religious taboos, the heady concentration of psychic energy or just the overwhelming stench of centuries-old incense. Filled with the grey noise of mantras and elaborate sigils, forbidden sanctums are often responsible for convenient “coincidences” like a missile detonating prematurely before it can deliver the killing blow or the enemy ship suffering from strange mechanical and electronic failures.
Gas-Guzzler: A problem for many ancient ships, some vessels are less efficient and consume large quantities of reaction mass for even minor changes in trajectory.
Grand Hall: A massive (by starship standards) room connecting several corridors together, frequently adorned with heraldic shields, banners, framed pictures, trophies and other decor that acts as a sort of “museum” for the ship and the crew itself. The most common use for these rooms are for debriefings, press releases, speeches and parties.
Gymnasium: Onboard life is not exactly an active one, so many ships have a fitness center of one form or another to keep the crew in shape and the Union Navy from having to create plus-size uniforms. Even if it’s just a treadmill in the lounge, exercise has proven to be a deciding factor in repelling boarders.
Hull drones: If the outer or inner hulls (especially the latter) show signs of an imminent breach, these crab-like robots swarm over the damaged sections and cover it with space-age sealants such as ferrofoam, coagulite or scabgel. Countless helionauts owe their lives to these tiny pixies for saving them from a gruesome death and allowing decompressed rooms to be refilled with air. Some ships have relied so much on hull drones that their inner components start to look biomechanical. The Anastasia is a particularly extreme example, its vestibule resembling an alien hive from some science fiction film.
Interatmospheric: Some starships are designed and capable to enter and exit a planet’s atmosphere with ease. These ships are invariably small and often under twenty-five kilotons as the very idea of a capital ship being so close to a city is a major contributor to insomnia.
Library: Few things can match the calming pleasure of the smell, sight and texture of a good book when compared to simply reading text on a screen. These rooms are not only palaces of pleasure for intellectuals, but surprisingly effective defense mechanisms as well. Seek and destroy missions have often turned into boarding or disarmament actions once a library has been detected onboard, with intruders seeking to collect and/or sell whatever musty manuscripts are onboard and the rare knowledge they may contain.
Service drones: The most common of all drones, these football-sized robots are responsible for mending and repairing even the most hard-to-reach components, with snaking ducts and tubes built across the ship to give them easy access and travel. Although regarded as cute by many crewmen, attachment to them is discouraged because of their busy and expendable nature. This has not stopped them from becoming the stars of countless works of children’s literature. Many in the Kemono Union credit the book “The Littlest Drone” by Sheleen Fractor as having a hand in inspiring them to become helionauts.
Repulsor drones: No smaller than a toaster and several times deadlier, repulsor drones skitter and crawl all over the ship's vestibule like worker bees. When hostile intruders pass through the outer hull, they are quick to swarm the offenders with sharp mandibles and microlasers, gruesomely picking them apart piece by piece.
Scrambler: This fiendish little device is the closest thing to stealth technology that a ship can have. When an enemy ship is within firing range, the scrambler emits a wave of signals that heavily distorts all attempts to scan or lock onto the craft - even visually.
Self-destruct system: The big one. When all hope is lost, escape is impossible and the only alternative to face a fate worse than death, a “black key” is taken out of a safe and inserted into the main console, beginning a ten-minute countdown before the remass tanks are flooded with oxidizer and struck alight, turning everything within a mile of the ship into a molten inferno. Over two-thousand self-destructs have been recorded in all two-hundred-and-fifty-years of the Kemono Union’s history.
Solar paint: High-durability paint mixed with microscopic solar cells modified to take in more energy from sunlight than should be logical, not unlike plant leaves. Untold gallons of the substance are applied to a ship’s outer hulls not only to provide emergency energy should the reactor be disabled, but to display the colors and patterns of its aligned faction or of the captain’s aesthetic tastes. Frequently they are applied in wild and bright colors and patterns like poisonous animals, as if to mock the impossibility of stealth in space.
Torture chamber: Thankfully rare outside of most pirate cartels, torture chambers are the dark dens in which the ship’s sadistic crew can extract information (and teeth) from their captives. Alternatively, some cartels use the chamber as an excruciating rite of passage for brave (or stoned) crewmen that are looking to rise through the ranks. Regardless of how they are used, these foul oubliettes are built like museums to pain, walls adorned with tools, blades, clubs, chemicals and other devices of cruelty to remind prisoners of the fate that awaits them.
Trance projector: Among the more esoteric pieces of starship components, the trance projector generates a field that safeguards the crew from psychic attack at the cost of preventing any sort of psychic activity from within, including simple intuition.
Treasury: Seldom more than a glorified cargo bay, treasuries are the vaults where pirates keep the many treasures they have “earned”, be they precious metals, artwork, alien technology, luxury goods or just cold, hard cash. Underlings who dare to pocket even a tiny sum of the captain’s share of the booty will find themselves on the receiving end of a vicious beating.
Vestibule traps: Anti-boarder traps built into the vestibule (the interior space between the hull and the internal components) and activated once hostile intruders have been detected. Like their internal cousins, these deadly devices can slice and dice their prey with nets of hair-thin kill-floss, freeze them to pieces with discharged hypercoolants, electrocute them with shock-fields or simply gun them down with mounted turrets.
Waldoes: Arms and manipulators mounted on and inside starships for maintenance, mining, reclamation or even combat purposes.
