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Explanation of Current Day Technology (Fan Fiction) |
Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
|  Posted: 2008-03-07 14:10
Need more suggestions to what to write up on
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Explanation of Current Day Technology (UGTO Officer Field Manual, edited from various scientific and sociologic sources)
Ion Engines:
Ion Engines are the most commonly used engine on space faring ships today, reaching around 99% usage in all ships ever produced. They work by injecting electrons into a plasma stream usually formed out of heavy metals, and using the resulting protons created to propel the ship. Most ships use smaller versions then the main engine to turn the ship, some use redirected path ways from the main engines, and others rely on ejecting gas (Helium or other stable gases abundant in the galaxy) under pressure to propel the ship in a given direction.
Tachyons:
Before attempting to learn about Faster then light drives that use Tachyons, one most learn about Tachyons themselves. Tachyons are extremely small particles that are naked to the eye and posses extremely low amounts of mass (relative to other particles in both terms of mass and size). However, even with their low amount of mass, the sheer number of them within space creates a sort of "gravity field" that hinders movement through it. Light seems to be unaffected by this, more then likely because of the small size of the particles. This gives the illusion of "Aristotle Physics" where objects appear to want to return to rest after a thrust is applied to them. However, Newtonian physics are still correct, you just need to factor in the gravitational forces applied from the Tachyons using Dale's Constant.
Note: Some of you more learnt about your history may remember a time when ships traveling in low orbit of Earth's atmosphere or to Luna would not need constant thrust to move around. Apparently, due to some unknown reason, Tachyons never entered around the Earth and Luna space. After the Prometheus NEO asteroid incident, a large number of Tachyons were scattered about around Earth and Luna more then likely caused by the asteroids high velocity. This facilitated the eventual phasing out of oil based thrust mechanisms and the atomic fusion engines widespread usage.
Tachyon Jump Drives:
Tachyon Faster then Light Drives are the standard issue FTL drive for all space faring vessels. Although different companies manufacture varying degree of jump drives, they all operate on the same principle of manipulating Tachyon particles around the ship. Although the exact technique is not available for explanation in short, a simple way of thinking about it is that the engine (and therefore, the ship) pulls the tachyon particles in front of it over the craft, causing a small gap of tachyons in front of the ship and an excess in the rear. The tachyons push into this gap (from all directions, including behind the craft)to “fill” it, like any other kind of gas. The ship is rides along this wave of Tachyons and the process repeats. This allows a ship to reach incredibly fast speeds, exceeding the speed of light and allowing incredibly long distances to be traveled in a period of days (cross system), weeks (jump gates) or months (The record for the fastest Civilian Earth -> Exathra run was 3 months, 2 weeks, 4 days and 7 hours.). It is interesting to note that Tachyons somehow do not perform "time dilation" upon the craft usually associated with traveling near, at, or beyond the speed of light. The reasons for this are unknown, as traditional means to approach the speed of light have been performed, with the craft always exploding or disappearing around the .42c speed. Another oddity to note, the "Shockwave" effect seen from a ship de-accelerating out of FTL, is the tachyons gathering near the front of ship and then dispersing along the tangent of the ships fore (The mathematical reasons for this curious effect are explained in full in the supplemental UGTO FTL Mechanics document; ask your local supply post captain for a copy).
Tachyon Disruption Devices:
All Tachyon Jump Disruption Devices work on the same principle: They push tachyons outwards from the center of the device (which requires a large amount of energy and a relatively big device), and because of Dale's Constant, a large number of Tachyons eventually build up at a certain point beyond the device in a 360 degree sphere. Any ships traveling using the Tachyon Jump Drive hits this build up of tachyons and cannot move that many behind the ship to clear the path for the ship. In effect, emergency safety measures kick in, de-accelerating the ship from FTL to sub-light speeds. (Tests with these safety devices turned off have yielded nothing but destructions of the test ship)
Tachyon Weapons:
It should be note in here officially for all UGTO Officers, that all weapon research involving Tachyons are strictly top secret and should not be mentioned to anybody unless proper clearance codes are traded and confirmed. Loose lips sink ships.
Cloaking:
Cloaking technology, as demonstrated by the k'luth, is a very useful device for military ships. Cloaking technology works by covering a object (in this case, a ship) in a thin layer of material that reflects all light. The moment a light beam hits a certain portion of the layer, a extremely advanced computer (or in the k'luth case, a nervous system) calculates the trajectory of the light source using Ray Tracing, and examines the area it should be going to to or from. It then sends out a light pattern that "should" have been reflected or pass through the ship. Simply put, it is rerouting the light from one spot on the ship to another, allowing the outside of a ship to appear as nothing but background, and the inside of a ship to still see out. Although not much information is known about how k'luth "see" out of the ship, an educated guess is that when light is rerouted around the ship, it is split and passed into the ship for data collection. In any case, it is extremely hard to emulate this technology - without an organic ship to process and move the data, even the best computers of today cannot perform this task without a noticeable lag in the objects ability to adjust to movement of the background, or itself. Many breakthroughs are going to be required to see this device on non-organic ships.
However, a glaring flaw remains in the K'luth cloaking technology. As you already know, ECCM devices work by sending out extremely high powered pulses of energy among most of the Electromagnetic spectrum. The k'luth cloaking devices attempts to compensate for this by absorbing the energy and reflecting it back out in the direction it was traveling. However, because the ship must emit a pulse back outward, it uses up some energy to do this. Although a good portion of the original pulse is used, it is not 100%, thusly requiring an outside power source to amplify the signal. In short, it will eventually drain the ships energy reserves.
Anti-matter Engines/ Anti-matter Jump drives:
K'luth use an odd form of engines technology not achievable by humanity until very recently - the power created from smacking together matter and anti-matter, and using the resultant high power energies to propel an object. Although humanity has always been able to create anti-matter, it has never been able to do so on a scale efficient enough to propel ships without requiring a very large engine and unstable fuel supply. K'luth anti-matter jump drives are something not yet even recovered yet fully, although they point towards ignoring Tachyons and propelling a ship to faster then light speeds through unknown techniques, possible even combined with the organic ship itself. More research will be required on a complete model before a full understanding will be reached.
Time:
As with any interstellar empire, calculating relative time of events happening is a very hard process. It is no longer possible to divide the known world into timezones and call it a day. Different planets operate on different rotation orbits , and have different day and night cycles. To facilitate the ease of knowing “when” exactly an event is taking place, the “Earth-All” plan was devised. Basically, planets are allowed to operate their business and other duties based on their day/night cycle (or an artificial one approved across the planet for those with long day/night cycles). Time zones and months within the planet are also allowed, and they are always written after the date for planet-wide use. So, two people communicating across a planet would write their date as follows: // |
|Kakashi|
Fleet Admiral
Joined: April 04, 2007
Posts: 448
| Posted: 2008-03-07 14:24
Tahts quite a mouthful!!1!
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2008-03-07 14:43
It is 3 and a half pages long.
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doda *EP5 no longer exception...*
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 11, 2005
Posts: 1012
From: happy land
| Posted: 2008-03-07 17:00
summary plox
liek this:
Kloak: make you invisi
Tychon drivs: you go vroom
paint def: pew pew peww beamorz
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Panduh
Grand Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: June 03, 2007
Posts: 250
| Posted: 2008-03-07 17:10
that..was an interesting read.
me likesh
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GothThug {C?}
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 29, 2005
Posts: 2932
| Posted: 2008-03-07 17:24
verrry interesting  i like the part about Tachyon Weapons XD
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Admiral Alucard (2IC)
Marshal
Exathra Alliance Fleet
Joined: April 30, 2004
Posts: 279
From: St. Helens, England
| Posted: 2008-03-13 09:21
Tachyon Weapons hu...Can I have one?
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