Starships

Interstellar space is crossed by thousands of ships built in different eras, shipyards and technological contexts, often designed for widely differing functions.

Functional categories

In order to bring this variety back to a common classification, ship registers, port authorities and insurance companies adopt a functional category recognized by all the Hegemonies. Every ship is assigned a code that identifies its primary function; the classification is recorded in the onboard documents and transmitted by the transponder together with the unit’s other identifiers.

Besides the functional category, ships are distinguished by their operational scope, which indicates where they can operate and how far they are able to push:

• Interstellar. Can cross the space between the stars.
• Interplanetary. Can move within a single system.
• Planetary. Can operate within the atmosphere and/or the orbit of a single planet.
• Auxiliary. Designed to be carried by another unit: its real scope is limited to its own specific function.

The Clipper (CLPR or CLP) constitutes the highest level of the interstellar postal service.

Class

A ship’s functional category is independent of its size: there are freighters larger than a cruiser and science ships smaller than a system tug. A ship’s dimensions depend on its class, that is on the model, which is first designed and then produced in several examples.

To put it simply, the category indicates the purpose for which the ship was built, while the class describes how it is made: dimensions, hull shape, type of engines, speed, expected crew, armament, etc.

Four-Way Key (4WK)

At the moment of registration every ship is assigned a serial number, conventionally made up of four digits, and a name, generally chosen by the shipowner.

The union of these four elements (category, class, number and name), separated by a hyphen, constitutes the four-way key (4WK), that is the ship’s “number plate”. Some examples:

PAX-Caliban-1701-Enterprise
EXP-Beowulf-5521-Durendal
RSC-Argo-3417-Chester

Each ship’s 4WK must compulsorily be registered, made identifiable and displayed visibly on all the main sides of the hull; navigating under a falsified identity constitutes a serious violation of the Space Navigation Code.

Ships not yet registered, such as those still awaiting sale, do not typically have a 4WK, unless the shipowner has an interest in registering them ahead of time (and at their own expense) in order to speed up the sale formalities.

Engines and propulsion

All ships that operate in interstellar and interplanetary scope are fitted with an Alcubierre Drive: craft intended to operate within a planet do not mount one, not only because they do not need it but also because the planet’s own gravitational field would not make it possible to activate it. This means that, by definition, no planetary craft can reach another system unless it is towed, pushed or carried by a ship of greater scope.

Regardless of whether an Alcubierre Drive is present, every ship has non-FTL propulsive apparatus for ordinary navigation, manoeuvres and operations near celestial bodies: approaches, docking manoeuvres, atmospheric entry and landing on the ground. These apparatus are currently called sublight thrusters, or simply sublight.

The approach and departure legs from planets and/or orbital stations that precede or conclude warp voyages take their name from them and are conventionally called sublight legs: they are necessarily carried out with this type of propulsion, and on voyages in suspended animation they also coincide with the part of the journey in which crews begin to regain consciousness.

In crew slang the sublights are the oars, in contrast to the Drive: warp is the sail that covers the distances, the oars serve in port, in manoeuvre and on all the occasions when the sail is of no use whatsoever. To navigate under oars therefore means to proceed without warp, and in many shipboard expressions it indicates by extension any situation in which one is forced to do things the slow way.

Attitude and onboard gravity

A starship is not a rocket, and is not to be imagined as one: it moves forward, not upward. The decks are superimposed horizontal planes running from bow to stern, the bridge is at the bow and not at the top, and down on board always remains the same down, independently of what the engines are doing and of how the ship is oriented.

This is possible because every unit fitted with an Alcubierre Drive produces within itself an artificial gravity field, conventionally regulated at 1 g. It is a minor application of the same technology that deforms space in order to generate the warp bubble: employed at reduced power and confined within the hull, it allows an apparent weight to be kept constant and independent of acceleration. Onboard gravity is therefore not an effect of thrust, but an installed system.

Some relevant consequences follow from this. A ship’s acceleration, which on voyages in conventional space is reversed at the midpoint, is not felt by the crew, and it is for this reason that acceleration values describe travel times and not living conditions on board. Ships can moreover land and remain fully habitable, since their decks are already oriented like those of a building: on the ground the internal field is simply switched off.

Since the installation depends on the availability of energy and Voidmass, a unit without power or with compromised containment loses its gravity. A drifting wreck is therefore normally in free fall, and is inspected in EVA rig. For crews the loss of weight is one of the most immediate and most dreaded warning signs, since it always precedes or accompanies a serious failure.

Civil and commercial categories

Explorer (EXP)

Explorers operate where the network of infrastructure has not yet arrived. They are the first units to enter a system not yet known, to survey its gravitational conditions and to gather the data from which the future certified routes will be worked out: a large part of the cartography marketed by the Hegemonies and by the MC arises from the work of these ships.

Precisely because they travel beyond the routes, Explorers often cannot count on support stations, depots or fishing nets able to receive them. They are therefore designed for maximum autonomy: a high number of charged Voidmass matrices in proportion to mass, redundant navigation systems, small crews that spend most of the mission in suspended animation under the control of an AEGIS. A reconnaissance mission can last years, and not all of them end in the best of ways.

Researcher (RSC)

Researchers are mobile laboratories intended for field research: xenobiology, planetology, the study of gravitational anomalies and, in recent years, archaeology. They frequently operate on commission from universities, Hegemonies and MC, and constitute the main component of the expeditions authorized at sites placed under quarantine.

Unlike Explorers, whose task is to cross a system and map its features, a Researcher is built to reach a precise point and stop there: for this reason it is typically equipped with bulky instrumentation, containment modules and specialized personnel. Not infrequently Researchers are built according to modular architectures that allow them to be dismantled, wholly or in part, once the destination has been reached. Hull, habitation modules, laboratories, energy systems and support structures can thus be reconverted into the site’s first permanent infrastructure, turning the ship itself into a colony, a research station or the initial nucleus of a larger settlement.

Freighter (FRT)

Freighters (in common slang, cargos) are the backbone of the interstellar economy and by far the most numerous category. Their dimensions vary enormously, from small system transports to the great route freighters, and a substantial part of the fleet uses engines belonging to earlier technological generations: for this type of ship, in fact, performance and crossing times generally weigh less than cargo capacity, reliability and operating costs.

On the main routes freighters often travel in convoy, and many also hold the qualification of certified courier, carrying mail and data along with the goods. In the outlying colonies, where connections are sparser, their arrival often represents the main point of contact with the rest of inhabited space, thanks to the arrival of supplies, spare parts, communications, news and, occasionally, passengers.

Settler (STL)

Settlers are among the largest units ever built. In a single voyage they carry thousands of colonists in suspended animation together with the infrastructure needed for a settlement’s first years: reactors, life support plant, habitation modules, workshops and stores.

A Settler’s voyage is often one-way: part of the ship’s structures is designed to be dismantled and reused at the destination, and the hull itself may end its existence as the colony’s first orbital station. For this reason Settlers are built almost exclusively on commission from the Hegemonies or the great MC.

Miner (MNR)

Miners operate in the extraction districts: asteroids, moons and minor bodies from which minerals, volatiles and the precious precursor materials are obtained. The category comprises both small independent units and the great plant-ships of the companies, capable of carrying out on board the initial processing of the extracted material.

Most Miners hardly ever leave the system in which they operate: the interstellar transfer of the product is entrusted to freighters and tankers. Extraction fleets constitute a substantial part of the assets of the mining MC, and in their districts the plant-ship is often also the administrative, medical and residential centre of the entire operation.

Salvager (SLV)

Salvagers (in common slang, wreckers) are ships specialized in the recovery of wrecks, abandoned structures, lost cargoes and units left adrift or off route. Their task consists of locating what can still be recovered, making it safe and bringing it back to a condition in which it can be towed, dismantled or transferred. They are therefore equipped for heavy work, with manipulator arms, workshops, towing systems and modular holds, and they can operate for long periods in damaged environments or ones devoid of infrastructure.

Part of their work falls within routine administration, such as the recovery of the PODs that have missed the destination net and go on transmitting their own position, sometimes for years. Other interventions are instead far more delicate, not least because any “wreck” may contain restricted cargoes, systems and information; in order to prevent abuses, the Space Navigation Code establishes a series of specific conditions and obligations intended to determine precisely when an intervention may be considered salvage, legitimate acquisition or misappropriation.

Tanker (TNK)

Tankers carry the fluids of the interstellar economy: conventional fuels, industrial volatiles and, above all, the Voidmass destined for depots, stations and fleets. Units employed in the transport of Voidmass are typically subject to particularly strict controls, redundant containment systems, certified crews and continuous inspections.

The value of the cargo makes tankers a natural target. On less safe routes they normally travel under escort, and the loss of a tanker can leave the reserves of an entire system dry.

Liner (PAX)

Liners handle interstellar civil transport. As with the mail, the service is stratified by wealth: the most expensive tickets allow one to travel conscious, in cabins and common spaces designed for crossings of weeks; the cheap ones provide for the hire of a suspended animation capsule and a few hours of waking between embarkation and arrival.

On the main runs liners operate with a regular timetable and constitute, together with the couriers, the main source of fresh news for the systems they touch. Towards the periphery the scheduled service thins out rapidly, until it gives way to the few (and less comfortable) freighters that offer transport services.

Carrier (CVR)

Carriers (in common slang, motherships) are ships designed for the transport of other units. Their hull is built around a hold with hangar functions that provides docking cradles, workshops and all the space needed to house other ships.

Carriers are generally used in all the cases where colonies, extraction districts or systems must be provided with craft of planetary operational scope, which, being devoid of an Alcubierre Drive, could not reach their destination on their own. The civil versions accompany the founding of settlements and mining operations; the military ones carry support craft and squads.

A Carrier’s hull sacrifices much of the space reserved for engines, quarters and armament in order to obtain as much volume as possible, and is consequently slow and vulnerable: for this reason, on exposed routes it typically travels under escort.

Tender (TND)

Tenders are the service units of the inhabited systems: they carry people, materials and equipment between the bodies of a single system, resupply isolated installations and reach the places that scheduled traffic does not touch. In most cases they have an Alcubierre Drive of modest power, sufficient to perform short Phase Shifts with limited range.

For an outlying colony tenders are often the only craft capable of covering great distances and are therefore used for transfers, exploratory missions, reconnaissance, etc., standing in for all the other categories of ship.

Tug (TUG)

Tugs, or system tugs, move masses that cannot move by themselves: dismasted units, modules under construction, wrecks to be approached, bulky loads near the ports: they are marked by a minimal hull providing a large engine bay and a crew reduced to the minimum, so as to favour excellent performance in thrust and speed.

Tracker (TRK)

Trackers are by far the most widespread planetary craft. They operate within a single planet, from the surface to orbit, and perform functions of tactical reconnaissance, transport, liaison and operational support. They are versatile units, employed above all where stable infrastructure does not exist or where it is not sufficient.

In the colonies, a Tracker can carry personnel to a work site, evacuate an injured person, overfly an area that is hard to reach or rapidly transfer a squad from one point of the planet to another.

Military categories

Almost all the military categories exist in both interstellar and interplanetary scope, since most conflicts are fought within the systems, where colonies, resources and infrastructure are concentrated. Planetary units, devoid of a Drive, must be carried by Carriers.

The workings of warp substantially condition the tactics of engagements. Since after the Phase Shift course and speed cannot be modified, carrying out a pursuit during FTL flight is practically impossible: for this reason engagements almost all take place in conventional space, concentrating at exit points and at strategic infrastructure. For this reason the defence of a system depends to a large extent on the interdiction nets, capable of forcing arriving units out of warp.

Guardian (GRD)

Guardians are the most widespread military units: ships of contained size employed in the escort of convoys, in the patrolling of gravitational margins and in the defence of infrastructure. They operate above all at the most vulnerable points of traffic, such as route entries, mail stations and depots, often in coordination with the interdiction nets of the defended systems.

A substantial part of the Guardians belongs to private military companies, many of which operate in the frontier regions with functions of patrol, reconnaissance, escort and private security.

Destroyer (DST)

Destroyers concentrate the maximum possible armament on a relatively light hull, sacrificing protection, endurance and habitable space. They are units specialized in the interception and destruction of specific targets.

Like many other ships, their employment is limited by the limits of warp: since after the Phase Shift course and speed cannot be modified, making it impossible to pursue another ship during FTL flight, a destroyer that wishes to strike an interstellar ship must reach in advance the point at which it expects the target to return to conventional space. It is therefore a ship designed to lay ambushes, not infrequently preceded by rather complex intelligence operations aimed at seizing the route and/or the flight plan of the target unit.

Cruiser (CRS)

Cruisers are ships designed to operate autonomously, for long periods and at a great distance from their own bases. They have a large supply of Voidmass matrices, can perform numerous Phase Shifts without recharging and integrate workshops, embarked detachments and protected cognitive archives for personnel subject to backup. They are also among the first units to receive new-generation engines and propulsion systems not yet available to commercial traffic.

A cruiser can remain out of contact for months and operate without direct support: in such conditions, its commander effectively represents the authority of its own Hegemony in the systems it crosses. In the outlying colonies, the arrival of a Cruiser therefore constitutes one of the few direct contacts with central power.

Lancer (LNC)

Lancers are the armed variant of the Trackers: they share the same airframe and comparable performance, but integrate a light armament intended for escort, patrol and the interception of other planetary craft.

The name takes up that of the light cavalry and reflects its operational role: they are fast units, lightly protected and relatively cheap, employed above all to guarantee presence, mobility and immediate reaction capability over vast areas.

Gunner (GNR)

Gunners are heavily armed planetary craft, conceived for close support and ground attack. Unlike the Lancers, which favour speed and interception, gunners are designed to operate close to the objective and to be able to concentrate fire for prolonged periods.

In the outlying colonies their presence often has a political value as well as a military one, because it constitutes an immediate and visible demonstration of force: in the regions where hegemonic authority is weaker, a substantial part of the Gunners in fact belongs to private companies or to local forces.

Auxiliary categories

Auxiliary units are not autonomous ships, but craft designed to be carried by another unit, on which they depend in order to reach their own area of employment.

Cutter (CTR)

Cutters (Crew Transport & Rescue) are the shuttles embarked by the more important and expensive ships: small units with an expected crew of 1-5 people, employed as lifeboats, liaison craft, improvised couriers and instruments of close reconnaissance.

A Cutter can be piloted in conventional space, but, not being conceived for interstellar navigation, it does not have an Alcubierre Drive. If needed it can nevertheless be launched into warp just like a POD, with the Phase Shift generated by the mothership’s systems and a charge of Voidmass embarked to keep the bubble stable during transit. It also has a Quencher, which allows it to break off warp on its own once it has reached its destination or in case of emergency, without however being able to perform further Phase Shifts.

POD (Personal Object Delivery)

The POD is registered among the auxiliary units although it is not a ship: it is a single-use vector, devoid both of an Alcubierre Drive and of a Quencher, which once launched can only continue until its own charge is exhausted.

Its operation, its postal employment and its dual nature as a rescue capsule are dealt with in the entry devoted to the POD.

Warp munitions

The same architecture of the POD is also employed for military purposes: by eliminating life support and replacing the payload with a warhead and a terminal guidance system one obtains a single-use vector capable of travelling a preset trajectory in warp and re-emerging near the target. These weapons, officially classified as warp munitions, are known in military slang as bullets.

There are however a series of physical limits that strongly restrict their employment:

• Inability to manoeuvre: once it has entered warp, the “bullet” follows the trajectory set at the moment of launch and cannot correct it until the return to normal space. Any unforeseen variation in the target’s position can therefore render the interception useless.

• Poor accuracy: over interstellar distances even minimal errors in the calculation of the trajectory, in the target’s position or in the navigation data can translate into very wide deviations at the moment of re-emergence.

• Gravitational constraints: like any other warp vector, the “bullet” must re-emerge at a certain distance from gravitational fields and cannot therefore directly reach targets protected by a Phase Disruption Grid.

• High costs: every launch consumes a Voidmass matrix, making it economically inefficient to fire large quantities of “bullets” against a single target in the hope of getting past or saturating its defences.

In recent years some of these limitations have been mitigated thanks to the development, by Halcyon and Suzerain, of PODs fitted with autonomous sensors and thrusters for terminal guidance. The modification allows the vector to acquire the target immediately after re-emergence from warp, correct its own trajectory and cover autonomously the last part of the approach in conventional regime, behaving in effect like a guided missile. These are in any case still experimental systems and, consequently, extremely expensive.

Despite the prospects offered by these developments, warp munitions represent to this day an extremely costly solution, intended above all against high-value targets for which the consumption of a Voidmass matrix and of a single-use vector proves justifiable.

Atmospheric vehicles

On worlds endowed with a breathable atmosphere there also operates a category of craft that the ship registers do not contemplate: atmospheric aircraft. They do not reach space and are therefore not subject to the Space Navigation Code; from the legal point of view they are not vessels, but vehicles registered by the colonial authorities under local regulations. This is the limit beyond which the discipline of space navigation ceases to apply. Their diffusion nevertheless remains limited, since worlds with a breathable atmosphere constitute a minority. Qualification for atmospheric flight is likewise a specific certification and does not derive automatically from the space navigation licence, so much so that many crews have no qualified personnel.

Aircraft moreover have a relatively reduced operational radius and are suited above all to regional movements. To cover great planetary distances, cross oceans or reach areas devoid of infrastructure, recourse is had instead to Trackers, capable of operating from the surface to orbit and of reaching any point of the planet.

Builders and classes

Designing and assembling a complete interstellar ship requires orbital shipyards, containment supply chains and capital that very few parties can afford. At the present time the shipbuilders proper are five: Halcyon, Eidolon, Suzerain, Vahana and Orbe Sul. Each names its own classes according to a distinct onomastic tradition, to the point that the name of a class almost always allows one to recognize the yard that produced it.

• Halcyon Defense Corporation adopts names drawn from the Anglo-Saxon seafaring tradition, including characters, places and nautical terms: Pequod, Marlow, Typhoon, Hispaniola. The convention recalls the historical continuity between ocean navy, aeronautics and space navigation.

• Eidolon Aerospace Group uses names coming from the European canon of travel, exile and exploration: works, protagonists and legendary craft such as Odyssey, Beowulf, Aeneas, Gulliver and Argo.

• Suzerain assigns its own classes industrial designations, such as SK74, VMK120 and KR44. To these the crews traditionally add Eurasian geographical names, subsequently become semi-official: Volga, Amur, Altai, Baikal. The current form combines both designations, for example the SK91 Baikal class.

• Vahana Industries uses names drawn from Indian epic and cosmology, with particular frequency for figures, weapons and vehicles associated with travel and the sky: Garuda, Arjuna, Pushpaka, Agni, Varuna. The Sanskrit term vāhana denotes the vehicle or mount of a deity.

• Orbe Sul adopts names of winds, currents and atmospheric phenomena of the southern hemisphere, following a tradition derived from ocean navigation: Pampero, Zonda, Minuano, Humboldt, Benguela.

For interplanetary and planetary classes the conventions are less rigid and leave greater freedom to the builders, who often resort to product names, technical terms, animals, tools or minor references consistent with their own tradition.

The other MC, although they do not build complete ships, occupy equally relevant segments of the supply chain: engines, reactors, containment systems, computers, sensors, software, AEGIS and numerous other essential components. The shipbuilding industry is therefore strongly integrated: an Eidolon ship may mount Aurelia containment systems, Nexus computers and Helix software, and the supply list of each unit often reflects the network of industrial alliances that made its construction possible.

Connection interfaces (USP, HSC)

The growing integration of onboard systems has made it necessary to adopt a shared mode of interconnection. From 2076 onwards the standard known as Universal Service Port (USP) has been universally adopted, recognized by all the Hegemonies and compulsory on all certified units.

A USP connection is able to carry data, power, breathable gases and diagnostic channels through a single normalized attachment: it can therefore be used to connect tools, PADs, portable apparatus, suits, laboratory instrumentation and onboard systems, and it is present in every compartment of the ship. Every connected device automatically communicates its own type, its expected draw and its operating status: onboard systems can therefore limit or cut off its power should it prove incompatible, defective or unauthorized. The unification of energy, data and life support within the same standard moreover reduces the number of connections needed and the risk of errors during operations.

Connections between large units instead use the Heavy Service Coupling (HSC) standard, high-capacity connections intended for the transfer of energy, data, atmosphere and technical fluids between ships, stations and infrastructure. In the language of crews they are commonly called umbilicals.

The names of the AEGIS

The AEGIS systems installed aboard starships normally have, besides their own technical designation and serial number, a proper name used by the crew in daily communications.

The custom arose with the first advanced voice assistance systems: the use of a short name allowed one to address the system directly without resorting to its technical designation and reduced the possibility of errors during onboard communications, especially in emergency conditions or in noisy environments.

Over time an almost universal convention took hold, based on the use of two-syllable names, generally made up of four or five letters; the names are chosen so as to be easily pronounceable, phonetically distinct and hard to confuse with orders, technical terms or other expressions recurring in operational communications.

Some examples: Eris, Elis, Uika, Mira, Nora, Yuna, Kira, Anja, Eira, Nara, Sora, Vela, Iona, Asha, Arno, Bodo, Cato, Denis, Emre, Idris, Kenji, Milo, Nuri, Oren, Ravi, Taro, Vito, Yuri.

The proper name does not replace the system’s technical identification. In the onboard registers an AEGIS can therefore be identified through three distinct levels:

• the model, which indicates the family and the version of the system;
• the serial number, which identifies the individual unit;
• the name in use, employed by the crew and in normal voice interactions.

The choice of the name is made during the unit’s initial configuration and normally remains associated with the same AEGIS for its entire operational life, even in the event of transfer to another ship. The act of renaming an AEGIS is technically possible but is almost always avoided for superstitious reasons, being traditionally considered an omen of serious ill luck.