Tag: starship

LORE24 ENTRY #8 – The Pteravilla Stalker Incident

Category – Event

In the months following the latest border dispute, after the hostilities had died down and peace had been restored, the scout ship Pteravilla Stalker was on a run of the mill patrol through the restricted area between the formerly feuding sectors, when their sensors picked up an unidentified ship, though the sensor readings were not conclusive, indicating some form of active jamming.  As the small scout ship approached the vessel, the bogey answered none of their communications, nor did it react at all to their approach.  The sensor readings were still not revealing much in the way of details of the ship, only that it resembled a stock DSM cargo ship, one of their “flying skyscraper” designs that showed all the hallmarks of the corporation’s lack of interesting design features.

According to the official report, filed by Captain Maerril following the incident, visual inspection confirmed that the ship showed no signs of damage, and power readings were still inconclusive due to what appeared to be a sensor dampening coating over the ship’s hull.  The vessel’s ID code was obtained and a search ran through the available databases, but no matches were found, and the search inquiry with DSM for registration information was lost in the midst of their vast bureaucracy.  Per the Captain (and with corroborating accounts from other surviving crewmembers), the Stalker‘s first officer, Shi Sukimori, insisted upon leading a small team into the mystery ship to determine the nature of the vessel.  Against the Captain’s better judgement, he was convinced by the commander to allow the mission.  With Sukimori in command, the boarding party consisted of the Stalker‘s co-pilot Kaylee Serra, technical officer Hilde Fireforge, medical officer Briar Azalvia, and the scout Murissa Fer’Ragnarra.

Communications were spotty once the team had boarded, and it is the Captain’s opinion that a properly thorough search was not performed.  Soon, and against Captain Maerril’s orders, Sukimori initiated the startup sequence for the mystery vessel, which resulted in a sudden power surge through the ship’s main power core which resulted in a catastrophic failure and subsequent explosion that heavily damaged the Pteravilla Stalker and resulted in the death of multiple crew members.  The crewmembers who managed to reach the escape pods and who survived the explosion were eventually picked up by another military vessel that had been dispatched to assist with the investigation.  Captain Maerill has admitted to bad judgement in this matter and has since resigned his commission, and is now employed in the private sector, as are the other survivors.  The members of the boarding party have been listed amongst the lost crew, but have been posthumously dishonorably discharged.  

The truth of the matter, however, is something else entirely.

 

Lore24 Entry #1 – TK Drives

Category – Technology

The TK Drive is the standard use method by which starships traverse the galaxy, in use for over two thousand years.  Though some of the history of the development of this technology is in doubt due to conflicting sources, the most commonly accepted version is that the original concept for the drives was developed by a kerryn scientist by the name of Tonzura Koite, upon the world of Arcavarlon, during a time of great global upheaval following a long period of waning magic and rising tensions over limited resources.  

The TK drives would eventually lead to a wave of expansion into the depths of the galaxy, allowing the people of the Arcavarlon system to move beyond their own solar system for the first time in a way that wouldn’t require generation ships or lost spells to travel to other planes of existence.  The early days of travel were wrought with danger as the navigation systems for hyperspace travel were further refined, but after the first few decades, the galaxy was well and truly open…aside from the massive area known as the “Demon Sector”, which could not be entered via realspace or hyperspace.

The current iteration of the TK drive manipulates space, allowing the ship it is mounted upon to enter an area of hyperspace between two points in known space, traversing the corridor, and coming out on the other end in a fraction of the time it would take using regular propulsion.  There are different speed ratings for the drives, the higher the number, the less time it takes to reach your destination (for example:  to travel between two particular systems, a TK-1 Drive could take about 170 hours, whereas a TK-3 TK Drive would take about 57 hours).  Generally the larger the ship, the slower the drive, though this isn’t always the case, especially where military and corporate interests are concerned.  

The TK Drives create their own gravity fields when they are active, and thanks to advances in the technology, this feature has been fine-tuned to allow for artificial gravity aboard ships equipped with the drives.  As a consequence of this factor of the drives’ function, however, they cannot function to open a hyperspace tunnel inside strong gravity wells, such as those produced by a planet.  This means that ships will need to depart the gravity of a planet before engaging the drive to enter hyperspace, and conversely, a ship can be brought out of hyperspace by the unexpected appearance of a strong gravity well in realspace in the area of the hyperspace tunnel they’re traversing.