FTL Drive Operation
When the node energy discharge is triggered, an event horizon envelops the starship and it translates virtually instantaneously, the wormhole terminus expanding at the same rate as the initiation end collapses, typically .005 seconds. Orbital trajectory is maintained along the transit, i.e. the starship jumps along its course vector. Attempts to equip Adamist starships with nodes that can duplicate the tailored wormhole vector which voidhawks generate have so far been unsuccessful, since solid-state systems simply cannot match bitek for complexity; and by volume the voidhawks are 80 percent energy-patterning cells, while the node mass of an Adamist starship is typically 7 percent. However, research programs continue, most notably in the Kulu Kingdom.
Astrogation
Starships will nearly always use a planet to align themselves in preparation for an interstellar jump, this method allowing considerable time and fuel to be saved. This maneuver is particularly beneficial when departing an asteroid settlement.
The measure of a ship’s performance is termed its delta-V, which equates to the total velocity change which it is capable of making. However efficient a starship’s fusion drive, it would have to expend a considerable amount of its delta-V reserve in order to insert itself into an orbit which will intersect its target star, especially if that star is not in the section of space directly ahead of the asteroid. To get around this the starship will perform a small interplanetary jump to the nearest planet. Once in orbit, and when the appropriate inclination has been achieved, the starship’s vector will be aligned on the target star once during every revolution. Considerable precision is required to initiate the jump at precisely the correct moment, as even a half-second error will result in a large wormhole terminus location discrepancy, which will have to be countered before the second jump is initiated.
With typical jump distances of ten light-years, a normal flight would see the starship jump several times through interstellar space until it is about half a light-year out from its target star. It is in this phase where the most precise vector alignment is achieved, and considerable time is taken to ensure the track is correct. As fuel and time equals money, this is where a skillful captain can reduce costs by an appreciable margin. When the starship is lined up correctly, it will jump into the target planet’s emergence zone.
Structure
All ZTT starships are spherical when jumping, although sensors and heat-dump panels are extended when flying between jump coordinates or in orbit. A starship’s fusion generators, general systems, tanks, reaction drive, cargo bay, and crew modules are contained inside the lattice of jump nodes, which itself is covered by a hull of monobonded silicon.
Starship functions vary enormously, as does size. There are cargo ships, which form the majority of Confederation ships, warships, scoutships, cruise liners, colony vessels, private yachts, independent traders, astronomy research vessels, etc. And with over 500 star systems producing their own marques, all of these types have innumerable variants.
It is extremely difficult and expensive to provide a ground-to-orbit capability for a sphere which is primarily designed for deep-space operation, so many starships also carry atmospheric flyers. The only exception to this is warships, where cost and environmental concerns are not limiting factors, though the number of assault cruisers capable of planetary landings is very small. Certainly every Confederation planet prohibits the use of fusion drives inside the atmosphere; indeed most have a lower orbital altitude limit of 500km for fusion drive ships of any kind.
Fusion Drive
Legally, only fusion drives may be used within Confederation territory. He3 and deuterium are available at every space port, and fusion provides a more than adequate performance for legitimate commercial and military operations. The amount of fuel used to power a jump is negligible in comparison to the delta-V requirement to match velocities with target star systems, and most commercial starships carry enough fuel reserves for five voyages. Reaction control is provided by hydrocarbon fluid similar to paraffin being pumped into the exhaust nozzles, where it is vaporized by electricity from the fusion generators.
Antimatter Drive
Possession of antimatter is a capital crime anywhere within the Confederation, and no other law is enforced so rigorously. Confederation Navy captains have the legal authority to execute any starship captain found carrying this substance in his or her ship. However, ships can legally be fitted with an antimatter drive, although moves are in progress in the Confederation Assembly to eliminate this final legal loophole. A small number do carry this system, mainly independent traders who will hire out as mercenaries to any government or institution wishing to wage covert war. The usual excuse by captains of such ships is that they bought their craft with the system already fitted, and its removal would cost too much.
An antimatter drive gives a starship a colossal delta-V reserve, and provides a high-gee maneuvering capability, typically in excess of 15 gees. The upper limit is dictated by the ship’s structural capacity and the crew’s endurance threshold (a cosmonik crew can withstand up to 20 gees for limited periods). It should be noted that a great many naval ships belonging to Confederation member states, even though not assigned to Confederation Navy squadrons, contain the necessary mountings, internal space, and control circuits for an antimatter drive, and all are stressed to withstand an acceleration exceeding that provided by their fusion drive.
Combat Wasps
These are hyper-gee attack missiles fired by starships (both ZTT and voidhawk or blackhawk) to engage their target. Starships are far too valuable to risk in direct assaults, although most have integral beam weapons as a final-layer defense against kinetic missiles. Combat wasps come in every size and function, including both attack and defense, and once launched they are fully autonomous. They carry a multitude of independent submunitions, including beam weapons (energy and particle), kinetic missiles, fusion bombs, decoy chaff, and electronic-warfare pods.
Also available are antimatter combat wasps providing a much greater performance than the fusion-powered versions. They are subject to the same proscription as antimatter.
Zero-Tau
Zero-tau is a method of stasis employed by most starships for their passengers. The system normally consists of a pod large enough to hold a human body, although anything can be stored inside it, and there is no theoretical limit as to how large such a unit can be, provided enough power is available to sustain it.
When activated, the pod surface is cloaked in a midnight-black field effect, and the flow of time effectively halts within it. The contents of a zero-tau pod are also impervious to acceleration forces as the stasis locks the material inside into a specific space-time coordinate. This effect is utilized to full effect by starships fitted with antimatter drives. During combat they are capable of accelerating at well over 30 gees, which would crush a human body, even one augmented by nanonic supplements. So, for periods while the antimatter drive is on, the crew will go into zero-tau, allowing the flight computer to carry out a pre-programmed maneuver.
Most starship passengers prefer to use zero-tau than stay active during a flight. Any flight is extremely boring and, even with Confederation medical technology, free fall nausea is common. The most extensive zero-tau usage is in colony carrier starships, which typically carry 500 people at a time. The life-support requirements for so many active passengers would be prohibitively expensive to provide, and would more than double the size of the starship. Instead, zero-tau means that colonists can be carried in the same way as cargo, and also no on-board facilities are necessary for them. The only requirement for zero-tau is the large amount of power it consumes, which necessitates several fusion generators per craft.
Zero-tau is also the standard method of carrying animals on starships, although artificial hibernation is frequently used by colonists to stage-one worlds, principally because of the cost of a portable zero-tau pod.
Since zero-tau’s development in 2121, as an adjunct of ZTT phy
sics, it has been employed regularly by people who wish to “time-travel” and see the future. The standard requirement for this is to establish a trust fund to pay for pod maintenance and power, then go into zero-tau for decades at a time. As such it tends to involve people who have a reasonable degree of wealth to begin with. Several extremely wealthy old people have gone into long-duration zero-tau after leaving instructions that they are to be brought out only when a full rejuvenation technology has been perfected.
Antimatter Planet-Busters
These are the weapons most feared across the Confederation. They are also the simplest to build once a source of antimatter has been established. Essentially, they need just a confinement chamber for a large amount of antimatter built into a missile capable of penetrating a planetary atmosphere. Typically, they are bombs in the multi-teraton range. Once detonated, their blast is sufficient to wreck an entire planetary climate, and saturate the surface with a lethal level of radioactive fallout. They take the old concept of nuclear winter one stage further—into nuclear hurricane. The amount of thermal energy pumped into an atmosphere will result in extremely highspeed storms raging for over a decade before they finally begin to dissipate.
Though the Black Syndicates are the producers of antimatter, little information is available about these shadowy organizations. They appear to be made up from people and organizations who have acquired a great deal of wealth by illegal means, typically armaments and proscribed stimulants. This money is needed to purchase the machinery required to produce antimatter on an industrial scale. As the majority of this equipment can have legitimate civil applications, its acquisition is relatively simple. For the core of the operation, all that is necessary is a few cargo starships and a crew of technicians to assemble and run the station. Typically, a station will be placed in orbit around a star just outside the Confederation’s boundaries—and also far enough away to minimize discovery by navy patrols.
Cooperation and secrecy are enforced by customized neural nanonics, which are provided to everyone involved. They run specialist programs which monitor everything the user says. If the program determines that the user is being forced to divulge details of the operation, they will kill him. These neural nanonics cannot be circumvented or surgically removed, and once implanted they are there for life.
Four: Members of the Confederation in 2610
The Confederation includes 861 terracompatible planets settled by Adamist humans, 525 of them with a technoeconomy advanced enough to build starships, twelve xenoc planets, and three joint human-xenoc (Tyrathca) colony worlds. In addition to planets, there are 12,370 independent asteroid settlements (all Adamist), and five independent bitek habitats. The Edenists have germinated 8,310 bitek habitats, but colonized just one planet (Atlantis).
All their governments are represented in the Confederation Assembly on Avon, with voting rights proportionate to their population and development status.
Confederation territory in 2611 is a roughly spherical zone of space some 600 light-years in diameter, with Earth at its center. The main purpose of the Confederation is to guarantee free passage to all ships throughout this territory, and to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction. To this end, all the numerous members pay a tax to the Confederation to finance its administration and its navy. A secondary function of the Confederation is to act as arbitrator in disputes and to establish a framework for unified interstellar law. More recently it has become involved in monitoring human rights violations on planets with oppressive constitutions or leaderships, an activity which does not have the wholehearted support of the entire Assembly.
The Confederation Navy
There are ten fleets, with a total fleet strength of 9,000 ZTT warships, and a further 2,000 auxiliaries, mainly concerned with communications and supply. Of the warships, 1,000 are dedicated starships, forming the core of each fleet, with crews made up from career personnel. The remainder of the fleet strength is composed of ship squadrons on assignment from national government navies, with a further 5,000 pledged should the Assembly declare an emergency situation. There are also a number of voidhawks on naval duty, typically 1,000 to 1,300 at any given time. Their captains traditionally sign on for a seven-year tour.
The Confederation Navy headquarters is an asteroid, Trafalgar, in orbit 110,000km above Avon. It serves variously as the main career officer academy, a repair and maintenance port, a Marine barracks, signals coordination center, and 1st Fleet base. It is also the premier research center for supralight communications, the so-called hyper-radio, with physicists from across the Confederation contributing to this project.
The First Admiral of the Fleet is Samuel Aleksandrovich, sixty-seven, appointed in 2605, a Confederation Navy career officer. All Confederation Navy fleets, and their individual squadrons, are always commanded by career officers who have renounced their national citizenship. Edenists are all given career officer status, as they can hardly renounce their culture. In peacetime, the navy’s primary duty is to patrol and observe, with major exercises undertaken every four years. It is the Confederation Navy squadrons which are assigned to enforce sanction blockades (such as Omuta) ordered by the Assembly. And special reconnaissance craft (usually voidhawks) routinely examine both uninhabited stars within Confederation territory and stars around the fringe, searching for illegal antimatter stations.
In times of emergency, the navy’s primary duty is to stop antagonists from attacking each other until a settlement can be reached by the Assembly arbitrators. The major problem with these emergencies, especially the small “bush fire” actions between independent asteroid settlements, is the speed at which they arise and are conducted, and the fact that governments always employ mercenary craft to avoid culpability. To counter this the navy has a large Intelligence operation watching for such flare-ups.
Confederation Navy Intelligence Service
Because of the conflicting loyalties which may arise during Confederation Navy service, Intelligence commissions are only available to career officers. It is the CNIS’s job to correlate political data in the hope of predicting likely flare points. The sheer number of asteroid settlements precludes an officer being stationed on each one of them, so the service relies heavily on the larger national Intelligence services to keep an eye on neighboring governments. The CNIS does have a bureau on every member planet, however, down to stage-one colonies. Very few CNIS covert operations are launched against governments and institutions of industrialized worlds, and those that are must be personally approved by the First Admiral, who may find himself called before the Assembly to justify his reasons, not least to the government concerned.
The other major functions of the CNIS are to track down pirates and Black Syndicate antimatter stations. Again considerable cooperation with national Intelligence agencies is the norm in these instances, enabling them to track the industrial equipment essential to such illicit operations. The CNIS also possesses a large scientific division dedicated to monitoring weapons development, legal and otherwise, among Confederation member states and their corporations.
1. Sol System
Earth
Govcentral is responsible for civil administration on Earth, as well as the O’Neill Halo. It is a democracy, with separate continental congresses and a thousand-seat senate. However, barely 50 percent of the population bothers voting.
The planet suffered from vast ecological damage during the twenty-first century, culminating in the armada storms, while its population was estimated to reach in excess of 40,000,000,000 by 2160. Govcentral took drastic measures, including building the arcologies to protect the population from a lethal environment, spreading geneered tapegrass across the land surface as the remaining vegetation was destroyed, and seeding the oceans with an alga to act as a carbon sink. Newly discovered terracompatible worlds were employed purely as a method of disposing of the surplus population. Financial incentives to resettle were offered to the middle classes, while poor (welfare-dependent) districts were clea
red out en masse. Towards the end of the Great Dispersal, 2250 saw upwards of 5,000,000 people being deported per week, in a fleet of 4,000 starships with a capacity of 5,000 passengers each.
Population is now officially stable at 38bn, though unofficial estimates place it closer to 42bn. Emigration has dropped to a steady 70,000,000 people per year, a figure which includes involuntary transportation. The penalty for virtually every crime, from rape to tax evasion, is now deportation. The entire population lives in arcologies, a term which has come to incorporate any urban area that has been covered against the weather.
In Asia, Africa and South America, the original city-in-a-building concept was employed on a massive scale, as didactic education and industrialization caught up with expanding population. There most arcologies consist of a vast metal gridwork, with pre-assembled factory-built housing modules, shops, offices, industrial units, etc., stacked into place and plugged into the utilities, all newly founded. Such giga-constructs are less common in Europe, Japan, and North America, where reorganization of existing cities and towns was the norm.
The Confederation Handbook Page 6
