Category: Things and Technologies

Calliope

The Calliope was an Athenian troop carrier destroyed in the battle for Apollos.

Medical Claw

Medical claws are robotic arms attached to a track in the ceiling of most modern medical examination rooms and operating suites. Connected to a local AI the claw can act as an autonomous examination, diagnosis and treatment tool that works in conjunction with the medical nanites in a person’s blood. Medical claws are named claws because when retracted to the ceiling their jointed segments and tools on the end can resemble a pulled up bird talon or claw. Medical claws are found in all states of the Pax Imperium.

Gate Construction Ship D102

Gate Construction Ship D102 was built to carry an interstellar gate to the Arcadia system. The gate ship was built for high G acceleration, using mass bending and anti-gravity couches to dramatically increase the survivable acceleration curve for its crew.

The ship was built as a round cylinder with three fusion engines at the back. A series of crew decks were stacked perpendicular to the engines so that the acceleration could be countered by the artificial gravity and mass bending. Behind the engines a long two kilometer long spindle runs back to where the preassembled wormhole gate is attached, also perpendicular to the engines.

Overall gate construction ships are said to look like a dandelion seed or other types of flying seeds.

Interstellar Travel Basics

Interstellar travel in the Pax Imperium is facilitated by giant gates that create wormholes that exit through other gates in other systems. These gates pull a given point in space/time to its event horizon and connect the two. It can be very difficult to tell that a gate has been activated because the only difference is a change in the visible stars behind the gate. There is no flash or bang when a gate activates.

Due to the huge cost in their construction, most systems only have one or at most two gates. They also have a large gravitational effect when activated so they tend to be kept at a distance from planets and other large bodies where that effect could cause a cumulative change over time. This means that they are often placed far out in a system, necessitating several days or weeks of travel from the inhabitable planets of the inner system out to the gate.

Gates are taken to a star system for placement by relativistic means. The gates are accelerated to near the speed of light and then flown to their destination. So a gate placed at a star some eight light years away will take nine years or more to arrive and be activated. Once activated however, gates essentially pull the two systems together in space/time and connect them, allowing information and goods to travel between the two gates at speeds effectively faster than light. Most gate missions are crewed by two people who through time dilation essentially travel into the future during the time they travel near the speed of light.

A standard gate is a two kilometers in diameter and usually accompanied by a space station to manage traffic at the gate. Any gate can connect with almost any other gate that is within a set distance. The furthest distance possible is usually between seven and fifteen light years. (Although, there are rumors that one state has found a way to extend a gate connection much further.)

Ships queue up to travel between these gates.  If they are willing to pay they may use a method called continuous transit in which they travel through a gate and immediately reverse course and travel onward through the next gate. In this way they can cover a large number of light years in just a few hours. However, the cost of continuous transit can be prohibitive, so most travel takes place by passing through a gate, circling around and queueing up for the next gate.